The Experiences Of Louis Zamperini And Jeanne Wakatsuki

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

Even though some people lived in America for several years, such as Jeanne’s father who lived there for thirty five years with some jobs, he was prevented from being an Americanized citizen and was looked at as the enemy with no rights of his own (Houston, p. 7). Being interrogated by the FBI and having no governmental ties to Japan’s Emperor, he was split from his family for two years. Her father had no rights, no home, no control over his own life due to the Americans. During the investigation, five hundred Japanese families who lived on Terminal Island were searched by FBI deputies who questioned everyone and ransacked houses for anything that could be used to show loyalty to the Japanese Emperor (Houston, p. 7). In their own homes, their treatment was equivalent to being a criminal as everything was looked at with suspicion as the sense of an equal human being was slowly taken away. The camps the civilians were sent to had the bare necessities for Jeanne’s family to live in, as all the Japanese Americans were transported there like a can of

Tolerance turned to distrust and irrational fear. The hundred year old tradition of anti-Asian sentiment on the West Coast resurfaced, more vicious than eve. (Houston, p. 15). Three years of wartime propaganda funded racist headlines, atrocity movies, hate slogans, and fright-mask posters turned Japanese faces into something despicable and grotesque. The American Legion and The Native Sons of the Golden West were racist organizations agitating against the West Coast Japanese for decades (Houston, p. 115). Years of isolation widened the spacious gap between the races. It gave birth to more racist organizations with specific purposes of preventing anyone of Japanese descent from returning to the west coast. They used the war as a way to foment hostile feelings in the major farming areas. From the imprint in Jeanne’s mind the word Hate was given by the Americans when signs showed ‘ Japs Go Back Where You Came From’ (Houston, p. 136). Once the war was over in Japan, none of the civilians attacked Louie.There was no hatred towards the, only fear when the war subsided. The three Ex Parte Endo cases had Japanese American citizens challenge the United States Supreme Court as it talked about the racial bias, civil rights, mandatory evacuations at racially selected group of citizens while German and Italian American descendants were not