Citizen 13660 is a narrative and historical account of a young Japanese-American artist that was forced to relocate to different camps during WWII. During this time the author, Mine Okubo, captures her story through pictures and captions. Considering the entire narrative images as a whole, the three greatest challenges facing Okubo during her WWII experience was the lack of privacy, harsh living conditions, and the fact of living like a prisoner. These are by far not the only challenges Okubo encounters at these camps but these are some very significant ones. In the camp there was little to no privacy. At the beginning in Tanforan, the men’s toilets were lined up in two rows back to back, and the women’s arrangement was the same except for …show more content…
the toilets were in pairs. Not only did the toilets lack privacy, but also the showers. According to the pictures on pages 75 and 76, the showers did not have curtains and were aligned up side by side ultimately leading to no privacy what so ever. In Topaz there was no privacy inside their home. People came and went as they pleased and bull sessions lasted into the late night. The living condition was great challenge also because in Topaz the weather could range any where from 106 degrees in the summer to 30 degrees below in the winter.
Besides the extremely hot and cold temperatures in Topaz, there was a lot of wind. The wind would not be as big of a deal if the fine dust particles of the alkaline dirt did not get blown around. Also, the living conditions were a major challenge because the evacuees had to sleep on straw mattresses, they had inadequate food, they slept with clothes on top of their blankets because their blankets were not warm enough, the hot water rarely worked, and just an overall cramped …show more content…
lifestyle. Lastly, living like a prisoner was one of the three greatest challenges because they were constantly being searched and inspected. There were two center-wide inspections at Tanforan. The first inspection was instructed from the Wartime Civil Control Administration in San Francisco. They had this inspection because some of the evacuees’ baggage had not been properly checked upon arrival. The second inspection was conducted by the army and was a much more thorough search. Each section was placed under supervision while the search was being conducted. Not only did the inspections make them feel like prisoners, but also the guards would always be patrolling and monitoring their every move. The Japanese evacuees had to adjust to accommodate to their confinement. According to Okubo, the first month was the hardest because adjustments had to be made to the new mode of life (Okubo, 50.) To get settled in they started to furnish barracks with scrap-lumber, they started to make crafts and knit from whatever they had, and they overall made their living condition better. The evacuees also tried their best to operate as a normal society. They did this by participating in recreational activities, picking up new hobbies like instruments, and by getting jobs that paid anywhere form thirteen to nineteen dollars. In Okubo’s narrative and images there are multiple forms of humor, irony, and resistance.
One example is, Okubo caption says “Kite making and flying was not limited to youngsters” and in the picture it shows her laughing at an older guy in overalls that is flying a little kite (172.) Another example is, Okubo caption talks about how there was an overnight change in the camps scenery and in the picture it shows her all tangled up in a tree that has just been freshly planted (150.) One example of irony that was shown in the book is when her brother got a shot in his arm and it said it felt like a horse shot. The irony of this situation was that he said it felt like they gave him a horse shot and he is living in what horses usually live in
(54.) Okubo’s writing lacks emotional distress. She rarely portrays any kind of expression of emotion and there isn’t the slightness hint of sentiment in her autobiography. For example a recruiter is trying to persuade everyone into signing up to fight with the Japanese American combat unit, while this is going on Okubo is looking away and holding her nose in the picture. By her doing this, it is showing her emotion that she doesn’t care about what he has to say and that she is trying to ignore his meanness or corruption (174.) Or another example would be at the beginning of the book when Okubo’s mother passed away. In the book she goes from saying her mother passed away to changing the subject right away to she found herself on the road again. When Okubo did this, it showed that she was deflecting the emotion of her mother that passed away and was moving on with her life (6.) Okubo employed this tone because the writing style is very successful for expressing the feeling of the evacuees. It was as if Okubo wanted to inform people rather than to seek sympathy or pity. Okubo’s drawings helped enhance the understanding and reality of what was happening in the camps. Not only did the drawings help understand the reality of what was going on at the camp, but it also helps validating emotions to the pictures. When the rare expression of emotion is presented in the pictures it often expresses more than the narrative itself.
“She took a chance by entering a Berkeley art contest through the mail and won.” (The Life of Mine Okubo) Mine was able to leave behind the isolation she experienced during the camps by winning the contest. Another case where invisibility was resisted was when Mine sketched her daily life in the camps. “Internees were not allowed to have cameras, but Mine wanted to document what was happening in the camps. She put her artistic talents to use making sketches of daily life inside the fences.” (The Life of Mine Okubo) Instead of using recording devices to reveal what internment camp life was, Mine used art. Likewise, Mutsuhiro Watanabe, also known as “The Bird,” was a Japanese sergeant who mistreated the prisoners of war. “Time ticked on, and still Louie remained, the beam over his head, his eyes on the Bird’s face, enduring long past when he should have collapsed.” (Hillenbrand 213) Watanabe’s central target was Louie Zamperini because of his running career in the past. As a result, he often abused Louie more than the other prisoners. Prisoners of war and internees will “resist invisibility” while in the
The novel, Farewell to Manzanar, by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, tells her family’s true story of how they struggled to not only survive, but thrive in forced detention during World War II. She was seven years old when the war started with the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1942. Her life dramatically changed when her and her family were taken from their home and sent to live at the Manzanar internment camp. Along with ten thousand other Japanese Americans, they had to adjust to their new life living behind barbed wire. Obviously, as a young child, Jeanne did not fully understand why they had to move, and she was not fully aware of the events happening outside the camp. However, in the beginning, every Japanese American had questions. They wondered why they had to leave. Now, as an adult, she recounts the three years she spent at Manzanar and shares how her family attempted to survive. The conflict of ethnicities affected Jeanne and her family’s life to a great extent.
