Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

by

Jamie Ford

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Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet: Records (1942) Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
Keiko is back in school, and working in the cafeteria again with Henry. One day, she tells Henry she has a surprise for him. “Because I’m storing all your photographs?” Henry asks. “No,” says Keiko, “this is for taking me to the Black Elks Club with you.” Keiko says she’ll show Henry the surprise on their way home from school. On the walk home that day, she takes him to a department store and shows him a vinyl record titled “Oscar Holden & the Midnight Blue, The Alley Cat Strut.” Henry is delighted. “This is our song, the one he played for us!” he cries.
The Oscar Holden record is a literal symbol of Henry and Keiko’s special relationship. It’s important to note the reason Keiko gives for wanting to gift the record to Henry: she’s felt grateful to him long before he agreed to help hide her family’s belongings. This suggests that Henry and Keiko’s friendship is based in a deep emotional connection.
Themes
Love and Self-Sacrifice Theme Icon
Keiko reveals that she saved her money to buy the record for Henry, and she invites him to her house to listen to it (since the record can’t be played on the Lees’ Victrola). “My parents want to meet you anyway,” Keiko says. This makes Henry nervous. “His parents,” he thinks, “probably would have nothing to do with Keiko. Were her parents that different?”
Because of the family he has grown up in, it is difficult for Henry to imagine a family that would be accepting of a person’s differences—despite the fact that Henry himself practices exactly this type of acceptance. The fact that Keiko is open with her parents about her friendship with Henry, and that her parents welcome this news, suggests to Henry for the first time that homes don’t have to be silent and parents don’t have to be bitter and exclusionary.
Themes
Family Dynamics and Inheritance Theme Icon
Love and Self-Sacrifice Theme Icon
Henry and Keiko take the record to the checkout counter, but the woman working there refuses to acknowledge them. When Keiko speaks up, saying, “I’d like to buy this record, please,” the woman hisses: “Then why don’t you go back to your own neighborhood and buy it?” She continues: “We don’t serve people like you—besides, my husband is off fighting…” Henry steps forward and puts his “I Am Chinese” button on the counter. “I’ll buy it,” he says.
The clerk’s biting hatred shows both how prejudiced and how ignorant she is. Because Henry and Keiko both look Asian to her, she assumes that they are both Japanese. She also projects her own fears for her husband’s safety onto two children, choosing to see them as potentially dangerous foreign adults.
Themes
Belonging, Bigotry, and Identity Theme Icon
Quotes
Reluctantly, the woman sells Henry the record. Henry pockets his button, and leads Keiko out of the store; he thinks that “the joy of her surprise” seems to have “popped like a helium balloon, loud and sharp.” When Keiko can finally speak she says she is used to being teased at school, “but this far from home, in a grown-up part of town” she had hoped she’d be treated better. Henry thinks, “At least we have the record […] A reminder of a place where […] when the music played, it didn’t seem to make one lick of difference if your last name was Abernathy or Anjou, Kung or Kobayashi.”
This is an important moment in Keiko’s character development, because it shows her optimism being challenged. Keiko has dared to hope that adults might treat her with more empathy and dignity than her classmates at Rainier Elementary—but the clerk’s hatred has just proved that this is not necessarily the case. Having witnessed his father’s own bigotry, Henry seems less surprised. Still, Henry is grateful that he and Keiko now have a literal reminder that a world like the one Keiko hopes for is possible: a world of music.
Themes
Belonging, Bigotry, and Identity Theme Icon
Love and Self-Sacrifice Theme Icon
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On their walk home, Henry and Keiko decide that Keiko should keep the record. Henry says, “My mother is always around, and I’m not sure she’d approve—because my father doesn’t like modern music.” As they continue walking, Henry and Keiko notice soldiers near the ferry terminal. They see hundreds of people de-boarding the ferry, and Henry realizes that Bainbridge Island, off the coast of Washington State, “must have been declared a military zone.” When Keiko asks where all the Bainbridge evacuees are being taken, Henry says he doesn’t know—but he silently notes that the Japanese families are being herded toward the train station.
Henry specifies that his mother would disapprove of the jazz record because his father would disapprove. This highlights what a domineering person Henry’s father is, and suggests that Henry might have had quite a different upbringing if his mother’s views had dictated the family’s norms. On a broader plot level, this scene is important because it foreshadows the evacuation and internment of all Japanese Americans on the mainland of Washington State—including the Okabes.
Themes
Belonging, Bigotry, and Identity Theme Icon
Family Dynamics and Inheritance Theme Icon
Henry and Keiko fight through the crowd and soon find Sheldon Thomas, who reveals that the Black Elks Club has been temporarily closed after the FBI raid. Henry shows Sheldon the Oscar Holden record he and Keiko have just bought, and Sheldon says he has a copy as well. Sheldon also says that he’s heard of a prison of war camp built in Nevada. “They pass some order saying they can round up all the Japanese, Germans, and Italians,” he says, “but do you see any Germans in that crowd? You see them rounding up Joe DiMaggio?”
Sheldon’s words in this scene are vitally important, as they emphasize that xenophobia is grounded in racism. White Americans are much more afraid and distrustful of immigrants—and of other Americans!—who don’t look like them, than they are of those who do. While the U.S. is at war with Germany, Italy, and Japan, it is only Japanese Americans who are being interned—suggesting clearly that racism is the driving factor in this government policy, as Sheldon points out.
Themes
Belonging, Bigotry, and Identity Theme Icon
Sheldon encourages Keiko to head home to her family. Henry should go home, too, he says. “Your family’s going to be just as worried. Button or no button.” Henry and Keiko say “a wordless goodbye” and then “each [run] in a different direction of home.”
Sheldon suspects that Henry’s family will be worried for his safety, even though they are not Japanese. This suggests what a slippery slope racist laws are; if it is this easy for the government to target its own citizens, perhaps Chinese Americans will be next, even though the U.S. is not at war with China.
Themes
Belonging, Bigotry, and Identity Theme Icon