When The Emperor Was Divine Leads The Reader Through The Journey Of One Family

In her novel, When the Emperor was Divine, Julie Otsuka develops the concepts of memory and identity as they applied to Japanese Americans 70 years ago. Before WWII, the featured family saw themselves as American rather than Japanese. Three years of internment later, they are not so sure. Their heritage, an aspect of their identity once only present in their heirlooms and the food they ate, had been perverted by society into a monstrosity malicious enough to justify their mass incarceration. The disparity between the life they once lived and the life the life they lived in the camps leaves them hollow, shells of their former selves, even when they finally return home. Thus, with her skillful incorporation of motifs of darkness and

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

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

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

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

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

The novel when the emperor was divine by Julia Otsuka shows the lives of a Japanese family during World War II, and the struggles they endure. These struggles were shared among many Japanese families in the U.S. during this time. The hardships this family faces change their personalities drastically and plays with there grasp on the real world.

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.

As we, Americans, look back on our country’s history, there are many proud moments, but there are other moments that we can all admit are a bit shameful. One of these shameful moments in American history is the Japanese internment during World War II. This time in history can be revisited in Toyo Suyemoto’s memoir, I Call to Remembrance of her and her family’s time in an internment camp during the war. She writes of the feeling of distrust the majority of the country felt towards the Japanese prior to being relocated, the process her and so many others went through to be relocated, as well as life in the camps. Suyemoto had a deep interest in poetry from very early in her life, and

As a young child, I lived life colorblind, unable to grasp the concept of race or skin color. Growing up in Florida as the only Asian in my elementary school and never being bullied for being different, I assumed everyone was white, including me. But then came that earth-shattering epiphany: I realized I wasn’t white. I started to notice that not every supermarket sold Pocky or bubble tea and that it’s not common to get money in shiny, red envelopes on New Year’s. I realized that not everyone knew how to use chopsticks, that not everyone ate rice with every meal, and that when some people spoke slowly to me, it’s not because they were trying to articulate, but because they thought I didn’t understand English.

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.

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.

I disagree with a child’s whole future resting on just one test. That puts so much pressure on children to do well at such a young age. I can see why children get depressed, if

→ The author shows the racism in American from a lot of sources; such as cartoons, official documents, advertisements, movies, and songs. The mass media drew Japanese people as an immature children (p.142) and animals. Especially, cartoons depicted the Japanese as monkeys, apes, rats, bugs, beetles, lice, and other kinds of creatures that had to be wiped out. (pp. 181-189) An example is that one restaurant sign on the West Coast said "This Restaurant Poisons Both Rats and Japs". (p. 92)

In conclusion, the use of romantic and familial relations in China Night and Angels on The Street highlight how Japanese colonial filmmaking attempted to paint Japanese imperialism as benevolent and make its war efforts more palatable for audiences at home and abroad. By naturalizing the Japanese presence and highlighting the need for Japanese ‘civilization’ efforts, these propaganda materials justify Japanese colonialism, and distract wartime audiences from acts of violence committed with a whitewashed fantasy of the Japanese imperial agenda in World War II.