Spring Break
Inflammatory language was essential to Manzanar story
Brandon Iwamoto
Issue date: 3/30/09 Section: Opinion
In response to reader feedback to "Beyond The Barbed Wire: Alternative Spring Break travelers help reclaim Manzanar, a WWII internment camp in California where 10,000 Japanese-Americans were imprisoned" that ran Wednesday, March 25, I'd like to explain my decision to use the phrase: "They had slanted eyes and ate rice with most meals."
Readers said they were offended. Good. So was I.
In hindsight, that's exactly why I used it.
It is important for readers to understand exactly how ridiculous the reason Japanese-Americans were imprisoned was. I wanted them to feel the same indignant anger I felt when I began learning details of internment.
When writing the story I didn't stop and say "how can I offend readers?" However, after becoming aware of such criticisms I realized that I did indeed write those inflammatory words to bring to light differences in ways of thinking between then and now -- how something that was totally acceptable 65 years ago is not acceptable now.
In a time where racial caricatures and discrimination were the norm, such words would be used to describe the Japanese (and all other Asians. After all, we all look alike -- right?).
Americans could not, or would not, make distinctions between Japanese and Japanese-Americans. They said "a Jap's a Jap" and that was it. If they had small eyes and ate with sticks, they might as well have been Japanese.
I wrote that portion to make readers understand that, by stereotyping and using ethnicity-based language, it became easy to justify robbing an entire population of their rights.
Does nobody see why that might be important in this day and age?
Inside the museum at the Manzanar Interpretive Center, there is a display with photographs of both the smoking ruins at Pearl Harbor and the burning World Trade Center towers. Beside it was the Benjamin Franklin quote, "Those who would give up essential liberty to obtain temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Readers said they were offended. Good. So was I.
In hindsight, that's exactly why I used it.
It is important for readers to understand exactly how ridiculous the reason Japanese-Americans were imprisoned was. I wanted them to feel the same indignant anger I felt when I began learning details of internment.
When writing the story I didn't stop and say "how can I offend readers?" However, after becoming aware of such criticisms I realized that I did indeed write those inflammatory words to bring to light differences in ways of thinking between then and now -- how something that was totally acceptable 65 years ago is not acceptable now.
In a time where racial caricatures and discrimination were the norm, such words would be used to describe the Japanese (and all other Asians. After all, we all look alike -- right?).
Americans could not, or would not, make distinctions between Japanese and Japanese-Americans. They said "a Jap's a Jap" and that was it. If they had small eyes and ate with sticks, they might as well have been Japanese.
I wrote that portion to make readers understand that, by stereotyping and using ethnicity-based language, it became easy to justify robbing an entire population of their rights.
Does nobody see why that might be important in this day and age?
Inside the museum at the Manzanar Interpretive Center, there is a display with photographs of both the smoking ruins at Pearl Harbor and the burning World Trade Center towers. Beside it was the Benjamin Franklin quote, "Those who would give up essential liberty to obtain temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Wendy
posted 3/31/09 @ 10:04 AM MST
Iwamoto-san, you are 1000 kinds of awesome. I understood your word choices completely, but I guess that's because I saw exactly what the same things you did at Manzanar. (Continued…)
Post a Comment