Julie otsuka - The Buddha in the Attic

review by Maggie Perkovic on show 16th Feb
This is an odd little book, in the review it spoke of the story of japanese War Brides going to America to be linked up with Japanese American men who needed patners, but actually these brides travelled over in the early 1900's and although the majority were japanese American, some were real Americans who needed help on their crops as much as a wife to share their lives!!!!
Their stories are quite engrossing, but the author only gives an overview, which means you never get to know an individual couple just a general picture of the shock a lot of girls received when they arrived, a lot of pictures were out of date and the dashing young men in the photos were now quite elderly!!! They also found they were living in sheds, on floors, with other couples and sometimes out in the fields!!!They also found they had to work really hard and at the end of the year some men lost the money in the bar, or gambled it away. The ladies could not ret
urn to Japan, the shame would be too great so they knuckled down and got on with it, and forged a life of some sort. Children were born to be educated as Americans but with their culture still as a background. However when the Japanese attacked their lives changed radically, with husbands being taken away, and finally all the wives and families even children born in America were taken away to be interned for the duration of the war. The Author never tells us what happened after the war, how they rebuilt their lives and what future they enjoyed. Interesting neverthless.