Kim oder Kimi

by Hadley Irwin

Even the warm, loving relationship Kim shares with her mother, her stepfather, and her half brother can not give sixteen-year-old Kim/Kimi the answers she needs. Half the time she is Kim Andrews, living in her all-white Iowa community-the other half she is Kimi Yogushi, searching for her true identity. She must find out more about her Japanese-American father, who died before she was born, and his family, if there is any. Perhaps then she can solve her inner conflict.

Genres: Young Adult, Historical Fiction, Childrens

Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

Reviews

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Learning, remembering, forgetting. That is how we find out who we are.

Kim, a sixteen year old Japanese-American starts on a quest to find her father's family, in order to know who she is and if she has anyone left that she could call relatives. For years now, she has been living with the burden that her physical appearance gives her in the eyes of other people - you can immediately see she has Japanese heritage and for that reason, she thinks, nobody really wants to get close to her, for she is way too different to be handled.

Even though she has an amazing family, a loving mother, a funny and lovable stepfather and the best half-brother in the world, she thinks she's just half of everything: she's half-adopted, half-Japanese, half-American, she's a half-sister.. She just wants to be whole again, to truly be something from beginning to end.

That is way, after some planning, she leaves for Sacramento, the town in which her father used to live. Kenji Yogushi is not alive anymore, but his family might be, and that's what she hopes - to find someone she can relate to, to find them and hope to be loved back as much as she wants to love them.

I think this is a cute story, an easy read, and I was able to relate to it in many, many ways. But that's just me. For others, this may be just a read, but one with meaning, that would maybe fill an evening with pleasant thoughts about who we are, where we come from and what we have done.

[Melinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book. It was easy to read and interesting; the plot moves quickly and I was intrigued by the main character, who apparently grew up in Iowa, the child of an American mom and American stepfather, a deceased Japanese-American father... without ever learning anything about Japanese culture or history except the parts about World War II. Theoretically possible... but I can readily see how shocking it is to the main character when she shows up in Sacramento at age 16 looking for her deceased father's relatives and discovers they had no idea she exists. A kind Japanese-American woman stops her as she's about to visit them in person for the first time, and tells her basically, "here's what you need to do to not mortally offend them in the first two minutes." Traditional Japanese culture and American culture are so radically different, and inside, this girl is wholly American. I appreciate that she learns from the experience, and the relatives also learn from the experience, and the book closes without getting too far into the weeds of how their relationships will grow from here on. It's a thoughtful book, with a plausible ending.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did enjoy this book. In fact, I read it all in one shot. But I couldn't help comparing it in my mind to Displacement by Kiku Hughes, which I read recently. This book was certainly ahead of its time, from what I can tell, dealing with racism, the Japanese internment camps, and identity and generational trauma. Both books deal with similar themes and, although I know I'm not in a position to judge, seems to do it with more sensitivity than I sort of expected. However, there's still a gap when the authors are not part of the group about which they're writing. Hughes' book has a different feel because of that. Again, I don't think there's anything wrong with this one (though I haven't done any digging into the reception or perception of this novel by people of Japanese descent), but if I had to choose, I would recommend Displacement over this.

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kim/Kimi is about a 16-year-old in Iowa whose Japanese-American father died before she was born and whose white mother remarried a white man. Kimi is the only Asian-American/biracial person/person of color in her school and she's always felt out of place. She's planned a trip to Sacramento to search for her father's family and relatives she's never known.

Kimi resists learning about Japanese-American history and internment during WWII. She's amazingly disconnected from her culture, which is partly small-town Iowa and partly 1980s. I feel like everyone must know what sushi is now, but Kimi did not.

The book becomes surprisingly serious and addresses issues of racism and reparations as Kimi learns about and meets other Japanese-Americans. Well done there for its candidness.

[Lailaturrahmi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kim Andrews/Kimi Yogushi merasa berbeda dengan orang lain di lingkungannya. Di Lanesport, Iowa, hampir semua orang yang ditemuinya tergolong etnis Kaukasia. Atau setidaknya, tidak sepertinya, bermata sipit dan berambut hitam lurus. Jap, kata orang. Dan ia benci dengan hal itu, terlebih saat guru di sekolahnya memutar film penyerangan bangsa Jepang di Pearl Harbor.

