The poem probably blames Executive Order 9066 for stripping innocent Japanese-Americans of their basic freedom rights because of war-induced panic, and treating them like criminals.
The poem probably blames Executive Order 9066 for stripping innocent Japanese-Americans of their basic freedom rights because of war-induced panic, and treating them like criminals.
Let us look at the 2 clues given in the assignment sentence:
<u>Executive Order 9066</u>. Issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on in February 1942, it made legal the incarceration of any American citizen affiliated with the Axis powers (i.e. Japanese Americans, German Americans, and Italian Americans) in concentration camps. This was the beginning of U.S. involvement in WWII and Japan had just attacked an American military base in Pearl Harbor.
<u>Dwight Okita</u>. As you can infer from his name, Okita is a Japanese-American writer. Although he wasn't alive during WWII, he probably would have supported the rights of innocent Americans of Japanese descent.