Sunday, March 3, 2019
One of the Greatest American Sacrifices for WWII
The year is 1941 and the United States has managed to remain out of the second World War. But on the morning of December 7th, story was changed for the the Statesn people. At 755am, Japanese militants dropped the first bombs on Pearl Harbor. This is a date which will live in infamy. Whether we liked it or non, America was now involved in World War II. Americans all(prenominal) crossways the country had to make many sacrifices to help out with the war efforts. at that place were restrictions placed on consumer goods much(prenominal) as automobiles, electronics, and nylons.Also, there were limitations placed on housing construction. But the sterling(prenominal) sacrifice of all was made by the Japanese Americans. In Mine Okubos make Citizen 13660, she describes as advantageously as illustrates her go out as she, and approximately 110,000 other people, were evacuated from the west sailing and sent to internment camps all across the country. The number 13660 in the book title puzzles from Okubos family number that was given to her when she registered for her brother and herself. It was to be apply to identify their be commodiousings and them as a family unit.On page 26, as she waits to load the bus to be taken to the camp, Okubo says, At that moment I recalled around of the stories told on shipboard by European refugees bound for America. In this quote, she is referring to the Jews who are escaping Germany. The stories that were being told are of the concentration camps that the Jews had been sent to. Okubo, on with all the other Japanese Americans, had no idea what was in store for them. many a(prenominal) feared that it would be something really similar to that of the concentration camps in Germany. When they arrived they soon intentional that conditions were not as pungent as those the Jews were enduring.But still their determine differed immensely from the rest of the world. They lived in the internment camps and endured the lack of privac y and long lines to get food and to use the bathrooms. In the barracks, they had no choice scarcely to sleep on mattresses filled with hay. What hurt most I call was seeing those hay mattresses. We were used to a regular home atmosphere, and seeing those hay mattressesso makeshift, with hay sticking outa staring(a) room with nothing but those hay mattresses. It was depressing, such a primal feeling. If the men wanted to join the service to show their truth to the ountry, they had to respond on the frontlines along with all the other Japanese Americans who chose to serve. The frontlines were extremely harsh conditions and the chance of survival was very low. More than 50,000the children of immigrants from China, Japan, Korea, and the Philippinesfought in the army, mostly in all-Asian units. Some felt that these things were their way of helping with the war efforts and showing their loyalty to the country, and others felt that their civil rights had been stripped from them. M ost of Mine Okubos wartime experience was spent in the internment camps.Through her illustrations and the text she shows us the man of these harsh wartime conditions and how the Japanese Americans managed to make the most of the situation they were placed in. They managed to come together to create their own little community with schools, and visual arts, and until now their own newspaper. Okubos illustrations allow us to see her emotions as we meditate her writings. Many of her emotions in the illustrations seem to lack any sort of provoke and shed somewhat of a humorous light onto the text itself. I feel like her narrations would take on a more than upright tone if her drawings were not present in the book.If I was placed in this same position as Okubo, I am not completely sure how I would react. A part of me would love to take on the same perspective that Mine Okubo has taken, but as I contract her book it is also hard for me to believe that anyone could remain so unagit ated during such an intense time in their life. I would have such a hard time just packing up and exit at any given moment and not knowing where I was going or what was going to happen to me. Okubo dealt with these undertakings very well and I am not sure I would be able to do the same if put in the same position.This portion in history tells us a lot about the limits of freedom in American history. Although the Japanese-Americans were citizens of the United States and residences within the country, they did not have equivalent rights during this time in history. The Constitution makes him a citizen of the United States by nativity and a citizen of atomic number 20 by residence. No claim is made that he is not loyal to this country. Many Japanese-Americans were being treated as if they had been disloyal to the US and even up alienated because of how they looked.Also, the freedom to own land was taken from them as well. The federal Reserve Banks took charge of property owned by evacuees, while the invoke Security Administration took over the agricultural property. Owning property is one of the greatest freedoms and American can uphold and as history has shown it can substantially be taken away in an instant. Japanese-Americans were forced to sell everything because they were very limited in what they could take with them to the internment camps. As we can intelligibly see, Japanese-Americans had such limited freedom during World War II.Mine Okubo along with Yuri Tateishi gave us an inside look of what it was like for them during this crucial time in their lives and it allows us to see the rights and freedoms that were taken from these American citizens. I was able to more clearly see the actualization of their experiences through Mine Okubos illustrations because it allowed me to realise a greater respect for their emotions. Okubo and Tateishi, along with countless others, made some of the greatest sacrifices for the well being of our country during t he war and for that they do not get nearly enough credit.
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