Book Club

Our Relief Society Book Club read The Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka this month. Tonight I hosted our discussion and I must say that on second reading, the book was immensely more sad than the first time through. I think I picked up on more of the symbolism. It's written so tersely, that it's easy to fly through without feeling the full impact of passages like:

They offered her work adding up sales slips in a small dark room in the back where no one could see her but she politely declined. "I was afraid I'd ruin my eyes back there," she told us. "I was afraid I might accidentally remember who I was and . . . offend myself."

The book is about a family of Japanese Americans from Berkeley who are sent to live out the rest of WWII at Topaz Internment Camp in Utah. The characters are nameless, which makes the story an allegory for all of the thousands who were shipped off as "alien enemies" when the U.S. government reacted to Pearl Harbor.

What really gets me, though, is the part at the end where the kids come back to their home in California after the war and their neighbors ignore them because they don't know how to react. I'm sure many of them were afraid or angry because of the horrible things their fathers and brothers had suffered at the hands of the Japanese army overseas. I kept wondering how I would have acted toward the Japanese who came back to my neighborhood after being in the camps. The book describes many people ignoring the internees or acting like they'd just been gone on an extended vacation. I'm a conflict avoider and I bet that's exactly how I would have been. "Hi. It's been awhile. Good to see you. Did you have a nice time out there living in the Utah desert in a wooden shack with no furniture and only one blanket to guard against the winter chill?"

I've been racking my brain and I can't ever remember being taught about the Japanese Internment in school. Which is strange, since we sure spent a lot of time memorizing the cities and counties of Utah. You'd think they might have mentioned the Topaz camp near Delta during one of those chapters.

If you're as ignorant as I am, read The Emperor Was Divine. And check out this online resource. I found the Topaz High School Yearbook particularly moving.