With sudden disregard to law and principle, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered military personnel to detain all Japanese-Americans west of the Mississippi. However, Miné Okubo objected to the President’s decision. Her graphic novel, “Citizen 13660,” underscored the human condition in these interment camps. Her work had spoken of the true fallacies that contaminated American culture. Thus, Miné Okubo had not only challenged American wartime policy, but the entire zeitgeist of the 1940s by identifying the humanity in the Japanese-American population.
Their “Dual” endeavor is to win the war, not only with the enemy abroad but also with the racism at the home front. Takaki’s use of anecdotal narratives does much to illustrate the America in the 1940s, demonstrating the degree to which America was a white man’s country. In addition to this, Takaki shows the wartime responses from a variety of ethnic groups: Koreans, Japanese, Jewish, Filipinos, African Americans, and Italians. Among these groups, Takaki discusses about Japanese Americans in a full chapter, concluding with an examination of Hiroshima as a clear expression of racism.
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
Japanese Americans constantly had an urge to go home, but they had to stay in the miserable camp with terrible conditions and qualities. They wanted to go home so badly and live a normal life with their families, but they could not. Moreover, struggles between these groups also show differences. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” This opening line of Lincoln’s address tells us that Americans should treat others the same. However, during the Battle of Gettysburg and the Civil War, Americans fought themselves “breaking the rules”.
During the last three years of World War II approximately 120,000 Japanese-American people were forcibly detained and put in internment camps. The stories of the people put in these camps aren’t well known despite this being an extremely important part of the U.S past. But the novel When the Emperor was Divine tells a fictionalized version of the camps based on the experiences of people in the camps. The characters in this novel were alienated from the outside world and this took a toll on them. All of the characters reacted to this differently but in the end the trauma was long-lasting.
In his Ted Talk “Why I love a country that once betrayed me” George Takei explains his idea of patriotism through the perspective of being an Asian American that lived through internment camps. This Ted Talk is an important reminder to Americans to uphold civic values to keep society running smoothly and to make progress towards the ideals of the American Dream. It gives the idea that instead of bullying the government for the wrongdoings of democracy, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard through the expression of patriotism. Through his use of rhetoric and positionality, George Takei is able to create a convincing argument about what it means to be patriotic.
Following the Pearl Harbor attacks, Japanese Americans faced racism and were suspected of treason. The entire community avoided them in spite of their homeland’s actions and developed a general distrust towards anyone of Japanese descent. Anti-Japanese sentiment was on the rise. For instance, hateful messages against them, such as “No Japs Wanted,” were often scrawled on property owned by Japanese Americans (Doc. 4). This conveyed the prejudice this minority group faced and how they were blamed for an attack that wasn’t their fault.
On December 6th, 1941, America was a neutral power in what became known as World War Two. The next day, the Japanese Empire attacked Pearl Harbor, one of America’s major naval strongholds in the Pacific. The attack was by surprise and left around 2,100 Americans dead with an additional 2,000 wounded, and decimated America’s naval capability with 18 ships destroyed. After this, of course, America was no longer neutral—war was declared only a few days later, and her citizens were struck with a sudden sense of both fear and fury, a mixture of emotion that helped lead to the later internment of Japanese-Americans in the West and Midwest United States. With Japan as a primary enemy in the war, Americans made the mistake of viewing even Japanese-American
War Without Mercy “Ultimately, it brought about a revolution in racial consciousness throughout the world that continues to the present day.” (Dower 4). During World War II, besides morbid deaths, racism was one of the ultimate factors which sparked this tragic period of time. With the use of propaganda such as cartoons, films, and several other media induced strategies, the extreme hatred between the Americans and Japanese was increasing.
Many Americans saw the internment camps through the government’s persuasion. The United States made the internment camps sound enjoyable and humane, they made documentaries showing the camps showing nothing but happy individuals when there was really a hidden fear. Matsuda opened the eyes of many Americans showing how hard it was to live in the camps and how mentally cruel it could be. Matsuda reveals what it is like during World War II as a Japanese American, through family life, emotional stress, long term effects of interment, and her patriotism and the sacrifices she had to make being in the internment
As a teenager, I have always been drawn to the television shows and movies about the government team that chased after serial killers and spent days figuring out motives and any other possible reasons for a person’s act of terror. These shows and movies sparked a light within me that found an interest learning more about serial killers, their motives, their victims, and any other possibly reason that could make them commit such heinous crimes. What makes a serial killer kill? Are there environmental causes or genetics linked to this? Are there psychological patterns that make a person more likely to become a repeated killer?
Jesse Holt Mrs. Neary Honors English 9 Period 7 29 April 2024 YAY Throughout history, white individuals have tried to control and take advantage of other minority groups for their own gain or “safety”, like when slavery was legal. Although instances like these have become less of an issue, this problem can still be prominent in our world, and are still problems in other countries around the world. In the historical graphic memoir, They Called Us Enemy, George Takei recounts his life in the Japanese concentration camps, and how these events changed him as a person. Takei endures varying hardships while incarcerated in these prison camps, like poor living conditions and suboptimal schooling.
This paper talks about the Japanese American internment during the Second World War. The internment experience has been recorded in many scholarly books by Asian American writers, most of them having race difference and conflict with American hegemony as themes. Yet, even after so many years, the general public has little or no awareness about this bleak period. What is even less known is that there were many creative artists in the camps who managed to produce various kinds of works of art, when left miserably within those government-made ghettos. This paper studies these works of art as visual records of the internment, making the past perceivable, as artefacts of a distant and suppressed historical incident.
A WRA form that distinguishes the people as loyal or disloyal to the United States is to be signed on the 31st of July in 1943. The fear of being seen as disloyal to the United States leads the characters to suppress their Japanese culture and language. However, fear also leads to resilience and a determination to survive. The fear of this story being forgotten motivates Jeanne to write her memoir and preserve the history of her family and community. In this case, fear is a force that leads to cultural preservation and
They were change agents.” That proves that if you hold on to what you believe, you can accomplish anything. As George Takei talks about his experiences as a Japanese-American and his view of the American
