no-no boy
English No-No Boy
To begin I really enjoyed this book, it was very interesting to me to read about the incredible struggle Ichiro had within himself and society. When I think of the Japanese-Americans being placed into internment camps because of Pearl Harbor I am grateful for how far our country has grown but I’m not unaware of how far we still have to go. I think back 12 years to September 11th 2001, when the twin towers were bombed and living in New York City, witnessing how Muslims who had nothing to do with it were being treated with hate. I remember the guys who owned the corner store across the street from my house having to close for about two weeks because people were vandalizing their store. I knew them all my life and to see that was hard and I didn’t understand why people would treat them that way. Imagine if the government were to put all Middle-Eastern Americans in camps because of something they had no control or say so over. I for one would be against it and like Mr. Carrick would be ashamed of my country. To punish an entire ethnicity who is just as a part of this country as any other living here for something done by strangers to them is very ridiculous to me. As Ichiro says it “ first they jerked us off the coast and put us in camps to prove to us that we weren’t American enough to be trusted. Then they wanted to draft us into the army”. This quote stood out to me the most in the book because it’s the truth how can you uproot someone’s whole family and put them in a camp because you consider them potential threats to the country and turn around and ask them to go fight for the same country that has just turned its back on them. I’m not sure why the other guys went to war and did fight for America but if I were placed in that situation I would have been a no-no boy or girl who was just as angry as Ichiro. I feel like being bi-cultural is hard enough without having to choose which culture you want to be loyal to. How do you
To begin I really enjoyed this book, it was very interesting to me to read about the incredible struggle Ichiro had within himself and society. When I think of the Japanese-Americans being placed into internment camps because of Pearl Harbor I am grateful for how far our country has grown but I’m not unaware of how far we still have to go. I think back 12 years to September 11th 2001, when the twin towers were bombed and living in New York City, witnessing how Muslims who had nothing to do with it were being treated with hate. I remember the guys who owned the corner store across the street from my house having to close for about two weeks because people were vandalizing their store. I knew them all my life and to see that was hard and I didn’t understand why people would treat them that way. Imagine if the government were to put all Middle-Eastern Americans in camps because of something they had no control or say so over. I for one would be against it and like Mr. Carrick would be ashamed of my country. To punish an entire ethnicity who is just as a part of this country as any other living here for something done by strangers to them is very ridiculous to me. As Ichiro says it “ first they jerked us off the coast and put us in camps to prove to us that we weren’t American enough to be trusted. Then they wanted to draft us into the army”. This quote stood out to me the most in the book because it’s the truth how can you uproot someone’s whole family and put them in a camp because you consider them potential threats to the country and turn around and ask them to go fight for the same country that has just turned its back on them. I’m not sure why the other guys went to war and did fight for America but if I were placed in that situation I would have been a no-no boy or girl who was just as angry as Ichiro. I feel like being bi-cultural is hard enough without having to choose which culture you want to be loyal to. How do you