Happy American Thanksgiving

• Lauren B
• 0
• on Sep 16, 2022

Growing up there’s nothing more American than Thanksgiving. For years in elementary school, you’re told the story of the first Thanksgiving and how it resembles Thanksgiving now. You spend your day celebrating and stuffing yourself with turkey, just generally rejoicing in the holiday. These events weren’t all that dissimilar to Thanksgiving in 1943 in Japanese internment camps. In her letter Margaret Ishino mentions to Miss Breed how wonderful her Thanksgiving was; she had turkey and sweets as well as attended a party after dinner. This directly contradicts your assumptions about internment camps that they were poor places with little resources and poorly constructed buildings. While this was true it’s obvious that in some circumstances this wasn’t the case. The variety of turkey, dessert, and decorations was due to the possibility of the government wanting to almost “brainwash” the Japanese-Americans into believing that they should disregard their Japanese heritage and that being American is the only way of life. To be Japanese and embrace your culture is alien, foreign, and wrong but to be American is good food, parties, and becoming a true citizen. Also mentioned is how Margaret’s baby brother was still gaining weight and was actually over the average weight for a ten-month (according to modern standards), again this contradicts expectations about internment camps that the food was poor. The food was poor though so it makes me wonder if the food for babies was of different nutritional value or if people were simply giving more food to babies. The fact that Margaret and others in the camp are still celebrating Thanksgiving speaks to the large love they still had for their American culture, even though they were literally kicked out of their homes and had the government classify them as non-citizens. The government should’ve been seen as the enemy due to their actions but instead, the Japanese-Americans still loved and respected them, this could be due to subtle brainwashing the government enacted in the internment camps. My biggest takeaway from this letter is the power of propaganda, how not only it convinced Americans that the Japanese were awful but it also convinced the Japanese-Americans that being sent to internment camps was the best thing for them even though this truly wasn’t the case.