Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet vs. American Pastime
During World War II in 1940’s, the United States was at war with Japan. President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order requiring those people who were Japanese descendants to move West Coast. The United States were afraid of Japanese Americans spying for Japan. The living conditions of Japanese American internment camps were very challenging for them because of the housing, food and the daily experiences that the Japanese went through. Nowadays, there are some books and movies that demonstrate what life was like to be living life in an internment camp. For example, the book Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet written by Jamie Ford and the movie American Pastime by Desmond Nakano ...view middle of the document...
They were in the same situation like the nomuras. They have adapt themselves to sleep in small rooms cells or barracks and have meals three times a day in mess halls were portions were small and dull.
Also, we can see throughout the book and the movie the father and son relationship between Mr. Lee and Henry (HCBS) and the relationship between Mr. Nomura y Lyle Nomura in American Pastime. Those both relationships were quite similar to each other. However, Mr. Nomura seems more apprehensible on understanding and assimilating things. For example, both Mr. Lee and Mr. Nomura are traditional and strict with their son. Nevertheless, Mr. Nomura has a better communication with his son Lyle than Mr. Lee with Henry. Mr. Nomuras was a serious and quiet person, but he was able to communicate with his son. On the other hand, Henry didn’t have the opportunity to have a concrete communication with his father.
In the book and movie, we can see that the Okabes and Nomuras suffered from discrimination and maltreatment from the people around them. For instance, one day henry and Keiko went to buy a record in a store and the cashier wouldn’t sell the record to them because they looked Japanese, even though the only Japanese-American was Keiko. Something similar happen to Lyle’s older brother who came back from the war, and he wanted to have a haircut. However, the barbers wouldn’t cut his hair because they felt hatred towards them.
American Pastime and Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet are two excellent stories, that captivate your attention and show the reality of internments camps, the relationship between the Japanese families and the discrimination that people had to suffer just because of the war.
