Snow Falling on Cedars

Kabuo Miyamoto in David Guterson's novel Snow Falling on Cedars is a victim of intolerance and that victimization has helped shape him as a man. He was placed in an internment camp, along with other Japanese-Americans, on the basis of racism and nothing else. He, along with the others, was seen as an enemy of the nation on the basis of his racial heritage, his skin color, his facial features, his name, and for no other reasons. Intolerance and fear dictated the public policy which treated American citizens of Japanese heritage as enemies. There was absolutely no evidence that Miyamoto had committed any crime against the United States or posed any danger to the United States, but he was placed in an internment camp nevertheless, based solely on racial prejudice and intolerance.

With respect to the murder of Carl Heine, even that evidence seems weak at best, so that one can certainly argue that in this case as well, intolerance for a Japanese-American has played a part in his being suspected of the crime. Even if the evidence were to hold up before the inquiry of a trial, the book is full of examples, both in the trial and in the life of the town, of judgments of Miyamoto which are wholly or partly based in racial intolerance.

The book immediately depicts intolerance in the townspeoples' perceptions of Miyamoto. Some of the townspeople "would later say that his stillness suggested a disdain for the proceedings; others felt certain it veiled a fear of the verdict that was t

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