An Inside Look

Posted by kara

I just finished Looking Like the Enemy by Mary Matsuda Gruenewald. It was an eye-opening book about her time in the internment camps during the war. She touched on things that I would not have even known to ask. She showed how scary it was not knowing what was to come and being surrounded by the military. It broke my heart to read about her family dressing in their best clothes to evacuate to essentially a guarded prison. She explained the conflicted feelings of being American and Japanese, the shame she felt being interned, and the tensions in the camps.

These are all things that I would have never asked my grandparents, out of respect to not make them feel uncomfortable. Sometimes I’d ask my mom a little, but some things are hard to ask. Plus I’d make ignorant statements and be reprimanded (okay, maybe just corrected, but there isn’t much difference to me). How was I to know that I can’t use the word “Jap” or say that Grandpa might have been fighting his [Japanese] brothers in the war? It was something we didn’t talk about and therefore, I couldn’t understand. No one really talked about it. Not even history books.

Looking Like the Enemy points out that there is much seriousness in the effect those camps had on the internees. Not knowing if you’d be killed, not knowing if you’d ever get to go home, not knowing if you had a home to return to, risking your life to prove your loyalty, losing your family structure, having your family separated when all you have is each other… it’s heavy. It’s easy to look back on it now, knowing how everything turned out, and think it would be manageable to get through. But to live through that, not knowing what the end would look like (or when the end would be), it’s something I’m not sure I could do with as much perseverance and grace as the Issei and Nisei did.

I’m not claiming that I understand the experience now, but I have more insight. I’m so thankful that Mary wrote her story and shared her feelings. She was really brave to be so honest. I have so much respect for her and all those that endured so much.