Free Response

When the United States was in a war with Japan, many Americans were suspicious with the Japanese-Americans because they thought they would not be loyal to America and would side with the Japanese. The government decided that they needed to take all of the Japanese-Americans to a camp in a deserted area until the war was over because they did not want them to be spies for Japan. Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the Executive Order 9066 which authorized the Secretary of War to keep specific places in the United States for internment camps. The government took Japanese-Americans from the West side of America who had a Japanese background and took them away from their home and brought them to a camp isolated from society. There were guards watching the camp to make sure people did not try to escape. The camp did not have sanitary facilities or homes and the food was under par. The Japanese-Americans did not have a choice if they wanted to go to the camp and they had to leave everything behind. They were only able to bring one suitcase and anything that fit in it. At the camp people were able to work, but they were paid almost nothing and were mostly doing labor jobs. At the end of the war the Japanese-Americans were able to leave the camps and go back to their homes, but many times they had a hard time adjusting back to their daily routine. In 1988 Ronald Reagan apologized for the mistreatment of the Japanese-Americans and said that it was out of prejudice.

Free Response

In class, we talked about the controversy regarding dropping the atomic bomb on Japan. Many people in the United States thought that it would be a good idea because than the war would end faster. The Japanese culture is very different from America. The soldiers were taught to fight until their death because they would be fighting for their country. The Japanese thought surrendering was the highest form of shame because it shows that someone gives up. This is why the war was going on for a long time. The American government officials thought that if they dropped the atomic bomb, it would make so much destruction that the Japanese would finally surrender and the war would be over. America’s number one goal was end the war the fastest way possible with as little American casualties. Another possibility that part of America thought was a good idea was to not drop the bomb at all on the Japanese. Their rationale was that it would be immoral to kill innocent civilians who are not in the war. Some Americans think that the war should only be between the American soldiers and the Japanese soldiers. They think that the civilians shouldn’t be affected by the war because they aren’t the soldiers. With a lot of thought, the American government decided to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. They dropped the bomb on 2 cities; Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These were two towns that had a heavy population and most of the main area was instantly killed by the bombs. After the bombing, the emperor made a speech deciding to back out of the war. This debate showed that America wanted to get out of the war as fast as possible and they had to make a tough decision.

Free Response

During class, we watched a video that talked about the My Lai massacre. This video was not very surprising, but it really caught my attention. This massacre was in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Soldiers were told to go into a village and if they saw anything alive, they were to shoot it. The leader of these soldiers thought that the village was going to be empty, but to their surprise there were still villagers in the town. When the soldiers saw the civilians, I think they didn’t know what to do because they knew it was against their morals to shoot innocent civilians. Once one soldier shot their first bullet, the soldiers started shooting everyone and destroying the town. Everyone forgot about their morals and had the adrenaline running through their body. By the time the soldiers left the town, there was nothing left of the town. Some of the soldiers captured the civilians and walked through fields because the soldiers knew that the civilians would know where the mine fields were. After a while they got to a ditch and the American soldiers started shooting at the innocent civilians. Only a handful of the Vietnamese people survived this massacre. I think this was a lose-lose situation because if the soldiers did not shoot the villagers, they were in harm of getting shot by the head of the mission. But if they started killing the town’s people, they were going against their morals and committing a war crime. I think it would be really hard for people to go against the command they were assigned and I think it would take a lot of courage. I am reading the book “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brian. In one part of the scene, a soldier, Rat Kiley, lost a really good friend during the war from a hand grenade. He did not show any emotion for a while until they found a baby water buffalo. They took it and brought it to their camp grounds. Rat Kiley tried to feed it food, but it wouldn’t eat anything so he started shooting at it. He did not want to hurt it, he just wanted it to feel pain. Just like the My Lai massacre, he was killing something that was purely innocent and did not deserve to be tortured like that. I think that Rat needed to blow off steam because his best friend died, but I don’t think it was appropriate to kill an innocent animal just like I don’t think it was right to kill the innocent Vietnamese.

