Hello class!

Olivia’s blog explores the archives on Joy Kogawa from the children’s perspective. She talks about how some children provided very innocent responses to Kogawa’s children’s book on the life of Naomi, whereas others provided very analytical responses. Olivia highlighted that the Japanese internment along the West Coast of the U.S. and Canada during WWII is a very difficult topic to talk about to adults, let alone children. Hence the fact that children find out about Naomi’s story through a regulated source makes things a little bit easier to understand. Or does it?

Some children wrote to Kogawa asking her what happened to Naomi’s mother. We, as adults, get to deduce from the text that Naomi’s mother is gone because she is in a very difficult situation, in which she can’t even get in contact with her family. But children are curious, they don’t have the same reasoning that we do, which is why there are some things that are better left unsaid so they won’t have to deal with the harsh reality. Furthermore, Olivia elaborates on Kogawa’s children’s book “Naomi’s Road” by saying that the lack of closure reminded her of a sentence in “Obasan” that read ‘Kodomo no tame’, which translates into “For the children”. Obasan reflects Kogawa’s conservative views in regards to children through the characters of Aunt Emily and Obasan, who refuse to tell Naomi and Stephen about their mother’s injuries and disappearance.

I agree with Olivia in her argument on educating children about the issues of the country, because even if this happened in the past, it is an event that shaped history and forms a part of our culture nowadays here in Canada. Children need to learn about trauma, in order for them to understand that the measures taken against these people are wrong. Hence, I think that Kogawa makes a good job in grasping children’s attention to this issue because she does it through the eyes of a child, so the readers will be able to identify themselves with Naomi and put themselves in her shoes in order to know that what happened to her and her family should never happen to anyone ever.

                                                                                                              -Mariana