Philip K Dick’s The Man in the High Castle portrays life in America after World War II in the early 1960’s in a society in which the Axis powers have defeated the Allied Powers. In this novel, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany occupy the United States and have placed racial relations as a mark of one’s height in the social hierarchy. Characters in this alternate history novel adopt customs that shield their true ancestry only to maximize their status and gain a sense of belonging. Many characters in this novel reveal a desire to find unification in the culture to which they now belong. Japanese, German, Jewish, and American characters seek unity within their society that is no longer occupied solely by their own culture. This shield misleads …show more content…
The dystopian society portrayed in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle places race as measure of class standing, bringing about a desire for unity and creating a culture of deception. The occupation of the United States by the Japanese and Germans has resulted in the vast adoption of other cultures, resulting in undeniable deceit. While the Japanese appear to hold a higher positioning in the government and in the social hierarchy, the Japanese characters in this novel show great interest in American culture. Betty and Paul Kasoura are Japanese characters who show great admiration for the ways of Americans. Betty and Paul are first introduced when visiting Robert Childan’s American Artistic Handcrafts store. They are seeking a decorative piece of American art for their home in San Francisco. The Kasouras and many other Japanese citizens come to Childan’s store for the purpose of purchasing American artifacts. The Japanese, having taken over the United States, …show more content…
As a result, characters, like Robert Childan, reveal an intense desire to become a race other than his or her own. Robert Childan, owner of American Artistic Handcrafts, frequently serves Japanese customers who are seeking authentic American antiques. Now that they occupy his home, the Japanese are deemed superior to him. As a result, Childan often becomes intimidated by the Japanese race. When talking to Mr. Tagomi and the Kasouras, it is evident that Childan becomes incredibly nervous. When talking on the phone to Japanese business man Tagomi, Childan finds “his hand sticky on the phone” (Dick 2). His nerves in addressing those superior to him causes perspiration. He acts similarly in his interaction with the Kasouras both in his store and before arriving to their home, “[trembling] with fear” (Dick 5). Childan is longing to feel as though he belongs in his own country. His home is no longer his own. He shares his home along the West Coast with the Japanese who occupy the San Francisco area. Because of his desire to impress the Japanese and feel unified with his home and its occupants, he creates a mask. Childan tries to impress the Japanese with his products and wants very much to please his customers. In each interaction with Tagomi and the Kasouras, Robert Childan reveals his desire to become one of the Japanese, despite the fact that the
This book according to Takaki clearly shows that, during the Second World War in 1940 America was a white man’s country. Responses on wartime to different ethnic and cultural communities are shown in this book. This ethnic group consists of the Mexicans, African Americans, Chinese, Philippines, Koreans, and Japanese Americans. Then finally analysis about the historic attack on Hiroshima is shown. This clearly shows the level of racism during that time. According to Takaki combined military services and war simultaneously opened the horizons while raising awareness. There was a racial slight gaining of economic independence when the black women left the whites kitchen for assembly lines.
In the United States World War II has been one of the most remembered wars of all time. Acclaimed historian Ronald Takaki asserts that for many Americans, World War II was fought for a “double victory”: on the battlefront as well as on the home front. Takaki’s book Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II reminds the audience that there was much, much more happening at home and on the frontlines during World War II than in the battlefield. Takaki presents a strong central argument; it illuminates the incongruity of America's own oppressive behavior toward minorities at home, even while proclaiming the role in World War II as a fight against oppression abroad. It also pays tribute to the determination and perseverance of ethnically diverse Americans in their two-front war against prejudice and fascism. In addition Takaki tells the story through the lives of ethnically diverse Americans: Japanese Americans who felt betrayed by their own country when families were sent to internment camps; For African Americans, the war for freedom had to be fought in their country’s own backyard; a Navajo code talker who uses his complex native language to transmit secret battle messages and confound the Japanese, while his people are living in desperate poverty on a government reservation. Their dual struggle to defeat the enemy abroad and overcome racism at home gives the Double Victory its title and its texture.
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
Dudziak shows, as early as the Introduction, an example of how the United States immobilized the campaign for democracy with its segregation as Japan used and explained American racism to its people to prove that America would never treat the Japanese as equals, though her never-ending use of concrete examples if what makes the book so compelling.
