The Plum Tree Blossoms Even in Winter

M. Roy Wilson

• Publisher: Wayne State University Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780814349816
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Sozialwissenschaftliche Biographien

Silver Medalist in the Independent Publisher Book Awards!Silver Medalist in the Midwest Book Awards!From a childhood marked by loneliness and want, M. Roy Wilson forged an extraordinary life of accomplishment and acclaim. His accomplishments include the presidencies of four universities, dean of two medical schools, and deputy director of one of the National Institutes of Health's twenty-seven Centers and Institutes. Through this inspiring and deeply personal story of struggle and success, Wilson shares insights gleaned through his life experiences, many of which helped others reach their highest potential as students, faculty, physicians and people. Born to a Japanese mother and Black father, much of M. Roy Wilson's childhood in Japan was marked by parental absence, sexual abuse, extended periods as a runaway, physical confrontations and frequent moves. He was often forced to play the role of caregiver to his younger sister, and together they grew to depend on each other for support until their teenage years. Under the guidance of his high school English teacher, Wilson turned his life around and obtained an MD from Harvard Medical School. His adult life as a physician was ironically beset with significant health challenges, including diagnoses of cardiomyopathy that rendered him uninsurable, a potentially blinding eye disease, and cancer that at first was thought to be terminal. Having developed a veneer of invulnerability as a child, he kept these medical diagnoses a secret until now. Like the plum tree that blooms even during dark and dreary times, Wilson overcame his childhood challenges and later, his health issues, to achieve distinction in medicine, higher education, and global health research. The journey to this unlikely outcome is an engrossing tale of outside forces that shape racial and cultural identity, the importance of mentorship and friendship, and the lasting impact of an unstable and often heartbreaking family dynamic.

1

Early Childhood in Japan

Many Americans regard the Eisenhower years as an idyllic time. Following the privations of World War II, this was a period of national prosperity, when the men who had served in the armed forces were able to attain an education, a good income, and homeownership. But what of the men who were still overseas?

My dad, James O. Wilson Jr., grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, in a large Black family that included nine siblings. Practically everyone in his neighborhood worked in the steel mills. After graduating from high school, my father enlisted in the Navy. Shortly afterward, on June 25, 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea and in a matter of days, U.S. land, air, and sea forces had joined the battle in support of South Korea. My dad was among those deployed there before being stationed at the naval base in Yokohama, Japan, where he met my mother.

My mom, Katsu Katsuumi, had grown up with relatives in a rural town in the Gunma Prefecture and left as soon as she was old enough to support herself. Fleeing poverty and abuse, she moved to the Yokohama area. She was working as a waitress at a local restaurant near the naval base when she met my father in 1952. I don’t know the details of their early relationship. Because she worked at a restaurant that catered mainly to military personnel, my mom at least understood some rudimentary English. I like to imagine my parents’ first conversations.

I was born at a hospital in Yokohama on Saturday, November 28, 1953, three years after the bloody and frustrating Korean War had commenced, and several months after the armistice was signed, suspending open hostilities. It is estimated that by 1952, anywhere from five thousand to ten thousand children were born to Japanese women and American servicemen. Many of the children born from these unions were placed for adoption due to both the stigma of being born out of wedlock and miscegenation taboos. Those who were mixed race with Black fathers were frequently abandoned. I wonder if my mom, at age twenty-four, felt ashamed at having me out of wedlock, if she considered putting me up for adoption, or, worse, if she considered abandoning me. I wonder also if my dad thought about abandoning her and their child. Or perhaps he reassured her of his good intentions and she believed that my having an American father would provide security.

I know a few details about my birth. My mom was a small woman, and she often recounted how difficult her pregnancy was because I was so big (I was a ten-pound baby). It was a difficult birth. At one point, the doctor attempted a forceps delivery, from which I still have marks near my temple, but a Caesarean section was ultimately necessary.

Whatever his intentions, my dad was not around after my birth. They had not yet married, and it must have been a very difficult time for my mom. She often told the story of how adorable I was as a baby and how someone offered to pay a huge sum of money to buy me. She refused and took care of me as best as she could, carrying me on her back as she worked at whatever job she could find and clothing me in paper when she couldn’t afford fabric.