Intro, Dolores Dante & Roberto, Acuna, farm worker

Intro:
This book is prominently about violence, but it also explains how work shows who people are and what attributes they have. Many people work because they want to have pride in something they do. Other times people really hate their work and want to leave it. People are suited to work at different things, and people work at different speeds and levels. Sometimes, people just keep working and lose the purpose and meaning of it. Overall, work gives people a secure place in life because they always know that it is there for them.

Dolores Dante:

Dolores became a waitress because she needed the money. Many people take jobs for money, but others take jobs because it is there passion. She was divorced and had 3 children to take care of which is a lot of work. Throughout the years, Dante loved her job even more. Whenever she asks her customers what they want to eat she always rephrases it so it is more interesting for her. She does not care about how much of a tip a customer gives her, she just wants them to be satisfied and happy. Dolores said, “Life doesn’t frighten me anymore.” She said that it used to frighten her a lot, but now she has overcome it. She feels loyal to wait the customers who she knows because she always wants to please them. She said the hard part about being a waiter is that she has to trust the cooks to cook a good meal because she is just ordering it. If the customers don’t like the meal, she feels responsible even though it is not her job. She says that her work is her life and if she does not go to work, she feels out of place.

Roberto, Acuna, farm worker:

When Roberto was a kid, he would work in the fields picking crops all day long at harvest time. Sometimes he would see his mom crying, but he never understood why. When she went to her evening job at a restaurant she would receive mean remarks from customers. White kids would laugh at Roberto when he brought to school a different type of lunch that showed his culture. This started fights at school which ended in 8^th grade because that’s when he quit school. He was abused at school because the kids did not understand why he worked in the fields all day. When he would work in the fields, he would day dream about becoming rich and people having respect for his mom. When he was older, he became a company man because he wanted his mom to be proud of him. He was paid $1.10 an hour which is barely anything. This was because he was a minority so he quit his work and joined the Marine Corps. In the Marine Corps he was supposed to whip people in prison camps, but he was not able to harm people. Because of his experiences, he realized that everything is favored towards the wealthy. For example, during wars, there were drafts but people who were wealthy were able to get out of it in many ways because of their money. People who did not have enough money were less fortunate. Roberto said, “When growers can have an intricate watering system to irrigate their crops but they can’t have running water inside the houses of workers.” He is upset by how the money is distributed in the farms. He thought that the workers were treated less fairly than the animals on the farms. Pesticides were being to become more popular, but they were not healthy for the farmers and the animals. There were many harmful affects when spraying the chemicals. Because of all of these harmful conditions, people were going on strike. It helped Roberto feel a sense of belonging because they were his own people who wanted the same changes in working conditions as he did.

Intro, Dennis Hart & Lucy Jefferson

Intro:
Throughout the stories, the interviews do not help getting to know people; it just helps them make a conversation. There were many themes that came up during many of the stories. For example, there was the Vietnamese war and civil rights. The author says that “passion runs deep in these matters.” The author does not understand why people with a good amount of money break into a dispute about stupid things. For example, the author witnessed a fight about Buffalo wings. It happened at his mom’s hotel and the men called each other mean names. They would call each other “liars” and those abusive words started the fight. Humiliation was the worst part of the story. The author thinks that everyone is unique because of their experiences.

Dennis Hart:

Dennis Hart became a republican precinct captain and chairman for Goldwater campaign. He accomplished all of these goals because he wanted to prove to himself that he was not a coward.  His ideal way of dying would be to be on the battlefield feeling worthy of his life and have pride in himself. Hart was talking about religion and how atheists are the most afraid of bombs because they are not able to pray that they don’t die and they only believe in having one life. Hart explained that he never had a real home because he moved around all the time which was the cause of most of his fears. One of his jobs involved working as a guard for a county jail. From that experience, he had become more insensitive because he saw and heard many things that were unbearable to remember. One person that he looks up to is General MacArthur because he had a lot of pride in everything that he did. MacArthur was a famous general who played a prominent role in the pacific war. He loved his people but he never showed much emotion. He did not take into affect what the majority of the people thought was right, he always acted on what he thought was right.

