Japanese rumba — Ya ya ya 
Japanese rumba — Ya ya ya 
Japanese rumba — Ya ya ya 
Domo arigato gozaimas 
— from a popular dance song in Occupied Okinawa 

Kazoo despised the Japanese; she blamed them for the war. She liked American freedom thinking better. 

Her parents disapproved of her marrying John, but she was thinking freedom way now. When he was sent stateside, she went with him. 

Nothing could have prepared her for the shock. In the supermarkets and streets, she was called Nip, Jap, slope, gook, and names she could not understand. She was homesick. 

When her husband came home, they would fight. One night he swung at her. She ducked and broke out two front teeth on the porcelain kitchen sink. 

After that, she covered her mouth when she spoke. She lost her smile. She lost her face. Freedom thinking had let her down. She was miserable. 

When she wrote her parents she told them how great America was. When she wrote her best friend, Sueko, she told the truth. 

Sueko worried that Kazoo would suicide herself. In a letter she urged her to call Hisako, a memba, who lived near Kazoo. 

Kazoo called Hisako and told her everything. Hisako said "You come to meeting right away, OK?" 

The sound of chanting could be heard before she knocked. A strange feeling came over her. She went inside. She put her hands together trying to say the words. The feeling intensified; then, for the first time in her life she felt hope. 

Kazoo's song is hope.