Obasan paints a diverse portrait of Japanese Canadians in the mid- to late 20th century, but despite their differences, the Japanese Canadian characters all share the struggle of reconciling their Japanese and Canadian identities. Most Sansei and Nisei (third- and second-generation immigrants) consider themselves more Canadian than Japanese, though this perception is challenged during World War II, when the government makes clear that it sees all Japanese Canadians as first and foremost Japanese. The government deems all Japanese Canadians “enemy aliens” and imprisons them in internment camps. Emily’s journal from the 1940s shows her shift from a patriotic Nisei woman with faith in her country and pride in her Canadian identity to the Aunt Emily Naomi knows as an adult, who believes that although Canada is a fundamentally racist state, she is still a Canadian and must fight for a more just Canada. On the other hand, the Issei (first-generation immigrants) like Obasan and Uncle largely consider themselves primarily Japanese, but they are less critical of Canada than characters like Emily. Uncle insists that “in the world, there is no better place” than Canada, and that Japanese Canadians should be grateful for the right to live there despite the injustices they have suffered. Meanwhile, Naomi’s brother Stephen develops a disdain for Japanese culture and refuses to speak the Japanese language, finding career success and avoiding some of the alienation his family suffers, but also cutting himself off from a major part of his past. Obasan does not argue for one correct way to be Japanese Canadian; rather, it highlights the diversity within the Japanese Canadian community and the inherent trauma of attempting to come to terms with one’s identity in a nation that is openly hostile to one of the most significant elements of that identity.
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Race, Identity, and Citizenship ThemeTracker
Race, Identity, and Citizenship Quotes in Obasan
“What a beauty,” the RCMP officer said in 1941 when he saw it. He shouted as he sliced back through the wake, “What a beauty! What a beauty!”
That was the last Uncle saw of the boat. And shortly thereafter, Uncle too was taken away, wearing shirt, jacker, and dungarees. He had no provisions, nor did he have any idea where the gunboats were herding him and the other Japanese fishermen in the impounded fishing fleet.
The memories were drowned in a whirlpool of protective silence. Everywhere I could hear the adults whispering, “Kodomo no tame. For the sake of the children…” Calmness was maintained.
“Write the vision and make it plain. Habakkuk 2.2”
Dear Aunt Em is crusading still. […] For her, the vision is the truth as she lives it. When she is called like Habakkuk to the witness stand, her testimony is to the light that shines in the lives of the Nisei, in their desperation to prove themselves Canadian, in their tough and gentle spirit. The truth for me is more murky, shadowy and gray. But on my lap, her papers are wind and fuel nudging my early-morning thoughts to flame.
The Custodian’s reply to Aunt Emily must have been the same to anyone else who dared to write. “Be good, my undesirable, my illegitimate children, be obedient, be servile, above all don’t send me any letters of inquiry about your homes, while I stand on guard (over your property) in the true north strong, though you are not free. B. Good.”
Out loud I said, “Why not leave the dead to bury the dead?”
“Dead?” she asked. “I’m not dead. You’re not dead. Who’s dead?”
“But you can’t fight the whole country,” I said.
“We are the country.”
Obasan was not taking part in the conversation. When pressed, finally she said that she was grateful for life. “Arigati. Gratitude only.”
[…] “In the world, there is no better place,” [Uncle] said.
“What a serious baby––fed on milk and Momotaro.”
“Milk and Momotaro?” I asked. “Culture clash?”
“Not at all,” she said. “Momotaro is a Canadian story. We’re Canadian, aren't we? Everything a Canadian does is Canadian.”
All Nisei are liable to imprisonment if we refuse to volunteer to leave. At least that is the likeliest interpretation of Ian Mackenzie's “Volunteer or else” statement. […] Why do they consider us to be wartime prisoners? Can you wonder that there is a deep bitterness among the Nisei who believed in democracy?
None of us, [Aunt Emily] said, escaped the naming. We were defined and identified by the way we were seen. A newspaper in B.C. headlined: “They are a stench in the nostrils of people of Canada.” We were therefore relegated to the cesspools.
It is always so. We must always honor the wishes of others before our own. We will make the way smooth by restraining emotion. Though we might wish Grandma and Grandpa to stay, we must watch them go. To try to meet one’s own needs in spite of the wishes of others is to be “wagamama”—selfish and inconsiderate. Obasan teaches me not to be wagamama by always heeding everyone’s needs. That is why she is waiting patiently beside me at this bridge. That is why, when I am offered gifts, I must first refuse politely. It is such a tangle trying to decipher the needs and intents of others.
The Yellow Peril is a Somerville Game, Made in Canada.
It was given to Stephen at Christmas. On the red-and-blue box cover is a picture of soldiers with bayonets and fists raised high looking out over a sea full of burning ships and a sky full of planes. A game about war. Over a map of Japan are the words:
The game that shows how
a few brave defenders
can withstand a very
great number of enemies.
There are fifty small yellow pawns inside and three big blue checker kings. To be yellow in the Yellow Peril game is to be weak and small. […] I am not yellow. I will not cry however much this nurse yanks my hair.
The crowd stands aside, waving steadily, bowing, touching arms here and there, and then they are out of view and I’m clambering up the train steps again as I did three years ago.
We sit in two seats facing each other once more, exactly like the last time. Where is Father? […] Where are we going? Will it be to a city? Remember my doll? Remember Vancouver? The escalators? Electric lights? Streetcars? Will we go home again ever?
And I am tired, I suppose, because I want to get away from all this. From the past and all these papers, from the present, from the memories, from the deaths, from Aunt Emily and her heap of words. I want to break loose from the heavy identity, the evidence of rejection, the unexpressed passion, the misunderstood politeness. I am tired of living between deaths and funerals, weighted with decorum, unable to shout or sing or dance, unable to scream or swear, unable to laugh, unable to breathe out loud.
(Keep your eyes down. When you are in the city, do not look into anyone's face. That way they may not see you. That way you offend less.)
I know Obasan is praying. I’ve seen her before––the time Stephen leapt out of bed in the middle of the night yelling, “I’ve got to get out of here,” and ran down the road away from the farm in the dark. Obasan sat at the table and prayed till he returned. He said when he came back he’d had a nightmare. Something about a metallic insect the size of a tractor, webbing a grid of iron bars over him. (Later, he told me he had the same nightmare again, but escaped the web by turning the bars into a xylophone.)
The comments are so incessant and always so well-intentioned. “How long have you been in this country? Do you like our country? […] Have you ever been back to Japan?”
Back?
[…] 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. […] 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.
