Atsuko Okatsuka was technically kidnapped by her grandma

25:05Atsuko Okatsuka was technically kidnapped by her grandma

Comedian Atsuko Okatsuka is able to make the most difficult life experiences seem funny.

When she was eight years old, for example, her maternal grandma suddenly brought her to the U.S., separating her from her dad in Japan. From that point onward, Okatsuka grew up in California, where she lived undocumented for seven years.

"All I knew was that my two-month vacation in L.A. turned into three months," she quips in her new stand-up special, Father. "And then, after 25 years — because I'm that afraid of conflict — I finally asked my grandma. I said, 'Grandma, did you kidnap me? Because that's what I feel like happened.'"

While Okatsuka had long joked that it was a kidnapping, she and her grandma had never actually talked about it. She didn't know for sure what had happened to her until 2023, when she shared her story in an episode of This American Life.

"When you investigate a part of your life with a journalist, there's fact-checking and there's research that they help you do," the comedian tells Q guest host Talia Schlanger in an interview. "So that's what helped solidify that it was technically a kidnapping."

But Okatsuka, who's incredibly close with her grandma (she refers to her as her "91-year-old best friend"), doesn't see it that way. While the experience left her feeling deeply confused as a child, she's made a career out of finding the humour in her complex past.

"I knew it was bad when Ira Glass reached out to me," she jokes in her new special. "You never want to do a This American Life episode. You know why? Because if you do, that means your life was bad!"

It really helps to find the absurdity in a situation that may just seem like tragedy.- Atsuko Okatsuka

After moving to the U.S., Okatsuka says she experienced "a slow shock" that took a long time to come out of, as she had to quickly learn English and adjust to life in a new country. Her experience was further complicated by the fact that she was living in her uncle's garage along with her grandma and her mom, who has schizophrenia.

"I knew she was different," Okatsuka says about her mom. "I knew that I was scared of her. I went through puberty in that garage, you know what I mean? My mom would have her paranoid episodes and hear voices in her head, sometimes seizures…. A garage is not enough space to hold three generations of women."

While there is a lot of real trauma in Okatsuka's life, she says she's found it healing to unpack it all publicly onstage, in interviews or on a podcast like This American Life.

"It is funny to think about it way later," she tells Schlanger. "When they say time heals, I guess that's what they mean. You know, you can decide to see the levity in something. It really helps to find the absurdity in a situation that may just seem like tragedy."

The full interview with Atsuko Okatsuka is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Atsuko Okatsuka produced by Sarah Melton.