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Steps (1986)
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
After school on Monday, Henry finds Sheldon on his street corner. Sheldon asks where Henry has been the past couple weekends. Henry says he’ll explain later, and asks Sheldon to give him his record. Sheldon resists, saying: “[It’s] the only record I own—of my own playing.” Henry explains that he wants to give Keiko the record for her birthday, and Sheldon relents, saying Henry can have the record “because it’s for a higher power.” “You go play that thing in that camp down there,” Sheldon says. “You go. I kinda like the sound of that.”
In giving Henry his copy of the record, Sheldon shows himself to be a selfless friend. He also models for Henry the importance of fighting for love. This foreshadows the way that Sheldon will, as he is dying, encourage Henry to reconnect with Keiko. Finally, Sheldon’s enthusiasm at having his music played at the internment camp suggests that music, in this case, can be a force of resistance by acting as a reclamation of joy in the face of oppression.
Themes
The next day, Henry stops at Woolworth’s after school to buy a sketchbook and art supplies for Keiko. He hurries home and stashes the supplies with the record in the back alley behind his house. When he enters his apartment, he finds his father and mother sitting at the table with Keiko’s family photo albums spread out before them. “Well, at least we’re probably going to have a real conversation,” Henry thinks.
This is the beginning of a climactic scene in the novel, in which Henry and his father finally butt heads over Henry’s relationship with Keiko. It is noteworthy that Henry feels a certain sense of relief here, even though he anticipates that his father will react poorly. Henry is so desperate to have a genuine conversation with his father that even the prospect of an argument feels strangely comforting. This emphasizes what a stifling, alienating effect the silence of his family household has had on Henry.
Themes
Henry’s father berates him: “Instead of studying, you’re making eyes with this Japanese girl. Japanese! She’s a daughter of the butchers of my people. Your people. Their blood is on her!” For the first time in eight months, Henry speaks Cantonese to his father, instead of English. He defends Keiko, explaining that she is American, born in the same hospital she was. “She’s not the enemy,” he shouts. He’s surprised by his own fury, and ashamed at speaking so loudly in front of his mother.
Henry’s father has become so mired in his hatred of Japan that he can no longer recognize that Keiko isn’t even Japanese—she is Japanese American. Furthermore, Mr. and Mrs. Okabe are Japanese American as well; Keiko is neither literally nor figuratively a daughter of the “butchers” of Chinese people. This passage thus emphasizes how toxic memory as a force has become for Henry’s father, blinding him in the same way that racism and xenophobia blinds a character like Chaz.
Themes
With “a blank expression that [is] probably a mask of his disappointment,” Henry’s father dumps Keiko’s family photos out the window. Though his father ignores him, Henry whispers furiously: “She was born here. Her family was born here. You weren’t even born here.” Henry insists that he’s going to retrieve the photos and keep his promise to Keiko. “If you walk out that door,” Henry’s father says, “[…] you are no longer part of this family. You are no longer Chinese.” With his hand on the door, Henry says in Cantonese: “I am what you made me, Father […] I…am an American.”
Henry’s decision to walk out the door represents a turning point in his relationship with his father. From this point onward, the relationship between these two characters will only further deteriorate. Henry’s affirmation of his Americanness—which he speaks in Chinese—emphasizes that Henry will no longer submit to his father’s vision of what Henry’s life should look like.
Themes
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