African diaspora

States government then uprooted and forced all Japanese into internment camps in various barren, isolated locations throughout the country. As thousands were forced to leave behind their homes, Little Tokyo was abandoned and emptied. Soon, however, African Americans took their place, looking for homes and jobs, renaming Little Tokyo as Bronzeville. Some bilingual Nisei were able to avoid being sent into the camps, but were recruited in secret for the purpose of military operations. Many of these…

“When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you” this African proverb highlights the issue in which individuals constantly find themselves where their identity becomes threatened. Dorrinne Kondo expresses this idea in an excerpt from her book, Crafting Selves titled “On Being A Conceptual Anomaly”. Dorinne Kondo is a Japanese American Professor who research in Tokyo, but due to her place of work not being move-in ready,she was offered to stay with native Japanese family in…

In 1943, American psychologist Abraham Maslow developed a model called The Hierarchy of Needs. The model consisted of, according to Maslow, the five basic needs of the human race; one of them being the need for love, and belonging. Connecting with people and creating personal bonds is a part of human nature, and is something everybody searches for. While it is one of the deepest personal connections a person can have, the bond they share with their family can also be the most complicated. Hotel…

I feel bad for those who are being judged, treated based on their skin color, their culture as well as their ethnicity. I know that the majority of the people treat them nicely, but there are still some people who don’t understand this. We’re human and the things that make us human are that we have different languages, different cultures, ethnicity, skin colors and so on. We’re unique to one another. We’re living on the same planet, the same type of atmosphere, breathing the same air. Why can’t…

In many Eastern countries, strict laws formerly prevented people from being able to live the wonderful, fulfilling lives they sought. Citizens strongly desired the freedom to practice any religion of their choice, to speak freely without restriction or unethical consequence, and to have a say in certain decisions the government could make. What better place would offer these things than the New World’s very own United States of America? During the later years of the eighteenth century to the…

musically skilled groups and were commercially successful. They both expressed a second-generation sentiment of ambivalence to forming a hybrid identity as Irish descendants living in England. The Pogues continually referenced the history of the Irish diaspora within a contemporary English context, while The Smiths’ works bared far fewer traces of their cultural history. This essay showed how the two bands responded to being in England from an Irish standpoint. Their respective responses,…

The attacks on Pearl Harbor forever altered the course of American history,the attacks also changed the way Americans viewed and treated Japanese Americans. These resentments and mistreatments of Japanese immigrants, began long before the bombing of Pearl Harbor ever took place. These biases were even present here, in the state of Washington. After the attacks on Pearl Harbor, many viewed the Japanese- Americans as threats to the country and how they should be treated became a subject of debate…

By definition, I certainly classify as a New American, yet I take trouble with the word new. I’ve always been an American even when I legally wasn’t. I became a naturalized U.S citizen at the age of sixteen two days before Christmas. Unbeknownst to me, I was a legal resident until I was awoken one morning and told to head downtown, sign a document, take an oath, and head back home for dinner. — What do you mean I wasn’t American? I said dumbfounded, for I knew no other home but the United States…

The language we use is the best indicator of who we are, individually, socially and culturally. Language is a key element in the expression of all forms of identity, according to Linguist David Crystal “more than anything else language shows we belong, providing the most natural badge or symbol of public and private identity”. Identity is heavily influenced by social factors and can be reflected in the lexical choice and semantic distinctions that people use. In addition, the degree of…

The Heart of Prejudice Prejudice is a two-headed serpent. When prejudice exists, it is never one-sided, and it is driven by fear. In The Heart of a Samurai, by Margi Preus, one sees the dual-sided fears that create prejudice. Fears of unfamiliar customs, differences in religion, and personal appearance issues created prejudices exhibited by the Japanese and the “barbarians”. The Japanese people called Americans the “foreign devils—the barbarians” (4). Fear was created in the Japanese because…