Author reads her novel to students

When Julie Otsuka’s mother was 10 years old, she was put on a train with blacked-out windows and sent away from her home in Berkeley to an internment camp for Japanese-Americans in the Utah desert. Otsuka’s mother lived there for three years with her relatives and other Japanese-Americans in the years following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

The story Otsuka tells in her 2002 novel, “When the Emperor Was Divine,” is loosely based on her family’s experiences in the 1940s. Otsuka shared that history with ninth- and 10th-graders Thursday at Hoover High School as part of the new “One Book, One Glendale” program.

The Glendale Public Library launched the “One Book, One Glendale” program this fall, and children and adults citywide read two books about the Japanese-American experience during World War II. Otsuka’s book was the suggested reading for teens and adults, and Cynthia Kadohata’s book, “Weedflower,” was chosen for children in grades 4 through 8.

When the public library approached Brian Crosby, co-chair of the English department at Hoover, in the spring about participating in the program, Crosby said he eagerly agreed.

“It’s a rare, rare opportunity when you can read a book and then meet the author,” Crosby said.

Ninth- and 10th-graders read Otsuka’s novel during English class this fall in anticipation of her visit. The Kiwanis Club of Glendale purchased the texts for the students.

Otsuka talked to Hoover students about how her family’s life changed in the years following Pearl Harbor. During that time, when the U.S. government doubted the loyalty of Japanese-Americans, Otsuka’s grandfather, a San Francisco businessman, was arrested on suspicion of being a spy. Otsuka’s mother and her grandmother were sent to a camp near San Bruno, Calif., and then to a camp in Utah.

“There was a lot of silence in my family about what had happened during World War II,” Otsuka said. In the five years it took her to write her novel, Otsuka learned more about her own family’s history, and she researched the experiences of other Japanese-Americans.

After reading aloud the last chapter of her novel, Otsuka fielded about 15 questions from students.

“Do you think something like the Japanese internment could happen again in America?” asked 16-year-old Anderson Mills.

Otsuka answered that it was possible. She said she saw parallels between the way the Japanese were treated during World War II and the way Arab-Americans have been treated since Sept. 11, 2001.

Otsuka, who lives in New York City, was in Glendale as part of a 10-day stay in California, where she was visiting schools and universities to talk about her book.

The other author featured in this year’s “One Book” program, Cynthia Kadohata, will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday at the library’s central auditorium, 222 E. Harvard St.