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An Analysis Of Julie Otsuka's When The Emperor Was Divine

957 Words4 Pages

Living as an Asian American, race and culture tends to be stripped away and people start becoming “Americanized.” America is a “melting pot” when it comes to race and culture. This has many negative effects on people and our world. We tend to erase the race and completely Americanize people. Asian Americans are stuck struggling to try to live as normal citizens. In When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka (Otsuka). we see how five different Japanese Americans live through times of Internment and the struggles they face. An interview with Julie Otsuka and Gene Oishi helps us learn more about her and her family’s experiences during internment and personal connections to the book. “The Public “I” of Julie Otsuka” by John Streamas (Streamas). …show more content…

Their sense of personal identity, home, and possessions. These families were given government issued id numbers. Soon their names were gone and simply replaced by a number. In When the Emperor Was Divine, the people being interned were not allowed to say the emperor’s name. “Whenever the boy walked past the shadow of a guard tower he pulled his cap down low over his head and tried not to say the word. But sometimes it slipped out anyway, Hirohito, Hirohito, Hirohito. He said it quietly. Quickly. He whispered it” (Otsuka 52). If any of the guards heard them, it would make them suspicious and think that they were associated with the Japanese. “racism and state-sponsored violence have stripped him of his identity” (Streamas). Any sort of item that had any sort of connection or represented their culture had to be burned, example: flags and photographs. This made the Japanese American families ashamed of their …show more content…

“Otsuka has published only two short novels, When the Emperor Was Divine and The Buddha in the Attic” (Streamas). During the times of internment, “Racism, sexism, and labor begin to erase them. Their evacuation and imprisonment in 1942 merely expedites this erasure” (Streamas) The struggles of living as an Asian American were much more intense during internment. Their names were replaced with a government issued id number and their houses were replaced with the block number your barrack was

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