Ryan Phillips
Mr. Dranginis
English 9
2/23/2023
Loss of Livelihood in When the Emperor was Devine
When the Emperor was Devine, by Julie Otsuka is a novella that tells the story of a Japanese American family who endured internment during World War Two. The book focuses on four main characters, the boy, the girl, the mother, and the father all of which go unnamed. This family is taken from their homes and sent to an internment camp in Utah where they are incarcerated under the suspicion that they are spies. These people lose their necessities in life throughout the book like a stable family structure, home, and their entire livelihood. In the book, the main characters lose their livelihood as a result of the institutionalized racism they experience,
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This makes it so that the family does not function like it once did. Starting with the Boy we can see from the beginning of the book he had a strong relationship with his sister. The first time we are introduced to the children they are playing with each other as the Girl “balanced the book on her head” (14) and the boy was yelling at her to “stand up straighter” (14). This once strong relationship seems to have been lost as once they entered the internment camp the boy seems to isolate himself. We can see this as he often “whispered to himself” (52) and spent time apart from the other kids at the camp. The boy does this out of sadness and longing for his father. Their father not being present, his choosing or not, has an extreme effect on this family and we can see that this causes a broken household, as the boy cannot function properly without his role model. This is shown when Otsuka says things like “he saw his father everywhere”(40) or “he was miles from home, and his father was not there” (56). We can also observe a change in the mother's character traits as she seems very paranoid, so much so that “she had reached for the key as soon as she woke, just to make sure it was still there. And every evening, before she closed her eyes, she had touched the key one last time” (78). The mother is terrified of not being able to return to their previous life and the idea that they might one-day return home is the only thing getting her through the day. This demonstrates the impact that the internment camp has had on her as she is desperate to get back home and paranoid about the thought that it might not be possible. A stable family is necessary for children so the impact that the father being taken away and having a closed-off mother is huge. Otsuka shows the impact of internment
This book reflects the author’s wish of not only remembering what has happened to the Japanese families living in the United States of America at the time of war but also to show its effects and how families made through that storm of problems and insecurities. The story takes in the first turn when the father of Jeanne gets arrested in the accusation of supplying fuel to Japanese parties and takes it last turn when after the passage of several years, Jeanne (writer) is living a contented life with her family and ponders over her past (Wakatsuki Houston and D. Houston 3-78). As we read along the pages
In the novel when the emperor was divine written by Julie otsuka. Otsuka describes the experiences of the Japanese internment. The relocation of Japanese-Americans into internment camps during World War II. while there was terror in Europe with the Nazis and Jews the Americans accused the American-japanese of being spies for japan. Julie uses different characters in the book to describe how the camps treated them, from their point of view.
The book is a powerful true story of Jeanne and her family’s life before, during, and after being inside a Japanese American internment camp. Most of the setting in this book takes place during World War Ⅱ. Jeanne tells of her and her family’s hardships and struggles in adjusting their life in cramped barracks, and searching for purpose in the internment camp. Jeanne, being the narrator and author of this book, took an unemotional and observational take to describe her events in this book because she wanted to keep the factual accounts separate from her emotions and to show people the impact of Pearl Harbor had on
Sarah A. Allen Mrs. Vermillion Honors English 10 14 March 2023 Japanese Internment And Its Parallels With Nature And Animals The imprisonment of Japanese-Americans that occurred during WWII altered thousands of lives and the societal perception of an entire ethnicity. Many of the captured were born or naturalized US citizens who had been living peaceful and plentiful lives, free to do as they please, until that freedom was stolen from them for the next 3-4 years. After their release, the mistreatment and discrimination they faced made it seem as though they never left the camps at all, and the divide between white Americans and the Japanese-Americans ran far longer than the war. In Julie Otsuka’s novel When the Emperor was Divine, she uses
She writes about the incarceration of her and other Japanese families in the USA at that time. This quote is a reflection of the thoughts that Jeanne had as a child about the arrest of her father, “But, like Papa's arrest, not much could be done ahead of time. There were four of us kids still young enough to be living with Mama, plus Granny, her mother, sixty-five then, speaking no English, and nearly blind. Mama didn't know where else she could get work, and we had nowhere else to move to. On February 25 the choice was made for us.
