After being relocated from an internment camp in Portland, Oregon to the Minidoka internment camp in the desert of Idaho, Dr. John Sadanaga served in the United States military for nearly 32 years. The camp in Portland was previously a livestock exposition building, demonstrating that the Japanese American Immigrants were viewed as if they were no more than farm animals. The Minidoka internment camp was bleak and depressing, with little to no privacy. In January of 1942, American Immigrants of Japanese ancestry were not allowed to join the army and were classified as “’enemy aliens not desired for the Armed Service.’” In January of 1943 though, the war department announced that they were going to create an all Japanese-American combat unit, the Nisei 442nd Regimental Combat Team. After living in the internment camps for two years, Dr. Sadanaga was finally eligible to enlist for the army as a front-line combat infantryman, the only job available for Japanese-Americans.
The Order inflicted destitution on more than 120,000 Japanese who resided in the West Coast. “Of this number 70,000 of them were American Citizens” (The Immigrant Experience: The Japanese Americans, 54). Furthermore, General DeWitt expressed his exposition for the internment program by his infamous statement “A Jap is a Jap”. He further emphasized his resentment and ignorance by making the statement “There is no way to determine their loyalty.... It makes no difference whether he is an American; theoretically he is still Japanese and you can’t change him by giving him a piece of paper” (Japanese American Women: Three Generations, 126).
Jeanne is the daughter of a fisherman in California that experiences some of the toughest trials that life can induce. It begins with her waving good-bye to her father in her normal fashion, only to find out that they are returning earlier than expected due to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Her father, in fear, attempts to cover his family by burning his Japanese flag and identification papers, but nonetheless is arrested by government officials. The family is relocated by the mother to a slum that is predominately Japanese, and then to Los Angeles. While relocating President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 comes into effect and all that are considered threats can be captured and placed into camps.
Imprints of history in Japanese Canadians: relevance of the past in Obasan During the 1980's decade, European and American countries started regretting their nuclear history and the crimes committed to Japanese Canadians and Americans living in their own country. Joy Kogawa's wrote Obasan, her first novel, in 1981, and it became a banner in the struggle for an apology by those governments who committed the crimes (Fujita 33). Japanese Canadians were given a formal apology and a compensation in 1988 — $21,000 to each survivor, among other benefits (Mulroney). With this measure a feeling of closure came to some of them. Obasan is also a novel about closure.
In Japanese culture, grief is expected to be inherited without complaint. This is one of the reasons why the Japanese in Canada were so compliant with the order for their relocation. Obasan exemplifies this tradition, drawing dignity and power from quiet endurance. Today our view of silence is generally looked upon as passive; in Obasan’s case it traditionally signals pensiveness, alertness, and sensitivity. The people of this story are silenced throughout their whole lives, living out their cultural ways, even though living in another country.
The general attitude of “us young people” was that the United States soldiers would kill the Japanese soldiers in a few months. At the age of thirteen I did not realize what a long and disastrous war the United States entered. 3) What was your first reaction to the draft? - Like most young American men there was very little objection to the draft. I was drafted at age eighteen.
The forced relocation and incarceration has been determined to have resulted more from racism and discrimination among whites on the West Coast, rather than any military danger posed by the Japanese Americans. The case eventually made it to the U.S. Supreme Court; a year earlier, the court had upheld the constitionality of curfews for Japanese-Americans in Yaqui v. United States and Hirabayashi v. United States. The cases served as the foundation for the Korematsu case, with the justices ruling 6-3 to uphold his arrest and internment. A majority of people feel that the Government acted upon the Japanese Canadians unfairly using segregation, discrimination and prejudice, to separate them from the rest of Canada. Many people have observed that even before the war the Government treated the Japanese unfairly, by not granting them citizenship even though they were born there.
Book Review for Farewell to Manzanar The book entitled Farewell to Manzanar is a memoir written by Jeanne and her husband James Houston. It is a book that tries to give a vivid description of the hardships that the Japanese-Americans faced during the Second World War. It was a painful period for every Japanese family living in America after the bombing of the Pearl Harbor by the Japanese and this was the move that led to the Americans to join the war. The story is recounted through the eyes of the young Jeanne Wakatsuki. It explores a non-fiction work of the experiences that she underwent at the interment camps that were set up for the Japanese families.
Tonight, I read about Descartes' grand courage to doubt everything except his own miraculous existence and I feel so distinct from the wounded man lying on the concrete I am ashamed Let the night sky cover him as he dies. Let the weaver girl cross the bridge of heaven and take up his cold hands. Facts about Garrett Hongo * Garrett Hongo was born on May 30, 1951, in Volcano, Hawaii. * He is Japanese American. * Hongo attended a racially mixed high school in Los Angeles, where he was exposed to urban street life and racial divisions
10th Grade World Literature 15 January 2014 Japanese Americans The executive order of 9066 was issued doing World War II by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The order was to get all Japanese Americans to relocate to remote internment camps to get away from the rest of the country. All of the Japanese American had to sign papers and they only could bring a small amount of their things. They had all of the Japanese American thinking they were leaving for a good reason and they thought they would have a nice place to live. They were poorly treated and they endured poor treatment from the people at the internment camps.