Last week we discussed Angel Island Poetry and witnessed how the island itself held individuals in this no-where land, isolated from their home country and their destined country, imprisoned by walls in the middle of an ocean. This week we will discuss Lawson Fusao Inada, a third-generation Japanese American poet who was interned along with thousands of other Japanese and Japanese-American citizens during WWII. Please keep the notion of entrapment in mind while you read, paying close attention to the way in which the poems help create and break the bars of captivity. Also think about what it means to be a “hyphenated” individual, a Japanese-American or a Chinese-American etc… Who is identity shaped by both sides of the hyphen? How does Inada’s poetry reveal this notion of a ‘hyphenated’ individual, and what steps does he take to weave Japanese-American experience inside American history?
These poems are all found in a collection published in 1993 entitled, Legends from Camp. Look at the poem entitled “Legends from Camp: Prologue”- Look at how this poem is structured, how it moves between both poetry and verse, mimicking the testimonial form and the poetic. What is the overall effect for you as a reader while reading this poem? The line “10 camps, 7 states/ 120,113 residents” is used in order to emphasize the historical inside the poetic realm- history becomes EMBEDDED in this poem. The following line however, “Still, figures can lie,” seems to criticize the historical. How does this poem, among others by Inada, work to create an alternative history? What did you think of his discussion of “among others”? Do a close reading of the following lines: “until the event, the experience, the history,/slowly began to lose its memory,/ gradually drifting into a kind of fiction”— think particularly of this notion of historical amnesia and how poetry/literature tries to recall memory.
Why do you think all of the poems are “legends” of one kind or another? What is a legend? What is Inada trying to do in establishing these legends? Look throughout the rest of the poems, notice that each one takes on its own rhythm. Inada is an avid listener and admirer of jazz and we can surely feel certain beats in his writing. Look for example at the “Legend of Leaving,” and notice how the rhythm drives the poem forward, as if the words are packing themselves away from the camp as well. After reading all of these poems what sense are you left with? What did they help create for you? How do these poems illuminate both a sense of entrapment and release?
http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/history/index.html—- If you want to read more about the Japanese Internment Camps, this is a good site!
Most historical novels and articles that focus on the United States entry and involvement in WWII concentrate on the army’s victories and halting the Holocaust. Historians often neglect to talk about how the US government forced over 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes and into internment camps. Inada’s poems reflect his time and experiences while detained and provide a glimpse of history that most historical novels rarely discuss- the mundane, unglamorous, and humdrum side of WWII. Inada creates an alternate history by giving readers detailed accounts of what historians often hyperbolize, belittle, or omit in their works- the life of interned Japanese Americans. In a sense, he mocks how historians hyperbolize and add pizzazz to events by giving his poems titles such as “The Legend of the Magic Marbles”, “The Legend of the Great Escape”, and “The Legend of Burning the World”, making readers think that he is going to tell eventful tales of magic, escaping to freedom, and uprisings. Yet, instead of giving readers the excitement and grandiose stories that they are expecting from his poems, he leaves the readers feeling disappointed by talking about commonplace events in which nothing thrilling ever occurs.
Lawson Fusao Inada provides a unique personalization of his life while detained in Japanese internment camps during WW2. In the prologue of “Legends From Camp”, Inada claims that the legends are a “true story based on fact” with “all the elements of fiction”. Inada labels his poems as “legends”, signifying that the stories are not historically documented or verifiable. Moreover, legends are not based on fact because facts of internment camps as portrayed by the government are just quantitative figures that do not accurately depict the situation for the Japanese. Inada does not rely on facts to describe his story. Therefore, the word legend is a play on the unreliability of facts in accurately portraying life in Japanese internment camps.
After reading all these poems, I’m left with a real sense of how the Japanese-Americans felt. In contrast to how American history may undermine the effect of the internment camps, as seen in the “Executive Order” on the first page, Lawson Inada shows us how miserable and worthless they felt in the camps. In the poem, “Legend of Other Camps”, the repetition of “so-and-so shot and killed; so-and-so shot and lived” emphasize the monotonous and repetitive nature of life for the Japanese-Americans.
