Real Poverty

Lois Ann Yamanaka’s novel Blu’s Hanging left me with a general feeling of unease. Perhaps it was just that I am bothered by the fact that there are people in the world that live in such conditions. It also didn’t help my motivation to sit down and read the novel that I had read the essay by Jamie James prior to the novel itself. So not only was I put off within the first few pages, but I was prepared to be made to feel uncomfortable. In all honesty, maybe I was set up to not enjoy this piece by the James essay.

I guess, due to my suspicion, I should start by exploring my experience with the James essay “This Hawaii Is Not For Tourists”. Well, the one thing that stood out to me about this essay was that it was much more informative than most essays that I have recently read. That is to say, it seemed to me that James set out to tell readers the history of the controversy surrounding Yamanaka’s works, especially Blu’s Hanging. I found this approach to be a refreshing change of pace, though I left the reading of the essay feeling slightly unsatisfied, like I had not been appropriately guided down a line of thinking.

After reading through Blu’s Hanging, however, I realize that James did guide me to a line of thought, which centered around a comment my girlfriend made while reading over my shoulder, “Eww, that doesn’t sound like much fun at all”. Now, admittedly, this could have been directed at the essay in general, but I, being a good boyfriend, asked for clarification and she pointed out some the descriptions from Blu’s Hanging that are intertwined with the history lesson.

These descriptions, which formed the basis of Yamanaka’s critics’ arguments also shaped my reading of the text. They made all of the negative aspects of the novel really stand out to me. Upon reflection, I find this to be quite unfortunate because Blu’s Hanging is certainly a well written piece and one that I could have found a lot more pleasurable had I not been preexposed to the negative aspects of it. I loved the realness of the characters, and definitely sympathized with them in many of their problematic situations.

A scenario that really stood out to me came early on in the novel, when the narrator makes Blu’s lunch for a field trip and the other kids in his class mock him horribly for the sad state of his sandwiches and his reused grocery bag that serves as his lunch bag. This, to me, summarized the horrible poverty that the family was living in. Additionally, I felt that this scene connected me with the characters in a way that simple whining about how horrible it was would not have accomplished.