New Memoir 'Speak, Okinawa' Looks At Family, Identity, Okinawa's Tough Relationship With The U.S....

Growing up in the suburbs of New York, Elizabeth Miki Brina recalls feeling disconnected from her Japanese mother and most of her white peers. Both her family history and relationship with her parents are the focus of her new book, “Speak, Okinawa: A Memoir.”

Brina’s white father, a Vietnam war veteran, met her mother, who was a nightclub hostess, in Okinawa, Japan. After marrying, the two moved to the United States where Brina was raised.

“I grew up in a predominantly white suburb, so I had always felt very outcasted and I blamed my mother for it,” she says.