Desert Exile by Yoshiko Uchida Background on Japanese Internment Camps

Japanese-American Internment Camps During WWII, over 100,000 Japanese-American individuals, the vast majority actual American citizens, were rounded up and sent to internment camps – over half were infants or children These camps were poorly constructed barracks surrounded by barbed wire, guard posts, and armed guards They were not put in these camps because they were guilty of something, but because either they or their parents or ancestors were from Japan and determined to be a “threat” to national security

These people were also easily identifiable because of the way they looked There was not a similar round-up of Germans or Italian-Americans, even though we were also fighting them during the same war These prisoners were forced to abandon their homes, businesses, and in some cases, their families

Many of these prisoners were held for years, without trial The Japanese-Americans suffered severe economic losses, personal humiliation, and in some cases, death due to this relocation This relocation was ordered by then President of the United States Franklin D Roosevelt and by an act of Congress

An interesting fact is that the Japanese-Americans living in Hawaii were not rounded up and sent to these camps even though they made up of a third of the population and closer to Japan than the masses rounded up on the West Coast (cultural and economic reasons) There was already a lot of racism and discrimination on the West Coast

The Resolution 46 years later, the government officially apologized for their actions and paid reparations http://youtu.be/oUrpIFp7EMA http://youtu.be/3BJjo0BCbGo

Theme A central message or insight revealed through a literary work. A generalization about people or about life that is communicated through a literary work Can be stated directly or implied When it is implied, readers think about what the work seems to say about the nature of people of about life **NOTE: There is usually no single correct statement of a work’s theme, though there can be incorrect ones. Also, a long work (novel, play) may have many themes. Finally, not all literary works have themes – some may