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Cherry
Hannah Cherry
Professor Natalie Saccary
IDFY 101 15
September 9, 2015
Shikataganai: Peace or Punishment?
One may dwell on the reasoning behind the Japanese showing the upmost respect
towards a country expunging them of their rights, homes, and identities during WWII. At this
time the American government interned Japanese people due to the sudden bombing of Pearl
Harbor, but shockingly the Japanese went along with their imprisonment. The interned Japanese
people used the native idea of shikataganai to maintain a sense of peace while in confinement,
but in contrast, they dehumanized their own sense \of identity and culture.
Embodying positivity and peace, shikataganai held a weightier meaning for the Japanese
during their internment than any object or person could. Shikataganai centers on the idea that
one cannot change reality, therefore he must accept whatever happens and move forward. Silver
Like Dust, a novel telling a Japanese womans story of internment during WWII, defines
shikataganai by Obachaan as, No matter what happened. You didnt complain about
unfairness or inequality. You didnt resent hurtful or negative things that happened to you. You
followed the rules. You didnt resist (Grant 24). As Obachaan defines shikataganai she prefaces
the definition by saying, But, you see, Mama and Papa worked very hard to instill a positive
attitude in us children (Grant 24). Even Obachaan refers to the idea as uplifting or with positive
connotation. This concept also seems to bring peace to a person in a time of trial. When
Obachaan receives her diagnosis of breast cancer, Kimis heart breaks. She yearns for calm in the
disarray that is brought upon by Obachaans cancer treatment. Shikataganai acts as a calming aid

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for Kimi when she writes, In this moment, in the cool, dark waiting room of that office, I wish I
could summon that shikataganai way of thinking- that ability to surrender to whatever fate lies
ahead-but I cant (Grant 151). The negative diction- cool and dark- acts to amplify the positive
assurance of shikataganai thinking. Kimi implies this way of thinking would be her relief and
serenity. To neighbor on that idea, the film American Pastime depicts a scene in an internment
camp where a Japanese rebel urges his fellow prisoners to fight the conditions of the camp as
they wait in the rain for food. The rebel shouts at the other prisoners exclaiming, You all are
afraid (Nakano, American Pastime). As they wait in line, the Japanese look down sheepishly as
if they know they want to fight, but their cultural principle of shikataganai leads them not to. The
Japanese in the internment camps concede with their poor treatment because of this one cultural
principle. Shikataganai appears to be an admirable way of thinking. Yet, when it became the
reason for unrest in the Japanese culture during their internment, it led to their dehumanization.
In contrast with the idea that shikataganai brought peace into a time of great trauma
during WWII, it also brought about prejudice. The Japanese laissez faire attitude concerning their
imprisonment made them victims to themselves. The Japanese could only go along with their
firm hold on shikataganai for so long before it became dehumanizing. In Silver Like Dust
Obachaan explains to Kimi that she could not understand why her family went along with their
imprisonment by articulating, You dont get it because you were born so much later, she says.
You have to remember, this was before the civil rights movement. We didnt even know about
rights. It wasnt even in our vocabulary. Everything was different (Grant 25). Ignorance and
shikataganai handicap the Japanese as they persecute their own race without truly knowing it.
The Japanese are not aware that they took on the role as victims of their own belittling.
Obachaan begins to see the flaws in shikataganai and resentment comes with it. The reader sees

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this when Grant writes, She began to resent the sameness in all the faces, the dark hair and eyes,
and even more so, in all the thinking. Shikataganai, everybody would say with a shrug of their
shoulders (Grant 282). Even Obachaan describes the sameness of the Japanese people as they
become replica mutants of shikataganai. The single hope that the Japanese cling to when they
need peace in the internment camp ends up being the cause of their discrimination by whites. The
Japanese did not know, nor were they raised to believe, that trying to change ones negative
situation reigns a priority in America. American civilians and military men took Japanese
compliance as spineless behavior, but the Japanese felt it their duty to comply. They believe it
brings pride to their families and country. Once scene in American Pastime portrays a bet that a
Japanese prisoner and white sergeant make. The Japanese boy clearly wins the bet, but the white
man does not accept his defeat and demands the money he should owe the boy. An elderly man
watching the game defuses the situation by quietly giving the sergeant the money and saying to
the boy, Let it go (Nakano, American Pastime). The Japanese man lets himself and the boy be
put below the white man in order to keep peace- shikataganai. Neither the man nor the boy could
change the fact that the white man treated them unfairly, so they believed they were keeping their
dignity by conceding.
During WWII the Japanese found their positivity in shikataganai, which may have kept
them sane, but it fed the oppression Americans imposed on them. This culturally specific concept
seems to be a prominent feature in studying Japanese internment. The lack of rioting and injury
of the Japanese could have been due to their compliance. Although a foreigner may frown upon
the extreme idea that is shikataganai, it manages to aid the aid the Japanese in their survival but
not without compromising their dignity as they search for their identity.
Hannah Cherry

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Cherry
Professor Natalie Saccary
IDFY 101 15
September 9, 2015
Works Cited
American Pastime. Dir. Desmond Nakano. Perf. Gary Cole, Aaron Yoo, Jon Gries. Warner
Home Video, 2007. DVD.
Grant, Kimi Cunningham. Silver Like Dust. New York: Pegasus, 2006. Print.