I am not clear on the timing, but Dad started visiting us when we lived outside Yokohama, but I have no recollection of these visits. However, I do have vague but fond memories of an older man with white hair and a stooped back whom I referred to as Ojiisan.

In Japanese, the terms for “grandpa” and “uncle” differ by only a single character, an additional “i.” I know that this older man was neither, because my mom’s father and brother both died during the war. Mom didn’t discuss the circumstances of their deaths with me, but the last time she saw them was when they left her to join the Japanese war effort against the United States. I recall that the older man I called Ojiisan was nice, and although he was small and visibly hunched, he would sometimes carry me on his back. As I now think back to this time, I realize that my mom had to financially support the two of us, and that Ojiisan likely volunteered or was hired to look after me when she couldn’t take me to work.

My mom was a gambler. She once told me the story of how she got mired in it. Initially she gambled not so much to win money but out of boredom and curiosity. After she won a huge sum during one of her first games, she and my dad had a fight about it that became physical; she ended up hitting Dad and he kicked her in the stomach in self-defense. Upset, she blew through the money, giving most of it away. Later, she regretted what she had done, and she gambled more to try to win it back. Sometimes she did win, but despite her obsession, Mom was never able to re-create that first high.

I would sometimes accompany her to the gambling house, where she would play cho-han, a dice game, with an almost exclusively male group. Japan’s organized crime syndicate, the Yakuza, controlled cho-han gambling so I was often in their company. The Yakuza spoke with a distinct guttural tone. Gruff and intimidating, the men were often shirtless, displaying their elaborate body tattoos. They walked with a swagger, their gait duck-footed and arms swinging more excessively than necessary, while I sat in the corner reading and rereading whatever beginner English books my mom could find for me to pass the time—folktales like “Three Little Pigs” and “Little Red Riding Hood.” I don’t recall receiving formal instruction in reading or speaking English, but perhaps my dad taught me the basics during his occasional visits. For the most part the Yakuza tolerated my presence and just ignored me. I didn’t think then that they were at all bad, but it strikes me now that they were—as was my mother’s lifelong addiction to gambling, an addiction that would take a tremendous toll on her children.

Mom sometimes gambled at night, but usually we went to the gambling house during the day. I preferred the day because I was allowed to take a break from reading and go to the Japanese water garden outside the gambling house. There was a large koi pond spanned by a wooden walking bridge, where I would sit and look out at the beautiful scenery. Koi are Japanese carp, bred beginning in the nineteenth century in Niigata, Japan. I didn’t know it then but koi is the national fish of Japan. I would stare at the majestic fish, whose spectacular coloration transported me out of the cacophony of the gambling room and into a world of tranquility and wonderment. My favorite koi was a big white one with a solitary, round, red spot on its head.

I don’t know where my dad had been stationed, but when I was not quite five years old, he returned to live with us permanently, and Mom and Dad got married. By then, he had switched from the Navy to the Air Force and was stationed at Johnson Air Base in Sayama. To be with him, we moved from Yokohama to the city of Sayama, Saitama Prefecture, about nineteen miles northwest of Tokyo, where my sister, Dianna, was born on July 21, 1958. I remember the smile on my dad’s face as he held my little sister in his arms. I don’t recall how I felt about Dianna’s arrival, but I resented Dad’s presence in my life. I perceived him as gruff and mean and very unlike the Ojiisan who carried me on his back.

My childhood up to this time had been as a Japanese and with just my mom, so the move to Sayama to be with my dad was traumatic. In Yokohama, my favorite food had been onigiri (Japanese rice balls) stuffed with salted salmon and wrapped with seaweed. I had loved having that for lunch, particularly when the onigiri was grilled. Breakfast had typically been misoshiru (miso soup). But my dad demanded that I be Americanized. With the move to Sayama came Cheerios for breakfast and hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch. Moreover, I had left my Japanese friends in Yokohama and was expected to make friends with the American kids on base. Although I understood English, I was fluent in Japanese and much more comfortable interacting with Japanese kids.

