Response to Aleutian Sparrow

Pre-Reading: I am so shocked that this happened and I had never heard about it. I was in a World Literature class last semester that focused on WWII and it was never mentioned either. How could we do this to these people and hide it for all of those years? What a horrible thing to have to go through at any age and I am glad that our government is making some kind of effort to pay these people back for treating them so terribly. I can not even fathom what this would have been like for the Aleutians and what kind of heart ache they must have felt. The websites made me think that the Aleutian’s experience was very similar to the Jewish people; just not as many people were affected. I keep asking myself how anyone could do this to another human being and go on living with themselves. It’s a truly horrible thing and I feel so empathetic for the Aleutians.

Response: What a powerful message this book is sending through making people aware of the treatment the Aleutian’s endured. I cannot imagine how it must have felt to be forcefully moved from your home and taken to live under these terrible living conditions in a place where you were treated as an outsider. It amazed me that Germans were treated better than Aleutian’s who were actually considered American’s- what a backward way of doing things! I was amazed that the Aleut people were only given two cabins and two small bunkhouses for five villages of Aleut’s when they first arrived at the camp. It angered me that they then were expected to pick privacy or warmth when using their blankets and then expected to build houses that better fit their needs.

The beginning poem about Vera’s mother never talking about her father made me think of Because of Winn Dixie and relate it to the preacher. It makes me very empathetic towards these characters who never even get exposed to memories about their parents who are absent from their lives and makes me want to tell these parents they are making a huge mistake by not talking to their kids about the people who helped bring them into the world. I want my students to be able to relate to these characters and feel their pain and heartache. It’s important to have empathy for others and if I have to do an exercise like the one we did in class where I tell them you can only take things you can carry to your new home to illustrate how to empathize then I will.


I believe the only way to initiate change is through educating people about the past so they can learn from others mistakes and not repeat history. This relates to one of my favorite quotes by an unknown author that states: “If you don’t know the past, you are condemned to repeat it.” This is where my job as an educator comes in because I am here to teach these kids about history and help bring the bad decisions that Americans have made and how they have affected innocent people’s lives. We need to learn and reflect from history in order to make sure others do not keep making these mistakes. We also need to help show these children that you can try to fix these mistakes and it is always important to try and fix your mistakes and admit them.