When the Emperor Was Divine

NAME PROFESSOR COURSE DATE In the book, 'When the Emperor Was Divine,' the author highlights the impacts of racial discrimination on Japanese people by highlighting events surrounding a family, which was forced to evacuate from California. As the evacuation order indicates that all Japanese people living within the city had to migrate, the author utilizes a lyrical style of writing to highlight the psychological implications of various events in the United States. In my analysis, a slight extraction from the first paragraph will be carried out, but majorly basing my analysis from specific parts in the final chapter. "We looked at ourselves in the mirror and did not like what we saw; black hair yellow skin, slanted eyes — the cruel face of the enemy. We were guilty. A dangerous people. We could never be trusted again. All you have to do is behave. What kind of 'ese' are you or Japanese or Chinese?... perhaps they were embarrassed. Or maybe they were afraid." In this narrative, the author illuminates on the dramatization of history, where the United States government suspects that American citizens who are from Japanese ancestry are primarily responsible for developing an allegiance with Japan, for attacking the U.S, specifically the Pearl Harbor ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"knFniADC","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Park)","plainCitation":"(Park)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":109,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/J4QwJhze/items/NCNYVU5Y"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/J4QwJhze/items/NCNYVU5Y"],"itemData":{"id":109,"type":"article-journal","title":"Alien Enemies in Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor was Divine","container-title":"MFS Modern Fiction Studies","page":"135–155","volume":"59","issue":"1","source":"Google Scholar","author":[{"family":"Park","given":"Josephine"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2013"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Park). Mostly, the migrants are labeled as enemy aliens and are sent to intermittent camps, all through the World War two…. "And was it true what we've heard… disloyal… a traitor…". Troubling events, trauma, and crises that the migrants and the middle-class family undergo are adequately illustrated as the people have to start a new life in a whole new environment. Later on in the 1980s, however, a review was carried out by the congressional committee to assess the credibility of the Japanese people engaging in attacks against the US. However, little evidence is gathered on the situation. The writer, Julie Otsuka, legitimately expresses her by identifying the theme of security, as well as racism against Asian- American people, who were wrongfully judged. As a result of the racist stereotypes the people have to endure, the identity of the Asian community is highly tainted, as they were defined as both dangerous and foreign ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"DXdKBUgT","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(\\uc0\\u8220{}LitCharts\\uc0\\u8221{})","plainCitation":"(“LitCharts”)","noteIndex":0},"citatio...