R2 Response: Micah Martin

Mary Martin:

"A small class example reinforced the absence or inadequate education at all levels of American schooling regarding Japanese-American internment in the United States during WWII. As a result, Yamamoto's political tone and the importance of her work is heightened in the cases where it is utilized many decades after the original publication to reverse "sins of omission." However, as one who is guilty of such a sin, her literary body as an educational tool could unintentionally result in my own analysis and political will of such events being injected into the piece. As so many readers do the same, the initial state of Yamamoto's politics (existent or not) become untraceable.

Anna Malefatto:

"I believe that Yamamoto's goal is not to indict Esther for her sin, but to portray how difficult it is to oppose the dominant majority beliefs, even when you know they are unjust and cause pain in the lives of so many. In his articles, Matthew Elliot touches on this point. He notes that Esther's experience is based on Yamamoto's own experience with a sin of omission that she later realized had caused serious damage. I believe that Yamamoto is expressing her own guilt in "Wilshire Bus." In the end, I think the statement the story makes is that one should not be complicit with the injustices served by the dominant majority, both for the sake of others and also to prevent more pain for oneself."

Rebecca Meekins:

"Both Takaki and Kingston have valid historical accounts of the plight of the Chinese man in America. Neither is more accurate than the other, just explained through different mediums. However, the point is made clear through both readings, that life was dangerous, difficult, and unfair for the Chinese immigrant in America. And I believe both articles suggest that perhaps, these difficulties still exist today for Chinese Americans."

Dan Parker:

"The Japanese narrator of Hisaye Yamamoto's Wilshire Bus, witnesses a racist act of drunken verbal assault that, while seemingly isolating only the individual Chinese victim, effectively serves as an all-inclusive derision that simultaneously encompasses Esther. Upon this realization, she returns to the patriarchal home with tears in her eyes both to be greeted by her husband with a patronizing pat on the head, and to fulfill her role as the weak, irrational, emotionally unstable female:

"What's the matter? You've been missing me a whole lot, huh?" And she, finally drying her eyes, sniffed and nodded and bravely smiled and answered him with the question, yes, weren't women silly." (Yamamoto 38)."

Chang Liu:

"From the three readings, I notice that Hisaye Yamamoto really knows how to depict human’s psychological activities through her clear and careful narrative style of writing. In her writing, she is able to grab small pieces of emotion of the characters and put them together to deliver her actual feeling.


Response: Micah Martin

The week's readings have provoked a variety of responses on the subject of Yamamoto's politics and/or "political will," but the overriding impression seems to be one of subtlety and understatement. Yamamoto, while sometimes outside the spectrum of so-called authentic political involvement, uses something akin to nervous quasi-awareness to provide momentary breaches in the subdued, normalistic tone of her fiction. The frightening outside world intrudes in pauses and breaks, trailed-off sentences and uncomfortable dialogue.

But while Yamamoto may wield understatement with skill and attention to detail, her involvement in the radical politics of her subject matters can and does resonate as overly reserved. By stepping back from a direct confrontation of Japanese internment, Yamamoto suffers the predictable consequence of distancing herself from the point she attempts to convey in silence.