This book is absolutely fabulous. Kogawa, who herself was a Canadian citizen forced to evacuate the west coast of her country because of Japanese heritage, shares the complexities of what Japanese Canadians experienced in WWII when they were evacuated from the coast (and not allowed to return until April 1949).

Grim. Determined. An ever gentle soliloquy.

7.7.

This book is on the list of the top 100 books every Canadian should read.

It is a heart wrenching story of the internment of a family of Japanese descent living in British Columbia, and their dispersal following the war.

n  The Government makes paper airplanes out of our lives and flies us out the windows. Some people return home. Some do not. War they all say, is war, and some people survive.n

Out of all the countries in the world, Canada is the one I have most seriously considered for emigration purposes. The stereotypes Americans have for that northern border are notorious; kind, peaceful, oh so funny with their maple syrup and their Mounties, Mounties being a nickname for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, shortened to RCMP and used with devastating effect within the pages of this book. As the popularly Socrates attributed quote exclaims, one that in actuality is not found within the realms of Plato's character craft of his esteemed teacher: I know that I know nothing.

The internment and systematic persecution of the Japanese people in both the United States and Canada is not a popular topic in literature. For every mountain of WWII, there is a granule such as this, yet another book that I wished had replaced one of the multiple Shakespeare's, Dickens', and all those other 'classics' stretching their claws out of their high and mighty grave. Leave me to discover those old and venerated folks on my own when I have the benefit of longer years and heavier thoughts; I'd rather I was led to works more of my own time, so that I may gain a better picture of the world currently around me before foraging in the dry and dusty tombs of my chosen calling.

I will not compare this crime against humanity to others, for that only paves the way to misunderstanding and rampant disrespect. I will lay it out as how it was told to me within this book; how the Japanese were exiled from their homes, how they had the choice of shoddy internment camps or the long voyage back to Japan, how their belongings were sold and their families torn to pieces and Canada methodically gouged out its heart and sloppily stitched it up, with boats and beets and hydrogen bombs. It is a story all too common in the ranks of nations no matter how democratically labeled, and the question is not of comparison to others, but that the tales, all of the tales, be told at all.

This tale is a deft and devious weaving of culture and of chaos, the memories of the young both convoluted and capricious when it comes to a parent's disappearance, a brother's avoidance, racism and abuse and ever the unexplained reasons for the change, the toil, the pain. Kodomo no tame; for the sake of the children, born to a peaceful melding of their family and their country, only to be wrested away on the backs of ostracization where white is supreme and board games decry the 'yellow peril'. Proof of loyalty of the people is changed to proof of betrayal by the government, where every step forward is two notches tightening of the noose and the facts are formulated into forms so brisk, so official, you would not believe the horror lying just beneath the printed surface. Ever the banality of evil, the crux of many a bureaucracy.

n  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. From the same soil, the slugs and slime and bogs and twigs and roots. We come from the country that plucks its people out like weeds and flings them into the roadside. We grow in ditches and sloughs, untended and spindly. We erupt in the valleys and mountainsides, in small towns and back alleys, sprouting upside down on the prairies, our hair wild as spiders' legs, our feet rooted nowhere. We grow where we are not seen, we flourish where we are not heard, the thick undergrowth of an unlikely planting. Where do we come from, Obasan? We come from cemeteries full of skeletons with wild roses in their grinning teeth. We come from our untold tales that wait for their telling. We come from Canada, this land that is like every land, filled with the wise, the fearful, the compassionate, the corrupt.n

Let the new flowers grow; our humanity lies in remembering the fruit that rotted and fell for the flowering.

Next to Surfacing and In the Skin of a Lion, Obasan belongs to a group of novels I had to read for a course on Canadian literature, which is why – having reviewed the other two books – I’d like to spend some thought on Kogawa’s novel as well!

