Far too often, people may be judged by a group that is perceived to represent them, rather than that which they hold true to themselves. The world will give them judgment, without looking past the superficial layers making up the bare minimum of what distinguishes right from wrong and one man from another. Oftentimes this causes communities to change, forcing them to adapt, and even shift their culture completely, so that it falls easier on the eyes of another. In Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor was Divine, the Japanese American community is, wrongfully, seen as dangerous and threatening by their American neighbors; left fearful by the Pearl Harbor attacks. This fear leads Americans to force their Japanese citizens into internment camps, eventually changing …show more content…
The games that the young girls play in the camps, ones they have brought with them from their old lives, are American in nature, as Otsuka describes, “Three young girls, in dirty white frocks, were playing ladies in the dust-” (54). The young girls are not playing a traditional Japanese game, but rather they are playing ladies, pretending to be grown and mature beyond their years. Yet, this is accompanied by more dust; sticking to them, symbolizing how they are growing into a culture different from their own, and maturing into who the camps want them to be rather than what they may have been otherwise. Otsuka’s use of dust to symbolize the gradual influence of American culture on the Japanese people perfectly explains how they began to lose their identities as Japanese, as their culture began to become less of their own; more and more Americanized. These experiences at such a young age can change people in ways that may make them unrecognizable, even to themselves. The boy in the story changes from a carefree and innocent child, to a scared, tentative
Matsumoto studies three generations, Issei, Nisei, and Sansei living in a closely linked ethnic community. She focuses her studies in the Japanese immigration experiences during the time when many Americans were scared with the influx of immigrants from Asia. The book shows a vivid picture of how Cortex Japanese endured violence, discriminations during Anti-Asian legislation and prejudice in 1920s, the Great Depression of 1930s, and the internment of 1940s. It also shows an examination of the adjustment period after the end of World War II and their return to the home place.
As Inada points out with his analogy to a constellation, the United States government had constructed many camps and scattered them all over the country. In other words, the internment of Japanese-Americans was not merely a blip in American history; it was instead a catastrophic and appalling forced remov...
The novel, When The Emperor Was Divine, tells the story of a Japanese family who was told to go to camp to be in surveillance during World War II, where Japan was an enemy of the United States. The story begins with signs being put up in communities to inform people of the internment of Japanese Americans, and one of the main characters, the mother “read the sign from top to bottom… wrote down a few words… then turned around and went home to pack” (Otsuka 3). The mother is told to follow the orders of the government and she complies due to her beliefs about the government, that they have positive intentions. The Japanese family left their home and were marginalized out of their community and were ordered to go to an internment camp. The reason for their evacuation and of other Japanese Americans is that since Japan was an enemy of the United States during World War II, many Americans in the United States believed that Japanese Americans were spies and were on the opposing side of the war. Americans did not trust Japanese Americans anymore and the Japanese were soon discriminated and marginalized in the community, just like the Japanese family in the novel, because the American communities felt threatened by their
During World War II, countless Japanese Canadians, and Americans, were relocated to internment camps out of fear of where their loyalties would lie. Because of this, those people were stricken from their homes and had their lives altered forever. Joy Kogawa’s Obasan highlights this traumatic event. In this excerpt, Kogawa uses shifts in point of view and style to depict her complex attitude and perception of the past.
In a portion of Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston’s memoir titled Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne’s Japanese family, living in California, is ordered to move to an internment camp called Manzanar. Society impacts the family in many ways, but in this segment of the story we primarily see its effects on Jeanne. The context and setting are as follows: the Pearl Harbor bombing was a very recent happening, the United States was entering into war with Japan, and President Roosevelt had signed Executive Order 9066, allowing internment. Anyone who might threaten the war effort was moved inland into defined military areas. Essentially, the Japanese immigrants were imprisoned and considered a threat; nevertheless, many managed to remain positive and compliant. Jeanne’s family heard “the older heads, the Issei, telling others very quietly ‘Shikata ga nai’” (604), meaning it cannot be helped, or it must be done, even though the world surrounding them had become aggressive and frigid. The society had a noticeable effect on Jeanne, as it impacted her view of racial divides, her family relations, and her health.
