Monica Sone
Encyclopedia
Monica Sone was a Japanese American
writer, best known for her 1953 autobiographical
memoir
Nisei Daughter, which tells of the Japanese American experience in Seattle during the 1920s and 30s, and in the World War II
internment camps and which is an important text in Asian American and Women's Studies courses.
. In her late teens, she contracted tuberculosis
and spent nine months at Firland Sanitarium with future best selling author of The Egg and I, Betty McDonald.
During World War II, she and her family were interned at Puyallup
Civilian Assembly Center and at the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Hunt, Idaho
. In 1942, Sone was allowed to leave the camp to attend Wendell College in Indiana
, where she lived with a white family. She finished her degree at Hanover College
and eventually received a master's degree in clinical psychology from Case Western Reserve University
.
in 1953. It tells the story of a Japanese immigrant family's life in the United States before and during the war. Sone's parents are from Japan (Issei
), and their children are born in the States, making them Nisei
(as in the title). The book explores the cultural differences the family faced before the war, both in the States and on a visit to Japan, and the experiences during the Japanese American internment
. The story is told from Sone’s perspective. The cover photograph shows Sone and her sister Sammy smiling and sitting on the steps of the Carrollton Hotel, their father’s establishment, in 1932.
Exposition concerning the courtship and marriage of Sone’s parents and the births of their four children begins the book. A comfortable childhood existence is nostalgically portrayed in the environs of the Skid Road Hotel, which Mr. Itoi operates near the Seattle waterfront. He is portrayed as a hard worker and a resourceful provider, refusing rooms to characters who seem drunk or otherwise unsavory, and continually repairing and improving his establishment. Mrs. Itoi is more colorfully portrayed as a woman who is capable of having fun and who wants to indulge her children in their creativity and their whims. The “shocking” fact of life that Sone discovers when she is six is that she is Japanese and, because of that fact, she and her siblings must attend daily sessions at a special Japanese school rather than play after their regular grammar school classes. The conflict between Sone’s Japanese heritage and her American situation is developed throughout the book as its main theme, as the author continually searches for who she is and where she belongs.
Sone, M. (1953). Nisei daughter. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. [6]
Cooper, J. (2002). A two-headed freak and a bad wife search for home: Border srossing in Nisei daughter and The Mixquiahuala letters. In: J. Benito & A. M. Manzanas (eds.). Literature and ethnicity in the cultural borderlands. (pp. 159–73). Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Hoffman, W. D. (2005). Home, memory, and narrative in Monica Sone's Nisei Daughter. In: K. Lawrence & F. Cheung (eds.). Recovered legacies: Authority and identity in early Asian American literature.(pp. 229–48) Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Jacobs, M. (n.d.). Monica Sone's Nisei Daughter. Western Women's Autobiographies Database. [7]
Lim, S. Geok-lin. (1990). Japanese American women's life stories: Maternality in Monica Sone's Nisei daughter and Joy Kogawa's Obasan. Feminist Studies, 16 (2): 288-312.
Madsen, D. L. (2005). Monica Sone. Asian American writers. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomsen Gale.
Stephen, S. H. (1992). Protest and accommodation, self-satire and self-effacement, and Monica Sone's Nisei daughter. In: J. R. Payne (ed.). Multicultural autobiography: American lives. (pp. 207–47). Knoxville: University of Tennessee.
Yamamoto, T. (2001). Nisei daughter by Monica Sone. In: S. C. Wong & S. H. Sumida (eds.). A resource guide to Asian American literature. (pp. 151–58). New York: Modern Language Association of America.
Japanese American
are American people of Japanese heritage. Japanese Americans have historically been among the three largest Asian American communities, but in recent decades have become the sixth largest group at roughly 1,204,205, including those of mixed-race or mixed-ethnicity...
writer, best known for her 1953 autobiographical
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
Nisei Daughter, which tells of the Japanese American experience in Seattle during the 1920s and 30s, and in the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
internment camps and which is an important text in Asian American and Women's Studies courses.
Biography
Sone grew up in Seattle, where her parents, immigrants from Japan, managed a hotel. Like many Japanese American children, her education included American classes and extra, Japanese cultural courses;' later,she and her family visited JapanJapan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. In her late teens, she contracted tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
and spent nine months at Firland Sanitarium with future best selling author of The Egg and I, Betty McDonald.
During World War II, she and her family were interned at Puyallup
Camp Harmony
Camp Harmony was the unofficial name of the Puyallup Assembly Center, a temporary facility within the system of internment camps set up for Japanese Americans during World War II...
