Alexandra Gaines

April 24, 2017

Reading Program
Mr. Estanislao

Reading Program Benchmark #3 Outline & Format

Books and Documentaries:

1) Book: Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings
2) Documentary: Hiroshima: BBC History of World War II
3) Book: Farewell To Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston & James D. Houston

Questions:
1) Who should be held responsible for the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
2) How do the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the internment of the Japanese relate to
current times?
3) Is the United States facing a similar path with the treatment of Muslims and the bomb threats
coming from North Korea?

Prospective Thesis: Even though the Japanese Military chose not to surrender during WWII, the
United States was still unwarranted and immoral in its decision to drop the Atomic Bomb and to
intern Japanese-American citizens. In addition, such rash behavior delivered by the U.S. may be
boiling to the surface once again and could repeat the cycle again with the Muslim and North
Korean people of America and the world.

Paragraph Topic: Debate of the morality of dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945

Posterity sees the use of the atomic bombs in isolation; yet in the minds of most of the
politicians and general privy to the secret, these first nuclear weapons offered merely a dramatic
increase in the efficiency of air attacks (p. 647).

Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945

Trumans greatest mistake, in protecting his own reputation, was the failure to deliver an
explicit ultimatum before attacking Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Western Allies Potsdam
Declaration, issued on 26 July, threatened Japan with prompt and utter destruction if it failed to
surrender forthwith (p. 648).

Paragraph Topic: Connection and relevance to modern times with Muslims

Hiroshima: BBC History of World War II

Now I am becoming death, the destroyer of worlds (5:32).
When a majority holds power over a minority, they have the power to destroy that minorities
world. They become the destroyer of worlds and place minorities in a place where they may
become hated. Muslims in America are oppressed by majorities and often times face horrible
discrimination labeled as terrorists. The power to label a large group in one category is incredibly
powerful and shifts the way the entire world, or most of it, views the group. Muslim people are
headed down the same path of banishment that the Japanese faced in WWII. The Japanese were
the terrorists, and all the Allies saw it that way. Unless discrimination can be stopped, and
equality reached, the world is soon to see history repeat itself.

Farewell To Manzanar
There was no point to it. He had become a man without a country. The land of his birth was at
war with America; yet after thirty-five years here he was still prevented by law from becoming
an American citizen. He was suddenly a man with no rights who looked exactly like the
enemy (p.8).

In modern day America, the threat of a terrorist attack is very prominent. Muslims have become
the modern face of terrorism just like the Japanese in World War II. Loyal, law-abiding citizens
are frowned upon because of their Middle-Eastern heritage. Just like the Japanese were
discriminated, Persians across America also experience hate. Although the extremes of Japanese
discrimination in Wold War II are not seen in society today, if the path of discrimination
continues, there is nothing stopping Muslim or Persian internment in America. These groups are
pushed away and as a result, become people without a country.

Paragraph Topic: Debate of the morality of Japanese Internment

Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945

She was one of the 834 civilians on occupied Guernsey deported to the Reich in September
1943 to spend the rest of the war in an internment camp as hostages (p. 340).

Farewell To Manzanar
He burned a lot of papers too, documents, anything that might suggest he still had some
connection with Japan. These precautions didn't do much good. He was not only an alien; he held
a commercial fishing license, and in the early days of the war the FBI was picking up all such
men, for the fear they were somehow making contact with enemy ships off the coast (p. 6-7).

The Japanese in World War II America were incredibly petrified of what might befall them and
their families. In order to eliminate all suspicion in the eyes of the government, Japanese-
American citizens had to burn all possible ties with Japan. Stripped of the basic right of
possession, these citizens were humiliated and abused. Having to burn family objects, letters,
flags etc. was traumatizing to these Japanese people. The treatment of regular citizens was
disgusting and morally unjustified, as most of these people had no allegiance to Japan. This
created a larger divide than already present between America and a vast majority of its citizens.
The Japanese were displaced and wrongfully discriminated.
Farewell To Manzanar
The shacks were built of one thickness of pine planking covered with tarpaper. They sat on
concrete footings, with about two feet of open space between the floorboards and the ground.
Gaps showed between the planks, and as the weeks passed and the green wood dried out, the
gaps widened. Knotholes gaped in the uncovered floor (p.20-21).

When the Japanese arrived at internment camps like Manzanar, they were horrified to discover
their new living conditions. Forced to live like animals, these people would become covered in
dust because of the gaps left in their rooms. The treatment of these people was completely
immoral and in no way justified. The Japanese were wrongfully accused and then downgraded to
less than humans. Others would never deem a living space like the ones in internment camps
livable.

