Analysis Of Desert Exile By Yoshiko Uchida

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America was built on a notion of freedom, justice, and equality, thus inviting people from all different parts of the world to pursue success while still retaining their background. However, despite what this nation was truly supposed to stand for, there were grim periods in which it did not truly uphold its core values. During World War II, in which the relationship between the U.S. and Japan was at its worst, many Japanese- Americans faced discrimination and injustice. Americans claimed that this needed to be done as a national emergency and for the peace of the nation. From the sources “War Message” by Franklin D. Roosevelt and “Desert Exile” by Yoshiko Uchida we can piece together the events that lead to the discrimination of Japanese …show more content…

Japanese- Americans were being evacuated along the west coast into internment camps by their zone districts. Uchida, a current college student, lives under the constant fear of “voluntary evacuation” areas by the military, but the spiteful comments around her campus has been increasing. Many of her classmates had gone home to stay with their families or take over the family duties because the head of their families have been taken. Most of these Japanese- Americans were first and second generation Americans, who grew up here and knew America to be their “home” country. As Uchida says, “We tried to go on living as normally as possible, behaving as other American citizens. Most...had never been to Japan. The United States of America was our only country and we were totally loyal to it.” Eventually, her zone gets called for evacuation so she returns home - a place where her family has lived for fifteen years. Her sister, the head of the family in lieu of her father, brings home tags that had the reference to the family number and a few suitcases that they can carry their supplies in. The family proceed to their well- guarded designated place. The author recounts, “I could see a high barbed wire fence surrounding the entire area, pierced at regular intervals by tall guard towers...I saw armed guards close and bar the barbed wire gates behind

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