Cactus Blossoms chapbook cover
“The desert is now my home, / I breathe its dusty air and blister in / its lights…”
— Tokiko Inouye, “I Remember”
In 2019, archeologist Koji Lau-Ozawa came across Cactus Blossoms, a chapbook of poems by fifteen students who attended Butte High School at the Gila River incarceration camp during World War II.
Koji encountered Cactus Blossoms—along with a second poetry chapbook entitled Tumbleweeds—in a family’s archive while he was conducting research for his dissertation. Koji shared the collections with the poet Brynn Saito, and the two of them embarked on a journey to find and interview descendants of the poets published in Cactus Blossoms. With support from UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center, the George and Sakaye Aratani Community Advancement Research Endowment, and the Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation, Koji and Brynn created the short documentary Cactus Blossoms Revisited, which features descendants reflecting on their encounters with their family member’s poetry, and considers the role of poetry in reckoning with and healing the wounds of the past.
Koji Lau-Ozawa
Brynn Saito
Answering the call of the ancestors
Koji and Brynn are both descendants of family members who were incarcerated at Gila River. (For more on Gila River, which was built on the land of the Gila River Indian Community, visit Densho.org.)
The poems in Cactus Blossoms reflect the tremendous creative energy and literary acumen—as well as the emotions, struggles, hopes, despairs, and fancies—of young people facing the alienation and dislocation of racialized incarceration. With the documentary Cactus Blossoms Revisited, Koji and Brynn hope to honor the work of the poets, the legacy held by their descendants, and the remarkable potentiality that youth hold, even in times when hope seems bereft.
Making the documentary Cactus Blossoms Revisited
Determined not to let this collection fade into the obscurity of the archive, Koji and Brynn set out to find either the original poets represented in Cactus Blossoms or their descendants in order to learn more about the lives and work of the poets.
In 2024, Brynn and Koji interviewed family members of Kimii Nagata, Mary Matsuzawa, Tokiko Inouye, and Lois Kaneoka, four of the poets published in Cactus Blossoms. Paul and Emi Yamauchi (the son and daughter of Kimii Nagata), Joan Johnsen (the daughter of Mary Matsuzawa), Ray Fernandez and Jean Carvalho (the nephew and niece of Tokiko Inouye), and Sandy Kaneoka (the niece of Lois Kaneoka) are featured in Cactus Blossoms Revisited.
There are surely more descendants of the poets out there; Koji and Brynn hope this documentary is not the final statement on Cactus Blossoms and Tumbleweeds, but simply an answer to the call of the ancestors to reactivate a conversation started 80 years ago.
Brynn and Koji in Chicago with Paul Yamauchi and Emi Yamauchi (son and daughter of Cactus Blossom poet Kimii Nagata.
Brynn and Koji in Los Angeles with Ray Fernandez, nephew of Cactus Blossom poet Tokiko Inouye.
Next Steps in the Project
We are currently working on re-publishing Cactus Blossoms and Tumbleweeds to create greater accessibility to these unique chapbooks of poetry. We also hope to collaborate with educators to create curriculum to integrate the publications and documentary into classroom settings.