The High-Heeled Shoes: A Memoir

• I had a hard time understanding what was going on at first when the narrator said she saw a man wearing high heels and was so disturbed about it, so I had to reread it to figure out that the man was completely naked and trying to get her to join him. This made a lot more sense, because I was wondering what it had to do with harassment and rape.
• On page 5, she describes all the things she wishes she had said to Tony during his perverted phone call and her analysis of how each response would have sounded. As someone with anxiety and who has been catcalled increasingly often in the past year and a half, this part was very relatable and very accurate to how it feels when you wish you spoke up and defended yourself properly rather than letting it “slide” just because it’s so awkward and startling.

Seventeen Syllables

• On page 13, Rosie says “Well, for seven hakes, what is it?” instead of “for heaven’s sake”. Is that a funny mishmash of the phrase as part of character development, or is “seven hakes” something from Japanese culture I’m not familiar with?
• I like how we as readers can see Rosie’s father becoming more and more frustrated and dissatisfied throughout the story until he finally snaps. I thought it was kind of an interesting reversal; as Rosie’s mother becomes happier and starts having a life outside of work, her father becomes angrier and withdraws from both his wife and Rosie herself. I am assuming that what caused him to snap at the end was her talking poetry instead of working when their livelihood depends on the farm-work getting done?

The Legend of Miss Sasagawara

• I was under the impression from material in class that they couldn’t leave the camps at all until they were disbanded, but in this story there are several instances where characters mention having brief freedoms to leave (ie, when the drivers are taking Miss Sasagawara elsewhere, they mention maybe having an hour or two to go see a movie, and the narrator mentions being allowed to leave for college until summer). Was this artistic license, or was that a thing that happened sometimes at the internment camps?
• I don’t understand what was happening at the end, where the narrator describes Miss Sasagawara’s poem and mentions things like “But say that someone else, someone sensitive, someone admiring, someone who had not achieved this sublime condition and who did not wish to, were somehow called to companion such a man. … But she would describe this man’s devotion as a sort of madness, the monstrous sort which pure of itself, might possibly bring troublous, scented scenes to recur in the other’s sleep.” (pg 33) Is she saying that the Reverend is so obsessed with reaching Nirvana that he was forcing his daughter to pray with him all the time? Is that why she was so closed off? What did that have to do with the pain in her side? Was she faking it to get away from him? And what did the last sentence mean by “troublous, scented scenes”? Some kind of nightmares, but about what?

Wilshire Bus

• On page 36, the narrator mentions seeing and hearing about buttons that say “I AM KOREAN” and “I AM CHINESE”. Did buttons like this really exist, or is it a fabrication? If there really were things like that, was it meant to be as like a pride thing?
• I actually had an experience kind of similar to this story on the bus during the first week of class, where an old man was ranting about everything from liberals (and how they’re ruining the country) to “illegals” (and how they’re ruining the country) and he also mentioned “Orientals” by name (and how they’re ruining the country). Just like in this story, no one said a word to him, including myself which I felt guilty for. Unlike in the story, there were only white people on the bus, and he wasn’t doing this in response to anything other than his own vitriol. I wonder how much of the silence by the characters was due to not wanting to start a fight and potentially get ganged up on, and how much was them agreeing with the drunk man.

The Brown House

• On page 41 when the Hattori parents are arguing, why was Mrs. Hattori “triumphant” when her husband admitted he had enough money for groceries? What did that prove? I thought their argument was about him gambling and losing so much money, so wouldn’t that have undermined the basis of her argument? Why would she be triumphant about that?
• I thought the ending was sad if realistic, since I’ve heard from my parents that people who suddenly come into money such as lottery winners often accidentally overspend and wind up losing everything as a result. I imagine this problem would be worse for someone with gambling problems like Mr. Hattori.

