How does Julie Otsuka explore the theme of diaspora and the struggles of settling in America in The Buddha in the Attic?

In The Buddha in the Attic, Julie Otsuka uses a diasporic perspective to explore how painful it is to leave one's homeland. To understand how Otsuka explores this theme, it is first important to understand what it means to view homeland from a diasporic perspective. A diaspora a community which has been displaced from one geographical or cultural region. Displacement is often abrupt and painful and can lead to intergenerational trauma. People who feel displaced from their homeland either directly or through ancestral displacement often struggle with defining their personal and cultural identities. When authors explore the theme of homeland from a diasporic perspective (as they often do in postcolonial literature), they examine how diasporas play a role in people's relationships with themselves, others, and with their new home.

In The Buddha in the Attic, Otsuka explores the experiences of Japanese picture brides in the early twentieth century. In this era, matchmakers would pair Japanese men in the United States with single Japanese women who were seeking husbands. Once a couple was paired, the women would leave Japan to be with her husband in the States. The men rarely looked the way they did in their pictures though, and life in America ended up being extremely difficult for the women. Yet the women relied on the men to teach them about American culture. Their Japanese husbands were their only link to their home, and their memories and shared knowledge of their homeland became an integral part of their relationships, even when the men treated them poorly. When World War II, came they had to burn any connection to Japan to stay safe in a society that had turned against them. This experience was incredibly painful and made them feel farther away from their true home.

Through the experiences of these women, Otsuka explores the complexities of the immigrant experience, particularly those pursuing the American dream. She shows how many immigrants leave their homeland behind forever because of the socially constructed promise that anything is possible in America. But this is an unrealistic dream, and the women end up feeling like unwanted outsiders in their new home and more disconnected from ever from their true home.

What are some diasporic themes in The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka?

The experiences of the Japanese diaspora are set out in considerable detail by Julie Otsuka in The Buddha in the Attic. Although we are introduced to a number of different characters, each one giving their own unique take on the immigrant experience, it is possible to observe a certain pattern emerging from their stories. This allows Otsuka to make general observations about the Japanese diaspora and the many challenges that it faced.

One such challenge, perhaps even the biggest challenge faced by the book's characters, concerns the difficulties of assimilating into American society while retaining their cultural and ethnic identity. This is made all the more difficult by the widespread prejudice and racism that the Japanese brides face in white American society.

What makes adapting to American life all the more frustrating is the fact that the women are expected to perform back-breaking toil in the fields, just as they would do back in Japan. To make the transition from living in Japan to living in the United States as smooth as possible, the Japanese diasporic community has created its own mini Japan, complete with age-old practices and clearly defined gender roles.

Combined with the persistent racism and prejudice of white American society, this cultural isolation has made it hard for the diasporic community, especially its womenfolk, to assimilate into American society. What makes things worse for the Japanese women in the story is that they genuinely want to fit in and be accepted, to have the same privileges as the white women they encounter.

And yet, at the same time, the community becomes susceptible to official wartime propaganda, which leads them to suspect their own people of being fifth columnists and traitors. The irony here is that total assimilation would've made no difference whatsoever; Japanese Americans would still have been persecuted anyway.

In The Buddha in the Attic, Julie Otsuka gives us a complex, multi-faceted view of the Japanese diaspora, which at the same time speaks to the experiences of millions of immigrants down through the ages, wherever they come from.