The Japanese Internment Memorial

Growing up in San Jose for over twenty years, I've never heard about the Japanese Internment Memorial in downtown until today.

The memorial was not what I expected it to be.

In my mind, I thought the memorial was going to list the names of families or just commemorate the soldiers who were in the army during the time.

Instead, the memorial illustrated the journey of the Japanese ancestry from their native homeland to the United States.

The memorial was so detailed, depicting the journey, from vignettes highlighting the Japanese immigrants entering the country, seeing the their native clothing literally changing to the American worker uniform of denim overalls, to seeing army men carrying out Executive Order 9066.

One vignette that stood out to me was a paper airplane that flew through the barbed wire.

It could've been any type of an airplane but it was paper.

To me, the paper represented how fragile and delicate how freedom is and how easily it could be taken away.

On this side of the memorial, the barbed wire was less loose compared to that of the barbed wire on the other side.

However, the paper airplane was still in the middle of the wire representing the lost sense of fragile freedom that Japanese Americans felt during the time.

The memorial went above my expectations, exploring much more than just the internment, but the Japanese culture itself.

Japanese Internment

In a country that prided themselves of being a melting pot of diversity, the idea of internment camps, similar to that of Germany's, seemed absurd.

However, during WWII, the attack on Pearl Harbor set in motion extreme measures by the military for fear of another attack.

In February of 1942, President Franklin D. Rooosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 that ordered that anyone of Japanese ancestry resulted in forcible internment.

Considered an act of national security, thousands of Japanese-American families were forced to relocate out of their own homes and to be isolated from the rest of the country.

Thousands of Japanese owners' lost their homes and businesses.

Their new "home" resembled prisons, often held in harsh weather conditions, sharing one bathroom with 250 other families.

Even though thousands of Japanese Americans joined the U.S. Armed Forces against their home country, the U.S. questioned its Asian citizens in fear of expected outbursts.

Japanese Americans suffered greatly and were still considered themselves citizens.

Now, almost 60 years later, can the U.S. be expected to demonstrate another unethical act upon a particular race of people?

After 9/11, there was a stigma that was held against any Middle Eastern person regardless if they were citizens or not.

11 years later, people are still arguing that the creation of a Muslim mosque near the World Trade Center is a sign that terrorists win.

To say the U.S. has improved on their discrimination of races is a lie - it's clear when we observe the attitudes we have on anyone that is related to a Muslim belief.

Clearly, the stereotype still stands if you're Middle Eastern or of Muslim faith, you're a terrorist.

The U.S. could not physically remove populations and place them into internment camps as they did 60 years ago.

Anything resembling an internment camp, especially after WWII, would be considered and deemed unethical.

However, I do think that the U.S. does not interfere with American attitudes placed upon a race, so in essence, the U.S. has not evolved as much as we have liked it to.

The U.S. may prevent the occurrence of isolation of particular races, but with a society that fears of the unknown, stereotypes and accusations may take over and affect the country once again.

source:
http://www.nps.gov/manz/historyculture/index.htm
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1679.html

Word of the Week #10

1. ecumenism

2. scholarly article

3. The study contributes to the literature in several ways. First, it utilizes
measures such as religious struggle and ecumenism, which have been refined beyond indicators of religious behavior and spiritual expression in previous research.

4. the movement or tendency toward worldwide Christian unity or cooperation.

5. The church wanted to move toward an ecumenism direction.

Word of the Week #9

1. reprimand

2. The Little Mermaid

3. "Bet you on land. They understand. Bet they don't reprimand their daughters."

4. (n.) a severe reproof or rebuke, especially a formal one by a person in authority.

