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Racial Minorities as Enemies Alien?

Surviving Trauma. Racial Minorities as Enemies Alien?. 1. Japanese Internment 2. Obasan Chaps 1-4 Kate Liu. Literary Criticism: History (3)– History and Traumatic Memory. Outline. Joy Kogawa & Obasan: General Introd. Japanese Internment; Obasan

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Racial Minorities as Enemies Alien?

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  1. Surviving Trauma Racial Minorities as Enemies Alien? 1. Japanese Internment 2. Obasan Chaps 1-4 Kate Liu Literary Criticism: History (3)– History and Traumatic Memory

  2. Outline • Joy Kogawa & Obasan: General Introd. • Japanese Internment; • Obasan • Examples of Racial Differences and their Consequences • Not Enemy Aliens; • Noami’s treatment of the Past vs. Her Aunts’

  3. Joy Kogawa--Biographical Sketch • born in Vancouver, B.C. in 1935 • relocated to Slocan and Coaldale, Alberta during and after WWII • Selected Publications: • Obasan. 1983. • Woman in the Woods. 1985.[poems] • Naomi's Road. 1986. [children’s lit.] • Itsuka. 1993. [Someday: the redress movement] • The Rain Ascends. 1995. • [a woman’s discovery of her missionary father’s being a pederast]

  4. Awards for Obasan • Books in Canada, First Novel Award. • Canadian Authors Association, Book of the Year Award. • Periodical Distributors of Canada, Best Paperback Fiction Award. • Before Columbus Foundation, The American Book Award.

  5. Obasan--Family Trees Grandpa Nakane ~ 1942 Grandma Kato Grandpa Kato Grandma Nakane 1893 ~ 1945 Ayako (Obasan) 1891- Isamu (Sam) 1889-1972 Mother Nissei: Emily 1916- Father (Tadashi Mark) Sansie: Stephen 1933- Naomi 1936- stillborn Ref. Family photo -- Chap 4; pp. 17-19; 20~ Discussed later

  6. Timeline • 1893--Grandpa Nakane arrived in Canada • 1933 – Uncle and Obasan got married. • 1941--Mother returned to Japan (clue: p. 20 ) • 1942--Vancouver Hastings Park prison • 1945--the bombing of Nagasaki • 1951--moved to Granton • 1954--the first visit to the coulee (p. 2) • 1972--narrative present--Uncle’s death

  7. Image source: http://canada.gc.ca/canadiana/map_e.html Map

  8. Japanese Internment in Canada • The turn of the century: early immigrants (beginning; 8:00-11:40) • 1941, December 7--the bombing of Pearl Harbor • 1942--evacuation of Canadian Japanese (Nikkei) from the Pacific Coast--the great mass movement in the history of Canada (Obasan 92-93)--21,000 people moved (clip 2 13:00 – 17:30 confiscation; clip 3 relocation) • 1945-1949 deportation or 2nd relocation  right to vote and return to B.C. (clip 4 22:00-) (Also chap 14 of the novel)

  9. Differences between the States & Canada U.S.: 1913 -- California Alien Land Law prohibited "aliens ineligible to citizenship" (ie. all Asian immigrants) from owning land or property, but permitted three year leases. April 1942 -- The assembly centers, relocation centers, and internment camps were set up, and relocation of Japanese-Americans began. Internment camps were scattered all over the interior West, in isolated desert areas of Arizona, California, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, and Wyoming. 1944 -- Executive Order 9066 was rescinded by President Roosevelt, 1946 -- the last of the camps was closed in March.

  10. Differences between the States and Canada (2) • Canada: -- Dispersal of family members--men sent to road camps in the interior of B.C., sugar beet projects on the Prairies, POW camp in Ontario; -- not allowed to go back to the West after the War; -- their properties liquidated.

  11. Differences between the States and Canada (3) U.S. • 1980 -- President Jimmy Carter signed the Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians Act – for investigation • 1991 – Bush’s letter of apology Canada • 1980s--redress movement • 1988--formal apology to Nikkei+ $21,000 (Cdn.) to the survivors

  12. 1972 | | 1954 Chap 1: 8/9 1972 Present Cecil, Alberta --1954 Granton 1951(the bombing of Nagasaki) — Chap 2: 9/13, 1972 Uncle’s death Chap 3: back to Obasan’s house, question about the mother Chap 4: memories of the family (stone bread) Obasan: Time Line & Plot (1)

