Nisei

The War of the Japanese The day was December 7, 1941. Unlit Christmas lights are strung on green palm trees and the day is just beginning for the navy base in Pearl Harbor. But then time took over. At 7:55 AM, Japanese fighter planes carrying deadly bombs flew in, ready to destroy the American naval base. In as little as two hours, there were four battleships destroyed and four more damaged. Dozens of more heroic war stories were born. And America had entered the second war of the world. THE…

Deculturalization is a conscious attempt to replace one culture and language with another that is considered “superior” (Spring, 2016 page 1). Throughout history our very own ancestor had to go through deculturalization of their very own culture. Our generation, will never know how it feel to be told what to do, what to believe in, or this is the way you are going to learn. Centuries ago, people believed that it was only one way to be taught, that way was the “white” American way. Coming to the…

“Shikata ga nai” are words that has occurred in the minds of many Japanese Canadians, “Shikata ga nai” translates to “nothing can be done or helped”. These proverbs are used to define the silence that has consumed the lives of the Japanese Canadians during the prejudice demands of the government during the internment in 1942. In Joy Kogawa’s harrowing novel Obasan, the Canadian government discriminates harshly against the Japanese Canadians during the internment. The Japanese Canadians do not…

ed the military to forcibly remove anyone on the west coast with japanese ancestry. During the relocation of the Japanese there was a group called the “no, no boys”. This was a group of loyal Japanese-American men that purposefully told the men who interrogated them that they were not willing to go into the military in order to show their allegiance with the US. In Document 9 the San Francisco mayor, James Phelan, stated that “ The Chinese and Japanese are not bona fide citizens. They are not…

Angel Island. It was estimated of 10,000 Japanese wife and pictures brides got processed from 1910 to 1920. In 1924, the door closed completely for Asian immigration to come in the U.S. Angel Island only reopened in 1937 to process cases of the Kibei Nisei returned to the U.S. after time spent in Japan. In 1940, Angel Island was used mostly as Transit Center for captured Japanese POW (Prisoners Of War). Most Japanese POW were help on Angel Island for a few days before being moved to the holding…

words, the five stages of grief. When the Emperor was Divine follows Japanese Americans through the perspectives of a four-membered family, from spring of 1942 to 1946, a period of time in which both issei, Japanese immigrants to America, and their nisei offspring were subject to anti-Japanese hysteria, through means of extreme propaganda and incarceration. Otsuka highlights the distinct lifestyles a Japanese American family faces, before, during, and after the overlying trauma…

Everyday, Ko leaves the house taking his fishing boat and comes back at midnight with plenty of fish that could feed the town for a week. But, one day, Ko came so early rushing into the house burning the Japanese flag. The flag was so valuable to me that I pushed him so he doesn’t burn the flag, but it was too late. I asked him angrily, “Why did you burn it, did you lose your mind?” he looked at me back yelling “Don’t you understand, Pearl Harbor attacked”. At that moment I didn’t know what…

Between 1942 and 1945, thousands of Japanese Americans, regardless of United States citizenship status, received orders to evacuate their homes and businesses. Sparked by rising fear and anxiety of the American people after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a United States Naval base in Hawaii, the U.S. government relocated Japanese Americans to remote areas on the West Coast and in the south, isolating them in internment or relocation camps. With no actual evidence supporting the creation of…