Yoneko’s Earthquake

• “Yoneko and Seigo became a part of the great listening audience with such fidelity that Mr. Hosoume began remarking the fact that they dwelt more with Marpo than with their own parents. He eventually took a serious view of the matter and bought the naked radio from Marpo, who thereupon put away his radio manuals and his soldering iron in the bottom of his steamer trunk and divided more time among his other interests.” (pg 49) Since Marpo is working for Mr. Hosoume, did he really buy the radio from Marpo or did he demand it out of jealousy that his kids were paying more attention to Marpo than him? There has been not yet been any mention of any hobbies their parents had, nor any indication that they spend any significant quality time with their children. Combined with Yoneko casually asking Marpo if he captured wild dogs to starve and then eat because she read it somewhere once, it sounds like they viewed him as a lesser human being (the adults) or a novelty (the children), which I would think would be very dehumanizing.
• On page 53, Yoneko’s father says that she is ten years old, but her mother says that her “Japanese age” is eleven. What does this mean? Is there a discrepancy between how Americans count ages and how Japanese people count ages? Or is it something with cultural significance?

Morning Rain

• On page 57, when Sadako is talking to her father, it’s revealed that she probably isn’t completely fluent in Japanese because she says “She asked it pretty well, too; she only had to resort to English for “plans”.” So already we’ve got a language barrier between both parties.
• On page 58, when Sadako’s father can’t hear the rain, is this meant to indicate that he’s hard of hearing and neither of them realized? Was this meant to be the reason there is such a big language barrier between them, because he can’t learn English well if he can’t hear it properly? What is the significance of this meant to be?

Epithalamium

• On page 60, it says she didn’t know it would be her wedding day, but then in the very next paragraph it says that her boyfriend calls her and threatens to leave her if she doesn’t “marry him that very day”. First of all that’s a huge red flag by itself. Second of all, why did she go along with it if she was meant to go to see her parents and brother? She even mentions her “soulmate”, which is a term usually used in a romantic way (in America at least, if not Japan).
• The story seemed to end kind of suddenly on page 69, and I’m not sure what the point of it all was. Maybe if I understood more about religious stuff it would make more sense? As it is it goes over my head completely as I don’t understand the significance of anything she talks about in the last paragraph.

Las Vegas Charley

• “Sometimes the families come into town for shopping; sometimes they come for a feast of Chinese food, because the Japanese regard Chinese cuisine as the height of gourmandism, to be partaken of on special occasions, as after a wedding or a funeral.” (pg 70) I’ve never heard of Japanese people thinking of Chinese food as “gourmet”, so this was very interesting to me. Is that a cultural thing that developed in Japan, or is it strictly a Japanese American thing? And how did the idea of eating Chinese food on special occasions come about in the first place?
• It’s established on page 70 that Charley is a Japanese man whose real name is Kazuyuki Matsumoto, and that he’s working in a Chinese restaurant. But then on page 71 it says “And all the waitress were nice to Charley, not only because Charley was a conscientious dishwasher (better than those sloppy Chinese, they confided)…”, thus establishing that all the waitresses were at least a little bit racist against Chinese people, even though their boss, the owner Dick Chew, was a Chinese man and they were working in a Chinese restaurant. Why would they work there if they were prejudiced against Chinese people? It’s Las Vegas, there must have been other jobs, even at other restaurants, right? That seems odd.

Life Among the Oil Fields (A Memoir)

• “Each can came completely wrapped in plain cream-colored paper, so it seemed a more elegant product than the condensed Carnation milk we used.” (pg 88) I thought this was really funny, because Carnation brand condensed milk still exists and my mom uses it for cooking/baking stuff, and since she generally uses the highest quality stuff she can find that isn’t too expensive, I tend to think of the products she uses as being fancy. This reminds me that two people can have very different perceptions of things based on what they associate those things with; the narrator here obviously associates plain cream colored things with elegance, which means that the Carnation condensed milk must be -by default- less elegant.
• “They told us later (Johnny and I must have been at school) that they had siphoned gasoline from the car to clean the tar baby off.” (pg 94) So the parents cleaned the oil off their child by pouring gas on him? Was that a common thing people did back then? What was the reasoning for this? That doesn’t sound like it would have been effective, even disregarding the health hazards.

