Kim/Kimi by Lee Hadley

First published: 1987

Subjects: Coming-of-age, family, and race and ethnicity

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Social realism

Time of work: The early 1980’s

Recommended Ages: 13-15

Locale: A small Iowa town and Sacramento, California

Principal Characters:

• Kim Andrews, a biracial sixteen-year-old who is trying to find her deceased father’s family, the Yogushis
• Davey Andrews, her twelve-year-old half brother, who helps Kim plan her trip
• Mrs. Mueller, the Andrews’ babysitter and friend, who arranges for Kim to stay with the Okamura family in Sacramento
• Barbara Okamura, Mrs. Mueller’s friend, who begins Kim’s introduction to her Japanese American heritage
• Ernie Okamura, Barbara’s son, who befriends Kim
• Mrs. Enomoto, a teacher who introduces Kim to the experiences of Japanese Americans in the internment camps during World War II

Form and Content

Kim/Kimi is an account of a sixteen-year-old girl’s struggle to develop her own identity. The opening line, “I don’t understand you,” reflects Kim Andrews’ own confusion over who she is and what she is supposed to be. The novel, organized in chapters, is a chronological narrative of her journey to locate her Japanese American relatives and to understand her biracial heritage. Kim/Kimi is a notable title in multicultural literature since it is one of the first to explore the Japanese American culture for young adults. Within this short, easy-to-read novel, authors Lee Hadley and Annabelle Bowen Irwin, writing under the name “Hadley Irwin,” explore the themes of racial intolerance and ethnic awareness.

Born Kimi Yogushi, Kim Andrews never knew her Japanese American father, who died before her birth. Adopted by her stepfather, she has grown up as an all-American girl in a small Iowa town. Although she has a loving family and good friends, Kim feels different because she looks Japanese. Confused and sometimes angered by racial slurs and stereotypes, she is determined to find her father’s family, who disowned him when he married a non-Japanese woman. Since her mother is unable to help her, she plots with the help of her half brother, Davey, to fly to California while her parents are out of town.

Mrs. Mueller, Davey’s mentor in the game Dungeons and Dragons, plans the quest. Kim is surprised when Ernie Okamura, a Japanese American college student, meets her at the airport. Mrs. Mueller did not tell Kim that she had arranged for her to stay with the Okamura family. Although she looks Japanese, Kim knows nothing about her “Japaneseness.” Mrs. Okamura, understanding a need that Kim does not recognize, begins her acculturation.

Although Kim is appreciative of Mrs. Okamura’s kindness, she is impatient to start her search for her father’s family. She traces the family’s address in the early 1940’s and is shocked to learn that they were imprisoned at an internment camp, Tule Lake, during World War II. The search seems to have reached a dead end. Mrs. Enomoto, a Japanese American teacher who has access to Tule Lake records, volunteers to help. Herself an inmate at the camp, Mrs. Enomoto shares with Kim her childhood recollections of life at Tule Lake during the war.

Following new leads, Kim locates an address for the Yogushi family after their imprisonment. Although the house has been sold, the elderly occupant furnishes Kim with her aunt’s address. Excited and scared, she prevails upon Mrs. Enomoto to contact the Yogushis. Her visit to her aunt and grandmother is a failure. When she cannot bring herself to tell them who she is, she instead leaves a picture of her father with them. Sick at heart, she returns to the Okamuras, where she finds her brother and friends from home waiting for her. When she again visits her aunt’s home, her grandmother refuses to see her. The novel ends on a positive note when she receives a note from her aunt asking for time to think about the future while conveying her grandmother’s acceptance of her.

Critical Context

Historically, there have been few young adult novels by or about Asian Americans. Kim/Kimi is a seminal work in that body of multicultural literature whose purpose is to break down racial and ethnic stereotypes. The novel dispels clichés while briefly opening a page in U.S. history. In a similar way, Yoshiko Uchida’s novel Journey to Topaz (1971) mirrored harsh realities at the Topaz relocation camp while reminding readers that not all Americans hated the Japanese immigrants and their children.

For more than fifteen years, joint authors Lee Hadley and Ann Irwin pooled their individual writing talents to create novels of truth and beauty for young people. They often explored universal truths and social issues through the eyes of young adult protagonists.

Their novel I Be Somebody (1984) also explores racial themes, as a young black boy in the early twentieth century faces leaving his home when his community considers emigrating to Canada in order to escape prejudice in the United States. In addition, they wrote Abby, My Love (1985), a sensitive coming-of-age novel that deals with incest; it was named an American Library Association Notable Book and was chosen as one of the Child Study Association of America’s Children’s Books of the Year. In Can’t Hear You Listening (1990), a teenage girl struggles for independence from an overprotective mother while trying to help a friend who is experimenting with drugs.