The Oblivious Memory And The Buried Past

During the Second World War, about more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were relocated and interned into the Relocation Centers at the pretext of " National Security". This event not only hurt those interned victims tremendously in the respect of spirit and material, but also to some extent showed the prejudice and discrimination against Asian Ethnic Groups from the White-dominated Society at the same time. If Asian Immigrants want to obtain the real liberty and equality virtually, they still need to make unremitting efforts. This article focuses on two texts concerning this historical event, one is Farewell to Manzanar, and the other is Snow Falling On Cedars with sociological and historical approaches. It aims at re-examining that historical fragment buried in people's minds so as to open up a new path for Asian American Study domestically.Differing to the American literary canons, these two texts are marginalized and out of the vision of critics. In this case, there is no doubt that it will lend unique perspective to Asian American Study. Of the two texts, Snow Falling on Cedars was much more emphasized not only because this finely wrought suspense fiction helped David Guterson win Pen/Faulkner Prize but also because it well explained that people are in favor of writers who write in popular form nowadays, such as J.K.Rowling and J.J.R. Tolkien. The reason for this probably is the end of printed age and the imminence multi-media culture as Hillis Miller asserts in his latest book On Literature. The real significance of this bestseller is its unveiling of the relocation and internment of Japanese Americans, which renders us skeptical about the creeds of equality, liberty and democracy pursued by the American people. In present U.S., the issue of "minority" arouses more attention as culture pluralism prevails. The hegemonic culture gradually becomes "voiceless" with the challenges posed by minor discursive texts. It is for sure that uncovering a period of time people intended to conceal will be helpful for subverting "the institutionalized oblivion", which attempts to destroy the minority culture by means of manipulating other people's memory and history. To a large extent, Guterson's narrative and Jeanne Wakatsuki's self-accounting are consistent with this aspiration.