Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

What a great title! This novel, set in Seattle during World War II and 1986, follows Chinese American Henry Lee. Henry is twelve years old in 1942 and has recently had his parents tell him to speak only English. This is difficult as although Henry goes to an all white school on scholarship, his parents only speak Chinese. His father follows the war effort closely and has significant interest in seeing the Japanese defeated in China. He has Henry wear a button that states, “I am Chinese.”

In Seattle at the time Chinatown and Japantown were very close geographically but separate entities, and when a Japanese student, Keiko Okabe, starts at Henry’s school he is unsure what to make of her. They soon become good friends as they are both scholarship students and have to work together at the school. The story revolves around their growing friendship, Henry’s clashes with his dad over this friendship, and the impending internment of Keiko and her family.

I’ve read a few books about the impact of Japanese internment camps on Japanese Americans, including the novel Snow Falling on Cedars and more recently the non-fiction book Stubborn Twig. This novel addresses a few more issues I’ve never considered. There were thousands of Japanese Americans living in Seattle. How were they relocated? What happened to their property and their belongings? The descriptions of the temporary camp at the Puyallup Washington State Fairgrounds and the more permanent one in Minidoka, Idaho seem unreal.

The story of Henry as a young teen during World War II is interspersed with Henry’s life in 1986. He’s now widowed and has a college age son. Henry hears about belongings from World War II found in an old hotel and that starts him on a search to find out what happened to Keiko. I highly recommend this book. It is much more readable than Stubborn Twig and also gives some insight into what other ethnic groups felt about the Japanese relocation and internment.

Stubborn Twig by Lauren Kessler

This book takes a factual look at multiple generations of the Yasui Family. Masuo Yasui arrived from Japan via Seattle in 1904 to work on the railroad, meeting up with other members of his family. He lived in Portland for a time where he learned English and converted to being a Methodist. He settled in Hood River in 1908. His wife, Shidzuyo, was a well-educated Japanese woman who knew Masuo and his family before he left home at 16. She came to the United States as Masuo’s wife in 1912. Masuo and Shidzuyo are known as Issei or the first generation of Japanese to settle in the United States.

The story of Masuo and Shidzuyo begins like every immigrant’s dream. Masuo opens a store in Hood River that becomes quite successful. They start a family. They begin to buy land and become very involved in the fruit business. However, they were not allowed to become citizens because of a law, more than 100 years old, “that declared nonwhites ineligible for citizenship.” And, then in 1924, Oregon passes the Alien Land Law making it illegal for non-citizens to own land. It is possible to get around this law by putting the land in the names of their children, known as Nisei or Second Generation, who are citizens of the United States.

“By 1941 Masuo owned, co-owned or had interest in close to one thousand acres of orchard land, had a financial stake in one out of every ten boxes of apples and pears shipped out of Hood River and was the area’s biggest grower of several row crops. He had operated a successful store in the heart of downtown for a generation. He had a nice house on a quiet street in a middle-class neighborhood. One son was married and taking over some of the farm operations; another had a law degree. Three children were in college.”

Pearl Harbor changes everything. Read this book to find out what happens to one family of Japanese Americans, citizens and non-citizens, during World War II. The repercussions to the first, second and further generations of Japanese Americans are serious. The culpability of the state of Oregon and the town of Hood River in this loss of land and relocation are astounding. What would Hood River or Oregon look like today if this hadn’t happened? What would you have done if you lived at that time?

“People who spoke up for the Japanese were shunned. When the mother of one of Yuka’s hakujin friends (Masuo’s daughter’s friend) defended the Japanese to the women in her literary club, she was met with silence and stony stares. Her friends rejected her so completely that she took to her sickbed and later left town for several months to stay with her sister.”

Stubborn Twig is part of Deschutes County Public Libraries 2009 A Novel Idea. Also, as a celebration of Oregon’s 150th year of statehood, the book is part of Oregon Reads sponsored by the Oregon Library Association. I am interested to find out what events related to this book will be happening in Bend.

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

Snow Falling on Cedars is one of my all-time favorite books. This book has everything: a great setting, a mystery, romance, a clash of cultures, and resentment stemming from treatment during WWII.

The book primarily takes place on a fictional island in the San Juan Islands. I grew up near there so it brings back memories of my trips to the islands, but it also has the slightly different and exotic culture of living on an island. It is a mystery and an intriguing one: How did a local fisherman drown? That brings in the fishing culture. “Thus on San Piedro the silent-toiling, autonomous gillnetter became the collective image of the good man. He who was too gregarious, who spoke too much and too ardently desired the company of other, their conversation and their laughter, did not have what life required. Only insofar as he struggled with the sea could a man lay claim to his place in things.” (pg 39)

And, it is set right after WWII. The main suspect in the murder is a Japanese-American man who was sent to a camp and lost his strawberry farm during the war. When I first read this book I had no idea that had happened in the Pacific NW. The book starts in the courtroom with the trial of Kabuo Miyamoto and flashes back to other time periods and is told from various third person points-of-view.

A reporter, Ishmael Chambers, recalls his teenage love for Hatsue, who is now Kabuo’s wife. Guterson does a good job of capturing this first love amid the rainy island beauty. “Ishmael lay down with his hands propping up his chin and looked out at the rain. The inside of the tree felt private. He felt they would never be discovered here. The walls surrounding them were glossy and golden. It was surprising how much green-tinted light entered from the cedar forest. The rain echoed in the canopy of leaves above and beat against the sword ferns, which twitched under each drop. The rain afforded an even greater privacy; no one in the world would come this way to find them inside this tree.” (pg 111) Then Hatsue is sent away to a camp and Ishmael is drafted into the war.

In the present time they are all back on the island and the man Kabuo is accused of killing has taken over what was to be the family’s strawberry farm. It is an interesting look into the time after the war and how people may have reacted when those interred came back home. If you didn’t read this book when it came out, make sure to pick it up now. I am looking forward to reading his most recent book, The Other.

Gasa-Gasa Girl by Naomi Hirahara

This is an excellent novel with a mystery at the core. Mas (Maseo Arai) is asked to come to New York by his daughter. He is a 70-year-old gardener. His self-deprecation and practicality allow him to help his daughter the best he can without really knowing what she wants or how she feels about him. His son-in-law and daughter both work for a Japanese-American man trying to restore a traditional Japanese garden. When their boss is killed, they are both suspects.

Mas uses his connections and his friends' connections throughout the Japanese community in New York and Los Angeles to try to determine the killer. It is an intriguing glimpse into this community. Internment camps and Mas's experience in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped are discussed, but not dwelled upon. They are treated as rather matter-of-fact events that happened. The Japanese terms sprinkled throughout the book added to the interest. It was surprising to me that there was a special word, kibei, for people born in the US who grew up in Japan.

It is a good read as a novel and a bonus if you like mysteries as well. The writing is excellent with little gems thrown in here and there. For example, when observing his daughter's friends as they come to help when her young son is sick, "Mas could almost see all the kimochi that was being woven around his daughter and son-in-law like bolts of fabric, cocooning them from harm. But Mas knew those cocoons, no matter how saturated with love, were still fragile and vulnerable; anyone could still tear through and reach the soft parts." (pg 243)