Farewell To Manzanar
The evacuation had been so hurriedly planned, the camps so hastily thrown together, nothing
was completed when we got there, and almost nothing worked (p.30).

Japanese-Americans, after being forced to pack up entire lives and families, arrived at unfinished
internment camps. Most utilities did not work, making their living situations even more
deplorable. The immoral treatment of theses peoples stopped not only at wrongly justified
accusation of loyalty, but extended even past, to the half-finished living conditions of the camps.

Farewell To Manzanar
You might say it would have happened sooner or later, this sliding apart of such a large family,
in postwar California. People get married, their interests shift. But there is no escaping the fact
that our internment accelerated the process, made it happen so suddenly it was almost
tangible (p.38-39).

Living in such small spaces, large families often would begin to drift apart, seeking privacy and
quite away from their families; camps accelerated the process of family separation. Japanese-
American families were prematurely broken apart, and children forced to seek independence
sooner than necessary because of the lack of privacy. America was breaking apart families with
no valid justification. New generations were traumatized and often distant because of this
eventual lack of interaction.

Farewell To Manzanar
He didn't die there, but things finished for him there (p.47).

Lives were ended in internment camps. Although not in the traditional sense, peoples hopes and
dreams were stripped away from them and buried in the ground. The people in these camps saw
no end to their internment and began to give up hope for any sort of life outside of Manzanar.
Some peoples will to live also died in such camps, and they became shells of their former selves.
The American government put thousands of lives on hold and, more often than not, they never
resumed.

Paragraph Topic: Who takes what responsibility

A) Unites States Responsibility

Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945

Many modern critics of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki demand, in effect, that the
United States should have accepted a moral responsibility for sparing the Japanese people from
the consequences of their own leaders obduracy (p. 649).

Farewell To Manzanar
Yet the very idea of the oath itselfappearing at the end of that first chaotic yearbecame the
final goad that prodded many once-loyal citizens to turn militantly anti-American (p. 86).

The United States wrongfully assumed the loyalties of all the Japanese-American citizens living
in the country. In doing so and forcing them to pledge their undying loyalty for the United States,
they turned many citizens against them who otherwise would not have been opposed to the U.S.
The United States should hold responsibility for most of the Japanese-American citizens that did
turn against them. Wrongful accusation without valid justification was offensive to these interned
citizens. Being forced to pledge allegiance to a country that was treating them less like humans
and more like animals, outraged and angered many of the Japanese-Americans. This was an
avoidable part of the United States internal struggles and they should hold a portion of the
responsibility.

Hiroshima: BBC History of World War II

Im not thinking about the people that got killed or hurt, Im thinking about the ones that did not
get killed or hurt (1:37).

The soldiers in World War II did not think about what exactly they were doing at the time. Most
of the men were blindly following orders in the name of their country. This caused a type of
blinded rage goal for the soldiers. As mentioned in the quote, these men did not think about the
horrific acts of murder they had just committed, but rather what their next violent act against a
Japanese was going to be. The moral compass inside a person becomes damaged because of this
loss of emotion and connection. The United States holds all responsibility for any harsh or
unnecessary treatment of the Japanese. Teaching men to blindly follow orders is exactly what the
U.S. wanted, and because of that, the killings were much more brutal than they needed to be.

B) Japanese Responsibility

Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945

Just as Hitler was the architect of Germanys devastation, the Tokyo regime bore overwhelming
responsibility for what took place at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If Japans leaders had bowed to
logic, as well as to the welfare of their own people, by quitting the war, the atomic bombs would
not have been dropped (p. 650).

Farewell To Manzanar
It is more than going back to Japan, Mama said. It is the sugar. It disappears so fast What
do they think they will find over there? Maybe they would be treated like human beings (p.
74)

Japanese citizens imprisoned in America during WWII, received no help or support from Japan.
Japan takes hold of some of the responsibility for not even attempting to help interned citizens.

Ah-Ha Moment:
The construction and perseverance of society relies not on the high-power technology that we
invent, but rather how we chose to use that high-powered technology. As technology continues to
progress, new tactics and ways to oppress rebellion become more widely available at the
fingertips of a government. War could repeat itself so terribly that it eventually pushes countries
to corners so scary that they feel no other choice can save them except for total civilian control.
In a world where technology threatens the human rights given across the world, repeating any
aspect of WWII could push the very brinks of society that much closer to an Orwellian dystopia.