Mothertalk, part 5: A Bitter Pill to Swallow

This section covers the years starting from Mary and her family's experiences of the Second World War and the backlash against Japanese Canadians, and covers most of the years after that as well. It's very interesting to me to read about the Kiyooka family's experience during the war, because unlike most Japanese Canadian families, they had been living outside of BC for years prior to the forced relocation away from the coast. So while they weren't legally ordered to leave where they were, they still experienced severe discrimination which led them to leave Calgary for a farm in Opal, Alberta. In the end, though, much of what Mary describes sounds very familiar to those who know about Japanese Canadian history - having to leave their home behind, learning to farm from scratch, and even seeing her children grow up and marry non-Japanese women and men. How does the Kiyooka family's story fit into the overarching narratives of Japanese Canadian experience? What sounds familiar, and what is unusal or unique? How does your prior knowledge of Japanese Canadian history, whether it's a lot or a little, change the way you look at Mary's story?

For anyone who is newer to Japanese Canadian history, or wants a bit of a brush-up for this comparison, find a useful, quick overview here: http://www.japanesecanadianhistory.net/the_war_years.htm

Other things I'm thinking about:

What do you make of Mary's summary of each of her children's marital lives?

This section is the one that has the most endnotes with interjections from Mary's children, explaining their side of the story and insisting on the inaccuracy of Mary's version. The strongest instance of this is the story Mary tells about Frank slipping his dying father some fake brandy, which Frank flatly denies. How do you look at the conflicting versions of the stories? Do you have an opinion on whose version is closer to the truth? 

What other parts of this section did you find interesting and why?

A reminder that our in-person discussion is coming up next month, on Saturday, April 2 at 2pm, in the Nikkei Centre tatami room. And our next book, for April and May, will be Chorus of Mushrooms by Hiromi Goto. Chorus of Mushrooms is a novel about storytelling, identity, and intergenerational connection, through the story of a Japanese Canadian girl and her grandmother living on a mushroom farm in Alberta. I'm very excited to be (re)reading this beautiful book with you!

I hope you'll join in the discussion on Mothertalk again next week, when we'll be discussing the last section of the book. Until then, I look forward to reading your thoughts about this one!

-Carolyn