Japanese Terms & Values in "All I Asking For..."

           There are a number of instances in the novel where Kiyo translates terms for the reader. On pg 4, Kiyo’s father tells him that he is going to “crack [his] head kotsun,” and in the next paragraph, Kiyo explains ”Kotsun doesn’t mean anything in Japanese. It’s just the sound of something hard hitting your head.”  Not only does Kiyo translate Japanese terms for the reader, he also translates Hawaiian terms. Also on page 4, Tosh calls Makoto wahine, and in the next paragraph Kiyo elaborates: “’Wahine’ was the Hawaiian word for woman. When we called anybody wahine it meant she was a girl or he was a sissy. When Father said wahine it meant the old lady or Mother.” The fact that Kiyo translates so much in the novel makes it more obvious when he does not do it. Later in the novel, when Kiyo is describing his work in the plantation with a group of Filipinos, nothing is translated. This works to alienate the reader, thus making them feel like they cannot really understand what it is like to work in those fields and actually experience the work that they’re doing.

A Japanese value that occurs often in the novel is the idea of being filial. Kiyo’s parents are always telling them that they should be more filial, which is something that Tosh is resistant to. There is a constant push-pull between Tosh and his mother, Tosh wanting to be able to live his own life, and his mother wanting him to be a good, filial son. I see this as the mother not being willing to let go of the idea that she will one day return to Japan. She wants everything to be very traditional Japanese, not only because that was the way she was raised, but because she believes that when she returns to Japan she will have done everything by the book. 

- Caitlin Rickard