In what ways have Otsuka's "When the Emperor Was Divine" and the film "Snow Falling on Cedars" enhanced your understanding of the internment of Japanese Americans?
Otsuka’s “When the Emperor Was Divine” and the film “Snow Falling on Cedars” helped enhanced my knowledge of the internment of Japanese Americans by offering me a new perspective into the everyday lives of Japanese Americans and taught me the importance of having this broadened perspective. All too often, history is told from the perspective of the victors; marginalized people rarely ever get to tell “the entire story” from their perspective. I feel that historical fiction especially, is really well suited to tell history from a particular perspective by creating engaging characters, …show more content…
And if our mother called out to us on the street by our real names we would turn away and pretend not to know her” (Otsuka 114). It is really this unique personal historical perspective that historical fiction gives us that makes it so great.
“Snow Falling on Cedars” offers a similar perspective on the lives of Japanese Americans following the war, it goes to show how difficult prejudices are to shake off. This again shares a lot of parallels to struggles felt by any one of a number of marginalized groups, unfairly prejudged because of their race.
At its heart though, the movie is also a love story and deals with the same sort of sentimental human emotions that any introspective film should. Again, I wouldn’t understand the emotional significance of living through that kind of prejudice if it weren’t for this movie. Among one of the film’s greatest ironies is the fact that Etta Haine, a German American, is so critical and clearly racist towards Kazuo while at the same time she could be blamed Nazi war crimes (committed on their own people, nonetheless) just because of her
Otsuka’s “When the Emperor Was Divine” and the film “Snow Falling on Cedars” helped enhanced my knowledge of the internment of Japanese Americans by offering me a new perspective into the everyday lives of Japanese Americans and taught me the importance of having this broadened perspective. All too often, history is told from the perspective of the victors; marginalized people rarely ever get to tell “the entire story” from their perspective. I feel that historical fiction especially, is really well suited to tell history from a particular perspective by creating engaging characters, …show more content…
And if our mother called out to us on the street by our real names we would turn away and pretend not to know her” (Otsuka 114). It is really this unique personal historical perspective that historical fiction gives us that makes it so great.
“Snow Falling on Cedars” offers a similar perspective on the lives of Japanese Americans following the war, it goes to show how difficult prejudices are to shake off. This again shares a lot of parallels to struggles felt by any one of a number of marginalized groups, unfairly prejudged because of their race.
At its heart though, the movie is also a love story and deals with the same sort of sentimental human emotions that any introspective film should. Again, I wouldn’t understand the emotional significance of living through that kind of prejudice if it weren’t for this movie. Among one of the film’s greatest ironies is the fact that Etta Haine, a German American, is so critical and clearly racist towards Kazuo while at the same time she could be blamed Nazi war crimes (committed on their own people, nonetheless) just because of her