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Obasan Joy Kogawa Summary

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In Obasan, Joy Kogawa, a Japanese-Canadian author, explores the experiences of Japanese-Canadians during World War 2, through the eyes of the main character, Naomi. The book explores how silence, which results from Naomi’s extended family, has became huge part of Naomi’s upbringing.The racism and the loss of family is something some of the Japanese-Canadians experienced, which is shown in this book.This book defines political and cultural connections between the Japanese immigrants of Canada. These events nearly destroyed families, a culture and a way of life. The war had a horrible effect on the Japanese-Canadians. People were denying their heritage and the Japanese parents didn’t let their kids play with other kids because of their race.The …show more content…

Anyone who was of Japanese heritage was systematically removed from their homes and sent to internment camps. The money was used to pay the realtors and auctioneers and to handle fees and cover storage. The money remaining usually were given as small allowances to the people living in internment camps.The Japanese Canadians had to pay for their own internment. The federal cabinet was headed by Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King and and he was the one who deemed the internment of Japanese-Canadians.This decision was unwarranted. Even the Department of National Defence and the RCMP showed evidence that it was …show more content…

Many of them moved to Ontario, The Prairies and Quebec and in 1946, around 4,000 were exiled to Japan. On August 4, 1944, Prime Minister King stated: ‘’It is a fact that no person of Japanese race born in Canada has been charged with any act of sabotage or disloyalty during the years of war.’’
The final stage of the Japanese-Canadians struggle for justice and identification as full Canadian citizens was the Redress movement in 1980. In 1949, all of the restrictions on the Japanese Canadians were taken away and they were given full citizenship rights. They officially marked the end of internment camps.The Japanese-Canadians had the right to vote and to return back to the West Coast. However, there wasn 't a home to go back to. The Japanese-Canadian community was destroyed in B.C.
Reconstructing their lives and their community wasn’t easy for the Japanese-Canadians. It was too late for some of them. The elder Japanese-Canadians had lost mostly everything they had worked for their whole lives and they didn’t have enough time to start fresh. Many Japanese- Canadians had their education ruined and couldn’t afford to go to any university or college. Many of them had to earn money to support their family. Many had gone thorough psychological

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Mary Matsuda Gruenewald tells her tale of what life was like for her family when they were sent to internment camps in her memoir “Looking like the Enemy.” The book starts when Gruenewald is sixteen years old and her family just got news that Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japan. After the bombing Gruenewald and her family life changed, they were forced to leave their home and go to internment camps meant for Japanese Americans. During the time Gruenewald was in imprisonment she dealt with the struggle for survival both physical and mental. This affected Gruenewald great that she would say to herself “Am I Japanese?

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The Japanese Canadians had not rights therefore they couldn 't refuse to obey. The Canadian government forcefully relocated the people and separated them from their families. Some were taken to abandon mining towns in the interior British

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They Canadians defended Hong Kong till the bitter end, until they were left with no choice, but to surrender. Not only was it non-of their homes, not even part of their country. The bravery and sacrifice these men made shall always be remembered. With many that lost their lives and the rest going to a POW camp ran by the Japanese, where they were treated like animals for 3 and a half years, some where able to go home after the war. Even if some were able to go home, the trauma/PTSD suffered by these soldiers was extensive “In the years immediately after the war, the surviving Hong Kong veterans tended to keep their stories to themselves.

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The experiences of Louis Zamperini and Jeanne Wakatsuki both do not complicate Mark Weber’s idea of the Good War about the clear-cut morality between the United States and Japan. During World War II, the United States treated the American Japanese harshly opposed to Japan’s treatment. Towards Japanese American civilians, who lived in America and had nothing to do with the war, they were treated unfairly by Americans. Environmentally, it was harsh for American prisoners of war as it was for the Japanese Americans when hate was evident in their captors’ eyes. Involving innocent civilians as the consequence for living in the United States while having no involvement in the war opposed to punishing those involved with the military showed a clear

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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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The trauma that they endured enabled them to desensitize themselves to the attacks of their fellow Americans and thrive in a community that did not trust them. The Japanese-American people managed the trials and tribulations of America through collective willpower that enabled them to flourish in a hostile

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The “received version” of the evacuation of Japanese Canadians correctly states that there was no credible threat to North American security during the Second World War (Granatstein and Johnson, 117). Since there existed no credible threat, the internment of Japanese Canadians can in no way be justified. As had been the case before the beginning of the Second World War, Japanese Canadians were the victims of anti-Asian racism. Granatstein and Johnson argued that there existed a credible threat to the security of North America. In early 1942, there were substantiated reports from Malaya and Hong Kong that local Japanese “planted explosives at military installations, docks and ships, and sniped at troops, as well as providing information to the invaders” (Granatstein and Johnson, 116).

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As well as the Internment of Japanese Canadians by isolating their culture and religion for no reason. Lastly, Residential schools was another tragic event, which was held to weaken aboriginal children. These three events; Cod Moratorium, Internment of Japanese Canadians, and Residential

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What would you do if you got stripped from your home and placed in a categorized camp because others simply didn't think your “race” was trusting? Well, that's exactly what happened to the Japanese when they were forced into internment camps for their own “beneficial safety” during world war 2. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, which was the United States Naval base in Hawaii Territory. Because of the unexpected attack America responded back and had officially started a war. WWII officially known as the second world war was a well-known event that lasted from 1939 to 1945.

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Matsuda’s memoir is based off of her and her family’s experiences in the Japanese-American internment camps. Matsuda reveals what it is like during World War II as a Japanese American, undergoing family life, emotional stress, long term effects of interment, and her patriotism and the sacrifices she had to make being in the internment camps. Everyone living in Western section of the United States; California, Oregon, of Japanese descent were moved to internment camps after the Pearl Harbor bombing including seventeen year old Mary Matsuda Gruenewald and her family. Matsuda and her family had barely any time to pack their bags to stay at the camps. Matsuda and her family faced certain challenges living in the internment camp.

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The Japanese in Canada were interned without trail, and were not provided any legitimate guidance to protect themselves. They were sent to detention camps right away without them having a chance to prove they were loyal to Canada. The Japanese Canadians did no wrongdoing, the Canadian Government made

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In this piece of literature we see this Japanese-American family suffer many injustices because of their race. Julie Otsuka does a magnificent job showing the family’s reaction to these injustices by switching

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What if you were stripped of all your rights in the a blink of an eye? The Japanese-Canadians experienced the horrid and life changing events of internment camps which were targeted specifically towards them. All Canadians of Japanese heritage residing only on the West coast of British Columbia had their homes, farms, businesses and personal property sold and completely liquidated. This was all due to the government 's quick actions against the Japanese. These actions were fuelled by the events of Pearl Harbour during WW2.

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Japanese-Americans living on the west coast were savagely and unjustifiably uprooted from their daily lives. These Japanese-Americans were pulled from their jobs, schools, and home only to be pushed to

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Naomi’s mother returns to Japan to care for her sick mother. Japanese people are not allowed to come to Canada when the war begins. “What matter to my five-year old mind is not the reason that she is required to leave, but the stillness of waiting for her to return. After a while, the stillness is so much with me that it takes the form of a shadow which grows and surrounds me like air” (Kogawa, 78). War can split families for a lifetime.

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