The Storm We Made and Hidden Histories
“In Malaysia, our grandparents love us by not speaking."
[Dear readers: This issue contains discussions of colonialism.]
“In Malaysia, our grandparents love us by not speaking,” writes Vanessa Chan in the Author’s Note of her debut novel The Storm We Made. Taking place in Malaya (now Malaysia) just before and during World War II, the novel depicts life under British and Japanese occupation. Her family never spoke about their life during the war, and though their silence held love—a desire to protect, a wish for more—it also held trauma. The Storm We Made shows how trauma generationally imprints itself on and within bodies, not just because of the violence enacted upon individuals, but also from their subsequent urge for control, and desire to protect those they love.
Using both a dual timeline and four different narrators, the novel dives into a history that those who experienced rarely speak about. Cecily, mother of Jujube, Abel, and Jasmin, “missed being a woman who cared about something, missed being a woman who was more than just an extension of her house and family” (Chan, 178). She dreams of more—for her husband to not be focused on pleasing the British, for the colorism that impacts every part of their society to disintegrate, for a life beyond caring for children. And so she becomes a spy to help the Japanese take control from the British, believing their promise for a better path forward. But as the new occupation brings violence, separation, and more, she starts to see these as consequences for her actions, and never tells her family about what she has done.
But her silence takes its toll. “The hole in her heart threatened to engulf her if she didn’t do something, anything, to feel a little power, to remind herself that she still had something the Japanese could not take away,” feels Jujube (291). With her family broken and separated, Jujube is in many ways alone. A sick father and a distant mother lead her to assume the role of matriarch. And to young Jasmin, “it seemed…that her mother lived in this in-between place—always shaking, about to crack open, always waiting for the thunder” (111). So she “tried to smile and stay happy” (103). The weight of their mother’s trauma, and her desire to protect her children, imprints upon them—they begin to carry their own anguish, all the while wrapped in the desire to find control and care for those they love.
In an interview with Book Riot, Chan shares: “I received a long letter from a publisher in Japan who wanted to publish the book that basically said, ‘It’s time for us to show Japanese people’s stories that aren’t just about Japanese soldiers going to the front and the women that they left behind, but also about the people that they impacted during this time.’” The Storm We Made helps uncover history and, as legislators and “parental groups” across the U.S. continue to ban the country’s history of oppression from classrooms, serves as a reminder of the importance of sharing such history—not just for people to learn, but so those who have lived the history, and those who have been impacted directly by the history, can begin to heal.
History, representation, and equity
As topics such as racism, gender identity, slavery, and the fight for equal rights are banned in classrooms across the U.S., ensuring students’ right to accurate and truthful history is more important than ever. By joining our school boards, voting for politicians that promise to protect these lessons, and donating, demonstrating, and volunteering where we can, we can help demonstrate their importance.
Here is a reading list featuring books that focus on history far too often overlooked, whitewashed, and/or erased:
The End of August: “From the National Book Award winning author, an extraordinary, ground-breaking, epic multi-generational novel about a Korean family living under Japanese occupation.”
Freedom! The Story of the Black Panther Party: “This is the story of the committed party members. Their supporters and allies. The Free Breakfast Program and the Ten Point Program. It's about Black nationalism, Black radicalism, about Black people in America.”
The Parisian: “Illuminates a pivotal period of Palestinian history through the journey and romances of one young man, from his studies in France during World War I to his return to Palestine at the dawn of its battle for independence.”
Transgender History: The Roots of Today’s Revolution: “Covering American transgender history from the mid-twentieth century to today, Transgender History takes a chronological approach to the subject of transgender history, with each chapter covering major movements, writings, and events.”
A History of Burning: “In 1898, Pirbhai, a teenage boy looking for work, is taken from his village in India to labor for the British on the East African Railway….Pirbhai's children are born in Uganda during the waning days of British colonial rule, and as the country moves toward independence, his granddaughters, three sisters, come of age in a divided nation.”
How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America: “Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks--those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's collective history, and ourselves.”
“Jujube wondered about the ways in which girls and women performed for men by always knowing what it was men wanted and how it was they wished to be comforted, always engaged in the ongoing calculus of figuring out what sides of themselves they should show to a man and which parts of their grief were too unbearable for him.”
—The Storm We Made, p170
Others’ thoughts on The Storm We Made
“STORM is a historical thriller leaning towards the suspenseful element, focused on family drama that invites some introspection.” —@elena.luo
“My bone to pick though is how uninformed the people are depicted…Chan had an opportunity to delve deeper into this with other supporting characters or to show resistance.” —@dogmombookworm
If you liked The Storm We Made, read…
The Nightwatchman by Louise Erdrich
Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong
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