The Dehumanization of Internment
Faculty Mentor Information
Dr. Amanda Zink (Mentor), Idaho State University
Abstract
My poster includes information from 3 novels: Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor Was Divine, John Okada’s No No Boy, and Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston’s Farewell to Manzanar. Looking through the lens of these books, we are better able to understand the effect of dehumanization on those who lived in the Japanese-American internment camps during World War II. This dehumanization was coming from all sides for the people who were incarcerated – the government, old neighbors, even the fellow internees.
Otsuka’s novel was inspired by her family history. The main family in the novel are never given proper names, which shows the objectification and isolation that was going on for many families at the time. John Okada’s novel was a groundbreaking yet ignored cry to understand the divide between those who remained “true Japanese” like Ichiro’s mother, who thought Japan won the war and those who were truly American – people like Ichiro and his friend Kenji. Though one was a no-no boy and went to prison while the other fought in the war, both struggled with inclusion in society and their own self-images. For Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, living in the camps was real. She recorded a collection of memories that provide a starkness to our understanding. The level of discrimination that centered around the question of being a true Japanese fractured families and negatively influenced how individuals saw themselves.
The Dehumanization of Internment
My poster includes information from 3 novels: Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor Was Divine, John Okada’s No No Boy, and Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston’s Farewell to Manzanar. Looking through the lens of these books, we are better able to understand the effect of dehumanization on those who lived in the Japanese-American internment camps during World War II. This dehumanization was coming from all sides for the people who were incarcerated – the government, old neighbors, even the fellow internees.
Otsuka’s novel was inspired by her family history. The main family in the novel are never given proper names, which shows the objectification and isolation that was going on for many families at the time. John Okada’s novel was a groundbreaking yet ignored cry to understand the divide between those who remained “true Japanese” like Ichiro’s mother, who thought Japan won the war and those who were truly American – people like Ichiro and his friend Kenji. Though one was a no-no boy and went to prison while the other fought in the war, both struggled with inclusion in society and their own self-images. For Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, living in the camps was real. She recorded a collection of memories that provide a starkness to our understanding. The level of discrimination that centered around the question of being a true Japanese fractured families and negatively influenced how individuals saw themselves.