The excerpt from Impossible Subjects tells of the horrendous experiences Japanese-Americans were faced with following the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor. This is a key moment in America’s history, because it reveals how the the U.S. allowed an inherently racist and dehumanizing process ensue. The attorney general of California of the time, Earl Warren, confirms this when describing the difference in measuring Italian- and German-American allegiance and Japanese-American allegiance. It was easy for them to test and confirm the allegiance of Caucasians, however the government believed they dealt with “an entirely different field and [could not] form any opinion that [they believed] to be sound.” Although this is an openly xenophobic statement, government officials felt justified because their fears outweighed their sense of humanity.
The loyalty and disloyalty of Japanese-Americans was determined by who wished to be American and who decided to continue with the “Japanese way of life.” This, however raises the question of how one analyzes and determines another’s “Americanness.” Being (or becoming) American is often connected to whiteness or one’s willingness to leave certain aspects of their culture behind. Similar to how Mexican-American women were taught how to cook and set a table “properly” and avoid being “sloppy,” Americans hoped Japanese-Americans would be willing to change things about the way they express their culture, in the name of assimilation.