Digging through old things is always interesting. When someone has produced something like a book, an album of music or some other work, it is always fascinating to see what sorts of things are behind it. While exploring the Joy Kogawa Fonds, I happened across a series of letters between Joy Kogawa and someone named Michico, who after a few letters I realized was her sister. The letters discussed the children’s adaptation of Kogawa’s book “Obasan,” entitled “Naomi’s Road.” With the business talk, some personal, family issues were included in the letters as well. Kogawa had sent her sister the draft for the children’s book, leaving all editing and decision making about what to keep and what to discard from the book up to her sister and the editor. It didn’t sound like Kogawa was very invested in the book. This made me question her motives behind writing this book. Why would she even spend the time to made a children’s edition if she didn’t even really care how the final product came out?
I was surprised at how much of a role the editor played in shaping the book, and this made me wonder if the editor had as much of a role in the direction Kogawa’s more famous work Obasan went. It made me realize that these books, albums of music, and other works that I so love are so often polished to the point where they are no longer really a true representation of their creator. This plays into the whole concept of memory that we have been discussing so extensively in our ASTU class for the past semester. Even Obasan is not just one person’s memory; it is a collection of people’s interpretations of these memories and events. Though Obasan gives you many different primary sources in the way of letters and documents that allow you to draw your own conclusions, the book is still in no way raw. It has been processed by editors and peers to Kogawa who all have different opinions about how the story of the book should go. There is not only the bias and perspective of Kogawa in the book, but that of the editor and Kogawa’s sister, and probably that of many others as well. Memories are passed down, going through many sources, like the game telephone. And like in the game of telephone, they often do not come out very accurately on the other side. In saying this, I am not doubting the story that Kogawa tells in her books, but rather am suggesting that as readers, we need to be aware that this phenomenon exists. We need to read responsibly, not immediately accepting all that we read as the truth or as the only truth.