The Eskimo Connection

• I thought it was really interesting that Alden was writing articles that were “a passionate cry against the despoiling of his native land” (pg 96) while simultaneously being obsessed with Christianity and studying the Bible intensely. I thought this was interesting because you would expect him to associate Christianity with white people who, historically, are the ones who tend to ignore native wishes and take over their land (whether or not that is the case here, I don’t know since I don’t know the context, but I am assuming it is all or mostly white people doing the aforementioned despoiling).
• I was really confused by the story Alden wrote to Emiko starting on page 102, as it starts off talking about snowbirds before suddenly shifting to a line that said “The coffin, borne by “six dark people,” was heavy because the deceased had gained 27 pounds in prison:”, even though there was no mention of a coffin other than in the title of the short story. Was this meant to be part of the short story Alden wrote, or was it Emiko’s interpretation or summary of his story? It was confusing to read.

My Father Can Beat Muhammad Ali

• On page 105, Henry comes across as an old man who still thinks of himself as being in his prime and is overconfident; partially, because he doesn’t want to let go of the good old days, partially because he’s drunk.
• “Both the dishes and coffee were long done before Henry decided at last to come in.” (pg 108) Was this meant to indicate that Henry was trying to do the javelin throw with the bamboo stick the entire time, or was it meant to indicate that he was upset that his sons weren’t taking him seriously or because he couldn’t do it like he was convinced he could?

Underground Lady

• “They could evidently see it plain as day, but search the sky as he might, he couldn’t see the rainbow. But it was hardly the kind of anecdote you tell a stranger.” (pg 111) Did the rainbow in his dream symbolize something significant, since he couldn’t see it and the children could? Is that why she thought it was inappropriate(?) to tell to a stranger? (Or did she think it was just too boring to bother telling the Underground Lady?
• The narrator talks about how she thinks the Underground Lady was possibly tricking people into giving her things on page 112, but then talks about how she hopes that the woman has finished rebuilding her house by now. This whole story was very confusing, and sends mixed messages. Are we supposed to feel sympathetic for the Underground Lady (even though she seemed like she was being kind of racist to her Japanese neighbors), or are we supposed to assume she’s some sort of scam artist?

A Day in Little Tokyo

• On page 118 after encountering two white men, one of them gives Chisato money for no apparent reason? Did they think she was homeless or something? It wasn’t because they thought she was cute, like she was assuming, was it?
• “She knew it was because she had taken the pennies from the man with one leg.” (pg 121) So she had a bad feeling about taking money from the men, then they got into a car accident a few minutes later, so she decides it was her fault? Or was she saying that the car that swerved into them was controlled by the two white men somehow? Does this kind of thinking have some kind of root in Japanese culture that I’m not familiar with?

Reading and Writing

• “So was this how she had acquired her medications, that riot of color on her kitchen counter – on the advice of the TV?” (pg 125) It makes a lot of sense that someone who is illiterate would be especially susceptible to advertisements, as they would have very few ways to fact-check the claims made and few ways to do actual research on any of the products. When the narrator first mentions how Hallie had bought a king-sized bed off the TV and it collapsed in the middle, I assumed it was going to be foreshadowing of some sort, perhaps as an indication that her life would fall apart or something. But it was only after the above quote that I realized that it was foreshadowing that Hallie was just kind of gullible due to not being able to actually look into the product to see if it was actually good or not.
• “He said Angela and Phil had just been to see her that afternoon. …After several years of going to school at night, she had finally graduated and she had come to show her mother the high school diploma.” (pg 128) I interpreted this as Hallie feeling like she could go peacefully once she realized her daughter would be fine without her, because Angela wasn’t illiterate like she was and could take care of herself much better than Hallie could take care of herself? Kind of a bittersweet ending, I suppose.