Marginalization of Japanese Americans during WWII Imagine being in a public setting and people told you to leave because of the way you looked. In the book, When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka that is exactly what happened to a Japanese family in California. The family has forced out of their home and sent to an internment camp. The story is based on the stories of Japanese Americans during WWII. Forced marginalization affects people negatively due to isolation and a loss of cultural identity as it creates a stronger desire to fit in with society and creates distance from others who are marginalized.
Like many children her age, the girl in Julie Otsuka’s novel When the Emperor was Divine had the opportunity to attend a “summer camp.” However, the camps that the girl and her family endured were not like traditional summer getaways but instead state-sponsored prisons designed to keep the populace “safe.” Instead of enjoying the water slides and rope swings that other children her age got to experience, the girl struggled with establishing an identity that fit with the rest of her society. With her use of neutral tone and language, Julie Otsuka explores the creation of the cultural identity that is established by the Japanese-American people as they are confined in Concentration camps designed to keep the nation safe. Pulled from their homes,
Discrimination is a powerful word that can describe how many Japanese Americans felt in the 1940s. The book When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka is a story about a Japanese American family whose father gets taken in the night by the police. It is a story about how the family's mother, daughter, and son navigate the Japanese internment camps. Being confined, constrained, isolated, and having their freedom taken away when they are transported to an internment camp are common elements of this family's experiences after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and can be seen on pages 45 and 46.
Mary Matsuda Gruenewald tells her tale of what life was like for her family when they were sent to internment camps in her memoir “Looking like the Enemy.” The book starts when Gruenewald is sixteen years old and her family just got news that Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japan. After the bombing Gruenewald and her family life changed, they were forced to leave their home and go to internment camps meant for Japanese Americans. During the time Gruenewald was in imprisonment she dealt with the struggle for survival both physical and mental. This affected Gruenewald great that she would say to herself “Am I Japanese?
Matsuda’s memoir is based off of her and her family’s experiences in the Japanese-American internment camps. Matsuda reveals what it is like during World War II as a Japanese American, undergoing family life, emotional stress, long term effects of interment, and her patriotism and the sacrifices she had to make being in the internment camps. Everyone living in Western section of the United States; California, Oregon, of Japanese descent were moved to internment camps after the Pearl Harbor bombing including seventeen year old Mary Matsuda Gruenewald and her family. Matsuda and her family had barely any time to pack their bags to stay at the camps. Matsuda and her family faced certain challenges living in the internment camp.
When the Emperor was Divine is a novel written by Julie Otsuka that shines a light on the heartbreaking circumstances a Japanese family endured during World War II. The family, consisting of a mother, a father, a daughter, and a son live a comfortable life in Berkeley, California until they had to pack up and unknowingly move to Topaz, Utah. Living in the desert, the mother and her two children get accustomed to the harsh conditions at the camp and try to survive in hopes of returning home. Throughout this time, the family experienced extreme racism, discrimination, and prejudice during and after the war which created long-lasting consequences that changed their life for the worse. The exposure to such hardships is an example of racial injury,
Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor was divine is a novel that takes place right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In the beginning of the novel, the Japanese American family consists of a mother with her two children. They are in a turning point of their lives. There are posters and signs indicating that anyone with japanese ancestry must evacuate. Immediately the family starts feeling the rejection of their neighbors and people around them.
When the Emperor was divine is a very interesting book. It explains the story of the WW1 internment camps from the point of view of the Japanese people and what they went through. It also includes many forms of symbolism that can completely change the story’s meaning. It also tries to imply how “American” the Japanese-American internees really were.
The novel When the Emperor Was Divine tells a story of Japanese-American families during World War Two. During internment, the U.S. government rounded up many Japanese adults for investigation without first producing evidence that they committed any crimes. The father in this story has been arrested for the sane reason. Army would deport all Japanese Americans to military camps, thus commencing Japanese American internment. So, the woman with her girl and her boy have to move to a camp.
After arriving in Japan and living like this, she becomes disillusioned with the world and people around her. She becomes trapped in this foreign country with no way back home. She initially wanted to travel to Japan just for pleasure. “... she went to Japan for loveliness.” At the end of the story, she thinks about the Kamikaze pilots of World War 2, and how they would go on a one way trip with no return.