I don’t remember much about my dad during this time, but based on my later interactions with him, I think it’s safe to assume that he was not warm and affectionate. At the same time, he probably wasn’t the ogre I made him out to be. Whatever the reality, I rebelled and he didn’t know how to handle it. I refused to speak English, didn’t make American friends, and demanded Japanese food. My guess is that we fed off each other’s negativity until an endless feedback loop of antagonism was established.

Curiously, when my dad disciplined me, he allowed me to choose my punishment—either a spanking or isolation in a locked bathroom. Since I had never been spanked, I initially chose the isolation. But after I escaped through the narrow window above the toilet and ran off, that option was removed. My first spanking with a belt left welts on my backside and legs. I didn’t want to go through that again and started to preemptively run away whenever I did anything that I thought might warrant punishment. Initially, I ran away to avoid a spanking; after a while I ran away because I just wanted to avoid my dad.

When I ran away, I would often stay gone for days at a time. At first, I didn’t go far. After aimlessly walking the streets, I would sneak back into an alley on the bathroom side of the house and listen for voices. If the coast was clear, I would climb back into the house through the window and grab some food and extra clothing before climbing back out again. My parents eventually figured out what I was doing and bolted the window shut.

With the option of sneaking back into the house closed off, I ventured further into town and found ways to survive. Sayama was a small military town with a population of less than thirty-three thousand in 1960. We lived off base, just outside a barrier fence, in a house built by the American military. All the houses looked the same, single story and painted in similar shades of off-white. Most of our neighbors were military families, but I don’t recall knowing any of them.

Business storage sheds were good places to take shelter. Sheds of restaurants were particularly good because I could also scavenge for food from their discarded garbage. Innovation and creativity were essential. Once I kicked a dog out of his rather nice and large doghouse and slept there.

Because I never planned to run away, whatever clothes I was wearing had to suffice. On one particularly cold winter night, without hat, coat, or gloves, the ground dusted with a light snow and icicles hanging from tree branches, I realized that my survival was dependent on finding shelter and warmth. I had turned down a side street and it was dark. Aside from the sound of the wind whistling and the occasional barking of a distant dog, it was quiet. My heart raced as I realized my ears and feet were beginning to freeze.

I started jogging, mainly to keep warm, and came upon a row of houses. I went to the first house and asked to be taken in for the night. After being refused, I moved on to the next house with similar results. The situation was getting dire when I finally came upon a house that allowed me in.

The couple was Japanese and they must have pitied me as I was likely shivering from the cold. The miso soup they fed me was the best I had ever tasted. The last thing I remember as I went to sleep was the warmth of the stove and blanket.

When I awoke the next morning, the police were in the house and arrested me. The couple who had provided me food and shelter knew my mom and had turned me in. Mom looked embarrassed as she tried to explain to the police how a young kid could have run away from home for so long without them being notified.

The experience of avoiding frostbite, and perhaps even a fate more grim, haunted me for years to come in the form of a recurring dream. In it, I was chased by a white, snowy figure covered in icicles. As I struggled to move my legs faster, the shadowy figure would get closer and closer before I would suddenly awaken. I was well into grade school before these dreams ceased.

More practically, the incident taught me a lesson: I had to venture further if I was going to run away. Not knowing who in town might know my mother, I began to take the local train to neighboring towns. Traveling on trains is easy in Japan. I spoke the language fluently and had a rudimentary understanding of the Japanese signs at the train station. As long as I had enough money to buy a ticket, it was not a problem.

Despite my dad’s efforts to Americanize me, most of my friends were Japanese kids from an adjacent Japanese neighborhood. One of the things we did for fun was put rocks on railroad tracks, hide behind some shelter, and watch the rocks splinter into flying projectiles as the train ran over them. One day, the train conductor must have seen the rocks and, not wanting to risk riding over them, decided to stop. The train sounded a loud shriek as the brakes were applied, and the train chugged to a stop directly in front of our hiding place. We all ran, but my friends were older and ran faster. I couldn’t get away fast enough and was caught by someone from the train and hauled to the police station.

