The readings this week definitely brought a new perspective into how I viewed the Japanese-American internment. Bishop’s article was interesting due to the journalism practices during the time and how they shaped the view on Japanese and Japanese Americans living in the United States. I never knew that for a short time, there were reports that were actually defending Japanese Americans and claimed that they were loyal citizens. However, it made me curious once I found out about the “guard dog” practice. It was amazing to see how quickly journalists switched up their reports once areas of power such as the government started to bash the Japanese in the United States. Everything the government was saying against the Japanese Americans was all lies and there was never real proof that the Japanese Americans were partaking in sabotage against the US. This makes me wonder if this would be an example of misinformation or if would it fall under the category of disinformation. Also, did journalists partake in “guard dog” journalism because they wanted to be popular and accepted by the majority of society, or did they truly believe what the government (the dominant power) was saying? I also had the question of what are examples of guard dog journalism today in the 21st century.
Next, the Surken article was intriguing because it made me think outside of the box about how we remember history. I suddenly realized the deep impact that some images have on the way we process history. This line, “On the one hand, camera images can embody and create memories; on the other hand, they have the capacity through the power of their presence to obliterate other, unphotographed memories. As technologies of memory, they actively produce both memory and forgetting” stood out to me. I am now curious are we only seeing images of history that we want to see? Do you think there are other parts of history that are completely misinterpreted just because it was never documented or photographed and shown to the public?
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