Julie Otsuka's When The Emperor Was Divine

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

The novel, When the Emperor was Divine focuses on an average Japanese-American family that lived in the United States during the time period of World War Two. The author, Julie Otsuka, refers to the characters as "the mother," "the girl," "the boy," and "the father."Each member of the family was affected very greatly but much differently by the internment camps in which they were forced to live in. Being placed in internment camps made them act in ways they normally wouldn't. For example, the internment camp made the Girl rebel, while it made her brother step up to be the man of the house. Despite her being of Japanese descent, the Girl was your typical American pre-teen. Being not only born but raised in the united states, she only knew

There are many things that happened to Japanese-American immigrants during World War 2 that people in this time period aren’t really familiar with. A story from a Japanese woman, Jeanne Wakatsuki-Houston, who was born and lived in this era, with help from her husband, James D. Houston, explains and sheds some light during the times where internment camps still prevailed. The writing piece titled “Arrival at Manzanar", takes place during her childhood and the Second World War. In the beginning, Jeanne and her family were living a calm and peaceful life in a predominantly white neighborhood, until disaster struck the world and they were forced to move due to escalating tensions between Japanese Orientals and white Americans. At the time, Japanese-Americans, like Jeanne, were forced to live in an internment camp, which is a prison of sorts, due to the war with Japan. The text is being told through a first person point-of-view in which Jeanne herself tells the story through her experiences during the war. In that story, which contains only a part of the original text, much of the setting took place either prior to and during the time she was sent to the internment camps and describes her struggle with it. This story clearly states the importance of family and perseverance which is shown through her use of pathos, definition, and chronological storytelling.

The novel When the Emperor Was Divine tells a story of a Japanese America family’s who is separated and it is recruited in internment camps during World War Two. The American government orders to arrest the father of the family because they accused him of being a spy. Then, the mother has to take care of her two children and move to the internet camp. During the three years, the mother and her two children spend in captivity. Generally, they are in the limbo because they never know when they will be released or what will happen to them. After the war the woman, the boy, and the girl leave the internment camp and they

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, America felt exposed as potential dangers, now realized, ominously lurked along the home front. False reports of Japanese espionage spread rapidly fueling hostility, fear, and racial prejudice. In an Executive Order signed by president Roosevelt, America responded, removing Japanese-Americans from their homes and shackling them within internment camps. Relocation was not obligatory but mandatory. Based on the experiences of close family members, Julie Otsuka, in her novel entitled When the Emperor was Divine, captures the transition of a nameless Japanese-American family from normalized citizens to ostracized foreigners. Oasis to desert, her vivid imagery nuances a deeper sense of meaning

and Mrs. Takeda,”.”Are they really taking good care of you in the camps?”(189). Hana and her husband taro were put in a camp because of the way she looked and because of the mistakes her country had made. She can’t believe that Americans would express so much hate and racism towards Japanese people as to put them in a camp as if they were animals. Hana didn’t anticipate all this when she first moved she expected people that would respect them if they worked and made something of themselves. Hana and Taro are furious about the situation but Hana and Taro “belived what this country had done to the Japanese Americans since the war was the result of fear and hatred and greed among bigoted and misguided men. He believed this was not the real America he knew” (209). Even after Hana and Taro were put in a camp they knew that the American people were going through a difficult time and that this wasn't always how it was going to be for the Japanese people. They knew that it was going to take time to get the trust back from the American people after their country had done to

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.

Hisaye Yamamoto, a Japanese American author, composed a collection of short stories titled, Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories. These collection of short stories describes the experiences Japanese Americans undergo while residing in America. The Japanese American culture that Yamamoto introduces has three types of generations. The first one being, the Issei, the second one being, the Nisei and the third one being, the Sensei. All three Japanese generations are described in Yamamoto’s short story cycle, which shows the relationship between Japanese Americans as well as with other ethnic groups. The major themes Yamamoto highlights within her novel defines the idea of what it is like to be Japanese American through the difficulties that Japanese immigrants face in America, the cultural separation between these immigrants and their children as well as restrictions that Japanese women face within their traditional Japanese culture.

'Even with all the mental anguish and struggle, an elemental instinct bound us to this soil. Here we were born; here we wanted to live. We had tasted of its freedom and learned of its brave hopes for democracy. It was too late, much too late for us to turn back.' (Sone 124). This statement is key to understanding much of the novel, Nisei Daughter, written by Monica Sone. From one perspective, this novel is an autobiographical account of a Japanese American girl and the ways in which she constructed her own self-identity. On the other hand, the novel depicts the distinct differences and tension that formed between the Issei and Nisei generations. Moreover, it can be seen as an attempt to describe the

The move to the internment camps was a difficult journey for many Japanese-Americans. Many of them were taken from their homes and were allowed only to bring a few belongings. Okubo colorfully illustrates the dramatic adjustment of lifestyle that Japanese-Americans had to make during the war. Authentic sketches accompany each description of the conditions that were faced and hardships that were overcome. The illustrations were drawn at the time each event described throughout the story took place. Each hand drawn picture seems to freeze time, capturing the feelings and intense anxiety many felt during the war. The pictures assist the author's first person narration and assist the reader in creating an accurate

The Japanese-American author, Julie Otsuka, wrote the book When the Emperor was Divine. She shares her relative and all Japanese Americans life story while suffering during World War II, in internment camps. She shares with us how her family lived before, during, and after the war. She also shares how the government took away six years of Japanese-American lives, falsely accusing them of helping the enemy. She explains in great detail their lives during the internment camp, the barbed wired fences, the armed guards, and the harsh temperatures. When they returned home from the war they did not know what to believe anymore. Either the Americans, which imprisoned them falsely, or the emperor who they have been told constantly not to believe, for the past six years imprisoned. Japanese-Americans endured a great setback, because of what they experienced being locked away by their own government.

When the Koreans are forced to change their family names to Japanese ones, their Korean identity is weakened. Going through this traumatizing experience is

The United States of America a nation known for allowing freedom, equality, justice, and most of all a chance for immigrants to attain the American dream. However, that “America” was hardly recognizable during the 1940’s when President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, ordering 120,000 Japanese Americans to be relocated to internment camps. As for the aftermath, little is known beyond the historical documents and stories from those affected. Through John Okada’s novel, No-No Boy, a closer picture of the aftermath of the internment is shown through the events of the protagonist, Ichiro. It provides a more human perspective that is filled with emotions and connections that are unattainable from an ordinary historical document.

“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd” (Bertrand Russell). After The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese people were treated as “enemy aliens”. Even if they were born in America as American citizens they were still treated less because of their race. In Julie Otsuka's book, When the Emperor was Divine, an American japanese family provides insight on the changing status of Japanese people according to race and how race influenced the characters in their life.

The Okinawans had not only lost its sovereignty to the Americans, but also its identity. As the protagonist walked through the American Army base, he encountered a maid who he assumed must work for a American family. The impression of the maid as he described when their sights crossed at each other, was, “her placid, self-possessed air gave the impression she was someone who belonged here and made me feel a vast distance between us.” (34) It would be unusual for a local resident, like the protagonist, to express his discomfort standing on his own land—Okinawa. The lack sense of belonging to its motherland from the protagonist contradicted the maid’s sense of self-possessing and belonging to Okinawa. They are both Okinawans, yet there’s a vast