Find a list of at most 15 synonyms for the given word/phrase, separated in bullet points, ordered by relevance. Only return the synonyms, and add nothing else. Keep the casing of the word/phrase the same. Your response should only return the BULLET POINTS of the synonyms.


Find a list of at most 15 synonyms for the given word/phrase, separated in bullet points, ordered by relevance. Only return the synonyms, and add nothing else. Keep the casing of the word/phrase the same. Your response should only return the BULLET POINTS of the synonyms.


Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor was Divine explores the impact of Japanese internment camps on an unnamed family, both during the Second World War and afterward. She employs multiple perspectives, with each chapter following from one member of the four-person family. That is, until the last chapter, “Confession.” Instead of focusing on one person, this final chapter shares the perspective of all Japanese people who had been interned, interrogated, and shunned. Through Otsuka’s intentional pronoun use, repetition, and sarcasm, she shows the deep integration of Japanese people into all layers of American society, emphasizing the dangers of the alienation and homogenization seen during internment.
Through her pronoun use and repetitive sentence structure, Otsuka shows the vast extent to which Japanese people are key to the functioning and thriving of American society. Previously in the novel, Otsuka used the pronouns “he” and “she” to refer to the main character of the chapter (3, 49). However, in “Confessions,” she deviates from this pattern, instead using the first-person pronoun “I,” taking on a much more personal tone (142). Given the numerous jobs that Otsuka lists—much more than a single family could do—the pronoun “I” functions more as a “we” for the Japanese community. Although the book had previously alluded to the applicability of this singular family’s perspective to Japanese experiences as a whole through its omission of names, this final chapter explicitly shows that the family’s harsh internment experiences are mirrored throughout the Japanese community. Otsuka also employs the second-person pronoun “you.” At the beginning of this passage, she lists out jobs Japanese Americans take on: “I'm your florist. I’m your grocer. I’m your porter. I'm your waiter” (142). By speaking to the reader through this second-person pronoun, Otsuka directly calls out how Japanese people impact the reader, emphasizing how their disappearance during the internment reverberated throughout American society. Furthermore, through her repetition of the sentence structure, Otsuka provides undeniable proof of the mass social integration of Japanese Americans.
Otsuka does not simply make claims about Japanese Americans as a group, she also shows the harms of homogenizing Japanese people as foreign enemies. While Otsuka places importance on the importance of community, she ensures not to depict all Japanese Americans as monotonously identical, as evidenced by the variety of jobs she lists. Her sentence structures may be repetitious, but she includes everything from service jobs (“waiter”) to leadership roles (“owner of the dry-goods store,” “general manager at Mitsubishi”) to religious leaders (“Buddhist priest,” “Shinto priest”) to community members (“president of the Cherry Blossom Society,” “secretary of the Haiku Association,” “member of the Bonsai Club,” 142), drawing attention to the varied aspects of society that Japanese Americans are integral to. Otsuka also uses subtle sarcasm to show the harmful effects of homogenizing a population—both on the homogenized and the homogenizer. Hidden among her depictions of Japanese people as part of groups like the “Haiku Association” and the “Bonsai Club” is the “Cherry Blossom Society.” While the first two are ordinary organizations, the latter was an ultranationalist Japanese society before the Second World War that aimed to increase the power of the Emperor through a military dictatorship. By highlighting how everyday groups can become conflated with violent militaristic ones, Otsuka draws attention to how ignorance was one of the underlying root causes of Japanese internment. Moreover, it reinforces that people will confess to anything with enough relentless coercion and torment, which results in a lack of true knowledge that is disadvantageous even for the oppressor, a key message especially in this chapter (143-144).


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