Obasan Chaps 1-4—Racial Minorities as Enemy Alien; Memories

Chaps 5-14 -- Trauma and Survival in Different Languages

Racial Minorities as Enemies Alien

1. Japanese Internment

2. Obasan Chaps 1-4Kate Liu

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’

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]

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.

Obasan--Family TreesGrandpa Nakane

~ 1942

Father(Tadashi Mark)

Mother Nissei: Emily1916-

Sansie: Stephen

1933-

Isamu (Sam)

1889-1972

Ayako(Obasan)

1891-

GrandmaKato

Naomi1936-

Grandma Nakane1893 ~ 1945

stillborn

Ref. Family photo -- Chap 4; pp. 17-19; 20~ Discussed later

Grandpa Kato

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

Japanese Internment in Canada

The turn of the century: early immigrants 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 Emily’s Diary; e.g. 92-93)--21,000 people moved

1945-1949 deportation or 2nd relocation right to vote and return to B.C.

More here

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.

Differences between the States and Canada (2)

1. 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.

Differences between the States and Canada (3)U.S.1. 1980 -- President Jimmy Carter signed the

Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians Act – for investigation

2. 1991 – Bush’s letter of apology Canada 1980s--redress movement 1988--formal apology to Nikkei+ $21,000

(Cdn.) to the survivors

Obasan: Time Line & Plot (1)

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: [photos] family histories (stone

bread)

Obasan: Time Line & Plot (2)

1972

|

|

1941Vancouver

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)

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 importance of The Kato and Nakane’s

family photo presented? What can be the significance of the opening

epigraphs?

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)

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)

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”

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

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

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).

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

The House –chap 9

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 (end of chap 9) epigraph

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)

coulee - 深谷

Racism, Trauma,

& Survival in Different “Languages”--

Obasan Chaps 5-14Kate Liu

Outline

Enemy Aliens vs. Survivors1.Discussion Questions2.Memory and Language:

• Memory of Different Forms -- Aya Obasan, Aunt Emily, and Naomi

• Different Languages

3.Family Togetherness vs. Fragmentation 4.Wartime Examples of Racism

• [Children’s] Responses to Trauma • [Adults] Emily’s

Discussion Questions

1. Memory and Language: How do Emily, Naomi and Aya Obasan deal with their grief, and memories of separation and unfair treatments?

2. Family and Fragmentation: How is the extended Japanese family depicted? Where do we see them broken apart?

3. Racism: Examples of Wartime Racism? The government’s justification and the responses to it of children or adults?

I. Memory and Languages

Obasan Aya Live with the past

• The house is old, items like her bodily parts, the house like “[3] her blood and bones” (15)

• the attic: ([5] 25)• her “ancient” body like “long extinct vocalnoes” ([14]78)• “The language of grief is silence. She has learned it well, its

idioms and nuances. Over the years, silence within her small body has grown large and powerful” (14)

Protective Silence;

(Aya vs.) Emily How different my two aunts are. One lives in sound, the other

in stone. Obasan’s language remains deeply underground but Aunt Emily, BA, MA, is a word warrior. She’s a crusader, a little old gray-haired Mighty Mouse, a Bachelor of Advanced Activists and General Practitioner of Just Causes. ([7] 32)

Emily: wrote letters; changed “Japanese race” to “Canadian citizen” (33)

“We’re gluing our tongues back on. . . . We have to deal with this while we remember it. If we don’t we’ll pass our anger down in our genes. It’s the children who’ll suffer” (36).

Aya vs. Emily

Aya Uncle: Gratitude ([7]42) “everyone someday dies”

([8] 44-45) Photos everywhere –

shows Naomi her mother’s photo

Emily Presents her a parcel of

letters, documents, her diary “The past is the future”

([7]42)

Naomi: -- Why not leave the dead to bury the dead (42)-- memories are to be forgotten (45)-- All right, Aunt Emily, all right! The house then…([9] 50)

Two Different Languages

Obasan Aya’s: stony silence; remains deeply underground

Speech hides like an animal in a storm (3)

Aunt Emily– a word warrior, a bulldozer, with “army, navy, air force” of letters (32)

-- “To attend its voice… is to embrace its absence. But I fail the task. The word is stone.”-- “My fingers tunnel through a tangle of roots till the grass stands up from my knuckles…I search the earth and the sky with a thin but persistent thirst” (3)-- Emily crusading still, while the others “seek the safety of invisibility” ([7] 32)

One lives in sound, the other in stone. One lives in sound, the other in stone.

