Week Two

This week I read and annotated When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka. This historical fiction novel told the story of a Japanese-American family forced to move to an internment camp during World War II while the father was imprisoned. The book changed perspective between the different members of the family. Last week I read about Japanese internment and the War Relocation Authority in our non-fiction text, and I found this week’s historical fiction book surprisingly helpful in providing a human context to what I had learned. On Tuesday my class went to both a history museum and an art museum in Tacoma, as well as the Chinese-American reconciliation park in Ruston Way. The history museum had some interesting exhibits relating to our curriculum, such as geta sandals worn by early Japanese immigrants as well as a newspaper from the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The art museum had an exhibit from a Japanese-American painter who painted pictures of the Japanese-American internment camps. During our writing workshop on Thursday we learned about the different elements of writing, such as voice and tone. On Friday we watched a film that also focused on Japanese internment camps and how they affected Japanese-American families. I found it interesting how it talked about the way we pair imagery with things both seen (real historical footage of the attack on Pearl Harbor) and unseen (a dramatized film version of the attack from the perspective of a kamikaze pilot.) Unfortunately, despite the insight the filmmakers shared on the subject of the Japanese-American experience of World War II, the film itself was not well made and the text on the screen often clashed with the words being spoken, making for a confusing and jarring viewing experience.