Ota and Hutchinson

Peter Ota reflected on the way Japanese Americans were treated during the war.  He remembers being treated like an animal, and him and the Japanese accepting it every day.  He later reflects “They couldn’t understand it.  They weren’t raised in our culture.  Today, I would definitely resist.  It was a different situation at that time.  This is what we tried to explain to our daughter.  Today if this happened, I think a majority of the Japanese would resist.”  At the time, no Japanese fought back.  This was because they didn’t understand what was going on.  They believed that America was the land of the free and the land of opportunity.  They couldn’t imagine being denied this opportunity just because of their race.  That goes against all American values.  If it happened a second time, as Ota pointed out, I think they would fight back.  People need to fight against unjust laws.  I don’t think America could single out a race again.  The minority would look back on the Japanese and fight back.  When we look back in time, we have to remember that the Japanese didn’t understand what was happening to them.  It wasn’t an act of fear that they didn’t rebel, but it was an act of confusion.

                Betty Hutchinson was a nurse.  She was a nurse because she felt she had to for her country.  After Pearl Harbor she said, “Immediately, I was going to become a nurse.  That was the fastest thing I could do to help our boys.  Here I was only one semester at Fresno State, and by February 5, I was out at the hospital as a registered nurse.”  This relates to what we learned about the home front in America during the war.  Americans felt that they had to do something.  If it wasn’t enrolling in the draft, it was helping out in other ways.  For Hutchinson, it was becoming a nurse.  The patriotic scene on U.S soil was a lot different than we see today.  Today, we are fighting in numerous countries.  Most American’s don’t even know what countries we are fighting in.  We don’t see it televised on the news.  Soldiers are dying, and Americans at home are living their normal lives.  I think as a country we need to appreciate our soldiers more and do more to help them overseas.