Journal Entry: Joy Kogawa's Obasan

Response: This is not the first time I've read Obasan. The first time I did was in 11th grade, and it is such a powerful book that it left a large impression on me; it made me realize that Canada has a history of which I am not, was not, fully aware. I found, and still find, parts of Obasan shocking. This current reading of it has made me realize I am conflicted between Aunt Emily and Naomi's different points of view: Aunt Emily constantly reminds everyone that they are Canadian, and is an activist for Japanese-Canadian rights, although she likely would not put it like that. Over the years, Emily has collected much correspondence with government officials regarding Japanese-Canadian rights, and speaks about it openly and without chagrin, which is very unlike Naomi, and other members of her family. Naomi does not want to dredge up the past, and prefers instead to forget and move on with the present. She is very uncomfortable with Emily's force of nature to remember and recall the past, because she believes without analyzing and correcting the past, there can be no future.

In the past, I could not understand why Naomi would not want to see injustices corrected or addressed. Now, I feel torn between the activism of Emily, and Naomi's silent determination to advance, leaving the past as past. However, I cannot understand Naomi's reluctance to address racism against Japanese-Canadians, as it effects her on a day-by-day basis.

Self-Critique: Obviously, my values have changed a great deal since 11th grade, which has been seven years. My life, opinions, and my literary and academic experience has changed exponentially, and naturally, my response to Obasan is a reflection of how much has changed. My knowledge of what occurred during the years Obasan takes place has increased, and so has how appalled I am to learn about Canada's involvement and passive approval of racism.

I feel I have lied, since I chose my phrases rather carefully while discussing Aunt Emily and Naomi in my response. I had originally written "Aunt Emily embraces being a Canadian," and found that phraseology troubling. Aunt Emily is Canadian, born and raised - why should she need to embrace what she is? But perhaps there's more to it than that. I believe that is an interpretation of Emily has presented herself, versus how Naomi has presented herself in the novel; Emily is forcibly Canadian, thrusting the word in Naomi's face, while Naomi has not said how she identifies in the novel, whether she feels more Japanese than Canadian, Canadian than Japanese, or both. I'm not entirely certain why I think it's important for Naomi to "identify" herself; I can only assume it is because I identify so strongly as Canadian that I cannot imagine why someone else would not want to identify strongly as something.

Cultural Critique: It is quite clear to me from reading this that I have white privilege, and my heritage is an "acceptable" Canadian heritage (i.e. Irish, British, Scottish, French, etc), both of which mean I, nor have many in the culture I share, have never had to experience any kind of the oppression they have, especially during such a turbulent time in WWII. The same culture prides itself on being open, honest and intolerant of inequality, yet I do not easily discover information about Japanese-Canadian internment, and I do not recall learning about it in depth during prior school years; it is a subject I've had to dig and find out things on my own. Why would such a culture hide its own intolerance in the past, which directly effects the future? Why not address it, come to terms with it, and make it so it will not occur again? Instead, this culture buries its shame, and refuses to allow it to resurface without a fight. This is a major conflict between what we are taught in school and what we actually learn from it.

Canadian culture is a passive one, which prefers to leave past in the past, and ignore ills against its own people, while at the same time pretending to fight for the right and freedom of people overseas! This is a confusing contradiction, and one that begs to be investigated further.