Do you know how much people can lose in a war? Lots of things like homes, lives, friends, and other things of importance. Like the child in the poem, “In Response to Executive Order 9066” by Dwight Okita. This is about a girl whose whole life was changed severely due to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Soldier are not the only ones that are affected by the wars that occur in the war. War is one of the things that can just rip friendships apart. Like in the poem “My best friend is a white girl named Denise we look at boys together. She sat in front of me all through grade school because of our names”(lines 12-15). They have a good friendship going on right now. Also “All Americans of Japanese Descent/ Must Report to Relocation Centers”(lines 1-2). This shows that they have to move away so they will not be able to be friends anymore. But “I saw Denise today in Geography class. She was sitting on the other side of the room. “"You're trying to start a war,"” she said, “"giving secrets away to the Enemy. …show more content…
You can be an immigrant in another country and they might base you on your heritage or your ethnicity. “All Americans of Japanese Descent” (line1). This shows that she is Japanese and since they are the enemy at this time her friend and other people that are not of Japanese Descent will treat them differently. Additionally “I am a fourteen-year-old girl with bad spelling and a messy room. If it helps any, I will tell you I have always felt funny using chopsticks and my favorite food is hot dogs”(lines 8-11). This show that she is not your traditional Japanese person. Also “My best friend is a white girl named Denise-/ we look at boys together”(lines 12-13). She is using this as a reason why she thinks that she should not have to move away. Because if you have anything in common with the enemy you can be thought of in many bad
Executive Order 9066 was an executive order presented and signed during World War II by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942, authorizing the Secretary of War to authorize certain areas as military zones, allowing and assisting the deportation of Japanese Americans to internment camps. In Executive Order 9066, Franklin Roosevelt speaks with a significant appeal to logic and reason, while "Mericans" is more appealing to the senses and to emotion. Dwight Okita addresses the topics presented in Executive Order 9066 and demonstrates how it effected the Japanese-American's lives, while Sandra Cisneros thoroughly recollects a period of significance in her life. Both of these literary texts address problems with different cultures in society
When Pearl Harbor was attacked, Japanese Americans were suspected of spying on the US Government and selling information to Japan. This was enough reason for President Franklin D. Roosevelt to authorize the deportation and incarceration of over 110,000 Japanese Americans, using Executive Order 9066. This was not justified, and was not fair, to the Japanese Americans. 62% of the internees were United States citizens, and 99% of all Japanese Americans were not spies. Executive Order 9066 was an order signed and issued during World War II by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Both authors are able to show the same theme, that being American is not defined as through people's heritage or their cultural identity. The theme both authors state is expressed through literary devices like imagery, irony, metaphors, and symbolism. In Response to Executive Order 9066 by Dwight Okita, it shows a loss of friendship through political influences. Okita shows this theme by using figurative language like irony and symbolism. The way Okita uses symbolism includes them stating, "I have always felt funny using chopsticks and my favorite food is hotdogs.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 9066 Introduction The Japanese were the first immigrants to come across the Pacific Northwest in 1880s. They came here to America because there was a high demand for immigrant work, the amount of money they paid was so low. Time had pass and the Japanese helped construct the Great Northern, Northern Pacific and more. The Japanese were treated horrible due to their appearance; they cannot buy any land.
This complicates even further the girl’s way of life as she tries to relate to the American identity. The friendship between the two girls originated in school. The Japanese girl does not seem to stop her ways of relating to Americans. She considers Americans more friends than her Japanese contemporaries. However, Denise who is her American friend accuses her of not being loyal to their friendship (Okita 1).
Mary Matsuda Gruenewald tells her tale of what life was like for her family when they were sent to internment camps in her memoir “Looking like the Enemy.” The book starts when Gruenewald is sixteen years old and her family just got news that Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japan. After the bombing Gruenewald and her family life changed, they were forced to leave their home and go to internment camps meant for Japanese Americans. During the time Gruenewald was in imprisonment she dealt with the struggle for survival both physical and mental. This affected Gruenewald great that she would say to herself “Am I Japanese?
