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Summary Of To The Lady By Mitsuye Yamada

Decent Essays

The daughter of Japanese immigrants to the United States, Mitsuye Yamada was born in Japan during her mother’s return visit to her native country. In 1942, she and her family were incarcerated and then relocated to a camp in Idaho. The Executive Order 9066 signed by President Roosevelt in February 1942 was the reason Mitsuye and her family were incarcerated. The Japanese attack on Pearl Habor in December 1941, gave military authorities the right to remove any and all persons from “military areas.”

Mitsuye Yamada in her thirty-six line poem “To the Lady” (1243) tries to address the question which was asked from the lady in San Francisco about the injustice the Japanese Americans experienced in the United States concentration camps during World War II. She asked “why did the Japanese Americans let the government put them in those camps without protest?” (Yamada 1243) As Mitsuye think about the question, she rewrite her experience in an imagery conversation with the lady from San Francisco.

Moving forward, you see Yamada uses imagery “visually descriptive or figurative language, especially in a literary work” ( cite the definition) to express the anger the Japanese Americans felt. Imagery in her poem will create similar snapshots of her during her experience in the concentration camps. By using imagery, she will draw readers into sensory experience (sight). The different images will provide mental snapshots.

In her poem, you will see her emotions flow by the choice of

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