The scene in The Glass Castle that presented me with the strongest universal topic of theme is abuse. An example of this in The Glass Castle is when Jeanette’s parents are having a heated argument. Towards the end, her mother is dangling from the window, her father trying to hold her up. When the kids interfere and pull their mother to safety, she says he tried to kill her. In the book his response was, “I didn’t push her, I swear to God I didn’t. She jumped” (Walls 72). But even though Jeanette’s father said he didn’t push her, it is very obvious that he lied. This is because later in the book, he stated that he only believed in science, and claiming that there wasn’t a God. Therefore, his swear didn’t
Throughout the course of history it is apparent that racism is present in most societies. During times of war people of a certain race may choose to segregate themselves in order to become the leading power in their society. In his book, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War published in New York by Pantheon books and copyrighted in 1986, John W. Dower presents arguments for both the United States and Japan which constitute similarities in the belief of a superior race as well as illustrates contradictions on how each side viewed the war.
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
A sense of belonging is one of the most powerful feelings in the world; however, this feeling can elude immigrants or those assimilating into new environments. In the early 1940’s, the internment of individuals of Japanese descent changed the American environment into a race-based class system. Ichiro Yamada in John Okada’s novel No-No Boy struggles to find acceptance in his American community after saying “no” to two “loyalty” questions regarding participation in the United States Army. His answers are affected by his mother’s extreme Japanese nationalism. His refusal to participate in the army gives him the status of a “no-no boy.” This status result in him being constantly discriminated by other Japanese in his community, and his ethnicity gives him constant discrimination from Americans and other races. As a result of this discrimination, Ichiro becomes angry and violent towards his community. Ichiro’s violent actions and anger stem from the influence of his extremely nationalistic mother, and these actions unintentionally isolate him from the greater community.
officials eventually began to recruit these internees into the American army. Not only was WWII a war about political alliances and geographical sovereignty, but it was also a war about race and racial superiority throughout the world. Propagating this idea, Dower (1986) argues, “World War Two contributed immeasurably not only to a sharpened awareness of racism within the United States, but also to more radical demands and militant tactics on the part of the victims of discrimination” (War Without Mercy: p.5). In elucidating the racial motivations and fallout from WWII, Dower helps one realize the critical role that race and racial politics played during the war and are still at play in our contemporary world. An analysis of this internment process reveals how the ultimate goal of the U.S. internment of Japanese Americans and the United States’ subsequent occupation of Japan was to essentially “brainwash” the Japanese race into demonstrating allegiance to America.
Takaki’s book, A Different Mirror, offers the multicultural history of the United States. This book provides the reader with the American experience of Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, Irish Americans, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, and Jewish Americans. During this time, America demonstrated manifest destiny and the Master Narrative. They were led by the belief of “white purity,” which these ethnic groups threatened. America exhibited supremacy over all of these ethnic groups. Takaki’s work allows me to become aware of the history and the outcomes of manifest destiny and the Master Narrative.
1. How does the author describe racism in America towards Japan in the Second World War?
At the turning point of the century came the rise of the industrial age in America, and with that, came the rise of multiculturalism. The promise of the money and jobs brought people from all over the world. Free-market enterprise had people enamored with “The American Dream,” the idea that freedom enabled every hard-working individual with the opportunity for prosperity in success. Because of this, no other nation has such a rich blend of cultures. However, with this culture of diversity one could claim makes America great, comes a series of convoluted identity politics. In the novel Covering: The Hidden Assault On Our Civil Rights, Kenji Yoshino talks about the dichotomy between the True Self and False Self, and the concept of covering,
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
After WWII ended in 1945, xenophobia amongst the white populace, coupled with an inflexible definition of who or what represented “American-ness”, prevented Asian Americans from claiming an American identity. Alongside this exclusion, the post-war period also witnessed the assertion of American identity formed by culture and family in the Issei and Nisei community. This essay will argue that through Ichiro Yamada’s struggle to integrate, Okada’s No-No Boy represents the fracturing belief of a monoracial American identity and the cultural instability found within the narrative. John Okada’s No-No Boy adopts an allegoric strategy in order to foreground the attitudes and lives the Issei and Nisei shaped during their internment and sometimes incarceration, which continued after the war. Moreover, as the novel progresses, Okada examines characters such as Ichiro Yamada, who face the cultural conflicts and form the possibility of an “elusive insinuation of promise” of belonging in post-war America (221). Additionally, the racial slurs and violent attacks by other Japanese and non-Japanese Americans that befall him highlight the divisions within American society. A close reading for the free indirect discourse and allegory shows how John Okada uses these literary strategies to suggest the disturbance of American identity.
The background of both narrators of “Mericans” and “In response to Executive Order 9066” comes from a Japanese or a Mexican-decent who are realizing cultural differences from their American life. However, the mistreating of a girl by her best friend compared to a girl who finds significant change between her two worlds that is tested by every cultures costumes of being victims of racial discrimination. The short story “Mericans” and the poem “In response to Executive Order 9066” can be a universal conflict between diverse heritage and cultural backgrounds that are determined by how America sees society.