Paper Assignment: Anne Moody's book

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Racism
Anne Moody’s book, Coming of age in Mississippi is a book written with no a trace of apology or sentiment; it’s an unforgettable real life story of Anne Moody. It was written to illustrate what blacks went through in Mississippi in 1940s, 1950s and 1960s (Moody 10). In Moody’s book she portrays the suffering, smells and sights of being brought up in a racially prejudiced society. She is a strong girl who has the courage and confidence to challenge racism whereas in Yoshiko Uchida’s Desert Exile is a book talking of one family that lived in Berkeley before World War II. It’s a personal story of a woman who was brought up in Berkeley and was studying at the University of California before World War II (Moody 16). This paper illustrates the challenges of racism that Africans Americans and Japanese Americans went through in 1950s and World War II respectively.
In Anne’s book, it begins by illustrating Anne’s upbringing. She talks of her two-room shack house which she had to share with her parents and younger sister. Life in the shack houses was difficulty since there was no indoor plumbing, electricity and bad sanitation. Unlike to Anne’s house, the plantation owner lived in a decent house that had electricity and good sanitation. Once he lit the lights at night, Anne’s mum concluded that he was counting money that he had made off from the plantation sales. After their father deserts them for a ‘yellow woman,’ Anne’s mother for the next six years moves to six different houses (Moody, 24).
Unlike Anne’s harsh dwellings, Yoshiko’s book starts by introducing the Yoshiko family and explaining their community, origin, interest, occupation and personality. Uchida is portrayed as a young educated woman living in the suburbs. Yoshiko a Japanese American was considered a Nisei and this made her feel the lack of identity. The white people never accepted the Japanese; they saw them as enemies of the country. Uchida talks of being forced to vacate from her home in Berkeley to join Tanforan Internment Camp and later to Topaz Internment camp. Uchida describes the sense of betrayal and racism from the American government. Uchida compares life in Berkeley and that of camps where they had to survive in poorly built houses, lack of provisions, violence within the camps and harsh climate (Yoshiko 304).
In Anne’s book racial discrimination is quite evident. For instance, Anne decides to go watch a movie with her white kids. She finds out that she is never permitted to seat on regular seats as the white kids instead she has to watch the movie from the balcony with other black people. She is deeply concerned and does not understand what makes her different from the white kids. She tries to get answers but no one is there to give them to her (Moody 221). Yoshiko on the other hand, had never tried talking to white kids unless they talked to her. She always felt unwanted and inferior among her white classmates. She only spoke to Japanese kids.
Racial discrimination was eminent since Japanese Americans had to always confirm if they were accepted at ...