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The Japanese American Children
The white bosses oversee the plantations and farms that employ the Japanese husbands and, later, their wives. With generalized perceptions of their foreign workers as docile, overly proud, or unreliable drunkards, the white bosses view their workers simply as laborers rather than as fellow human beings. The white bosses also especially leverage their power against their female employees, often in sexual ways.
The White Bosses Quotes in The Buddha in the Attic
The The Buddha in the Attic quotes below are all either spoken by The White Bosses or refer to The White Bosses. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 3
Quotes
The first word of their language we were taught was water […] ‘Learn this word,’ [our husbands] said, ‘and save your life.’ Most of us did, but one of us—Yoshiko, who had […] never seen a weed in her life—did not. She went to bed after her first day at the Marble Ranch and she never woke up.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Expect the worst, but do not be surprised by moments of kindness. There is goodness all around. Remember to make them feel comfortable. Be humble. Be polite. Appear eager to please. Say ‘Yes, sir,’ or ‘No, sir,’ and do as you’re told. Better yet, say nothing at all. You now belong to the invisible world.
They admired us for our strong backs and nimble hands. Our stamina. Our discipline. Our docile dispositions. Our unusual ability to tolerate the heat, which on summer days in the melon fields of Brawley could reach 120 degrees. They said that our short stature made us ideally suited for work that required stooping low to the ground. Wherever they put us they were pleased.
Get the entire The Buddha in the Attic LitChart as a printable PDF.
The White Bosses Quotes in The Buddha in the Attic
The The Buddha in the Attic quotes below are all either spoken by The White Bosses or refer to The White Bosses. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 3
Quotes
The first word of their language we were taught was water […] ‘Learn this word,’ [our husbands] said, ‘and save your life.’ Most of us did, but one of us—Yoshiko, who had […] never seen a weed in her life—did not. She went to bed after her first day at the Marble Ranch and she never woke up.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Expect the worst, but do not be surprised by moments of kindness. There is goodness all around. Remember to make them feel comfortable. Be humble. Be polite. Appear eager to please. Say ‘Yes, sir,’ or ‘No, sir,’ and do as you’re told. Better yet, say nothing at all. You now belong to the invisible world.
They admired us for our strong backs and nimble hands. Our stamina. Our discipline. Our docile dispositions. Our unusual ability to tolerate the heat, which on summer days in the melon fields of Brawley could reach 120 degrees. They said that our short stature made us ideally suited for work that required stooping low to the ground. Wherever they put us they were pleased.
