Lauren Kessler's "Stubborn Twig"

This paper is an examination of Lauren Kessler's Stubborn Twig, a chronicle of three generations of a Japanese American family that provides fascinating personal examples of the experience that most Japanese immigrants underwent in coming to America. Masuo Yasui arrived in the United States to help build the railroads in the American West. He stayed to found a large family and a successful business enterprise. His nine children were all American citizens by virtue of their birthplace, but Masuo could not legally take the oath of citizenship until long after he had made enormous sacrifices for his adopted country. World War II was a severe test of the commitment of Masuo's family to the privilege and challenge of being American. Masuo's grandchildren spent their childhoods focused on becoming as completely Americanized as their distinctively Asian facial features would allow them, stopping only to examine their own heritage and family history after they became adults. Stubborn Twig provides a remarkable, moving account of each generation's struggle for security and identity.

Until the middle of the 19th century, Japan was an insular society, closed to outsiders and trying to remain isolated. When Commodore Matthew Perry finally forced the empire to open trade with the West, Japan began to allow a few of its citizens to travel abroad. The first Japanese immigrants to arrive in the United States had no intention of remaining, once they had earned some money and gotten

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traitor and a spy. His wife, three of his children, and three other members of the immediate family were among the 110,000 Japanese Americans who were forcibly evicted from their homes, forced to leave behind most of their possessions, and interned in heavily-guarded, inhospitable camps, solely because of their race. Masuo's other children escaped internment primarily as the result of their living away from home at the time of the order. However, his third son, Min (Minoru), who had just become one of the few Japanese American lawyers in the country, decided that he could not accept events with the same stoicism most of his family was culturally accustomed to showing. A much-quoted Japanese saying, Shikata ga nai ("It can't be helped"), summarizes the attitude with which much of the Yasui clan faced hardship and disappointment. Min was not willing to accept this answer. He set out to fight the legislation aimed at containing and punishing Japanese Americans. He argued that such legislation was simply institutionalized racism and a direct violation of constitutional rights. He used himself as a test case. He lost. Yet Min's fight resulted in an ultimate victory, one which was not confirmed until almost nine months after

Category: Psychology - L