Japanese Internment Memorial Essay

1.The Japanese-American Internment was an American reaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbor in World War II. Immediately following the bombing, the FBI raided the houses of Japanese-Americans and sent them to internment camps.
2. Ruth Asawa was one of the approximately 40,000 Japanese-American children sent to internment camps. In her free time, she would draw and paint with other professional interned artists. Asawa used her experiences to her advantage, becoming one of the most decorated sculptists of all time.
3. In Japantown in San Jose, every single business was shut down because of the internment. Within the next decade, post-internment, Japanese-Americans rebuilt their businesses in San Jose.
4. At SJSU, 125 Japanese-Americans were forced to out in the middle of their education. That numbered represent more than half of all interned people in the CSU system.

The Japanese Internment Memorial shows a timeline for Japanese-Americans in America symbolized by vignettes. The vignettes show the culture that Japanese-America brought to the U.S. before they were interened. Once they were interned, the vignettes show the suffering of families broken apart. The vignettes accurately show how Japanese-Americans were void of a free life. Rather, they were trapped in an internment camp while guards in watchtowers made sure they couldn't escape. And lastly, the vignettes show that the Japanese-Americans overcame the internment and can live life freely now.

The first vignette that stood out to me was the two FBI agents forcing a Japanese-American to leave. This marked the beginning of the internment, and eventually 110,000 Japanese-Americans were forced into military areas. The American government had no evidence to suggest that Japanese-Americans were going to organize and attack the homeland, yet the FBI forced them to move anyway.

The next vignette that spoke to me was the one of two families separated by a curtain. Living conditions were inhumane, yet some Japanese-Americans made the best of them. Ruth Asawa used her free time to practice her artistic abilities. Asawa's experiences at the internment camp paved the way for a lot of her art.

The last vignette that had significance to me was the paper airplane. As Professor McCune said, things could get out, but the Japanese-Americans couldn't. I think it was a symbol of freedom for everyone but the Japanese. The effect of your freedom for an extended period of time can't be measured. The people in the internment camps lost their privilege of receiving the highest education. One-hundred and twenty SJSU students were interned. Not only did they lose valuable time for education, they might have lost their innocence of humanity as well. Overall, Japanese-Americans moved past the internment, and in San Jose, they rebuilt Japantown as if the internment never happened.

Unfortunately, I do think something like this could happen again. My trust in humanity isn't as high as I want it to be. If war is possible, then an internment can't be out of the question. After 9/11, Muslims in America faced discrimination. I fear that all it would take is one more organized attack by Muslims for American to overreact. In other countries, this type of hatrid still exists. For example, North Koreans would very likely imprison South Koreans if they entered their land.