Booksmith is thrilled to host Susan Kiyo Ito for her memoir, I Would Meet You Anywhere. Susan will be in conversation with another neighborhood hero, Faith Adiele (Meeting Faith). Join us!

About the book

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 for I Would Meet You Anywhere

“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

“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

“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

“My heart waxed and waned as I witnessed Ito navigate fraught interactions with her biological mother. This deeply moving memoir grapples with where the biological family fits amid 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 Susan Kiyo Ito’s search for her birth parents. Ito’s story opens the door to 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 Brightest Star: A Novel

About the authors

Susan Ito began reading at the age of three, and writing stories at the age six. She co-edited the literary anthology A Ghost At Heart’s Edge: Stories & Poems of Adoption. Her work has appeared in The Writer, Growing Up Asian American, Choice, Hip Mama, Literary Mama, Catapult, Hyphen,The Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. She is a MacDowell colony Fellow, and has also been awarded residencies at The Mesa Refuge, Hedgebrook and the Blue Mountain Center. She has performed her solo show, The Ice Cream Gene, around the US. Her theatrical adaption of Untold, stories of reproductive stigma, was produced at Brava Theater She is a member of the Writers’ Grotto, and teaches at Mills College/Northeastern University and Bay Path University. She was one of the co-organizers of Rooted and Written, a no-fee writing workshop for writers of color. She lives in Northern California. Author photo by Emma Asano Roark.

Faith Adiele (http://adiele.com), The Original Obama, was raised by her Nordic-American mother and traveled to Nigeria as an adult to find her father and siblings, a journey documented in My Journey Home (PBS). She is author of tricultural chapbook, The Nigerian Nordic Girl’s Guide to Lady Problems, and Meeting Faith, an award-winning memoir about ordaining as Thailand’s first Black Buddhist nun. Co-editor of Coming of Age Around the World: A Multicultural Anthology, Adiele writes a column for DETOUR / Miami Herald and Sleep Stories for the CALM app. A proud Oakland resident, she hosts African Book Club at MoAD and teaches at CCA and around the world, including some of the first workshops for racialized people in Finland.

Please note:

• Masks will not be required for this event, but we are limiting capacity somewhat. For that reason, we can't guarantee we'll have space for walk-ins. The best way to ensure you’ll get a seat is to order the Book + Seat ticket through this link; you can also RSVP for a free seat right here while they last.
• We are happy to offer *signed copies* of I Would Meet You Anywhere: order a Book + Seat ticket bundle if you'd like to pick up a signed copy at the event, or order here if you just want a signed copy and no admission.
• Order books by Faith Adiele here.
• Safety protocols are subject to change. If we feel it is not safe to gather, as the event gets closer, we will pivot to a virtual event and your registration will remain valid.
• Questions? Write [email protected].