Dash

Larson uses juxtaposition to show how Pearl Harbor changed Mitsi’s life. She pairs Mitsi’s life before the attack with her life after the attack, allowing the reader to see the drastic differences. Through Mitsi’s memories, the narrator shows the reader how close she was to Judy and Mags. They’ve been best friends since first grade. They got chicken pox together and always sat with each other at lunch. As the narrator says, “No matter what was on the menu, the three of them always had a Mitsi sandwich for lunch, with Mitsi right between her two best friends” (12). After Pearl Harbor, her friends are no longer her friends. They yield to Patty’s racist bullying, distance themselves from Mitsi, and leave her mean notes in her desk at school. The narrator states, “It used to be that her friends thought Japanese things — like Obaachan’s kimonos and Hinamatsuri — were nifty” (15). The adversarial present juxtaposes the pleasant past. Her friends don’t think Mitsi’s Japanese background is neat or “nifty” anymore.

The juxtaposition links to the theme of Racism and Adversity, which is depicted at the personal level in how Mitsi and her friends are treated, at the local level in changes within her town, and, more broadly, at the institutional level, as shown by the government’s actions. Patty, Mitsi’s former friends, and others mistreat Mitsi and the Japanese people in her Seattle community due to their ethnicity. In other words, they antagonize them for no other reason but their Japanese identity. The anti-Japanese racism produces adversity, with Mitsi battling bullies at school and on the streets. Mitsi faces adversity with a mix of resignation and resilience. After Patty snickers at how Obaachan says “lovely,” ruining Mitsi’s enjoyment of her ice cream. The narrator concedes, “Mitsi didn’t taste the strawberries. Only shame” (23). In the community, citizens are arrested, and newspapers use pejoratives when referring to the Japanese. The events in this section are building up to the institutional racism that the United States government will carry out with the relocation and imprisonment of Japanese Americans without trial or due process.

However, Mitsi doesn’t give up her friends without a fight, and her behaviors link the theme of Friendship and Integrity. She makes them Valentine’s cards, though Patty mocks them. Seeing that her friends like autograph books, she makes them for Mags and Judy, only to be confronted with the possibility that Mags sent her the racist notes. Mitsi tries to be mean, but she is unable to do so because she is too nice a person, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t put up a fight, especially when it comes to her Dash. She confronts General DeWitt by writing him a letter about allowing Dash in Camp Harmony. Obaachan tells her, “You are a brave girl. To write a general!” (64).

Sometimes, Mitsi fights racism and the concomitant adversity, and sometimes she surrenders to it. Her mixed response to racism and adversity connects to another key theme, Resilience and Hope. To push back against the racist atmosphere, Mitsi can’t lose hope. She can’t let racism turn her into a jaded, apathetic person. At moments, she appears headed in the negative direction. The narrator says:

[S]he didn’t feel anything. Not when Patty Tibbets made slanty eyes, or when the newspaper blared headlines like ARMY MAY HAVE TO MOVE BAINBRIDGE JAPS. Or when she found another mean note in her desk. The new Mitsi was too cold, too deep under the water for anything—or anyone—to touch her (41).

Mitsi’s feelings come back. She stays fiercely loyal to her dog, creates a bond with Mrs. Bowker, hangs on to the sentimental Chubby Bear, and doesn’t leave Mags a mean note. The narrator discloses, “It gave Mitsi a stomachache to think of being that kind of mean to another person” (40). Though Mitsi is in a terrible situation, resilience and hope stop her from becoming terrible.

The motif of subjective violence versus objective violence supports the theme of Racism and Adversity. In Violence: Six Sideways Reflections (Picador, 2008), the Eastern European philosopher Slavoj Žižek defines subjective violence as attributable to individuals and objective violence as anonymous or an inevitable part of a given system, like capitalism. Through Mitsi and Ted, Larson makes Žižek’s concept intelligible for young readers. Ted tells Mitsi, “They’re making us leave.” Mitsi asks, “Who is?” Ted replies, “They. The Government. Everybody” (47-48). The displacement of Japanese people is due to specific people, and Mitsi reinforces the subjective violence behind the racist removal when she writes to General DeWitt—the man in charge of putting Japanese people in concentration camps. Ted and Mitsi hold people accountable. They don’t let their displacement fall into the convenient category of objective violence.

Larson creates a racist atmosphere through words and actions. She shows the reader how Chinese businesses put up signs identifying their places as not Japanese. She also shows how the kids at school are racist, leaving Mitsi mean notes and excluding her from the activities. While Mags and Judy don’t do racist things like Patty, they don’t defend Mitsi, implicating them in Patty’s racism.

During World War I, Mrs. Bowker didn’t stick up for a German couple, and she still feels guilty. Mrs. Bowker summarizes how the racist atmosphere expands when she tells Mitsi, “It’s easy to blame the war. All the talk, getting people riled up. But that is no excuse. No excuse at all. God gave us brains to think for ourselves” (44). The policies of the government can push people toward racism or make them feel it’s acceptable. Yet a racist atmosphere doesn’t excuse racism: No one can force a person to act racist.

Mags’s and Judy’s passive compliance with Patty indicates that they’re not racist people, but they’re going along with the racist environment. Larson puts a red herring (a false clue) to complicate the theme of racism and adversity. Mitsi is certain Mags leaves racist notes in her desk, but, as she learns later, the racist notes are in Mags’s desk because she was taking them out of Mitsi’s desk. Following Mrs. Bowker, Mags was thinking for herself. Unlike Mrs. Bowker, Mags doesn’t think for herself all the time, nor does she aggressively support Mitsi. While Mrs. Bowker easily links to friendship and compassion––a key theme––Mags’s connection to friendship and compassion is tangled.