"Obason"

Paper Summary:

Joy Kogawa's "Obason" tells a story that is both familiar to people living in the Western United States and yet subtly different, for hers is the story not of the displacement and internment of Japanese-Americans "a story that is by now relatively well known" but of Canadians of Japanese ancestry. The paper analyzes Kogawa's book, focusing on the protagonist, Naomi and her life as a Japanese living in World War Two Canada. The paper shows how "Obasan" uses a combination of personal narrative, lyrical outpourings, official letters and dreams to protest the treatment of Japanese-Canadians during World War II.

From the Paper:

"Throughout this novel "as is also true of much of the literature written by Japanese-Americans about the internment of themselves and their families during the war" runs the question of why they should be singled out for such treatment. This question is at the same time both valid and yet also troublingly naive. While it is certainly true that the Japanese-Americans and Japanese-Canadians who were interned were loyal citizens of their New World countries, they were also recent immigrants of a country that had attacked the United States. Japanese-Canadians were not the only ones to bear prejudice during World War II, for Germans and Italians often faced racist actions against themselves as well and neither Germany nor Italy had attacked the United States."

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