This week in our ASTU class we were able to explore Joy Kogawa’s Fonds located in in the Irving K Barber Learning Center. Within class, we have finished Kogawa’s novel Obasan and we are beginning to relate personal memories to larger cultural memories. The Fonds that we were able to view where extremely varied and contained everything from letters from the prime minister to drawings submitted by sixth graders. The breadth of the archives was shocking and fascinating to see the variation in the types of files kept.
These artifacts greatly altered my perception of the book but also how it is remembered. While going through the Fonds, I found a file of letters from a middle school class. Within the file were the responses of these Canadian middle schoolers after reading Obasan and I was shocked at how young these students were when learning about such a serious subject in their cultures history. I think the integration of Obasan into the curriculum of young Canadians provides a basis of cultural remembering and a value that we must remember these events rather than forgetting them because we are ashamed. By taking responsibility for their actions Canadians are able to not only prevent them from happening again in the future but also demonstrate to the people that they hurt that they are sorry for their actions.
While the modern responses to Kogawa’s book are very good representations of current sentiments of cultural memory, the letters that are much older and helped Kogawa write her book are also intriguing sources of insight into creation of Canadian history. In one case, I came upon an unsent letter that Kogawa wrote to the owners of the house Kogawa and her family formerly lived in. It is a heartbreaking reminder of how houses were taken without fair reciprocation from their owners during the war and how Japanese were reluctant to reach out even though it was originally their land.
Both personal memories and cultural memories are encased in the Fonds and their archive symbolizes and immortalizes the memories of the many in order to instill the emotions related to the war and its affects. Obasan is able to give a personal account of the negative affects of war but Kogawa’s Fonds do an even better job at demonstrating the many emotions of people of all ages affected by the war but also the memories of war, not just a singular young girls experience. By getting a larger picture of the war and the creation of the book, Obasan become a technology of memory solidified in cultural memory.
