Henry’s Coming of Age

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is a coming of age story. Henry’s early years deal with his coming of age in a home where he is expected to follow the demands of his biased father. Henry cannot believe his father’s claims that all Japanese are bad. As a result, he is unable to follow the rules his father lays out for him. He becomes friends with a Japanese girl named Keiko. Eventually, Henry’s father uses desperate measures to try to keep his son away from the Japanese girl whom he loves, but he loses his son’s respect in the process.

Because Henry’s father grew up in China and remembered how the Japanese attacked that country, he was biased against all Japanese. He was biased against those who had no part in what was done...