Hirohito Woods

Quick Facts

• Role: Neighborhood kid and People's Center classmate who nudges Delphine toward risk, joy, and vulnerability
• First appearance: Barreling past the Gaither sisters on his homemade go-kart
• Heritage: Japanese and Black; son of a political prisoner
• Family: Father (Brother Woods), a “freedom fighter”; mother (Mrs. Woods), a steady, supportive presence
• Key relationships: Delphine Gaither; sisters Vonetta and Fern; classmate Crazy Kelvin; neighbor Mrs. Woods; political prisoner Brother Woods

Who He Is

Hirohito is the boy Delphine can’t neatly categorize—and that’s the point. His mixed heritage, steady pride, and easy playfulness puncture Delphine’s habit of sorting the world into tidy boxes. The son of a political prisoner, he embodies how large political struggles land on children’s doorsteps: his go-kart is both a kid’s prized toy and a handcrafted link to a father the state has taken away. In Delphine’s life, Hirohito functions as the hinge between duty and delight, pushing her Coming of Age by proving that fun and responsibility can coexist.

Personality & Traits

Hirohito carries himself with a combination of swagger and sensitivity. He is proud without being cruel, playful without being shallow, and resilient without pretending he isn’t hurt. Even his style—black-and-silver Raiders jersey, “doggedy high-tops,” dark spiky hair—telegraphs a kid crafting identity in a neighborhood where politics and childhood blur.

• Proud craftsmanship: He corrects Delphine—“That’s no skateboard… That’s my go-kart”—staking respect for his father’s work and his own identity as its rider.
• Playful caretaker: He lets Vonetta and Fern chase him and treats them like an older brother would, showing warmth that softens his teasing of Delphine.
• Sensitive to injustice: When Crazy Kelvin parades his father’s arrest as a lesson, Hirohito’s embarrassment exposes the cost of turning real pain into rhetoric.
• Resilient joy: Despite his father’s imprisonment, he creates fun, makes friends, and keeps showing up—choosing connection over withdrawal.
• Challenger of assumptions: He refuses Delphine’s mislabeling at the water fountain, forcing her to confront ignorance and see him on his own terms.
• Observed allure: Delphine’s notice of his “long black eyelashes” signals her first flickers of attraction and the softening of her guarded gaze.

Character Journey

Hirohito doesn’t undergo a sweeping inner transformation; instead, he transforms the space around him—especially Delphine. He rolls into her life as a “stupid boy” who hogs the sidewalk, but every encounter complicates that first impression: the water fountain standoff, the classroom humiliation, the quiet pride in a go-kart built by an absent father. His pivotal gift is permission—permission for Delphine to be eleven. When he coaxes her down the “glorious hill,” he cracks the armor she’s worn as the de facto parent to her sisters. By summer’s end, the single syllable “So” at the rally signals a shared acknowledgment: amid activism and upheaval, they’ve found something ordinary and extraordinary—mutual regard, and the possibility of joy.

Key Relationships

• Delphine Gaither: With Delphine, Hirohito is first a nuisance, then a mirror, and finally a spark. He teases and challenges her, but his persistence is gentle, not punitive; when she finally rides the go-kart, she laughs “like my sisters,” tasting a childhood she’s postponed. Their understated exchange—ending in “So”—captures a tender, word-light recognition neither is ready to name but both accept.

• The Gaither Sisters (Vonetta and Fern): Hirohito’s play with Vonetta and Fern is easy, affectionate, and uncomplicated. Acting like an older brother, he lets himself be chased and laughed at, offering Delphine a model of ease she struggles to adopt and a safe social space for her sisters in an unfamiliar neighborhood.

• Mrs. Woods: His mother’s kindness—bringing food after Cecile Johnson (Nzila) is arrested—broadens the novel’s idea of family. “We know the same things. We have to stick together,” she says, fusing Japanese and Black experiences under the banner of community care and showing Hirohito’s home life as dignified, disciplined, and generous.

• Brother Woods: Though absent, his father anchors Hirohito’s pride and pain. The go-kart becomes a tactile memory and a mobile shrine: every ride is a declaration that the state may confine a man but cannot erase a bond or the skills he passed on.

Defining Moments

Hirohito’s scenes are small in scale but large in consequence, each peeling back Delphine’s defenses while revealing his own stakes.

• The Go-Kart Introduction

  • What happens: He nearly runs over the sisters, shouting “Gangway!”
  • Why it matters: Announces his disruptive energy and foreshadows the way he will jolt Delphine out of her rigid control.

• The Water Fountain Confrontation

  • What happens: Delphine labels him “China who,” and he fires back; a classmate clarifies he’s Japanese.
  • Why it matters: Forces Delphine to face her assumptions and to see Hirohito as a person, not a stereotype.

• Crazy Kelvin’s Lesson

  • What happens: Crazy Kelvin uses Hirohito’s father as a political example in front of the class.
  • Why it matters: Exposes the emotional toll of public struggle on private lives and deepens Delphine’s empathy for him.

• The Go-Kart Ride

  • What happens: Hirohito persuades Delphine to ride down a “glorious hill.”
  • Why it matters: The novel’s clearest moment of release; Delphine briefly sheds the caretaker role and embraces play, a turn in her Coming of Age.

• The Rally “So”

  • What happens: After the performance, teasing about their crush leads to Hirohito’s simple reply: “So.”
  • Why it matters: A minimalist confession that confirms an emotional connection without grand gestures—youthful, honest, and real.

Essential Quotes

“Gangway!” This single-word entrance captures Hirohito’s kinetic presence. He doesn’t sidle into the story; he forces space, embodying the way he will push Delphine to move—physically down a hill and emotionally out of her fixed role.

“Girl, that’s no skateboard... That’s my go-kart.” His correction is about more than vocabulary. It asserts identity, craftsmanship, and lineage—refusing to let Delphine misname either him or the symbol of his connection to his father.

“My dad built it. It’s sturdy and has no splinters. He sanded it down for days. Good job, right?” The proud detail—“no splinters”—turns politics into texture you can feel. The go-kart becomes an intimate artifact of love and skill, setting against the abstraction of “political prisoner” a son’s tactile memory.

“I didn’t think you were scared, Delphine.” Part tease, part dare, this line reveals how well he reads her: Delphine wants to be brave, but fear and duty have narrowed her world. Hirohito names the gap, guiding her toward the courage to play.

“So.” Hirohito’s final, unadorned word is a lesson in economy. Instead of denying or dramatizing their feelings, he normalizes them, honoring the small, steady truths that survive a turbulent summer.

Why He Matters

Hirohito symbolizes the personal cost and quiet resilience within movements for Social Justice and Activism. As a child in the crossfire, he grounds ideology in lived experience: a boy’s pride in a father-made go-kart; a flushed face during a public lesson; a laugh shared on a hill. For Delphine, he is the possibility of friendship, fun, and an unburdened childhood—proof that even in upheaval, joy can be revolutionary.