After Riyo’s parent’s die from tuberculosis, her aunt arranges her in marriage to a migrant worker in Hawaii. Traveling from Japan to the United States, Riyo, finds it difficult to adapt to the hard life working on a sugar plantation with Matsuiji. In Japan, Riyo was used to a very different life so when she comes to this plantation, she immediately wants to go back. Riyo in this way, represents the similar idea that Chinese had when they first arrived in America. They knew that this was not their home and that eventually, after saving up money, they could return home. Additionally, like the Chinese, Japanese found themselves lost in a world that was not familiar to them. America; they dreamed, would be a magical world where they could earn a lot of money. In a scene in the film, Kana makes fun of Riyo who tells her she thought that America was going to be a place filled with “diamond Hills”. Chinese similarly thought that “America would be a land of greater opportunity” but after they arrived “they found improvised Chinatown's” (Takaki 424). Riyo learns what it is like to adapt to this new country; with a new life of labor she was not expecting; eventually left in charge “to take care of the girls”, as assigned by Kana.
Riyo demonstrates the similar experience that Japanese women endured as they come to America as picture brides. Many did not know what it would be like upon their arrival. Most of the picture brides were much younger than their husbands. As Riyo sees her soon to be husband for the first time, she is horrified; as were many women who had to go through the same process. In Takaki, a woman recalls that “when she first saw her fiancé, [she] could not believe her eyes” as “his hair was grey and [she] could not see the resemblance to the picture [she] had” (73).
Although many experienced the initial shock after seeing their husbands for the first time, many women were forced to do additional labor outside the plantation work they had to do alongside their husbands. Throughout this film, we saw how women were poorly treated; payed less than men, and had additional hours of intense labor as compared to the men. Unlike their Meji husbands, Issei women worked from morning till night, blackened by the sun” and did “miscellaneous chores until midnight” (Takaki 191).
As the women would work in the fields, the American boss would come around and treat them very poorly; making racial and discriminatory comments toward them and toward the way they worked. The women were segregated by the men and not given equal rights. Even among themselves, these Japanese women mocked and made fun of the “city girl” Riyo. They made prejudice comments about Riyo, asking why she spoke differently and soon began teaching her the “proper” way to speak English.
Throughout the film however, the “mutual support systems they had developed in America," was clearly shown. Regardless of how Japanese women treated each other or how the men treated their wives, there was always a sense of support for one another. Matsuji always respected Riyo and tried his best to be a good husband. Similarly, after the older lady working in the fields left, she left Kana in “charge of the girls” and even after Kana died, she left Riyo in “charge of the girls”. Furthermore, even when the men want to have a strike, they agree that they also need their Filipino brothers to join them. Like the Chinese, they were scored as “strangers from a different shore”, therefore all they had was each other. In addition, in order to survive, “protecting themselves against an antagonistic white-society”, both Chinese and Japanese were driven to “shelter themselves in their separate ethnic communities” (Takaki 210). Chinese and Japanese sought to work hard and have better lives, yet no matter what they did to try to assimilate to the American culture, they were not accepted. Both of these groups were “scored as strangers from a different shore” (Takaki 210).
No comments:
Post a Comment