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The Children And Where Are You Going

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In the stories The Children and Where are You Going, Where Have You Been, both authors captivates their audience through similar contexts. Both authors intrigued the audiences of juveniles because their characters consist of ages between 13 to 18. They reached out to the younger generations to teach a lesson of how quickly one could become lost within society. Society makes a person lose value in their culture and family virtue.
The Children of Julie Otsuka, took place from the fields of Japan to the wide open range of North America. Japanese mothers wanted a better life for their offspring so they took their belongings and left their spouse. Mothers not only packed their personal items, but their cultural traditions as well. As time …show more content…

They forget the names of the flowers in Japanese. They forgot the names of the fox god and the thunder god..." (Otsuka 1072). The children were bewildered by their mother 's speech that they began to act as if they did not understand the language spoken. The children did not speak their native tongue because it was not the language spoken in America. They wanted to adapt so quickly to a common culture since the children are tired of being an outcast.
Consequently, Japanese children did not want to be a Japanese native anymore when they observed the life of an American child. They compared their horrific lifestyle to the luxury of an American. Otsuka illustrates an American house as "... fancy white houses with gold-framed mirrors and crystal doorknobs and porcelain toilets that flushed with the yank of a chain...there were mattresses stuffed with hard metal springs that were somehow as soft as a cloud" (Otsuka 1069). She did not illustrate a Japanese home to her readers because they are rarely at home. The mothers work in the fields as she watches her children play quietly outside. They did not sleep on plush mattresses, but "wooden boards covered with hay" (Otsuka 1067). One character traveled to the city to work as a maid and agreed that the beds were soft. They children did not enjoy the differences in cultures. As they work countless hours with their mothers, others do not even observe the sun rising because they stay at home

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