Emperor was Divine: Loss of Identity Essay
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan on December 7, 1941, war hysteria swept the nation and had a profound effect upon Japanese Americans. Suddenly, innocent, often very patriotic, people became targets for profound racial injustice, suffering undeserved hate crimes and scorned by former neighbors and even good friends. In response, President Roosevelt initiated Executive Order 9006 requiring all Japanese Americans on the west coast of the country to be swept into internment camps. While some supported these camps as protection for Japanese Americans, they were, in fact, part of a movement to sweep them away and out of sight. In the process, these innocent victims lost everything they had worked so long to establish as American citizens. Not only did they lose their homes, their businesses, their jobs, and their standing in the community, but little by little they were stripped of their very identity and even treated as animals.
When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka chronicles one family from Berkley, California as they are forced to leave their home, everything, and everyone they have known in compliance with a profoundly unjust exclusion order. The fact that each member of the family is denied even a name underscores their loss of identity as they struggle to survive this devastating ordeal. Sometimes this loss of identity is obvious, such as being assigned a number for the entire family. Other times it is more subtle as the author uses symbolism to reveal the dehumanizing erasure of identity.
******After gathering evidence from When the Emperor was Divine and sharing on the Discussion Board, write a three to four page essay discussing the heinous loss of identity experienced by this family. You may focus on either the mother, the boy, the girl or on the whole family. For example, when you write about the boy, you may discuss how he packed his mitt and loved baseball. He also loved the horses he saw. The girl was a star pitcher on her softball team and played the piano. The woman was a well to do wife and mother who took care of her home and family. There are many different things to discuss that will show loss of identity. Some will be very obvious.
It might be helpful to look at the tangible things that were lost. All of those were part of their identity as individuals and as a family.
Be sure to include direct quotes from the novel with a proper parenthetical reference noting the page number. Since the title of the novel and the author will be included in the introduction, just put the page number in the parenthesis. Example ( 22). You will not need to include a Works Cited page. However, IF you do include something from another outside source, you must have a Works Cited page at the end of this essay. If you do this, include When the Emperor was Divine on the Works Cited page. Use MLA eighth edition style for this.
As with any essay, this paper must be well organized and follow MLA format. This means using a twelve point Times New Roman Font and one inch margins. In the upper left corner of the first page include a heading:
In the upper right corner of each page put your last name and the page number like this: Ramos 1 Ramos 2, Ramos 3 Ramos 4
The following outline will be helpful as you create and support your thesis driven essay.
I. Introduction
A. Hook (get reader’s attention)
B. A little background leading into the thesis statement. Identify the novel and author.
C. Thesis statement: Identify the cause of the situation and the resulting effects and the
character (s) to be discussed. This is the last sentence in your introduction.
A thesis statement announces the main ideal of the essay. It should look something like this:
In When the Emperor was Divine, Julie Otsuka follows a young Japanese American mother, her daughter, and young son as they are stripped of their identity and sent to an internment camp in the aftermath of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
II. Body
A. Three to four paragraphs. Each paragraph is six to eight sentences in length.
B. First body paragraph should focus on one of the characters. If you are going to write only about one character, this will be one way the character loses identity
C. Next body paragraph should focus on another character (or another aspect for the one novel to provide support for your claims. Again, lead into the quote and comment after the quote.
D. The then the next paragraphs should either focus on another character(or another aspect for the person you are writing about)
III. Conclusion
A. Summarize what you have said in your essay, but don’t repeat everything you said.
DO NOT SAY IN THIS ESSAY I HAVE SHOWN” OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT.
B. Revisit (not restate) your thesis statement.
C. End with a clincher, something to show the importance of this and why it is relevant today