Small Victory: Imitation as Mimicry in American Pastime

Abstract

Following the Pearl Harbor attack, United States Executive Order 9066 forced relocation of over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast to internment camps. The story of Japanese internment has been the subject of film narratives, and assimilation narrative has occupied a hegemonic position in U.S. filmmaking for more than half a century. The 2007 film American Pastime follows the internees’ struggle to maintain the normalcy of their lives in the internment camp. American Pastime appears to follow an assimilation narrative. However, overlooked features of the narrative open up space for alternative interpretations that might encourage Japanese American audiences to produce a counter discourse against the dominant narrative of assimilation. Postcolonial theorist Homi K. Bhabha’s concepts of mimicry, ambivalence, and hybridization are used to critically read American Pastime. In this reading, baseball game scenes featuring Topaz internment camp’s baseball team and a rival, all-white, local baseball team are examined. In these scenes, a particular style of playing baseball known as “small ball” is identified. Ultimately, it is argued that the small ball played by the Topaz team is not a sign of cultural assimilation to American society, but rather is a subtle, unsettling imitation of hegemonic American culture. Topaz-style baseball mimics, but does not reproduce, the “American pastime” as American viewers might see it.