R2 - Rachael Furman

Sarah Feldberg

Yamamoto also made me contemplate “silence” as a predominant trope of oppression – I’ve certainly encountered feminist and post-colonial texts which treat this as a prevailing issue (Gilbert and Qubar certainly mention it; Adrienne Rich titled a selection of essays “On Lies, Secrets and Silence”” – and I’m aware of Tillie Olsen’s narrative as well) and yet Yamamoto made me really think about this apparently simplistic or self-evident theme. I found Esther incredibly relatable – and Elliot’s depiction of Yamamoto’s own life and works rang a chord with me as well) I could relate to the self-effacement; the arguably avoidant characteristics; the retreat from the contentious sphere of journalism that Yamamoto’s detractor took such issue with) and also her ambivalence and ultimate refusal to attend an elitist institution (Stanford).

Marlene McManus

The JACL, as described in the film [“Rabbit in the Moon”] were “jackals,” veritable traitors to their community who “wholeheartedly embraced” the treatment America was giving all Japanese Americans, even to the extent of collaborating with their oppressors and urging their peers to do so as well (Omori). They are a real-life and large scale example of the “consenting voices” whom Yamamoto tells of. When the acts of the JACL had such a direct impact upon her life, how can Yamamoto’s repeated exposé of similar perpetrators in their “sins of omission” not be a reaction to her life in the internment camps? […] [H]ow can her writing lack political will?

Jean Dao

Perhaps it is because I have never had much of a formal education surrounding American treatment of the Chinese [oppression] or Japanese internment, but the literary representations do not seem to be too far from the truth when compared to the historical accounts. Of course, the authors take liberties to create fictional stories around fictional characters, yet the overall effects is not one of diluted information; it does rather the opposite and brings readers into a world that they otherwise might consider to be irrelevant by introducing the historical subject matter in context and using characters that readers can relate more easily to. Truthfully, I found it much easier to read Kingston’s China Men than “Searching for Gold Mountain,” if only for the reason that Kingston was able to spin culture, history, and raw emotion into a fictional interpretation of true historical events.

Alexa Ebert

As “Sins of Omission” points out, her [Miss Sasagawara’s] madness isn’t described in the piece as a direct result of the internment camp, but it can be implied through her actions, which is where the amount of political will implied becomes sketchy. I think that Yamamoto does this purposely because she wants the reader to interpret the piece in their own way. Although I can also see the criticism given for Yamamoto not directly saying Miss Sasagawara is the way she is due to the internment camps because it makes her political will seem almost lacking. If you don’t understand that Miss Sasagawara represents the negativity of Japanese life in internment camps, it’s hard to get something historical out of the piece. I think she should’ve definitely been more politically radical.

Andrew Anderson

An alternative aspect of the criticism of Yamamoto’s work may have to do with the fact that her characters never adopt a firm stance against the injustice that they see. However, it’s clear from reading Elliott’s piece that Yamamoto felt from early on that her characters didn’t have to voice their opinions for those opinions to exist and be known. Yamamoto didn’t believe that Babo’s silence diminished his character even though the popular view held that his silence signified “a void of consciousness and morality.” The critics of her work may simply be mistaking her silence of Yamamoto’s characters for complacency. When in reality their silence might be the same kind of “articulate silence” that caused Yamamoto to identify and sympathize with Babo.

Marian Stacey

Reading through "The Legend of Miss Sasagawara," I began to feel as though Yamamoto wrote Kiku to represent what she had been like at the Poston Relocation Center, but Yamamoto created the internee that she wished she could have been with the character of Miss Sasagawara. Miss Sasagawara's insanity, be it natural or assumed, had moments of clear rebellion that were often misunderstood by her fellow internees. For example; she holds up the Christmas present sent by (presumably white) Americans, the peach colored towel, "so that is could be fully seen, and everyone clapped again." When Miss Sasagawara holds the towel it's almost as if she's saying, 'This is what I get for living in a prison?,' but no one seems to understand her message. After Yamamoto was released and went to college, she became very involved in the civil rights movement, but "Wilshire Bus" could be read as a meditation on how little anyone can do in a moment.

Editor Response - Rachael Furman

The response papers from this week were both articulate and varied in opinion. Carefully examining the historical and literary perspectives represented in the past two weeks’ group of readings, the responses that I edited all pointed to the concept of character as a driving force of reliability and relatability and indirectly addressed issues of narrative technique and authorial authenticity.

Pointing to the discrepancy in expectation between historical and “literary” writings, the response papers sampled here all address to some extent the means by which literary works have a greater latitude, or proverbial “bag of tricks” by which to draw the reader into historical and uncomfortable truths. Focusing upon emotional intensity and relatability of character, we can come to see Ester and Miss Sasagawara as profoundly human specimens of Yamamoto’s underlying thesis that willpower and political dissent need not be domineering and loud to be present and nonetheless powerful. Effectively prioritizing emotional appeal and an a priori conceptualization of universal humanness over hard and cold facts, we see that by identifying with the characters of a piece and analyzing their methods of coping in the face of oppression we can comprehend to a greater extent to harm of racialization, fear, and oppression more so than via the medium of textbook or historical article. While the methodology and intent behind specifically Yamamoto’s pieces come in to question as the lack of overt political will comes into question, it becomes clear that literary technique lays a heavy hand over the various sociopolitical interpretations of a piece.

Extending this argument to the concept of authorial authority, the consensus of the week’s responses is that personal accounts and first hand knowledge of racial oppression both through internment and general experience color this week’s readings with reliability and embroider the facts of Japanese and Chinese ways of living in a white world with emotional pull. Combining these facts that are no longer personally removed from life with fictional representations of these events brings the reader closer to comprehending the plight of the character, author, and thus historical figure, than initially possible. While the presence of political will in Yamamoto’s pieces is still debatable, primarily because of our inability to identify it as either a literary technique or as a tenuous approach towards politicism, it is indubitable that her writings strike a chord with the students in our class, and resonate on a level deeper than the obvious surface meaning of the words on the page.