Then Came The War By Clark Kochiyama Analysis

“If you have the feeling that something is wrong, don't be afraid to speak up ”(Fred Korematsu). In 1941 The Pearl Harbor was bombed, America was in fear. A year later, February 19, 1942 President Roosevelt signed the Executive Order 9066 which brought out the internment camps for Japanese Americans. In 1944, Korematsu spoke up for his rights as a Japanese- American citizen and he fought against the government. Fred Korematsu took a stand against the United States government for his rights by resisting arrest and placement into internment camps, and these actions resulted in a huge court case where he was accused guilty, though Korematsu lost, he should have been justified to evade the executive order.

In the CNN article “Muslim hearings recall my life in internment camps,” Rep. Michael Honda claims that during his experience in internment in World War II, the people were treated like cattles. Regardless of whether they were born in America or patriotic Americans and obeying the law, and providing to the American economy, they were considering at the enemies during the war. Yet, there was no reasonable answer for them to be imprisoned. After 65 years, the devastating event of September 11 happened and the similar experience of Rep. Michael Honda had reoccurred, but this time, it was targeting the Muslim Americans. Honda briefly described his experience during the internment camps in the beginning of the article.

I think John Okada was the perfect guy to write this story because he experienced it first hand. John Okada was raised in Seattle, where he ended up earned two Bachelor degrees in English and Library Science from The University of Washington, and then went on to earn his Masters degree from Columbia University for English. What gives him the first hand experience and credit to successfully write this story is that he was sent to an internment camp located in Minidoka, Idaho on February 19th, 1942, under President Theodore Roosevelt's executive order to relocate Japanese Americans. In addition to being sent to the internment camp, Okada also served in the United States military in World War ll. After deciding he didn't want to live in an internment camp, he chose to answer yes to the two questions that determined whether the Japanese Americans would serve in the military or send them to an internment camp.

It is sometimes difficult for individuals to settle the discrepancy between truth and illusion, and consequently they drive others away, by shutting down. Mrs. Ross, in The Wars by Timothy Findley, is seen as brittle while she is attending church, and cannot deal with the cruel reality of the war and therefore segregates herself from the truth by blacking it out. As a result, she loses her eyesight, and never gets to solve the clash between her awareness of reality and the actuality of the world. She hides behind a veil, and her glasses to distance herself from reality. Mrs. Davenport has to wheel her around in Rowena’s chair to keep her awake, so she doesn’t harbour up subconscious feeling within her dreams, which she is unable to deal with.

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.

Chris Hedges, a former war correspondent, has a memory overflowing with the horrors of many battlefields and the helplessness of those trapped within them. He applies this memory to write War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, where he tutors us in the misery of war. To accomplish this goal, Hedges uses impactful imagery, appeals to other dissidents of war and classic writers, and powerful exemplification. Throughout his book, Hedges batters the readers with painful and grotesque, often first-hand, imagery from wars around the globe. He begins the book with his experience in Sarajevo, 1995.

When Man O’ War died some people decided to build a large statue of him to remind us of how great a horse he was. The grave is a large shiny, silver colored statue of him at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky. He was in fact buried there on November 1, 1947. It took 15 men to lower his coffin into the grave. Man O’ War died of a sickness.

Responsibility often comes with the connotations of burden and sacrifice and most of the time, this is true. In The Wars, by Timothy Findley, the concept of responsibility is demonstrated in the character of Mrs. Ross whose duties as a wife and a mother may be viewed as cold, cruel, and purposefully isolating; the complete opposite of the archetype of a compassionate mother figure. However, like each unique individual in society, the way one responds and takes responsibility varies infinitely; Mrs. Ross attempts to dissociate from society when she feels she has not fulfilled her duties and responsibilities. However, her empathetic nature prevents her from completely isolating herself from all sentiment. Rather, she subconsciously internalizes the welfare and hardships faced by others while sacrificing her own well-being.

Due to the increasing fear of a Japanese attack on the West Coast, Lt. General John L. Dewitt recommended that all people of Japanese descent living in America be removed to the interior of the country. In the article “An American Tragedy: The Internment of Japanese-Americans During World War II” by Norman Y. Mineta, former US Secretary of Transportation, Dewitt backed up his suggestion with rumors that “ethnic Japanese on the West Coast were signaling Japanese ships out in the Pacific ocean” and they “had stockpiled numerous rounds of ammunition and weapons” (Mineta 161). In order to combat this threat in case of enemy invasion, the camps would detain the Japanese Americans so they cannot aid the enemy. The warped logic used to imprison 110,000 people purely based on ethnic background was convincing enough to the American people that they didn’t even question

The military feared invasion, and to prepare the internment was a big step to the military’s demands. “The security of the Pacific Coast continues to require the exclusion of Japanese from the area now prohibited to them and will so continue as long as that military necessity exists”(DeWitt 1). As long as the military needs the exclusion of the Japanese, it will continue to happen. The military’s necessity is a very big priority.

Jill Lepore used quotes and images from English colonists and portraits to show how colonists wrote about their experiences during King Philip’s War and how the narrative of the war has changed throughout the centuries. It also sets how colonists will narrate wars for future centuries. She spoked about how their writings of the war had a consequence of temporally silencing the Native Americans version on the war and how people have forgotten or even have any knowledge of the war. She uses a Boston merchant, Nathaniel Saltonstall account tilted “A true but brief account of our losses since this cruel and mischievous war begun” written in July 1676 year after the war had begun. He lists towns such as Narragansett, Warwick, Seekonk and Springfield

One reason why the U.S government’s decision was not justifiable is because many of the Japanese-Americans were innocent people who legally received their American citizenship. For example, in Monica Sone’s “Camp Harmony”,

December 7th of 1941 America would face a horrific scene in their own homeland, the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor with their Air Force not once but twice. That same day President John F. Kennedy would decide to place the Japanese Americans, living in the country at the time, in internment camps. The civilians would not have a clue what they would be put up against, now they would have to encounter various obstacles to make sure they would be able to survive. “The camps were prisons, with armed soldiers around the perimeters, barbed wire. and controls over every aspect of life”(Chang).

“Mary Tsukamoto once said ‘I knew it would leave a scar that would stay with me forever. At that moment my precious freedom was taken from me’” (Martin 54). The Betrayal. The attack on Pearl Harbor.