Japanese Immigration and Japanese Internment as Reflected in the Works of Japanese-American Authors
Abstract
The United States is a country of immigrants most of whom had their share of prejudice, discrimination and racism. Yet, the Japanese experience is unique due to their internment after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Japan is located on four large islands and thousands of tiny ones off the eastern coast of Asia. Until mid-nineteenth century, Japan's rulers enforced rigid isolation from the rest of the world and its influences. Officially closed to the Western world, traditional Japanese culture remained intact for centuries following the first contacts with the West in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In 1853, Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the United States Navy sailed his warships into Edo Bay.
References
- Benson, Sonia, ed. 6 vols. U.S. Immigration and Migration. Detroit: UXL,2004.
- Daniels, Roger. Prisoners Without Trial. New York: Hill ans Wang. 1993.
- Davis, Daniel S. Behind Barbed Wire. New York: E.P. Dutton, Inc. 1982.
- Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki and James D. Houston. Farewell to Manzanar. New York: Dell Laurel-Leaf, 1973.
- Kim, Elaine H. Asian American Literature. Philadelphia: Temple U P, 1982.
- Lowe, Lisa. Immigration Acts. London: Duke U P, 1996.
- Okada, John. No-No Boy. Seattle: U of Washington P, 1976.
- Sone, Monica. Nisei Daughter. Seattle: U of Washington P, 1953.
- Uchida, Yoshiko. Desert Exile:The Uprooting of a Japanese -American Family. Seattle: U of Washington P, 1982.
- ____. Picture Bride. Seattle: U of Washington P, 1987.