It Has Happened Here

[Plaid Adder]

Over the weekend I was at a housewarming party for one of my partner's co-workers and her boyfriend. Since the boyfriend has a lot of family in the area, a lot of them came to the party, including his grandparents, who are now in their mid-80s. I went to talk to the grandmother, who was sitting by herself because her legs don't allow her to stand and mingle. Anyway, I asked her how long she'd been in the area. Over 50 years, she said. "Before that, we were in an internment camp."

She said this casually, so I sort of nodded casually, although my brain was saying, "Homina WHAT?" But then I realized: she's Japanese-American, she's in her mid-80s, and 60-odd years ago when the US government started interning Japanese-Americans, she'd have been in her 20s. So of course she would have been in an internment camp.

You know the history, of course. But it is still mind-blowing to all of a sudden be sitting there talking to someone who has been through it. We all acknowledge that this happened and that it was a mistake, but it was surprising to me how much it rattled me to be reminded that this is not just an isolated incident, that it remains part of the fabric of the daily lives of millions of people who did not actually experience it. The camps close down, people move on, the government regrets the error; but what has happened cannot be made to un-happen. Sixty-two years later, she's still with the man she married in the internment camp; they have children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. Decades of normalcy later, the internment camp is part of them all, with them daily in different ways. To her, and perhaps to her children and grandchildren, what startled me is just a normal and accepted fact of existence: the knowledge that citizenship is conditional, that basic human rights can be revoked for arbitrary and unjust reasons, that you cannot just assume that you will always control where you live or what you do. For six years, I have been losing my mind trying to grasp a principle that she, like everyone else who went through that sixty-odd years ago, has known since before I was born: that it is in fact very easy, surprisingly easy, frighteningly easy, for our government to do and to persuade its citizens to accept things that ought to be prima facie unjust, unconscionable, and unconstitutional.

When they told their neighbors in Chicago about the camps, she said, they said they hadn't known. I don't know whether she was talking about her first neighbors or her current neighbors, but either way I find it hard to believe; but I suppose it's possible. Most people don't go looking for this kind of information and it's not as if anyone in power particularly wants them to have it. Most of what I know about this history I learned from a Smithsonian Museum exhibit called A More Perfect Union: Japanese-Americans and the Constitution. Of course, my retention was imperfect. Looking back at the exhibit website, I am reminded that FDR signed the Executive Order 9066, which authorized the military to declare any area of the country a "military area" from which "any or all persons" could be excluded at the whim of the military commanders, barely two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The order did not specify that these people would all be Japanese or Japanese-Americans; but that's undoubtedly what everyone knew this order was really about. I am also reminded that the order justified itself on the grounds that "the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities."

The successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection. I wish I could say that did not sound familiar. I also wish I could say this had not happened on the watch of one of the great Democratic presidents of the twentieth century. But it does, and it did.

And I guess this is my point. It is absolutely necessary that we remove the current party from power. It is absolutely clear that if that does not happen, all we can expect from the future is more abuses of power, more corruption, more detention without trial, more torture, more funneling money and resources into corporate maws and black holes, more war, more death, more suffering. It does not follow therefrom that if we do get back a Democratic majority in the Congress, the opposite will necessarily happen.

If we want things to change, really, one thing has to happen. The war has to end.

I mean the Iraq war, but I also mean the War On Terror as this administration has defined it. Because as it has been defined, this war is unwinnable and eternal and the only real effect of our constantly being exhorted to fight and die and sacrifice for it is that we are all being permanently kept in that very dangerous place from which things like Executive Order 9066 proceed.

We cannot live like this and be a true democracy at the same time. We cannot operate out of fear and paranoia while at the same time preserving liberty and justice for all--or really, for any. You would think that the experience of World War II would have taught us that suspending the Constitutional rights of American citizens because of an unjustified fear that one of them might one day do us harm is not only unjustifiable but unnecessary. It apparently hasn't. At least it hasn't taught those Democratic members of Congress who supported Bush's military tribunals bill.

