Tallgrass in Around the World in 80 Books

Jan 31, 2009 Madeleine rated it liked it

Shelves: northwest, internment

As usual, if you want a plot summary, Goodreads, Google, and Amazon will provide you with one. This would only very loosely even be defined as a review..."spinoff" is probably a better word at this point. And I didn't like the book quite as well as I liked the thinking it made me do.

I'm pretty sure 'who would I have been in 1942?' is damn close to unanswerable. 'How would I write this book?' follows in the same vein. Nevertheless, I'm asking both.

This is the second book I've read recently writt As usual, if you want a plot summary, Goodreads, Google, and Amazon will provide you with one. This would only very loosely even be defined as a review..."spinoff" is probably a better word at this point. And I didn't like the book quite as well as I liked the thinking it made me do.

I'm pretty sure 'who would I have been in 1942?' is damn close to unanswerable. 'How would I write this book?' follows in the same vein. Nevertheless, I'm asking both.

This is the second book I've read recently written by a non-Japanese American author about non-Nikkei central characters who had the guts to oppose the mass incarceration of the Nikkei community in 1942 (a white girl in the case of Tallgrass, a Chinese American boy in the case of Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet). Both of these books are somewhat problematic, but in the end they are stories of who I want to believe I would have been. And I'll never have any way of knowing who I would have been, or what I would have done, or where I would have stood. That's something I just have to live with, being a white girl with longtime roots in Seattle. That's something I believe everyone in my position ought to have to live with, but I don't think most of us think about it.

I've spent enough time and effort researching the mass incarceration to have come across stories of real people who were not Nikkei and yet stood with their friends and neighbors after 9066. The American Friends Service Committee, as a group. The lawyers who took Hirabayashi and Korematsu's cases (who though I love the ACLU, disturbing did not work for that organization). The UW community members I learned about working on Interrupted Lives, whether they were administrators looking for places away from the West coast for their students, or students who wrote in to the Daily to speak out against what was happening. And then there are the stories from growing up, of families who kept their land and their businesses because of friends and neighbors. Friends whose grandparents kept what they had because of other friends' grandparents. Shit, my junior high was named for the only newspaper editor in the country to oppose the mass incarceration, start to finish.

I know that the questions Sandra Dallas raises are ones I want to raise. Which brings me to unanswerable question number two: how would I write this story? Because if I were to ever write a book someday, it would have something to do with this. The politics and ethics and emotions of writing in a voice that doesn't come from your own experiences (particularly if your own experiences are experiences of privilege, and the community whose story you choose to tell is...not), those are big questions (there was a great convo on Racialicious about this a few weeks ago for those of you who read it). Myself, though, I don't think I'd be comfortable writing the Nikkei point of view, and I also feel that I have something of a responsibility to explore other aspects of the story. Not a responsibility to tell the inspiring stories of people who resisted for the people they loved (though those stories should be heard and celebrated), but to tell all of it, the institutionalized and overt racism too, from the point of view of someone in the group that was responsible for it. Because in the end (and I've said this before), the Internment wasn't a "horrible mistake" and it wasn't even a "tragedy," because those words imply blamelessness. There is blame, a lot of it, and the blame by and large fell and falls on white america. And it's a story I realize I maybe should explore telling.

This review, like it's not long enough, will end up on my blog embellished with lots of links when I have a bit of spare time. ...more

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May 16, 2008 Tanya rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008

I was glad to get the audio version as I think the reader did an excellent job and added to my interest in the story. I'd hoped and expected it would cover more details about the Japanese-Americans at the internment camp, but it was much more about one family and how their lives changed as a result of World War II and the establishment of the internment camp near their farm. This book had many more surprises than I'd expected - and I liked the characters, especially how the adults treated their ...more

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Aug 02, 2007 Cortney rated it it was amazing

I loved this book. After finishing it I was left feeling like I had just said good bye to an old friend that I wouldn't see again for a long time. I wanted to go visit the characters and sit and listen to all the details of what had happened to them in the story and everything that couldn't be told in this novel. Sandra Dallas is an awesome writer for character development and plot--I love reading her books,they are pure pleasure! ...more

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