Discrimination In We Re Japs By Etta

America, a land that prides itself on being “the great melting pot”, and “the land of opportunity”, oftentimes exemplifies everything but that. Over the years, a vast majority of immigrants have migrated to America and assimilated themselves to American culture. In Moustafa Bayoumi’s novel, “Rasha”, he describes the turmoil some families face when trying to immigrate into America. In the novel, Rasha was arrested, thrown in jail and detained for three months just because she was a Muslim. While immigration is portrayed as a way to a “better life”, the truth is that families just like Rasha’s still encounter discrimination that challenges American ideals such as freedom of religion and equality.

In the story of Japanese imprisonment, Farewell to Manzanar, readers follow a young American girl, Jeanne, as she grows up in an internment camp during World War II. Despite being American, Jeanne and other people of Japanese descent are continually attacked due to the racism bred by the American government. They attack her and these people in a variety of forms such as isolation, disrespect, and avoidance.

After Pearl Harbor, people were making generalizations and stereotyping Japanese Americans. “For it was true, they all looked alike. Black hair. Slanted eyes. High cheekbones. Thick glasses. Thin lips. Bad teeth. Unknowable. Inscrutable (Otsuka 49). People tended to stereotype that Asian people “all look alike” which shows that nobody took the effort to know them personally. The mother is unable to cope with the reality of the present so she retreats into her past memories. Her depression takes over as the camp will slowly chip away at her

Disregarding the past years spent at an internment camp, the years that disassembled her family into a blur of oblivion, Jeanne chose to familiarize herself with the American way. Although forbidden U.S. citizenship, she made numerous attempts to Americanize herself, opting for such standings as Girl Scout, baton leader, Homecoming Queen. However competent and capable this young woman was, she was repeatedly denied because of her race, her appearance, her Japanese heritage

But was it for the best or for the worst ? The girl had much insight and could cope with almost anything, a 10 year old with a family and a home, a smart young lady who was unimpeachable, given the options to make her own decision she did so. While she did have her insecurities she would put them aside, and the contempt feeling went away. While in the kitchen, the girl walks in and drinks her water, knowing it was time for her piano lessons, she sits ¨Do i have to? {the woman thought for a moment} No, she said, only if you want to. Tell me i have to.¨[pg.16] When the girl wants her mother to tell her what to do, this symbolizes both the relationship they have and how the girl is still a child that wants reinsurance and is still dependent on her. Though during the time they were in the internment camp many things had changed her. The girl had became both reckless and careless, making impulsive decisions without thinking of the after effects or consequences. When she was in the internment camp, the girl became irresponsible and stop caring about everything “ In the morning she did not return until long after dark. She was always in a rush now...she ate all her meals with her friends. Never with the boy and his mother. She smoked cigarettes.[pg.92]” When the

“Three years of wartime propaganda—racist headlines, atrocity movies, hate slogans, and fright-mask posters—had turned the Japanese face into something despicable and grotesque.” Since Jeanne entered sixth grade after resettling, she has had to endure multiple obstacles throughout school. “ ‘They're [the teachers are] trying to stuff the ballot box,’ he whispered loudly. ‘They're fudging on the tally. They're afraid to have a Japanese girl be queen. They've never had one before. They're afraid of what some of the parents will say.’ ” and “The band teacher knew I had more experience than anyone else competing that year. He told me so. But he was afraid to use me. He had to go speak to the board about it, and to some of the parents, to see if it was allowable for an Oriental to represent the high school in such a visible way.” are both great examples of how teachers prevented Jeanne from special opportunities. Their fear of the PTA's opinion on her race disregarded what mattered: her

In a poem written about the calling of Japanese-Americans to internment camps during WWII, author Dwight Okita writes from the perspective of a young girl who sees herself as an American but is surrounded by those who cast her out. She does everything to prove that she belongs and justifies that by convincing the audience of her American qualities. “If it helps any, I will tell you I have always felt funny using chopsticks and my favorite food is hot dogs. My best friend is a white girl named Denise.” Okita’s use of this 14 year old girl adds power behind his words because the perspective of a child can humble a reader and bring them to a point of deeper understanding. In the poem, the girl is so young and understands nothing about what lies ahead, but she knows well enough to present herself as an American, as one who truly belongs. The pressure on immigrants to belong in the United states is imminent in this piece, and the fact that the young girl has picked up on this expectation is almost disturbing. The stigma around those who are different is also included in Okita’s

