Obasan

by

Joy Kogawa

Emily is Mother’s younger sister, Naomi’s aunt, and a passionate activist against racism. She consistently asserts that she is a Canadian, and she does not believe that her Japanese identity negates that in any way, since “everything a Canadian does is Canadian.” However, she struggles in the 1940s to reconcile her pride in her Canadian identity with her disgust at the actions of the Canadian government. During this time, she documents her life in a journal. After the war Emily commits herself to documenting the oppression of Japanese Canadians, as a form of activism to combat the government’s silencing of these stories. This project of Emily’s forces Naomi to confront the traumas of her past that she has tried to deny, after Emily sends Naomi a box of documents pertaining to Japanese internment and how it affected their family. Though Emily’s dedication to challenging silence brings about a necessary change in Naomi, the novel doesn’t revere Emily’s method of activism as an uncomplicated good. She pushes people to recall their trauma without much gentleness or respect for their own pace, and she prioritizes abstract notions of justice over the emotional toll that results from delving into traumatic experiences.

Aunt Emily Kato Quotes in Obasan

The Obasan quotes below are all either spoken by Aunt Emily Kato or refer to Aunt Emily Kato. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Race, Identity, and Citizenship Theme Icon
).
Chapter 7 Quotes

“Write the vision and make it plain. Habakkuk 2.2”

Dear Aunt Em is crusading still. […] For her, the vision is the truth as she lives it. When she is called like Habakkuk to the witness stand, her testimony is to the light that shines in the lives of the Nisei, in their desperation to prove themselves Canadian, in their tough and gentle spirit. The truth for me is more murky, shadowy and gray. But on my lap, her papers are wind and fuel nudging my early-morning thoughts to flame.

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Aunt Emily Kato (speaker)
Related Symbols: Aunt Emily’s Box of Documents
Page Number: 38
Explanation and Analysis:

The Custodian’s reply to Aunt Emily must have been the same to anyone else who dared to write. “Be good, my undesirable, my illegitimate children, be obedient, be servile, above all don’t send me any letters of inquiry about your homes, while I stand on guard (over your property) in the true north strong, though you are not free. B. Good.”

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Aunt Emily Kato
Related Symbols: Aunt Emily’s Box of Documents
Page Number: 45
Explanation and Analysis:

Out loud I said, “Why not leave the dead to bury the dead?”

“Dead?” she asked. “I’m not dead. You’re not dead. Who’s dead?”

“But you can’t fight the whole country,” I said.

“We are the country.”

Obasan was not taking part in the conversation. When pressed, finally she said that she was grateful for life. “Arigati. Gratitude only.”

[…] “In the world, there is no better place,” [Uncle] said.

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Obasan (Ayako Nakane) (speaker), Aunt Emily Kato (speaker), Uncle (Isamu “Sam” Nakane) (speaker)
Page Number: 50
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

The house in which we live is in Marpole, a comfortable residential district of Vancouver. It is more splendid than any house I have lived in since. It does not bear remembering. None of this bears remembering.

“You have to remember,” Aunt Emily said. “You are your history. If you cut any of it off you're an amputee. Don't deny the past. Remember everything. If you’re bitter, be bitter. Cry it out! Scream! Denial is gangrene. […]”

All right, Aunt Emily, all right! The house then––the house, if I must remember it today, was large and beautiful.

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Aunt Emily Kato (speaker), Father (Tadashi/Mark Nakane)
Page Number: 60
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

“What a serious baby––fed on milk and Momotaro.”

“Milk and Momotaro?” I asked. “Culture clash?”

“Not at all,” she said. “Momotaro is a Canadian story. We’re Canadian, aren't we? Everything a Canadian does is Canadian.”

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Aunt Emily Kato (speaker)
Page Number: 68
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

All Nisei are liable to imprisonment if we refuse to volunteer to leave. At least that is the likeliest interpretation of Ian Mackenzie's “Volunteer or else” statement. […] Why do they consider us to be wartime prisoners? Can you wonder that there is a deep bitterness among the Nisei who believed in democracy?

Related Characters: Aunt Emily Kato (speaker), Mother
Page Number: 103
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

None of us, [Aunt Emily] said, escaped the naming. We were defined and identified by the way we were seen. A newspaper in B.C. headlined: “They are a stench in the nostrils of people of Canada.” We were therefore relegated to the cesspools.

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Aunt Emily Kato
Page Number: 139-140
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

“Why can’t we go home, Stephen?”

“Because. That’s why,” Stephen says crossly, and tells me no more. His eyes are like Father’s, searching.

The orders, given to Uncle and Father in 1945, reach me via Aunt Emily's package in 1972, twenty-seven years later.

The delivery service is slow these days. Understanding is even slower. I still do not see the Canadian face of the author of those words.

