62 pages • 2-hour read
Southland
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Symbols & Motifs
The Holiday Bowl
The Holiday Bowl is symbolic of a lost time in the novel: “The Holiday Bowl’s still open—although it closes now at dusk—where men came in from factory swing shifts and bowled until dawn” (9). The bowling alley is seemingly stuck in time and still retains its former clientele, with Black and Japanese American people existing in the same space. The reality of this environment shocks Jackie at first, as she never considered Black people and Japanese Americans existing side by side like this. Later, she realizes that her grandfather Frank had taken her to this very same place to bowl, therefore making the Holiday Bowl a memorable part of her own past in the neighborhood. The bowling alley is both a nod to the past, showing how people of different races get along, and a nod to the future, underscoring the possibility of multiculturalism.
Watts Riots
The Watts Uprising, referred to as “riots” in the novel, is a motif that appears throughout the narrative and is at the root of the crime Jackie investigates: A police officer murdered four Black kids during the Watts Uprising. With this revelation, the uprising symbolizes a violent time in Los Angeles’s history, both historically and textually: “Those who got stuck in the storm—outsiders and even some long-time residents who should have known better—did not make it home unscathed. They got dragged from cars and beaten, but not a single outsider died” (303). The uprising’s destructiveness is the manifestation of the anger and helplessness people of color feel in a country (and city) that systematically keeps them down, developing themes of both The Pervasive Effects of Racism in America and The Drive to Combat Racial Injustice.
Japanese American “Internment”
“Internment” is a euphemistic term used to describe the concentration camps that the US placed hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans in during WWII. They are a very real part of America’s history that also make their appearance in the narrative, as the Japanese American characters all carry reminders of this cultural trauma: “During the last week of April, 1942, the Japanese of Los Angeles awoke to find that evacuation orders had sprouted, overnight, from trees and poles all over the city” (107). The mention of these camps serves as another reminder of the racist, discriminatory practices that the US has implemented and participated in, particularly how a white supremacist society responds to those it perceives as “other”:
The Sakais caught people’s glances in the hallways and on the streets. It seemed to them that this fear and hatred was like a huge, invisible cobra that was slowly encircling them, poised over them, waiting to strike (108).
The mention of both these camps and the Watts Uprising helps to tie the two main persecuted races in the narrative—Black and Japanese American people—together in their shared experience of mistreatment by a dominant, authoritative force.
Frank’s Store
Frank Sakai got his store from Old Man Larabie. The store serves as a welcoming place in Angeles Mesa, a place where people can exist together regardless of race: “Frank took the store and made it his own. It had always been, by accident, a gathering place [....] And Frank encouraged this gathering, enabled it” (121). The store also symbolizes love in the sense of those it’s transferred from and to. Old Man Larabie sold it (at a huge discount) to Frank, who then wanted to pass it to Curtis. The store represents all of Frank’s hopes and dreams for the future and for his son.
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