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Louie Zamperini's Unbroken

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Lisa Knopp, in an astute observation, wrote: “The act of making something from what is already there always involves a simultaneous creation and destruction....turning the events, images, and ideas of one's life into a written story --is a destroyer.” Perhaps Rekola should have been pre-warned. I had just finished reading Unbroken when I started this one. It was the perfect story to follow Louie Zamperini's. Is it pure co-incidence that this story depicts a Corporal Kota Hokari, whose claim to fame was that (like Zamperinni) he had participated in the 1936 Olympic Games as a sprinter? Is it also a co-incidence that the same descriptions of Zamerinni’s nemesis are also applied to the Corporal in charge (sadistic, teetering on the brink of insanity, bursts of irrationality, humiliating insults) In a radio interview Rekola explains that the diary was translated into English for the purpose of finding out about the soldier’s life. What is revealed in reading the book is an exceptionally benevolent stance. As a self-described committed Christian, did Rekola have a hidden agenda in publishing this book? Her followers on twitter talk about the book in terms of: our shared humanity. Within, we are one family, this story renewed my faith in the human spirit. Would a Japanese soldier …show more content…

Not according to Hisataka (Taka) Uematsu, a Japanese national, journalist and history buff, living in Brisbane with his Australian wife and two young children. And he should know. In 2012, he was asked if he would like to audition for the part of a Japanese soldier in the making of the film of The Railway Man. During filming in Australia, Taka impressed the Japanese adviser to the film company with his in depth knowledge of Japanese history and so it wasn’t long before he became an assistant adviser. This led to his involvement in the making of Unbroken a year later for which there were endless conversations and rewrites to get the tone of things

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This book reflects the author’s wish of not only remembering what has happened to the Japanese families living in the United States of America at the time of war but also to show its effects and how families made through that storm of problems and insecurities. The story takes in the first turn when the father of Jeanne gets arrested in the accusation of supplying fuel to Japanese parties and takes it last turn when after the passage of several years, Jeanne (writer) is living a contented life with her family and ponders over her past (Wakatsuki Houston and D. Houston 3-78). As we read along the pages

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Takaki’s book shows the differences and similarities minority groups experienced during the war. This is not a typical history book, as it is a book that contains different stories and experiences of the war both abroad

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The author, Jeanne Wakatsuki, presents a meaningful story filled with experiences that shaped not only her life, but shaped the lives of thousands of Japanese families living in America. The book’s foreword gives us a starting point in which the reader can start to identify why the book was written. “We a told a New York writer friend about the idea. He said: ‘It’s a dead issue. These days you can hardly get people to read about a live issue.

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War can have a big impact to people alone and to society. Louie Zamperini from “Unbroken” by Laura Hillenbrand is isolated, dehumanized , beaten and imprisoned from the soldiers of the POW camps of japan. Mine Okubo a Japanese American is taken from society and into a internment camp for Japanese American citizens. Louie as a POW and Mine as an Japanese American internee both experienced being invisible in the camps while they were putting effort to resist.

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Through him, we see throughout the book how American soldiers feel toward their enemies. Evidently, seen through a quote from a marine upon seeing Japanese prisoners, “They were pathetic, small men who looked lost and sad. Not monsters at all” (Bruchac 97). Pathetic and lost men; Are these words used to describe those you hate, despise, and desire nothing more for them but the destruction of their people? No, they charter such

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