by Hisaye Yamamoto

Hisaye Yamamoto's short stories paint a vivid portrait of pre-war Japanese American rural life in California. Yamamoto herself grew up in southern California as a second- generation Japanese American, or nisei (as opposed to issei, which refers to Japanese immigrants to America). In "Seventeen Syllables," Yamamoto portrays the demanding life and troubled relationship of an issei couple in a farming community just outside Los Angeles in the late 1930s as perceived by their American-born teenage daughter. The story also provides insight into the daughter's coming-of-age experience in an environment that confronts her with the cultural values of her parents, the conflicting values of her mother and father, and the emerging cultural values of her own generation.

Events in History at the Time the Short Story Takes Place

The first Japanese Americans. In 1885 the government of Japan lifted its two-hundred-year-old ban on emigration. From...