Julie Otsuka's When The Emperor Was Divine: Japanese Identity

Besides the mother, the children in the book, When the Emperor Was Divine also strive to maintain their dual American and Japanese identity. Nevertheless, compared to the mother, who was born in Japan the girl and boy are less committed/connected to their Japanese heritage. One scene, which exemplifies the boy’s struggle to keep his Japanese heritage is when he writes his name on a table in the dust one night. When morning arrives, from the wind the boy’s name has blown away. The disappearance of the boy’s name signifies how the Japanese internment experience has slowly removed the boy’s own Japanese identity. In chapter three, the boy dreams of a picture of the Emperor of Japan behind a door. In his dream, the boy cannot observe the Emperor’s

The reader follows the life of a Japanese-American family, during WWII, who attempts to retain their culture, but eventually, the mother, girl, and boy succumb to the pressure to abandon their Japanese heritage, adopt an American identity, and exhibit their allegiance to the United States. Julie Otsuka portrays the pressure Japanese-American citizens experienced during WWII, to renounce their cultural ties with Japan. In When the Emperor Was Divine, the mother submits to the American government’s request to prove their loyalty to the United States. In addition, the mother experiences a sense of guilt, humiliation, and disconnect from her heritage and urges her children to relinquish their Japanese heritage. Conversely, the father develops a sense of resentment towards the American government and clings to his Japanese culture. The fear induced assimilation the mother and her children tolerated by can leave a person with an empty and meaningless sense of self. Today, immigrants continue to experience intense pressure to be loyal to their home nation, but also assimilate into the new culture. According to the renowned author, Jhumpa Lahiri, “I was not American, nor would I ever be no matter how hard I tried. I felt doomed by their pronouncement, mis¬understood and gradually defiant. In spite of the first lessons of arithmetic, one plus one did not equal two but zero, my conflicting selves always canceling each other out” (“Transcultural Identities”). Overall, as demonstrated by the Japanese-American family’s experience in When the Emperor Was Divine and the ongoing conflict immigrants face in maintaining two identities, the United States society must not propel immigrants to embrace the American culture, but rather encourage immigrants to celebrate their dual