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Obasan Joy Kogawa (1985)
Narrated by Naomi Nakane, a third-generation
Japanese Canadian, who in 1972 faces her uncle
Isamu’s death and her aunt (Obasan) Aya’s with-
drawal into nearly complete silence, this novel of-
fers flashbacks for a polyphonic rendering of the
internment experience of Japanese Canadians.
Provoked by her aunt Emily’s admonishments
finally to remember the past and to speak out
against political injustices, Naomi begins to rec-
ollect her childhood memories. She remembers
the disappearance of her mother and maternal
grandmother, who traveled back to Japan to assist
a fatally ill great-grandmother and were prevented
from returning to Canada after the bombing of
Pearl Harbor by Japan and the entry of the United
States and Canada into World War II.
Naomi also remembers the years spent in sev-
eral internment camps, first in Slocan, British
Columbia, and then in Coaldale, Alberta, where
she coped with the loss of her family’s home and
possessions, the dispersal of her family, the death
of several loved ones due to insufficient medical
care, and repeated instances of blatant discrimina-
tion against Japanese Canadians. Naomi’s histori-
cal trauma was compounded by the fact that just
before the moment of internment, she had been
sexually abused by a neighbor. Shortly thereafter,
her mother disappeared. In the young girl’s imagi-

nation, these events are all interrelated so that

personal abuse parallels public and governmental

abuse. Metaphorically speaking, desertion by the

mother comes to mean abandonment by the Ca-

nadian nation.

Critics such as Patti Duncan have pointed out

that Kogawa questions the transparency of both

language and history when she counterpoints

Naomi’s silences with Emily’s angry outbursts, and

official historical documents with the Nakanes’

personal memories and various letters and unof-

ficial records. Duncan explains that the character

of Aunt Emily is modeled on Muriel Kitagawa, a

historical figure who wrote essays for the Japanese-

Canadian newspaper The New Canadian (106).

Despite Aunt Emily’s continued efforts to obtain

an apology from the Canadian government, all her

writings and speeches are in vain.

Naomi’s memories so horrify her that she re-

presses them because she knows that the act of

remembering alone does nothing to authenticate

the experience of thousands and will not change

official history. Naomi quickly realizes that speech

is useless for the powerless (Duncan 114). Dun-

can explains, however, that Kogawa does not use

silence to reinscribe Asian stereotypes but to artic-

ulate important truths (122). Silence can serve as

a powerful statement of one’s refusal to speak. As

Duncan notes, “Kogawa deploys silence as a tool of