Slant-Eyed Americans (short story)

Short story by Toshio Mori set in the days after the Pearl Harbor attack . A young Nisei man's plans to take his mother to town that day are dashed by the outbreak of war. The next day, business at the flower market is slow, and the Japanese American merchants wonder about their future. Tom, a Nisei gardener friend, doesn't report to work out of despair over the war; the narrator and his family cheer him up. Later, the narrator's brother Kazuo, who is in the army, arrives home for a five-day furlough. At the end of his visit, the family sees him off, pondering the uncertainty of what is to come.

"Slant-Eyed Americans" first appeared in Mori's 1949 short story collection, Yokohama, California , as one of just two stories to take place once the war began. It is reprinted in the 2000 Mori anthology Unfinished Message: Selected Works of Toshio Mori .

Might also like " Nasakenai " by Candace Nosaka Ames and Louann Nosaka; Gold Watch (play) by Momoko Iko; " An Abandoned Pot of Rice " by Hisaye Yamamoto