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Gender and Autonomy
Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Buddha in the Attic, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
By portraying Japanese immigrants facing prejudice from both white Americans and their own Japanese American children, The Buddha in the Attic examines how widespread racist ideas prevented the flourishing of Japanese culture and identity during the early 1900s in California. While the novel builds up to the American government’s eventual internment of Japanese immigrants (which was an overt display of racist ideologies on an institutional level), it also sheds light on smaller-scale but nonetheless malicious prejudices that the Japanese women and their husbands face as laborers and domestic workers. In addition to navigating language barriers and other challenges that come with living in an unfamiliar country, the Japanese women and their husbands constantly find themselves subject to the whims of white bosses and employers who view them as cheap, docile workers who can survive on a diet of rice and little else. Because the Japanese women and their husbands must find a way to make ends meet in America, they often have no choice but to work for the same people who make fun of their accents and whose children even throw stones at them on the street. As such, the novel emphasizes the lengths to which the Japanese immigrants go in order to assimilate, since this is seemingly the only way for them to survive the everyday violence that they face. Their assimilation, then, is the result of their survival instincts, not simply the result of the time they’ve spent in this new country.
The Buddha in the Attic also highlights how growing up in a close-minded society leads American-born Japanese children to internalize prejudiced ways of thinking and grow ashamed and intolerant of their own culture. As the Japanese American children gain exposure to new ideas in their schools, they realize that white Americans view their parents as second-rate citizens, and the formation of their Asian American identities begins to involve not only adopting American ways but denying Japanese ones. In this way, the novel urges the reader to consider the dark sides of assimilation and immigration. While a life in America can be promising, it can also mean distancing oneself from or even denouncing one’s native culture. Furthermore, the same Japanese women who felt a powerful sense of togetherness after bonding with their children find themselves shunned and alone once more, strengthening the image of immigration as a complex and lonesome process.
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Racism, Assimilation, and Cultural Identity ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Racism, Assimilation, and Cultural Identity appears in each chapter of The Buddha in the Attic. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Racism, Assimilation, and Cultural Identity Quotes in The Buddha in the Attic
Below you will find the important quotes in The Buddha in the Attic related to the theme of Racism, Assimilation, and Cultural Identity.
Chapter 1
Quotes
They were handsome young men with dark eyes and full heads of hair and skin that was smooth and unblemished…They looked like our brothers and fathers back home, only better dressed, in gray frock coats and fine Western three-piece suits. Some of them were standing on sidewalks in front of wooden A-frame houses with white picket fences and neatly mowed lawns, and some were leaning in driveways against Model T Fords.
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On the boat we carried with us in our trunks all the things we would need for our new lives: white silk kimonos for our wedding night, colorful cotton kimonos for everyday wear, plain cotton kimonos for when we grew old, calligraphy brushes, thick black sticks of ink, thin sheets of rice paper on which to write long letters home, tiny brass Buddhas.
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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.
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.
They did not want us as neighbors in their valleys. They did not want us as friends. We lived in unsightly shacks and could not speak plain English. We cared only about money. Our farming methods were poor. We used too much water […] We were taking over their cauliflower industry. We had taken over their spinach industry. We had a monopoly on their strawberry industry and had cornered their market on beans. We were an unbeatable, unstoppable economic machine[.]
Chapter 5
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They were silent, weathered men who tramped in and out of the house in their muddy overalls muttering to themselves about sucker growth, the price of green beans, how many crates of celery they thought we could pull this year from the fields. They rarely spoke to their children, or even seemed to remember their names.
They gave themselves new names we had not chosen for them and could barely pronounce […] Many called themselves George. Saburo was called Chinky by all the others because he looked just like a Chinaman. Toshitachi was called Harlem because his skin was so dark.
Chapter 6
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A few of us began receiving anonymous letters in the mail, informing us that our husbands would be next […] Others reported that their husbands had been threatened by angry Filipino workers in the fields […] Hitomi, who had worked as a housekeeper at the Prince estate for more than ten years, was held up at gunpoint in broad daylight as she was heading back into town.
They pulled on their overalls in the countryside and helped us prepare for the harvest one last time, for we had been ordered to till our fields until the very end. This was our contribution to the war effort, we were told. An opportunity for us to prove our loyalty. A way to provide fresh fruits and vegetables for the folks on the home front.
Chapter 7
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Most of us left speaking only English, so as not to anger the crowds that had gathered to watch us go. Many of us had lost everything and left saying nothing at all. All of us left wearing white numbered identification tags tied to our collars and lapels.
Chapter 8
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A woman who used to rent to the Nakamuras says they were the best tenants she’s ever had. “Friendly. Polite. And so clean, you could practically eat off their floors.” “And they lived American, too,” says her husband. “Not a Japanese touch anywhere. Not even a vase.”
Harada Grocery has been taken over by a Chinese man named Wong but otherwise looks exactly the same, and whenever we walk past his window it is easy to imagine that everything is as it was before. But Mr. Harada is no longer with us, and the rest of the Japanese are gone. We speak of them rarely now.
