Studs Terkel #6

Peter Ota

Ota’s family was terribly mistreated during the war. His father’s assets and hard work was taken away from him and the family had to be “shipped” from camp to camp. The majority of the non-Oriental American citizens had an immense hatred for all Japanese because of the war. There was a sense of fear in the American public and unfortunately, being Japanese, Ota was one of many Japanese that was feared. Even though America was supportive of the fight against Japan, they feared the Japanese people in general because their culture was different and they did not know where their loyalties lie. The fact that all the events in the passage were during World War II showed how Japanese Americans were treated and under certain conditions. “After all those years, having worked his whole life to build…an American dream…having it all taken away, and not one vindictive word….He died a very broken man”. The U.S. had mistreated American citizens because of their descent, taking away everything that they had rightfully earned through hard work. Since then, we have given reparations to the Japanese and now do a lot of trade with Japan. The war with Japan set a precedence for removing military strength in Asia, and led Japan to focus on becoming an economic power. 

Betsy Basye Hutchinson

Hutchinson was a nurse at a hospital that took care of injured soldiers during and after WWII. During her time she witnessed the horrible injuries that soldiers suffered during the war and it was her job to not only heal them as a nurse, but to keep their spirits up. Hutchinson’s story brings up two important points that Terkel wants the reader to understand. First, there is a difference between the popularized media version of the war that inspired nationalism during this difficult time period and the war that the soldiers experienced on the front lines. Understanding that war causes horrible pain and suffering for the soldiers was easy to understand for the Europeans who witnessed the war first-hand, however for Americans who only heard about the war through the news it never really hit home. The expectation that war removes dictators with wars that happen far away set a precedent for the United States entering Korea and eventually Vietnam. The second interesting point from Hutchinson’s story was when she discussed that soldiers and witnesses to the horrors during WWII often kept quiet and did not share their stories. These veterans wanted to shield their children from the pain that the war caused, and this lead to someone of a distorted truth about war for the Baby Boomer generation.