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They Called Us Enemy By Justin Eisinger

696 Words3 Pages

The Vietnam War, starting not too long after the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. On the first of November 1955, after an alleged unprovoked attack from Vietnamese submarines, government officials were dead set on going to war. This ignited a rivalry between Vietnam and America. Officially declared armistice on April 30th, 1975, a war that lasted almost two decades, sparked a major distrust between Americans and foreigners. It caused many political views of the public and officials to shift towards a more exclusive government and many Americans turned on each other, raising questions about the functionality of American society. The war created a great uprising in cynicism toward the government and changed the perspective of Americans in everything they did. During the war, Americans had increasingly questioned the functionality of society, grappling with moral, social, and …show more content…

In “They Called Us Enemy” by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, and Steven Scott, it explains how the perspective of a Japanese American was shaped by experiences of being interned during WWII. This offers a unique lens that displays the broad societal impacts from the conflict (Takei and colleagues). The firsthand experience acts as a primary source that underlines the parallels between the discrimination of Japanese Americans and Vietnamese American discrimination during war. This allowed Americans to reevaluate the beliefs and actions in the context of justice and human rights (Takei and colleagues). The book also ties to other sources, highlighting the war’s role in the contribution to skepticism towards government actions. Takei’s advocacy for governmental transparency regarding the internment camps lays out calls for accountability during wartime. Takei and colleagues like this. This influenced attitudes towards authority and, overall, prompted Americans to critique their own values and

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The narrative begins with the first two chapters focusing on assessing Roosevelt’s evolving attitude toward Japan and Japanese-Americans, during his pre-presidential years and his first two terms in office. Continuing, Robinson changes directions and focuses on the origin and implementation of the internment policy, beginning with Roosevelt’s decision to issue Executive Order 9066 in February 1942, the authorization of relocating Japanese-Americans from the West Coast into internment camps, the subsequent controversy over with Japanese-Americans deemed “loyal” to the United States, and the decision to finally close the camps in 1946. The final chapter concludes with Robinson attempting to understand how Roosevelt, whom historians have celebrated for his strong commitment to individual rights, could have supported such an unjust policy. Robinson argues Roosevelt’s “past feelings toward the Japanese-Americans must be considered to have significantly shaped his momentous decision to evacuate Japanese-Americans from their homes … whether citizens or longtime resident aliens, [Japanese-Americans] were still Japanese at the core and should be regarded as presumptuously disloyal and dangerous on racial grounds” (p. 118 -

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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.

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It had dented the US’s history culturally accepting and stemmed from its long history of Asian immigrants. The internment camps were a result from the Executive Order 9066 issued by the pressured President, were endured by the interns with its poor conditions, and was shut down after further US investigation. This proves that the Japanese-Americans, who was accused of being saboteurs, in those hard times remained loyal to their country and got their well-deserved

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“When the gates were shut, we knew that we had lost something that was very precious; that we were no longer free." New Americans should learn about the internment of Japanese -Americans during World War II, because it is a chilling event that could happen to any minority in America today. Thousands of people become American citizens each year and it is important that they know the history of this country and the scary fact that more often than not, history repeats itself. Often described as one of the worst official violations of civil rights in modern U.S. history, the forced relocation and imprisonment of nearly 120,000 Japanese-Americans occurred just ten weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese warplanes . On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered Executive Order 9066, authorizing the evacuation of any or all people deemed “a threat to national security.”

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