Race and power in the US Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Race and power in the US - Essay Example Tule Lake!!! I had to stop making your father’s supper. I have only heard that name in my nightmares for the past thirty years. I know you children have always assumed that during World War II I was in Europe with your father. I was not. My wartime experiences are a matter of deep shame. To start with, all I have told you about your grandmother is true. My mother was born in Tokyo to poor parents. Upon marrying my father, they both dreamed of coming to America. My parents believed that if one worked hard enough in America, one could achieve greatness. They both worked to save the money for the ocean voyage. Upon my mother’s realization that she was pregnant, both my parents made a difficult choice. They had saved enough money for one. My father decided to send my mother ahead to America. They wanted their child born on American soil. My mother arrived in 1924, a few months before I was born. After we arrived in San Francisco, my mother worked as a dishwasher to support both of us. Mother saved every spare penny to bring father to America, but by the time they had saved the money, the restrictions on immigration had tightened. My mother and father were still going through the red tape when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. The tensions in Japan had been rising before. I remember as a teenager, the headlines of Japan invading China. I was afraid for the father I had never met. Father’s letters started coming few and far between, then after Pearl Harbor stopped all together. Mother was frantic. Oddly enough, when the flyers calling for â€Å"Japanese Americans† to relocate my mother and I were not too concerned. I do not know if my mother thought we would be returned to Japan or not. She did think we would be reunited with father upon the completion of the war, one way or another. We lived in an apartment away from our Japanese friends in an all white neighborhood. Our landlord pressured us out of

Image and Identity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Image and Identity - Essay Example son as such communication media allows lesser personal interaction with another person and thus â€Å"internal† qualities are left unseen (â€Å"Body Image,† par. 13). She quotes psychologist Dr. Hue-Sun Ahn as saying that â€Å"the increase of communication though electronic means †¦ [gives us fewer] opportunities to get to know people †¦ on a personal level† (par. 13). Personally, I just could not see how this lack of a more personal involvement in electronic communication directly affects our perception of how we look. Perhaps Rispin and Ahn’s stand simply reflect our irrational fear of technology. Dr. Reville, a professor at University College Cork in Ireland, explains that this fear is due to the perception that technology is unnatural and our â€Å"lack of understanding of [its] technical and scientific basis† (â€Å"If We Fear,† par. 2). True, technology has revolutionized the way we communicate that there is much less sensory involvement when we chat via instant messaging or call someone on the phone. But has it really transformed us into mindless nonchalant beings? Is technology taking away all of our emotions that we have failed to see â€Å"compassion, spiritedness, sense of humor, loyalty [and other] non-visible qualities,† (â€Å"Body Image,† par. 13) as Ahn puts it? Obviously, the answer is no, for technology merely speeds up the way we communicate and does not, in any direct way, change the way we think and feel. Yes, we use technology on a daily basis that we can’t seem to live without it. We send e-mails, we blog, watch YouTube. But at the end of the day, we still long for that one-on-one communication that no other medium could substitute. We have not forgotten to talk personally to friends, family, and mentors; we still laugh or cry on someone else’s shoulder; we fall in love. We are still, in every essence, human beings, with or without technology. We never really lost anything, not even our feelings. Speaking of blogging and YouTube (or