This week marks the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
An estimated 40,000 Japanese live in New York, with more than two-thirds ex-pats, including Syracuse University political science professor Margarita Estevez-Abe.
She has warned that Japan’s God-like reverence toward Emperor Hirohito in 1945 was born out of calculated political socialization rather than spiritual divinity.
“No one was allowed to look at him in his face. Imperial subjects had been socialized into lowering their gaze,” and when the emperor spoke announcing the surrender, she continued, “people wept… that was the first time they had heard the emperor’s voice.”
The Hibakusha people, who miraculously survived the atomic blasts, were shunned by society, and discouraged from sharing their stories.
“For instance,” within their own country, said Estevez-Abe, “families in Tokyo would be horrified if their son wanted to marry a Hibakusha girl from Hiroshima because they would fear that their offspring might develop cancer or might be born with disfigurement.”
Attitudes have changed over the years, but she said it’s because collective memory is fading. Today, only about half of the estimated 260-thousand people directly injured by the bombings are still alive. Most of them are in their 80’s and 90’s now. For that reason, Estevez-Abe urged younger generations to seek out the survivors’ stories for a better understanding of the atomic risks facing the world today.
“There are Mangas and animations on the effects of the war in Japan,” she offered, referring to the popular comic books with historic themes. “So, young people can read through the Manga about experiences being a war orphan, or the experience of starvation.”
Estevez-Abe added that the continental U.S. has never experienced an attack as massive as Japan did 80 years ago. To put it in perspective, she said, if similar atomic bombs were launched anywhere in New York today, it would flatten an area the size of Manhattan.
