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This article begins with the researcher's story of incarceration as a Japanese American during World War II. It sets the stage for understanding the conflicted search for identity that has become integral to her personal narrative and is addressed in her study of women of color. The study of women of color was designed to serve the voices and stories of the women's experiences of exclusion from the advantages and privileges afforded members of the dominant group. In challenging the master narrative, the women's oppositional narrative navigated the contradictory and paradoxical world they experience daily. Similar experiences in history were also part of the collective unconscious of their people. In moving against the oppressive grain of socially constructed expectations, the women deconstructed their identities in recognition of the multiple and evolving power relationships they experience in complex contexts. The resulting multiple identities freed them of the anxiety for one authentic or unitary self The article concludes with bell hooks's "celebration of the opposition spirit of solidarity and equality." It is through this unity and love that changes from domination can be realized. That love includes the self-love vital to cleansing oppressive experiences and coming together as a community of caring.
DISCOVERING IDENTITIES
Three days before I was born, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and war was declared by the United States. Although we were Japanese Americans with no reason to be suspected as spies, we were forcibly removed from our home and incarcerated behind barbed wire and armed guards. The racist decision to incarcerate us, people who were visually identifiable and the victims of slanderous press and racism since our arrival on these shores, differed from the decisions made about European Americans whose countries were also at war with the United States.
In the early months of our incarceration, my father's actions of protest against this violation of our human and civil rights resulted in our removal to Tule Lake, the camp for those who would not sign the loyalty oath. This hard-working man of tremendous integrity and uncrushable will was subsequently identified as a significant threat and secretly removed to the New Mexico desert where he was placed under the authority of the Department of Justice. During this time, my mother spent anguishing months...