During World War II, there were constant efforts to make Japanese-American internees and American POWs in Japan invisible. Each group resisted diversely. Both United States POWs and Japanese internees were negatively affected by World War II. Two examples of this are Louie Zamperini from Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand and Miné Okubo. Louie—an American POW—and Miné—a Japanese-American internee—both experienced efforts being made to make them invisible by dehumanization and isolation in World War II camps and both resisted. During World War II, Louie Zamperini was isolated and dehumanized by guards in the POW camp. Despite this isolation and dehumanization, Louie resisted. Louie was isolated in many ways. As stated, “Louie begged for a blanket to sit on, but was ignored.” The Japanese guards were cruel and would not offer Louie any comfort, therefore isolating him. Also, stated, “As the native walked out the guard looked challengingly at Louie, lifted a flattened hand to his throat.” This was extremely dehumanizing. Threatening death upon somebody is an example of dehumanization. Despite this, Louie resisted. As stated, “Once, driven to his breaking point by a guard …show more content…
jabbing at him, Louie yanked from the guard’s hands.” Louie, knowing well that he would get punished, isolated, and dehumanized further, still resisted. Miné Okubo, a Japanese-American internee, was dehumanized and isolated by American soldiers, but resisted, like Louie.
As stated, “The camps were designed to keep Japanese-Americans isolated from the rest of the world in remote areas.” Miné, along with many other Japanese-American internees, were isolated from the world. Miné was dehumanized. ”’As a result of the interview,’ she wrote, ‘My family name was reduced to No. 13660.’” +This act was dehumanizing. The Americans stripped her of her name, a form of her identity, and she became just a number. Despite this, she resisted. As stated, “Internees were not allowed to have cameras but Miné wanted to document what was happening inside the camps.” Miné knew full well what the repercussions of this could have been, but still did
this. During WWII, there were constant efforts to make JapaneseAmerican internees and American POWs in Japan invisible. Each group resisted. Guards tried to deprive the POWs and the internees of their rights, dignity, hope, and identity. Unfortunately, many were unable to overcome this. In retrospect, Louie Zamperini and Miné Okubo did.
In the book, Unbroken, the POWs became delusional after being poorly treated at the camps. Even twenty-six-year-old Louie Zamperini had wasted his athlete body in one of these camps. Being POWs to the Japanese was not easy. The men were treated as if they were beasts. While in the other book, Manzanar, Japanese homes were ransacked and families were forced to leave with what they could carry to go to camps. Japanese men were disgraced and had no rights in these camps. Everyone who was in these camps had a significant lost in their weight. At the end of their sufferings, the internees would come out of the ...
“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
A Japanese American Tragedy Farewell to Manzanar, written by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, Japanese American, and James D. Houston, describes the experience of being sent to an internment camp during World War II. The evacuation of Japanese Americans started after President Roosevelt had signed the Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. Along with ten thousand other Japanese Americans, the Wakatsuki was sent on a bus to Manzanar, California. There, they were placed in an internment camp, many miles from their home, with only what they could carry. The lives of the Japanese Americans in the internment were a struggle.
It is not a well known fact that around the time the Holocaust took place in Europe, another internment (less extreme) was taking place in the United States. “Betrayed by America” by Kristin Lewis gives readers an insight on what happened to Japanese-Americans in America. The article tells us about Hiroshi Shishima, Japanese-Americans internment, and what was going on during the regime. During WW2, America went into a frenzy after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Many Americans believed what was being said about Japanese-Americans even though it was proven to be false. Since the whole fiasco with Japan took place, many Japanese-Americans were forced into internment in certain parts of the United States. The reason for the internment of Japanese-Americans was due to fear & hysteria, racial
Fighting a war against the oppression and persecution of a people, how hypocritical of the American government to harass and punish those based on their heritage. Magnifying the already existing dilemma of discrimination, the bombing of Pearl Harbor introduced Japanese-Americans to the harsh and unjust treatment they were forced to confront for a lifetime to come. Wakatsuki Ko, after thirty-five years of residence in the United States, was still prevented by law from becoming an American citizen.
