Kira-Kira

Prejudice against individuals of Asian descent, and particularly those of Japanese descent, was prevalent in the US long before the beginning of Kira-Kira. For instance, the derogatory term “yellow peril” came into use in 1895 when Japan defeated China in the first Sino-Japanese War. Likewise, certain legal actions that took place in the decades prior to the 1950s clearly reveal the historical distrust white Americans felt toward the Japanese. In 1907, an informal arrangement between Japan and the US prevented additional Japanese laborers from coming to the US. A federal law banning new immigrants from Japan formalized this in 1924. In 1913, a California law prohibited people of Japanese extraction from purchasing land; this was a direct response to the success Japanese American farmers experienced in California agriculture. WWII exacerbated the distrust of white Americans toward Japanese Americans. It is important to note that the prejudice experienced by people of Japanese descent did not take into consideration whether they were US citizens. In the novel, though the Takeshimas are American by birth, prejudiced whites often regard them as foreign nationals.

In keeping with the fact that her narrator is the very young Katie, who only gradually realizes that some white people treat her family with bias, Kadohata makes little mention of any prejudicial treatment Takeshimas experienced in Iowa apart from Katie’s observation that, “Our parents owned a small Oriental foods grocery store. Unfortunately, there were hardly any Oriental people in Iowa, and the store went out of business” (7). As the family moves to Georgia, the maturing Katie notes more incidents of bias. While some may seem inconsequential, they reveal an inhospitable mindset—even without outright violence or hostility, the family struggles with the resulting exclusion. This is particularly true for the children. Prior to Katie’s first day, Lynn warns her to expect white children to ignore her or even treat her as if she were an ant. The prejudice the Takeshimas experience sometimes takes odd forms that, beneath the surface, are quite insulting. For instance, Katie quickly picks up a Southern accent, which stuns some people who hear her speak; some even give her money to listen to her. The author implies that these white Georgians assume that individuals of Japanese descent would necessarily speak accented English regardless of where they are born.

So pervasive is the bias against the family that individuals who do not share this common prejudice stand out positively in the narrative. Silly’s family is more accepting of the family than Mother is of Silly’s mother, whom they fear because of her union ties. In a particularly striking example of unbiased treatment, when the selfless Hank, a white laborer, wordlessly races to save Katie’s brother, Katie is stunned to realize that he is the first white person who does not treat her or her siblings any differently than his own family. Conversely, Amber, Lynn’s erstwhile white friend, offers an example of a white individual wrestling with anti-Japanese prejudice. Clearly drawn to Lynn’s beauty and delightful personality, Amber must turn her back on her white friends to be Lynn’s companion. Only when she snubs Lynn do Amber’s white friends embrace her again. Since there must be some rationalization to support her betrayal of Lynn’s friendship, she declares that since the Takeshimas are not Christian, Lynn is not eligible for friendship.

Most of the novel’s characters are either white or of Japanese descent. The only Black person Katie encounters at length is Mr. Lyndon’s personal maid, whom Katie describes in somewhat dehumanizing terms: “Her skin was the same color as my brown silk hat my mother had made for my birthday” (232). This carries the very subtle implication that Katie may be internalizing other kinds of bias than the one against Asian Americans. However, readers realize that the author downplays the presence of Black Georgians not to ignore the extreme prejudice Black people experienced in this era, but rather to highlight the potentially less visible ways in which Japanese Americans also suffered racial bias.