Essay About Iva Toguri D Iquino

Iva Toguri D’Aquino was born on Independence Day, July fourth in 1916. She was born in Los Angeles, California to parents Jun Toguri and Fumi Toguri. Her parents heavily believed in assimilation for their daughter and encouraged her to adopt American culture and customs. He discouraged teaching his children to read and write Japanese, and rarely took them to Japanese cultural gathering. When Ida graduated, she was allowed to visit her sickly aunt in Japan as a graduation gift from her parents. While she was there, Pearl Harbor took place. This caused increasing tension between the U.S and Japan, and it caused her to be stranded in Japan. Due to a paperwork problem, she missed the last returning American boat. During the beginning of stranding, the secret police went up to her and tried to force her to renounce her American citizenship and pledge her allegiance to the emperor. She refused to do this, and this was seen as an enemy alien. Due to this, she …show more content…
She was released from prison on January 28, 1956, and was almost deported again. She divorced her husband, a Japanese-Filipino man by the name of Felippe d’Aquino in 1980 due to her being in prison and the relationship falling apart. On January 19, 1977, she was given an official pardon from President Gerald Ford. She lived out the rest of her life in Chicago, where she died on September 26, 2006. Her impact on American history was that she was one of a few people in the U.S that were ever tried for treason. She was a good demonstration of how the U.S was able to use prejudice to wrongly incriminate Japanese Americans. In addition, she was used as a scapegoat of sorts and was a way for Americans to externalize their resentment to the Japanese. She has had a few movies and documentaries made about her, including having an episode of 60 Minutes, which was sympathetic towards her and her