Optimism In Alex Zanardi's Dear Miss Breed

Finding one passion could be tricky. Sometimes we confuse passion with skills, passion is something that you do and enjoy no matter how tired or even if it doesn’t make you a millionaire. Skills are something that you are good at but you don’t enjoy, one will continue on this path because we need to pay our bills. This doesn’t make it right or wrong but we should be happy with ourselves doing what we enjoy.

The memoir Looking like the Enemy, was written by Mary Matsuda Gruenewald. Set during World War II after the attack upon Pearl Harbor. The Japanese Americans living in Western part of America had a since of betrayal and fear having to evacuate their homes and enter into internment camps. Matsuda’s memoir is based off of her and her family’s experiences in the Japanese-American internment camps. Matsuda reveals what it is like during World War II as a Japanese American, undergoing family life, emotional stress, long term effects of interment, and her patriotism and the sacrifices she had to make being in the internment camps.

This essay compares “In response to executive order 9066” (poem) by Dwight Okita to “Mericans” (short story) by Sandra Cisneros. Specifically, the essay explores the central theme of American identity in the two literary works. The “Mericans” is about a little girl who has a story about the new world and the old world. In this case, the new world is America. The young girl is prevented from entering the church where her grandmother has prayers. As a person from the old world, the young girl is not allowed to play with boys from the new world. On the other hand, “in response to executive order” by Dwight Okita is about Americans of Japanese origins that were supposed to report to relocation

The three-time United States Track and Field Olympic champion, Gail Devers once said, “Sometimes we fall, sometimes we stumble, but we can’t stay down. We can’t allow life to beat us down. Everything happens for a reason, and it builds character in us, and it tells us what we are about and how strong we really are when we didn’t think we could be that strong.” In the non-fiction book Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, protagonist Louis Zamperini demonstrates his everlasting perseverance through his everyday actions. Like Devers believed, the resilient Zamperini refused to be defeated or demoralized and did everything in his power to keep his feet on the ground and his chin up.

Is the average person an upbeat optimist, a calculating realist, or the everyday pessimist? What if they're just all three combined, just with a slight lean to one of the three options? As culture advances with the passage of time. Previous issues and dilemmas are solved and creating a flow of new ones to arise. It’s the mentally of the generations of that period that cause this cycle to keep on spinning. In the 1920’s years post the first World War ideas are coming left and right in the U.S. People though are still affected by this great war, such as our veteran with heavy losses: no jobs to return to, death counts, even severe PTSD (Out of Many 789). This is the cycle regardless of the pessimism the people spout, there will always be those that challenge and strive for a light at the end of a tunnel. To get there, passing the three options is inevitable, Gatsby found them for sure along with his path. As did all our characters in this time of the roaring 20’s.

Imagine eating little to no food everyday, eliminating as much body fluid as possible to keep your weight unnaturally low, all while having the possibility of dying participating in the sport that you love. Well this was the life of a jockey in the 1920s and 30’s. Their life was nothing short of appealing. The rigorous lifestyle of a jockey was all to make it big and ride the “big horse”. There were many daily sacrifices and dangers that came along with being a jockey.

Farewell to Manzanar, written by Jeanne Wakatsuki and her husband James D. Houston, brings the aftermath of the bombing of Pearl Harbor to life through the the reimaging of the hardships and discrimination that Jeanne and her family endured while stationed at Manzanar. After the events of Pearl Harbor, seven year-old Jeanne is evacuated with family to an internment camp in which the family will be forced to adapt to a life in containment. Through the writings of Jeanne herself, readers are able to see Jeanne’s world through her words and experience the hardships and sacrifices that the Wakatsuki family had to go through. Farewell to Manzanar takes the reader on a journey through the eyes of a young American-Japanese girl struggling to be accepted by society.

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? Or am I American?” The internment camps that Gruenewald was placed and like most Japanese Americans were huge camps surrounded

“Dear Miss Breed: Letters from Camp”, is a collection of over 200 letters sent to Miss Clara Estelle Breed, also known as ‘Miss Breed’, from Japanese Americans imprisoned in the Japanese Interment Camps following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Prior to World War II, Miss Breed, was the supervising librarian at the East San Diego Public Library. Through this she was able to become aquatinted with many of the Nisei (second generation Japanese Americans) children within her community. When the United States made the decision to join World War II, the young Nisei children that Miss Breed had come to care for were being forced from their homes and relocated to internment camps. Outraged by the situation, Miss Breed decided to help her young friends by becoming their

Throughout a person’s lifetime, he or she will undoubtedly encounter many challenges, and each person can choose to overcome each challenge or let it defeat him or her. For Joe Rantz, the main character in The Boys In The Boat and one of the eight boys who won the 1936 Olympics in rowing, his underlying challenge that arose was living through the Great Depression. In response to this, Joe and Washington’s crew, along with many other people throughout America, made an effort to confront these challenges. This exertion resulted in helping them to grow into stronger people, who could then set the example for the many people around them to follow suit and face their own trials. Although the challenges life presents can be difficult to overcome,

What does one’s response to conflict say about them? What is the best response? Studies show that positivity is one of the most effective way to react to conflict. Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl whose diary became “Anne Frank: the Diary of a Young Girl,” always tried to have a positive attitude and make the best of everything in her terrible situation. In “Dear Miss Breed” by Joanne Oppenheim, sixteen-year-old Louise Ogawa wrote in her letters to Miss Breed about how even though the living conditions were ruthless, she was determined to see the light. Positivity can affect not only one’s self, but those around them as well. In the face of responding to conflict, positivity can reduce stress and anxiety, help health, and provide a better environment.

Dale Earnhardt Sr. once said, “You can’t let one bad moment spoil a bunch of good ones.” Dale Earnhardt Sr. had a lot of good moments during his NASCAR career. February 18th, 2001 is the most important date in history because Dale Earnhardt Sr. passed away while finishing his last lap at the Daytona 500 NASCAR race. A lot of people were heart broken by the devastating news, especially the people in the stands who witnessed the crash. Earnhardt was only 49 years old when he passed away.

Farewell to Manzanar, by Jeanne W. Houston and James Houston, published in 1973, is an autobiographical memoir that describes Jeanne 's experiences during World War II when she and her family were imprisoned in a Japanese internment camp after the bombing of Pearl Harbor because they were Japanese-Americans. Jeanne in the book recounts the indignities she and her family faced in the camp and shows how the conditions at the camp created not only physical discomfort but also emotional suffering leading to the disintegration of the family. After revisiting the site of the camp after several years and on retrospection she realizes that today she is a stronger person because of her difficult experiences. In the book, she argues that her experiences during the war and after the war, the prejudices she had to face before and after the war made her

This letter was another one of the corresponding messages between Miss Breed and Louise Ogawa dating back to September 27, 1942 and sent from the Santa Anita Interment Camp, a racetrack center turned Japanese relocation site during World War II (“700 S.F. Japanese Assemble”). The letter was written by Lousie Ogawa with a personal touch, a letter seemingly written by a friend for another. The purpose of her letter was to thank Miss. Breed for her interest in her life within the internment camp and from there Ogawa moves on to answering questions that were previously addressed to her in a past letter. Such as the materials provided to them within the camp, what she misses about her previous life, and her sources of entertainment within the camp.

Care givers: caring for a family member or friend with a physical or mental illness can be stressful, exhausting, both mentally and physically, and creates a physical and psychological strain for the care giver over a period of time. The psychological well-being such as depression and stress, are frequent consequences of caregiving. The age, socioeconomic status, and the availability of informal support that caregivers have access to greatly affect their own health and well being.