Entry 6: Peter Ota, Nisei and Betty Basye Hutchinson, nurse

Peter Ota, Nisei: Peter Ota, a fifty-seven-year-old Nisei, experienced a lot during the war. His family was taken into concentration camps. At age fifteen, he was sent to a different concentration than his parents, and soon after, his mother passed away. Ota described his experiences in the camps as inhumane. He said, "I can still picture it to this day: to come in like cattle or sheep being herded in the back of a pickup truck bed" (Turkel 206). When they were being moved to the camps, they would be treated like animals rather than humans. If I could choose one word to sum up this interview I would pick the word irony. What was ironic about Ota's experiences was that he had to fight in the war for the U.S. while the rest of his family was being help in poor conditions. He said, "It's ironic. Here I am being drafted into the army, and my father and sister are in a concentration camp waiting for the war to end" (Turkel 207). It disturbs me how poor people of Japanese descent were treated in the U.S. at the time of the war. Betty Basye Hutchinson also experienced a lot during the war. When Hutchinson heard about the war, she immediately decided to become a nurse to help the soldiers. She never realized how hard being a nurse could be. For example, when she first started her job, she witnessed an injury she couldn't handle. "As soon as we got back to the nurse's station behind glass, I went to the bathroom and threw up" (Turkel 214). In addition to seeing disturbing injuries, Hutchinson also saw disturbing actions taken by the government. "Two little Japanese girls, sitting in front, who had come into class like me- why in the world are we saying goodbye to them...But I knew those girls should have been nurses" (Turkel 211). Hutchinson saw two girls that she had worked with being taken to concentration camps and she knew that they had done nothing wrong. While Ota experienced inhumane actions taken by the government, Hutchinson witnessed the actions take place and was upset. It was very interesting to read about two people who went through a great deal of disturbances in there past.