Why is US education so poor on WW2 in Asia/the Pacific?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. This is true of the east coast but a lot less true of the west coast.

Washingtonian here. I wondered if this might be the case.

[Anonymous]

OP I think you might as well take this up with some old Japanese guy of your generation. I understand the resentment but at this point you are in another country where the majority of the population did not experience what your parents/ grand parents might have gone through, and expecting everyone else to commiserate or hold the same level of hatred is just not constructive at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:World history here also doesn't teach about the violence that the Koreans inflicted on to Vietnamese women during the Vietnam war.

https://laidaihanjustice.org/who-are-the-lai-dai-han/

Point being, there is not enough time to teach all the details of everything that went on, whether you deem some more worthy of notice or not.
Given the founding of this country, obviously the US is going to focus more on its own country's history and US/European history compared to things that have happened elsewhere in the world.

There the point. US role in Asia was massive and more important to defeating the Japanese than the importance of the US in defeating the Nazis. And the Japanese were just as bad, if not worse than the Nazis in many ways. War in Asia is fundamental to US history and we had a very committed people like General Chennault who dedicated his life and forces to protecting China.

The major difference is that we didn't put Hirohito on trial and almost immediately called the Japanese an ally. Germany was divided and given governments that did everything possible to distance themselves from the Nazis. Japanese atrocities were down played and Nazi atrocities were highlighted

Japanese atrocities are still being downplayed. Every August, Japanese deflect it by focusing on Hiroshima getting bombed. As if they were the victims. Nicely played.

[Anonymous]

My personal annoyance is that it is All Holocaust All The Time. Other historical genocides are either briefly mentioned or not at all.

[Anonymous]

I agree with OP. And I don’t think that the Japanese internment camps (which kids do learn about now thanks to the great work of some Japanese-American survivors) and the dropping of the bomb on Japan make any sense unless you understand the Asian theater. I have a slightly different perspective because my parents are older and were teens during the war with older siblings that fought in both theaters—one was captured at the battle of the bulge and spent months in a German camp watching his fellow soldiers starve; one saw most of his childhood friends blown to bits on Iwo Jima; one invaded Italy from Africa; and one was on a boat headed to Japan when the bombs dropped. So they lived both theaters in a very real way (and miraculously lost no one close to them—although my mom’s neighbor was killed at Pearl Harbor).
I think part of it is that after the awful racist depictions of the Japanese during the war, we lacked a collective way to talk about the atrocities that didn’t seem racist. As a country we needed to just step away from it for a bit to heal. I think we also did that with Germany to a certain extent but the Jewish community did a wonderful job making sure people didn’t forget. Most of the great books and movies about the holocaust came out decades after the war. People weren’t taking about it as much in the 50s or 60s. I think for many Korean families there was more shame, plus they had a war of their own and partition so there just wasn’t the same community pushing for attention among Asian survivors.

I recommend people watch pr read The Empire of the Sun, and also unbroken — both center on the white experience, though—someone else might have better suggestions for books that cover the atrocities suffered by various Asian communities. But I found empire of the sun to be really haunting — Christian bale is so good in it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP I think you might as well take this up with some old Japanese guy of your generation. I understand the resentment but at this point you are in another country where the majority of the population did not experience what your parents/ grand parents might have gone through, and expecting everyone else to commiserate or hold the same level of hatred is just not constructive at this point.

NP. I disagree. Even in the US, older generation still feels resentment against the Japanese. These vets still refers to them as “the Japs”. So it’s not only in Asia. But in overseas, even the younger generation that did not experience this, they tend to commiserate and hold hostilities towards Japanese. I’ve heard it from few young workers (H-1B Visa) from China.

[Anonymous]

One word: Zionism

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I think you might as well take this up with some old Japanese guy of your generation. I understand the resentment but at this point you are in another country where the majority of the population did not experience what your parents/ grand parents might have gone through, and expecting everyone else to commiserate or hold the same level of hatred is just not constructive at this point.

NP. I disagree. Even in the US, older generation still feels resentment against the Japanese. These vets still refers to them as “the Japs”. So it’s not only in Asia. But in overseas, even the younger generation that did not experience this, they tend to commiserate and hold hostilities towards Japanese. I’ve heard it from few young workers (H-1B Visa) from China.

Your Chinese colleague was probably never taught back home that Mao killed more of his compatriots than any foreign invasion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If it did not involve white people, it didn't matter.

I had exactly this reaction as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it did not involve white people, it didn't matter.

I had exactly this reaction as well.

Both of you are racist then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It drives me bonkers when you ask the simple question of "When did WW2 start?" and you get the typical answer of 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland. That's completely wrong, because the Japanese attacked China even 2 years before that in 1937 and committed many atrocities even long before Hitler even touched Poland. In fact, you could even argue they WW2 started even earlier in 1931 when the Japanese invaded Manchuria, or as far back as even 1910 when they invaded Korea and were trying to wipe out their entire culture.

