Ancestors-The Genetic Source David Suzuki

Ancestors - The Genetic Source

David Suzuki

Author

David Suzuki is a Japanese-Canadian environmental activist who was born in Vancouver in 1936. He is a Japanese-Canadian sansei (3rd gen) in which his grand parents immigrated from Hiroshima + Aichi. He grew up in an internment camp with his mother and sisters until 1945. During his internment, the Canadian government seized the family owned dry cleaning business and sold it. This made it hard for Suzuki to forgive and trust the Canadian government and the country he lives in.

Main idea

Setting

Pearl Harbour December 7, 1941 Tokyo 1968

Grandfather's letter

One of the main ideas that Suzuki wrote about would be that the actions of certain individuals do not represent the future actions of others. While Suzuki wrote about the hardship that his family faced he recognized latter in life that “every one of (his) emotional problems went right back to (the time spent in the internment camps)”. The only reason that a 5 year old boy would be living in a cattle ranch with hundreds others like him, would be if the government took a look at the boy and told him that he is now an enemy of the state. “Their only crime was the possession of a common genetic heritage with the enemy” and ergo the government thought it to be right to treat all Japanese the same as kamikaze pilots. Other parts of the story further proves his intent with the story, such as the time when he was refused lodging because his wife is caucasian. Even though the owner knew that Suzuki was Japanese, he refused to let the couple rest in the traditional Japanese inn because he had a bad “experience” with caucasians and vowed to never take them in again. Both of these examples show that some people have prejudices against certain races. Extending on Suzuki’s experiences, he is showing that no matter what they believe in, look like or what culture they grew up in, others similar individuals do not hold accountable each others actions.

Tokyo - Most of the story involves Suzuki going to his ancestral homeland for the first time in Tokyo for the international congress of genetics in 1968. All his life, Suzuki was the minority being Japanese, he wanted "large eyes and brown hair" so he could fit in how ever being in Japan made him feel invisible and simple. Looking like everyone els and "fitting in" also showed Suzuki how different he is compared to the rest of the Japanese culture, people would try to communicate with him but not knowing the language made him isolated and quickly labeled as a gaijin.

Pearl harbour - In early December 1941 Japan attacked the United States and brought them into WWII. This event left thousands of Japanese-Canadians who have no ties to the enemy, in internment camps throughout the interior. Suzuki’s family lost everything during that time - Their home, their business and their freedom. Suzuki was placed in the B.C interior with his mother and sisters, resenting what he looked like and why people would do this to his family. He did not speak Japanese, he studied Shakespeare, he learned Canadian-British history and he played Beethoven. The Canadian government took away his identity and left Suzuki and many others resenting Canadians.

Characters

Meeting his family

Ther two main characters in the short story would be David Suzuki and Tara Cullis. Tara Cullis has been married to Suzuki since 1972. We do not know much about her except her heritage; she is most definitely caucasian. She is very important to the story and the main idea, because while Suzuki wrote about his past in Japan he mentions the incident between an innkeeper and his prejudges against white people. The innkeeper did not take in Tara nor Suzuki due to her being white/ westerner and therefore further proves the main idea about prejudices being used against certain races/ethnic backgrounds in the story. Eventhough Cullis and Suzuki are important characters to the main idea, Suzuki's great uncle and mother are the least explored and expanded characters. However they do make a large impact for when Suzuki meets his family in Japan for the first time. After meeting his Japanese relatives, they all wrote back to his mother saying how painful it must be to live in the minority and not being able to communicate with her son. Suzuki is heartbroken because he cannot communicate to the rest of his family and this makes his relatives turn on him by implying that he is an Japanese gaijin. Eventhough Suzuki looks like his family from Japan, they are very different, culturally, intellectually, and mentally. There is more than our appearances that distinguish us from each other, and his Japanese family opened his eyes to it.

Suzuki realized in Japan how little genetics matter and was reminded how the Canadian culture has impacted and shaped his life. When first visiting his family in Japan they could not keep a conversation because they did not have a common language to communicate with. Even though we has pure Japanese there was nothing more in common between him and his ethnicity than what he looked like. In Japan, learning quickly that he did not speak Japanese, the natives stereotyped him and labeled him as a gaijin - a foreigner. The Japanese society did not see him as one of their own, but an outsider. On the other hand the Canadian society did not see him as one of their own either, and therefore labeled him and his family as Harbour-Bombers - the Japanese people who bombed Pearl Harbour.

Symbolism

私セOne of the symbols in the story is the language barrier, either in Japan or in Canada. Communication is the best way to move forward from the past and when Suzuki was in Japan he could not communicate to his direct relatives or even with the natives. Through the lack of Japanese, the natives thought Suzuki a gaijin (tourist), and the stigma and fear is directly placed on him. The Japanese natives were quite rude and racist towards the westerners because of what they had experienced with others that share the same language/ face. Like vice versa in Canada during world war two people assume that all Japanese were imperialist fighting for their ancestral country just because the language they spoke was not Canadian English. The language barrier in the story kept the Canadians and Japanese from communicating and therefore separating them from future connections. Even though Japan and Canada have had a shaky past, the only differences between them is the language they speak and unfortunately they cannot move past their differences because they cannot communicate.