But we must learn this, we must remember it, and if God willing we get a majority after November 7, we must make them honor it. We must make them know that the victory we really need--the only victory we can have--in the War On Terror is the restoration of our democracy, our civil rights, and our Constitutional freedoms. We must make them know that the only way that "the terrorists" can really "win" is by frightening us into living this way forever. We must make them know that we sent them to the Capitol to do more than just hang onto their seats. We need them to win this war. And we need them to know that it is not going to be won in the torture chamber or in Guantanamo or in Baghdad. It will have to be won here if it is going to be won at all.

This time next week we will know who controls Congress. We will still be very far away from knowing what the future will hold. I don't know where I'll be when I'm 85. I don't know what I will have to say to people a third of my age. I hope it's not, "Yes, I've lived in Canada for thirty years. Before that, we lived quite near one of the Security Zones, you know, where they kept the detainees. We used to hear things sometimes at night. It was awful; but what could we do? We demonstrated for a while; but nobody was paying attention, and then there was that time I got arrested. They didn't beat me up that bad; but I could never make myself go on another one. And then when they passed the Family Normalization Act, well, we were just lucky we made it across the border before they closed it."

It probably won't go down that way. But it could. It has happened here. There is no magic out there that protects democracy and preserves our freedom. We have to do that ourselves, every goddamn day.

The Plaid Adder

[Ian David]

1. Glad to give you you're 5th Rec! n/t

[Coexist]

2. nothing to add - just thanks.

[havocmom]

3. "We have to do that ourselves, every goddamn day."

Democracy, Liberty, Justice not something fought for and won long ago.

"We have to do that ourselves, every goddamn day."

THAT is the lesson not being taught in our sound-bite, commercialized, 'in case of emergency, GO SHOPPING!' culture.

Democracy is NOT a spectator sport.

[TAPat]

4. Thank you Plaid Adder

Having grown up in California, with a very liberal mother, I was always aware that the camps had existed. I guess I always wrote it up to simple, naive bigotry. Unconscionable, indeed.

But, it seems that we may be facing such a future ourselves. I really don't want, 40 or 50 years from now, to be receiving a reparations check and an apology from some *enlightened* government.

The time is now. We must end it NOW!

[robinlynne]

5. excellent post!

let's get to work.

[bigtree]

6. idiots are born and bred in our country every day

our democracy requires our constant vigilance and participation.

I really like the point that "it happened here." It's happening again.

[bloom]

7. One novel I read about that

was "Snow Falling on Cedars". Fiction - but it wove a lot of truth into it.

http://www.amazon.com/Snow-Falling-Cedars-David-Guterson/dp/067976402X/sr=1-7/qid=1162396354/ref=sr_1_7/002-3543873-6659250?ie=UTF8&s=books

_______________________

I don't usually listen to NPR these days - but I had it on last night - All Things Considered. They have a disturbing series going on - about the meaning? of political terms. So last night was about "Islamofascism". I thought maybe they would say something informative. Instead - it seemed to me that all it was trying to accomplish was to make the term acceptable! :grr:

Someone said that the meaning of 'fascist' was beside the point. And the people doing the story seemed to do their best to associate islamofascism with liberal ideas rather than with right-wing concepts. I don't think they ever mentioned the role of corporations or the military.

Tonight they are supposed to tackled "the War on Terrorism". I wonder if it will go the same way. :argh:

Probably someone like David Brooks is behind it.

At any rate - your piece reminded me of that - because the purpose seems to get people to buy all their nonsense (so people will accept putting Muslims in camps ??) - under the supposed guise of "intellectualism" or something.

[Dhalgren]

8. K&R...

[troubleinwinter]

9. A painful and important article. Recommended and passed along.

[no_hypocrisy]

10. This is the Supreme Court case that legitimzed forced internment

of American citizens. It has not been overruled, overturned. It is still in effect. It CAN happen here -- again.

http://www.tourolaw.edu/patch/Korematsu/

("It should be noted, to begin with, that all legal restrictions which curtail the civil rights of a single racial group are immediately suspect. That is not to say that all such restrictions are unconstitutional.)

