51 pages • 1 hour read
Kiku HughesDisplacement
Fiction | Graphic Novel/Book | YA | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Generational Trauma and the Power of Memory
The first and most significant theme of the graphic novel is the concept of Generational Trauma and the Power of Memory over communities and families, many decades after a traumatic event has occurred. This idea is the driving inspiration for the story and influences every scene. This theme appears in the figure of Kiku’s grandmother, Ernestina, who haunts the narrative just as she haunts Kiku’s family. Ernestina’s experiences as a survivor of the Japanese incarceration camps affect the way she raises her family after World War Two, including the decision not to teach her children the Japanese language, or to participate in Japanese cultural heritage. Her decision is a direct response to the trauma endured in the camps and the lesson she and the entire Japanese American community learned about how dangerous it is to inhabit an immigrant identity in the US (leading to the second theme). Thus, the remembered trauma of that event, both on the individual and community level, impacts Kiku and her mother’s (and sister’s) lives, often in ways they are not conscious of.
It is significant that Ernestina does not speak a word of dialogue in the graphic novel. She is a voiceless figure who appears repeatedly—usually with her violin, or at least the image of violin music—visually haunting the page. In this sense, she speaks through her music. On the last page of the graphic novel, Ernestina stands silently behind her daughter and grand-daughter, a tangible reminder of the generational trauma and memory that haunts them still, and also a positive reminder of their strengthened connection to family and heritage. The three generations of women have a new togetherness, both visually and thematically.
One pivotal moment of the novel’s treatment collective memory is the killing of James Wakasa in the Topaz Relocation Center. Kiku “remembers” this death before it happens on the page, because of stories passed down from Ernestina to Kiku’s mother to her. She remarks that this murder was so traumatic to the entire community that it haunts them to the present day, living on in the collective memory. The scenes with Donald Trump, meanwhile, imply that this generational trauma is so deeply imbedded in the community and the individual, that moments of threat (such as Trump’s anti-immigration speeches) trigger Kiku (and her mother’s) ability to relive that trauma. The remembered fear is a conduit that allows them to physically displace into the past. These kinds of memories hold power over the community as a whole and over each Japanese American individual. They have the power to inspire fear and compliance, leading a portion of the Japanese American community to participate in racism against other marginalized groups in an effort to protect themselves from further persecution and abuse. The novel does not seek to portray the Japanese American community in a simplistically virtuous way but instead engages with the complex motivations that can lead to discriminatory behavior.
Kiku argues that this kind of memory can be powerful in other, more positive, ways as well. Several times over the course of the story, Kiku repeats the sentiment that memory has power, such as when Aiko says: “they can scare us but they can’t make us forget” (183), and when Kiku reflects on James Wakasa’s torn-down memorial: “a memory is too powerful a weapon” (203). The novel makes explicit that the community’s ability to remember a trauma, an injustice, can be used to inspire future generations to stand up against further injustice. It is a weapon—and significantly a weapon of peace—for fighting in the service of others who are also persecuted and mistreated. By remembering the past, a community can rise and say, “never again” (275) with strength and moral authority. This is why Kiku concludes in the very last line that “memories are powerful things” (277).
Heritage and Immigrant Identity
This theme is expressive of the novel’s deep engagement with how the impact of generational trauma and memory lead directly into the complex issues of cultural heritage and immigrant identity. The largest consequence and visible evidence of the generational trauma of the incarceration camps is the subsequent loss of heritage and identity that follows after the war. Ernestina, and other survivors like her, are traumatized by being so violently marked as “other,” as “unamerican,” because of their immigrant identities, no matter how much they tried to assimilate, or portray themselves as Americans first. They decide that perfect assimilation with American culture is the only path for survival, and therefore do not teach their children and grand-children the Japanese language or traditional customs.
The novel introduces the sense disconnection from heritage gently at first, such as when Kiku and her mother cannot read the Japanese street signs in San Francisco. However, when she travels to the camps and confronts the full extent of her loss, she feels the disconnection from language and heritage far more keenly. She articulates her separation from Japanese heritage early in Part 1, when she says that she “never felt particularly Japanese” because she was “only half” (40). She does not feel that she belongs within Japanese American culture, for good or for ill. She only begins to experience a sense of belonging when imposed from the outside, by the declaration that “anyone with one-sixteenth Japanese ancestry” (41) will be incarcerated. Suddenly, she is Japanese enough to count. This is a common element of immigrant identity, particularly in third or fourth generation children who have no connection to their grandparents’ country of origin. Often, the initial sense of connection and belonging comes not from within, but from the outside, sometimes as an accusation of being “not American enough.”
