So Henry is a Hero, Blah Blah Blah. Doesn’t Being Who You Are Affect How You Live?
You’re correct again, my dear! This is where discrimination, and sadly enough, racism and prejudice comes into play. No one is spared from these things, especially not Keiko or Henry. Though Keiko suffers more discrimination than Henry, he is not an exception. Examples of this are very prominent in the book, but one that truly makes this all seem like a reality to me is when Keiko goes to buy Henry the very rare Oscar Holden record. She politely goes up to a counter where a clerk happens to be free, puts two dollars on the counter, and waits. She keeps waiting, but when that doesn’t work, Keiko pipes up and asks if the counter is open. She receives an answer that will scar her forever.”
While he and Keiko waited, another woman came up behind them, holding a small windup clock. Henry watched in confusion as the clerk took the clock over his and Keiko’s heads, and rang it up. The clerk took the money and handed back the change, and the clock, in a large green Rhodes shopping bag.
“Is this counter open?” Keiko asked.
The clerk just looked around for another customer.
“Excuse me, ma’am, I’d like to buy this record, please.”
Henry was becoming more annoyed than the clerk looked—her hip cocked, her jaw set. She leaned down and whispered to them, “Then why don’t you go back to your own neighborhood and buy it?”…
The clerk stood there, her fist dug into her hip. “We don’t serve people like you—besides, my husband is off fighting…” (114)
I think that right here is where it set in for Keiko that she wasn’t perceived as a loyal American, but more so a useless little Japanese girl. From here on, the discrimination only became more vigorous. She was even sent to an internment camp! This just doesn’t show who Keiko was seen as, but how it brought out the the worst in that clerk. And it wasn’t just her, this stereotype that the Japanese were horrible people brought out the worst in everyone.
