Then Came The War By Kochiyama Summary

The reading Then Came the War by Yuri Kochiyama discusses her personal experience of how her and her family were treated during war. Kochiyama talks about how the Americans took her father away from her after he had just left the hospital and when he returned he could not talk and was dying. If this was my father, I would have went crazy to see him like that. I do not know how she stayed that strong after experiencing something like this. On top of this, she was forced to live in a horse stable with other people in a confined space and had to use the materials that were available to make a bed, chair, table, and other things. I am very fortunate to not have experienced something like this when I was twenty years old (the same age Kochiyama was). I take my

Aside with being treated poorly, the Japanese began to be ashamed and embarrassed of who they were because they somehow got blamed for the war. This hurt me because no one should be ashamed of who he or she is and where he or she comes from. I completely understand why she would feel like this because I would feel the exact same way. Kochiyama ends the article by describing how all Japanese Americans came together to form a movement to talk about what had happened to them and their personal stories. I thought this was a great way to end the reading because it shows how even though the Japanese went through a difficult time, they wanted to show their stories and to inform everyone as to what happened. Also, at the end of the article, this quote stuck out to me “they don’t even see other ethnic groups who have gone through it. It showed us, too, how vulnerable everybody is” (Kochiyama, p. 418). The Japanese weren’t the only ethnic group that has been affected by these horrific and abusive acts. In essence, this shows how little we actually learn about the history of our country and what the government thinks is worthy enough to