Otsuka‘s The Buddha in the Attic: The Japanese American Immigrant Experience and Racial Prejudice in the U.S.

Abstract

This paper examines Julie Otsuka‘s The Buddha in the Attic through feminist and postcolonial considerations of the Japanese American experience. Japanese women who emigrate to the U S as picture brides are the work‘s central focus It is through a collectivist perspective that these women describe their contact with racial and gender discrimination while adapting to their roles as wives and mothers In the narrative‘s first half, I apply Luce Irigaray‘s theory of women‘s identity being malleable within a patriarchal structure, depicting these women as powerless to change their lives because of their gender. This leads to disrespectful physical encounters with their husbands and American employers because of their bodies and ethnic differences, respectively. Motherhood also alters racial prejudice on an intergenerational level because of how the children perceive their parents‘ struggles The novel even references the political agenda behind the Japanese American displacement and features a brief reflection from the neighbours in order to memorialize a little-known chapter of WWII‘s political transgressions.