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Stephen Nakane (speaker), Aunt Emily Kato, Father (Tadashi/Mark Nakane)
Related Symbols: Aunt Emily’s Box of Documents
Page Number: 206
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

The crowd stands aside, waving steadily, bowing, touching arms here and there, and then they are out of view and I’m clambering up the train steps again as I did three years ago.

We sit in two seats facing each other once more, exactly like the last time. Where is Father? […] Where are we going? Will it be to a city? Remember my doll? Remember Vancouver? The escalators? Electric lights? Streetcars? Will we go home again ever?

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Aunt Emily Kato, Father (Tadashi/Mark Nakane), Mother
Page Number: 216
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

And I am tired, I suppose, because I want to get away from all this. From the past and all these papers, from the present, from the memories, from the deaths, from Aunt Emily and her heap of words. I want to break loose from the heavy identity, the evidence of rejection, the unexpressed passion, the misunderstood politeness. I am tired of living between deaths and funerals, weighted with decorum, unable to shout or sing or dance, unable to scream or swear, unable to laugh, unable to breathe out loud.

(Keep your eyes down. When you are in the city, do not look into anyone's face. That way they may not see you. That way you offend less.)

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Obasan (Ayako Nakane), Aunt Emily Kato
Related Symbols: Aunt Emily’s Box of Documents
Page Number: 218
Explanation and Analysis:

All of Aunt Emily’s words, all her papers, the telegrams and petitions, are like scratchings in the barnyard, the evidence of much activity, scaly claws hard at work. But what good they do, I do not know––those little black typewritten words––rain words, cloud droppings. They do not touch us where we are planted here in Alberta, our roots clawing the sudden prairie air. The words are not made flesh. Trains do not carry us home. Ships do not return again. All my prayers disappear into space.

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Aunt Emily Kato
Related Symbols: Aunt Emily’s Box of Documents
Page Number: 226
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 29 Quotes

Is it so bad?

Yes.

Do I really mind?

Yes, I mind. I mind everything. Even the flies. […] It’s the chicken coop “house” we live in that I mind. […] It’s the bedbugs and my having to sleep on the table to escape the nightly attack, and the welts all over our bodies. […] Or it’s standing in the beet field under the maddening sun […].

[…] I mind the harvesttime and the hands and the wrists bound in rags to keep the wrists from breaking open. […] I cannot tell about this time, Aunt Emily. The body will not tell.

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Obasan (Ayako Nakane), Aunt Emily Kato, Uncle (Isamu “Sam” Nakane), Stephen Nakane
Page Number: 233-235
Explanation and Analysis:

I can remember since Aunt Emily insists that I must and release the floodgates one by one. […] I can cry for Obasan, who has turned to stone.

But what then? Uncle does not rise up and return to his boats. Dead bones do not take on flesh.

What is done, Aunt Emily, is done, is it not? And no doubt it will all happen again, over and over with different faces and names, variations on the same theme.

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Obasan (Ayako Nakane), Aunt Emily Kato, Uncle (Isamu “Sam” Nakane)
Page Number: 238
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Obasan LitChart as a printable PDF.
Obasan PDF

Aunt Emily Kato Quotes in Obasan

The Obasan quotes below are all either spoken by Aunt Emily Kato or refer to Aunt Emily Kato. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Race, Identity, and Citizenship Theme Icon
).
Chapter 7 Quotes

“Write the vision and make it plain. Habakkuk 2.2”

Dear Aunt Em is crusading still. […] For her, the vision is the truth as she lives it. When she is called like Habakkuk to the witness stand, her testimony is to the light that shines in the lives of the Nisei, in their desperation to prove themselves Canadian, in their tough and gentle spirit. The truth for me is more murky, shadowy and gray. But on my lap, her papers are wind and fuel nudging my early-morning thoughts to flame.

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Aunt Emily Kato (speaker)
Related Symbols: Aunt Emily’s Box of Documents
Page Number: 38
Explanation and Analysis:

The Custodian’s reply to Aunt Emily must have been the same to anyone else who dared to write. “Be good, my undesirable, my illegitimate children, be obedient, be servile, above all don’t send me any letters of inquiry about your homes, while I stand on guard (over your property) in the true north strong, though you are not free. B. Good.”

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Aunt Emily Kato
Related Symbols: Aunt Emily’s Box of Documents
Page Number: 45
Explanation and Analysis:

Out loud I said, “Why not leave the dead to bury the dead?”

“Dead?” she asked. “I’m not dead. You’re not dead. Who’s dead?”

“But you can’t fight the whole country,” I said.

“We are the country.”

Obasan was not taking part in the conversation. When pressed, finally she said that she was grateful for life. “Arigati. Gratitude only.”

[…] “In the world, there is no better place,” [Uncle] said.

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Obasan (Ayako Nakane) (speaker), Aunt Emily Kato (speaker), Uncle (Isamu “Sam” Nakane) (speaker)
Page Number: 50
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

The house in which we live is in Marpole, a comfortable residential district of Vancouver. It is more splendid than any house I have lived in since. It does not bear remembering. None of this bears remembering.

