Japanese Americans

I never knew how awfully the United States treated Japanese Americans. It was shocking and disappointing to discover the truth behind the hatred towards other Japanese Americans. I thought that the hate towards other races would not be as strong as it was during and after World War II. The presentation of the hardships that Japanese Americans endured opened my eyes to something that I had never known before. It was very interesting to learn how the United States, a tossed salad of many cultures, treated Japanese Americans.

The internment camps were very awful to hear about. They seemed comparable to a concentration camp in Europe. The differences I found were that the people placed in these camps were not working as brutally if they were working at all. The camps had over 120,000 people living in just a few locations nationwide. The people lived in poor conditions. There was no plumbing or cooking facilities. The people stayed warm with several blankets since there was no heat. Each person only received 48 cents for food each day. These conditions are very surprising and brutal when compared with today's standards. Even more shocking is the fact that half of the members of these camps were children.

I did not like how the death and destruction of Japanese people was promoted in cartoons during World War II. The hate that Americans show toward Japanese is inhumane and very stereotypical. Americans compared people of Asian race to monsters and beasts that were considered savage. This is so wrong. Americans repeat their wrongs. Their hatred and lack of knowledge and consideration for another culture different from them is wrong. We need to destroy the bonds that separate "us" from "them." We need to let stereotypes and judgments of others fall apart and be lost within generations. We need to continue to study our wrongs so that we do not repeat them. Let us not forget how far we have come and what it took us to get thus far. We can and will be a stronger American if we knock down the barriers that segregate us.