The name
The United States has always been a multinational country, and immigrants have always constituted a significant percentage of the American population. Thousands of people from all over the world come here to find something they lack in their home countries – stability, prosperity, even happiness, and they stay here for years, generation after generation. But is it true to say that these people become American citizens, acquiring the same rights as Americans? In “When the Emperor was Divine” Julie Otsuka answers this question, and the answer seems to be – no, it is not. According to the novel, immigrants are vulnerable social groups, “the ones upon which power is exercised.”, the ones who can never become an intrinsic part of foreign society. The main contribution of this novel is that it provides us with the opportunity to see the problem of immigration from the viewpoint of immigrants themselves; and although this picture is to some extent subjective, it may help us ruin the erroneous impression that foreigners should be treated with suspicion.
This novel is a story of an immigrant family of Japanese descent for whom America became home. Suddenly, their idyllic life, like the lives of millions of people, was ruined by unexpected destructive force that interfered with their destinies – by World War II. Suddenly they realized that society, a part of which they were, started treating them in a different way – not as citizens having their rights but as a special social group the representatives of which needed to be isolated from the rest of the nation. Their only fault was their origin, their belonging to the hostile nation of the Japanese: after the attack at Pearl Harbor, Japanese American families, by association, were perceived as betrayers. In the chaos of war, it proved difficult to understand that “there were Japanese immigrants who did not involve in war affairs of any kind.” Their reputation was tarnished: being completely innocent, they were all considered as potential spies. The stereotype, artificially imposed on the society, made them detached from their usual world, both psychologically and physically: first they had to conceal their connection with the nation of betrayers with the aim of protecting themselves, in this way rejecting the important part of themselves and consequently suffering the loss of identity; then they were sent to a concentration camp, which clearly meant that they were not treated as American citizens anymore.
What was completely absurd about this situation was the fact that the only reason for such attitude was their nationality, something they were not responsible for. Japanese Americans had to confront injustice: the state inflicted on them the punishment which they did not deserve. However, they had to pay for the sins of their nation, trying to answer for themselves what their own fault consisted in; this is well illustrated in the episode when the boy looks for any reasonable explanation for their alienation from society: “he’d done something horribly, terribly wrong something he’d done a long time ago that was just now catching up with him.”
Unfairly condemned, the Japanese still had to adjust themselves to such reality. The survival mechanism they chose was simple – obedience: “the Japanese are being portrayed as being discriminated and, at the same time, obedient.” They did not express their protest against the injustice; they silently accepted it. Such behavior may be interpreted as weakness, inability to resist the oppressive system; however, if we look at it from a different angle, we may notice that remaining silent requires resilience, and is even an expression of a particular conviction. The father did not deny any of the accusations brought against him; he accepted full responsibility for all the things he had not done. Paradoxically, this acknowledgment did not seem as cowardice; on the contrary, in this way the man proved his innocence, at the same time staying loyal to his nationality: according to I. Vizan, “the father embraces his Japanese identity and acknowledges all accusations, this being a perfect example of resisting power by not resisting.” He challenged the system by conforming to its rules.
The children also chose obedience. However, unlike their father, they were ready to forget who they were and pretend to be someone else. Imprisoned in the concentration camp, they dreamed of coming back home and starting everything from scratch: “And if our mother called us on the street by our real names we would turn away and pretend not to know her. We would never be mistaken for the enemy again.” Naturally, this decision was based on their psychological immaturity since the children were not conscious enough of the idea of national pride. The desire to stay a part of the society prevailed over the desire to stay Japanese. As I. Vizan stated, “They do not reject the American society anymore, and consequently they do not wish to return home.”: they did not identify themselves completely as Japanese since they had grown up in America. However, due to the pressure exerted on them by the institutions of power and due to the rejection on the part of their neighbors, at that point they also could not identify themselves as Americans. As a result, they suffered an inner conflict that made them feel constant fear and guilt, begging pardon all the time. Therefore, the return home proved a painful experience for them, much more painful than they expected: not only had they to adapt themselves to hostility, but also to cope with memories of the life in the concentration camp: “We didn’t want to know All we wanted to do, now that we were back in the world, was forget.” But the damage had already been caused, and it was not easy to forget.
It is definitely not accidental that the characters are nameless in the novel. Since the author does not give them any names, readers start perceiving the characters as abstract images whose qualities may be ascribed to any other person placed in their situation: it is not an individual family that suffered such an experience; there were many, many other Japanese American families who had also faced it. In some sense, this idea of rejection may be extrapolated to other groups of immigrants, including those living nowadays.
Although the novel concerns the events that took place in the XXth century, the main idea contained in it, namely the idea that immigrants are always confronted with the problems of self-identification and often with unfair treatment, still provides the readers with some space for reflection since he problem of immigrants never loses its topicality. The importance of this novel consists in the appeal, which is not expressed directly but concealed between the lines, – the appeal for tolerance and respect that must be shown towards the representatives of other nations living in a foreign country. Unfortunately, stereotypes and prejudices against particular nationalities still exist, posing a serious threat to the development of tolerance, which is an important condition for the creation of healthy society. Obviously, it will take much time and efforts to uproot those stereotypes but it must be done. Any society, especially democratic one, should strive for providing equal rights for all its members.
Bibliography
Otsuka, Julie. When the Emperor was Divine. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.
Vizan, Iuliana. “A New Historicist Reading of Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic and When the Emperor was Divine.”