Gadis berdarah campuran Jepang-Irlandia itu lalu memutuskan untuk menghabiskan liburan musim seminya di Sacramento, California untuk mencari tahu keluarga ayah kandungnya. Berbekal foto lama ayah dan ibunya, ia pergi sendirian. Berbagai hal tidak terduga kemudian ditemuinya sejak memulai perjalanan. Akankah pertanyaannya selama ini terjawab? Apakah ia diterima sebagai anggota keluarga Yogushi?
***

Agak kesulitan memahami beberapa bagian dari novel ini, mungkin karena sudah lama tidak membaca novel berbahasa Inggris.
Tema yang disajikan merupakan hal yang baru bagi saya, yaitu tentang kehidupan keturunan Jepang di Amerika Serikat beberapa dekade pasca Perang Dunia II.


Saya tidak terlalu menyelami karakter Kim di sini. Tetapi saya bisa memahami desakan dari dalam dirinya untuk mencari tahu lebih jauh tentang asal-usulnya. Orang-orang yang ditemuinya pun menarik. Mereka bijak dan membantu Kim dengan caranya masing-masing, meskipun kesan pertama tidak selalu baik menurut Kim. Proses penerimaan dan pembelajaran Kim terhadap budaya dan lingkungan 'baru' yang dikenalnya pun terasa asyik untuk diikuti. Bagaimana Kim/Kimi yang berdarah Jepang, tetapi tidak bisa menggunakan sumpit, asing dengan menu Jepang, apalagi dengan bahasa Jepang, perlahan-lahan mempelajari hal tersebut satu per satu.

Ada twist di sepanjang cerita, juga di bagian akhir. Menarik untuk menemukan bahwa setiap orang sesungguhnya bisa saja saling terkait.

[James Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kim is 16. Her mother is Irish-American, but her father is Japanese. He died before she was born, and had been outcast by his parents for marrying against his parent's wishes.

The story opens with Kim in trouble at school and meeting the school's principal. She's in trouble yet again. Kim has a best friend named Jav, and tells her she plans to run off to California to find out about her father's family.

Apparently Kim's father had been set up for an arranged marriage, but married her mother instead which then really got his parents angry. She gets on a plane for California. She meets a friend of her mother's there, and the woman starts talking about the internment camps. She refers to them as “concentration camps.”

Kim is thoroughly Americanized as she finds out when she goes to a restaurant where all the diners are Japanese and she can't understand them at all.

What is revealed to Kim is that, due to the internment camps, the traditional way of bringing up children, the Japanese culture, etc, all pretty much was considerably upset, so the kids grew up not being acculturated into Japanese culture, but into American culture.

Kim begins a systematic search for her father's family. She meets the husband of the woman she's staying with, and he tells her his grandparents died in Nagasaki. He himself and his parents were sent to Manzanar.

Someone else takes Kim to Tule Lake. This is a person who had been interned there and still has very bitter memories of the experience. Them Kim finds out the person who has been helping her the most has a specific reason for doing so.

She eventually finds the people she was looking for, although things don't go really smoothly.

This is a rather good book, especially about cultural difference even within a particular ethnic community.

[Jinbin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kim Kimi talks about a 16-year-old girl named Kim Andrew who tries to find her lost heritage. She wants to find out more about her Japanese-American father who had died before she was born. Her other name, Kimi Yogushi keeps her engage in her journey to find her "true identity;" thus, she decides to run away to search for her lost.

The book starts out really boring because it did not "pull" me into reading it, but still i was able to finish it. The story becomes more interesting towards middle where Kim decides to run away to find her father's family. I was surprise that she was able to travel by herself (with her brother's help)and not afraid of getting lost or anything.

