To learn more about Book Spotlight, read this first.

The Thing About Luck chronicles the experiences of Summer Miyamoto and her family while they are on harvest.

What I liked:

• Kadohata kept me guessing about her primary purpose in writing this book, all the way to the end. Regardless, I definitely think the book holds a valuable place in Nikkei literature. As far as I know, there are not a lot of novels depicting contemporary JA experiences in agriculture, especially for young readers.
• The next time someone asks me about “voice” in writing, I think I’ll point them to this book. Kadohata captures the mentality of a twelve-year-old JA girl so well, I started having flashbacks to my own middle school years. I especially enjoy the way Summer often interrupts herself or goes on a tangent mid-thought; her thought processes felt incredibly familiar and relatable, even though her day-to-day experiences are very different from mine.
• Jiichan’s and Obaachan’s ways of speaking English are captured perfectly; I could hear their accents and inflections clearly in my head. I was also intrigued by how often they choose to talk to each other in English rather than Japanese. From my own experiences, I know language choice varies greatly by individual and is not solely determined by generation, age, or speaking ability.
• Kadohata captures intergenerational relationships and family dynamics beautifully – this is a common thread in all of her works (that I’ve read thus far). Her characters are so real in their thoughts and actions, a definite counterpoint to the “Japanese” characters often written by non-Japanese authors.
• There is so much more that could be said about this book – it would be interesting if a JA online publication did a roundtable of JA readers/writers from varied backgrounds discussing their thoughts.

What I learned:

• I learned many agricultural terms from this book. Even with Summer’s step-by-step explanation, I still don’t fully understand how a combine works. I also had no idea “harvesting” was a business run separately from farming.

Questions I had:

• Why did Kadohata decide to write a book about Japanese American harvesters? Although I haven’t yet done any external research about this book, as is my usual practice for Book Spotlight posts, I’m curious about the harvesters named in the Acknowledgments. Are any of them Japanese? Does Kadohata know any Japanese American farmers or harvesters, or was she drawn to the subject for some other reason? I have relatives who are farmers in the Midwest…I wonder what they would think of this book?
• Upon initial publication, was this book made accessible to JA readers with backgrounds similar to the Miyamoto family? I wonder how many JA families working in agriculture knew about the book prior to its winning the National Book Award, or even how many of them know about the book now.
• Is there a Japanese translation of this book? If so, what has been the response of 日本人 readers? I would be especially curious to know if any 日本人 readers living in rural areas, especially any farm kids, have read this book.
• How did Kadohata decide on Summer’s obsession with mosquitoes and her experience with malaria? Incidentally, I’ve gotten some of my worst mosquito bites during summers in Japan, so though I’ve never had malaria, I can relate to Summer’s paranoia about going outside during mosquito weather, and I also somewhat associate mosquitoes with “Japaneseness” or maybe my personal experiences being JA/Nikkei…how strange to think of mosquitoes as a bridge between places for Nikkei.
• Jaz’s disability is never specifically identified, but I’d be interested in knowing if any JA/Nikkei with a similar disability have read this book, and if so, what they thought. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of a JA organization dedicated to supporting disabled JAs (as distinct from senior support services, though there can certainly be overlap). I would assume there might be several such organizations in Hawaii, given the size of the Nikkei population (occupying population? settler population?), but I wonder about the Bay Area and other parts of the US. Definitely something to look into.
• Fellow JA/Nikkei readers, what did you think of Kadohata’s depictions of racism in this book? Even now, coming back to this draft to write this section after thinking about it for a few days, I’m still not quite sure what to make of it. Summer and her family members face constant racist microaggressions from white characters. Yet, Summer often finds ways to rationalize these microaggressions as something else – a personality quirk, having a hard life, being stressed about harvest. In some ways, this makes sense to me. Before I fully understood what racism was and had my understandings validated by other POC, I also tended to try to rationalize racism directed at me as something else. At the same time, this book won the National Book Award. I need to see if I can dig up any articles or interviews with details as to why, but at this moment I can’t help wondering if this “soft” approach to race made it palatable to the decision makers, some of whom presumably were white. In particular, I wonder if Summer’s behavior fit someone’s stereotype of Japanese Americans as the model minority.
• All of that said, I don’t necessarily think Kadohata should have written those scenes a different way. As mentioned above, Summer’s experiences with racism are very consistent with my own childhood – race is not a thing you become automatically aware of just because you’re on the receiving end of racist behavior. Kadohata provides some details about Summer’s daily life which suggest Summer is not tuned into social media or in an environment where she is regularly exposed to social justice thinking. Instead, Summer responds to racism with the resources she has – her own common sense and her ever-supportive family. Although I don’t know who Kadohata’s intended audience was, I wonder if part of her intent in writing a story about JAs in Kansas was to highlight the contrast between their experiences and the experiences of the coastal/urban/suburban/Hawaii-based JAs more frequently depicted in Nikkei literature. The question is, was Kadohata doing this for a JA/Nikkei audience, or for non-Japanese readers? Was the impact of the book greater on JA/Nikkei readers or on non-Japanese readers?
• From Kadohata’s perspective, what does “American” mean in the context of JA/Nikkei experiences? For example, some critics might claim one merit of this book is how Summer is depicted “like any other American kid” – but this assumes “American” to be a good thing, an identity JAs should embrace and/or strive toward. (Come to think of it, I’m not sure if a book which situates/indicts JAs and other POC in a settler colonial context would ever be considered for a national award – are we at that point yet? I haven’t been keeping up with recent award winners – unless it was an academic text.) Based on her previous works, I get the impression “American-ness” is something Kadohata considers a positive for JAs. If so, then in the context of Nikkei literature, how might we position Kadohata relative to, say, writers like Brandon Shimoda? All communities of marginalized writers encompass varying levels of social awareness, of course, but specifically in our community, where “American-ness” is inherently linked to the narrative of WWII incarceration and its legacies, how do we reconcile our histories with the present and ongoing need for accountability and change?

Follow-up:

• I have Kadohata’s newest book somewhere in my TBR…one of these days, there will be a post about it.
• As noted above, I will be doing my own investigation into the existence of support services and writings for/by disabled JAs.