Thesis for essay on Japanese internment versus the Holocaust?

I read two books, Weedflower and Night. In Weedflower, a Japanese girl named Sumiko is interned and lives in Poston for a year or so before being released. It is fiction but closely mimics real history. The conditions Sumiko lives in aren't horrible--she lives with some of her family in a small home that is very hot and dusty. She grew a garden, goes to a sewing club, and eats three meals a day.

In Night, Elie is taken to a concentration camp. He endures hell and watches his father die. He starves and watches family turn on each other. He nearly dies multiple times.

With this, I made my thesis that through the literature I studied, Japanese internment is portrayed as having better living conditions and being more humane than the living conditions in the Holocaust. But after discussing with others, they found this thesis to be completely inappropriate and immoral. I've always been a very emotionally detached person, so I can only assume they are true. I don't wan to offend my entire class as I present this topic to them. I can literally pick any thesis--I could talk about what Japanese internment reveals about the Holocaust, or how the two are related, or a simple compare contrast. But I need a strong thesis and I have no idea what to write now without sounding offensive!!! It can be ANYTHING relating the Japanese internment to the Holocaust. Please help?!

Lily, I do not find anything offensive about doing a comparison of the holocaust camps as opposed to the Japanese interment camps. These are two historical locations that have a tremendous amount of backstory behind it. I believe that you should write about the comparison of the differing treatment of the two camps with regards to their prisoners. Sometimes, it is not the topic of the thesis that is offensive but the way that the thesis was presented. Can you share the original thesis with me here? I would like to read it so I can deduce if the offensiveness was only in the way that you presented the idea behind the topic. Your friends may have a different concept of the thesis when compared to that of a reviewer or your professor. It will be best to get a second and third opinion on your thesis before you decide to totally change your highly interesting discussion topic. I can offer my opinion of your thesis statement and help you reword to sound less sensitive if necessary. Then you can present it to your teacher for final approval. I am sure he will be more open minded about the topic than your peers were.

"Japanese internment is portrayed as being more humane than the conditions in the Holocaust" but I'd probably revise it to spice up the wording a bit.

And if my friends were correct in saying that the internment couldn't be compared because it was so horrible, I was also thinking of changing it to "Japanese internment is portrayed in American literature as being more humane than the conditions in the Holocaust". Then concluding that by studying this we can see that American literature tries to wash over the atrocious events in Japanese internment by contextualizing it with the Holocaust.

Hi Lily, I think the problem is that there is not enough of a backstory when it comes to the presentation of your thesis statement. It has to be more reflective of the information that you wish to portray to the reader and ask them to keep an open mind regarding the topics. Acknowledge the atrocities of war right off the bat and do not give any reason for the way the prisoners were treated. Acknowledge the camps as being living cemeteries, which is what these were. I would probably phrase the thesis statement as follows:

The atrocities of the world wars fought on two fronts, in Asia and in Europe, during World War II will always be a part of one of the darkest times in the history of man. The Nazi Germans had their interment camps where the Jews were expected to live out their lives until they died, unless they were killed by their captors. While the Japanese were held in interment camps in America, even though they had nothing to do with the war simply because Americans at the time, did not know if the Japanese Americans were sympathizers to the Japanese cause of "Asia for the Asians" and cause destruction to America from within. Two captors. Two interment camps. Two highly different treatments for the Prisoners of War. Based upon the novels "Weedflower" by Cynthia Kadohata and Night by Elie Wiesel, my paper will concentrate on the two types of humane conditions existing in these two interment camps. One held by ruthless Nazi captors, and the other, run by Americans who just wanted to keep their country safe from internal attacks. Why were the treatments so different? Why did America try to whitewash the existence of Japanese interment camps in the country by highlighting the Nazi camps? How does history treat both events and what modern mindset has arisen from the effects of these moments in world history?

As you can see, if you properly word the thesis statement to be less provocative, It should pass the consideration of your teacher. Try to pattern your thesis statement after what I have written. Then have it considered by the teacher. Don't pass it through your friends, they are not the authorities on the matter. It is your teacher who has final approval so go directly to the source for approval or disapproval. Then you can work from there.