When i read to the part where the book talks about Kim's "runaway," it reminded me when i ran away from home one time when i was 7 years old in China. I remembered that day that my relative came to visit me in the morning where i was about to go to school, but after she left, i felt sad. She reminded me of my family in America, so i started to feel bad. I don't know why, but i just decided to run away and not go to school. My aunt came out to look for me on the street and i was hiding under a big basket. Now when i think back to that time, i think i was really "dumb." Well, everyone has their first time of doing something and that's my first time running away from home.

[Robin · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was about a girl name Kimi Yogushi, or Kim Andrews, she goes to her father's hometown without her family except for her brother Davey knowing that she was going on a plane trip all by herself and without a chaperone, to find out who he was and to find out if there are anymore relatives from her fathers side. Her father died before she was born and her mother has remarried and has another child a son named Davey with her new husband. Kimi moves in with a mother and son who takes care of her and help her figure out and find out who her relatives are. In the end of the book, she finds her father's sister and mother. They are both really surprised and a little scared to find out that their niece and granddaughter came to visit them. But then later on, Kimi goes back to her home, where her mother and step-father also known as her dad, are waiting for her at the airport. Kimi is satisfied to know that she has some family and that they want her to visit as often as she can.
This book didn't really help me understand about my identity, but it helped me understand a way to find out who I really am, by going through phone books or other things like that, this book was pretty good, but it also wasn't the best book ever written.

[Mire Ajeti]

Kim Andrews or Kimi Yoshugi? Which one should Kim/Kimi write on her paper? Living in Iowa, Kim is surrounded by Americans and she doesn't feel like she fits in because her mother's white, but her father is Japanese. She feels "american" inside, but every time she looks at herself, it doesn't feel right. Kim never knew her father, he died after her birth. During Kim's spring break, her parents are out of town and Kim decides to go search for her father's life in Sacramento. Only Kim, her best friend and her half-brother know where she's going.
I really didn't like this book, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone! I think that Kim shouldn't have gone to Sacramento by herself. No one would never go to a place- they have never been to before- and lie to their parents to search for her father! Something bad could have happened to her. I found this book really unpredictable, Kim should have asked more questions to her mother about her father- then finding things out by herself.

[Ashley Tirey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy read. For a book that is supposedly about Kim's journey, though, she is awfully flat. The author insists that Kim has felt like an outsider all her life and has been planning her trip to Sacramento for at least 2 years. However, Kim reads like a leaf on a stream. She lets everyone around her push and pull her where they want her to go. Her "understanding" of her identity at the end isn't earned. The author was more interested in describing a red sweatshirt. The superficiality of Kim's part of the story doesn't play well with the anger and pain of the more adult characters about their cultural identity. A much richer story could have been told here. I still think it will raise questions about America's past and fill in a hole in the history books for my students, though. It will find a place on my bookshelves, if only because Kim's search is relatable and, happily, not so tied to the past that it can't count as realistic fiction.

[Cui · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was about this Japanese American girl who feels like she doesn't fit in with her friends. She doesn't know who her real dad is so she went from Iowa all the way to sacramento california to look for her dads old family. She found some informations about her dad but she never really met them or figured out who they were. This book can relate to me sometimes because I rarely feel fit in with alot of people in my school. Sometimes I'm never with my friend which makes my interaction with them harder, which is how she felt with her friends because she isn't like them. This book can show some race issues because the reason she doesn't feel very fit in because she's japanese. That issue of race happened to me when I was very young as a Chinese American in a All Black school in queens. I couldn't fit in with alot of people and didn't know my parents very well.

[Rosemary Reeve · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is well-meaning, and there is potential in the concept, but ultimately it comes across as being a bit heavy-handed, with the main character being rather whiny and naive. Perhaps the biggest problem is simply how dated it obviously is. The second half is better than the first, but it was hard to get into at all. The ending was rather abrupt and incomplete, as well.

[Cws]

JAR4-Hur

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable story about a girl who is trying to learn about her Japanese roots.

[Stasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

A coming-of-age story about a biracial girl who is trying to unearth her deceased father's heritage. Really is about accepting yourself and loving who you are and where you came from.

[Alma (Diary of a Booklover) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Required reading.