Free How to Be an American Housewife by Margaret Dilloway

you.”
    He leaned his elbows on the countertop. “Meet me at ten.” He winked at me and snapped his fingers and pointed his fingers like guns at me. I winked back.
    When you get your passport, you will notice that your race will be classified as “Mongoloid,” although you are not from Mongolia. There is no point in debating this.
    America consists primarily of Caucasians. It is understood without explanation or question that in the United States a Japanese person will not be considered an equal. If you married a non-Caucasian American, you will be considered in even a lesser light.
    Therefore, you must work as hard as you can to prove yourself more than equal—the most polite, the best worker, an adept English learner, the most well-turned-out Housewife your husband could ever ask for. This is your duty, to both your home country and to your new one.

    —from the chapter “Turning American,”
How to Be an American Housewife

Seven
    I ’d been dating Tetsuo for a couple of weeks when, one day, I went outside on my lunch break. The gardens at the hotel were nice, made to look English, with a maze about five feet tall made out of boxwood bushes.
    I walked into this maze with my bento box, remembering Tetsuo saying there was a fountain somewhere inside. My brother and family were pleased that I was dating Tetsuo, my mother relieved. I was already nineteen, and many of the girls I went to high school with were married. However, I had many single friends, women like me who sought to improve their positions.
    Every weekend night, sometimes even weeknights, Tetsuo picked me up from the one-room apartment I shared with another girl from the hotel, and we went dancing. Oh, Tetsuo could dance! He was the only man I ever knew who could. I lent him out to my friends, too. I wasn’t even jealous when I looked up from my drink—Coca-Cola, of course, since I didn’t like alcohol—to see Tetsuo slow dancing with my new roommate, Yuki, their eyes closed, cheek to cheek, dreamily moving under the orange and blue lights. Mitsui, another girlfriend of mine, nudged me. “You better watch her. She’s a man-stealer.”
    “Yuki?” Why would I be jealous of Yuki? Her face was moon-round and her waist already looked matronly. “I guess some men might like that. Not Tetsuo.”
    And yet, when I danced with Yuki’s boyfriend—not even a slow dance—Tetsuo cut in, enraged. He shoved the boy aside and drew me in to him. “I can’t stand to have anyone else touch you,” he said, putting his hand on the side of my face, gripping my jaw.
    I drew my head back and forced a smile. “It’s only a dance.” I did not argue with him about Yuki. My mother said it was better that a man was jealous, to have him care about you more than you cared about him. It kept him close.
    Tetsuo looped me next to his body. He slid his hand up and down my back. “Shoko,” he sighed, and he pressed his pelvis close to mine. I tried not to jump. “Shoko, tonight?” He took my hand and brought it to his lips.
    I thought quickly. Mother hadn’t gone over this part of relationships. I’d been at a girls’ high school, forbidden to date, and I was naïve in some ways. If I didn’t give in, he might lose interest and move on. Tetsuo was too good of a catch. Handsome and smart and ambitious. But if I did give in, he might also lose interest. I decided to put him off a little longer.
    I turned so my back was to him and swayed to the slowing drumbeat. “Soon,” I purred over my shoulder. “Have patience.”
    He pulled me back to him again and put his lips on the soft skin of my neck. I shivered. “You drive me crazy, Shoko.” He turned me around and bent down as though to kiss me.
    I panicked. A kiss meant I was telling him he could have his way with me. This was how it was during my time. Everyone would see and know. He closed his eyes and his lips landed on the side of my hair. “I do care for you, Tetsuo. But you know I am a nice girl. The sister of