Peter Ota and Betty Basye Hutchinson Response

Peter had a really rough life I learned from the reading. His dad had to go to jail, his mom later passed away, and he and his sister had to go to a camp. His father was later transfered to Montana. His father was later sent to the same camp as his kids. His living quarters were mentioned as, "...horse stables were converted into living quarters. My sister and i were fortunate enough to stay in a barracks. The people in stables had to live with the stench. Everything was communal. We had absolutely no privacy" (206). It illustrates how Peter lived a very tough life early on. I can't even imagine all of that stuff happening to me earlier on in my life. It would be so difficult to cope with all of that. He later went to Utah to find a job that turned out to be minimal pay, but at least he still made some money to help his family. After he got to Union Station in LA, military policemen had to escort them through the station, "...the people recognized me as being Oriental. They knew I was either an escaped prisoner or a spy...they called out names...dirty Jap..." (208). Japanese at this time were treated very poorly, which is really sad because they are just normal people like Americans. The reason for this hatred towards Japs is because of the war going on. Why are people so rude towards people that aren't the same ethnicity as them? Why were people sent to camps under poor conditions and treated badly?

Betty was a girl that went to Fresno State to become a nurse to help out in the war. This is because this is the fastest thing she can do to help out the people at war because women can't fight in the war. Betty did really well at her job, "In six weeks, we became so skilled in plastic surgery that they wouldn't let us go" (213). It shows that women should be treated as equally as men with jobs because they can do as well as men in the job field. Her whole dream was to be a nurse in the war and help out her country and she achieved her goal. How else can women help out in the war besides being a nurse back in those times, where men had many advantages over women because men had more rights than women for most things? In my opinion, Peter could never get the experience of the American dream because he had so many bad things happen in his life, but Betty in my opinion, did achieve the American dream because she got to do what she always wanted---be a nurse and help out her country in war. The American dream is everyones dream.