What does it mean to be an American? How does pledging allegiance to America secure one’s civil protections under the law? Why does the federal government “lawfully choose” to encroach upon its citizens’ rights during times of war? The gripping novel, When the Emperor was Divine (2002), evinces a narrative about Japanese internment seldom told in historical accounts about World War II. Julie Otsuka recounts the story of a Japanese-American woman and her young children’s dogged journey to survive the horrid domestic policy consequences of war abroad. Following the announcement of Evacuation Order 19, the woman leaves the confines of Berkeley, California to live as an enemy-alien under the conditions of internment (Otsuka 22). Within the confines
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She said she had nothing to forswear. She’d been in American for almost twenty years now. But she did not want to cause any trouble— “The nail that sticks up gets hammered down”—or to be labeled disloyal. She did not want to be sent back to Japan. “There’s no future for us there. We’re here. (Otsuka 99).
In a Stranger’s Backyard chapter, Otsuka explores the idea of loyalty and dissent among Japanese Americans. For the mother, the act of proving her loyalty to her country became as hollow as Jefferson’s words penned in the Declaration. This country exploits your labor in internment camps, yet discards your basic civil rights like a rind of fruit.
The novel concludes with an honest, yet telling event of internal reconciliation for the Japanese-American family. How does the family—mother, father, son, and daughter—reconcile their warring identities? How can they reconcile the three years and five months of unjust internment? How will their past have a bearing on their future—their relationships with their hostile white American neighbors, their attempts at total assimilation, and their painful recollections of their experiences in Tanforan, Utah, and Santa Fe? (Otsuka 134). In their own words, “the war had been an interruption, nothing more. We would pick up our lives where we had left off and go on. We would never be mistaken for the enemy again!” (Otsuka114). They knew it was better to “bend than to break”—to accept the past, but remained resolved to improve their life circumstances (Otsuka
She said she had nothing to forswear. She’d been in American for almost twenty years now. But she did not want to cause any trouble— “The nail that sticks up gets hammered down”—or to be labeled disloyal. She did not want to be sent back to Japan. “There’s no future for us there. We’re here. (Otsuka 99).
In a Stranger’s Backyard chapter, Otsuka explores the idea of loyalty and dissent among Japanese Americans. For the mother, the act of proving her loyalty to her country became as hollow as Jefferson’s words penned in the Declaration. This country exploits your labor in internment camps, yet discards your basic civil rights like a rind of fruit.
The novel concludes with an honest, yet telling event of internal reconciliation for the Japanese-American family. How does the family—mother, father, son, and daughter—reconcile their warring identities? How can they reconcile the three years and five months of unjust internment? How will their past have a bearing on their future—their relationships with their hostile white American neighbors, their attempts at total assimilation, and their painful recollections of their experiences in Tanforan, Utah, and Santa Fe? (Otsuka 134). In their own words, “the war had been an interruption, nothing more. We would pick up our lives where we had left off and go on. We would never be mistaken for the enemy again!” (Otsuka114). They knew it was better to “bend than to break”—to accept the past, but remained resolved to improve their life circumstances (Otsuka