While I enjoyed reading Farewell to Manzanar well enough, I kept getting caught up in how wrong it all was. I mean, it was just plain wrong. How come no Germans or Italians were rounded up and segregated out of the population for fear of undermining the government? Why just the Japanese? The long and short of it would seem to be plain old racist hate. Ugh. You know, it gets harder and harder to be proud of being American when faced with so much bad behavior. This book shows it well.
It was one thing to lock up people who had lived in this country their whole lives just because of the color of their skin, but it is another thing entirely when couched in patriotism; it is ugly Americanism. And this book did a great job of reminding me how ugly Americanism can be. How am I supposed to be proud of this behavior she endured? How is that supposed to fit within my schema of America? Did we do some good stuff in the world too? Did we? I doubt it when reminded of stuff like the Japanese internment camps.
It's clear that America is a racist country founded by racists and populated by more of the same over the decades. Racism dies hard. And yet, that's the saddest part, isn't it? All it takes to rekindle the fires of racist hate is some tragedy committed against the populace, no? The attacks against the World Trade Center etc. created a new wave of racism we are still riding: Muslim-Americans are now the target. It seems like we are perennially in a state of race-hate in this America we "own." No matter where you look in this "great" history of ours, we are stained from the smoldering char of endless racism. Way to go, America. Way to be a beacon for the world...Ugh. Bottom-line: the book riled me up.
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