she had begun in New York. Published in 1998,
the novel made a huge impression on the Cana-
dian literary scene and was nominated for numer-
ous awards: the Governor General’s Award, the
Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize, and the IMPAC
Dublin Literary Award. It won the Commonwealth
Writers’ Prize for Best First Book and the Canada-
Japan Literary Award. Since then, Kerri Sakamoto
has continued to write, publishing another short
story in 2001 entitled “Ghost-town” in Interlope
6: the first criticism issue, edited by Alvin Lu. Her
second novel, ONE HUNDRED MILLION HEARTS, was
published in 2003.
Kerri Sakamoto has also written several screen-
plays for independent films, including Helen Lee’s
1992 film My Niagara (with the earlier working
title Little Baka Girl), a made-for-television film
for which Sakamoto was both cowriter and asso-
ciate producer. She has also worked closely with
the American filmmaker Rea Tajiri: Tajiri acted as
the mother in the film My Niagara, and Sakamoto
later cowrote the screenplay for the 1997 film The
Strawberry Fields with Rea Tajiri, which Tajiri di-
rected. Tajiri and Sakamoto are presently collabo-
rating on a film version of Sakamoto’s first novel,
The Electrical Field, for which Kerri Sakamoto is
the screenplay writer, with Tajiri as the director.
The leitmotifs of Sakamoto’s creative writing
deal predominantly with the struggle to reclaim
history—personal, communal, and national—
which in her writing is always affected by the
fallibility of memory. Strongly linked to her fasci-
nation with history is the haunting effect the past
has on the identity of individuals and of commu-
nities. Through an eclectic ensemble of characters
of both genders, Sakamoto explores their personal
struggles to accept their marginalized identity as
Japanese Canadian/Americans, and to come to
terms with the historical fracture of Japanese-
Canadian/American families and communities.
Through her cast of characters, the author pro-
vokes readers to reflect on history: both the events
that constitute history, and the various tellings and
retellings of it.
Sheena WilsonSamurai of Gold Hill
Yoshiko Uchida (1972)
In 1969, 100 years after its establishment, the
Wakamatsu Colony of California was named an
official landmark by the California Historical
Landmark Society. The novel Samurai of Gold Hill
narrates the history of the brave Japanese men and
women who left their homeland after a civil war to
establish the Wakamatsu Colony in 1869. Named
after the town in Japan they had come from, the
colony consisted of many samurai warriors and
their families who served under the lordship of
Matsudaira. Because Lord Matsudaira and his
warriors lost the war, they no longer felt welcome
in their homeland with their enemies in control of
the government. Lord Matsudaira decided to send
his loyal followers to the United States, where they
were to join other Japanese immigrants to start a
new colony and establish a new life in exile.
In the novel, Koichi is a 12-year-old boy in
Japan who is studying to become a samurai like
his father and older brother. Unfortunately, his
brother dies in the civil war, and Koichi wants to
honor his brother’s memory by following in his
footsteps. His father has been entrusted with Lord
Matsudaira’s plans to start a colony in California.
Even though Koichi is scared to go to a new coun-
try, he must obey his father. When they arrive at
Gold Hill, they find that the land is dry and dusty,
unlike Japan where there is lush vegetation and
dark, moist soil in the countryside. They quickly
find out that their traditional farming techniques
do not work here. With the help of their neigh-
bors, farmers Thomas and Kate Whitlow, they
learn how to irrigate their fields by using a small
nearby stream. The Japanese colonists also become
acquainted with Native Americans and learn that
they too have a culture rich in tradition and ritual.
Native Americans also sympathize with the Japa-
nese colonists since both groups are marginalized
by the white settlers and prospectors mining for
gold in the area.
Koichi is often assigned to work with Toyoko,
a nine-year-old girl who is half Japanese and
half German. Displaced by two different cultural
worlds, Koichi and Toyoko need to find their place260 Samurai of Gold Hill