Secret Harvests

I discover a 'lost' aunt, separated from our family due to racism and discrimination against the disabled. She had a mental disability due to childhood meningitis. She was taken away in 1942 when all Japanese Americans were considered the enemy and imprisoned. She then became a 'ward' of the state. We believed she had died, but 70 years later found her alive and living a few miles from our family farm. How did she survive Why was she kept hidden How did both shame and resilience empower my family to forge forward in a land that did not want them I am haunted and driven to explore my identity and the meaning of family especially as farmers tied to the land. I uncover family secrets that bind us to a sense of history buried in the earth that we work and a sense of place that defines us.