"Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet"

"Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet" is Jamie Ford's first novel and has been a "Great Reads" selection in our area and tonight my book club discussed this book. The story alternates between WW II and the late 1980's and is a story of father/son relationships, romance, and nostalgia about what might have been. At the heart of the story is a childhood friendship between Henry Lee, a young Chinese boy, and Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese girl, and Seattle's Panama Hotel plays an important part in the unfolding of this story. Henry's father hates the Japanese because of their attacks on China and the cruelty they inflicted there and he can't see beyond that to look at individual Japanese-Americans.

A lot of our book club discussion centered around the Japanese internment camps (where Keiko's family ends up) and whether that was the right action for our government to have taken at that time. One perspective was that they actually might have been more protected there given the underlying anger at the Japanese after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. However, were only the Japanese targeted -- why not the Italian-Americans and German-Americans? Was it because the Japanese were visibly different from mainstream white America?

What would happen today if this type of action were contemplated? Would ordinary citizens stand by and let it happen again or would they speak up to protest? What do you think you would do?

If you decide to read this book, I'm sure you, too, will come up with lots of questions for discussion.

pazt