During our last ASTU 100 class we went to the rare books library at UBC and had the chance to look at the archives of Joy Kogawa. Some of the different artifacts which are in the archives included letters, pictures, as well as newspaper articles and reviews of some of her books. One of the most interesting things that I saw was the letter from a publication company which stated that they were not interested in publishing her book, Obasan,  for a variety of different reasons such as poorly constructed characters(aunt Emily), and not a strong enough narrative throughout the story in general. I thought this was interesting because all I knew was that the book Obasan is now used extensively throughout the school system as a book to help learn about that part of our history. I did not know that the book was not initially successful. Another thing that I found very interesting is that when I am reading a book whether it is fictional or not it can be hard to connect with the author and really see them as another person. By being able to go and look through the files which contained letters to and from Joy Kogawa and other artifacts from her personal life, it made the author and her story much more real to me. I found it very interesting to be able to read not only letters to other people and articles that she wrote, I got to read notes and things like that that she had left for herself and written to herself. The trip to the archives gave me a much better view of Joy Kogawa as a persona and not just as another author who wrote a book.