Previous
Speak Your American (1942)
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Belonging, Bigotry, and Identity
Silence vs. Communication
Family Dynamics and Inheritance
Memory
Love and Self-Sacrifice
Summary
Analysis
Keiko meets Henry at the Black Elks Club, but both are disappointed to find a sign that says no minors are allowed inside after six o’clock. Improvising, the two decide to listen to the club’s music from the back alley, sitting on a pair of milk crates. After the first set, a man comes outside for a smoke and begins chatting with Henry and Keiko. When Henry says he is a fan of Oscar Holden, the man promises to let Henry and Keiko into the club if they go down to the pharmacy and pick up some liquor for him called Jamaican Ginger.
The reason this man (who will turn out to be Oscar Holden) is asking Henry and Keiko to buy liquor on his behalf is because black clubs, like the Black Elks Club, are not permitted to hold liquor licenses. Though this moment is not hugely important to the overall plot of the novel, it does serve to underscore the wide-reaching structural discrimination faced by black Americans during this time period.
Themes
Henry and Keiko fetch the liquor and return to the club. They are transfixed by the music and delighted when they realize the man they were speaking to is Oscar Holden himself. Oscar dedicates a song called “Alley Cats” to his “two new friends.” The musicians also play Duke Ellington’s “I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good.” Henry and Keiko are transfixed by the music. Keiko even notices one of her former teachers in the crowd, along with several other Japanese couples—though most of the audience is black.
As he listens to the music, Henry notices the makeup of the audience: mostly black, with a few Japanese patrons intermingled. Henry sees no “Chinese faces” in the crowd. This moment is thus bittersweet. Henry loves jazz music for the way it brings people together, but even amongst other jazz lovers, Henry still doesn’t feel as though he fully belongs.
Themes
Henry and Keiko chat with Sheldon after the performance, and then leave the club through the kitchen—only to find FBI officials waiting in the alley. The agents swarm into the club and arrest all six Japanese patrons inside, even as some of them shout that they are American. In the kitchen, an agent confronts Henry and Keiko, but Henry frantically points to the “I Am Chinese” button he is still wearing. Oscar and Sheldon also come to the children’s defense. When Keiko asks the agents why they are making arrests, one of the men says that the Japanese patrons might be “collaborators.” “They can get the death penalty if they’re found guilty of treason,” he says. “But they’ll probably just spend a few years in a nice safe jail cell.”
The arrest of the Black Elk Club’s Japanese patrons is an important turning point in the novel because it is the first in a series of government-sanctioned attacks on Japanese Americans. The irony of the FBI agent’s explanation is crucial: “They’ll probably just spend a few years in a nice safe jail cell,” he says. The agent likely means that arresting Japanese Americans will keep white Americans safe, by weeding out any possible enemy spies or collaborators. In reality, though, it is the Japanese Americans themselves who aren’t safe—from their neighbors or from their own government.
Themes
Henry hurries Keiko out of the club, where police cars and reporters are waiting. Keiko is furious; “I can’t watch this anymore,” she says. Henry apologizes for bringing her to the club, and sees Keiko look down at his button. “You are Chinese, aren’t you, Henry?” Henry is unsure how to respond, but nods anyway. “Be who you are,” Keiko says. “But I’m an American.”
Keiko’s anger at Henry highlights what a difficult position Henry finds himself in, time and again, as a Chinese American. Keiko seems to resent that Henry protected himself (and by extension, her) by embracing the Chinese part of his identity. In Keiko’s view, she, Henry, and all the Japanese American patrons who were arrested should be protected because they are Americans, first and foremost. Henry, it would seem, understands the impracticality of this vision, even as he also longs for it.
Themes
Get the entire Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet LitChart as a printable PDF.
