The Young Immigrant (移民の子)

The phrase “Imin no ko” might be literally translated as “Child of Immigrants,” or “Immigrant Child,” but these phrases do not work quite match the formal, declarative tone of the final line’s use of the older, classical copula naru (“to be”) instead of more modern forms such as da, de-aru, or desu. The poem appears to build toward a declaration of identity, akin to a resident of Old Tokyo stating Edokko naru: “I am an Edoite.” Since Hayashida was a young yobiyose Issei, or first-generation immigrant who was “summoned” (yobiyaserareta) to the United States through sponsorship by a previous generation of older immigrants, he might have considered himself to be a “child of immigrants.” However, Hayashida’s poem appears to dwell less upon the struggles of American-born second-generation children of immigrants and more upon the struggles of youth who are themselves immigrants, wandering through a “foreign town.”