Say, Allen. Grandfather’s Journey. Houghton Mifflin, 1993.

Grandfather's Journey is, in part, the long-ago story of a Japanese man donning "European clothes for the first time" to travel and see the world. Of the years between the World Wars, op de Beeck writes, "[m]embers of [a] marginalized group could expect to find literary and/or visual images of themselves as animals, as naive and unthreatening children, as buffoons, or as objects of anthropological scrutiny for an implied dominant spectator" (66). Decades later, as a cultural insider, Say rejects this degrading imagery to ensure accurate representation of the experience of "other" in this autobiographical work.

This image is smaller than the page, framed by a black line and the margins of the paper. The reader is invited to look in to view the moment, presumably, in the American West, that Grandfather met white and Black settlers. According to op de Beeck, "[w]hile novels and illustrated texts represent racial, ethnic, and national difference selectively in written language, picture books show and tell difference on every page" (64). In this image, conversely, Say places all but one figure on equal footing in the middle ground of the composition, standing shoulder to shoulder. This choice allows the reader to see similarities among the men–in their body language, stance, clothing, hairstyles, choice of hat, preference for a mustache–rather than differences in race and ethnicity. As the reader looks in, the men proudly look out–not one pair of eyes is cast down or away. They have met success in the prosperous American West, and Grandfather has the means to join them there, should he choose to stay.

Works Cited

op de Beeck, Nathalie. Suspended Animation: Children’s Picture Books and the Fairy Tale of Modernity. University of Minnesota Press, 2010.

Say, Allen. Grandfather’s Journey. Houghton Mifflin, 1993.