“You have to remember,” Aunt Emily said. “You are your history. If you cut any of it off you're an amputee. Don't deny the past. Remember everything. If you’re bitter, be bitter. Cry it out! Scream! Denial is gangrene. […]”

All right, Aunt Emily, all right! The house then––the house, if I must remember it today, was large and beautiful.

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Aunt Emily Kato (speaker), Father (Tadashi/Mark Nakane)
Page Number: 60
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

“What a serious baby––fed on milk and Momotaro.”

“Milk and Momotaro?” I asked. “Culture clash?”

“Not at all,” she said. “Momotaro is a Canadian story. We’re Canadian, aren't we? Everything a Canadian does is Canadian.”

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Aunt Emily Kato (speaker)
Page Number: 68
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

All Nisei are liable to imprisonment if we refuse to volunteer to leave. At least that is the likeliest interpretation of Ian Mackenzie's “Volunteer or else” statement. […] Why do they consider us to be wartime prisoners? Can you wonder that there is a deep bitterness among the Nisei who believed in democracy?

Related Characters: Aunt Emily Kato (speaker), Mother
Page Number: 103
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

None of us, [Aunt Emily] said, escaped the naming. We were defined and identified by the way we were seen. A newspaper in B.C. headlined: “They are a stench in the nostrils of people of Canada.” We were therefore relegated to the cesspools.

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Aunt Emily Kato
Page Number: 139-140
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

“Why can’t we go home, Stephen?”

“Because. That’s why,” Stephen says crossly, and tells me no more. His eyes are like Father’s, searching.

The orders, given to Uncle and Father in 1945, reach me via Aunt Emily's package in 1972, twenty-seven years later.

The delivery service is slow these days. Understanding is even slower. I still do not see the Canadian face of the author of those words.

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Stephen Nakane (speaker), Aunt Emily Kato, Father (Tadashi/Mark Nakane)
Related Symbols: Aunt Emily’s Box of Documents
Page Number: 206
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

The crowd stands aside, waving steadily, bowing, touching arms here and there, and then they are out of view and I’m clambering up the train steps again as I did three years ago.

We sit in two seats facing each other once more, exactly like the last time. Where is Father? […] Where are we going? Will it be to a city? Remember my doll? Remember Vancouver? The escalators? Electric lights? Streetcars? Will we go home again ever?

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Aunt Emily Kato, Father (Tadashi/Mark Nakane), Mother
Page Number: 216
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

And I am tired, I suppose, because I want to get away from all this. From the past and all these papers, from the present, from the memories, from the deaths, from Aunt Emily and her heap of words. I want to break loose from the heavy identity, the evidence of rejection, the unexpressed passion, the misunderstood politeness. I am tired of living between deaths and funerals, weighted with decorum, unable to shout or sing or dance, unable to scream or swear, unable to laugh, unable to breathe out loud.

(Keep your eyes down. When you are in the city, do not look into anyone's face. That way they may not see you. That way you offend less.)

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Obasan (Ayako Nakane), Aunt Emily Kato
Related Symbols: Aunt Emily’s Box of Documents
Page Number: 218
Explanation and Analysis:

All of Aunt Emily’s words, all her papers, the telegrams and petitions, are like scratchings in the barnyard, the evidence of much activity, scaly claws hard at work. But what good they do, I do not know––those little black typewritten words––rain words, cloud droppings. They do not touch us where we are planted here in Alberta, our roots clawing the sudden prairie air. The words are not made flesh. Trains do not carry us home. Ships do not return again. All my prayers disappear into space.

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Aunt Emily Kato
Related Symbols: Aunt Emily’s Box of Documents
Page Number: 226
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 29 Quotes

Is it so bad?

Yes.

Do I really mind?

Yes, I mind. I mind everything. Even the flies. […] It’s the chicken coop “house” we live in that I mind. […] It’s the bedbugs and my having to sleep on the table to escape the nightly attack, and the welts all over our bodies. […] Or it’s standing in the beet field under the maddening sun […].

[…] I mind the harvesttime and the hands and the wrists bound in rags to keep the wrists from breaking open. […] I cannot tell about this time, Aunt Emily. The body will not tell.

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Obasan (Ayako Nakane), Aunt Emily Kato, Uncle (Isamu “Sam” Nakane), Stephen Nakane
Page Number: 233-235
Explanation and Analysis:

I can remember since Aunt Emily insists that I must and release the floodgates one by one. […] I can cry for Obasan, who has turned to stone.

But what then? Uncle does not rise up and return to his boats. Dead bones do not take on flesh.

What is done, Aunt Emily, is done, is it not? And no doubt it will all happen again, over and over with different faces and names, variations on the same theme.

Related Characters: Naomi Nakane (speaker), Obasan (Ayako Nakane), Aunt Emily Kato, Uncle (Isamu “Sam” Nakane)
Page Number: 238
Explanation and Analysis: