From Their Perspective Racial discrimination in America has, unfortunately, persevered through the ages and still continues today. After the events of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Japanese American citizens were looked upon by their neighbors with disdain. Julie Otsuka’s short but impactful novel, When the Emperor was Divine, follows a Japanese family living in California and the lifestyle changes they followed during this time period. These changes include living in an internment camp and the effects of being away from home for so long, among other things. Otsuka uses a person versus society conflict in order to display the mistreatment Japanese Americans faced during WWII and how the Internment camps affected their lives. Therefore, representing …show more content…
Being given ID tags instead of just using the names of the prisoners is extremely dehumanizing for them. Rather than being treated like people, the orchestrators of the internment camps view them as livestock to be tracked. Their identities were stripped away completely and replaced by a number that could easily be forgotten. The characters in the novel tried their best to hold onto what they could of themselves. Though she was the one who discarded her cultural memorabilia, the mother still tried to stay connected to her home. “Every morning. she reached for the key as soon as she woke, just to make sure it was still there” (Otsuka 107). The house key around her neck was one of the few things that the woman had left of her home back in Berkeley. The prisoners weren’t able to bring much with them since they were forced to live in dilapidated horse stalls, so she held onto the items she was allowed to. Even though the prisoners were denied their humanity by the government, they kept close to their identities the best they …show more content…
Because the general public tends to put down the Japanese, the family feels the need to cover up who they are. By constantly being treated like an unwelcome outlander, the Japanese American family started to view themselves as “The cruel face of the enemy” (Otsuka 120). Due to racism from the community, the Japanese Americans were hypnotized into believing that all of them were at fault for Pearl Harbor, which was simply not true. The family in the novel started denying their heritage and destroying any of the cultural items they owned just to keep up the image of ‘loyal Americans’. The attitude from neighbors and life in the internment camps damaged people more than what was mentioned before, though. The father was taken to a camp because he was classified as an alien. Later coming home a changed man- and not exactly in a good way. “He was somebody else, a stranger who had been sent back to our father’s place” (Otsuka 132). Whatever the father went through at the internment camps changed his mentality completely. He used to be easygoing and very friendly to strangers, but he came home totally paranoid. He stopped trusting strangers and avoided leaving the
But for some of the Japanese Americans, it was even harder after they were discharged from the internment camp. The evacuation and the internment had changed the lives of all Japanese Americans. The evacuation and internment affected the Wakatsuki family in three ways: the destruction of Papa’s self-esteem, the separation of the Wakatsuki family, and the change in their social status. The destruction of Papa’s self-esteem is one effect of the evacuation and internment. Before the evacuation and internment, Papa was proud; he had a self-important attitude, yet he was dignified.
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.
The novel When the Emperor Was Divine was written by Julie Otsuka exploring the life struggles and tribulations of a Japanese American family. The family moved to the U.S. in the 1940s, and the mother is oblivious to the imminent crisis that is set to befall the nation, starting with the evacuation of the Japanese from California. When the family eventually leaves for a composite in Utah, they realize that the same struggles that they face are reminiscent of other Japanese in the camp who are struggling to maintain their identity. Otsuka uses symbols in her novel to advance her thoughts, and critically, add important dimensions and meanings to the deadly plot. Otsuka uses some ‘prominent’ symbols such as flowers, horses, and dust, but from
It was no secret that when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, countless Americans were frightened on what will happen next. The attack transpiring during WW2 only added to the hysteria of American citizens. According to the article “Betrayed by America” it expressed,”After the bombing many members of the public and media began calling for anyone of Japanese ancestry။citizens or not။to be removed from the West Coast.”(7) The corroboration supports the reason why America interned Japanese-Americans because it talks about Americans wanting to remove Japanese-Americans from the West Coast due to Japan bombing America. Japan bombing America led to Americans grow fear and hysteria. Fear due to the recent attack caused internment because Americans were afraid of what people with Japanese ancestry could do. In order to cease the hysteria, America turned to internment. American logic tells us that by getting the Japanese-Americans interned, many
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 attack on Pearl Harbor was a major shock for America, and it created extreme fear and paranoia that the Japanese-Americans would help Japan win the war. There was a widespread stigma of anti-Japanese attitudes and racism; therefore, the government concluded it was easier to seclude them from the rest of America. The Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps where their identity was stripped from them and their privacy was taken away. Some individuals were not only sent to internment camps, but also detention camps, which altered their physical and mental state significantly.
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.
World War Two was one of the biggest militarized conflicts in all of human history, and like all wars it lead to the marginalization of many people around the world. We as Americans saw ourselves as the great righteous liberators of those interned into concentration camps under Nazi Germany, while in reality our horse was not that much higher than theirs. The fear and hysteria following the attacks on pearl harbour lead to the forced removal and internment of over 110,000 Japanese American residents (Benson). This internment indiscriminately applied to both first and second generation Japanese Americans, Similarly to those interned in concentration camps, they were forced to either sell, store or leave behind their belongings. Reshma Memon Yaqub in her article “You People Did This,” describes a similar story to that of the Japanese Americans. The counterpart event of pearl harbour being the attacks on the world trade
In 1941 Pearl Harbor was bombed by the japanese. This occurred during World War II. After this incident all japanese-americans living on the west coast were sent to internment camps. These camps were unnecessary and racist. They were made because the americans thought that japanese people were a threat to other citizens. They thought that the japanese people were going to go against and they were going to give out information. This is absurd because even if that was true, why would the japanese soldiers be so decorated in the army. In this essay I will go more in depth of why the japanese internment camps were such bad idea.
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 ...
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.
In Julie Otsuka’s novel, When the Emperor was Divine, the boy’s emotions are embodied through animals. In mid 1942, the boy and his family are displaced from their home in Berkeley, CA, and relocated to an internment camp. The family is forcibly imprisoned in response to Executive Order 9066, due to their Japanese heritage. The boy’s initial hope and innocence are expressed through a tortoise. The disappearance of these virtues become evident through the animal’s demise. Additionally, images of wild horses display the boy’s desire for freedom and an identity, while their death illustrates his inability to aspire to such things. A tortoise and horses manifest the boy’s internal struggles with his internment. The life and death of the creatures
Polanski: Thematic and Stylistic Day after day, we exist in society without without realizing its corruption. We are blinded by the American dream. That thing that’s been promised to every person that manages to come to the west, but they still haven’t obtained it. It’s smoke and mirrors in it’s purest form and Polanski decides to tear that shit down. Roman Polanski introduces Neo-Noir through his 1974 film Chinatown.