Throughout history, regimes often label different groups the enemy due to military defeat or economic strife. However, once the accusations are looked at in context, the prospect is entirely illogical. Julie Otuka’s book “When the Emperor was Divine” follows a Japanese-American family during the Second World War living in Berkley, California. After the United States enters the war, the family is sent to an internment camp in Utah. While there, the book follows the young boy’s experience with his freedom being taken from him at a young age. At the end of the book the Father and the family are finally reunited after the war, only to find their father to be a broken man. By using verbal irony and hyperbole, Otsuka conveys that once the government reveals its …show more content…
I admit it. I lied. You are right. You are always right. It was a sham. I did it. I poisoned your reservoirs. Sprinkle your food with insecticide. I sent my peas and potatoes to a market full of arsenic. I planted sticks of dynamite alongside your railroads. I set your oil wells on fire. I scattered mine across the entrance to your harbor. I spied on your airfield. I spied on your naval yards. I spied on your neighbors. I spied on you.” (Otsuka 140) The sheer amount of accusations shows the absurd nature of the crimes attributed to Japanese-Americans. In addition to that, the huge number of crimes the father jokingly admits to is utterly ridiculous, that ridiculousness shows how foolish the United States government is to drop that amount of accusations on one group. After the Father’s initial sarcastic confession, he goes on in great detail about all the things the government thinks he does for the people of America. After his “confession,” he says, “I crept into your house while you were away and sullied your wife. Wait, wait, she said, don’t go. I touched your daughters–they smiled in their sleep. I smothered your firstborn son–he did not
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...
Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi. Racing the enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the surrender of Japan. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005.
People with differences often create conflicts in communities. Those differences may include religion, culture, sexuality, gender, and ethnicity. When an individual or group has one or more of these differences, they are set apart or marginalized from the community. The novel, When The Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka, the short story “The Outcasts Of Poker Flat” by Bret Harte, and another short story “Wilshire Bus” by Hisaye Yamamoto all give various insights and motives on how and why communities marginalize. Communities marginalized others by alienating them because the communities feel threatened by their differences that deviate from societal norms; to prevent marginalization in communities, communities should be inclusive of individuals
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...
Julie Otsuka’s When The Emperor Was Divine told the unspoken stories of many Japanese-Americans during the Interment. Remembering the experiences that thousands of innocent people went through can leave them to feel uneasy and upset. The stripping of their identity and reclassifying them as enemy aliens left them with everlasting trauma and nightmares. Japanese-Americans were arrested, rounded up and transported to Internment camps across the United States where, in some cases, they were held for several years. Therefore, the Japanese-Americans during the Second World War had lasting repercussions from psychological, physical and financial aspects on the prisoners.
When most American people think of Germany, they think of sports cars made for the autobahn, sauerkraut, Adolf Hitler, and the Holocaust. Compared to Germany, when most American people think of Japan they think of sushi, Godzilla movies, Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. World War II was such a significant event in history that almost 70 years after it came to an end, today’s younger generations often associate former Axis controlled countries with the war. People around the world are filled with disgust and immense hate when they hear the name Hitler, mainly because of his leadership under the Holocaust; which was the discriminatory mass genocide of 11-17 million people, the vast majority of which were European Jews. Hirohito, former Emperor of Japan, should strike a similar bell with people when they hear his name because Japan carried out genocide on Chinese civilians and soldiers in World War II. Japan’s attack on the Chinese city of Nanking, was one of the most atrocious events in history. This event has been named both the Nanking Massacre and the Rape of Nanking. The torturous, violent techniques used by the Japanese army upon Chinese civilians and soldiers including dehumanizing them, addicting them to drugs, and other perverse and violent acts, are some of the most grosteque methods ever recorded that could only be thought of by sadistic Japanese soldiers. The events committed by the Japanese army in Nanking, are equally as disgusting as the acts that Nazi Germany committed and should become a major topic involved with World War II in the future, despite the lack of light shed on it in the past for various reasons.
Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi. “Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman and the Surrender of Japan.” Taking Sides: Clashing View in United States History. Ed. Larry Madaras & James SoRelle. 15th ed. New York, NY. 2012. 289-298.
John Dower's War Without Mercy describes the ugly racial dimensions of the conflict in the Asian theater of World War II and their consequences on both military and reconstruction policy in the Pacific. "In the United States and Britain," Dower reminds us, "the Japanese were more hated than the Germans before as well as after Pearl Harbor. On this, there was no dispute among contemporary observers. They were perceived as a race apart, even a species apart -- and an overpoweringly monolithic one at that. There was no Japanese counterpart to the 'good German' in the popular consciousness of the Western Allies." (8) Conservative readers, don't fret - Dower isn't making this argument to exonerate the Japanese for their own racism or war crimes -- after all, "atrocious behavior occurred on all sides in the Pacific War." (12-13) Rather, Dower is exploring the propaganda of the US-Japanese conflict to delineate the "patterns of a race war," the cultural mechanisms of "othering," and the portability of racial/racist stereotypes. For "as the war years themselves changed over into 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 ideologies of the Axis Powers were brief excerpts that gave us a small glimpse into the mind and thought processes of Adolf Hitler as well as the fundamental thinking patterns of the Japanese authoritarian regime. The questions that will be addressed in this essay are: From what concrete conditions did the ideas expressed in these documents arise? Why did they achieve such widespread popularity? To what extent might persons even in the Western democracies find such ideas persuasive in the 1930’s?
World War II was a time of great fear and distrust in this world’s history. There was great prejudice with a sense that betrayal could occur at any moment. This held most true for the Japanese. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were greatly looked down upon due to an American fear of retaliation. In Joy Kogawa’s novel, Obason, the narrator is a young Japanese Canadian girl recalling her forced relocation to internment camps. It was a time filled with stereotypes and a great deal of prejudiced behavior. Kogawa makes great use of point of view, selection of detail, and figurative language in order to reflect to narrator’s naive attitude of her past.
In the process of war the public skipped to the conclusion that all Japanese Americans were out to get them. The suspicion of a government takeover was on everyones mind. Paranoia led people into to thinking every single Japanese American was guilty, no matter if it was a child, a WWI veteran, or if they had ever even been to Japan. The suspicion did not end there, inducing temporary segregation, and the exploitation of japanese american’s human rights. Mass hysteria and racism influenced the government's actions towards the Japanese.
When 1937 arrived, Japanese soldiers raided China’s capital of Nanking and began mass murdering citizens. The sole leader of the Japanese Imperial Army was non-existent. There were many people in power, such as generals, who allowed these behaviors to occur. Baron Koki Hirota, foreign minister at the time, proceeded to do nothing while being well aware of the Japanese’s persecution of the Chinese. These unsympathetic murders of those who were thought to be Chinese soldiers as well as women, children and the elderly.
Since eighty percent of Japan’s population was born after the war, most Japanese people do not understand why neighboring countries harbor a grudge against them. This is because the government of Japan did a great deal in order to silence or conceal the truth of what Japan had done. The history textbooks were altered in a way that some can cover all of World War II in just 19 pages. Out of those 19 pages, only four footnotes were directly related to World War II events such as the “Nanjing Massacre”, the “Comfort Women”, “Bringing Korean and Chinese people to work in the mines”, and one last line about “Hiroshima and Nagasaki”. Furthermore, teachers in schools often leave World War II for the last unit, when students are all but ready to jump out of the classroom and sprint outside to embrace the summer. This blatant censorship can be found everywhere in Japan.
The Second World War years saw Japan engaged in military operations throughout Asia with many significant victories. The dropping of Atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki however brought Japan to its knees. The once feared and dreaded Japanese armies were defeated. In the years since, both Western and Asian historians have been able to compile detailed records gained from interviews with survivors and from analysis of Japanese documents themselves giving shocking evidence of the scope of atrocities committed by the Japanese armies and government officials. Regardless of their admirable achievements in industry and technology in the 21st century, the Japanese are must still come to ...