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Post by Rylee Wenzel on Jul 29, 2024 2:50:10 GMT
What stuck out to me most, other than this being a graphic novel, is the historical event in which this novel takes place. I think if you had not known much of this history, it is shocking to read. I think the themes most present here are isolation and alienation. Being taken from your life and forced to live in a camp. I can’t even imagine how harrowing it must of been. Also, I think that lots of feelings of betrayal were likely present. Building your life in a country and feeling safe within it when all of a sudden you’re being accused of having something to do with an event that is so out of your control.
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Post by Dr. Nemmers on Jul 29, 2024 17:53:23 GMT
Yeah, to your point one way to look at it is that isolation + alienation = segregation. That's really the formula here (or I guess you could flip it around, and say that segregation = isolation + alienation). But this sort of thing was the norm in the U. S. for a very long time. It's pretty easy to make the connection between this sort of "internment" and the Jim Crow laws in the U. S. South, or the system of Native American reservations throughout the American West (to say nothing of the Jewish ghettos throughout Europe).
In many ways this is the existential condition of modern "man": alienated, isolated, and subject to a sort of totalitarian government that is designed to circumscribe your freedom. And yes, agree that the question of "control" is operative here. I think Okubo was able to retain some measure of autonomy by making her sketchbook... that lent her the freedom that she didn't have otherwise.
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Post by garrison on Jul 30, 2024 16:36:13 GMT
I'm sure there was a bad case of whiplash for many of the families inducted into these camps. America has always been advertised as the land of the free and that has been a great selling point in building the diversity we are blessed with today. But learning about times like these really makes you question who is free in this land, and who gets to decide that. This land of dreams and opprotunity so quickly turned on some of those who were chasing that promise. Harrowing feels like the tip of the iceberg.
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Post by Rylee Wenzel on Aug 1, 2024 2:29:31 GMT
Alienation + isolation = segregation is such a great way to put it. Harrowing is absolutely just the tip of the iceberg. It is so hard to put into words what they must have felt especially from the perspective of someone who has never experienced anything close to this.
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