A Challenge To Democracy

In the beginning of this flick we see happy Japanese loading a train to enter a world of fun, and safe “American” living. But, what we don’t see are the business they worked hard for being shut down, and their beloved homes being ripped to shambles. The Japanese immigrants moved to America looking for a better opportunity and to escape the poverty, and rules of their native land.
This movie really kind of irks me in the way it was created to show the people of America they were safe and what they were doing was justified. This movie creates a setting that’s happy, and non-problematic. It hides the struggles of the Japanese to work for that extra dollar to buy an extra loaf of bread, or the struggle to make their diminutive rooms a home setting for their children. The room the government so humbly supplied them with was 20 by 25 feet. This compares to my dorm room in which I’m constantly complaining about, and I’m by myself. I could never imagine living in that small of a “house” with my entire family. They claim towards the beginning that these people are not prisoners, but they are just staying there by their own free will to make America a safer place, and free of terrorism or spies. The count of who is “American” vs. who is Japanese was a surprise ration of 2/3 were reported as registered Americans while the rest were not. So why did they put “Americans” in these relocation processes when they obviously exhibited no threat to the society. When they were relocated they were told that their belongings and valuables were on the West Coast in safe storage for when they freely left the camp. This statement I think if anyone believes that the Japanese still had their belongings when they left the camp is very naïve. Also, who is to say they would have anywhere to go once they left the camp that they were “placed” at. Their wages while they lived here were so small that I’m surprised they managed to put clothes on their children’s backs. In conclusion this movie portrayed a lot of messages to Americas society to basically make them feel better about what they were doing, and that it was right.
After really looking at this movie and reading between the lines I realize that it really does kind of reflect the Holocaust. We put them in things that resembled camps, structured their way of living around how we thought was right. Segregated one group of people and limited their resources, which in return made the dominant group of that time, feel even more powerful. What we did was wrong on all levels, and I was surprised at the length people went to feel the power and justify their wrongs. Because in the end, was it all really worth it?