ABSTRACT
I came tο Asian American history and women's history through curiosity about my own family's past. I plied my parents and grandparents with questions: How did Obaachan and Ojiichan meet? Why did they come to the United States? What was it like growing up in Oakland? How did Uncle Dewey learn to hypnotize chickens? Why was Auntie Ritsu sent to a finishing school in Japan? And then there were the questions about "camp," a major reference point for my parents and their Nisei friends from as far back as I could remember. It was an evocative word, used as shorthand for many experiences I could not then fathom, catching only glimpses of tar-papered barracks, bleak deserts, young people packing suitcases to go to New York or Chicago. We would sit up late after dinner, drinking tea with old friends passing through town, telling stories. "Camp," they would say, leaning back and shaking their heads, with a sigh. "Camp,"
