Racism, Trauma,

1
Racism, Trauma, Minorities Survival --

• 1. Prey
• 2. Obasan Chaps 1-14
• Kate Liu

2
Outline

• Racism (1) Prey and Reasons for Racism
• Racism (2) Japanese Internment
• Joy Kogawa Obasan General Introd.
• Obasan
• Examples of Racial Differences and their
  Consequences
• Not Enemy Aliens
• Noamis treatment of the Past vs. Her Aunts

3
Map
Image source http//canada.gc.ca/canadiana/map_e.
html

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Prey by Helen Lee

• What causes the conflicts between Noh on the one
  hand, and I-Beis father and grandmother on the
  other?
• What are the dangerous moments in this film and
  how are they resolved?
• What does the title mean? What views of the
  Korean are expressed by I-Beis grandmother?

5
Prey and Reasons for Racism

• The whites as predator? Not always. Sometimes
  there can be conflicts between the minorities.
  (e.g. LA Riot)
• Images of prey stolen foods grocery store
  broken open sex.
• Dangerous moments two scenes with the gun
  lending the car to Noh
• Reasons for racism against Asians
• Conflicts of interest (clip 1)
• Language
• Prejudices
• Self-Protection, Racial superiority
• The war

6
Japanese Internment in Canada

• The turn of the century early immigrants (clip
  1)
• 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 confiscation clip 3
  relocation)
• 1949--Nikkei allowed to vote and return to B.C.
  (clip 4) (Also chap 14 of the novel)

7
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• 1944 -- Executive Order 9066 was rescinded by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.

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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.

9
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 Bushs letter of apology
• Canada
• 1980s--redress movement
• 1988--formal apology to Nikkei 21,000 (Cdn.) to
  the survivors

10
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.
• Naomi's Road. 1986.
• Itsuka. 1993.
• The Rain Ascends. 1995.

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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.

12
Obasan--Family Trees

Grandpa Nakane 1942
Kato
Issei. Grandma Nakane Arrive in Canada 1893
1945
Isamu (Sam) 1889-1972
Ayako (Obasan) 1891-
Mother
Nissei Emily 1916-
Father (Tadashi Mark)
Sansie Stephen 1933-
Naomi 1936-
stillborn
Ref. Chap 4 pp. 17-19 20
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Timeline

• 1893--Grandpa Nakane arrived in Canada
• 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--Uncles death

14
Obasan Time Line Plot (1)

• Chap 1 8/9 1972
• --1954 Granton ? 1951(the bombing of Nagasaki)
  
• Chap 2 9/13, 1972 Uncles death
• Chap 3 back to Obasans house, question about
  the mother
• Chap 4 memories of the family (stone bread)
• Chap 5 Obasan in the attic, memory as spider

• 1972
• 1954

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Obasan Time Line Plot (2)

• Chap 6 nightmare
• Chap 7 Emilys packageher 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

• 1972
• 1941

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Obasan Time Line Plot (3)

• 1942 train to Slocan

• Chap 12 separation startsthe mother first
• Chap 13 preparation to leave
• Chap 14 bath with Obasan Emilys diary (-110)
• Chap 15 leaving for Slocan
• Chap 16 the trip to and arrival at Slocan,
  Stephens reaction
• Chap 17 Nomura-Obasan, Goldilock

17
Obasan Time Line Plot (4)

• 1942
• 1943
• (attend school)

• Chap 18 Grandma Nakanes death, wake and
  cremation,
• Chap 19 Uncle back, questions about the father,
  Stephen out of his cast
• Chap 20 back to school, vegetable garden, Rough
  Lock Bill, Kenji and the red insect
• Chap 21 Naomis drowning

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Obasan Time Line Plot (5)

• 1943
• 1945
• 1945 to Alberta Ethridge, and then Granton,
  Barker Farm--

• Chap 22 -- experiences of hospital and deaths
  (chicken, kitten)
• Chap 23 -- bathing
• Chap 24 -- father back
• Chap 25 -- prayer before departure
• Chap 26 -- leaving Slocan

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Obasan Racial Differences

• Chap 9 two languages of eyes
• Negative consequences Noamis quietness in the
  episode of Old Man Gower
• What is the significance of Old Man Gower
  episode? Is Naomi completely defenseless in her
  experience with Old Man Gower?
• What does she feel about herself while being
  molested and afterwards?
• How is Old Man Gower related to racism against
  the Japanese? Chap 12

20
Other Influences of Racism

• The family dispersed
• Noamis sense of guilt and fear
• Noamis dreams first one 6 28-30 second one
  11 59-
• Her repression of past memories (later)

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Questions

• How does Naomi start to remember?
• What does she remember about the Vancouver house?
  Her mother? And their family?

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The Past in Naomis memory

• Chap 9 Photograph
• two languages
• two spaces -- home and outside
• The house and life in Vancouver
• bathing -- burning but relaxing water Grandmas
  resourcefulness
• a collage of images
• Mother, father and Stephen Naomi and
  goldfish
• The pastdrowning whirlpool, Naomi as a fragment
  of fragments

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Question 2 the significance of the story
Momotaro?

• Both Canadian and Japanese
• Honor and family care
• 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 childs
  way of apprehending racism and displacement
• the chicken episode Chap 11

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The Past Different Treatments

• How does Naomi describe herself and the two
  aunts? How do they each deal with the past?
• Naomi--sansei--spinster, tense (2 7),
• Obasan--issei
• language of grief--silence (3 14)
• ancient accepting death
• live with the past (311, 14-16 5 25-26 ),
• Emily--nisei
• energetic, visionary (2 8),
• word warrior (32), white blood cells (34)
• different from Obasan (7 32) from Uncle and
  Naomi (35-36) /
• Canadian identity--This is my own, my native
  land

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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

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Historical Reconstructions

• Three ways of dealing with memories
• Obasan ancient woman who stays in history
• --can be consumed,
• --can make use of the leftovers
• Emily The past is the future p. 42
• Naomi Crimes of history . . . Can stay in
  history p. 41

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Survival

• 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 . . .

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Defense Not Enemy Alien

• Uncle p. 2 (Uncle Sam, Chief Sitting Bull) 3
  p. 13
• Emilys article -- 7 pp. 39-40
• Father before relocation end of chap 12 p. 70
• Their adaptation to new lives.

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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.

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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.
• Uncles stone bread
• the coulee/ the ocean/ uncle and Chief Sitting
  Bull/ the family as a knit blanket (24-25)

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References

• Japanese Canadian Internment http//www.lib.washi
  ngton.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_ID3267