Two Languages of Eyes

Grandma Kato, Obasan– a stare is an invasion (47)

Emily – visually bilingual

Naomi’s Denial of History – chap 7

"The very last thing in the world I was interested in talking about was our experiences during and after World War II" (33);

"Crimes of history,...can stay in history. What we need is to concern ourselves with the injustices of today" (41);

"Why not leave the dead to bury the dead?" "Life is so short,...the past so long. Shouldn't we turn the page and move on?" (42).

Review: Naomi’s process of remembering Performing yearly ritual without knowing

why Photographic memories –connected to the

past thru’ fragments (53)• -- of the two families, of the father and uncle, • -- of herself and her mother two languages

of the eyes, two cultures ([9] 47)

2. Family Togetherness vs. Fragmentation

The Past in Naomi’s memory: Chap 9: Photograph

• two languages; • two spaces -- home and outside chap 11

The house and life in Vancouver• bathing -- burning but relaxing water; Grandma’s

resourcefulness (48-49)• a collage of images (50) • Mother, father and Stephen Naomi and

goldfish• The past—drowning whirlpool, Naomi as a fragment

of fragments

Two languages of eyes Racial Differences Chap 11 – the mother’s matter-of-fact eyes (59); “negation of good

in the past tense” Old Man Gower episode:

• Her powerlessness – like “a small animal” cannot move, cannot say no. (63; snow white 64)

• Negative consequences of silence: Noami’s quietness; • Her complicity –”terror and exhilaration” wecomes it (65)• her sense of guilt

Old Man Gower – the one to take over their house (Chap 12 )

Question 2: the significance of the story Momotaro? Both Canadian and Japanese; family care and Maintaining honor in

displacement;

The other fairy-tales: • Snow White: end of Chap 11• Humpty Dumpty end of Chap 15; • Goldilock chap 17, • All revisions of the fairy-tales show the child’s way of

apprehending racism and displacement• the chicken episode Chap 11

Other Influences of Racism

The family dispersed – Noami’s sense of guilt and fear ([13] 73) Her repression of past memories Noami’s dreams: first one [6] 28-30; second

one: [11] 59-

3. Examples of Wartime Racism

Wartime Racism

e.g. Against Jews in Germany and everywhere,

e.g. In-between mainland Chinese and Japanese

Canadian Government’s Rhetoric 4/8 newspaper – Japanese naval officers

(94)

Nisei as "enemy aliens"; prison camps as "Interior Housing

Projects"

Canadian Government’s Rhetoric In 1944, Prime Minister William Lyon

Mackenzie King claimed that it was “the sound policy and the best policy for the Japanese Canadians themselves … to distribute their numbers as widely as possible throughout the country where they will not create feelings of racial hostility” (qtd Miki 40).

Emily’s Diary

Confiscation –radio, curfew, all of their landed properties

Evacuation to work camp or Hasting Park– Sam sent away; the Morii gang 91

3/2, 1942 everyone has to leave; curfew for Japanese, men sent away in unheated cars,

Treated like animals 100; Jap images 101 Emily bound for Toronto, Aya and the kids for

Slocan 108-109

Different Responses

• Naomi and Stephen’s responses 80-81; 89 Stephen limp

• Nisei’s p. 81; 86 keeping faith to being bitter. Emily—becomes numb, lost, keeps writing and making sense of what’s happening …

• Mark ‘s letter – about music and flowers 105

Survival and Fragmentation

Beginning of Chap 15 “We are the hammers and chisels in the hands of

would be sculptors, battering the spirit of the sleeping mountain. We are the chips and sand, the fragments of fragments tha fly like arrows from the heart of the rock. We are the silences that speak from stone. We are the despised. . .

We are those pioneers who cleared the bush and the forest with our hands, the gardeners tending and attending the soil with our tenderness . . .

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

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

Note

Kinjiro Ninomiya，也就是中文的二宮金次郎，二宮金次郎原名二宮尊德，一七八七年出生於今日本神奈川縣，二宮十四歲時喪父，十六歲喪母，因為貧困而兄弟離散，獨自過著辛苦的日子。二宮深知只有讀書才能使人生豐盛，並能以所學解決問題，於是每天勞動之餘，挑燈夜讀，每每通宵達旦，終能藉所學得的知識為民眾謀福利，深受民眾敬仰。

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)