How would you feel if you were imprisoned for three and a half years just
because your parents come from a different country? This is the situation the
family in Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor was Divine find themselves in. Sadly,
the father of the family gets taken away; then, a few months later, the rest of
the family - the man's wife, son, and daughter- get taken as well and are brought
to a horse racing track that is their “home” for the summer. After that they were
sent by train to this prison camp in Utah for around three and a half years.
Throughout this novel I believe the family changes to cope with the
discrimination against them.
The family stops doing things that are normal for them after the father gets
taken in and arrested for espionage the day after Pearl Harbor. The mother
sends the boy and girl to school with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches instead
of what they usually have in their lunch pails.
‘The next day, for the first time ever, she sent the boy and his sister to school
with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in there lunch pails. “No more rice
balls,” she said “And if anyone asks, you’re Chinese.”’
Page 75
She says this because she knows that they will be picked on much less if they say
they are Chinese than if they say that they are Japanese. I think that the
Chinese were more accepted into the American society than Japanese
immigrants considering that Japan just bombed Hawaii and that America is
helping China.
On the way to the camp in Utah the girl meets Ted. He is another person on
the train. She tells him about her father and how he was taken away. Ted asks if
he writes to her and she lies and says that he doesn’t write to her at all when she
has kept everyone of the letters he has written to her.
‘When she came out she held the door open. “My father never writes to me,”
she said, even though this was not true. He had written to her every week
since his arrest last December and she had saved every single one of his
postcards.’
Page 34
I think she says this because there father isn’t really a part of there life any
more and so she acts like it. She thinks that he will not ever be back and doesn’t
want anything to do with him. I also think that she say this because she doesn’t
want to be discriminated among her own kind.
After three and a half years at the camp the family is able to go back home.
Before they left the camp they had to have a lecture on “How to Behave in the
Outside World”. The mother is offered a job in a department in a small dark
room in the back but, she declines it.
‘“The position’s just been filled,” she was told again and again. Or, “We
wouldn’t want you to upset the other employees.”… they would not hire her as
a cashier because they were afraid of offending the customers. Instead they
offered … where no one could see her but she politely declined.’
Page 128
I think she declined the job offer because she has come to the realization that
she is who she is and should have a job that someone of her color should, that
she is “below”, “less than” the American people. So she gets a job as a cleaning
lady. I think that she just gives up at the end and accepts who she is as a
Japanese immigrant.
The family in this story gets discriminated against all through out this book.
Because of the discrimination the family changes a lot. This book has taught me
not to discriminate some one just because they look, act, or are from some
where different than I am/do. This one line stood out to me the most, when they
got home people had written very, very offensive things on the wall,
‘several months later, when we had money to buy paint, we did, but for years
we couldn’t get those words out of our heads.’
When you discriminate some one, what you say stays with them for a very long
time.
Gender:
Points: 6931
Reviews: 68