Love and Self-Sacrifice Theme Analysis

In Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Asian Americans Henry and Keiko meet each other at a young age and maintain a lifelong bond despite being separated. They manage to keep their love and hope for the future alive despite Keiko being sent to a Japanese internment camp and both characters facing hatred and discrimination in nearly all facets of their lives apart from each other. Henry and Keiko’s story shows that love has the power to transcend all boundaries: the imagined distinction between Chinese and Japanese Americans, literal barriers such as fences around the internment camps where Keiko is imprisoned, and even time itself. What’s more, the novel emphasizes that small acts of love can be just as meaningful as the kind of grand, lifelong love that Henry and Keiko share. In fact, it is quite often these smaller-scale acts of love and self-sacrifice that make practical differences in the lives of the characters, suggesting that even in times of extreme suffering, love can still be a powerful force for good.

Henry and Keiko’s relationship is the novel’s ultimate testament to the fact that true love is powerful enough to transcend any and all boundaries. Henry’s love for Keiko persists—even when she is imprisoned in another state, even when Henry’s father intercepts Keiko’s letters to his son, and even when Henry himself falls in love with and marries another woman, Ethel. True love, like the kind Henry and Keiko have, endures. In no other scene is this more evident than when Henry tracks down Keiko at Camp Minidoka in Idaho and shares his first kiss with her through the barbed wire fence surrounding the camp: “He was leaning in, his forehead pressed against the cold metal wire; if there was something sharp there, he didn’t feel it. All he felt was Keiko’s cheek, wet from the rain, as she leaned in too.” The love between Henry and Keiko does not erase the horror of the circumstances in which they find themselves. The barbed wire is still there, cold and sharp. But love exists on a separate plane; because of the love he feels for Keiko, Henry can ignore the harsh realities around him. The novel does not pretend that love can make up for the type of suffering that Keiko and thousands of other Japanese Americans suffered as a result of internment. It does maintain, however, that true love is powerful enough to persist—even to flourish—despite these horrendous circumstances.

Though Henry and Keiko’s relationship is the book’s central example of true love, the novel also suggests that their love could not exist without smaller gestures of love from other characters. For example, Henry’s musician friend Sheldon Thomas enables Henry to find Keiko in Idaho by accompanying Henry on a Greyhound bus. Sheldon makes this decision despite the fact that he has little money and that, as a black man, he rightfully fears that he might be in danger upon leaving the city of Seattle for the smaller farming communities of the Midwest. This act, then, demonstrates the power of small gestures of self-sacrifice to help others—Sheldon puts his livelihood and safety in danger just to help Henry and Keiko, which ultimately facilitates their relationship. Because Sheldon supports Henry in this simple way, Henry and Keiko are able to maintain their lifelong bond.

Love, the novel claims, can even act as a small-scale form of resistance. Despite the strong sway Henry’s father holds over his wife as the strict patriarch of the family, Henry’s mother ensures that her son receives the birthday card Keiko mails him from Camp Minidoka. Henry’s mother is “a little bewildered” by her own decision to subvert her husband’s wishes, but she remains firm, and as a result Henry is able to have tangible proof that Keiko has not abandoned him. This gesture is particularly significant not only because it helps Henry, but because of the risk Henry’s mother takes in doing so. She potentially sacrifices her own good standing with her overbearing husband in order to ensure Henry’s happiness and preserve his relationship with Keiko. Another surprising act of love comes from the curmudgeonly Mrs. Beatty, who runs the cafeteria at Henry’s school. Though she doesn’t verbally announce her fondness for Keiko, just days after the Japanese Americans of Seattle have been taken away to internment camps, Mrs. Beatty serves the students at Rainier Elementary (many of whom are openly bigoted) a Japanese lunch of chicken katsu-retsu. “Let ’em try that, see what they have to say about it,” she says. Mrs. Beatty’s gesture not only acts as evidence that she cares for Keiko, but it also pushes back, albeit in a small way, against the prejudices of Henry and Keiko’s classmates.

Henry and Keiko both confront systemic oppression and racism throughout the novel, yet they are still able to maintain their love for one another and do not let the hatred of others overtake them. The love they share does not negate these forces, but it ceaselessly binds and sustains their spirits. The everyday acts of love and self-sacrifice that other characters perform for them also bring about small-scale changes that continue to make their love possible and help Henry and Keiko to cope with their suffering over the course of the novel.