Here’s An Idea!

Due to the fact that this is our last week, I wanted to make a proposal. In my American Lit. 2 class, we recently finished reading a novel by Ruth L. Ozeki called My Year of Meats. Ozeki is a Japanese-American from Connecticut. The novel has earned numerous awards including the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Award, and the Noble American Book Award. But that’s not the best thing about this novel. Ozeki manages to capture the true spirit of both a Japanese-American and a Japanese woman while effectively communicating the real facts about factory farming.

Jane, a documentarian from Quam, Minnesota now living and thriving in New York. The novel takes off from the first page with the statement, “Meat is the Message.” We soon learn that Jane is embarking on a new adventure of running a documentary series called My American Wife! which will broadcast in Japan. The series is supposed to highlight the stereotypical “American wife” and her family through showing Japanese audiences new recipes for meat. Jane takes over the show and slowly comes to a realization about meat and its production process from the slaughter house to the kitchen table. But the Ozeki doesn’t stop there. On the other side of the world in Japan, Akiko watches and critiques each episode for her husband Joichi Ueno, the production head of My American Wife!. As the story continues, the reader gets explore the worlds of an American documentarian, a Japanese housewife, and the world of meat.

Overall, the novel is eye-opening and realistic. Its creatively written using not only both first and third person prose, but also faxes, letters, and journals to carry the plot. I believe Ruth Ozeki’s My Year of Meats would be a great addition to our Multicultural Lit. class and allow students to discover many different forms of narration and two different cultures.