Though I enjoyed Mura’s short story, and analyzed different aspects of the text, I am not sure I took away what Mura had intended for his audience to realize at the end of the story. As I read, I continued to wonder where the story was going, I had thought the ending would be about how K found a passion for religion and well… I’m still not sure where I thought Mura’s story was going. However, I was interested in K’s childhood and I wondered if he had ever even realized how he was discriminated against for being a nisei.
The narrator, assumed that his father K understood that there was a line that he could not cross since he was not white, and though he was aware of his social status. K seemed to be content with his American lifestyle. K had once said to his son “If you look for prejudice, you’ll find it,” and he certainly lives his life believing just that. He sits in the back of the bus, where minorities were required to sit, and he did it with no hesitation. I guess this is him being what his teacher in the camps described as being “two hundred percent American.” K “worked too hard too be white,” he knew that in America he would never be as powerful as a white person, but continued to be as American, as white, as he could. K continues to over look discrimination and does his best to fit in, even feeling a sense of belonging at times, but how could someone be so okay with this treatment?
It is a very powerful story about manipulation and corruption, but I am not sure what the meaning of Mura’s last few paragraphs is, and I assume it is very important, I mean it’s the end! So, I look forward to having a discussion with my class about the short story, in hopes of understanding Mura’s “conclusion.”
Ethnic American Literature 