Fourth Graders Learn About Cultural History Through Opera

Fourth grade students enjoyed an on-campus performance by Portland Opera to Go this week. Shizue: An American Story explores the life of Japanese-American poet and artist Shizue Iwatsuki. It was performed in the EC3 Black Box Theater to the full class of fourth graders, who stayed rapt during the 50-minute version of the full-length opera.

In the opera, young Shizue comes to Oregon from Japan with her husband Kamegoro to help run his apple orchard in Hood River. (An older version of her also appears throughout the opera.) Shizue and Kamegoro enjoy several happy years together until February 12, 1942, when the signing of Executive Order 9066 after the bombing of Pearl Harbor forces them to move to a Japanese internment camp. They endure hardships and must move from camp to camp until they are finally allowed to return home, only to find they have lost their orchard and home. They begin again, and eventually are allowed to become American citizens. Shizue becomes deeply involved in her community and teaches ikebana and tea ceremony to the children of Hood River. One evening she returns home to find Kamegoro has died. But the opera ends on a joyful note, after Shizue visits her home in Japan and then returns to America to continue her life.

The opera is the second of the Our Oregon Project by Portland Opera to Go, a series of five original youth operas that feature Oregon history through a variety of underrepresented lenses. The story of Shizue and this part of Oregon’s history relates to the fourth grade social studies curriculum, which focuses on learning about underrepresented communities and advocacy. The performers also visited fourth grade classrooms before the opera to talk to the children about musical voices, instruments, and other artistic elements that go into creating an opera.