This week in our ASTU class, we took a field trip to the library to see the collection of documents on Obasan, by Joy Kogawa. Here we were able to see all of the documents that she used to prepare for the book; as well as letters from readers and other people associated with the book. For this post, Im going to focus on how the artifacts changed my understanding of Obasan’s place in Canadian history. In my group, we had responses from all different types of readers. There were letters from ordinary people who were touched by Kogawa’s book. There was also a letter from the prime minister at the time, and reviews from different magazines and literary reviewers. Through these documents, I was able to see how Obasan made people feel about racism in Canada. The racism in this country is not as well known and more hidden, which makes it harder for people to talk about. With the publishing of Obasan, it made people realize that there is racism and that it is something that Canadians should acknowledge as a country. Joy sent a letter to the prime minister, telling him to read her book so that he could get a better understanding of the Japanese internment. He responded with a very bureaucratic answer, something along the lines of “thank you for your book, I will be sure to read it”, this shows how even in the high ranks of the government, this topic is not something people want to talk about. Eventually he did give a statement of apology to the interned people, which is a step in the right direction. There were some reviews of the book that praised Obasan for shedding light on the touchy subject of Japanese Internment. The letters and reviews were ways for Joy to hear feedback form the public on how they received her book. All the reviews that we read, were thanking her for writing the book, and praising her either on the writing of the book, or the subject, or sometimes both. In a review by Laura Davis, a published author, she writes “It is this popular reading of Obasan – that it progresses from silence to speech, from trauma to overcoming that trauma…”. She is grateful that this book was written to start conversation on the matter of racism and healing from the trauma of the past. Davis argues that we think with this book and others like it, the conversation of racism in Canada is over, however, it is always ongoing. In conjunction with reviews from the archives and other reviewers online, I have found Obasan to be a tool that people have used to start talking about Canadas history in a more truthful light. It has brought people to start the conversation of racism in Canada. Obasan been a very influential book especially to the Canadian people, but also to the world, on the topic of racism.

Works Cited

Davis, Laura K. “Joy Kogawa’s Obasan: Canadian Multiculturalism and Japanese-Canadian Internment.” “Joy Kogawa’s Obasan: Canadian Multiculturalism and Japanese-Canadian Internment” by Davis, Laura K. – British Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 25, Issue 1, January 1, 2012 | Online Research Library: Questia. Cengage Learning, n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2016.

Kogawa, Joy. Obasan. Boston: D.R. Godine, 1982. Print.