In class, we recently started analysing a novel called Obasan, written by a Japanese-Canadian author Joy Kogawa. In the novel, Kogawa explores the Canadian government’s treatment of Japanese Canadians during World War II. Kogawa recalls her childhood memories through the eyes of narrator Naomi Nakane, who is a high school teacher in Alberta. The novel begins with Naomi finds out that her uncle has passed away and so she decides to visit her uncle’s widow Obasan. Naomi then discovers letters and journals from her aunt Emily Kato which depicts her childhood’s struggles during WWII. Through this visit, Naomi was able to reconstruct repressed memories. Obasan is autobiographical and so through Naomi, Kogawa is able to tell the reader about her own experiences.

Last week the class visited UBC’s Rare Books and Special Collections to explore Obasan’s FONDS, in which we were divided into different groups and looked at Joy Kogawa’s archival materials. We were presented with various documents from publishers’ rejection letters, Justin Trudeau’s recognition letter to Kogawa’s drafts of Obasan. This visit really opened my perspective on the amount of work required to publish a book. To see Kogawa’s thought process through her drafts, the criticisms she had, the suggestions she received really make me appreciate the novel more.

From the archival materials we had, one thing that stood out to me was how Kogawa changed the novel title several times from “Death of Silence” to “Heritage Lost” and then in one of the letters in the archive, someone even suggested she should change the title to “Heritage on Trial”. This got me thinking about the reasons why Kogawa finally chose to name the novel “Obasan” and the significance and effects of doing so.

At first, I was a little confused about the title being “Obasan” because it means aunt in Japanese but the novel is mainly about Naomi. Nevertheless, I thought about it for a while and came to realise that actually “Obasan” in many ways represent the theme of silence in the novel. Aunt Emily and Obasan both in their own ways help Naomi survive the ordeal of internment. In the novel, Kogawa describes her aunts as “One lives in sound, the other in stone”. By describing Obasan to be living “in stone” meaning she does not convey her thoughts and feelings, Kogawa is exploring the Japanese-Canadians internment and how many Japanese-Canadians chose to keep quiet about what they endured like it never happened. After the attack on Pearl Harbour, Japanese-Canadians were removed from their homes and sent to internment camps. They were forced to go to interrogations, followed curfews, many lost their jobs and properties and some were even forced to migrate back to Japan. Yet many Japanese-Canadians remained silent and so all the rumours and lies about them remain uncontradicted. From this, I now recognised how powerful a book’s title can be. A short title such as “Obasan” can actually mean so much more than just “aunt” in Japanese.

This trip to explore Kogawa’s archival materials also opened my eyes to how important it is for authors to keep track of their drafts in order to improve their books/novels. The class also looked at rejections letters from publishers, which I found really interesting the fact that some publishers will not publish some books because of marketing or editorial issues. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the trip to study Kogawa’s archival materials. It really took my view about Obasan away from what is actually in the novel and more about the process that Kogawa had to go through to publish the novel.