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The Native Americans of Puget Sound is a group of Native Americans that lived in the sound of the Pacific North which is modern day Seattle. Main Street presented to the populace Peterson's Grocery, a post office, Fisk's Hardware Center, Larsen's Pharmacy, a dime-store-with-fountain owned by a woman in Seattle, a Puget Power office” (7) David Guterson in this quote explains how the settlers took the land of the Native Americans and used the land to build buildings on it. -
first European settlement in the Puget Sound area in the west of present-day Washington State came in 1833 at the British Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Nisqually. "Settlers arrived--mostly wayward souls and eccentrics who had meandered off the Oregon Trail... Canadian Englishmen up in arms about the border--but San Piedro Island generally lay clear of violence after that." (5) Guterson describes the town and area as a place that is not violent but a couple of years later it becomes a war zone. -
“Alien land laws were a series of legislative attempts to discourage Asian and other "non-desirable" immigrants from settling permanently in U.S. states and territories by limiting their ability to own land and property” (Wikipedia). “The law said they could not own land unless they became citizens; it also said they could not become citizens so long as they were Japanese” (76). Guterson uses this quote to show and tell us what the Alien Land Laws are and how they are messed up. -
A surprise aerial attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu Island, Hawaii, by the Japanese that precipitated the entry of the United States into World War II. " After Pearl Harbor . . . My father buried all of this. . . swords, hakama pants, and scrolls written in Japanese"(173). What Guterson means by this is that people who were Japanese and lived in the United States had to get rid of everything that had to do with Japan because they were public enemy one. -
After the attack on Pearl Harbor the United States entered WW2 and soon they started to recruit men to join the army and fight for their country. "It was all propaganda...They wanted us to be able to kill them with no remorse, to make them less than people...They could have used his face for one of their propaganda films."(Guterson 345). This is basically trying to tell us the propaganda that WW2 had and that there was so much of it that they could of made a movie out of it. -
"people of Japanese descent would be interred in isolated camps” (History.com). “An army truck took Fujimori and her five daughters to the Amity Harbor ferry dock at seven o’clock on Monday morning, where a soldier gave them tags for their suitcase and coats” (216). With this quote Guterson is trying to tell us how fast Japanese Americans were taken from their homes, the Japanese people didn't really know what was happening at the time because it all happened so fast. -
Something that had happened to soldiers during the war was the letters girlfriends and wives sometimes sent in order to break off a relationship. "When we met that last time in the cedar tree... I knew we could never be right together." (Guterson 442) This was part of the letter Hatsue had written to Ishmal when he was in the war, showing how she really felt about their relationship. -
A 76 hour fight between the Japanese and the Marines, in the end the Marines won and had killed around 4,500 troops. " On Tarawa he had seen the bodies of men who had died facedown in shallow water"(28). When Ishmael was going to Tarawa he could see the casualties of the fight and it was very hard for him to get over them. -
the bloodiest clash in the Central and Western Pacific fronts... more than 98,000 Japanese people had been killed. himself, had survived Okinawa-- only to die, it now appeared, in a gill-netting boat accident." (Guterson 46) Guterson uses irony to show how ironic it was that Carl survived a ocean battle like Okinawa, but he dies on his own boat in a freak accident. -
To commemorate the many lives lost during the attack, the Pearl Harbor National Memorial was constructed, it also shows "The counsel for the state has proceeded on the assumption that you will be open , ladies and gentlemen, to an argument based on prejudice... He is counting on you to act on passions best left to a war of ten years ago." (Guterson 424) Guterson uses dialogue to show that things in the past must be remembered, but shouldn't control your decisions of today