More judicial history in this 2003 Supreme Court case:

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:hijBL8gukbwJ:www.ccr-ny.org/v2/legal/september_11th/docs/RasulFredKorematsuSCamicus.pdf+supreme-court+%2B+korematsu&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3

[TechBear_Seattle]

11. A very powerful statement

I just wish there was someway to disseminate this piece to a wider audience. This is something that every American should read.

[thingsarelookingup]

13. I've learned so much from my in-laws

I married into a Japanese family and have learned about not only life in the internment camps but about the treatment of those people when they came back from camp. I've learned so much more than the mere blip in the history books.

My husbands father was taken away in the middle of the night and weeks went by before the family knew where he was. Their once prosperous business was gone but for that matter so was their home. What I'm amazed about is the level of dignity that these American citizens maintained during this horrific mistake. What, to me, is mind-boggling is that my father-in-law and all of his friends of his age group went straight from camp to serving in the American army WHILE their families were still in camp. I don't think I could do that.

There is an amazing website that compares the treatment of the Japanese in America post Pearl Harbor and the treatment of Muslim Americans post 9/11. The interviews are riveting. It's amazing that over 60 years have transpired and we've learned nothing. To what sub-section of Americans can it happen to next?

www.itvs.org/facetoface

[fooj]

15. My in-laws, as well.

Welcome to DU. Thanks for sharing your story.

[Strawman]

12. K&R. Protecting freedom means valuing OUR freedom not just MY freedom

That's a distinction that some Americans have never understood.

[ikojo]

14. IF the Democrats gain control of either the house or

Senate that's when the real work will begin, We, the netroots will need to hold these people ACCOUNTABLE, DC folks are not used to being held accountable, they pretty much assume that once they get there they can govern as they want and then when campaign season rolls around they can say what they think people want to hear.

What I think happened to what passes for a left during the Clinton years is that people were tired of having protested this and that during the previous 12 years and believed, wrongly, that Clinton was a liberal or progressive. He was not and neither are many of the Democrats running for office today. If the netroots wants to move the Dems even to the center we must let them know this....

WE ARE WATCHING YOU

WE PUT YOU THERE and will find others to take your place if you begin to act as Republican lite.

[InvisibleTouch]

16. An undergrad professor of mine was in such a camp.

He mentioned it to the class once or twice. It was my impression that most of the students had no idea such a thing had existed, and I also had only a vague idea. Like the lady you spoke to, Adder, my prof talked about it almost casually, in passing, but it was clearly something that shaped part of his life - and though he was low-key about it, he wanted to convey that message to his students. It's a sad piece of history.

[ninkasi]

17. Thank you, PA, for the reminder of what's at stake

I always find your essays interesting, and thought provoking. This elderly woman's story was another example of what can happen, because it has happened in the past. The whole absurd idea of a never ending war, which cannot be won, but must forever be fought,is ruining our democracy. As you, and many others have pointed out, Bush's idea of victory is the elimination of every person who is willing to commit acts of violence, and that is simply not possible. For every day we stay in Iraq, we create more potential enemies.

Surrendering the very liberties we fight for is such a completely ridiculous idea, that at times I find myself wondering how people in high government offices, and main stream journalists are able to discuss the whole concept without breaking down and laughing, or crying at the very notion. Regardless of how he chooses to word his speeches, what Bush is really saying is that we are to surrender to him all Constitutional rights, all of our privacy, and all right to appeal his dictates in a court of law, in return for a safety he can't assure us. What's the point of the war, then? If in order to fight this war, we are to relinquish all of our rights until such time as he deems it safe for us to have them given back to us again, the war is useless. The same outcome could be achieved by simply declaring him dictator for life.

