My favorite piece of writing is a poem by an anonymous author called “That Damned Fence” it was written sometime during 1942-1946 and was passed around the Poston Arizona Japanese American internment war camp.
It can be located on the Internet or at the University of Arizona.
This specific poem signifies not only the turmoil of being discriminated against but the unfairness and inequality the Japanese Americans felt at that time.
The poem also gives a voice to a racial group that was otherwise not very vocal of this injustice.
Even though it is not a very long poem and only 216 words it gives a descriptive account of what camp life was like which was similar to being a prisoner except there was no crime committed.
The poem has a constant rhyme and holds President Franklin Delano Roosevelt accountable for this atrocious event.
This poem I hold dear to my heart because my grandparents were relocated to the Poston Arizona internment camp and having heard their personal accounts of camp being very similar to this poem is unimaginable today.
I could never vision being forced to abandon my home and be fenced in by barbed wire just because I am a Japanese American citizen.
The author captures the raw emotion of betrayal felt by these American citizens.
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