Inada’s poems created an interesting juxtaposition of the content and the titles; he is obviously opposed to the history of his experience becoming a legend as one can seen in the second half of Legends from Camp however he begins each poem with the lead in of “legend”. It can be interpreted that this exaggeration laments what the facts of internment camps will eventually become: legends. This can already be seen today, few people know the true story of the Japanese-American experience during this time period and the hardships that ensued during and after their internment, and those that do know usually don’t have knowledge of the facts, only the vague stories, essentially legends. However he also contradicts himself by saying “figures can lie”; I took the ‘lie’ to be less literal, and to mean more that the simple figures and facts are not enough to describe what occurred. He lists facts and numbers, but continues to elaborate upon them with emotions rather than figures, as if implying that without the personal experience the numbers don’t mean anything.
Inada’s “Legends from the Camp” speaks of the remoteness of history, about how the statistics associated with the relocation (e.g. 10 camps, 7 states, 120k residents) of the Japanese Americans overshadow the painful experiences of those affected. Inada urges us to not forget all the major players behind the success of the camp – contractors, carpenters, plumbers, electricians – as well as the people who were affected – aunts, uncles, sister, brother, father, and mother. The people involved are just as important as the historical accounts of what happened – assembly, concentration, detention, evacuation, relocation – it is important that such traumatic events in history not be repeated again.
Inada is a poet of great irony. His poems play on the historical objectification of the internment camps. They bring to life the human suffering experienced not only in the camps, but throughout history. The title of his poems which all start with “Legend” call to attention the historification of the camp experience and their disappearance into the vast expanses of the genre of ‘History’. Inada mocks this history by using this word which means: A traditional historical tale (or collection of related tales) popularly regarded as true but usually containing a mixture of fact and fiction. His poems are particularly mundane, which contrasts the fanciful titles and brings light to the monotonous, ordinary, yet extremely painful and personal experience of the camps. By promising a ‘Legend of Escape’ or ‘Legend of Superman’ Inada produces irony.
I think the concept of “legend” is very important in the Inada poetry. Legends are often used to pass down stories that are extraordinary but made to seem real. However, in the case of Japanese internment, I believe it is wrong to describe these poems as legends. The events that Inada describes in the poems actually happened, they are not mythical or to go as far as to say fictional (as it is in legends). However, on a more positive connotation, legends are passed down from generation to generation so as the events that happened are never forgotten. Because so many people often overlook the Japanese internment in America, it is important for the poetry to be “passed” on, like a legend. I think the sense of rhythm in the poetry allows the reader to follow the tone and gain a better sense of the emotion behind the poem.
I think when reading Lawson Fusao Inada it is important to remember that history is often written by those in power and that it is often important to be critical of it for this reason. One angle would be to recall that history is an experience that lives in the past that can often be blurred by trauma and other dominant written forms of history on the subject. I believe that Inada intentionally calls all his poems legends because of the manner in which his memories and how history itself is lacking fact. A legend implies a story that may or may not be true. Here he personalizes history and makes it his own really playing with the idea that what he experienced was or was not. Finally, to remember that Fusao poems are very subversive in that that are rebellious by showing that writing his own form of history as one who is not normatively considered powerful enough to write history especially history that was left out from the undermined person’s perspective.
After reading these poem I was left with my own questions regarding the title and the use of legend. To some this may seem like a flaw in his poetry, but it is obvious to me that Inada was trying to create some kind of irony. By setting the poetry up for failure he has achieved an ironic success of failure. This irony builds upon his own personal experiences in the Japanese internment camps, where he was initially promised something greater than what he received. As readers we are put in the same position, as we expect some grand story given the title, however, we are left with nothing that resembles a legend. By doing this Inada has allowed us to experience the turmoil he felt during his time spent in the internment camps and it adds a personal touch to what is now a historical event.
Inada’s “Legends” show the reader how boring and ordinary the Japanese-American’s lives’ were. The irony present in all of the titles emphasize that the internment camps were not legendary at all. The trickery that Inada presents to the reader is a constant theme that we have seen through other works such as Hurston portraying “Sis Cat” and the “feather-bed resistance” that the natives exhibited towards Hurston. All of these poems give us a unique perspective on history through the eyes of someone who was in the internment camps. As no one pretends to make the camps out to be anything glorious, Inada’s poems really affirm in the reader the sense of mundaneness that these camps exhibited.
