that pledge in the internment camps during World
War II. Uyehara then repositions herself as a young
Muslim woman being considered for the position
of editor-in-chief of a university newspaper. A
young Japanese American wonders how the Mus-
lim woman’s religious beliefs will affect her ability
to do the job. Big Head suggests that it is important
for all who have experienced injustice to condemn
racism and to support the people whose rights as
citizens and human beings are denied.
Beverley CurranUyemoto, Holly (1970– )
Born in Ithaca, New York, Uyemoto moved with
her family to Kansas when she was seven years old,
and again to California the following year. Like
her paternal grandfather, who was a sumo wres-
tler and the black sheep of his family, Uyemoto
demonstrated a similar defiance when she chose
to quit school at the age of 15 to write her first
novel. However, her parents supported her deci-
sion, and her ambition became a reality when she
was 19 years old with the publication of her first
novel, Rebel without a Clue (1989). She has since
pursued higher education, studying at Wellesley
College. Uyemoto’s second novel, GO, was pub-
lished in 1995.
Despite their drastically different subject mat-
ters, these two books are both coming-of-age nov-
els. Rebel without a Clue is the story of two best
friends, Thomas Bainbridge and Christian Delon
(the 18-year-old narrator), who hang out together
during the first summer after high school when
Thomas Bainbridge, all-American model and su-
perstar actor, confesses to his parents and his best
friend that he has AIDS. Near the end of the novel,
Christian discovers Thomas having sex with a girl
who is uninformed about Thomas’s AIDS. In de-
nial of his responsibilities to his sexual partners,
Thomas defends himself by saying that he is using
condoms. This leads to the final scene, in which
Thomas is headed to Oregon without Christian.
Christian decides not to be witness to Thomas’s
final demise, either physically or morally: “I knew
that for Thomas the sun would set into the bay
from Oregon too, but I didn’t need to see it” (194).
The double entendre of the last line implies that
when Thomas dies, Christian will be leading a life
of integrity elsewhere.
Uyemoto’s next novel, GO, follows the matura-
tion of Wilimena, a 21-year-old, third-generation
Japanese-American female protagonist. Wilimena
narrates her self-discovery through a series of fam-
ily events, carefully considering the psychology of
her various family members, and finding their
personal motivations to be bound by the memory
of their internment during World War II. While
mental health, abortion, peer pressure, racial prej-
udice, cultural hybridity, and family are dominant
themes of this second novel, the pivotal subject is
the internment of Japanese Americans. Wilimena’s
mother, an overbearing perfectionist, and her
relatives label Wilimena as different, but she sees
herself as the ugly duckling to her perfect mother.
According to her mother, Wilimena thinks and
talks too much. Wilimena, however, is frustrated
by the lack of family communication: Her fam-
ily has too many taboo subjects, which, based on
their degree of sensitivity, are either discussed in
hushed tones or not at all. Impatient with the fa-
milial versions of events, which soften, reinvent or
erase facts, Wilimena tells all: the gruesome death
of her cousin Kiki, Uncle Sen’s alcoholism and in-
fidelity, Cousin Hope’s common-law relationship
and pregnancy with her boyfriend, the dysfunc-
tional family dynamic, her own mental break, her
abortion, and the internment of the family during
World War II. Just as in the first novel, the protago-
nist of GO is so self-centered and immature as to
allow, ironically, for clarity of vision and insight
into the lives of other characters.
Both Christian and Wilimena are dynamic
characters who mature by the end of their respec-
tive stories. As Rebel without a Clue progresses,
Christian notes Thomas’s physical deterioration
and his observations imply a parallel moral de-
mise: Thomas maintains the immoral self-cen-
teredness of youth, while Christian matures. At the
end of GO, Wilimena acknowledges that she is on
a path away from the ignorant bliss of youth, to-
ward the enlightened happiness of maturity: “I’m
turning twenty one today. By Japanese methods,302 Uyemoto, Holly