Yoshiko

One of my favorite parts of The White Boy Shuffle was the character of Yoshiko and her relationship with Gunnar. A mail order bride does not seem like the kind of wife we would want to see Gunnar get, but somehow Yoshiko and Gunnar make it work. We see earlier on in the book the reason Gunnar needs a mail order bride in the first place. "I suffered from what the American Pediatrics Association Manuel of Mental Disorders lists as social arrhythmia and courtship paralysis, meaning I couldn't dance and was deathly afraid of women" (121). Luckily, Gunnar has Psycho Loco looking out for him. "Gunnar, we're going to find you a wife...I've never seen you voluntarily speak to a girl. This [mail-order bride] is the only way" (124).
Not only is the mail-order bride thing a little odd, Yoshiko's first impression is not spectacular either. "Yoshiko Katsu stood next to a stack of designer luggage, only slightly rumpled from the transpacific trip and the ride from the repository. Tall and thickly built, she stood stiffly, her arms straight down at her sides"(166). "She smelled like cardboard. As I stepped off, I noticed some UPS jokester had stamped 'Fragile' on her forehead" (167). Considering this first impression, Gunnar and Yoshiko hit it off surprisingly well. "It wasn't difficult to tell that Yoshiko was equally enamored with me. No one had looked me the way she did since Eileen Litmus back in the third grade, and I knew what that look meant" (169).
Once he is married, Gunnar and Yoshiko develop a meaningful and healthy relationship. There are some peculiar parts of their relationship. For example, Scoby says that "every time I come over, Yoshiko got her hand halfway up your ass" (181). But Yoshiko cares enough about Gunnar to hit a woman and call her a "slothful, fey hippie" for trying to flirt with Gunnar. Gunnar and Yoshiko hit the night life together with Scoby. In fact, they seem to do every together except Gunnar's organizations, which he attends while the Yoshiko is doing homework, and his basketball trips, where he composes love poetry to her. I think it's cool that Gunnar can get so close to his mail-order bride, close enough to write her love letters. They share Japanese literature with each other.
Once Yoshiko gets pregnant, this only strengthens their bonds. Gunnar has suicidal thoughts and tries to kill himself, but he can't because he thinks of Yoshiko and their child. It is pretty much the only thing bringing meaning into his life. When he and Yoshiko are stuck in the laundromat, they conduct debates with each other, one playing Du Bois and the other Booker T. Washington. What I find really cool is Yoshiko's embrace of Gunnar's community. Although she is Japanese and came to Hillside as a mail-order bride, she is comfortable enough to publicly give birth in the park. The child provides a nice tough. The very end of the story is Gunnar talking to her while he waits for death with Yoshiko, a fitting end to their bizarre but cool relationship.