Fredrick D. Kakinami Cloyd’s debut, DREAM OF THE WATER CHILDREN, MEMORY AND MOURNING IN THE BLACK PACIFIC, is a lyrical and compelling memoir about a son of an African American father and a Japanese mother who has spent a lifetime being looked upon with curiosity and suspicion by both sides of his ancestry and the rest of society. Cloyd begins his story in present-day San Francisco, reflecting back on a war-torn identity from Japan, U.S. military bases, and migration to the United States, uncovering links to hidden histories.

DREAM OF THE WATER CHILDREN tells two main stories: Cloyd’s mother and his own. It was not until the author began writing his memoir that his mother finally addressed her experiences with racism and sexism in Occupied Japan. This helped Cloyd make better sense of, and reckon with, his dislocated inheritances. Tautly written in spare, clear poetic prose, Dream of the Water Children delivers a compelling and surprising account of racial and gender interactions. It tackles larger social histories, helping to dispel some of the great narrative myths of race and culture embedded in various identities of the Pacific and its diaspora. Cover Design: Kenji C. Liu. Website: www.dreamwaterchild.com; Blog: www.dreamwaterchild.net.

Contributors

Introduction by Gerald Horne

GERALD HORNE holds the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. Horne received his Ph.D. in history from Columbia University, his JD from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA from Princeton University. Horne is the author of more than thirty books, one hundred scholarly articles, and reviews. His research has addressed issues of racism in various areas, including labor, politics, civil rights, international relations and war. He has also written extensively about the film industry. His current research focuses on such topics as the impact of the Haitian Revolution on the US; a biography of Paul Robeson; an analysis of Pro-Tokyo Negroes before 1945; the inter-nationalism of the Black Press; and African Americans and Aviation before Sputnik.

Foreword by Velina Hasu Houston

VELINA HASU HOUSTON is the Associate Dean of Faculty Development and Recognition, Director of Dramatic Writing, Resident Playwright and a Professor at the USC School of Dramatic Arts. Houston is also a librettist (opera), book writer/lyricist (musical theatre), essayist, poet, screenwriter and novelist. Houston has written journalistically for the Los Angeles Times, American Theatre, The Rafu Shimpo, Pacific Citizen and the Kansas City Star, and for film and television with Columbia Pictures, PBS, and several independent producers. She co-produced the documentary Desert Dreamers (narration by Peter Fonda) and served as Multicultural Consultant for Disney for Hayao Miyazaki’s film Kiki’s Delivery Service. http://velinahasuhouston.com.

Edited by Karen Chau

KAREN CHAU was an editor at phati’tude Literary Magazine and 2Leaf Press and has published in Racialicious. Originally from Allentown, Pennsylvania, she received her BA from Brandeis University, completed her master’s at New York University, and currently works and resides in New York City.

About the cover artist Kenji C. Liu

KENJI C. LIU is a 1.5-generation immigrant from New Jersey, now in Southern California. His writing and art arise from his work as an activist, educator, artist, and cultural worker. A Pushcart Prize nominee and first runner-up finalist for the Poets & Writers 2013 California Writers Exchange Award, his writing is forthcoming or published in Barrow Street Journal, CURA, The Baltimore Review, RHINO Poetry, Generations, Eye to the Telescope, Ozone Park Journal, Kweli Journal, Doveglion Press, Best American Poetry’s blog, Lantern Review, and others. His poetry chapbook, You Left Without Your Shoes, was nominated for a 2009 California Book Award. A three-time VONA alum and recipient of residencies at Djerassi and Blue Mountain Center, he is the poetry editor emeritus of Kartika Review. http://kenjiliu.com.

Here's What People Are Saying

“Like a swimmer who has made it through the break, Fredrick Cloyd looks back at the far shore of his war-touched past with fresh eyes. Eloquent, passionate, and continually surprising, his meditation on history and the individual provokes and tantalizes the reader through a shared process of remembering. This is an ocean of a book.” ~Walter Hamilton, author of Children of the Occupation: Japan’s Untold Story (2013)

“About simultaneously remembering and forgetting, Frederick D. Kakinami Cloyd’s DREAM OF THE WATER CHILDREN wrestles with his “occupied” subjectivity as a post-WWII Afro-Asian ‘Amerasian’ child of a Japanese national mother and an African American father who met while his father was stationed in Japan in the 1950s. Weaving together ghostly dream-scapes and poetic fragments that chart ‘collective memory in story,’ Cloyd reflects on childhood narratives of growing up in Japan with his single mother. It is through these recollections that Cloyd reveals the stark realities of prejudice his brown body engenders in his present-day home of San Francisco, raising larger questions about the geopolitical forces that produced his very existence.” ~Laura Kina Artist and associate professor at DePaul University, and co-author of War Baby/Love Child: Mixed-Race Asian American Art (2013)

“At the nexus between memoir and social history, Fredrick D. Kakinami Cloyd’s work crosses boundaries of race, nation, discipline, and genre to give us a glimpse into little known territory — the Black Pacific collective memory. DREAM OF THE WATER CHILDREN is a meditation on the condition of a Black Japanese diaspora born of war and U.S. imperialism as much as it is a personal story of love, loss and spiritual redemption. Written in multiple voices, Cloyd lets his ghosts speak. This book is a beautiful tribute to his mother and sister, and to all the water children that have been swept under the rug of history.” ~Grace M. Cho, author of Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy and the Forgotten War (2008)

“Can be read as a ghost story, a meditation on how to disassemble the heartbreak machines; a catalog of copious tears and small comforts. DREAM OF THE WATER CHILDREN is a challenging example of personal bravery and filial love. It puts the ‘more’ in memory.” ~Leonard Rifas, Ph.D Communications, University of Washington