As I read They Called Us Enemy, the overall topic of perspective was very prominent to me. This started to stick out with me in reading two where George is on the train with his family and he saw this “trip” as a vacation because he did not know what was going to happen. The way that the children’s perspective of this event was so much different than the adults made me think of my own life. People of all ages view experiences and life in general so differently. This also made me realize that my perspective on life can be anything I want it to be. George was in a very negative position, but still managed to make it positive for himself despite what was going on. His parents also helped to change his perspective as we can see in the below excerpt of the novel. Perspective plays a big role in many life situations we experience and it is important to be aware of that.

Not only by reading but also by investigating my thoughts, I was able to think more about perspective. I wanted to learn more about the different perspectives of everyone at the concentration camp. Everyone was in their own situation and experiencing different things. Our past has a big effect on our perspective of the present and the future. Personally, I am very optimistic about the future, but others who may not be very confident in what they want to do or where they want to go will have an entirely different perspective than me. After his dad passed away, George began to feel very strongly about what he wanted to do with his talents and his experiences. The tragedy that he experienced led him to feeling confident enough to talk about it and bring light to the situation. This shows that a shift in perspective can change a lot for a person. The video below is a ted talk that George Takei gave about his experience. We learn his perspective and it is very inspiring to see how one’s experiences can shape their life.