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Essay On When The Emperor Was Divine By Julie Otsuka

701 Words3 Pages

Beginning with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, the effects of World War II on Japanese-Americans (albeit, not limited to Japanese-Americans) in the United States motivated further racial divisions between the “foreign” and the “true American.” Probably the most significant sign of changing social and racial relationships between Japanese-Americans and Caucasian Americans was President Franklin D. Roosevelt's signature of Executive Order 9066. This policy made legal the forced removal of Japanese-Americans, forcing them to relocate to Internment Camps, while abandoning their homes, businesses, and sometimes even families. Some “resident enemy aliens” were detained and transferred to Justice Camps for questioning as suspects of sabotage and espionage, as depicted by the character of the father in Julie Otsuka’s, When the Emperor was Divine. At the closing of the novel, Otsuka details the father’s confession to the accusations of the soldiers, admitting to a series of sabotages, acts of espionage, …show more content…

Other fears were military in [nature, such as] ‘the Yellow Peril.’ These factors, plus the perception of "otherness" and "Asian inscrutability" that typified American racial stereotypes, greatly influenced the events following Pearl Harbor” (Burton, et al). The economically-fueled jealousy of Caucasian Americans is exemplified by Otsuka with the return of the family, as the children observed many of their belongings through the windows of their neighbors

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