Immigrant identity is more nuanced than family or genetic background, as shown by the character of Aiko Mifune. Aiko is vocal and vehement in her protests of the racist treatment they face in the camps. However, she is just as vehement about being American, not Japanese. Kiku is shocked and confused by Aiko’s refusal to teach her Japanese, and her insistence that she does not need it. Aiko and others, (such as Seiji Sato) want to view themselves as solely American. They were born and raised there. They are citizens. They have no loyalty to, or yearning for, Japan. Yet, this refusal of immigrant identity does not actually protect them from the racist attitudes and unjust treatment they face.
It is only when Kiku and others in the community learn to embrace their cultural heritage and build a sense of identity from both their Japanese-ness and American-ness that they gain more stability in their lives (both inside and outside the camps). Kiku gains a sense of connection to her Japanese identity by living in the camps, and through the toy brush and toy violin that concretely connects her to Ernestina. Kiku’s sense of identity builds out of the memory she shares, and from this comes the resilience and resistance needed to survive, linking into the third theme.
Resilience and Resistance
The third theme is that of resilience and resistance. Resilience is the “ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change” (“Resilience.” Merriam-Webster Dictionary). Resilience and resistance, as responses to injustice and mistreatment, are related but not precisely the same and the novel engages in the interplay between them. They both appear throughout the graphic novel, sometimes in the same moment, and sometimes in counterpoint to each other.
The Japanese community’s efforts to make their camp homes more livable—such as cleaning and fixing the shoddy buildings they live in, planting flowers and vegetables, or holding school dances—could be seen as a kind of capitulation; the novel actively repudiates this reading by challenging the stereotype that the internees were compliant and obedient. The novel shows Kiku revising her assumptions on this and realizing after she falls into a depression that it would be easier to give up and stop trying to live at all. Instead, the community’s ability to make the most of their situation in the face of such horrible conditions is a sign of tremendous strength of will. It requires hard work and an unfailing sense of hope. This resilience is also a form of peaceful resistance because it asserts a sense of community and humanity in the face of prejudice which seeks to break down the internees’ self-respect. In this way, it counters the punitive actions of the internment program and the racism it reflects.
The relationship between resilience and resistance is explored in the ways the community and various individuals choose their battles. When Kiku answers yes to the loyalty questionnaire, she feels guilty for giving in to fear, but Aiko assures her that there is nothing wrong with deciding when to resist and when it is best merely to survive. Kiku and Aiko have chosen different paths on the spectrum between resilience and resistance but are compassionate and respectful of one another’s feelings. Aiko entreats Kiku to keep drawing what she sees in the camps so that it will be remembered. Documenting and remembering what happens in the camps becomes its own form of resistance, thus tying the collective memory of the first theme to resistance.
Resistance, like resilience, appears in several guises over the course of the story. Aiko and the other no-no boys’ decisions to answer no on the loyalty questionnaire and face punishment and censure, is one powerful form of resistance. They refuse to jump through the hoops the government has unfairly put before them, and thus highlight the injustice of their incarceration and the hypocrisy of being asked to serve. Aiko is, herself, a symbol of resistance. As Kiku remarks, Aiko is “never quiet” (77); she loudly protests their unfair treatment and every opportunity, and therefore resists the received myth that the Japanese American community was quiet and cooperative in submitting to their own incarceration. The discussion of the camp community over the loyalty questions indicates a respect for personal choice and difference, and suggests that the community see these choices as a matter of personal conscience.
Resistance also appears in the memorial the community builds for James Wakasa after his murder, once again echoing Kiku’s claim that memory is powerful. When the administration lies about and hides Wakasa’s death, the mere act of refusing to forget is a form of active resistance. This same resistance in the form of remembering carries through to the novel’s present day action. Once again tying the first theme to the last, the power of memory is a form of resistance that inspires marginalized communities into other kinds of resistance, such as protesting and advocating for the rights of other marginalized communities. Kiku argues that the community’s memory of trauma is the very weapon that allows them to “help others and fight for justice in our own time” (277).
