In Response To Executive Order 906 David Okita

David Okita, the author of the poem “In Response to Executive Order 9066,” is a published playwright, poet and novelist. He describes himself as Japanese, American, gay, and Buddhist. Okita’s father was a World War II veteran and his mother was held in confinement for four years at a Japanese-American concentration camp. The World War II plays as a significant theme in the poem “In Response to Executive Order 9066”. At first glance, the poem appears to be about an American girl who has an unstable relationship with her friend Denise. However, after examining the details of “In Response to Executive Order 9066,” the reader can better understand the particular interpretation of the author’s perception of the poem. After a more comprehensive

In the next stanza, the reader discovers that the narrator is a fourteen-year-old girl, whose best friend is a “white girl named Denise” (8). In the remainder of the poem, the narrator describes her friendship with Denise and how it eventually became spoiled. At first, the narrator and Denise spend time together and tease each other. Later on, Denise erupts with rage against her, and the narrator doesn’t understand what induced Denise’s anger. The setting of the novel is during World War II, and, at this time, people turned against the Japanese Americans, including the American government, who was concerned with Japanese spies. 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). This treatment is unfair for the narrator, who accused of being a spy by the process of