When the police officers tried to coerce me into revealing the identity of my compatriots, I refused. They had stood by me during my ordeals with my dad, and I was not going to give them up. No charges were filed against me, probably because I was just a kid, but my mom’s picture was in the newspaper the following day with a caption stating that her son had tried to derail a train. Of course, I hadn’t been trying to derail a train. I was a confused kid desperately seeking a sense of belonging. I just wanted to be a part of the gang.

2

Mom

As did many Japanese of her generation, Mom had a difficult childhood. She didn’t talk about it much. The Great Depression, which hit Japan especially hard, began in 1929, the year she was born. I’ve gleaned only snippets of her life during the pre–World War II years. She had two siblings, an older brother and a sister who died at a young age. My mom described her sister as having been beautiful, with very fair skin—a desirable trait among Japanese girls and women—but with a skeletal deformity. Her sister was frail and had difficulty breathing. In retrospect, I believe Mom was describing severe scoliosis (sideways curvature of the spine) with lung dysfunction as a result of reduced chest space.

My mom spoke lovingly of her older brother. She once said, “He took care of us,” which I assumed to mean he took care of her and her sister. Because of her sister’s frailty, her brother would often pick her up and carry her wherever she wanted to go. He was killed early in World War II, during a battle in the Pacific.

Mom rarely mentioned her father; when she did, it was usually just a matter-of-fact statement about him dying during the war. She didn’t disclose enough for me to ascertain anything about him—what type of father he was, how she felt about him, what type of work he performed. I wish now that I had asked her more questions about the type of man he was and how he had died.

Since my mom never mentioned her mother, I always assumed she had died in the war, like her father and brother. As I think about it now, it was strange that she never mentioned her mother; it was almost as if she was not a part of her childhood. Over time, I became curious about who she had been and one day, when I was in high school, I asked Mom about her. What she told me came as a surprise. Her mother was a very accomplished—she may have even used the word “famous”—doctor in Tokyo. Since university education was available to only the elite in prewar Japan, and medical education for women was almost unheard of, my grandmother was indeed a trailblazer. I wondered if my grandmother was still alive, but Mom didn’t know. They had lost touch with each other many years prior.

From what I could gather, my mom’s early childhood was relatively uneventful. Then World War II happened and her life was indelibly impacted. With her mother busy pursuing her career and her father engaged in the war effort, my mom was left to the care of relatives in rural Gunma-ken, about seventy-five miles outside of Tokyo. When she was about twelve or thirteen, her mother brought her to live in Tokyo. But it was not a happy union (or reunion). Mom was often left alone while her mother worked. She mentioned “bombings,” which was possibly a reference to the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo in April 1942. In any case, my mom must have been lonely and the bombing must have been a terrifying experience.

One day, when her mother was at work, Mom snuck out of school and caught a train back to Gunma-ken. Her mother came looking for her, but my mom refused to return. She felt more comfortable living a simple life with her paternal uncle and his family, even if it was a hard existence with few comforts. That was the last time they saw each other.

My mom didn’t blame her mother or herself for their separate lives. She understood that her mother had to do what she did for her career. Likewise, she never expressed regret at leaving the city and returning to her comfort zone. Nor did she express embarrassment at being a country girl overwhelmed with the complexities of a big city. Rather, she seemed resigned to the fact that she and her mother were two different people who chose two different paths. Later, her daughter, Dianna, would choose her own path at about the same age Mom had been when she decided to not live with her mother. Perhaps this is why Mom supported Dianna in her decision to leave home when she was just thirteen years old, when most parents would have reacted differently.

Life with her uncle, though preferable, was not idyllic. Her uncle was poor and he had his own family to feed: a wife and two kids who were not kind to their cousin. While his children attended school, my mom had to drop out of eighth grade to help her uncle on his farm. Her skin became parched from the sun and her hands blistered from the hard work. Rice and some pickled vegetables—no meat—made up her evening meal. In the morning, she would pour ocha—hot green tea—over days-old rice to soften it for...