Last week, I finished the first literature review about the term national memory with my group and we come up with the definition of it: National memory is the way we commemorate the past and perceive events in history as a nation through private and public memories, and from there construct and form the identity of our Nation. This week we started the book named Obasam by Joy Kogawa. It is a novel that tells a story about a little girl, Naomi, a Japanese Canadian during the WW2 and the novel is written in a child’s perspective. Yet I have not finished the book, but I found so many connection between them already, especially about national identity.

At the beginning, we know this story happen during the WW2, which indicates the relationship between Japan and countries  is not harmonious at all. At the same time, as a family with Japanese blood, their national identity have been chanlleged. At page 169, Kogawa brought up a piece of report about Canada’s Japanese repatriation plan. “670 solemn-faced Japanese…sailed out of Vancouver Friday night…..1000 of them will sail for Japan about June 15th”. This piece of news can fully demonstrate the relationship between Japan and Canada.The word I found interesting in is the Solemn-faced Japanese. Personally, I believe the word implies that those Japanese were not actually proud of their national identity during that time. Not a fair representation of the past because people share so many different perspectives based on their private memories, which may be altered and biased by your environment and personal experience.(Maggie Andrews)  In this situation, negative representation and the environment of war has altered the memory about Japanese and also that memory of Japanese. As a result, the national identity is altered as well.

That piece of news implicitly indicate how will Naomi and Stephen be discriminately treated in the school as well. And at the button of  page 67, there is an anecdote about Stephen. Stephen has been mocked because he has been recognized as a Japanese. However, when Stephen asked his father about his national identity, his father denied their Japanese identity. This part also  represent the Japanese were not proud of their identity at the moment and Naomi’s father was trying to bend in by the identity of Canadian. Again, this is another piece of evident that shows the national identity will be altered by the unfair representation or the present environment. Moreover, the most interesting part I found is the riddle at the button of this page, mentioned by Stephen: We are both the the enemy and not the enemy. This riddle ironically describes the awkward situation of a Canadian Japanese. Because they have the blood of both countries and the relationships is not at all harmonious.

Reference

Kogawa Joy, Obasan. Toronto: Penguin, 1983. print

Andrews, Maggie, Charlie Bagot-Jewitt, and Nigel Hunt. “Introduction: National Memory  and

War.” Journal of War & Culture Studies 4.3 (2011): 283-88. UBC Summon. Web. 15 Oct. 2014.