Author's Note: This essay was written for course ENG110 of Ryerson University, on November 22, 2017.
Obasan, by Joy Kogawa, has been listed by The Literary Review of Canada as one of Canada’s one hundred most important books (Karpinski 46). The 1981 work of literature is thought provoking, masterfully written, and at the time of its publishing, a widespread shock for Canadians. Told in the narrative first person point of view of Naomi (Nomi) Nakane, a young child at the time of World War II, it gives the Japanese-Canadian perspective of the awful and un-democratic events Canada imposed onto their Japanese citizens. So incredibly moving, the novel became a contributing factor in Japanese-Canadians receiving a formal and official apology from the government of Canada for the alienation and racism they faced during the Second World War. In the article, “The Book as (Anti)National Heroine: Trauma and Witnessing in Joy Kogawa’s Obasan,” Eva Karpinski further analyzes the impacts the book has made in Canada – focusing on how the strategic presentation of Japanese-Canadians as “unthreatening” during WWII was able to make an impact on white Canadian readers. Ultimately, it can be argued that Obasan presents Japanese-Canadians as “unthreatening” throughout the war as a means to help white Canadians separate themselves from their own prejudice, relate to the Japanese-Canadians, and yearn to understand their nation’s undeniably racist past.
Eva Karpinski does an extensive analyzation of how Obasan became such an important Canadian novel. However, she maintains that its deployment of Japanese Canadians as “unthreatening” is used to help white Canadians perceive the nation’s racist history as what it is. It is important to define what an “unthreatening” group of people of the same ethnic origin means; to be unthreatening is to not pose as a threat – not a risk of attack – and to pose as relatable – a fellow human being. The novel is able to do this because, unlike a history textbook, “it interpellates its readers to recognize themselves as ‘subjects to history’” (Karpinski 47). A “subject to history,” as Karpinski writes, is someone who explores the events without being neither the “perpetrators nor [the] most immediate and … devastated victims, but [the] historic onlookers: [the] witnesses” (Karpinski 47). This definition can be extended to that of an “unthreatening individual” because it tells of a character that does not have proper motive to pose as a threat (e.g. plot for vengeance), but is concurrently not un-opinionated or unaffected. In Obasan’s case, while the events are drastically life changing for Naomi, those that she is aware of that occur to her are not, in her opinion, worth agonizing over. In fact, Naomi is often seen as wanting to let the past go; she insists that “‘Life is so short. . .the past so long. Shouldn't we turn the page and move on?’” (Kowaga 51). In response to Naomi’s attitude to the subject, there is her Aunt Emily (who can be argued as the most “threatening” character in the novel), whose feelings are quite opposite: “‘The past is the future,’ Aunt Emily shot back” (Kowaga 51). Because of Naomi’s dismissal of her Aunt’s contrary outlook, her narration is very passive, fitting perfectly with the previous definition of an “unthreatening” individual. It is not until much later in the book, when it is revealed to Naomi what occurred to her mother – who was caught in and killed by the American atomic bombing in Nagasaki – which she truly feels as though these events should demand an answering justice, or apology, from Canada.
In the novel, Canada’s democratic values and moral pedestal are made a topic of controversy, and put under much emphasis. The Canadian dream – as established in Obasan – is most fought for by Aunt Emily, whom Naomi describes as “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” (Kowaga 39). Although the novel demands attention to Aunt Emily’s views of the racism and wrongness of Canada’s actions, the character’s description and Naomi’s view of her gives a her bit of comedic value and takes away from her seriousness. This, coupled with her being a woman, demands the reader see her as overall “unthreatening.” Additionally, Karpinski has analyzed that “not without significance is also the fact that the book has been praised for its lack of “explicit political or didactic intent” (53). It is not overly lecture like of a novel, and maintains a firm neutrality in its handling of politics, which is an outstanding quality that allows for it to be a much more “unthreatening” read. For example, the political history in novel is mostly demonstrated through newspaper clippings and letters from the government – distancing a subjective outlook on the facts because they are shown as they were at the time. One of the important documents used to do this is a pamphlet entitled “Racial Discrimination by Orders-in-Council,” which lists the injustices put upon the Japanese-Canadian community (Kowaga 40). Another point to be made is that at no point does the novel demand that its truth is the only truth – a very liberating quality that is important for the non Japanese-Canadian readers. The statement, “‘Grinning and happy’ and all smiles standing around a pile of beets? That is one telling. It's not how it was,” which Naomi makes when she reads an external document recounting the Japanese experience during WWII, is very important because it calls out the different perspectives history has (Kowaga 236). By accepting that there will always be more than “one telling” of events, the author allows readers to feel unpressured and “unthreatened” by this particular telling; the reader feels fully in control of how they take the story, and its truth.
