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Racism In Hotel On The Corner Of Bitter And Sweet By Jamie Ford

1492 Words6 Pages

Ethnic mislabeling is an extremely problematic form of “casual racism.” Casual racism can be defined as racism that is predominately based off stereotypes or prejudices about people based on their race, skin tone, or ethnicity and that is used casually and without thought throughout day to day life. An example of casual racism outside of ethnic mislabeling is racist jokes made about stereotypes about a certain race or ethnicity. Ethnic mislabeling occurs commonly for people of Asian ethnic descent.
In the novel Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, there are high tensions between white Americans and Japanese-Americans in the midst of WWII after the attack on Pearl Harbor. This tension caused extreme racism towards Japanese-Americans during that time period and Chinese-Americans were commonly caught up in the racist attacks as well, despite China’s alliance to the U.S. during WWII, based strictly off of their appearance. Due to these high tensions, the protagonist in Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, 12-year-old Henry, is made to wear a …show more content…

On his way home from meeting with her, he runs his wagon into the back of a police car. The officer sees the photos that Henry has in his wagon, specifically a photo of a Japanese officer, and says “And where is home exactly? You know I could take you to jail for being out after curfew?” referring to the curfew that was in place for Japanese people at this time and assuming that Henry himself was Japanese. Rather than directly answering the offices question, Henry brings his button out to show the officer and says “I’m Chinese – a friend at school asked me… A friend asked me to hold them. A Japanese American family.” (Ford 100-101) Henry did this to prove that he was Chinese, that the photos were not his, and to avoid the repercussions that the officer

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