All I Asking for is My Body

Question 1

Setting

Answer 1

• plantation in HI
• part of Japanese workers
• Tosh and Kiyo are the nisei
• 2 lenses: generational conflict between born US citizens and naturalized US citizens (Japanese parents vs. US-born kids)
• also criticism of subjugation under colonial rule and the difficulty of freeing oneself from a debt that was structured in a way to be impossible to pay
• even Kiyo only manages to pay it off once he structures the odds in his favor; he learns from the system he was raised in and seizes power in the ways that he can in order to gain agency and free himself and his family

Question 2

Pidgin English

Answer 2

• intermediary between languages for diverse group of laborers to communicate
• oral more than written; inflection-heavy
• simple grammatical structure; English reduced to basic
• form of Creole English
• Kiyo speaks 4 languages: Pidgin English, Pidgin Japanese, and standard of both (tho he is less comfortable with the standard, formal forms of these languages)
• formal Japanese and formal English look the same on paper to these protagonists
• they are neither completely American nor completely Japanese; both worlds are denied to them, so they think in languages that represent their blended situation

Question 3

Japanese Culture

Answer 3

• all about status and honoring one’s elders/betters
• emphasis on respecting the parents and being filial children
• also about saving face (why parents are concerned about eating at Makoto’s house and appearing to be beggars)
• this family discipline also helped control the workers and maintain interethnic boundaries/suspicions

Question 4

Makoto

Answer 4

• Makoto doesn’t live in Japanese camp; lives in Filipino camp
• dirty, dark, mostly male – not savory, safe place that Kiyo’s parents want him going to
• implication that his mom is a prostitute who is servicing Filipino male laborers
• very shameful in Japanese culture to associate with people of that background
• Makot = Makod in Tagalog
• Makoto could be product of union between Filipino labor and Japanese mother –> mixed children never accepted
• his muddled background reflects back on Kiyo and Tosh’s muddled/conflicted/divided loyalties to American and Japan, to themselves and to their parents

Question 5

Freedom

Answer 5

• Milton Muryama criticizes anything that suppresses freedom
• freedom is freedom of mind, freedom from other people’s shit
• equal critique of Japanese family system and plantation system because both are linked and support the other
• ethnic conflicts are kept up by these traditional hierarchies
• need to think beyond the shit and see the world for what it truly is, and what you can be in it, despite what everyone around you says

Question 6

Yamato Damashi

Answer 6

• special spirit of the Japanese/quality unique to the Japanese and their culture/value system
• patience, perseverance, filial piety, duty, etc.
• honors purity of Japanese race: why associating w/ Makoto (of mixed ancestry) would bring shame

Question 7

Rigid Japanese Norms

Answer 7

• just as foreign and dominating as the rules of the plantation to the protagonists
• just like the plantation system; is about knowing your place, being obedient, submissive, holding back, etc.
• the Japanese family system and plantation system are complicit with each other; both are shit

Question 8

American World

Answer 8

• protagonists don’t want to be American; they aren’t Americanized, despite the fact that their parents think they are, and the fact that the Americans want them to be
• when people their age speak formal English, they make fun of them as trying to be something they’re not
• nisei are seen as outside American world, so they’re not Americanized

Question 9

Why Kiyo and Tosh are Still Working on Plantation

Answer 9

• ostensibly, they should’ve paid off their debt by now
• however, their parents are still paying off the $6000 debt accrued by their grandfather
• contract they’re under stops them from getting out of debt by charging for edu, medicine, etc.
• family system keeps them in debt by taking on others’ debt as part of filial duty
• both systems keep Tosh and Kiyo down in debt

Question 10

Tosh’s Complaints About Family System

Answer 10

• his arguments parallel arguments that can be made about plantation system
• holding back, having patience, waiting your turn –> all keep you down
• family system becomes system of control and discipline over laborers just like plantation system
• Tosh is angry at his father for keeping them in debt, just as the workers should be angry at the plantation owners for keeping them in debt –> paternalism

Question 11

Plantation System

Answer 11

• placed Japanese camp above Filipino camp
• encourages separation and focus on Japanese cultural practices in order to promote ethnic divisions
• divide and conquer the workers

Question 12

First-Son Filial Piety

Answer 12

• not a critique of Japanese culture, but acknowledgment that first-son filial piety is a two-way street
• in return for being filial, Tosh should get some sort of inheritance, but his dad can’t give him that

Question 13

Tosh and the Plantation System

Answer 13

• Tosh doesn’t want to die on plantation paying off debt that wasn’t his to begin with, but he stays, feeling obligated to his parents

Question 13

Debt = Death

Answer 13

• in pidgin, there are no “th” sounds, so debt and death sound the same
• they are trapped in this continuous cycle of accruing debt, paying off like $2 per day, then getting more debt, etc.
• they’ll die on the plantation paying off debt
• both Japanese and plantation systems are killing them

Question 14

Gambling Symbolism

Answer 14

• they get out of debt by gambling
• Kiyo works outside of the plantation in order to get out of debt
• gambling is illegal according to plantation codes
• symbolically, gambling is a pleasure activity
• hard work gets you nowhere; keeps you in plantation system
• Kiyo then goes to the army and gives up his body to fight for another institution: America

Question 15

Pidgin English

Answer 15

• creates local identities
• embraces people of multiple cultures/caught in limbo between two cultures and gives them a new unique identity
• these local identities critique the worlds that they cannot be a part of it
• pidgin is the language of opposition, resistance, and local identities in HI plantation systems
• the workers aren’t native HIs or Haoles, but they’re together and need to stick together
• while the plantation and family systems keep workers divided, pidgin recognizes a shared identity that is made accessible to multiple different groups
• working and local identities are forged by working together, beyond ethnicities and cultural divides

Question 16

Makoto Question

Answer 16

• Kiyo doesn’t get answer as to why he can’t play with Makoto in formal Japanese bcs both formal Japanese and formal English are systems that don’t accept people questioning them; don’t allow disobedience
• Kiyo gets an answer in pidgin – more freedom to ask questions and find answers about yourself and the world you live in

Question 17

Gentlemen’s Agreement

Answer 17

• the loophole that allowed women to migrate produced greater gender parity and family systems’ rise among the Japanese, esp in HI
• enables first generation Japanese Americans to be born (nisei)
• plantation exploits this as form of labor control and discipline
• in the meantime, Filipinos (camp) are frowned upon bcs it’s all young single men w/out families