As author Alex Morritt once said “The word 'friend' has become so utterly void of meaning in a world governed by social media. How can anyone truly claim to have eleven hundred friends ? In my book that would involve making time to meet at least three of them every day of the year.” This fascinating perspective on friendship is one that is exhibited by both Thomas Hardy’s poem “The Man he Killed” as well as Erich Maria Remarque's novel All Quiet on the Western Front. Although not related to social media, both of these books dehumanize the terms “friends” to simple objects, portraying ideas on how allies are deemed allies and enemies are deemed opponents in war, even though this may not be the case if one was to meet them in real life.
A soldier tells them to put the shades down. The girl has a brief conversation with a Japanese man who only knows japanese. “The girl shook her head and said she was sorry she only spoke English” (Otsuka, 28) By saying this the girl emphasises the fact that she is a American girl and she has that identity and not just a japanese spy. The soldiers guarding the Japanese-American families makes guarding absurd.
This paragraph from Kesaya Noda’s autobiographical essay “Growing Up Asian in America” represents the conflict that the author feels between her Japanese ethnicity, and her American nationality. The tension she describes in the opening pages of her essay is between what she looks like and is judged to be (a Japanese woman who faces racial stereotypes) versus what she feels like and understands (life as a United States citizen). This passage signals her connection to Japan; and highlights her American upbringing. At this point in the essay, Noda is unable to envision her identity as unified and she describes her identity as split by race.
13,952. That is the unbelievable amount of people who were killed in the siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War. Naturally, people were shocked when the Bosnian-Serbs began an unprecedented attack on the city of Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, as a result of starting an ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims, who are part of the monotheistic religion, Islam). Zlata Filipović, author of Zlata’s Diary, was a young girl unfortunately residing in Sarajevo on April 6, 1992, when the siege of Sarajevo began. As a consequence of the war, Zlata was stuck there for two years, and during that period, she lost countless numbers of friends and family.
The chapter “Friends,” is a very good chapter showing friendship. There are many details of how good of friends people can become during a war. Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk weren 't good buddies for a while but they eventually started to trust each other. “In late August they made a pact that if one of them should ever get totally fucked up- a wheelchair wound- the other guy would automatically find a way to end it,” (O’Brien, 62).
In the texts, "In Response to Executive Order 9066" by Dwight Okita and "Mericans" by Sandra Cisneros, a topic of American identity and perception of identity is shared. Both texts take a brief look at the lives, characteristics, and feelings of young girls living a bicultural life. In Cisnero's story, the girl seems caught between her two different cultures, and she struggles to connect with her Mexican heritage. In Okita's poem, the girl has a clear sense of her identity and place as an American. Culture is experienced and interpreted differently by each individual and each group of people.
The character of Denise is used to depict the fear of Japanese Americans present amongst the general population. Denise presumably learned about her recently discovered fear from a family member and applied it to her own life. She mistreats the narrator and says “You’re trying to start a war…giving secrets away to the Enemy. Why can’t you keep your big mouth shut?” (18-19).
In Tim O'Brien's “Enemies” and “Friends”, O'Brien shows the effect the nature of war has on individuals and how war destroys and creates friendships. These two stories describe the relationship between two soldiers, Lee Strunk and Dave Jensen. In “Enemies”, friendship is broken over a fist fight about a stolen jackknife, which leaves Strunk with a broken nose and Jensen paranoid of whether or not Strunk’s revenge is coming. While in “Friends”, you see how the nature of war creates a bond of trust, even between people who first saw each other as enemies.
For this assignment I have been presented a short story and a poem to analyze and compare. I enjoyed both of them. The poem and the story are different and very similar at the same time. The poem is about an Asian girl who is being raised in America and is just like every other American. Though she is treated differently because of her heritage.