Child Racism In World War II Essay Example

While most adults are capable of overcoming the effects of racism in their everyday lives, it is extremely challenging for their children. Most children experience racism in the forms of stereotyping as well as racial profiling. And those who experience it get lasting effects. According to Otsuka’s novel, When the Emperor was Divine, the children go through racism and its consequences during World War II. After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, the United States issued an order into law to evacuate all Japanese Americans to internment camps in Utah. In Otsuka’s novel, racism lead children to personality changes, isolation and self-consciousness.

During World War II, the children felt they had to change their personalities because they thought society would better accept them if they did not act Japanese.  One day in the internment camps, for the first time,  the children have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. “‘No more rice balls,’ she said. ‘And if anyone asks, you’re Chinese’” (75). The woman was technically saying to her children to abandon their Japanese culture because society will not accept people acting Japanese. When the children returned from the internment camps, the children recalled the war as an interruption and nothing more. “We would pick up our lives where we had left off and go on. We would go back to school again. We would study hard, every day, to make up for lost time. We would seek out our old classmates. 'Where were you?' they'd ask, or maybe they would just nod and say, 'Hey.' We would join their clubs, after school, if they let us. We would listen to their music. We would dress just like they did. We would change our names to sound more like theirs. And if our mother called out to us on the street by our real names we would turn away and pretend not to know her. We would never be mistaken for the enemy again!" (114).  The children think they must change who they are because if they do not change, society will still consider them as enemies. When the children went back to school back in Berkeley, California, they sat in the back where they hoped others would not notice them. “Keep your head down and don’t cause any trouble, we’d been told, weeks before, in the mess hall lecture on ‘How to Behave in the Outside World.’ Speak only English. Do not walk down the street in groups of more than three, or gather in restaurants in groups of more than five. Do not draw attention to yourselves in any way” (121-122).  The children feel they must behave in the ways the internment camps taught them so they would not turn into a problem. All these examples show how racism affected children through personality changes. Although Japan did some unforgivable things to the United States, they should not have punished all Japanese Americans because of their race. As a result, the children thought they had to change who they are so others would respect them.

Also, around that same time, the children felt isolated from society and felt they could not trust anyone. When the boy was walking in a town near the internment camps, “a man stopped him on the sidewalk in front of Woolworth’s and said,‘Chink or Jap?’and the boy answered,‘Chink,’ and ran away as fast as he could. Only when he got to the corner did he turn around and shout, ‘Jap! Jap! I’m a Jap!’’’ (76). The boy lied to the man about being Chinese because his mother told him to do so. He also did not know what would happen to him if he did say he was a Jap. One day, the children are walking around town with their mother, and she said to them, “They're afraid, our mother had said. Keep on walking. Hold your head up. Whatever you do, don't look back. Now when we ran into these same people on the street they turned away and pretended not to see us" (115). The children felt isolated because their neighbors pretended not to even see them all because of their race. After their father returned home from prison, he told the children that anyone could be an informer and that,“They just don’t like us. That’s the way it is. Never tell them more than you have to. And don’t think, for a minute, that they’re your friend” (134). The children felt like they were all alone because they felt they could not trust anyone as their friend. All these examples show how racism affected children when they hid secrets from society or if the public ignored them. While society did not trust them, they should have at least said hello to the children so they would not feel isolated. By not letting society bring them down, they still behaved in public so they could hopefully regain society’s trust again.

Finally, During World War II, the children began to feel self-conscious about themselves all because of their race. Before the girl evacuated to the internment camps, she licked her spoon and stared at her reflection. “Her head was upside down. She dipped the spoon into the sugar bowl. ‘Is there anything wrong with my face?’ she asked. ‘Why?’ said the woman. ‘People were staring.’ ‘Come over here,’ said the woman… The girl looked at her. ‘You have the most beautiful face I have ever seen.’ ‘You’re just saying that.’ ‘No I mean it’” (14-15). The girl felt she was not beautiful because others were judging her face. She also lost some of her self-esteem due to that situation. When the boy arrived at the internment camps, he saw men that all looked alike. “Black hair. Slanted eyes. High cheekbones. Thick glasses. Thin lips. Bad teeth. Unknowable. Inscrutable. That was him, over there. The little yellow man” (49). The boy saw plenty of Japanese men that looked alike and how the United States labeled all Japanese Americans as enemies even if they were completely innocent. After the children arrived home from the internment camps, "[They] looked at [themselves] in the mirror and did not like what [they] saw: black hair, yellow skin, slanted eyes. The cruel face of the enemy. [They] were guilty. Just put it behind you. No good. Let it go. A dangerous people. You're free now. Who could never be trusted again. All you have to do is behave. On the street [they] tried to avoid [their] own reflections wherever [they] could" (119-120). The children felt ashamed of how they look all because of their race and how society discriminated against them. All of these examples show how racism affected children by others judging their appearance all because they were part Japanese. Although society did not like looking at Japanese faces because of what Japan did to Pearl Harbor, they should not have judged the children because it made them lose some of their self-esteem. Rather than giving up and becoming depressed, they still tried fitting into society again. 

In conclusion, racism has a major impact on children and makes them feel they have to change who they are, it makes them feel isolated and makes them feel ashamed of their roots. The children from the novel experienced racism by behavior and identity changes, when they hid secrets from society or when society ignored them, and disliked appearances. The world needs to stop discriminating against people because of their race because at the end of the day, everyone is human and that everyone is unique in their own way no matter what color skin they have.