Guest Post: "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet," by James Ford

I am very pleased to introduce a guest post by my colleague, Sue Bae. Thank you, Sue, for this thoughtful review, below.

What started out as a consideration for some of my more advanced ESL students turned out to be a treat for me. James Ford’s debut novel, “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” (Ballantine, 2009), though it probably won’t win any literary awards, is a poignant story of two innocents: Henry, a young Chinese American boy, and Keiko, a Japanese American girl, who meet and develop a deep friendship in the midst of the turmoil of the WW II years. Unlike for those around them, including Henry’s parents, race, ethnicity, and politics mean nothing to them except that they are what keep the two apart. I found myself cheering for the two, and urging them on in their valiant efforts to overcome the obstacles laid before them, the worst of which was Keiko’s family’s forcible imprisonment in a Japanese internment camp with the rest of the residents of Seattle’s Japantown. What I initially appreciated about the story was that there are no harsh words about or condemnations of the national policies that brought on such tragedies. It is Ford’s ability to keep politics out of his story that makes it so sweet and tender. (Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” comes to mind.) But I, and I’m sure other readers as well, could not help but taste the bitter, when reading that others merely looked on while guiltless people, innocents like Henry and Keiko, were stripped of their rights and homes, and other minority groups did nothing to help them in their common struggle for social justice. Henry’s father, one of many Chinese Americans trying to survive the times, has his son wear an “I am Chinese” button on his jacket to keep him from being mistaken for Japanese. He rages at Henry for hiding Keiko’s family treasures in his room for safekeeping, and does not speak to or acknowledge his son when he befriends a Japanese girl. Of course, this was all done out of fear. Through the bitter years of separation, Henry and Keiko live their lives as best they can, finding what happiness they can, just as countless people had to do in those times. Henry and Keiko’s story is, I believe, a testament to human resilience in times of struggle and the ability to find happiness even in wretched circumstances. Ford tells a very bittersweet tale of the history of his hometown and his heritage, and I believe Seattleites and those, like me, who hold the city in high regard, will enjoy reading about it. I have recently learned about another story about the internment of the Japanese, also told from a child’s perspective, “When the Emperor Was Divine,” by Julie Otsuka, which received very good reviews. [Editor’s note: This novel was the subject of a 1/15/12 post here.] One guess what my next bedtime reading will be.