Nowadays, the U.S. is known as the country that has much diversity. It is very common to call the U.S. as “melting pot.” Many people who have different races, languages, religions and colors live in the U.S. I think it is very interesting. It looks like people all over the world are living in the same country: the U.S. Actually, we can see much diversity only in our classroom, there are Saudi Arabian, Korean, Japanese, American, and Taiwanese! It is amazing, isn’t it?
That is why the video in the civil rights class gave me a shock. I have never thought about American history. There were many processes and struggles to be the U.S. what we know now. It is very sad that to discriminate people because of their race, but these things indeed happened before. Black people lynched without fair trial. Chinese were forced to work under extremely bad conditions. Native Americans were killed. Japanese were compelled to move to concentration camp. To my shame, I have not heard about Japanese discrimination. The Second World War was started by the Pearl Harbor that is a surprise attack to the U.S. by Japan. After the attack, the U.S. government enacted the law that set the rule of internment of Japanese-American. It has estimated that more than 120,000 Japanese were forced to live in camp. They were deprived of not only their surroundings but also their American civil rights. Although the war was ended in 1945, Japanese-American’s struggles lasted long.
I think what I should do now is to remember their struggles and other people’s struggles. We have to make the world that never happen such things.
Japanese-American life in internment camp:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/anseladams/aamsp.html
2 件のコメント:
I agree with your last statement (in a bit different English). We must make the world a place in which these things never happen. You don't have to be embarrassed that you did not know about the Japanese internment. The positive thing is that you have taken an interest in it now and that you have learned something from it! I know that some of what we saw in the movie was shocking. I also hope that it will have a lasting impression and will encourage action on students' part.
Thanks for posting.
Michael
Reiko! I was also really surprised during and watching the video. I also thought and taught in school that America as a ‘melting pot’, but the history was so cruel. Many people were killed by perpetrators and those ‘many people’ were actually had no guilt. However they were killed. Why? The reason can be organized by one thing. ‘Different’. They were different from perpetrators like skin color, race, religion and gender. It was so ridiculous. Ask to little any kids around you “are these things able?” Nobody would say they will agree. Even kids know!
There is another thing that I got shocked. Lynching! How it could be happened? I can’t totally understand. It is and real assault toward black people, but they are not different. No, they are same as us and you. I was so shocked but also really mad about these truth. There are still many people to kill minority (I don’t know they are still ‘minority’, because some region there are more Asian or other countries’ people than American living in.) like KKK and Skin Head. I hope they will convert their mind and pursue world’s peace.
コメントを投稿