Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Belonging, Bigotry, and Identity
Silence vs. Communication
Family Dynamics and Inheritance
Memory
Love and Self-Sacrifice
Summary
Analysis
Henry receives confirmation from Keiko that the Japanese prisoners will be moved farther inland, meaning that the Okabes will be leaving Camp Harmony. Keiko has been writing to Henry once a week; Henry’s mother has been sorting the mail before Henry’s father can see it, making sure her son gets Keiko’s letters. Keiko writes that Mr. Okabe has volunteered to go to Idaho, to help build Camp Minidoka. The rest of the family will be joining him there when the camp is ready.
Mr. Okabe’s action shows the lengths to which he is willing to go; he does not merely identify as an American, but he also acts like a model citizen, complying with his government even though it has deeply betrayed him and his fellow Japanese American citizens. Another important aspect of this passage is Henry’s mother’s small act of defiance. By assuring that Henry receives Keiko’s mail, Henry’s mother shows, however quietly, that she values her son’s happiness in a more understanding way than Henry’s father does.
Themes
Saturday comes, and Henry visits Keiko at Camp Harmony for the last time. He sneaks into the camp itself, not caring if he is caught, since it will be his last visit to Camp Harmony whether he is discovered or not. Henry finds the Okabes’ stall, which is in a barn where the prisoners are being housed. Henry knows it is the Okabes’ stall because there is a banner on it that reads “Welcome to the Panama Hotel.”
The Okabes’ sign shows that they have managed to retain their sense of humor and cheerfulness as a family, despite their circumstances. Their optimism stands in sharp contrast to the debasement to the American government is subjecting its own citizens to by forcing them to live in a barn.
Themes
Henry and Keiko talk about the Okabes’ imminent departure. Keiko says she wishes Henry could come with her, and Henry concurs. He then apologizes for the way he treated her on their first day at school together. “I was afraid of you,” he admits. “My father had said so many things—I just didn’t know what to think.” Henry struggles for the words to express his love for Keiko. All he can manage to say is “I’m going to miss you.” He can tell Keiko “look[s] crushed.”
In saying his goodbye to Keiko, Henry stumbles and is unable to break through the noncommunicative tendencies he has inherited from his father. This is an important plot point because Henry will come to regret the restrained goodbye he gives Keiko in this scene, and use this regret as a motivating factor to search for her after her family’s transfer to Idaho.
Themes
Henry and Keiko talk for another hour before Henry has to leave. Neither of them mentions again how much they will miss each other. Henry realizes that even though he is alone with Keiko, “they might as well [be] standing up at the visitor’s fence—Henry on one side, Keiko on the other—separated by razor wire.”
Henry’s feeling that he is on the other side of a razor wire from Keiko mirrors his feeling of living in a “separate ocean” from his father. This imagery suggests that silence can spread across relationships by becoming a fundamental pattern of behavior, a notion also played out in Henry’s relationship to his son, Marty.
Themes
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