Zarif Rahman Ms. Bacon English 9-1 5 April 2023 When Fear Takes Over: Alienation and Isolation in When the Emperor was Divine Imagine if someone far away from a person commits a crime and then that person is sent to prison just because they look like the criminal, and once they leave prison, they are treated as if they are a criminal. This is what the family is forced to experience in Julie Otsuka’s, When the Emperor was Divine. The family is expelled from their home after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and is sent to a Japanese internment camp. Here, Julie Otsuka shows how the family members' personality, way they treat others, and how they treat themselves change from the alienation and isolation they experience from close family friends all the way up to the United States government. The two children of the family are very young when they are sent to the internment camp and don’t fully understand what is happening. Once they are let out of the camp and they return home, all of their school friends start to ignore them. The children say that, “Not a single one of our old friends from beforeー friends who had once shouted ‘Your house …show more content…
The children were taught to hide their culture so they would not be punished. The isolation and alienation they have to experience causes life long effects such as the PTSD that the father has. The isolation or alienation doesn’t have to be on a large scale such as internment camps to have a large effect on people. Bullying people can have the same effect on people. If someone brings a traditional cultural meal to school instead of a generic packed lunch. This person might be bullied for it and then no longer want to bring their own food to school, or maybe they experience prejudice and are excluded from activities. Isolation and alienation can cause lifelong effects no matter what the