By D’Amonie Armstrong

When we went to the JICC in December for Pearl Harbor Day, they had this exhibit featuring photos of Japanese and Japanese-American soldiers during that tough time.

The photo above is one of soldiers’ wives, two holding their newborn children, and all with photos of their husbands before them. It’s captioned “Keep smiling. Our husbands are in the Army while our children grow up behind barbed wire fences.” This stood out to me very much as I agree the emotions and the points of views of the soldiers are valid, but it is really the only story that gets told. It’s very interesting to hear about how others, like the soldiers’ families, think and feel as this also impacts them, especially if they have wives and children. 

The caption implies that the wives have to just keep smiling and not show pain as they raise their children alone, because their husbands are away battling in a war. It feels like they’re obligated to hold up this face, while they are directly impacted. And although the children in this photo are newborns, I can’t help but think about the many other families that had children old enough to know and understand that their fathers can’t be around because they are in the Army fighting for their country. In all, this was a time of deep despair and we have the day December 7th to commemorate the soldiers, and strong families that had to hold down the homes while their husbands, dads, brothers, sons strove to protect the country that held their homes and hearts.