Megumi Naomi Nakane, the protagonist and narrator, has Japanese ancestors, but has spent most of her life in Canada. In 1972, when she starts telling the story, she's a 36 year-old, unmarried school teacher. Up until that year, she used to go on a trip with her uncle (Isamu) annually. When she learns that he has died, she takes off to see Uncle’s wife, her aunt Obasan, and to spend some time with her. While Naomi as well as Obasan are quiet and passive, Naomi’s aunt Emily tries to stand up for her rights and to actively fight against racism and inequalities. When Naomi receives a box from Emily, she starts to think about the past, the destiny of her family during WWII, about her mother and the reason why she’s returned to Japan, and about Japanese Canadians in general.

Before reading Obasan, I had no idea about the hardships of Japanese immigrants in Canada, and North America in general. Neither did I know about the difficulties of Japanese emigrants in their home country. Another thing I’d like to mention is that this novel left me feeling somewhat sad, but maybe, learning about sad things that actually happened in history does that to you. The book is about traditional values and assimilation, about the past and the present. Altogether, I can very much recommend the novel! It’s one of those books you just have to read once in a lifetime (although I also think once is enough…).

Más largo que un año sin pan.
Creo que es muy importante el tema del que trata pero es que lo narra de una manera infumable sinceramente.
Son 263 páginas o 8000?

Silent Mother, you do not speak or write. You do not reach through the night to enter morning, but remain in the voicelessness. From the extremity of much dying, the only sound that reaches me now is the sigh of your remembered breath, a wordless word. How shall I attend that speech, Mother, how shall I trace that wave?

Had the potential to be a good book, and is a very important part of history that needs to be told, but found myself skipping over large sections of the book as it was just boring!

I've been working on this book for a while, and I finally finished it this weekend. It was a really tough read for a few reasons - first, the language is poetic and flowery and very metaphorical, which makes it a hard book to pick up unless you're ready to really concentrate. Second, the book is about the treatment of Canadian Japanese people during the Second World War, and it's really difficult to reconcile the actions of the Canadian government with the way that most of us like to think of Canada.

(Some spoilers)

The book takes place in the 80's, when the narrator (Nomi or Naomi) learns that her uncle has died. Her aunt, Obasan (Japanese for "aunt" or "old lady") and her uncle (called only "Uncle) raised her after she was separated from her parents during the Second World War. Nomi is going through her uncle's belongings and remembering.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Canadians of Japanese descent were considered a threat to the West Coast of Canada. Their business licenses were revoked, and their business property (fishing boats, stores) were taken by the government and given to "good, hardworking" Canadians (i.e. white).

Then, any Canadian Japanese dual-citizens, or new immigrants from Japan, were sent back to Japan. This caused an uproar among the remaining people of Japanese descent, and the book includes a collection of letters written from Nomi's Aunt Emily to Nomi's mother, who has been sent back to Japan. This part of the book was an easy read - Aunt Emily's writing style is very concise and concrete compared to Nomi's. However, this is where we first get the full picture of what is happening in Canada - Nomi is only 4 years old when this happens and she is doing her best to understand why her family is broken apart and homeless, but obviously has a lot of areas of confusion, even with the help of hindsight.

Aunt Emily talks about how she is shocked that the international community isn't stepping in to stop Canada's actions in exiling the Japanese Canadians, how what is happening in Canada is exactly what the Nazis are doing and what Canada and America are supposedly fighting against. She keeps repeating, we are Canadian, we are Canadian, which is important to remember - in Canada, they were told that ethnicity did not matter, that as someone born here and raised on Canadian soil, you are Canadian and always welcome. It is becoming clear that this was a lie and that how you look is all that matters. She points out, the German Canadians were not exiled and have not lost their property.

The remaining Japanese Canadians are rounded up. Men within a certain age bracket are put into internment camps. The others are sent to "ghost towns" - former mining towns in the mountains which have been abandoned for years. Nomi and her family settle here, surviving off the land, until they are relocated again. They apply to the government for permission to move to the east coast, where Canadians of Japanese descent are allowed to live freely. Only Aunt Emily is granted permission, and she moves to Toronto.

