Memory And Identity In Julie Otsuka's 'When The Emperor Was Divine'

Japanese American families were sent to internment camps located at a desert in Utah almost in less than 24 hours during World War ll. It was supposed to be luxurious and a dream, yet it was the complete opposite. In the book, When the emperor was divine, Julie Otsuka describes each character and their stories through different points of views. She tells their story by recounting each of the main character's emotional experiences while showing the life of Japanese Americans and how they were labeled in others eyes. Otsuka writes not only about the venture of being taken to an internment camp, but how each character changes in the process. Through each person comes a story and why they changed into somewhat the opposite of their

In her novel, When the Emperor was Divine, Julie Otsuka explores the effects of fear and isolation on identity. The story is set during World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Everyone is scared, including the United States government, so they ship all of the Japanese-Americans off to internment camps. Otsuka focuses on one family in particular. The father gets arrested on suspicion of involvement with the attack, and spends the entire war alone. He returns home three years later a completely different man. Meanwhile, the mother and the two children spend the remainder of the war living at one of the remote camps. They each cope with the situation in different ways; however, all of their personalities have

Julie Otsuka’s novel When the Emperor was Divine leads the reader through the journey of one family that represents many as they are placed in an internment camp for the crime of being Japanese. Otsuka brings to light the persecution of Japanese-Americans through her use of symbols prominent throughout the book. Some of the most important being the symbol of stains, their family dog, and horses. Each has a double-meaning pointing towards the theme of widespread racism. Racism that led many Japanese-Americans into believing that they were guilty.

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.

'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

In When the Emperor was Divine, the author, Julie Otsuka, uses her choice of narrator to represent the overall image of Japanese Americans throughout the war. At the beginning of the first chapter, the narrator is the mother who is very proper and clearly trying to fit in. This is demonstrative of how Japanese Americans were treated like any other citizen before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. After the attack, the Japanese Americans became isolated and hated and were forced to leave their homes. When the mother receives an evacuation notice, she has to pack up and hide all of her family's possessions. The family has an old dog and she decides that she has no choice but to kill it. The Americans saw anyone with Japanese heritage as brutes who have no compassion and it is this belief that causes the mother to have to commit and brutal action. By using the mother as the first narrator, Otsuka depicts the change of the overall opinion of the Japanese Americans.

Wakatsuki-Houston presents an insightful portrayal of the Japanese-American internment camp in California known as Manzanar. She describes how her life changed throughout the experience as she grew from child to young woman. She captivates the reader's attention with intermittent interviews, describing the seemingly constant turmoil that each prisoner faced.

a Japanese- American family and the trials they encountered during the time of World War II. Uchida begins the book by describing her family, a fairly well off Japanese family in Berkley, California. They were extremely involved in the community and highly regarded by both the Japanese and white families in their neighborhood. The focal point of the narrative is the period this family, along with thousands of other Japanese-American families, spent in an internment camp during the war.

Dorothea Lange, a famous photographer, was commissioned by the United States government to photograph and record the evacuation of Japanese-Americans into internment camps. Being opposed to the relocation efforts, she took pictures that threw into sharp relief her negative opinion and was able to actively challenge the order using a photographic medium. Figure 1 in the appendix shows a family clothed in Western-style clothing seated at a dinner table surrounded by American-style décor. Everything looks as it would in a white household, but the only difference is that the people in this family portrait are of Japanese descent. Lange chose to portray them in such a manner to show their “Americanness” – her active resistance to the racist categorization of all Japanese as “aliens” was clear in her portrayal of them as typical Americans. Figure 2 shows a line of schoolchildren saying the Pledge of Allegiance and standing with hands over their hearts. Lange’s decision to have children of backgrounds ranging from Hispanic to Japanese to Chinese to white in the photograph shows how there was no one definition of “American.” Her deliberate action to catch the children in this moment, swearing loyalty to the American flag, spoke volumes. Her documented challenge to the forced evacuation and

With the arrival of WWII came the arrival of change. Jeanne Wakatsuki’s memoir, Farewell to Manzanar illustrates the countless struggles that Japanese Americans faced during World War II. Distrust among the white Americans and Japanese Americans was at an all time high due to the war in the Pacific Ocean with Japan. With the American government encouraging wartime propaganda, the Japanese were dehumanized and ultimately forced to move into internment camps. Farewell to Manzanar explores the resilience of the human nature by illustrating the struggle of prejudice in a WWII era America.

A single document led to over 100,000 individuals being forced to move out of their homes. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Order 9066 authorized people with Japanese heritage in the United States to be placed in internment camps. U.S. officials indicated that Japanese Americans were the cause despite the attack coming from outside the country. Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor was Divine is a story about one of these Japanese American families that is forced move to an internment camp. Several occurrences in and relating to the story involve concealing the truth. People will hide the truth to protect those they care about, whether it actually helps them or not.

For Japanese people living in America, WWII spelled disaster. Not only was their country of origin at war with the country they lived in, but public opinion combined with the unchecked power of Executive Order 9066 forced 110,000 Japanese people out of their homes and into inhospitable Internment camps scattered across the US. Jeanne Wakatsuki's autobiographical Farewell to Manzanar captures the internment camp’s effect on her family. While Jeanne and her father are at the heart of the story, the war also has a profound effect on Jeanne’s mother “Mama.” Jeanne’s mother experiences very negative circumstances during internment including feeling dehumanized and witnessing the disintegration of her family. One surprising slightly positive impact

The way that Japanese Americans Behaved and Experienced the “Interment Camp” programs reveals elements of their culture and community. Interestingly, the style of writing in this book is filled with some blunt comedy, along with detailed black and white sketches. The timeline of the book starts from when she was living in Europe, then migrates the USA and thereafter is inducted into the camps. The whole reason that the “Internment Camps” were created was because of irrational fears of the US public and government towards Japanese people.

Those who experienced the effects of the nuclear explosions in Japan recall horrifying memories related to the event: “Everybody who got burned, burned all over the outside of their bodies. Small maggots, white maggots, were all over them. It wasn’t a pleasant sight” (Irby, 2014). Rebecca could remember and tell the interviewers about one of the disturbing effects the bomb had on people, nearly seventy years after the event. Survivors mourn the deaths of loved ones. The only thing Irby’s son knew was that his mother’s beloved father passed away due to the bomb. He never knew the details of his death, because she rarely talked about it (Irby, 2014). Rebecca demonstrated that she mourned the death of her father, and discussing the details of the subject was uncomfortable for her to talk about, decades after the event had occurred. Therefore, the sheer power of a nuclear bomb is capable of permanently altering the lives of those who were affected by the blast.

There existed an overwhelming hatred towards the Japanese in the 1940s, and even “the U.S. government preferred to depict the Japanese – soldiers and civilians alike – as an undifferentiated mass of ‘emperor-worshipping’ fanatics” (Miller 83). Although this negative outlook on Japan was partially remedied in the 1950-1970’s with the emergence of a pacifist Japan, tensions persisted. According to American Political and Cultural Perspectives on Japan, Americans “simultaneously admired and feared Japan. Such “schizophrenic” attitudes were reflected in representations of Japan and the Japanese in American popular culture” (Miller 130). Thus, in terms of children’s literature, the rise of American versions of Japanese folktales produced in the 1960’s could correspond to the rise of pacifism in Japan and efforts towards reinstating peaceful Japanese-American relations, but the ambivalence that still existed influenced these children’s books and their representation of Japan.