Weedflower -- Jenny Moore

Pre-reading:
Wow. It continues to amaze me the things that I was never taught in history classes.

After looking at the websites, the most shocking thing was the newspaper articles from the 1940s. The way columnists openly talked about the Japanese is horrifying. In one article they are called alien enemies, even though they have done nothing and the majority of them are American citizens. It hurt me a little more every time I read something from that era that talked about the Japanese as though they were cattle being herded into the chutes at a livestock yard. I just can't even imagine how these people felt. They were denied the basic rights that our founding fathers laid out in the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
How sad that such a great nation can completely ignore it's own foundation and background to focus so intently on another group's background that it weakens the integrity of the entire nation. I feel so terrible for the Japanese who spent any time at all in the camps, with no decent food, water, medical care, or housing. I hope that by being educated now, I can educate my own students and we can stop this from happening ever again.


Loneliness is a terrible feeling. It's almost like neglect or longing for someone to be with. Loneliness is the worst kind of homesickness. It's missing the ones you love and feeling as though you are so terribly alone.
My favorite memories are mostly summer memories. I remember playing with my best friends in the neighborhood where I grew up. I remember trips to the beach and hanging out at the lake house with my boyfriend. I have pictures of some of my memories but for me, all I have to do to hang on to a memory is to have a strong emotion tied to it.

After reading the first 15 chapters:
The life that Sumiko had before being forced into the relocation camp was beautiful. I can't imagine having to leave a flower farm. How beautiful and wonderfully pungent it must have been. But I feel so terribly sorry for her. It seems as though she has a hard time creating any sort of semblance in her life because terrible things keep befalling her. First she lost her parents in a car crash (she too was hurt as evidenced by the scars on her stomach) and then her uncle and grandfather are taken away, and then she and the rest of her family are forced into a relocation camp. It was also sad how people kept coming into their house to buy all of their belongings at a cost much lower than the actual value. However, I thought it was nice in a weird sort of way that the woman who bought Mrs. Ono's house wrote her a letter to tell her that her dog would be taken care of until she returned.

It was very bothersome to hear that the Japanese were not even relocated to an area of land they could call their own, they were put on a destitute corner of an Indian reservation. I guess the U.S. puts all the people it doesn't want in little desert-y areas and leaves them there. How unfortunate that even the Native Americans don't want anything to do with the Japanese even though they themselves were/are also victims of the same kind of prejudice.

I'm very curious to keep reading because I want to see what happens between Sumiko and the Indian boys and how all the Japanese adjust to their new environment. I kind of think that something bad is going to happen to Auntie since the first or second morning the family was in the permanent relocation camp Sumiko said that Auntie was still in bed a lot later than normal. I hope that nothing does happen because Sumiko will be the woman of the house and have even more household duties than she does now with cleaning and raising her brother.

After finishing the book:
Despite all the sadness that surrounded the characters in Weedflower, I was glad to see that there were ways in which Sumiko and Tak-Tak could find joy. I grew to really love Mr. Moto as he and Sumiko worked to make a beautiful garden. This is a great book to teach that you must make the best of whatever situation you are given because young people especially tend to think that nothing bad will ever happen to them and then once it does, they are unprepared to respond in an appropriate manner.

Everything that happened to the Japanese was extremely sad. They were punished without cause and based on a stereotype. This book just reinforces the fact that stereotypes and prejudices are dangerous. On either one of the websites or in the book (and I'm almost positive it was a website), there was a comment about how the Japanese were being treated by the U.S. the same way the Nazis were treating the Jews. How ironic; a country who denounces the Nazis for their concentration camps and their bigotry is the same country that rounds up innocent people and puts them into relocation camps. The only difference between the two is the method of death. Nazis put their victims to death in gas chambers while the United States simply killed its victims by failing to provide suitable food, shelter, and medical care. It was also devastating how the United States could draft Japanese men to fight for the country. The U.S. wouldn't give these men citizenship or basic rights but they expected them to fight for the U.S. military. I think that was what got me the most. How can you deny someone the most basic rights of life and then expect them to give their own life to protect a country that won't protect them?

On a lighter note, I don't know why but Jiichan's character was kind of funny to me. I love how he responded to Sumiko's note that was written around the edges of a newspaper by writing back on the edge of another piece of paper and including a new sheet for her to respond. Sumiko's relationship with Frank was another lighter part of her story. My favorite part of the whole book was when Sumiko was leaving the camp and Frank came to say goodbye to her.

I was somewhat disappointed when the book was over. I really wanted to see what it was going to be like when Sumiko, Tak-Tak, and Auntie left the camp. I had read about what it was like in the camp, I was really curious to see how they would be treated outside the camp. Kadohata did such a great job of characterization that I really feel like I got to know Sumiko and her situation. I know that I have a much greater understanding and appreciation of what happened to the Japanese because Kadohata made it so easy to step in this book and put yourself in the shoes of one of the characters.