5. The king reprimands about the princess leaving castle grounds were taken seriously.

Feature Story Prep

Facts:
1.) Millennial generation are enthusiastic about the technological and communication advances of the past decade. (people-press.org, 2010)
2.) They are also highly accepting of societal changes such as the greater availability of green products and more racial and ethnic diversity. (people-press.org, 2010)
3.) What may be less expected is that, in many cases, they are not much different from the age groups that precede them. (people-press.org, 2010)
4.) Millennials still maintain traditional beliefs such as the existence of life and hell
5.) Fully one-in-four adults under age 30 (25%) are unaffiliated, describing their religion as "atheist," "agnostic" or "nothing in particular."
6.)In total, nearly one-in-five adults under age 30 (18%) say they were raised in a religion but are now unaffiliated with any particular faith. These stats pertain to any Christian denomination and Protestant beliefs.
7.) More than one-third of religiously affiliated Millennials (37%) say they are a "strong" member of their faith, the same as the 37% of Gen Xers who said this at a similar age and not significantly different than among Baby Boomers when they were young (31%).
8.) In the group's survey of 1,200 18- to 29-year-olds, 72% say they're "really more spiritual than religious. (usatoday.com,2010)
9.)They may be less religious, but they're not necessarily more secular" than the Generation Xers or Baby Boomers who preceded them, says Alan Cooperman, associate director of research. (usatoday.com,2010)
10.) Young people are defining their own spiritual paths, says Rebecca Phillips, vice president of social networking for Beliefnet.com. "Young people are not necessarily doing the same thing religion-wise that their parents did, and they're developing their own unique brands of spirituality," she says. (foxnews.com, 2010)



Potential interviews:
Luzviminda Torres - member of Gen X, devout Catholic follower. (phone, 408-449-5195)
Sister Maria Gorretti - nun, part of Most Holy Trinity Church (phone, 408-729-0101)
Nicole Cimmarusti - Millennial, grew up in a Catholic home but never quite identified herself with faith (phone, 626-353-8704)
Edward Przemielewski- part of Baby Boomers, Jewish and Catholic upbringing (phone, 408-807-3653)


Similar articles:
"Millennials Increasingly Find Their Religion Online" by Lauren Green
"Organized Religion Not Popular Among Millenials" by Sheralyn Hartwell (2010)

Outline:

Introduction:
- use personal anecdote. "I was raised in a Catholic upbringing. I knew my "Hail Marys" and "Our Fathers," went to church on Sundays and prayed with the Rosary. After all these years, I still couldn't identify myself a devout Catholic. I acknowledged its presence in my life, but chose not to practice it after my parents finally stopped bothering me about it. My mom tends to blame my generation, she says that we don't prioritize religion at all. Is she right?"
- define what religion actually means to a Millenial. Does it mean organized religion, faith in a higher being or just being spiritual?
- define what Millennials are, list some of their attitudes


Body:

- use research from the Pew Research Center proving that Millennials are not identifying themselves with a denomination
- point out differences of the Millennials versus older generations
ex. Fewer young adults belong to any particular faith than older people do today.
ex. Fully one-in-four members of the Millennial generation - so called because they were born after 1980 and began to come of age around the year 2000 - are unaffiliated with any particular faith.
ex. Less than half of adults under age 30 say that religion is very important in their lives (45%), compared with roughly six-in-ten adults 30 and older (54% among those ages 30-49, 59% among those ages 50-64 and 69% among those ages 65 and older).
- point out similarities of Millenials among older generations.
ex. Pew Research Center surveys show, for instance, that young adults' beliefs about life after death and the existence of heaven, hell and miracles closely resemble the beliefs of older people today.
ex. n their social and political views, young adults are clearly more accepting than older Americans of homosexuality, more inclined to see evolution as the best explanation of human life and less prone to see Hollywood as threatening their moral values.
- Millennials have more sources to seek religion and spirituality.
ex. "It does allow people to question, to check out a variety of sources when they have questions about what this religion believes ... or what this history is and so forth," says Dr. Brenda Brasher, author of "Give Me That Online Religion." "I would imagine that the best religious leaders see this as a sort of provocative challenge of how do they carry the word of truth that they feel and that enlivens them ... and that they think guides all of existence. How do they carry that word into this kind of generation?"

Conclusion:

-summarize research
-possible insight that religion is emphasized with age


Possible sidebars:
- infographic conducted about whether Millenials are more spiritual or more religious
- survey about how many Millenials identify themselves with a denomination
- where are Millennials going to for religion - church, family, online?

Word of the Week #8

1. Ruritanian

2. Browsing through New York Times online archives

3. "The dancers are dressed in vaguely Ruritanian costumes, the men in military, the women in stiff tutus."

4. (adj.) of, relating to, or having the characteristics of an imaginary place of high romance

5. The wall was covered with love letters from famous authors, embodying a Ruritanian theme, that is forever quaint and romantic.