After reading these poem I was left with my own questions regarding the title and the use of legend. To some this may seem like a flaw in his poetry, but it is obvious to me that Inada was trying to create some kind of irony. By setting the poetry up for failure he has achieved an ironic success of failure. This irony builds upon his own personal experiences in the Japanese internment camps, where he was initially promised something greater than what he received. As readers we are put in the same position, as we expect some grand story given the title, however, we are left with nothing that resembles a legend. By doing this Inada has allowed us to experience the turmoil he felt during his time spent in the internment camps and it adds a personal touch to what is now a historical event.
These so called “legends” definitely left me with a sense of emptiness while ironically also creating a sense of hope. The emptiness is quite apparent, as these poems continuously set one to believe that they will be reading a great legend, which is defined as “a traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but unauthenticated.” The reader is time and time again set up to fail in this way and the poems do not tell the legends their titles promise. At the same time, I feel as sense of hope because I believe Inada is finally getting the power and attention that he, and all of the Japanese internment camp victims deserve. I like the idea of Inada trying to create an alternative history because I believe that allows him in a sense to gain back what was taken from him. Obviously, what was taken from him can never be given back, but by writing his own versions of these “legends” he is creating his own record of history.
Legend in Inada’s perspective is another point of view of history. Although the poems are ironic, I think the main point that Inada is trying to give to the reader is background that history does not provide. Since this history is told through the eyes of the United States, they just mention the surface information, and the legends show the behind the scenes of this time, how the camps were built and how the people felt. For example, in the poem Legend of the Great Escape he describes how the people were bored, describing how long they were held in camp and how they might even see it as home. I would expect for some of the poems to be moving since they were prisoners at the camp, yet he is able to make his point across through irony. One thing that I really liked was the way he was the Instructions for all person. He was able to create an ordinary list into 1) a poem, 2) change the meaning, and 3) make the words into objects.
I think the naming every poem with “legend” sets the stage for the lies of life. A legend is understood to be an epic story, something retold, over and over again, usually to tell a story about a hero or to teach a lesson. The fact that Inada’s “legends” are nothing more than lies, with some other story told instead, mirrors the “American Dream” that immigrants believed or thought they would live, only to find more lies. This is shown by the poems from Angel Island, as well as the lives of the Japanese Americans in internment camps. This group of Americans had lives, jobs, families and friends and thought they were Americans, until they were uprooted and placed in the camps. Just like as readers, we thought we would get a legend, since we were told we would get a legend, and we got anything but, immigrant groups thought they were getting the American life, when really they got anything but.
Lawson Fusao Inada’s goal was to be able to take history into his own hands. By writing his poems as legends he accomplishes this goal. Legends are considered more as stories that can or cannot be true. If he did not call them legends, they could have been considered as simply historical evidence of life within the internment camps. But, lacking control of his own life inside the camp, Inada took control of his poetry. He wrote each poem, or legend, from his own point of view, noting the most ordinary of things that would have been ignored in the history books. Because of Inada’s legends we get a perspective or ordinary life inside the camps from someone who lived in them rather than just the construed, history book version.
I really enjoyed Legends of Camp. The fact that the author never uses the words me or I shows that he found it very important that the internment camps were a shared experience. Additionally, the Instructions to All Persons was an outstanding method to warn future generations from excluding people because of the damage it does. The found object poem was based off the eviction notice sent to the Japanese-Americans during World War II, and this tells the reader that Inada found this document as the source of pain and suffering (it definitely was). The words in parentheses are meant to depict the Japanese isolated from the rest of the poem like they were isolated from society while in the camps.
Legends are defined as nonhistorical or unvarifiable stories that have been handed down by tradition and are popularly accepted as historical. At the very beginning of “Legends from Camp” Inada explains how the “real” history, the experience of camp, are not part of the factual knowledge learned by many in history. His poems are titled as legends when they are not. The poems are more factual and an example of how his experiences at camp, the real history, are becoming more and more like “nonhistorical” legends. Inada’s poems are his way of telling his story which is history.
Prior to this class I had never considered the meaning of graffiti or writing on walls. I love the idea that it is an act of rebellion and that the words don’t matter as much as the intent and meaning that comes from the action of standing up for under represented ideas by writing them in a form that goes against the organized laws and government. The people that went through Angel Island needed a way to get their genuine voice heard and they needed a way to stand up to the “Man”. Whether or not it is poetry it is expression of mind and culture as well as emotions evoked by hardship.
