Racial SegregationKategorie: Rozwój, Żyj chwilą, Polityka Liczba wpisów: 1, liczba wizyt: 3571 |
Nadesłane przez: cortezbaylor 15-05-2020 08:58
Racial Segregation
Hisaye Yamamoto depicts racial segregation and her feelings in her short story “A Fair in Fontana.” The story based on the real events happened with Yamamoto. It was all about the life of an American journalist in the late of 1940s. Yamamoto was a Nissei woman. She worked in a newspaper for African Americans. She had to live in the internment camp in Poston, Arizona. It was a camp for Japanese living in the United States during the World War II. American government forced over 100 000 Japanese with their families to live in ten such camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Her life in the camp impacted on her future greatly because Yamamoto could not bear racial, ethnic, and other kinds of the discrimination, existing in the United States at that time. The major problem was in the history of the United States. American nation was formed from immigrants from the whole world. Moreover, African Americans worked for the white immigrants from the very beginning of colonization and till 1863. They were enslaved, and they turned into a property of their white owners. Although the slavery was cancelled, African Americans became equal righted with white Americans in 1954, after the famous victory of Martin Luther King’s movement. Hence, readers saw the American society by the eyes of Yamamoto, who suffered from ethnic discrimination in the United States.
Being the former settler of the camp in Poston, Yamamoto understood the whole humiliation and deprivations that followed African Americans at that time. Yamamoto could not accept the white Americans’ attitude towards their compatriots, based on the skin color. Being a well-educated woman, Yamamoto considered unacceptable to humiliate a person for the skin color only. She was not able to do such shameful things and opposed to others, who humiliated their compatriots due to their ethnicity or race. Yamamoto saw such humiliations from white Americans of various social positions, from a worker to a teacher, businessman, and officials. Hence, white Americans hated African Americans irrespective of their education or social positions. It was a real disease of the American society. The tragedy was in the reluctance of the white Americans to understand how people humiliated by them felt.
Yamamoto hated how white Americans called their African compatriots. Words “Blacks” and “Niggers” were unacceptable for her. Of course, Yamamoto hated white Americans, who were happy that nobody gave a glass of water to an African American. It reminded Yamamoto of her life in the camp and all abasements suffered by her and all Japanese there. Moreover, when Yamamoto rebuked them for such behavior, as a rule, white Americans explained it by their upbringing. Hence, to humiliate African Americans was a tradition of white people. They had streets, divided to walk for whites and African Americans, toilets for colored and whites, places in buses for whites and colored. Finally, Yamamoto began working in an African American newspaper. It was her first job. The stuff of the newspaper discussed various problems, and as a rule, each discussion finished with discussion of racial segregation.
Once, an African American by the name of Short came to the office. He was a father of two children. He told about racial segregation and threat of lynching posed to his family. In a couple of days, Short, his wife, and their two children were burnt in their home. Of course, it was arson because police detected traces of gasoline. Nevertheless, the investigation was closed because police considered the man made a fire himself. A white priest did not believe in the police version; hence he was sent to the boondocks of Arizona. After that, Yamamoto could not work in the newspaper because she understood that she was unable to improve the situation. At the same time, the scenes of racial discrimination continued. She was a common journalist of an African American newspaper. Furthermore, white American did not read that newspaper. It was necessary to cooperate with a movement for human rights of African Americans to gain success. Nobody could change the situation at that time. Finally, Yamamoto had to go away from there. Hence, she went to California, where a great Asian community lived. She could not live alone in the American society because she had to turn into either a white American, or a colored person. Yamamoto did not want to accommodate herself to the American racial segregated society. She wanted to remain such a person as she was born: free from any racial theory. Hence, she had the very way to find a large Asian society in order to feel like a free person, but it is already a different topic for the research which was mentioned in the emotional intelligence essay.
Over sixty-five years passed since then. The American society changed. African Americans gained equal rights with white Americans. The United States became a democratic country, created the civic society. Irrespective of the ethnicity, race, or religion, every American citizen is protected by law. The United States guaranteed protection of human rights of every person there. Of course, Yamamoto had a very difficult life in the United States. Despite being born there, Yamamoto could not feel like an American person. Moreover, everyday life reminded her constantly that she lived in the racial segregated society, and white people did not want to respect her rights. On the other hand, Yamamoto hated white people because she considered them not only as foreigners for herself, but also as hostile people, who were able to lynch her for something, depending on their moods and wishes.
It is difficult to imagine myself on her place because I did not live there and did not suffer from all humiliations in the camp in Poston. Yamamoto’s family was like a leaf, dropped from a Japanese tree and gone with the wind in a foreign continent by the name of America. Of course, she had a right to be happy, but racial segregation was the major obstacle on her way to happiness. If I had been she, I would have left for California too. American society was divided by racial, ethnic, and religious aspects. Therefore, American nation did not have accord and cohesion at that time. Of course, if the United States had been situated in Europe or Asia, it would have been conquered by some countries because African Americans together with other humiliated races and ethnic groups would have fought against white Americans. It was proved by the World War II, when humiliated by the authoritarian communist regime peoples created armies to help Germans to fight against their regime.
Nowadays, the situation is changed. Of course, some white Americans hate persons of other races and ethnicity, but it is not a mass phenomenon as it was in the short story of Yamamoto. Foreign students in the United States are protected both by American law and their status of the foreign citizens. Of course, it is unwise to use force in response to somebody’s stupidity. Racial segregation is one of the forms of such stupidity. At the same time, racial segregation poses a danger to every foreign student. The best way to counter racial segregation is to unite the students into a fraternity with a student government in order to solve various problems of students’ life and studying. Furthermore, the University’s authority appreciates student governments as one of the forms for creating transformational leadership among students. I believe that racial, ethnic, and religious segregation will be eliminated all over the world. At the same time, peoples of the world should learn to respect each other irrespective of race, ethnicity, and religion.