Hello fellow classmates, while our class was extensively analyzing Joy Kogawa’s archives it brought up a very engaging discussion in the blog posts this week. Even though my classmates were assigned the same questions to write about everyone’s perceptions were very enchanting. It was great to see how my peers felt about how the Japanese-Canadians were treated.

Nicola, and Marina both touch upon the idea of how Obasan is fiction but entails real life events. Nicola suggests that the idea of authenticity led Kogawa to mix history, testimony, and fiction. In similarity, Marina demonstrates that even though the book is a work of fiction, it is based on real events and definitely has something to share with a reader. With this impression Marina believes this is why Canada chose to keep the trauma of the Japanese-Canadians in silence. This correlates to several students who pondered the idea of forgetting trauma through different mediums. This concept was significantly focused on throughout the term so it was very interesting to see my classmate’s interpretations. Nico, conveys how the voice of silence plays a big factor in the novel. He expresses that “as a sharp voice in contrast to the silence expressed in the novel and that there is a silence that cannot speak. Marina reveals through her blog post that Kogawa “deliberately chose to forget some events and to remember others [and] the connection between things (artifacts) and particular events is obvious”. She illustrates how the archives of Kogawa were significant towards the idea of forgetting. However, Diego took a different turn and expresses on the notion of forgetting. He compared the trauma Kogawa faced through “forgetting and humiliated silence which essential means to forget something (usually traumatic) by drawing the public’ attention to other things”. He further emphasizes that Canada makes their students forget about the dark history about Japanese- Canadians. Similarly to Diego, Rachel also conveys, “if we do not educate children [about] what happened in the past, this part of history would be completely wiped clean”.

In a different manner, a few students blog post focused on the generally conception of memory. Nicola talked about memory and the important responsibility of coalescing all these memories and facts and words into just the right story that could let the largely untold story of Japanese Canadian internment be heard by a larger audience. Jacqueline discusses the field of memory studies, which also “combats that black and white, thought process by exploring the formation of memories on both the individual and collective level”. As well, Kaveel brings in the idea of how cultural memory is like a narrative lenses where it plays a prominent role in the novel.

Lastly, I though Kendall, Carolina, and Jennifer’s blog did a wonderful job with their unique post. I loved how Kendall was asking her readers question in her blog. It made me more engaged to read her post and ponder the thoughts she was conveying. Carolina on the other hand, goes off her own experiences. She explains that she has so many old journals, half-finished papers, discarded short stories, pertaining her own opinion about how she could never let go of her personal belongings like Kogawa. Finally, I would like to comment on how Jennifer talks about how the usage of technology is important. Isabelle brought up this concept in our class but Jennifer does a brilliant job of going into detail about how collecting archives would be the increase usage of technology.

Once again I really enjoyed reading everyone’s blogs and I wish everyone the best of luck on their finals and hope you all have a great winter break! 🙂