When the war ends, they are relocated again to another town, a less remote town which has a school and amenities. Nomi and her brother are allowed to enroll at school, though they are still treated poorly by white students and teachers.

In the end, Nomi is able to piece together what happened to her parents - her father, who was in an internment camp, and her mother, who was sent to Japan. The book was an exhausting read and I finished the ending in one horrified reading session this weekend. I think it was a very important book to read (it was given to me in elementary school and I've owned it without reading it since then) and I think it's important these days especially, since it's possible to see how "protective measures" by the government can actually just be racism and xenophobia and can quickly spiral into the type of behaviour for which we condemned the Nazis.

No book I've ever read has ever broken my heart like this one. I cried on the bus heading home from school, cried late at night reading tucked under the covers, an cried again in the morning, sitting in the Arts Undergrad Society student lounge. But more often than not, I sat silently, awash in the stark and simple beauty of Kogawa's prose, numb with sorrow too great for tears or shaking with anger at the wrongs my country, my government committed against the Nisei, against people more Canadian than Canada, more Canadian than the politicians that legislated their gross abuse.
Obasan is achingly beautiful, but it is more than that, it is the most important, the most necessary book a Canadian has ever written. There are no words that we need to hear more, yesterday, today and tomorrow. I learned of the residential schools in High School, we talk of the atrocities we committed and continue to commit towards our First Nations brothers and sisters, but even today, Kogawa's story is the great and untold history of our time.

As an American, I have long known about the history of the US forcing residents of Japanese descent, including American citizens, into internment camps during WWII. I had never given any thought to what Canada did with residents of Japanese descent during the war. Kogawa’s story of a Japanese Canadian family during the war and afterwards is loosely based on her own childhood. I won’t relate all that occurred in the book since I encourage anyone who doesn’t know this history or who is eager to hear a voice from one who lived through the horror to read Obasan. But now I know that Canada, which I have always seen as more tolerant and beneficent than the US, was no better in this case and in one aspect worse than the US regarding its treatment of Japanese during and after the war.

Obasan is the Japanese word for aunt, and the obasan in this story is an incredibly strong woman. She has to raise two young children during the war and afterward who are not her own. She keeps the family together during the worst kind of mistreatment by one’s own country. The story is told from the viewpoint of Naomi Nakane, a Canadian citizen who was four years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed and who was raised by her great aunt whom she calls Obasan. The story is told by Naomi as a woman in her mid-thirties in 1971 and as flashbacks to her childhood. It is a compelling story of survival by a family that has tragedy forced upon it through no fault of their own during the war. It is a story of injustice and sadness, of determination and secrecy. It is a moving and necessary story, especially at a time when it is obvious that certain countries are still capable of seeing people living legally in their country as “other” and making their lives miserable so they will hopefully leave. 4.5 stars

I am surprised by how many people have never read this book. Kogawa documents a dark part of our history that every person should be aware of. A must for every library.

********

Introduction:

There is a silence that cannot speak.
There is a silence that will not speak.
Beneath the grass the speaking dreams and beneath the dreams is a sensate sea. The speech that frees comes forth from that amniotic deep. To attend its voice, I can hear it say, is to embrace its absence. But I fail the task. The word is stone.
I admit it.
I hate the stillness. I hate the stone. I hate the sealed vault with its cold icon. I hate the staring into the night. The questions thinning into space. The sky swallowing the echoes.
Unless the stone bursts with telling, unless the seed flowers with speech, there is in my life no living word. The sound I hear is only sound. White sound. Words, when they fall are pock marks on the earth. They are hailstones seeking an underground stream.
If I could follow the stream down and down to the hidden voice, would I come at last to the freeing word? I ask the night sky but the silence is steadfast. There is no reply.