The Life and Times of Julie Otsuka 4

Gary Okihiro: The experience of World War II for Japanese Americans is an embarrassment to many Japanese because they believe that they were victimized by their government; even though there was no evidence of disloyalty on their part they were nonetheless guilty by reason of race and thus they were embarrassed about the situation, and most parents did not even tell their children about what they had endured during the war because of that embarrassment and stigma. On the other hand also, U.S. historians have not been alert to tracing some of the kinds of injustices that took place within this U.S. nation, and part of the reason, I believe, is because national histories are means by which to maintain its citizens of the country into a kind of loyal citizenship. And so these sorts of unpleasant events are generally dismissed as aberrations in the nation’s progressive march toward greater inclusivity and democracy. So slavery for example is one of those kinds of things that is a kind of tarnish to that march toward democracy, the treatment of American Indians and their extermination and exclusion onto reservations. All of these incidences are seen as aberrations within the nation’s march. So Japanese American internment during World War II is like one of those unpleasant incidents within the U.S. nation and so not largely publicized. Now I think it is important, however, to remark that what happens to various minority groups within the nation’s history shed as much light on the nation’s past as the success stories of successful immigrants who have made it in the American dream, or realized the American dream. And these stories of people of color should be highlighted within the nation’s history because they reveal the nation’s past as well as the successes of the nation.