  13. 1972 | | 1941 Vancouver Days Chap 5: Obasan in the attic, memory as spider Chap 6: nightmare Chap 7: Emily’s package—her last visit and the question if Naomi wants to know “everything” Chap 8: Obasan lady of the leftovers Chap 9:starts to remember- from the photo to memories of the house p. 50 — Chap 10: Momotaro Chap 11: episodes of the white chicken and Old Man Gower Chap 12: —separation starts—the mother first; Chap 13: preparation to leave; Chap 14: bath with Obasan; Emily’s diary (-110) Obasan: Time Line & Plot (2)

  14. 1942 train to Slocan Slocan, BC 1945, leaving Slocan Chap 15: leaving for Slocan Chap 16~26 : fragmentation and re-building of a community in Slocan Chap 27 ~days in Granton, Alberta, and Emily’s package Chap 32 -- start to talk about the mother Chap 37~39 – final revelation & resolution Chap 40 – the government document -- against the deportation of Japanese Canadians. Obasan: Time Line & Plot (3)

  15. Discussion Questions • How are Naomi, Obasan and Uncle, as survivors of the collective trauma of internment, presented at the beginning of the novel? • How does Naomi start to remember? • The Kato and Nakane’s family photo presented? • What can be the significance of the opening epigraphs?

  16. Japanese-Canadians: (1) Not Enemies Alien • Uncle --Uncle Sam, Chief Sitting Bull) ([1] 2); -- adaptation to new lives and mixture of two cultures [3] p. 13 stone bread, margarine as Alberta; • Father –like Mandrake the magician • Obasan -- an old woman in Mexico, France, as “the true and rightful owner of the earth.) ([3] 15)

  17. Japanese-Canadians: (1) Displaced, aging and family life disrupted • Uncle – displaced from the sea and his fishing boats([3]13), forever severed from the sea ([4] 22) • Uncle and Obasan – old and fixated (uncle --1, Obasan and Gramdma N – [4]17 the house is old) ([3] 15) • Emily and Naomi – no love life ([2] 8) • Naomi-- tense ([2] 7); -- her thirst for knowledge ([1] 3) -- rational control over her emotion: her mind separated from herself ([2] 9). • Stephen in constant flight ([3] 14)

  18. The Past: Different Treatments • How do the three generations each deal with the past differently? • Obasan--issei— • language of grief--silence ([3] 14); • ancient; accepting death; • live with the past ([3]11, 14-16; [5] 25-26 ), • Emily--nisei— • energetic, visionary ([2] 8), • To Naomi: “You have to remember…Denial is gangrene” [壞疽] (49-50) • [later]“word warrior” (32), “white blood cells” (34) • Asserting her Canadian identity--“This is my own, my native land”

  19. Different Generations on Language and Silence • “To the issei, honor and dignity is expressed through silence, the twig bending with the wind….The sansei view silence as a dangerous kind of cooperation with the enemy.” --Joy Kagawa in an interview with Susan Yim

  20. Historical Reconstructions –[more next time] • Three ways of dealing with memories: • Obasan: ancient woman who stays in history • --can be consumed by the past, • --can make use of the leftovers • Emily: “The past is the future” p. 42 • Naomi: “Crimes of history . . . can stay in history” p. 41

  21. Naomi’s thirst and fragmentary memories • “Why do we come here every year?” “Why did my mother not return?” • -- her thirst for knowledge ([1] 3) • Transferred to her uncle ([3]14) • Photographic memories – Older relatives described with humor –like advance guard • Grandfather Kato: the toes of his boots to "angle down like a ballet dancer's" (17) • Grandmother Kato: "nostrils wide in her startled bony face" (17).

  22. Naomi’s Photographic memories • Family photo: • Grandma Nakane's "plump hands" and "soft lap“ • Grandfather Nakane—like Napoleon. • "look[ing] straight ahead, carved and rigid, with their expressionless Japanese faces and their bodies pasted over with Rule Britannia " (18). • Mother – beautiful, fragile; Emily – short waved hair

  23. Naomi’s Photographic memories • Family as a knit blanket, moth-eaten • Uncle and Father’s – the boat – the relocation. • Memories – in a whirlpool of protective silence  epigraph

  24. For next time -- • From dis-member • to remember • to re-member • Pay attention to the use of imagery: of animals, fairy tales, fragments, stone and sea.

  25. Imagery of Stone & Sea • What is the significance of the stone imagery? • The bible--“a white stone”--”a new name written” • epigraph--“The word is stone.” • Uncle’s stone bread • the coulee/ the ocean/ uncle and Chief Sitting Bull/ the family as a knit blanket (24-25)

  26. References • Japanese Canadian Internment http://www.lib.washington.edu/subject/Canada/internment/intro.html • A History of the Japanese-American Internment http://www.fatherryan.org/hcompsci/ • Analysis of two apology letters http://www.imdiversity.com/villages/asian/Article_Detail.asp?Article_ID=3267

  27. coulee - 深谷

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