Throughout humanity, human beings have been faced with ethnic hardships, conflict, and exclusion because of the battle for authority. Hence, in human nature, greed, and overall power consumes the mind of some people. Groups throughout the world yearn for the ability to be the mightiest one. These types of conflicts include ethnic shaming, racial exclusion, physical and verbal abuse, enslavement, imprisonment, and even death. Some of these conflicts were faced in all parts of Europe and the Pacific Region during World War II. During this dark time in history, people like Miss.Breed from Dear Miss Breed took initial action in what she thought was right, and gave hope to Japanese Internment Camp children by supplying books and
An example of this feeling is when Louie, a POW, has been sent to Ofuna, a “high-value” prison camp. “They can kill you here, ‘Louie was told. ‘No one knows you’re here.”(Hillenbrand 147) This quote drills into Louie a sign of dread that there is nothing the prisoners could do in this situation, no one had known that he was there. Another example from the same book, Louie had been isolated for a week with no correspondence with other friends or captives. “Louie had been on Kwajalein for about a week when his cell door was thrown open and guards pulled him out. Terrified, thinking he was about to be beheaded, he was marched into a building.”(Hillenbrand 141) This shows how long he has no contact for and the terror built up in him as he was driven to the edge of his mind as well as the forceful pulling to march him into the building digs him even deeper. Miné and her brother were assigned a family number when they were being sent to the intern camp. “...they were assigned collective family number 13660, and were never again referred to by officialdom by their given names.”(Curtin 2) The quote is an example of invisibility and dehumanization by reducing their names a number and to be never again referred to by the “officialdom” by their names. Many events happened to POWs
Twenty years after the First World War, humanity was, yet again, plagued with more hostility. September 1st, 1939 marked the start of World War II, this time, with new players on the board. Waves of fear and paranoia rippled throughout the United States, shaking its’ very foundation of liberty and justice for all. The waves powerfully crashed onto a single ethnic group, the Japanese-Americans, who had their rights and respect pulled away from them. They were seen as traitors and enemies in their own country, and were thrown into prison camps because of it. This event marks one of the absolute lowest points in United States history and has changed the course of the country as a whole.
In The New York Times article “At Internment Camp Exploring Choices of the Past,” Norimitsu Onishi discusses Japanese-Americans who were incarcerated in Tule Lake, an internment camp during World War II that held Japanese-Americans who were particularly insubordinate. Now decades after the events that took place in Tule Lake, the children of detainees who have been there begin to ask questions that were never answered by their parents otherwise.
What if entire families were suddenly evicted and thrown into prison just because of their ethnicity? What if thousands of people suddenly disappeared without a trace?
Dundes Renteln, Alison. "A Psychohistorical Analysis of the Japanese American Internment." Human Rights Quarterly 17, no. 4 (1995): 618-48. doi:10.1353/hrq.1995.0039.
"Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan." The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour US naval base left the nation reeling in shock. For the past 3 years and even before, the United States had succeeded in keeping out of the war in Europe and the Pacific. Then, all of a sudden, the country was in the throes of a second world war, one that had scarred many nations already. The war had ravaged most of Europe and the American people feared a similar fate. Many Japanese-American citizens inhabited the island of Hawaii, shared by Pearl Harbour. This coincidence led to the thought that the Japanese in America might
Pearl Harbor was a very vicious attack by the Japanese on the US. On December 7, 1941 US Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese fighter jets. United States had been aware of a possible attack since the 1920s; the US became more involved when the Japanese invaded Manchuria. Attack on Pearl Harbor was the beginning of something big, a bloody war between the Japanese and the United States. United States was not expecting such an event; it was such an unannounced attack on the naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. That unexpected attack on December 7, 1941 was originally just a preventive effort for keeping the US from interfering with military action the Empire of Japan was planning in Southeast Asia. Japan wanted to cripple the pacific fleet so they wouldn’t foil their plan to create a defense perimeter in the Southwest Pacific. Japanese aircraft launched two aerial attack waves sinking four US Navy battleships and damaging two other battleships. The attacks also led to a high number of deaths. There original plan was to attack all of the US aircraft carriers. The attack on Pearl Harbor resulted in US entry into World War 2.
Japanese internment was the capturing of Japanese-Americans into Internment Camps, or a prison camp for the “aliens”, prisoners of war, political prisoners etc. It started after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. 127,00 Japanese- Americans were imprisoned. The only reason they were imprisoned was because of their Japanese ancestry. Even without evidence Japanese Americans were suspected of still being loyal to their ancestral land. The camps were permanent and the internees, Japanese-Americans staying at the camps, had to do anything and everything to otherewn will. The US Government evacuated any Japanese person from their homes and took them to the buses and train (Uchida 20).
But we all know the real reason why they were really put there and if you don’t it is because they were considered enemies, terrorists, and even spies how did the U.S. dare make such a discriminating act. Just because they are the same color and same race we put them in these camps. We watched them all the time to see if they were up to any good we just treated them like criminals and kept them under surveillance in a high security camp. They were forced to stay in this dreadful place until the war was over are you serious is this even legal even with the act but yet even if it wasn’t it was still committed. Every time I think of this I can only think of one thing that this is what Hitler did to the Jews and how they were treated because of skin color and race. This is one of the many reason why the Japanese internment camps was bad and how this affected the Japanese Americans in a big