Executive Order 9056: A Study Of Dehumanization Throughout History

Jack Bushard Mr. Alexander Busse English I Honors 29 March 2024 Executive Order 9066: A Study of Dehumanization Throughout History Dehumanization is the process by which the human qualities of people are belittled and reduced to aid in the view of said people as nothing more than objects. Throughout history, various groups of people have been dehumanized by use of many methods, including, but not limited to, slavery and the torture of certain groups during World War II. Dehumanization and degradation of people is prominent during the enslavement of African Americans during American Slavery, the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII, and the systematic killing of Jews during the Holocaust. The transatlantic slave trade was a catalyst

Both of the previous instances of dehumanization have happened in the process leading up to the family arriving at the internment camp; they have still not even arrived at the prison they will be spending the foreseeable future at. The mother bringing the shovel “down swiftly,” on the head of White Dog was Otsuka making a symbol of him right at the start of the book (Otsuka 11). The White Dog is a symbol of the Japanese American people in the 1940s. The Japanese American people trust the American government and see them so highly during the war, and they are betrayed with Order 9066, similar to how the mother betrayed White Dog by slaughtering him. This fact ties the entire story together, even being quite early in the book. The fact that dehumanization was occurring before the family even arrived at their internment camp shows how powerful of a weapon dehumanization can be. Over 6 million Jews were slaughtered in the Holocaust, and dehumanization of these Jews and more took place by way of several

In the concentration camps, Jews were “flogged publicly during evening roll call,”(Flogging). Flogging or flagellation is the act of beating a person viciously with a stick or a whip. This type of public humiliation and punishment can be incredibly disheartening for victims. The Nazis are subjecting the Jews to torture in a camp they will never be released from for no reason other than to make the Jews suffer. The subjecting of the Jews to inhuman treatment is a clear example of dehumanization. Outside the concentration camps, the Nazis were still doing whatever they could to dehumanize Jews in Germany. They still viewed the Jews as a threat, so they “purged Jewish cultural organizations,” throughout Germany, by way of burning books (Book Burning). Nazi German authorities went around Germany and burned countless books that they thought had Jewish ties or anti-Nazi ideologies. The Jews in the concentration camps had no clue that their identity, history, and culture was being destroyed massively, which is a clear example of dehumanization. The systematic genocide of countless Jews, as well as many other factors, contributes to the understanding and significance of dehumanization for a military or