John Dower's War without Mercy describes the ugly racial issues, on both the Western Allies and Japanese sides of the conflict in the Pacific Theater as well as all of Asia before during and after World War II and the consequences of these issues on both military and reconstruction policy in the Pacific. In the United States as well as Great Britain, Dower dose a good job of proving that, "the Japanese were more hated than the Germans before as well as after Pearl Harbor." (8) On this issue, there was no dispute among contemporary observers including the respected scholars and writers as well as the media. During World War II the Japanese are perceived as a race apart, a species apart referred to as apes, but at the same time superhuman. "There was no Japanese counterpart to the "good German" in the popular consciousness of the Western Allies." (8) Dower is not trying to prove how horrible the Japanese are. Instead, he is examining the both sides as he points out, "atrocious behavior occurred on all sides in the Pacific War." (12-13) Dower explores the propaganda of the United States and Japanese conflict to underline the "patterns of a race war," and the portability of racist stereotypes. Dower points out that "as the war years themselves changed over into an era of peace between Japan and the Allied powers, the shrill racial rhetoric of the early 1940s revealed itself to be surprisingly adaptable. Idioms that formerly had denoted the unbridgeable gap between oneself and the enemy proved capable of serving the goals of accommodation as well."(13) "the Japanese also fell back upon theories of "proper place" which has long been used to legitimize inequitable relationships within Japan itself."(9) After...
"(Doc. A) The beliefs Japanese grew up with were that the Emperor was sublime and his empire should be followed everywhere nerveless by everyone. They were trained to be dedicated; willing to do anything to please their superior. “An old order... (European and American)... is now crumbling.
Japanese Internment Camps Ten weeks after the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) singed an Executive Order of 9066 that authorized the removal of any people from military areas “as deemed necessary or desirable”(FDR). The west coast was home of majority of Japanese Americans was considered as military areas. More than 100,000 Japanese Americans was sent and were relocated to the internment camps that were built by the United States. Of the Japanese that were interned, 62 percent were Nisei (American born, second generation) or Sansei (third-generation Japanese) the rest of them were Issai Japanese immigrants. Americans of Japanese ancestry were far the most widely affected.
In 1942 Roosevelt signed the Executive order 9066 which forced all Japanese-Americans to evacuate the West Coast. They were forced out no matter their loyalty or their citizenship. These Japanese-Americans were sent to Internment camps which were located in California, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas. There were ten camps all-together and 120,000 people filled them (2009). The immigrants were deprived of their traditional respect when their children who were American-born were indorsed authority positions within the camps. In 1945 Japanese-American citizens with undisrupted loyalty were allowed to return to the West Coast, but not until 1946 was the last camp closed.
Japanese immigration created the same apprehension and intolerance in the mind of the Americans as was in the case of Chinese migration to the U.S at the turn of the 19th century. They developed a fear of being overwhelmed by a people having distinct ethnicity, skin color and language that made them “inassimilable.” Hence they wanted the government to restrict Asian migration. Japan’s military victories over Russia and China reinforced this feeling that the Western world was facing what came to be known as “yellow peril”. This was reflected in the media, movies and in literature and journalism.4 Anti-Oriental public opinion gave way to several declarations and laws to restrict Japanese prosperity on American land. Despite the prejudice and ineligibility to obtain citizenship the ...
But on the other hand, the Wataskui family answered “Yes”. Yes” (Houston 27). The differences in the answer choice show that Japanese Americans had different opinions and attitudes towards the U.S. and its treatment of them. So, despite these differences showing the unfair treatment of certain Japanese groups, it also provides a different perspective of the time period and America’s treatment of the
Accessed August/September, 2013. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/chinex.htm. Dundes, Renteln, Alison. " A Psychohistorical Analysis of the Japanese American Internment.
How Society can be Inhumane. Society can treat people with care and respect, other times, it can be very harsh and cruel. Unfortunately, society keeps proving people right about how it can be devastating to some people. In Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor was Divine, Japanese American families were sent to internment camps where they were degraded and left to fend for themselves when they were released, giving them little to no compensation. The main family in the novel is separated from their father long before they were sent to the camp.
Tania Bruguera once said, “In a global world, we should all be citizens. Dignity has no nationality.” Be this as it may, this belief was not popular in the 1940s, just after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It did not stop the internment of Japanese Americans, who were believed to be alien informers helping Japan during World War II. When the Emperor was Divine, written by Julie Otsuka, is a historical fiction novel following a Japanese American family through the time of internment.
People always say “be your own person” or “don’t let the influence of others affect you” but the influence of others is why some people change who they are. The idea for Japanese Americans is to be like the American Dream. In “When the Emperor was Divine” all Japanese Americans were sent to an internment camp after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The family loses everything they had before, including their culture. With the influence of the American lifestyle on the family, they start to believe that being Japanese is a disgrace and they start to lose themselves and their true heritage to be more like the Americans.