On the 18th of November 2014, we visited the Rare Books Library in the Irving K Barber Learning Center on University of British Columbia campus as part of our Arts Studies class’ study on the novel Obasan written by Joy Kogawa. This is the first time I have been to any sort of rare book library, and it was definitely a worthwhile experience. As the documents stored in the library were one of a kind originals given personally by Joy Kogawa, we had to be careful and caring when handling them. Opening each sealed box felt similar to opening presents on Christmas, the excitement of unraveling the unknown.

Each box contained a variety of different materials. The types of artifacts included newspaper articles, letters, poetry, drafts, historical source material, government documents and a lot more. Going through Joy Kogawa’s personal notes and drafts was enlightening as it is not every day that you get to delve into a writer’s mind by reading their unpublished material. Funnily enough I found it quite hard to read her handwriting and comprehend what exactly was in front of me. What I did learn was that the amount of research and planning that went into Obasan was immense, and I was surprised by the effort that Joy Kogawa undertook to make the novel as authentic as possible. In particular, I was intrigued by the amount of text that was edited and deleted, which never made it into the novel. Personally, I wonder how authors like Joy Kogawa decide which material to publish and what should be left out of the final copy. Observing the writing process of an author could be useful in terms of improving your own writing.

The hour that we spent going through the Kogawa Fonds sped by, and I only managed to skim through less than half of the artifacts available. While I would probably never had explored into this realm on my own, I honestly can say that it was eye opening and would love to re-visit sometime in the future.

After reading Joy Kogawa’s novel Obasan and discussing it in class, the issue of nationality versus heritage had a lasting impact upon me. The novel focuses on the effect World War II had upon Japanese Canadians living in Canada, and it is Kogawa’s most famous publication. Even though the genre of the novel is fiction, it is based upon real events as the author included real letters written at the time by Japanese Canadians. Obasan must have had a relatively great impact especially upon Canadian society after being published in 1981 because in 1988 a formal apology to Japanese Canadians was made by Prime Minister Mulroney on behalf of Canada which included him reading sections of the novel.

The struggle of nationality versus heritage highlighted by the novel is unpleasant as it shows that racism exists everywhere even in places which are promoted as multicultural such as Canada. The majority of characters in Obasan are Canadian citizens yet they are made to believe that they are the enemy within their own country. This is because of their Japanese heritage, and ultimately their skin color. I found it particularly disturbing that Japanese Canadians were treated far worse than German Canadians or Italian Canadians, even though each of those countries were at war with the Allies. Is it fair that German or Italian Canadians were treated better because they share the same skin color as so called ‘real’ Canadians? It would have been particularly traumatizing for young Japanese Canadian children such as Naomi or Stephen in Obasan as they were born and bred in Canada, meaning they only know what it is to be a Canadian citizen. When the place you call home designates you as an enemy or intruder, where would you turn to? This raises the question, what does it mean to be Canadian? Is it a matter of culture and traditions or rather skin color?

The controversy regarding nationality and heritage raised in Obasan translates into modern day society. Due to globalization and the spread of culture around the world, we are left to question what it means to be a citizen of a particular country. At the end of the day, if someone identifies as a certain nationality, no one should be able to deny them this even if their heritage originates from another location.