Peter Ota, Nisei and Betty Basye Hutchinson, Nurse

After reading about Peter Ota, Nisei, and Betty Basye Hutchinson, nurse, I was surprised by how World War II had affected their lives. I was mostly disturbed with Ota’s story, because of the treatment he and his family had endured during WWII. I was also disturbed with Hutchinson’s story, because of the disgusting injuries that she described. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Peter Ota’s family went to jail. When Ota’s mother saw her husband in a jail uniform, she felt “the shame and humiliation.” (205) This shame broke Ota’s mother down, which caused her to get sick and eventually die. Peter’s father was sent to am internment camp in Montana, and Peter “got letters from him -censored, of course- telling [Peter] he was all right.” (205) While Peter’s father was at a camp and his mother was sick, Peter, who was only fifteen, had to take care of his twelve year old sister. Eventually, Peter and his sister would be asked to leave for a camp. Peter took “A toothbrush, toilet supplies, and some clothes. Only what [he] could carry.”(206) He and his sister ended up in Santa Anita in 1942. Peter’s dad was eventually transferred over to Peter’s camp, and Peter recalled that his father was “a man who had worked so hard for what he had and lost it overnight.” (206) Peter’s father showed very little emotion about his loses, and continued to have faith in his country. Peter had left camp to“[work] on sugar beet farms” (207) in Utah. When Peter was eligible for the draft, he noticed the irony in the fact that he was fighting for freedom, while his sister and father where in a concentration camp waiting for the war to end. During the time that Peter was in training his mother passed away, and was planned to be buried in the camp where the rest of his family was living. He had to be escorted by an FBI agent, who “could see no reason for him to be with [Peter]” (208) Unfortunately, Peter started to view camp as “like going home for [him]” (209), because all of his family was there. After the war was over, Peter and his family were released from the camps, and had felt like they had to prove themselves as Americans. Betty Basye Hutchinson had become a nurse after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. She new it was “the fastest thing [she] could do to help our boys.” (211) Betty had “the government [pay] for [them] to become nurses.”(211) During the war, Betty kept wanting “to really have something to do with the war.” (212) The war had become personal to Betty, when, “[her] boyfriend, whom [she’d] been engaged to ever since [she] left high school. He’d joined the marines and was gone.” (212) Betty got her “first military assignment at Hoff General Hospital in Santa Barbra.” (213) After Roosevelt died, Betty became more dedicated to the war effort. When Betty was dealing with patients, she was “stuck by the horror of it, but it wasn’t as bad as what was to come.” (213) By the end of the war Betty started doing plastic surgery, and listening to the men’s problems. Many men were losing their wives, and were going through tough times. This made “having pretty, young nurses around” (215) important to the men. After the war, Betty got married to a man, who fought in the South Pacific. She and her husband would not discuss the war after it was over. These stories raise multiple questions. The first question is why did the Japanese Americans, who were drafted, have to prove their loyalty to America when they were already fighting for America’s freedom? The second question that comes to mind is how hard was World War II on the nurses, soldiers, and Japanese Americans? These stories remind me of slavery and the Civil Rights movement. The Americans treatment towards African Americans in America was similar to how the Americans treated the Japanese during World War II. The Americans had treated the Japanese Americans as if they had no human rights, which was also how the Americans had treated the African Americans since the beginning of slavery. The immorality of the Americans during World War II was just like the immorality that the Americans had during the Civil War. These stories remind of my grandmother, who was a nurse’s aid during World War II. She went through a course and became a Red Cross aid. My grandma would help wounded soldiers write letters home, and help out any way she could at the veteran’s hospital.