Civilian Assembly Center and at the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Hunt, Idaho
Hunt, Idaho
Hunt is an unincorporated rural area north of Eden in Jerome County, Idaho, United States. The area was named after Frank W. Hunt, a former Governor of Idaho. It was the home to a Japanese Interment Camp now marked by the Minidoka National Historic Site. MIT graduate, Dr. Gary A...
. In 1942, Sone was allowed to leave the camp to attend Wendell College in Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
, where she lived with a white family. She finished her degree at Hanover College
Hanover College
Hanover College is a private liberal arts college, located in Hanover, Indiana, near the banks of the Ohio River. The college is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church . The college was founded in 1827 by the Rev. John Finley Crowe, making it the oldest private college in Indiana. The Hanover...
and eventually received a master's degree in clinical psychology from Case Western Reserve University
Case Western Reserve University
Case Western Reserve University is a private research university located in Cleveland, Ohio, USA...
.
Nisei Daughter
Sone’s best-known work, the memoir Nisei Daughter, was originally published by Little, BrownLittle, Brown and Company
Little, Brown and Company is a publishing house established by Charles Coffin Little and his partner, James Brown. Since 2006 it has been a constituent unit of Hachette Book Group USA.-19th century:...
in 1953. It tells the story of a Japanese immigrant family's life in the United States before and during the war. Sone's parents are from Japan (Issei
Issei
Issei is a Japanese language term used in countries in North America, South America and Australia to specify the Japanese people first to immigrate. Their children born in the new country are referred to as Nisei , and their grandchildren are Sansei...
), and their children are born in the States, making them Nisei
Nisei
During the early years of World War II, Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated from their homes in the Pacific coast states because military leaders and public opinion combined to fan unproven fears of sabotage...
(as in the title). The book explores the cultural differences the family faced before the war, both in the States and on a visit to Japan, and the experiences during the Japanese American internment
Japanese American internment
Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on...
. The story is told from Sone’s perspective. The cover photograph shows Sone and her sister Sammy smiling and sitting on the steps of the Carrollton Hotel, their father’s establishment, in 1932.
Exposition concerning the courtship and marriage of Sone’s parents and the births of their four children begins the book. A comfortable childhood existence is nostalgically portrayed in the environs of the Skid Road Hotel, which Mr. Itoi operates near the Seattle waterfront. He is portrayed as a hard worker and a resourceful provider, refusing rooms to characters who seem drunk or otherwise unsavory, and continually repairing and improving his establishment. Mrs. Itoi is more colorfully portrayed as a woman who is capable of having fun and who wants to indulge her children in their creativity and their whims. The “shocking” fact of life that Sone discovers when she is six is that she is Japanese and, because of that fact, she and her siblings must attend daily sessions at a special Japanese school rather than play after their regular grammar school classes. The conflict between Sone’s Japanese heritage and her American situation is developed throughout the book as its main theme, as the author continually searches for who she is and where she belongs.
Published works
Sone, M. (1996). Introduction. In: S. Maret, The desert years: An annotated bibliography of Japanese American internment in Arizona during World War II. Bulletin of Bibliography, 53(2): 71-108.[5]Sone, M. (1953). Nisei daughter. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. [6]
See also
- List of Asian American writers
- Japanese American internmentJapanese American internmentJapanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on...
Critical studies
Connor, K. R. (2005). Truth and talent in interpreting ethnic American autobiography: From white to black and beyond. In: L. Long (ed). White Scholars/African American texts.(pp. 209–22). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Cooper, J. (2002). A two-headed freak and a bad wife search for home: Border srossing in Nisei daughter and The Mixquiahuala letters. In: J. Benito & A. M. Manzanas (eds.). Literature and ethnicity in the cultural borderlands. (pp. 159–73). Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Hoffman, W. D. (2005). Home, memory, and narrative in Monica Sone's Nisei Daughter. In: K. Lawrence & F. Cheung (eds.). Recovered legacies: Authority and identity in early Asian American literature.(pp. 229–48) Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Jacobs, M. (n.d.). Monica Sone's Nisei Daughter. Western Women's Autobiographies Database. [7]
Lim, S. Geok-lin. (1990). Japanese American women's life stories: Maternality in Monica Sone's Nisei daughter and Joy Kogawa's Obasan. Feminist Studies, 16 (2): 288-312.
Madsen, D. L. (2005). Monica Sone. Asian American writers. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomsen Gale.
Stephen, S. H. (1992). Protest and accommodation, self-satire and self-effacement, and Monica Sone's Nisei daughter. In: J. R. Payne (ed.). Multicultural autobiography: American lives. (pp. 207–47). Knoxville: University of Tennessee.
Yamamoto, T. (2001). Nisei daughter by Monica Sone. In: S. C. Wong & S. H. Sumida (eds.). A resource guide to Asian American literature. (pp. 151–58). New York: Modern Language Association of America.