Tokyo Rose: Iva Ikoku Toguri Essays

The autobiography illustrates personal experiences of discrimination and prejudice while also reporting the political occurrences during the United States’ involvement in World War II. After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the United States government unleashed unrestrained contempt for the Japanese residing in the nation. The general public followed this train of thought, distrusting the Japanese and treating them like something less than human. In a country of freedom and justice, no coalition stepped up to defend the people who had lived there most of or all of their lives; rather, people took advantage of the Japanese evacuation to take their property and belongings. The government released demeaning propaganda displaying comical Japanese men as monsters and rats, encouraging the public to be vigilant and wary toward anyone of Japanese descent. The abuse of the Japanese during this period was taken a little too lightly, the government apologizing too late and now minor education of the real cruelty expressed toward the nation’s own citizens. Now we see history repeating itself in society, and if we don’t catch the warning signs today, history may just come full

1942 In December of 1941, Japan brought the United States into World War II by bombing Pearl Harbor. In response, the American government quickly enacted a number of evacuation orders that sent those of Japanese heritage living in the United States to internment camps. Fear was officially in the states and separating ourselves from the Japanese was our militaries best solution. The precautions brought about by the American government in response to these attacks from Japan can be identified in the short story, “Evacuation Order No. 19”.

“The perfect blossom is a rare thing. You could spend your life looking for one, and it would not be a wasted life” (Zwick). These are the words of Katsumoto, an important samurai warrior. The movie The Last Samurai directed by Edward Zwick is about an American War Captain named Nathan Algren who is hired to train, lead and modernize a group of Japanese soldiers to defeat a rebellion of the country's remaining Samurai in 1876. Algren is captured by the Samurai and soon becomes part of the village he is being held hostage in. There, Algren learns from the Samurai and comes to respect them. He finds that his true warrior is becoming unleashed as he trains to become a Samurai with the very people we once called his

Most people know about the attacks on Pearl Harbor but very few know about how it affected the lives of Japanese-Americans living on the islands. In the novel, Under the Blood-Red Sun, the author Graham Salisbury tells a story from the perspective of Tomikazu Nakaji, a young Japanese-American boy and his struggles with racism and becoming the man of his family. After the attack, the suspicions and biased racism of the non-immigrant Americans is raised, which lead to the wrongful arrests of Tomikazu's father and grandfather. This resulted with him having to get a job, take care of his family, and deal with the constant bullying of his neighbor, Keet Wilson. In the end, he manages to maintain the tasks his father had assigned him with the help of his friends. This book showed me the importance of friendship, honor, and persistence.

In her novel When the Emperor Was Divine, author Julie Otsuka presents the long-lasting effects that isolation and alienation have on a person’s self- image and identity. During WWII, Japanese-Americans living in the United States were forced to move to isolated and horrific internment camps. The US government ensured they were separated from the rest of the country. This even included their own families. When the Japanese-Americans were allowed to return home after the war, the result of the isolation they experienced created irreversible damage. They continued to experience alienation, often making it impossible for them to recover emotionally, mentally and financially. Otsuka uses characterization to bring to life the traumas of the war and the effects it had on her characters, the girl, her mother and her father.

During World War II, thousands of POWs experienced isolation and dehumanization in an Japanesethe attemptefforts of the Japanese to make them feel invisible. In Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, American POW and former Olympic runner Louis “Louie” Zamperini rwas just one of the many soldiers who was dehumanized while in Japanese

Lord Takeda Shingen- The Lord of Kai, a ruthless warlord whose ambition is to rule all of Japan.

