Coming Full Circle - Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Some of you may remember reading Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford in Freshmen English, but for those of you that either haven't read it or need a quick refresher, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet follows Henry Lee, a 12-year-old Chinese-American boy, as he develops a close bond with a Japanese-American girl named Keiko Okabe. However, the story takes place a few months after the attack on Pearl Harbor so the government is prosecuting Japanese-Americans, including Keiko, and sending them to internment camps. Furthermore, Henry faces the challenge of keeping his relationship with Keiko hidden from his father who absolutely despises Japanese people. 

Throughout the novel, Henry's coming of age process focuses on the dynamics of independence and dependence. Like any kid, Henry began by relying on his parents for most things and obeyed them even when he disagreed with what they told him to do. However, when Henry's father discovers pictures of Keiko hidden in Henry's room, he harshly reprimands Henry and throws the pictures out of the window, demanding Henry to forget about Keiko. Instead, Henry defies his father and storms out of their apartment to retrieve Keiko's photos, thinking that "maybe this is what it meant to stop being a boy and start being something else" (Ford 257). Following Henry's first decision independent from his father's wishes, he is disowned by his father and is subsequently thrown into the adult world. 

The next evolution in Henry's coming of age journey takes place when he contemplates whether to visit Keiko who just recently moved to a farther internment camp. Instead of making an immediate decision like in the previous scene, Henry considers the current situation with his bedridden father and concludes that "running off wasn't responsible" since it would leave no one to take care of his mother (294). Although Henry's awareness does show growth in his maturity, in the end, Henry's desires get the better of him as he departs, leaving his mother behind. 

After visiting Keiko, Henry doesn't receive a letter from her for six months despite consistently sending letters of his own, and eventually he gives up on her, thinking that she forgot about him. Soon after, Henry begins dating Ethel, the clerk who works at the post office where he sent his letters from, and a couple years later, Henry asks Ethel to marry him. However, shortly after proposing to Ethel, Henry learns that his father intercepted all of his and Keiko's letters which sends him on a frantic hunt to find Keiko and tell her the truth. With his newly engaged fiance chasing after him though, Henry is met with a situation that resembles the scene in the last paragraph where he prioritized Keiko over caring for his mother. This time though, Henry gives up on Keiko once and for all, realizing that if he continued to search for her, "he'd break Ethel's heart, and he knew she didn't deserve that" (369). By understanding that Ethel's happiness depends on him and making the bitter decision to prioritize her over his own dream with Keiko, Henry displays a large growth in maturity while also demonstrating how in the transition from a child to adult, one typically goes from dependent to dependable.