If everyone kept silent, women wouldn’t be able to vote, blacks and whites would still use separate drinking fountains, and there would be no wheelchair ramps in the United States, either. I, on the other hand, grew up hearing that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. He is from a culture in which people abhor making a fuss. Kamata shows us her inner thoughts as she weighs the responsibility for advocating for her daughter’s right to access, and the knowledge that her decisions to fight or not fight will affect the next person in a wheelchair who follows behind her. It’s about finding the balance between being independent and accepting help. This is a book about a mother trying to find her comfort zone between cultural expectations.
Yoshi, meanwhile, is keen on nurturing their pride as Japanese citizens. In other words, I want them to grow up to be international. I want our children to be aware of possibilities, to be aware of the wider world, of cities and countries where they won’t be considered strange due to their bicultural upbringing. There are many parenting moments she details that are just about the basic differences between herself and her husband Kamata speaks and signs Japanese with her daughter, but is very visibly American. Squeaky Wheels is an interesting multicultural conversation about independence and caretaking, but it’s also a conversation about being a multicultural family. Kamata received a grant to fund her proposal to take her daughter to Paris and write a book about “accessibility and adventure.” (77) She writes about her first overseas travels to the US, and local trips around Japan. Kamata recounts her struggles in learning to support and advocate for her daughter, while fostering independence at the same time. She gave birth to micro-preemie twins, one of whom was deaf and had cerebral palsy.
She went to Japan to teach English, fell in love, and married a Japanese man. Suzanne Kamata grew up in Grand Haven, Michigan. Squeaky Wheels: Travels with my Daughter by Train, Plane, Metro, Tuk-tuk and Wheelchair by Suzanne Kamata
0 kommentar(er)
