I Would Meet You Anywhere: A Memoir
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A Finalist for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award
Growing up with adoptive nisei parents, Susan Kiyo Ito knew only that her birth mother was Japanese American and her father white. But finding and meeting her birth mother in her early twenties was only the beginning of her search for answers, history, and identity. Though the two share a physical likeness, an affinity for ice cream, and a relationship that sometimes even feels familial, there is an ever-present tension between them, as a decades-long tug-of-war pits her birth mother’s desire for anonymity against Ito’s need to know her origins, to see and be seen. Along the way, Ito grapples with her own reproductive choices, the legacy of the Japanese American incarceration experience during World War II, and the true meaning of family. An account of love, what it’s like to feel neither here nor there, and one writer’s quest for the missing pieces that might make her feel whole, I Would Meet You Anywhere is the stirring culmination of Ito’s decision to embrace her right to know and tell her own story.
Praise & Reviews for I Would Meet You Anywhere
★ “This is a story that was never supposed to be told, the author’s life and origins a secret that was never meant to be revealed. These were the terms and promises of the institution of closed adoption—never agreed to, of course, by Ito (coeditor, A Ghost at Heart’s Edge: Stories and Poems of Adoption) herself. While books about adoption often address themes like secrets, loss, displacement, and grief, this thoughtful memoir expertly and courageously depicts the specifics and context of Ito’s story—the legacy of a U.S. concentration camp for Japanese people; growing up in all-white small towns; the challenges of reconnecting with family members who either clung to promised anonymity or weren’t aware of the author’s existence. Readers will be immersed in Ito’s yearning and bewilderment when basic facts (the identity of her biological father; that her children are indeed her birth mother’s grandchildren) are denied or deflected. The book’s descriptions of being hanbun hanbun (half and half) are beautifully and painfully wrought and illuminating. VERDICT The tension and fear of wanting to tell one’s story, to be seen, to know and be known are palpable throughout Ito’s stunning, brave, extraordinary book.” —Amy Cheney, Library Journal (Starred Review)
"An intimate, deftly told story illuminating adoption's complications and losses, I Would Meet You Anywhere is sure to move anyone who has ever felt rootless, questioned their place within their family, or longed for deeper self-understanding."
—Nicole Chung, author of A Living Remedy
“Susan Kiyo Ito is like a surgeon operating on herself. She is delicate, precise, and at times cutting with her words. But it is all in service of her own healing and to encourage us all to be brave enough to do the same in our own stories.”
— W. Kamau Bell, author of Do the Work! An Antiracist Activity Book
“If it is possible to feel all the emotions in a single book, this is it. Determined to no longer be the secret or the ‘wild inconvenience,’ Susan Ito writes with grace, courage, and wonder. I Would Meet You Anywhere is a cinematic, breathtaking journey of family, identity, and secrets: an instant classic in adoption literature.”
— Lee Herrick, California Poet Laureate
“In the intimate pages of I Would Meet You Anywhere, Ito yearns to learn of her parentage within the confounding context of closed adoption. As Ito plots a path to locate and know the birth parent who forsook her, we experience the pain of diminishing the self in order to be seen. An exquisite memoir of mothering and daughtering amid racial and generational differences.”
—Julie Lythcott-Haims, author of Real American: A Memoir
“My heart waxed and waned as Susan navigates a roller coaster of interactions with her biological mother. This deeply moving memoir grapples with where the biological family fits amidst a cacophony of secrets and longing all too often faced by adoptees.”
—Angela Tucker, author of “You Should Be Grateful”: Stories of Race, Identity and Transracial Adoption
“I Would Meet You Anywhere is the poignant memoir of author Susan Ito’s search for her birth parents. Biracial, and of half-Japanese linage, Ito’s story opens the door to that of Japanese-American adoptions with insight and understanding into the complexities of family, identity, and choice. A rich and compelling read.”
—Gail Tsukiyama, author of The Samurai's Garden and The Color of Air
“A brave, compassionate, and necessary memoir that bears witness to how we let go, when we hold on, and how families are not just born but chosen.”
— Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, author of Hiroshima in the Morning