The Problems with Pearl Harbor

In America the education system has let many students down. I have experienced this first hand over the years. One issue that has proved difficult is teaching students about Pearl Harbor, Japan's surprise attack, and the Japanese-American internment camps. I was a T.A. several years ago when I graded an essay on Pearl Harbor from a student who was clearly confused. Her research paper cited Sports Illustrated magazine and her grandmother as her main sources. She described the aftermath of the attack as a dark moment in American history because the U.S. government rounded up all the Japanese-Canadians and placed them on sugar-beet farms in Alberta. She also claimed that her grandmother was wrong about Hawaii because after doing research on this topic she became convinced that Hawaii was not a good place. Her conclusion claimed that she was not sure who won the Second World War but she assumed that the U.S. won, although she qualified this statement by stating that "it is not always a good thing to assume information that one does not know."

This was the most ridiculous paper that I have ever graded. But I was curious why she believed that the U.S. government imprisoned Japanese-Canadians and not Japanese-Americans. Although I never got to talk to her about it, I have noticed that most of my students find it very difficult to accept that the U.S. government imprisoned its own students on the basis of racialized politics. This has been a common theme for many throughout the years. But this was an ignorance brought forth by a defunct education system where teachers could not bring themselves to understand the hypocrisy of democracy. For an excellent example of this, see the Enola Gay exhibit controversy at the Smithsonian.

This has recently shifted from a position of ignorance to one of outright racism among my students. A few nights ago, I was teaching my students about this topic and, to my surprise, I had a non-traditional student and a cadet in the ROTC attempt to argue that the Japanese-American internment camps were completely legitimate. When I pushed back, they tried to claim that this was legitimate because it kept America safe. As the debate unfolded it became evident that they were basing their ideas on the recent implementation of the Patriot Act. Although they had no understanding of the internment camps, they were arguing in favor of them because they understood that, like the Patriot Act, the internment camps were tactics that "kept America safe." As I tried to turn this situation into a learning opportunity it became grossly apparent that there was no convincing them of the hypocrisy of the internment camps. I asked how could a nation that subscribes to a policy that all men are created equal and are guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness lock up its own citizens? They replied that this was possible because it was for the good of the rest of the nation. It became apparent to me that my criticizing the internment camps was as good as criticizing the patriot act. I hope they didn't turn me into the FBI but I suspect that the government is now listening to my phone conversations and reading this blog.

What concerns me is that the problem with Pearl Harbor has moved beyond ignorance to outright intolerance. My job as a teacher has just become three times more difficult. I have to say, the politics of America, at the moment, has made education less credible in the United States....and I am not talking about the no child left behind fiasco. I am talking about the fact that my university students are using the patriot act to justify actions of intolerance and racism in their study of history. This begs the question, are they performing the same flawed logic in their everyday lives? The re-writing of history has gone beyond farce of Japanese-Canadians; it has transformed into a patriotism that has become tragic.