TOW #4: The Invisible Thread by Yoshiko Uchida (IRB)

     In The Invisible Thread, a memoir, Yoshiko Uchida recounts her life as a Japanese American during WWII. She begins with her years in school and then moves on to the time she and her family spent in the internment camps. Uchida writes to a broad audience – the diction is not too complicated, so a middle schooler would likely understand it. However, many of the topics discussed in The Invisible Thread are rather heavy, such as the cruelty of the internment camps, so in that sense, it may be more directed to an older audience, such as high school or college and above. Uchida's purpose in this memoir is to show just how terrible the Japanese internment was (since many history books gloss over it) and to share her personal experiences of being an outcast.
     Throughout the entire book, Uchida appeals to ethos. Many of her memories from her childhood reflect her feelings of being an outcast. She discusses the way she was excluded at school because she was Japanese and how shop owners would ignore her to help a white customer first. These stories show Uchida's audience that she understands what being an outcast feels like, and this makes her very credible on the subject. Also, she discusses her time in the internment camps in detail, and this firsthand experience gives her a rarely-shared view of the Japanese internment.
     Uchida uses imagery liberally in The Invisible Thread. When writing about her family's first night at an internment camp, she writes: "It was dark now, and the north wind was blowing into our stall from all the cracks around the windows and the door. We bundled up in our coats and sat on our prickly mattresses, too miserable even to talk" (Uchida 76). This use of imagery appeals to pathos and allows readers to empathize with Uchida. Through this, she further achieves her purpose of revealing the atrocities of the Japanese internment.
     Through continual appeals to ethos, Uchida is able to share her experiences as an outcast. She also uses imagery to appeal to pathos, which allows readers to empathize with her. This effectively demonstrates to her audience how cruel and irrational the Japanese internment was during World War II.

Topaz, Utah:

One of the internment camps that Uchida, her sister, and her parents were sent to was in Topaz, Utah. It was located in the Sevier Desert, a barren, empty place. This isolation was intentional, and was specifically to keep the Japanese Americans from acting as spies for Japan (which wasn't happening anyway).

(Source: http://www.discovernikkei.org/en/nikkeialbum/albums/182/?view=list)