Throughout my experiences with people, I have always heard the phrase “History will repeat itself if we don’t learn from it”. That made me question how our society today is doing. Relating to topics such as the economy, democracy, and even equality and health made me think about this. After reading They Called Us Enemy, I started to delve deeper into this topic. This graphic novel centers around a boy that lived in a concentration camp shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japanese Americans were forced to live there even though they were innocent. This immediately made me think about America’s border and how families are separated which is quite a sad and sensitive topic.

Every person has a different perspective regarding these types of situations. For me, I think that we should look back at history and see what we can learn from it in order to prevent situations such as concentration camps from happening again in the future. 

The concentration camps that occurred did in fact tie with racism. It has always existed throughout history, but we should be able to at least quell and combat it. Especially in America, people are very diverse which can correlate to culture, ethnicity, beliefs, and religion. I have seen multiple presentations and speeches including anti-asian hate crimes and black lives matter.

Even though there were rumors that Japanese Americans aided in the attack, the FBI proved this false. War-time security was the excuse for their treatment. It was actually due to anti-Japanese sentiment. The climax of this hate showed when the Grower-Shipper Vegetable Association of California openly admitted in Saturday Evening PosT that they wanted to get rid of the Japanese for “selfish reasons’’. They claimed, “It’s a question of whether the white man lives or the Pacific Coast or the brown man’’. President Roosevelt was shown to be thinking of this mass incarceration even before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Even though he was warned not to take action and knew the Japanese Americans were no threat, he went through with it. Examples like this should be learned from. In society today, prejudice and racism exists. 

Decades after Pearl Harbor, money was offered to some Japanese Americans who were in the internment camps. Even now the government is paying sums of money for families of Native Americans that have lost their land. Unfortunately, money doesn’t fix the damage that was done. Although there are many sources and representations serving to oppose and “fix” racism, action should be taken upon how not to repeat history first. Dealing with similar problems should open a new path which will ultimately lead to a solution.