RACISM
Racism is an ever-continuing aspect of migration, and it fails to end with the culmination of diaspora. The hatred felt by many migrants is most strongly detailed by a dream Kapil has as she describes,
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“I saw a velvet bag knotted with string, bulky with jewels. I wanted to give it to the [white] family... When I approached their home, they pulled their curtains tight, twitching them when I reached the plywood door. To knock. Then ring.” [A]
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The fact that the family wouldn’t open the door to Kapil based solely off her skin color is sickening.
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The racism prevalent in The Grave on the Wall is extremely similar. The entire premise of the book of white Americans concluding that all Japanese Americans are dangerous due to their heritage is the most shocking part. The inhumanity is only emphasized when Shimoda writes,
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“Smiles were used to assuage white anxiety, by affirming a kind of loyalty in which white Americans could believe.” [B]
This feeling of appeasement that whites were believing is horrifying and reminds many of another diaspora: the African diaspora in America.
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It feels as if many white Americans were ignoring the struggles and obstacles faced by the African American community until the recent Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests. It took a gruesome video of a white cop kneeling on the neck of a black man for people to finally take notice.
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However, the racism faced everyday by Black Americans has not suddenly evaporated, in large part due to the denial of this systemic racism by many Americans, including the current administration. Below is a now-censored tweet by President Trump, encouraging violence against protestors who were demanding change and supporting the BLM movement.
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Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the levels of xenophobia in the United States due to the virus originating in China. The term “Chinese Virus” was started by the Trump Administration and has contributed to the xenophobia and attacks on Asian Americans. It also is an extremely insulting term that has further alienated several Chinese immigrants, furthering the theme that racism felt by immigrants never truly disappears. This section has centered around how politics affect race relations as the only true way that the pandemic of racism can be fully eradicated is from the top-down.
ASSIMILATION
People who settle in a foreign land are often required to adjust to strange behaviors and change their own way of life to better integrate into society. The problems faced by many immigrants in Western nations include, to a great degree, the lack of understanding on part of the host culture.
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Schizophrene includes a recurring notebook belonging to an immigrant. Upon reaching London, the immigrant throws the notebook holding treasured memories and goals into the city grid. The arriving people bring their fears, hopes, and everything about themselves to a new unknown land. The wet grid of the city, however, “froze [the book] like a passive sun.” [A] The immigrant’s hopes and dreams are deferred indefinitely.
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The Grave in the Wall dedicates a chapter to the assimilation of the very first Japanese people who came to the United States. The first Japanese person to become a citizen of the United States - “Hikozo Hamada was baptized ‘Joseph’ in 1854 in Baltimore and became a US citizen in 1858.” [B] Most immigrants coming to the United States in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries adopted anglicized names at the port of entry. European immigrants not from Britain were most-likely already Christian, so the changes to their names was less drastic. However, the assimilationist message remained the same: in order to be welcomed into the city atop the hill, one had to prove their similarity to those who already lived there.
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Someone’s ability to assimilate into American Society therefore constituted the American judgement of their racial pedigree. Japanese were viewed as racially inferior because they looked more different than the average American in the 1900s. Propaganda films aired amidst the second world war differentiated their depiction of the enemy depending on their race. Whereas German forces consisted of “one meanie, a little short dumpy bad Nazi,” [1] Japanese people were described by filmgoers as “yellow little creatures that smiled when they bombed our boys.” [1]
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“Before Pearl Harbor, many Americans expected Japanese to be less effective fighters because they were racially inferior.” [1]
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A notion of Japanese racial inferiority and their perceived inability to assimilate into America fed each other cyclically. The racism directed at Japanese people made it harder to assimilate. Their resistance to assimilation directed more racism towards them.
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This issue belays the troubles endured by Brandon Shimoda’s grandfather in The Grave in the Wall. The racism he encountered throughout his travels in America and the FBI files kept on him demonstrate the effect of a racist country on one man.
MEMORY
Memories hold a fundamental role in life, representing the past, and controlling present and future actions and ideas. Many immigrants who move to westernized societies do so to escape traumatic memories associated with their homeland. This idea is illustrated throughout history with the South Asian diaspora after Partition, the Japanese after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and most recently, the South American migrant caravans seeking asylum in the United States. The novels Schizophrene and The Grave on the Wall provide insight on the disastrous cycle violent memories create for generations of immigrant communities, and the true way memories should be employed in an optimistic manner.
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“Political diasporas mostly possess a specific set of traumatic memories which make them less willing to compromise, thereby, reinforcing and exacerbating the conflicts” [1]
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Both novels utilize a fragmented form, to mimic how people subjected to intense brutality often attempt to suppress and scatter their memories. In the book Schizophrene, author Bhanu Kapil illustrates how the violent memories of Partition still plague Pakistani and Indian immigrant communities living in westernized societies and are ultimately inescapable due to the severity of the atrocities the communities were subjected to. These reminders make their ancestral homelands feel unrecognizable, making it difficult for many South Asians to want to return home. However, migrants are constantly made to feel alienated by individuals living in the countries they have migrated to considering themselves natives, even though they are not. This cultural estrangement leads to a resurfacing of memories for diasporic communities attempting to find a new home and community and bring along the meaningful traditions to create a sense of belonging. The repercussions of a cycle of miserable memories is portrayed in todays society with the mistreatment of daughters-in-law in arranged marriages, especially in Desi communities. Women are unwillingly married off to husbands whose mothers cause them severe distress and constantly scrutinizing them. In fact,” It is not unusual in Indian communities to accuse women to have caused problems in a family. Female family members are silenced, choosing to keep their true feelings and opinions to themselves, to escape the shame they may be forced to carry on their shoulders.”. Rather than treating their daughters-in-law with respect, mothers-in-law choose to constantly critique them, as that is their memory of how they were handled by their
mother-in-law. In essence, negative memories that are constantly validated create a vicious cycle, harming communities for generations.
“The new perspectives that Japanese Americans develop are a direct result of their interactions with Japanese in Japan, in which their notions of self and what constitutes Japaneseness are confronted and transformed by mainstream Japanese interpretations of Japanese Americans.” [1]
In contrast, the novel The Grave on the Wall offers a different view on memories, and how they can be employed properly as a form of memorialization of actual individuals that truly honors their lives. Throughout the book, author Brandon Shimoda utilizes his memories to help construct the narrative of his grandfather’s life. While visiting Japan to research Midori’s life, Shimoda comes across various memorials remembering the lives of those lost in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The author makes a profound statement saying, “that all memorials for the dead, memorials for peace, were memorials for the bomb”. This statement allows the realization that societies often memorialize a drastic event, rather than the people affected by it, to obscure the traumatic memories associated with it. Rather than face distressing memories, communities allow their resentment towards them to fester, ultimately affecting future generations. Currently, the Black Lives Matter movement has been gaining immense traction after the cruel murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd. However, police brutality has been an ongoing serious issue for almost a century, spawning from the civil rights movement. Nonetheless, society continues to dilute the memory of the atrocities that have plagued the African American community since their forced immigration to America through the slave trade. In his book, Shimoda explains how “the African burial ground is now a memorial to the African burial ground,” relaying the diminishing effect memorials have on the true traumatic memories, that are left to be forgotten, allowing future generations to be subjected to racism and further violence. The author further explains that people and events are truly memorialized in memories, and only when we accept and better ourselves through those recollections can we truly move on.
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