Japanese American Culture

How is culture defined? You may think culture is based off of your heritage and background, family traditions, or the accent you have when you speak. However, this is not necessarily the case. Culture has much more to do with what you identify with, what you have grown up around, and what experiences you have encountered in your life. You may look Asian on the outside, but you were only born there and have very little knowledge of the daily life typical Asians live in because you moved to America when you were 2 years old. In this case, you may identify more with American culture and consider yourself to feel more like an American than anything else. Because a lot of Americans feel this way regardless of their family's heritage, it is
She had a best friend at school, Denise, who was white. Regardless of their racial differences, they were always very close with each other, until one day Denise had heard about the espionage ordeal among Japanese-Americans. She said "you're trying to start a war. Giving secrets away to the enemy, why can't you keep your big mouth shut?" Denise immediately blamed her friend for something she personally had not done. This was something the government was blaming ALL the Japanese for, something that not all of them had personally done. Even though it was something not everyone had done, they were all still being punished and had to wrongly suffer the consequences of being forced to go to internment camps. Not only is this young girl being punished for something she did not do, she also explains how she doesn't even feel very "Japanese," due to having lived in the
The girl and her siblings are waiting outside the church, not allowed to go inside, while at the same time they are also not allowed to wander about to the "balloon and punch-ball vendors." The evil grandmother praying in the church could possibly be symbolic of the Hispanic world and the girl's family background, while the carnival-type area outside the church that the girl is tempted to wander over to may be symbolic of the American world. The young girl feels trapped in the sense that she doesn't quite belong in the Hispanic world with her grandmother praying in the church, but she is also not allowed to go out and experience the American world, even though she longs to play around in the carnival area. This could be interpreted as the girl not allowed to feel like she is apart of American culture, even though she lives in America and would like to live like all the other Americans are