Seventeen Syllables

Rosie is a 15-year-old girl, trapped between her sense of duty to her family on one hand and her self-actualization as an adult on the other. In many ways, she is the opposite of her mother. Where Tome is soft-spoken and proper, Rosie yells and plays the comedian. Where Tome embodies the virtues of haiku, Rosie fits better in Hollywood. As Rosie’s school friend Chizuko tells her, “Oh, Rosie, you ought to be in the movies!” (15). Like many nisei, Rosie sees herself as something new and distinctly American.

Although she cares for her parents and fulfills her responsibilities as a farmhand without complaint, Rosie actively resists pressure from her mother to engage with anything that is traditionally Japanese. This is partly because communicating in Japanese takes more effort for Rosie than communicating in English: “English lay ready on the tongue but Japanese had to be searched and examined” (8). She goes to Japanese school every weekend and twice a week during the summer, but she still struggles to think in Japanese, leading her to favor English art forms.

Rosie also associates more traditional Japanese culture with patriarchal structures which have left Mrs. Hayano to seem broken down by life while Mr.