Responding to Ruth Ozeki's "My Year of Meats"

Ruth Ozeki’s writing style and storyline make up a literary montage that seemingly mirrors her and, specifically Jane’s “half- neither here nor there” identity (Ozeki 9). The format and style in My Year Of Meats is really what provides an essence, although often a satirical one, of hybridity. Ozeki relates Jane’s “polyracial” self to her natural abilities as a “go-between, a cultural pimp” (Ozeki 9). The constant scene switching between Japan and the US, and with in America, the contrasts between multiracial Jane, the Japanese crew and the mostly white “American Wives,” depicts Ozeki’s notion of hybridity. Ropp's commentary on how the “multi racial subject” can only “carve out space,” for themselves “within racial logic” (Ropp 266) resonates in My Year of Meats. Jane is constantly trying to identify as something other than what people fit. However, Ozeki depicts Jane as negotiating her identity with in a very politicized racial storyline between both of her Japanese and American lineages. My American Wife! Symbolizes the relationship Jane has to both her Japanese and American identities, and more importantly, Jane’s relationship as the middle space occupier between the two cultures.

The format of the My Year Of Meats, poignantly the ‘Jane and Akiko’ montage that occurs throughout the novel, co-structures a strong female narrative as well. The focus on feminine issues, such as reproduction, sexual abuse, and the state of being a wife is incredibly important. Considering, ideas of “browning” America and faux-science hybrid sterility, which are both mentioned in Ozeki’s novel, are in opposition to each other. “Browning” would not be able to take place without procreation. However, these two concepts are specifically related to the female body and her ability to procreate. It is interesting that Jane essentially creates this novel by the end of the story after she is unable to have a child, as if the act itself, of artistic creation is being raised along side biological reproduction. Akiko’s pregnancy develops along side the development of Jane’s documentary showing the duplicitous forms of creation. Both products, the novel (which we read) and Akiko’s child will be dubbed ‘Japanese-American,’ despite the obvious difference of one being mono-racial and the other multiracial.


Questions for thought:

How do the female narratives in Ozeki’s novel intersect with Jane’s narrative of hybridity? More specifically, how does Ozeki relate the female experience with the multiracial experience? How are they distinguishable? And where do these identities overlap, if at all? How does the motif of women as chattel fit in here?

At the end of the My Year Of Meats Akiko, who is not multiracial, is able to have a child and Jane’s reproductive capacities are still ambiguous. Does this storyline fall back into faux-scientific assessments made about the hybrid female? Or does Jane transcend these notions by the end?