By simply referring to the four main characters by their appellation—the mother, the son, the daughter, and the father— it is shown that this isn’t the story of only one family; this is the story of numerous families that were uprooted and torn apart during this period of Japanese internment and discrimination. These four nameless characters can be any Japanese person in the United States and their experiences can be be extended to all Japanese Americans at that time. Meanwhile, the namelessness of the characters also conveys the loss of their identities. One Japanese American who was arrested as a spy said, “We were just numbers to them, mere slaves to the Emperor. We didn't even have names. I was 326” (Otsuka 119). The Japanese lost the basic right to their own names, and consequently, they lost their identities. Knowing that their Japanese identities may them trouble, the children even attempt to change their identities. They said, “We would change our names to sound more like theirs. And if our mother called out to us on the street by our real names we would turn away and pretend not to know her” (Otsuka 114). In this way, it can be said that identity is encoded in a name. Much like the children, I attempted to

Carl's mother, Etta is asked to give evidence for the prosecution in chapter nine. She is a farmer's daughter who was brought up in South Germany and she is very hardworking and proud. From the evidence she presented in court we feel she isn't emotional in any way and that her traditional views make her seem set in her ways. It also becomes apparent that she is extremely racist and feels that the Japanese are below her. She talks about her

The Japanese and their rabid ethnocentrism have their effect on the narrator’s family. The family is generally happy and well structured. The narrator lives with his mother, father, little sister and grandfather. As mentioned before, the narrator’s family pressures him to be better than the Japanese students. Upon returning home after being beaten, the men of the house invite him to eat with them and drink wine. This is a strong scene that is filled with the proudness of a parent for their son. Simply standing up to a

Ivy, a girl living in California in 1942, was influenced in the book by a tragic event in world history, the bombings at Pearl Harbor. After moving around for her dads work her family settled into a house next to a Japanese man to take care of the house when he was at the Internment camps. After going into the shed of their neighbor Ivy and her papa were shocked. The book states," Someone had painted the words: JAPS YELLOW ENEMIES." Neither Ivy or her papa liked these cruel words. She claimed that it wasn't fair. The bombings at Pearl harbor influenced this part of the story and cause Ivy to seem shocked of the people vandalizing there property just because they were Japanese. Lastly, on page 476 and 477 Ivy receives a letter from her brother

In Jamie Ford’s historical fiction Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, this split narrative focuses on two eras: 1942 and 1986. Within these era’s, Ford’s novel focuses on a Chinese boy, Henry Lee, and what it was like to grow up in the international district with prejudice everywhere, especially in his own family being a first generation American. His novel tells the story of Henry, as well as a Japanese girl by the name of Keiko. The novel tells the story of these two young friends and the hardships faced when the government sends Keiko and her family away to the Japanese internment camps in the Northwest in the 1940’s. His novel displays the effects

“All men are created equal” or that’s what they say at least. Yes, we are all created equal but not everyone thinks that way. Throughout America’s long history POC, specifically black people, have been enslaved, tortured and, given less of a chance because of the colour of their skin. Even in modern times POC still face prejudice and discrimination because of how they look. In TKAM, it approaches many of the issues black people faced in that time period through the eyes of a child. This book shows a lot more than that, including: superiority complexes, equality, and that white people need to grow up.(edit that l8r)

In the novel Farewell to Manzanar, the author Jeanne Watatsuki Houston and James D Houston, they try to convey the theme prejudice. Throughout the novel the Japanese have to face the struggle of being the outgroup. “What had they charged him with? We didn't know that either, until an article appeared the next day in Santa Monica paper, saying he had been arrested for delivering oil to Japanese submarines offshore”(Houston 8). This shows prejudice against the Japanese because Papa has had this job for a while, and they didn't have any problems with it before. They just now start showing prejudice against a the Japanese because of the Pearl Harbor attacks, and are treating the Japanese unfairly. The author also conveys the theme prejudice against

As you can see, Deborah Ellis was using historical facts to give the story a more dramatic effect and enforce the theme of the book, which is “you should stick up for your rights even if it means doing something