The book Missing Action written by Dean Hughes, that happens during II World War, specifically in 1941 after Pearl Harbor attack, the book tells the story young boy named Jay, that is 12 years old and lives in Delta, where he had to move, because of his dad that went to fight in Asian battlefront with the Japanese. Differently from the novel Broken Pieces written by Aan E. Burg happens during the Vietnam war around 1955 and 1975, and tells the story of a Vietnamese boy that was rescued in operations of the US army and moved to the USA.
Between both of these conflicts, the Pearl Harbor attack (1941) and the Vietnam War (1955-1975), even having in consideration the time distance it’s already possible to identify many similarities of the consequences of these attacks to the characters, such as affect their familiar base, both of the characters lost people because of the war, ethier xenophobia one of them suffer even being because of different aspects and the patriotism about the country they are.
First aspect to discuss is the xenophobia presented in both of the stories.In the book Missing Action is seen either with indigenous more specifically Navajo people, and with the Japanese. The clearest example presented in the book is when the American government put many asian-american and japanese that lived in the USA, in a kind of a prison so they don’t get information out of the USA. The fact it’s they are normal people, and this prejudice is so present in the society that even the main character that suffers xenophobe because he is Half Navajo thinks Japanese are bad people and they “Deserve” this. This prejudice is also seen in the book Broken Pieces, in many moments like when the main character suffers bullying in his college for being Vietnamese. In both historical periods and books we can see a example of xenophobia from the same world region (USA) but different points of view: one suffers directly from the asiatic xenophobia, while the other is xenophobic and suffers from xenophobia for being half Navajo.
Either it’s possible to see in both books a different view of the Patriotism presented by both main characters and other important ones. In the novel Missing Action we can see a friend of the character that is Japanese, and his dream is to represent America in the army, to show “That I am american…” this can be saw either as a authors view of patriotism or the historical epoch, that while in Missing Action the character show their patriotism for america. Differently from the book Broken Pieces, the characters don’t really show this and have more knowledge of other countries and other cultures valorizing more their culture.
Another of the aspects are the lost that both characters have, a interest think that they happened almost as the same way, in the book Missing Action the main character, Jay, lost his dad because he was called to the obligatory enlistment that was happening how exactly he died isn’t said, but he never came back home after a attack to Japan marine forces, and this makes his mom move to Delta to live waiting for his dad, that they still don’t have news, and in the book Broken Pieces the main characters dad went to war in Vietnam to fight the Americans and defend his family but he never came back, what lead his mom to put the main character in a helicopter to go into USA, where he was adopted by a American family.
As was analyzed in both books, we have a war conflict and the consequences of this wars in their countries, with this is possible to see that the war is always a lost, don’t matter the situation all the places suffer either being not directly, and even in the same place, we can see many different views and how is to be in this situation.