What's the point of freedom, and liberty, if we can't have either? I was aware of the Japanese internment camps here, because my father served in Nagasaki right after the bombs brought the idea of warfare into a terrifying new reality. He had a great deal of respect for the Japanese, and thought the camps were cruel and unjust, and he was right. So now, even though we know that Halliburton is building new "detainment centers", for as yet unspecified reasons, should be a clear wake-up call to all of us that history can repeat itself, and is doing so right now.

Getting these neocon tyrants out of power, by holding free and honest and open elections, is the most important thing we can do right now. If we don't do this, the camps will be there, waiting.

[John Gauger]

25. The idea of a never ending war comes

directly out of Nineteen Eighty-Four. The never-ending war was an excercise in control. It was the primary method of control used by the government. They used patriotism to command absolute loyalty from their citizens. It also accomplished the role taken today in this country by consumerism; that is, it created a constant, insatiable demand for the fruits of industry. But our government today is using war in the first capacity. They justify their actions by saying that they will only last until the end of the war. However, the war will never end, so their actions are permanent, never to be undone. That is how they cotrol us.

[bobbieinok]

18. Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community

(at amazon.com)

Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community (Hardcover)
by David Neiwert
(6 customer reviews)

Book Description
The poignant story of a Japanese American community torn apart by racism and WWII internment S trawberry Days tells the vivid and moving tale of the creation and destruction of a Japanese immigrant community. Before World War II, Bellevue, the now-booming 'edge city' on the outskirts of Seattle, was a prosperous farm town renowned for its strawberries. Many of its farmers were recent Japanese immigrants who, despite being rejected by white society, were able to make a living cultivating the rich soil. Yet the lives they created for themselves through years of hard work vanished almost instantly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. David Neiwert combines compelling storytelling with firsthand interviews and newly uncovered documents to weave together the history of this community and the racist schemes that prevented the immigrants from reclaiming their land after the war. Ultimately, Strawberry Daysrepresents more than one community's story, reminding us that bigotry's roots are deeply ingrained in the very fiber of American society.

About the Author

David A. Neiwert, an award-winning journalist, is the author of Death on the Fourth of July: The Story of a Killing, a Trial, and Hate Crimes in America and In God's Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest. He lives in Seattle.

****

I remember how shocked I was when I learned about the Japanese internment camps. I think I was in college (late 50s) or grad school (60s).

[cally]

19. One of my college roommates (30 years ago) told me about the camps

I hadn't known about them. She was trying to write a paper about what had happened to her family. She told me that noone in her family had talked about it although most of her older relatives had been sent to the camps. She was 19 and was trying to get them to talk to her about it for the first time. Most told her that she just had to forget about it and move on. A few did speak about their experiences and how much they had lost. What amazed me then and now, is how few if us knew about what happened to them. I grew up with many Japanese American friends and yet none had told me about the camps. It was kept secret.

[catmandu57]

20. PA there is a very good chance that you, I and all the

members of the vocal left will be occupants of the security zones. Unless people awaken from the stupor they've been lulled into, i'm very much afraid that we'll find ourselves on the other side of the looking glass, and that right soon.

[ismnotwasm]

21. I remember taking a course called "Ethnic America"

The professor had a lot of knowledge on the internment of the Japanese. At the end of the class he gave us all a copy of the order for Japanese to report to internment posted in various places. Telephone pole type poster.--He had an original. It was a horrible thing to read in any context. I still have it somewhere.

Great article and thank you.

[hunter]

31. Text of one such telephone pole poster:

WESTERN DEFENSE COMMAND AND FOURTH
ARMY WARTIME CIVIL CONTROL
ADMINISTRATION

Presidio of San Francisco, California
April 1, 1942

INSTRUCTIONS
TO ALL PERSONS OF
JAPANESE
ANCESTRY

Living in the Following Area:

All that portion of the City and County of San Francisco, lying generally west of the of the north-south line established by Junipero Serra Boulevard, Worchester Avenue, and Nineteenth Avenue, and lying generally north of the east-west line established by California Street, to the intersection of Market Street, and thence on Market Street to San Francisco Bay.