Anne Lefkowitz Blachman was born in 1919 in the Bronx but moved within a couple of years to Coney Island, Brooklyn, new York. She spoke only Yiddish till she entered kindergarten. After graduation from Brooklyn College with a specialization in economics, she went to work in Washington in the Office of Price Administration as a computrix, regulating prices and issuing ration cards for foods, gasoline, and shoes. In 1944 she took a job in the administrative offices of the Tule Lake war relocation camp in northern California, the camp to which those of Japanese ancestry were sent who refused to foreswear their allegiance to the Japanese emperor on the ground that they had no such allegiance to foreswear. In 1945 she took a job with the American Red Cross running a recreation center in Hokaido, Japan, for US serviceman (handing out doughnuts & coffee,

Joseph Bruchac’s novel Code Talker tells the story of the Navajo Code Talkers who played a vital role in the US. conflict with Japan throughout World War II. The narrator, Ned Begay, is a Navajo soldier who wonders why the Japanese supported the war so strongly while Americans grew more fatigued of the war every day. After the war, he learns about an organization called Tokubetsu Kōtō Keisatsu; although the name was often shortened to Tokkō, this agency was more notoriously known as the Thought Police. The agency was a military group that controlled Japan’s population by imprisoning or murdering anyone who spoke against the war movement or criticized the government.

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

Yoshiko Uchida was born November 24, 1921, in Alameda, California. Her mother was a poet, and her father a businessman. During her senior year in 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and Uchida, along with other Japanese Americans, were sent to relocation camps. She worked as a teacher while attending the camp. Despite the embarrassment and agony of her past, Uchida created profound stories full of sense to both reader and the topic displayed.Yoshiko Uchida used her experiences in the concentration camps, the prejudice she faced in high school,her tradition at home and her Japanese history to create her characters and the conflicts in her books.

Tanimoto, a simple man with a kind heart, was deeply affected by the Hiroshima tragedy. He felt an obligation to do more to prevent mass destruction. This feeling lead him to met a group who would be known as the Hiroshima Maidens. Resorting to America after being turned down by the Japanese, Tanimoto toured the United States to raise money for those affected in Hiroshima with the help of Cousins. To his surprise, Tanimoto was accused of doing it all for the publicity. This accusation hit close to home because not only Americans, but even some Japanese people believed Tanimoto did it for the fame. When his past is taken into account, one would think Tanimoto had good intentions by helping victims of the atomic bomb, but Cousins and others took advantage of Tanimotos sincerity by twisting his story into a commercialized show.

Japan, forced to rebuild itself from the ashes of defeat, was occupied by Americans in the aftermath of World War II. Although it was commonly perceived through the victors’ eyes, in John W. Dower’s novel, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, Dower summarized his studies of Occupied Japan and the impact of war on Japanese society in the view of both the conqueror and the defeated. He demonstrated the “Transcending Despair” (p. 85) of the Japanese people through their everyday lives in the early stages of the occupation. In chapter three, Dower attempted to comprehend the hopes and dreams – as well as the hopelessness and realities – of the Japanese who were in a state of exhaustion and despair. In chapter four, due partly to the food shortage, crime rates rose as people began to steal. Women turned to prostitution while men turned to the black market. Some Japanese were so desperate that they stripped out of their clothing and exchanged it for food. Dower vividly conveyed the depth of loss and confusion that Japan experienced. On the other hand, Kasutori culture flourished in the 1950s as sexually oriented entertainments dominated the commercial world. In chapter five, the people of Japan turned wartime slogans into slogans for reconstruction and peace. They used witty defeat jokes as a way to escape despair. Even though they were defeated, the people of Japan pushed through the misery and sought to reinvent their identity as illustrated through prostitution, the black market, and “Bridges of Language” (p. 168).

This paper is a review of the book Japan’s Comfort Women-Sexual slavery and prostitution during WWII and the US occupation by Yuki Tanaka. This book was published in 2002 by Routledge. The book deals with the thousands of Japanese, Korean, Chinese and other Asian and European women who were victims of organized sexual violence and prostitution by means of “comfort stations” setup by the Japanese military during World War II.

Comparing Oku no Hosomichi and Tosa Nikki within reason is very difficult because of the many factors that must be taken into account. The authors were from different time periods, the writing style is different, the subject is different, and many other things all contribute to its difficulty. While there are many differences there are perhaps an equal number of similarities between the two works, which offers a converse view of the relationship between them.