How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
I never wanted to change my face or to be someone other than myself. What I wanted was the kind of acceptance that seemed to come so easily to Radine. To this day I have a recurring dream, which fills me each time with a terrible sense of loss and desolation. I see a young, beautifully blond and blue-eyed high school girl moving through a room full of others her own age, much admired by everyone, men and women both, myself included, as I watch through a window. I feel no malice toward this girl. I don't even envy her….Once or twice a year she will be there, the boyfriend-surrounded queen who passed me by. Surely her example spurred me on to pursue what now seems ludicrous, but at the time was the height of my post-Manzanar ambitions. (2.21.6-7)
Here's how excluded Jeanne feels about this all-American vision of teenaged beauty: In her own fantasy, she isn't even in the room admiring that "blond and blue-eyed high school girl" floating by—she's watching "through a window." Clearly, Jeanne's obsessed by this whole "queen" thing, but what does it mean that she doesn't even feel included in her own fantasies?
Quote #8
I knew I couldn't beat the other contestants at their own game, that is, look like a bobbysoxer. Yet neither could I look too Japanese-y. I decided to go exotic, with a flower-print sarong, black hair loose and a hibiscus flower behind my ear. When I walked barefooted out onto the varnished gymnasium floor, between the filled bleachers, the howls and whistles from the boys were double what had greeted any of the other girls. (2.21.11)
In other words: Jeanne decides to feed the Caucasian male fantasy of the exotic Asian woman. She uses a stereotype to define her beauty. We wonder though: is this any different than when girls dress up as Playboy bunnies at costume parties? And is there another way to be beautiful (and Japanese-American) without having to fall back on the same stereotypical looks?
Quote #9
"Don't laugh! This is not funny. You become this kind of woman and what Japanese boy is going to marry you? Tell me that. You put on tight clothes and walk around like Jean Harlow and the hakajin boys make you the queen. And pretty soon you end up marrying a hakajin boy…" He broke off. He could think of no worse end result. (2.21.31-32)
Papa's flipping out about Jeanne becoming carnival queen, which leads him to this tirade about how Jean might end up with a white boy since no self-respecting Japanese boy would ever date a girl who decides to show skin. We're just wondering: Can Jeanne really be Jeanne if she's wearing a super-conservative outfit that doesn't fit her sense of beauty or style? How much does fashion help create our identities anyway?