Desert_Exile

Desert Exile Journal Entry: Desert Exile The novel Desert Exile by Yoshiko Uchida discusses a Japanese- American family and the trials they encountered during the time of World War II. Uchida begins the book by describing her family, a fairly well off Japanese family in Berkley, California. They were extremely involved in the community and highly regarded by both the Japanese and white families in their neighborhood. The focal point of the narrative is the period this family, along with thousands of other Japanese-American families, spent in an internment camp during the war. In February of 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the Executive Order 9066, authorizing the secretary of war and his military commanders to prescribe areas from which “any or all persons may be excluded.” In basic terms, this allowed for the removal of Japanese-Americans from their homes to be placed in internment camps, under the guise of “national security.” This marks one of the most disturbing events in American history. A major question concerning Japanese-Americans today is: “Why didn’t these people resist the orders'” It seems to many that the Issei and the Nissei willingly accepted their fates without the smallest amount of war, japanese, camps, time, family, under, uchida, security, people, orders, national, japanese-americans, internment, slavery, since, racism, protest, one, japanese-american, german, families, exile, ended, during, desert, chance, book, been, americans, american, america, allowed, in, zero, yoshiko