During World War II, law-abiding Japanese-American citizens were herded into remote internment camps, losing their jobs, businesses and social standing, while an all-Japanese-American division fought heroically in Europe.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the injustice faced by Japanese-Americans during World War II, despite their courageous contributions to the war effort.
Tom Brokaw's quote underscores the stark contrast between the treatment of Japanese-American citizens and their bravery on the battlefield during World War II. As they were unjustly confined to internment camps, losing their livelihoods and societal roles, many served with honor in an all-Japanese-American military division defending the very country that wronged them. This paradox illustrates themes of discrimination, patriotism, and the complexity of national identity in times of conflict.
In practice
This quote can be used in a history class discussion about civil rights during wartime.
The WWII generation shares so many common values: duty, honor, country, personal responsibility and the marriage vow " For better or for worse--it was the last generation in which, broadly speaking, marriage was a commitment and divorce was not an option
Your grandparents came of age in the Great Depression, when everyday life was about deprivation and sacrifice, when the economic conditions of the time were so grave and so unrelenting it would have been easy enough for the American dream to fade away.
While Pickstown may not be what it once was, it still is framed by the natural beauty of the ancient river, the sweep of the Great Plains, and the long, unbroken shoreline of the lake behind the dam. It gave me a 19th-century childhood in a modern mid-20th-century town, and for that I will always be grateful.
I am simply the most conspicuous part of a large, thoroughly dedicated and professional staff that extends from just behind these cameras, across this country and around the world, in too many instances, in places of grave danger and personal hardship. They're family to me.
I had good care going. I had Meredith and the family. And I didn't want to become the object of some kind of pity, most of all. I didn't want to show up on the Internet, 'Tom Brokaw has cancer.'
Heroes are people who rise to the occasion and slip quietly away.
Racial inequity in how the immense benefits of the original G.I. Bill were disbursed are well-documented, and we've all seen how these inequities have trickled down over time, leaving Black World War II veterans and their families without the benefits they earned through service and sacrifice.
Blood alone moves the wheels of history.
Our prime minister could embrace and forgive the people who killed our beloved sons and fathers, and so he should, but he could not, would not, apologise to the Aboriginal people for 200 years of murder and abuse. The battle against the Turks, he said in Gallipoli, was our history, our tradition. The war against the Aboriginals, he had already said at home, had happened long ago. The battle had made us; the war that won the continent was best forgotten
History consists of a corpus ascertained facts. The facts are available to the historian in documents, inscriptions and so on, like fish in the fishmonger's slab. The historian collects them, takes them home, and cooks and serves them in whatever style appeals to him.
The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
The Holocaust is a sacred subject. One should take off one's shoes when entering its domain, one should tremble each time one pronounces the word.
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