The US entered WW2 in Europe late, and played second fiddle to the Russians at defeating Germany. All you're ever taught is how important DDay was, yet in the grand scheme of the war, the Battle of Stalingrad was much more important for breaking Germany's back. Meanwhile in Asia, the US was arguably at war with Japan long before we were at war with Germany (arguably even before Pearl Harbor) and the US played a much, much more significant role in defeating the other major Axis power which were the Japanese compared to r role we played in defeating the Nazis.

We are all taught about the SS, 3rd Reich, Hitler's Arayan race views and all of the deaths due to the Holocaust, but the Japanese had the same exact things with the Kempei Tai, the Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere, their beliefs that they were the superior race, and the Asian holocaust where the Japanese were murdering millions of civilians all across Asia and literally used to terms like exterminate wrt things like the entire Korean race and culture.

I mean our schools probably teach some of the major battles like Midway and Pearl Harbor, discuss dropping of the nukes, and the Rape of Nanking/Korean comfort women, but they only begins to scratch the surface of WW2 in Asia and all of the horrific crimes committed by Japan. A single event like flooding of the Yellow River killed 500k-1M Chinese, yet all you ever learn are Russia scortched Earth policies. Everyone learns about Josef Mengele and Nazi human testing, yet the Japanese did the same and worse with Unit 731 and were even dropping biological weapons on China like 'maggot bombs' designed to spread cholera they killed 200k in Yunnan.

It just boggles the mind how poor US education is wrt WW2 and why US education always focuses on Europe when jit as many, if not, more people died in Asia depending on what time frames you look at, the Japanese were just as bad, if not worse than the Nazis, and the US had a far more fundamental role in defeating the Japanese compared to the role the US played in defeating the Germans. US schools should be spending 60-75% of time about WW2 on what happened in Asia and the rest on Europe given how much more the US was important in Asia compared to Europe. The foundations of education on WW2 were probably driven by so much ethnocentrism even though the Marine Corps and Army were allobe the place in The Pacific, China, India, Burma, Dutch East Indies, etc.

Great points all around. Two other facts worth mentioning that hardly ever get taught is the US killed just as many, if not more, Japanese by firebombing cities than they did with the two nuclear bombs. The other interesting fact is that the Soviet Union was on the march to invade Japan just before the US nuked Hiroshima, and that was a major part of why they surrendered so quickly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If it did not involve white people, it didn't matter.

Eh, I'm not so sure about that. Stalin killed millions of people (more than Hitler), but US education tends to gloss over a lot of that. Most of those killed were white, unless you don't consider the Slavs to be white as Hitler didn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s unthinkably unrealistic to imagine K-12 education will cram in all the things people pop off about. “Why isn’t a deep and broad history of WW2 taught” goes on the pile with “why isn’t practical personal finance and taxation taught” along with critical thinking/logic, pedagogy, philosophy, health, time management…

Come on people. It’s hard enough to cram the bare minimum in these kids’ heads in the years schools have. Luckily we can all pick up books as adults and use the most important skills we learned in school: learning to learn.

If I strutted down the street right now in a Nazi uniform, what kind of reaction would that evoke? Yet what would happen if I strutted down the street in an Kempei Tai Imperial Japanese uniform? Probably nothing, which shows you how horrendous education is yet it is literally the same kind of evil represented.

If you removed the swastikas no one would say anything. Except maybe someone would thank you for your service. But probably nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s unthinkably unrealistic to imagine K-12 education will cram in all the things people pop off about. “Why isn’t a deep and broad history of WW2 taught” goes on the pile with “why isn’t practical personal finance and taxation taught” along with critical thinking/logic, pedagogy, philosophy, health, time management…

Come on people. It’s hard enough to cram the bare minimum in these kids’ heads in the years schools have. Luckily we can all pick up books as adults and use the most important skills we learned in school: learning to learn.

If I strutted down the street right now in a Nazi uniform, what kind of reaction would that evoke? Yet what would happen if I strutted down the street in an Kempei Tai Imperial Japanese uniform? Probably nothing, which shows you how horrendous education is yet it is literally the same kind of evil represented.

If you removed the swastikas no one would say anything. Except maybe someone would thank you for your service. But probably nothing.

LOL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. This is true of the east coast but a lot less true of the west coast.

Washingtonian here. I wondered if this might be the case.

As a Californian who grew up in California, I have found this thread fascinating. I definitely learned about the Pacific theater in WW2. I learned about the internment camps growing up for sure. I don’t remember not knowing about them. But it’s not ancient history here. I had a friend in my class whose grandfather was in one and her parents brought in some heirlooms for a show & tell (and that was not unusual, lots of people went to school with the descendants of the interned). I had another friend whose great-great-grandmother was impacted by the Chinese Exclusion Act.

I am not saying it was some sort of idealized melting pot harmony (ask what we were taught about “the missions” as kids), just saying we definitely learned a good amount about Asian American history and the Pacific theater.

I suspect I learned a lot less about the Civil and Revolutionary Wars than kids might on the east coast. But probably more about the Mexican American war.