Connecticut surgeon, Dr. Albigence Waldo, was one of the surgeons who helped care for sick soldiers at Valley Forge. Throughout his stay, he felt "... Sick - discontented- and out of humor"(Document C). Dr. Waldo journal entry further explains what he had to see and go through every day. The "... fatigue, Nasty Cloaths, nasty Cookery..." made him "vomit half his time"(Document C). Just reading this surgeon experience, I can't imagine myself surviving one day in a hut especially with other people. Keep in mind that in "Each hut slept twelve men"(background). For all I know one of them could have been sick. Now everyone is more vulnerable within the hut because there are no windows which leads to having poor ventilation. Everyone just breathes in the same air. This is why many people were dying; germs were being passed around in the
But, in this book Jeanne describes how her dad was in love with the United States. He rejected being Japanese and supported America. “That night Papa burned the flag he had brought with him from Hiroshima thirty five years earlier”(pg 6). Moving from place to place made it hard for The Wakatsuki family to get attached to. The family is then transported to Owens Valley, California, where 10,000 internees.
Beginning in March of 1942, in the midst of World War II, over 100,000 Japanese-Americans were forcefully removed from their homes and ordered to relocate to several of what the United States has euphemistically labeled “internment camps.” In Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston describes in frightening detail her family’s experience of confinement for three and a half years during the war. In efforts to cope with the mortification and dehumanization and the boredom they were facing, the Wakatsukis and other Japanese-Americans participated in a wide range of activities. The children, before a structured school system was organized, generally played sports or made trouble; some adults worked for extremely meager wages, while others refused and had hobbies, and others involved themselves in more self-destructive activities.
The living conditions in the camp were rough. The prisoners were living in an overcrowded pit where they were starved. Many people in the camp contracted diseases like typhus and scarlet fever. Commonly, the prisoners were beaten or mistreated by
In the painting from document B, it reveals what the lodging looked like, the state of our clothing and shoes, and the health that most of the soldiers were experiencing. We have had to deal with, “poor food- hard lodging- cold weather- fatigue, “(Document B). In this diary by Dr Waldo, a doctor we have at camp, he has accurately described what life is like at camp. The factors that we undergo make us sick both physically and mentally, these factors make us lose all sense of empowerment to win this war that we once felt, these factors make us want to go home more than anything just to hear our mother’s voice just once more.
World War II was a grave event in the twentieth century that affected millions. Two main concepts World War II is remembered for are the concentration camps and the marches. These marches and camps were deadly to many yet powerful to others. However, to most citizens near camps or marches, they were insignificant and often ignored. In The Book Thief, author Markus Zusak introduces marches and camps similar to Dachau to demonstrate how citizens of nearby communities were oblivious to the suffering in those camps during the Holocaust.
There are many instances of irony in the short story "One's a Heifer" by Sinclair
One of the biggest problems was sanitation. Clean water for drinking and bathing was rare and illness from poor hygiene or contaminated water was very common. Most of the camps were in tight groups and contagious diseases such as chickenpox, colds or the flu would spread over camp within
The guards won’t let them do anything that they normally do and experience, along with beating them for not understanding the orders of the Japanese. I believe that this is an example of dehumanization because the guards are taking away what the men are used to. Mine experienced the perspective of feeling invisible as well as other Japanese-Americans in internee camps when they were given a number for their whole family, “My family name was reduced to No. Mine and other Japanese-American internees were very good at resisting invisibility in clever ways, such as when they weren’t allowed to have cameras, “Internees were not allowed to have cameras, but Miné wanted to document what was happening inside the camps. She put her artistic talent to use making sketches of daily life inside the fences” (The Life of Mine Okubo). Mine is defying the rules of the camp by creating art about the people in their “daily lives” at the camp that she is located in.
For example, in the beginning of the story, the narrator starts by talking about Mrs. Freeman. “Besides the neutral expressions that she wore when she was alone, Mrs. Freeman had two others, forward and reverse, that she used for all her human dealings” (433). The irony in this first line is that she is a “Freeman,” yet only has three different expressions. Another example of an irony that is easily noticeable is when Mrs. Hopewell considered Manley Pointer as “good country people.” “He was just good country people, you know” (441). The irony in this line is that in the end, Manley Pointer, whom is supposedly is “good country people,” ends up being a thief who steals Hulga’s prosthetic leg and runs and not only steals, but admits that he is not a Christian, making the line, “good country people,” a dramatic irony. However, one of the most ironic characters in the story is Hulga herself as she understands little of herself, regardless of the high education she holds in philosophy. For example, Hulga imagines that Pointer is easily seduced. “During the night she had imagined that she seduced him” (442). Yet, when they kissed, she was the one who was seduced and having the “extra surge of adrenaline… that enables one to carry a packed trunk out of a burning house…”
In conclusion, many examples are given throughout the novel that exemplifies all three types of irony: situational, verbal, and dramatic. There are many more examples, like Bernard wanting attention and John’s suicide. His suicide can be an example of irony, with the reader hoping that John (the revolutionist) might succeed, but John taking his own life. Irony plays a huge role in the book, pointing out that no society can be perfect and that some laws are broken by the creators themselves.
Another example of irony used by Achebe is the suicide of Okonkwo. Throughout the entire story, Okonkwo is trying to display manly attributes. The story opens with his feelings about how his father was weak and he never wanted to be...
Another illustration of irony is the way Nora treats her children as if they were dolls. This is situational irony because Nora is treated like a doll by her husband, and by her father when he was alive. She says "I passed out of Daddy's hands into yours.