Memories

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford is all about memories. Mostly Henry Lee's memories of coming of age during WWII in Seattle's International District. But also the packed up belongs of Japanese families who left to be interned. These turn up in the basement of the Panama Hotel in 1986--memories lost and not recalled until the day they start to renovate. Some of those belongings are still there and you can go have tea and look down at them through plexiglas sections in the floor. ( http://www.panamahotelseattle.com/)

The story is told in alternating times--the 1940's and 1986. In 1986, Henry is a lonely widower but the discovery of what was left behind in 1942 renews his interest in the world around him. In the 1940's, Henry is the lone Chinese face at exclusive Rainier Elementary and all his white classmates persist in thinking that he is Japanese and the enemy. Even his father's insistence that Henry wear a button saying "I am Chinese" does nothing to dissuade the school's bully to pick on Henry. When Keiko Okabe comes to Rainier as well, at first he wants nothing to do with her--she is the enemy after all. But then they come to be friends and eventually, first sweethearts.

Beautiful, heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford, 978-0-345-50533-0, on sale in February. Recommended for high school and adults.

Reminded me of
Nisei Daughter by Monica Sone--a Japanese American woman recalls growing up in Seattle and leaving to be interned