Hotel… Accolades

• Indie Bound Next List selection• Borders Original Voices pick• Barnes & Noble Book Club Selection Pennies'

Pick at Costco• Target Bookmarked Club Pick• National Bestseller. • #1 Book Club Pick for Fall 2009/Winter 2010

by the American Booksellers Association.

Jamie FordJamie Ford is the great-grandson of Nevada mining pioneer Min Chung, who emigrated from Kaiping, China, to San Francisco in 1865, where he adopted the western name "Ford," thus confusing countless generations.

An award-winning short-story writer, Ford is an alumnus of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers and a survivor of Orson Scott Card's Literary Boot Camp.

Ford, in his 40s, is a former advertising executive in Seattle & Honolulu who now lives in Montana with his wife and six teenaged children.

Sources: http://www.amazon.com/Jamie-Ford/e/B001KP5KY0Jamieford.com

JAMIE FORD & PERSONAL CONNECTIONS TO THE NOVEL * Jamie Ford grew up near Seattle's Chinatown (in the INTERNATIONAL DISTRICT)* Before becoming an author, he studied at an art school in Seattle.* He had a best friend who was Japanese (Ford’s relations were Chinese), but they didn’t face the issues from the 1940s. * He found an “I Am Chinese” button among family mementos. His father wore it in the 1940s.* Ford found an article about the belongings left in the Panama Hotel – they are actually still on display in the tea room there! * There really was a Bud’s Jazz Records store, but sadly, it closed a few years ago.

JAZZ & OSCAR HOLDEN

*“the patriarch of Seattle jazz”*one of Seattle’s influential jazz musicians *born in Nashville, TN in 1887*played on Fate Marable’s famous Mississippi River riverboats*moved to Chicago to escape from the South

*played clarinet in Jelly Roll Morton’s band* traveled with the group to Seattle in 1919 * remained in the city when the band moved on*formed his own band & toured cities in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia Sources: Paul De Barros, Jackson Street After Hours: The Roots of Jazz in

Seattle (Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 1993); Historylink interview of Oscale Grace Holden, Seattle, Washington, May 17, 2000, http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=2505.

Oscar Holden • Holden’s children recall that he rarely talked about his southern life, except to say he purposely did not marry until he fled Dixie, so his children would not be born there.

•a powerhouse player with a deep classical background

* met his wife, Leala, in 1928 while they were playing at different clubs in North Seattle• had seven children, five of whom pursued musical careers * worked day shifts at Todd Shipyards and night shifts playing at clubs, plus regularly swimming two miles across Lake Washington• continued performing until he suffered a stroke in 1966 Oscar Holden died in Seattle in 1969.

According to Holden’s son Ron, a vocalist whose rock ‘n’ roll hit “Love You So” hit Billlboard charts in the 1950s, “Every Sunday, the family would get together and play the same music that they played for dances.” Holden’s daughter, Grace adds, “We ate music, we lived music.”

Seattle

Executive Order 9066, Feb 19, 1942, by FDR

AMERICA: MELTING POT, SALAD BOWL, OR STEW?

• The term melting pot refers to the idea that societies formed by immigrant cultures, religions, and ethnic groups will produce new hybrid social and cultural forms.

• The concept of ethnic stew is similar to that of melting pot, though the degree of cultural distinctiveness is higher in the former, however not reaching the level of the “salad bowl” thesis (different groups keep their differences, while maintaining relations among each other).

http://www.tolerance.cz/courses/texts/melting.htm

THEMESSACRIFICE

SALVATION

PATRIOTISM

ISSUES

• Race• Ethnicity• Immigration• Assimilation• Prejudice• Relationships with Parents• First Love

SYMBOLS• JAZZ

• UME TREE

• FOOD

• PANAMA HOTEL

INSIGHTFUL PARALLELS

• Compare the treatment of African- Americans to Japanese-Americans during WWII.• How do the two girls, Keiko and

Samantha, act as bridges for their respective men?

ABOUT WHAT IS HOTEL? • “THE SWEET INNOCENCE OF FIRST LOVE”

• “THE CRUELTY OF RACISM”

• “THE BLINDNESS OF PATRIOTISM”

• “THE ASTONISHING UNKNOWNS BETWEEN PARENTS AND THEIR CHILDREN”

• “SADNESS AND SATISFACTION AT THE END OF A LIFE WELL LIVED”

WHO IS HENRY? 1942 at 12 1986 at 56

Critical Praise• “Jamie Ford’s first novel explores the age-old

conflicts between father and son, the beauty and sadness of what happened to Japanese Americans in the Seattle area during World War II, and the depths and longing of a deep-heart love. An impressive, bitter, and sweet debut.” – Lisa See, best-selling author of Snow Flower

Cantonese & Japanese Words• Domo – “Thank you.”• Issei – first generation of Japanese immigrants• Nisei – second-generation American citizens of

Japanese ancestry• Konichi-wa – “Hello” or “Good Day”• Oai deki te ureshii desu – “How are you today,

beautiful?”• Nihonmachi – Japantown

Additional Reading• Japanese Internment:

• Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese American Internment Experien

ce,

by Lawson Inada. An interesting collection of insights and experiences,

including Jeanne Wakatsuki and George Takei.

• Divided Destiny, A History of Japanese American's in Seattle, by David A.

Takami.

• Minidoka Stories I and II

• Farewell to Manzanar, by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D.

Houston. The canon of the Japanese internment experience.

• No No Boy, by John Okada. A long lost book, worth discovering.

More Reading . . . • Chinese Culture:

• Good Luck Life, by Rosemary Gong.

• Reflections of Seattle's Chinese Americans: The First 100 Years , by Ron

Chew & Cassie Chinn.

• Seattle's International District: The Making of a Pan-Asian American Com

munity

, by Doug Chin

• West Coast Jazz:

• Jackson Street After Hours: The Roots of Jazz in Seattle , by Paul de Barros.

Count Basie “Swinging the Blues”1940s Hot Swing Jazz Band

ACTIVITY• Imagine you will be evacuated from your

home tomorrow on order of the U.S. Government. You have 24 hours to plan and to pack a small suitcase for your stay in an internment camp.

• How would you feel? How would you prepare?

• Who would you call? What would you take? • What would you leave behind?