I needed to take an Arts & Human­i­ties course to grad­u­ate so I signed up for a 100 level Amer­i­can Stud­ies course enti­tled “What is Amer­ica?”. After a month of the class, I hate it. It’s not inter­est­ing or stim­u­lat­ing, and worst of all most of the course is just an oppor­tu­nity for the teacher to fur­ther their own per­sonal agenda. It’s not even a third (1/3) of the way through the semes­ter and we are already hav­ing a midterm. The midterm is on one (1) of the five (5) books we’re cov­er­ing this semes­ter. That means that 40% of my final grade is depen­dent upon my com­pre­hen­sion of my teacher’s PhD the­sis. What could be so com­pelling that answers what is Amer­ica? Japan­ese Amer­i­can Internment.

Yes, it wasn’t cool. It was bad. It should have never hap­pened. Every­one said they were sorry and the US gov­ern­ment paid over a bil­lion dol­lars in repa­ra­tions to sur­viv­ing internees and their heirs.

That doesn’t mean it defines Amer­ica (or even 40% of Amer­ica). Hon­estly, all things con­sid­ered, it wasn’t the worst thing hap­pen­ing to a group of peo­ple in the 1940s. Ever heard of the Holo­caust? Even for Amer­ica, it wasn’t the worst treat­ment to a group of peo­ple. Any­one remem­ber slav­ery? I’m pretty sure they’re still wait­ing on their repa­ra­tions if they haven’t given up completely.

If my grand­par­ents were intern­ment vic­tims like my teacher’s were, I might be out there try­ing to edu­cate peo­ple about some­thing that gets over­looked when study­ing WWII. I wouldn’t spend 15 years on a PhD and then shove it in the faces of a bunch of col­lege kids whose grand­par­ents and great-grandparents were over­seas dying for the war instead of being relo­cated. If my teacher knew any­thing about Amer­ica, they’d write a book or make a doc­u­men­tary, win some awards, put some money in her pocket. This is the “land of oppor­tu­nity” not the “land of oppression”.

The remain­ing four books that the final will be over are more of the same faults of Amer­ica that you don’t need a col­lege course to know. Racism is still alive, the poor get poorer while the rich get richer, fast food has made Amer­i­cans lazy and obese, and when all else fails you can run away from your prob­lems with no consequences.

I’m sorry for any­one who majors in Amer­i­can Stud­ies and has this as their intro­duc­tion to the depart­ment. I’m sorry if I sound incon­sid­er­ate towards my teacher’s efforts and those affected by Japan­ese Amer­i­can inter­ment. I’m not sorry for want­ing to actu­ally learn some­thing and still being proud to be an Amer­i­can and live in America.