However, Obasan’s “unthreatening” nature is what makes it able to change the views and expand the understanding of a wide-range white Canadians. The novel does this through establishing the perspective of “unthreateningly” presented characters who consider themselves Canadian, even after the tragic and unjust events they face. Written and told entirely in the Japanese-Canadian perspective – not just Naomi’s, but also Aunt Emily’s, as seen in her diary entries, and Naomi’s mother’s, as seen shortly at the end of the novel, the notion of being both Japanese and Canadian is completely normalized in the narrative. For the characters, there is no other reality – they are who they are, and unfortunately they are being singled out for it. “I skimmed over the pages till I came across a statement underlined and circled in red: I am Canadian. The circle was drawn so hard the paper was torn. (Kowaga 47),” is one example of Aunt Emily’s battle with maintaining her Canadian identity. Additionally, when keeping up with the war, Naomi’s family adjusts to Canada’s losses and victories in the same way white Canadians do. Naomi tell us of these in passing, but her small family and herself – particularly her brother – celebrate or mourn them all the same: “When Germany surrenders [Naomi’s brother] tacks the headline page over his bed” (Kowaga 190). This gives the characters a patriotic quality that is relatable and allows white Canadians to connect to. There are many instances throughout the book wherein this occurs, the characters constantly re-establishing their Canadian-ness.
One of the most impactful moments in Obasan happens when Naomi notes that “Wherever the words ‘Japanese race’ appeared [in a document she is reading], Aunt Emily had crossed them out and written ‘Canadian citizen.’ ‘What this country did to us, it did to itself,’ she said” (Kogawa 40). Her words and behaviour are not spiteful, but mournful, because they recognize the crimes that Canada committed against its own identity and democratic values. Karpinski also argues that through “selective and guarded … voicing of its criticism” – such as that of the patriotic values the characters emanate – “the narrative employs a masking device of “shaming” white Canada into recognition of the betrayal of its own democratic standards” (54). This specific quotation with in the novel is purposefully used by Kowaga as a means to help white Canadians understand their racist past. Overall, it can be argued that the patriotic quality, of the “unthreateningly” presented characters of Japanese-Canadian ethnicity, as well as their mourning of Canada’s values, have the power to inflict shame on white Canada.
Kowaga also does a successful job of making the blatant racism within the country during WWII a noticeable and tangible thing. Especially because the novel is written in the normalized Japanese-Canadian point of view, it emphasizes events that white Canada may have dismissed, but that posed a real problem or injustice to the Japanese that resided in the nation. Obasan “bridg[es] the gap between writing and political activism” states Karpinski, which is to say that the piece of literature was both a creative masterpiece, but also an important telling of a history of problematic political racism (46). The following quotes (both from Aunt Emily), “‘Why in a time of war with Germany and Japan would our government seize the property and homes of Canadian-born Canadians but not the homes of German-born Germans?’” and “Obviously white Canadians feel more loyalty toward white foreigners than they do toward us Canadians” are tell-tale of the blatant racism the novel explores (Kowaga 45, 112). The “unthreatening” presentation of the ethnic group being targeted only further highlight this racism, more effectively pushing past the prejudice of white Canadians. By coupling the narrative with accurate history, Kowaga is able to reach more readers. At one point in the novel, Aunt Emily argues that Canada’s ability for racism seems far worse than that of the States. She says “‘The American Japanese were interned as we were in Canada, and sent off to concentration camps, but […] we've never recovered from the dispersal policy,’” going as far to announce that, “‘But of course that was the government's whole idea—to make sure we'd never be visible again. Official racism was blatant in Canada’” (Kowaga 97). Naomi hears this, and quickly dismisses it, her attitude toward her Aunt lessening the “threatening” nature of the statement, but not erasing it. The author does this throughout the novel, maintaining a passive and peaceful narration that neutralizes the haunting and sharp facts that are laid out. Without being overtly aggressive in its revealing of the victim’s perspective of Canada’s crimes, the novel is capable of making white Canadians further analyze their own country’s history and come to their own conclusions. At the end of Obasan, there is a moment where Naomi, now knowing all of her history, reflects on her Canadian citizenship:
Where do any of us come from in this cold country? Oh, Canada, whether it is admitted or not, we come from you we come from you.[...]We come from the country that plucks its people out like weeds and flings them into the roadside.[...]We come from Canada, this land that is like every land, filled with the wise, the fearful, the compassionate, the corrupt. (Kowaga 271)
This is an important moment because it acknowledges that Naomi fully considers Canada as her own country, no matter the losses she’s suffered from it. It also acknowledges the wrongdoings Canada committed in a way that speaks to all Canadians, not just those of Japanese heritage.
In conclusion, Joy Kowaga’s novel is of the most importance, not only as a survivor’s tale, but also as a catalyst in Canada’s search for self-identity, “forcing Canada to undergo a radical change in its “communal knowledge” of itself as a nation” (Karpinski 46). Japanese-Canadians – which, as Aunt Emily constantly repeats – are no different than Canadian citizens. However, Obasan wrestles against the notion that the events occurring to them during the Second World War were acceptable – or Canadian. One can argue that the novel is able to impact white Canadians to embrace their country’s past and injustices, helping their understanding of this by portraying the Japanese-Canadian’s as “unthreatening” and Canadian.
Works Cited
Karpinski, Eva C.“The Book as (Anti)National Heroine: Trauma and Witnessing in Joy Kogawa’s Obasan.” 2006. https://courses.ryerson.ca/d2l/le/content/119812/fullscreen
/1672353/View. Accessed Nov. 20 2017.
Kogawa, Joy. Obasan. Anchor Books, 1994.
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