The function of a title in any story is to summarize the significance of the work in as few words as necessary. All titles function with such an intent but what if ones intention is to criticize the linearness and impersonality of the traditional title through mislabeling it in order to highlight a larger point? Lawson Fusao Inada brilliantly devises such a tactic attacking the “remoteness to history” that the just the facts cannot supply alone by inserting misleading titles. As a result he is able to highlight the personal experience over the broad narrative of history. He takes such an approach because the suffering the U.S inflicted during the second world war towards Japanese Americans is often forgotten in the perception of the ultimate victory of good vs. evil in World War II. In reality the situation was far more complex and ambiguous as everyone in war is guilty of atrocities.
The idea of the hyphenated individual goes hand in hand with W.E.B DuBois’s concept of double consciousness. When we look at internment and the parameters that governed who was to be interned, we look at the first portion of the hyphen (i.e. Japanese). What is so tragic and is highlighted by many of Lawson Fusao Inada’s works is that they too were American. Instructions to All Persons emphasizes this schism and portrays the divide in a very physical sense. On the left half of the page, we are given the actual instructions given to Japanese-Americans to prepare for internment. Juxtaposed to this document, on the right side of the page, the reader is given a poem which uses the words taken from the left out of sequence. Thus, there is a physical division between that which is mandated and that which is entirely his own.
Another striking feature of this work is the use of parentheses. One reading of this punctuation can be a physical separation, much like the walls of an internment camp. Inada may be giving us his “lived experience” history through the use of these off-set parenthetical marks. Another reading could be that this is an echo, something that is resonating from a neglected past. The picture given to us of the boy standing in the shadow of the guard is much like these parenthetical marks. This picture represents the same sort of echo, the looming shadow serves as a dark representation (no defining features) of a history that has been marginalized and has ultimately become an abstraction.
By entitling every poem legend and then proceeding to tell a misleading narrative in the body of the text Ieasu strives to critique the standard narration of history and inject a historical narrative of his own more reliant on the individual experience. The Legend of the Jerome smokestack for instance sounds like it is going to be a grand tale about some sort of monument. Instead Ieasu implements a deceptive title to critique the “grandness” of history to subsequently tell what the smokestack meant to the individual(him). Ieasu enlightens a tragic but often forgotten chapter of World War II attacking the grandness that is often invoked in describing this conflict of good vs. evil. In war there is no good vs. evil but most often evil vs. a greater evil.
Lawson Fusao Inada’s writings expose us to a side of World War II that many of us have never known about. I think part of the reason that Inada refers to his poems as legends is because like legends, many of us are unsure about the exact nature of the camps and to many people they are nothing more than vague myths. However Inada exposes us to many details that would often be overlooked. These details give us an insiders view of the camps and a perspective of the camps that we otherwise would never see.
Lawson Fusao Inada uses literature in order to give us a scope of the unwritten history of our nation. In this case it is the lives of Japanese Americans during their stay, or imprisonment, in the concentration camps during World War II. I believe he named his poems “Legend” because everybody expects a great tale just like everybody expects facts to be true but in fact they do not tell the whole story.
The legend poems are very interesting. Legends are stories passed down from generation to generation that may have at one point been historical, but through changes and reinterpretations of the stories they can become mystical and fictitious. He talks about historical experiences that we know come from a true historical event, however the way he writes casts doubts on whether or not his account is full of interpretation or is factual. To give a numerical account and then claim that “still, figures can lie” leaves us wondering if he is lying to us. Also, by doing this it allows him to put his own spin on history and have it still be accepted by the reader because he is not claiming to write a history of his experience rather he is providing a legend.
Hyphenated identities are important aspects of the concept of marginalization. When someone such as Inada is labeled with a hyphenated identity, this leads them to be pushed to the outskirts of each group they are a part of. Inada’s Japanese peers do not see him as Japanese, and his American counterparts don’t see him as truly American, so it leaves those with hyphenated identities to internalize this information which ultimately leads to formation of a double consciousness which we have learned through Hurston’s work can be eternally damning.