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Theme Of Assimilation In Julie Otsuka's When The Emperor Was Divine

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Assimilation occurs when a group of people with their traditions, values, and beliefs adopts another group’s culture. Japanese-Americans living in the camp are described by the boy as "inscrutable" at one point in the novel. It was precise because of this "inscrutability" that the U.S. government imprisoned innocent Japanese-American citizens. Government officials could never know for sure what the loyalties of these citizens were, so they just incarcerated them all. Rather than the mingling of the two cultures, When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka depicts it as a loss of cultural identity while exploring the idea of inscrutability.
Most obvious is that the family members don't have names; they are called "the woman," "the boy," "the …show more content…

From the censored letters and untold experiences at the camps to the mysterious woman, so much in this novel remains unexplained. As a result of all these unknown elements, Otsuka seems to indicate that all others, irrespective of race or nationality, are fundamentally incomprehensible. Even if we are similar or close to another person, we will never be able to understand their true feelings or experiences. It is better to embrace this unknown than to fear it, as Otsuka suggests. As a result of this fear, thousands of innocent Japanese Americans were unjustly imprisoned, and this fear has led to untold tragedies throughout history—it motivated the Nazis to exterminate the Jewish population, and it still causes people today to label all Muslims as terrorists. Rather than fearing the unknown, Otsuka suggests empathizing with it, accepting it, and acknowledging our shared inscrutability of …show more content…

Containing a multiplicity of cultural objects, their home illustrates the possibility of the coexistence of Japanese and American cultural identities. Characters in this house do not have to sacrifice one side of their identity to conform to the other. However, this coexistence does not last. As soon as the government detains her husband on suspicion that he is a spy, she destroys all cultural ties to Japan in their home. During the war with Japan, the family abandons their Japanese heritage to demonstrate their sole loyalty to the American side of their identity. Because of this, assimilation forces them to erase a significant part of themselves, which doesn't prevent

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