Summary Of Tribe By Ostuaka

On page 35, Ostuaka uses italics to give a voice to the abstractness of the text. The Japanese wifes felt depressive when they realized that their husbands were more invested and cared more for their dogs than themselves. She writes, “they grew more attached to those dogs than they ever did to us, and we wondered if we had made a mistake, coming to such a violent and unwelcoming land. Is there any tribe more savage than the Americans? Ostuaka shows the emotions of the wife through this italics phrase. The words ‘tribe’ and ‘savage’ makes the reader imagine almost a barbaric group of people. Then, she is uses it to describe the Americans through the eyes of their abused and depressed wifes. It creates this dark image of a husband caring for other species more than for his own. The Japanese wives of farmers have been treated the worst, and the italics gives the wives a voice of some sort, like I can actually see a Japanese wife saying as I read.
She writes, “Some of us objected to what they said about us to their children when they did not realize we were still in the room. If you don’t study harder, you’ll end up scrubbing floors just like Lily.” The parents used the Japanese maids as an incentive for their kids to work harder. Using these maids as a rock-bottom example of life is perfect because not only are they maids, which isn’t the prefered occupation, but also they are Japanese and women were are both minority groups in the United States at the time. It’s like the whites and African Americans. The Americans put down the Japanese women in order to make they seem and feel higher on the social hierarchy than