Julie Otsuka’s novel, The Buddha in the Attic, is a communal narrative of the Japanese Picture Brides who immigrate to the US in the early 1900s. While their narrative is about the immigrant experience, concepts from postcolonial theory can be adapted and are applicable to their story. Throughout the novel, the Picture Brides are shown sharing similar symptoms of that of a colonized subject, embodying what Lois Tyson explains as a “colonized consciousness” (249). According to Tyson, “colonial subjects usually practice mimicry and experience unhomeliness [emphasis in original]” (249), two symptoms I was able to recognize upon analyzing the Picture Brides within the novel. However, the major difference is that the Picture Brides are not colonial
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This is evident through language that is present throughout their narrative. Returning to the earlier passage: “We settled on the edges of their towns, when they would let us,” the Picture Brides separate themselves from the Americans by using the words “we” and “they” (23). They are conscious of the separation and it appears in their language. In fact, all quotes from the novel that are used in this paper use “us versus them” language. But it is not the Americans who are using this language, but Japanese immigrants, the othered party. In one instance they narrate what happens when they leave their Japanese American community: “Whenever we left J-town and wandered through the broad, clean streets of their cities we tried not to draw attention to ourselves” (52). Again, the language conveys feelings of wandering, not of adventure, but wandering as though they are lost. “The broad, clean streets” are vast and unfamiliar to them; there is a level of fear that comes with uncharted territory. And again, it is not the Americans, but the Japanese immigrants who other themselves with language, such as saying “their cities.” Other than “they,” another common word used to separate is “their,” a possessive pronoun that suggests that the Picture Brides internalize their understanding that nothing belongs to them, just as they do not belong in that city. The Picture Brides recognize that they are the subalterns; and as subalterns they feel inferior and use othering language to express their inferiority and inability to belong to the dominant
This is evident through language that is present throughout their narrative. Returning to the earlier passage: “We settled on the edges of their towns, when they would let us,” the Picture Brides separate themselves from the Americans by using the words “we” and “they” (23). They are conscious of the separation and it appears in their language. In fact, all quotes from the novel that are used in this paper use “us versus them” language. But it is not the Americans who are using this language, but Japanese immigrants, the othered party. In one instance they narrate what happens when they leave their Japanese American community: “Whenever we left J-town and wandered through the broad, clean streets of their cities we tried not to draw attention to ourselves” (52). Again, the language conveys feelings of wandering, not of adventure, but wandering as though they are lost. “The broad, clean streets” are vast and unfamiliar to them; there is a level of fear that comes with uncharted territory. And again, it is not the Americans, but the Japanese immigrants who other themselves with language, such as saying “their cities.” Other than “they,” another common word used to separate is “their,” a possessive pronoun that suggests that the Picture Brides internalize their understanding that nothing belongs to them, just as they do not belong in that city. The Picture Brides recognize that they are the subalterns; and as subalterns they feel inferior and use othering language to express their inferiority and inability to belong to the dominant