Library Science |
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Library Science |
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LS540:Multicultural
Library Services and Sources
Mark Adler
LS 540
11/25/96
Uchida, Yoshiko. 1971. Journey to Topaz. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
Reference found in:
Zia, Helen and Susan B. Gall, ed. 1995. Notable Asian Americans. New York: Gale
Research.
Born in California in 1922 to Japanese-American parents, Yoshiko Uchida lived most of her life experiencing and writing about many different ethnic problems. One of the most difficult issues she dealt with in her children's/young adult books was the problem of the Japanese interment camps of World War II. She herself was sent to one of these, being uprooted from her senior year studies at the University of Berkeley. She was sent to the camp and there had the chance to view not only the injustices which the Americans were perpetrating, but the different opinions other Japanese-Americans had about the racist actions. Uchida was to later write about her experiences there and the many other difficulties she had in establishing her sense of both Japanese ethnicity and American citizenship. She continued writing about these themes until her death in 1992.
The main action of Journey to Topaz deals with a Japanese family's attempt to cope with being sent to the interment camps and the many interactions the family members have with other Japanese-Americans who have differing viewpoints about how to understand what is going on. Yuki, an eleven year old girl, serves as the focal point of the story and all the action is told through her language. As Christmas approaches, she is becoming more and more excited. The bombing of Pearl Harbor, though, creates a situation in which the excitement about the holidays dies, and a sense of doom and dread builds as Japanese-Americans begin to hear rumors about the creation of interment camps. Yuki sees racist rhetoric spring up in white people she had once considered friends, and must find some way to understand all of the changes going on. She and her family are eventually sent to a camp in Utah (Topaz) where she is introduced to two different schools of thought among the Japanese. Most of the prisoners are like her family, still showing a strong sense of support for America and all it represents, but a small group of inmates begin to declare that the Japanese were right to bomb Pearl Harbor. Yuki must come to terms with her own ethnicity as well as her status as an American. Although the end of the book deals with her reintegration into American society, it does so in positive terms. Yuki still sees the camps as being horrors, but has come to understand the event for what it was. This understanding only strengthens her status as being Japanese and American.
All of the critiques of this book that I examined were very positive. They praised Uchida's ability to discuss a very complex affair in simple enough terms that older children and young adults could develop a good understanding of it. They make the claim that the depiction of the life in the camp is very realistic. This is most likely due to the fact that Uchida herself spent time in the interment camps. The book is also praised for the fact that it does not spend undo time criticizing the creation of the camps. Rather it makes an attempt to understand the actions in historical terms while still admitting that the actions were wrong.
This book, as could many of Uchida's, might be used effectively by schools as part of a multicultural education program. It provides a good look at a very painful event in American history. It could show children a blatant and more recent example of extreme racism in action and help them to understand some of the complexities of trying to establish a dual sense of ethnicity and heritage.
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