41 pages • 1 hour read
David PatneaudeThin Wood Walls
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2004A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Historical Context: Tule Lake Internment Camp
In 1942, the United States government gave the military authority to handle civilians seen as risks to the war effort against Germany, Italy, and Japan. Japanese Americans, mostly from the West coast, were forcibly displaced from their homes and interned in concentration camps. The American government decided that Japanese Americans were torn between allegiance to Japan and their status in America and threatened national security. Due to xenophobic laws and quotas, Issei (first-generation Japanese immigrants) were not allowed to gain American citizenship.
The Tule Lake Internment Camp was one of the concentration camps where Japanese Americans were imprisoned. Tule Lake was opened in May 1942 in California. Throughout its four years in operation, it became the largest and highest security internment camp. Nearing a population of 20,000, Tule Lake was a hotbed of resistance and protest. The camp’s population grew after the initiation of loyalty forms, in which Japanese Americans were asked if they would give up allegiance to Japan. Many Japanese American individuals who answered no were sent to Tule Lake. Tule Lake was the only maximum-security internment camp, and due to disorganization and turmoil, did not close until 1946.
In Thin Wood Walls, the Hanada family is forcibly relocated to Tule Lake. Conditions are brutal, demonstrating how little the American government cared about human dignity. The Hanadas live in cramped and cold barracks, robbed of privacy. Families are forced to sleep and undress in front of one another. The Hanadas eat in a mess hall, where food meets only the most basic needs of nourishment. Jobs pay a meager salary that only allows for buying candy bars from the canteen. Japanese American individuals imprisoned in the camp have limited financial stability; their hard-earned money goes back to the government through the purchasing of government goods.
There is an inhumane lack of stimulation at Tule Lake. Schools are under-resourced, and Joe is forced to endure a racist teacher. People come together to form sports tournaments, but these also lack resources. At Tule Lake, Japanese Americans waste years of their lives when they could have been working, saving money, forming friendships, and pursuing happiness. After protests by Japanese American individuals, the American soldiers are more aggressive, shutting down gatherings and isolating prisoners even more.
Literary Context: 1942 Japanese Internment Camps in Historical Fiction
Thin Wood Walls is part of a larger subgenre of historical fiction based on what Japanese American individuals experienced at internment camps.
John Okada’s novel No-No Boy is a classic novel depicting how the American government imprisoned and victimized Japanese American individuals. Published in 1957, No-No Boy follows Ichiro, a young Japanese American man who returns home to Seattle after years of imprisonment. Ichiro is kept longer than other interned Japanese individuals because he answered no to questions 27 and 28 on the loyalty questionnaire, hence the title No-No Boy. Deemed a traitor and a criminal for his refusal to acquiesce to institutional abuse, Ichiro struggles to find acceptance within the society he returns to. White and Japanese American individuals alike treat him as dangerous and subversive; Ichiro deals with social isolation as well as the psychological trauma of being incarcerated unjustly. No-No Boy, like Thin Wood Walls, deals with similar themes, such as The Dangers of Racism and Xenophobia, The Importance of Family, and the fight to keep a fractured family together. When No-No Boy was first published in 1957, readership barely existed for historical novels that criticized American abuses during World War II. When the novel was rediscovered in 1970, its popularity ballooned. It is now a staple in many high school and college-level literature courses.
The Buddha in the Attic, a 2011 novel by Julie Otsuka, explores a unique layer of the Japanese internment experience. The novel follows Japanese picture brides, women who were chosen by men living in America based on their pictures. It focuses on the experiences of women in internment camps and the ripple effect of racism and incarceration. The Buddha in the Attic won the 2012 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
Otsuka’s 2002 historical fiction novel, When the Emperor Was Divine, also exposes the horrors of internment camps. Like the Hanadas in Thin Wood Walls, the family in When the Emperor was Divine lose their father to an FBI arrest before they are imprisoned. The absence of a powerful paternal figure dehumanizes both families and renders them even more vulnerable. When the Emperor Was Divine adopts different points of view to illustrate how people of different genders and ages experienced internment camps. The novel reveals what happened to many Japanese American families after they were released. Thin Wood Walls ends before the Hanadas are freed; When the Emperor Was Divine demonstrates that they likely faced displacement and continued racism.
Xenophobia and racism placed all Asian Americans—not just Japanese American individuals—at risk. In Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, Henry Lee, a Chinese American man, falls in love with a Japanese girl who is forcibly incarcerated. The distance and unknowability of her experience threatens their relationship. Ford shows how the imprisonment of Japanese Americans threatens all Asian Americans, who worry that white Americans will confuse them for being Japanese. Henry is also the victim of racism. A racist society is toxic for all. The 2009 novel was a New York Times bestseller.
