Louie Zamperini was a world known olympian and he was captured by the Japanese and tortured. Louie zamperini was captured and put in an POW camp. He was dehumanized and was treated to make him feel no self worth. But he was resilient and fought and survived 2 years in the camps. Mine was a japanese-american and put in an internment camp and was moved to camps and lived in horse stalls.
Why did the Guards Treat the POWs so Badly? POW stands for Prisoner of War and to become a POW, like Louie, he was captured by the Japanese and taken to a POW camp. To be captured, Louie and his team crash landed in the ocean and they drifted to Japanese territory and they were imprisoned by them and taken to a POW camp and then they would torture all of the Prisoners there. “Beatings were almost constant. Men were beaten for virtually anything: folding arms, cleaning their teeth, talking in their sleep, and most often, for not understanding orders issued in Japanese” (149).
During World War II, efforts were made to make Japanese- American internees and American POWs in Japan “invisible.” At POW camps, guards tried to deprive the POWs of their dignity. Hillenbrand writes, “On Kwajalein the guards sought to deprive them of something that sustained them even as all else had been lost: dignity.” (Unbroken, 182) In addition to being beaten and starved, the men were deprived of their dignity, “This self-respect and sense of self-worth” (Unbroken, 182) essential for life.
The time spent imprisoned by the Japanese, the suffering stripped both Louie and his friend Phil’s dignity away. Soon after landing in the Marshall islands, Phil and Louie were imprisoned and tormented. It started with eating off the ground, “... Louie crawled about their cells, picking up slivers of biscuit and putting them into their mouths” (Hillenbrand 185). The Japanese believed being captured by the enemy is a man without his dignity.
WWII was a huge event in American history. Now for Louie, the war wasn’t the experience that changed him, or at least changed him the most. For Louie, the life of a POW was the most traumatizing part of the whole experience. Being at the camps was horrific, how the guards were so unhuman with no humanity. Louie was beaten every day, nearly froze to death every winter, and worst of all, he started to the point of almost looking like a skeleton, just to name a few.
During WWII American Japanese and American POWs were dehumanized in POW camps and US incarceration camps. American POWs were beaten,dehumanized,and starved, while Japanese Americans were robbed of their property,brought to camps around the country without their will, and faced terrible racism. During WWII, both Japanese American internees and American POWs in Japan were dehumanized. Both groups reside in different ways. American POWs were made to feel invisible or dehumanized and were pushed to their absolute limits to stay alive and maintain their dignity.
In "They Called Us Enemy," Takei recounts his family's journey from their home in Los Angeles to the internment camps, where they were forced to live behind barbed wire fences. Through vivid illustrations and personal narration, the book sheds light on the harsh realities faced by Japanese Americans during this dark period in American history. The memoir explores themes of identity, resilience, and the fight for justice. Takei reflects on the impact of the internment on his family, the loss of their freedom, and the struggle to maintain their dignity in the face of discrimination.
Just because of the way they look like. Shortly after that they forced into an internment camp where other people like them stayed. Allowing to only receive a few censored letters from the children’s father who was alleged to be a Japanese spy according to the US Government. Together they struggle to
This quote from the novel demonstrates how Louie struggles to preserve his dignity. During the war, Louie faced harsh times where he had psychological wounds from getting beat by the Japanese. Being captives and a POW (Prisoner of War), Louie learned how to cope with being treated as a subhuman or trash. By using small acts of resistance against the guards and rebelling, like stealing anything he can find mostly food, mocking the guards behind their back, and trying to escape showing them he was still not scared. Those acts tested/reclaimed what little dignity he had left from what the guards tried to take (Florman
Since the Japanese were heavily disliked, the term ‘enemy’ was a common label used both against their appearance and for what was happening during the war. The hate for Japanese people got too out of hand, leaving the Japanese people to believe that they were really the enemy and that these physical features are the reason for all this torture. The father of the boy and girl throughout the story is taken in by the FBI for interrogation regarding any knowledge about the war. Instead, the father uses this chance to call out and agree with all the stereotypes against the Japanese. “‘I’m the one you call Jap.
The “ No-No Boys” of the Japanese war often faced immediate consequences for their actions. The most common outcome was being sent to an internment camp under Executive Order
The older people had had their homes lost, land sold, possessions forced away. They had had respectable jobs stripped off from them just because they were of Japanese descent. And they were living in camps surrounded by barbed wires and soldiers like some kind of criminals. Dejection and bitterness was bound to run high. As for the youth, all their lives they had always pledged their allegiance to the American flag, they had celebrated the 4th of July with glee, and they had stood proudly as they sang their national anthem.
Could you imagine being treated so badly and having your dignity taken away, to the point where you have little to no hope left in you? Well, the book Unbroken By Laura Hillenbrand demonstrates this in more than one way. Throughout the book, we see many examples of how the POWs were treated, and how they were put through being tortured and abused. Another topic that we see presented in this, is how the POWs, although being treated in an inhumane way, keep hope and strength. Throughout The book, Unbroken, the efforts that the Japanese made to make the American POWs invisible were great.
This was important to his survival, because not only was he having something to eat, but emotionally he felt that he wasn’t playing the ‘rules of Japan’s game’. Lastly, to resist attempts of dehumanization, Louie never let any of the guards see his true depression. This is shown
This shows the similarities that happened during this period what happened to Asian Americans. Similarly, Asian Americans faced discrimination and racism in similar ways. Asian Americans during WW2 and the COVID-19 pandemic were both treated unfairly and accused of things they were a part of. For example, “People of Asian descent have been living in the United States for more than 160 years, and have long been the target of bigotry” (The long, ugly history of anti-Asian racism and violence in the US).
