In a time of national crisis, a group of people who considered themselves very much American found that overnight they had become listed as enemies of the state and a possible threat to national security.

Their ordeal began in early 1942, when President Franklin D.  Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which gave the military broad powers to ban any citizen from a 50- to 60-mile-wide coastal area stretching from Washington state to California and extending inland into southern Arizona.

Julie Otsuka, author of the novel When the Emperor Was Divine, discussed the uprooting and relocation of nearly 110,000 men, women and children of Japanese ancestry during the sixth annual University of Delaware First Year Common Reader talk given on Wednesday, Sept. 21, in Mitchell Hall.

Published by Alfred A. Knopf, the 2002 novel and the first work of fiction designated as a UD First Year Common Reader selection, the book draws on stories Otsuka heard from her mother and grandmother about the deportation and relocation of her mother’s family in the spring of 1942.

“For years, I would be having conversations with my mother, and she would end by saying, ‘The FBI will check on you again soon!’ There would be a click and she would hang up without saying goodbye. She never really did say why she signed off that way,” Otsuka recalled. “It wasn’t until I began to write my novel that I realized that the FBI had tapped the phone of my mother and others during the war.”

Otsuka noted that though her mother suffered memory loss in the years before her death two years ago, the memories of the three years spent in the internment camp in Topaz, Utah, stayed with her at some unconscious level.

“When I began to write about this, the images of the war started to surface in my brain,” Otsuka said. “Many Japanese Americans felt a great deal of shame for being rounded up for being disloyal. Writing my book was a way to deal with the feeling I had about this.”

The odyssey

The family’s odyssey began when her mother was age 10, and her brother was seven years old. Their parents had been in the United States for almost two decades. The mother in the book learned about the relocation from signs posted on utility poles that appeared across their Berkeley, California, hometown.

“They knew they had to go, but they still didn’t know where,” Otsuka said. “I began the novel with the image of my grandmother, who recalled that the signs said the families had only four or five days to get ready to go.”

While cameras were not allowed among the internees, famed photographer Ansel Adams came to the Utah camp to take a series of photos that showed the camp in a benign light that was not totally reflective of the situation.

“In the photos taken by Adams, you don’t see a single barbed wire fence or a guard tower,” Otsuka said. “It turned out that Adams was a friend of the camp director. Most of the photos went to the National Archives and are now online.”

For Otsuka, who divided the novel into chapters for her grandmother, mother, brother and father, there was no grand plan for the book, but it was something that emerged during the writing process.

Writing in a café in New York City, across from the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, Otsuka recalled looking up and seeing a person whom she took to be her brother. Although that individual was not her brother, seeing him made her think of a young boy during the war in the internment camp who probably really missed seeing his dad, who was sent to another camp for adult males of Japanese ancestry living in the prescribed area.

“Once I got that image in my mind, I was able to write the rest of the second chapter,” Otsuka said. “I found the book was accumulating critical mass, so I found an agent. The problem was I still didn’t know how to end it.”

The final chapter, which recounts the story of the father, was inspired by reading letters and postcards written by her grandfather to his wife and children during the war internment.

“In the final chapter, in a mock, burlesque confession, the father says, ‘Drop that bomb right here, right where I’m standing,’” Otsuka said. “Some of the editors thought the last chapter was a little too angry, but my agent liked it and we stuck with it. It really wouldn’t have been my book without that anger being expressed in it.”

Introduced by University President Dennis Assanis, Otsuka followed her talk by participating in a question and answer session moderated by Darryl Flaherty, associate professor of history and director of Asian Studies. A student panel included Rachel Hewett, a mass communication major with a minor in interactive media, and Harry Singh, a biological sciences and theatre major.

Following an appreciative round of applause, Otsuka signed copies of When the Emperor Was Divine in the lobby of Mitchell Hall.

First Year Common Reader essay winners

Ten students were awarded prizes in the When the Emperor Was Divine essay contest sponsored by the First Year Experience program.

The winners, all first year students, are:

• Dakota Edwards, a public policy major from Newark, Delaware, first place;

• Jordan Shuff, an Honors Program student and biomedical engineering major from McGaheysville, Virginia, second place;

• Steven Mirsen, a university studies Honors student from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, third place; and

• Morgan Blumm, a biological sciences major from Bear, Delaware, fourth place.

Honorable mention awards were presented to:

• Sally Tyre, a political science major from Paradise Valley, Arizona;

• Sage Mosteller, an Honors chemical engineering major from Castle Pine, Colorado;

• Sienna Pyle, an Honors Program student and biomedical engineering major from Skyesville, Maryland;

• Michelle Seifert, an Honors Program student and biomedical engineering major from East Berlin, Pennsylvania;

• Andrew Lloyd, an international relations major, from Wilmington, Delaware; and

• Kristina Whitaker, a communication interest student from Woodstock, Maryland.

About the First Year Common Reader

The First Year Common Reader is a unique opportunity for students to engage in a meaningful conversation with fellow students and to begin to share in the intellectual life of the entire UD community. 

The book is read before arriving on campus with speakers, films and other cultural events organized around the theme of the book throughout the first semester.

Previous common readers have included Equal Justice, by Bryan Stevenson; Thank You for Your Service, by David Finkel; My Beloved World, by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor; Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, by Katherine Boo; and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot.

For more information on the Common Reader, visit the website.