Lucy Jefferson:

Lucy lived in a life with not much money and her kids were constantly worrying about how much money they had and if they paid the rent for the month. She worked at Wesley Hospital for 11 years as a physical therapist. She had the best time working there, but she did not get paid that much so she always had to by food on sale and stay on a budget. She did not get a very good education so she would self educate herself by reading different books. She thought she was breaking the stereotype that African Americans are ignorant and are not able to read. Her kids went to school and she received letters from their school saying that her child was not working to his full potential. This was not something that she wanted to here because she was working and having trouble of her own. She did not want something to go wrong on top of that. Jefferson thought that her son was being lazy in school, but she found out that he was not able to read. At school, he was put in a room with other students who were not able to read instead of trying to teach him. The school decided which students they wanted to teach and which students were too much work for them. This is horrible because in the United States, each individual child is supposed to have the same amount of chance of getting an education as another student. This shows that people are prejudice and only want to teach kids who are already smart and don’t need to learn as much. Education is very important for kids and this shows that the education system is not exceeding its values.

Peter Ota & Betty Basye Hutchinson

Peter Ota:

When Peter was a kid, he lived in the barracks with no privacy. Through most of his childhood, he lived in a prison camp in Colorado during the war. During the war people with a Japanese ancestry were taken away from their homes and had to be taken to internment camps. This was because people were afraid they were spies for Japan or were disloyal to America. At the camps, Ota said school was a joke in the year that he lived in the camps. He had multiple jobs there, but he was paid almost nothing. When he was old enough, he was drafted into the army which was ironic because he was fighting for the United State’s freedom when he himself was not able to use his freedoms. He realized when he was older that the internment camp were basically his home because he spent most of his childhood there. He was discouraged with the Japanese culture and Ota said, “When war ended, I believed there was no other way but to be American.” He did not want to stand out anymore; he just wanted to be accepted for his heritage. I think he gave up in trying to express his love for his ancestry because every time he tried, he was discouraged by being forced to move into a prison camp. Sometimes, he felt that he had to prove that he was an American even though he was an ex-GI and a U.S. citizen. Because of all of his experiences, he eventually became very American and blended into the community and social standards.

Betty Basye Hutchinson:

Betty Basye Hutchinson had a distinct memory when she found out about the bombings at Pearl Harbor. She first heard about it a week after it happened. She was at a nursing school and Japanese girls were leaving the school. She was very confused and soon there were no Japanese students there. She was not certain about what happened, but she thought that if Roosevelt approved it, everything would end up okay. Many nurses at that time joined the war to help the injured soldiers. When Hutchinson went into the army, she was struck by the horror of the soldier’s injuries. She worked at the plastic surgery section and she was not instructed on how to deal with patients who had very serious injuries. After a while, she got used to it. Hutchinson said that it was very common for a wife to separate from a soldier if their injury was very severe. This was a bad time because the soldier would need the most support  when something horrible happened to them. There was a rule that nurses were not able to date enlisted men, but she remembered instances when this rule was broken. One distinct memory she had was the day that V-J Day occurred when she was working at the hospital. It stood for the Victory over Japan Day. This was the day when the Japanese surrendered during World War II. This surrender ended the war against Japan. The United States was very excited that the war was over and they were able to bring in troops after that day. Hutchinson moved to Pasadena for surgeries after that day. Many people in that village were staring at the soldiers who had wounds like they did not even understand that a war was happening. Once people came home from the war, it was not unusual if people were reluctant to tell stories about the war. The war was very horrific and the soldiers did not want to relive those memories.