Rift Between Immigrants and Their First-Generation American Children
The majority of the short stories in this anthology shine a light on the large disconnect between Japanese immigrants and their American-born children. This is far more than the usual generation gap between parents and children; the Issei really want to create Japan within their new country, and never feel American. They sometimes seem to resent all that is American, despite having settled here. This is reflected by their frustration with their children who seem to have no interest in maintaining Japanese traditions and cultures.
There is a cultural difference between Japan and America, and this seems wider when it comes to Japanese parents of American children. The first generation Americans do not want to continue the traditions from their ancestral land. Seventeen Syllables for example shows an American born daughter who has no patience at all for her mother's passion, Haiku, a Japanese style of poetry that consists of seventeen syllables. This disdain for the poetic form is really a reflection of the daughter's rejection and lack of understanding of her mother's intensely Japanese lifestyle and belief system, and her frustration with her refusal to try to assimilate at all.
Ethnic Dissension
The ethnic groups that the author writes about in her short stories seem copacetic at best, but a closer look shows not so much a divide, but a lack of understanding that dictates that never the twain shall meet. The Japanese parents and their American children do not understand each other and resent the other's cultural identity. Experiences of some of the characters in the stories demonstrate a resentment towards the Japanese community after the war which was in many ways understandable, but there is also a resentment of American characters by the Japanese, simply for their being American. There is also an example of a young Issei feeling smug and self satisfied when a Chinese couple are heckled on a bus; she is surprised by her feelings and realizes that she has to examine her own view of people based on their culture and ethnic group. Inter-ethnic suspicion seems to be the overriding theme within the stories that deal with race relations and cultural assimilation.
Repression of Women
The one thing that both Japanese and American society has in common is the repression of woman. The first story, High Heeled Shoes, is a testimony to this, and could have been penned last week, rather than eighty years ago. It tells stories of harassment, threatened rape and abuse of women who are powerless to do anything about it Society also expects a passive response from women across all cultures. Add to that the entirely patriarchal society of Japan, and the stories show a systematic repression of women that is perpetuated with cross-cultural regularity. Women in the stories are afraid to speak out against abuse because they know nobody will do anything about it. This is one of the things that the first generation American women in the stories find the most difficult to respect in the way their parents interact with each other.