All Japanese persons, both alien and non-alien, will be evacuated from the above designated area by 12:00 o’clock noon Tuesday, April 7, 1942.

No Japanese person will be permitted to enter or leave the above described area after 8:00 a.m., Thursday, April 2, 1942, without obtaining special permission from the Provost Marshal at the Civil Control Station located at:

1701 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, California

The Civil Control Station is equipped to assist the Japanese population affected by this evacuation in the following ways:

1. Give advise and instructions on the evacuation.

2. Provide services with respect to the management, leasing, sale, storage or other disposition of most kinds of property including real estate, business and professional equipment, household goods, boats, automobiles, livestock, etc.

3. Provide temporary residence elsewhere for all Japanese in family groups.

4. Transport persons and a limited amount of clothing and equipment to their new residence as specified below.

The Following Instructions Must Be Observed:

1. A responsible member of each family, preferably the head of the family, or the person in whose name most of the property is held, and each individual living alone must report to the Civil Control Station to receive further instructions. This must be done between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., Thursday, April 2, 1942, or between 8:00 a.m. and 5 p.m., Friday, April 3, 1942.

2. Evacuees must carry with them on departure for the Reception Center, the following property:

a. Bedding and linens (no mattress) for each member of the family.
b. Toilet articles for each member of the family.
c. Extra clothing for each member of the family.
d. Sufficient knives, forks, spoons, plates, bowls and cups for each member of the family.
e. Essential personal effects for each member of the family.

All items carried will be securely packaged, tied and plainly marked with the name of the owner and numbered in accordance with instructions received at the Civil Control Station.

The size and number of packages is limited to that which can be carried by the individual or family group.

No contraband items as described in paragraph 6, Public Proclamation No. 3, Headquarters Western Defense Command and Fourth Army, dated March 24, 1942, will be carried.

3. The United States Government through its agencies will provide for the storage at the sole risk of the owner of the more substantial household items, such as iceboxes, washing machines, pianos and other heavy furniture. Cooking utensils and other small items will be accepted if crated, packed and plainly marked with the name and address of the owner. Only one name and address will be used by a given family.

4. Each family, and individual living alone, will be furnished transportation to the Reception Center. Private means of transportation will not be utilized. All instructions pertaining to the movement will be obtained at the Civil Control Station.
Go to the Civil Control Station at 1701 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, California, between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., Thursday, April 2, 1942, or between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., Friday, April 3, 1942, to receive further instructions.

J. L. DeWITT
Lieutenant General, U. S. Army
Commanding

[John Gauger]

22. Thank you very much, Plaid Adder.

As always, it was a pleasure to read your article. You capture important ideas so well; you do it with eloquence, grace, and compassion. Your article was once again worth the read. I respect and admire you very much, and I miss your weekly column. It tought me so much about myself. Thank you again.

Love and Peace,
John

[bobbieinok]

23. one web site study of internment centers

(I found this b/c years ago I read Rosalie Wax's discussion of her work as an anthropologist during WWII at Tule Lake. She did the oral interview of Morimoto.)

http://www.umsl.edu/~whmc/exhibits/japanese/World%20War%20II-4.htm

WORLD WAR II



On December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed the naval base at Pearl Harbor, launching the United States into World War II. The ensuing panic caused by the bombing of Pearl Harbor resulted in the establishment of internment camps in the United States. The United States government built ten camps in the uninhabitable parts of the country’s interior to house Japanese Americans residing on the West Coast of the United States. The ten camps included:

Poston and Gila River in Arizona

Jerome and Rohwer in Arkansas

Manzanar and Tule Lake in California

Amache in Colorado

Minidoka in Idaho

Topaz in Utah

Heart Mountain in Wyoming

Although technically not concentration camps, these facilities had barbed-wire fences, guard towers, searchlights, and armed military guards.

The internment camps originated to house the entire Japanese American population of the West Coast. The idea was to separate Japanese Americans from the rest of the population because some government officials believed them a threat to the security of the United States. In truth, 77,000 out of the 120,000 imprisoned Japanese Americans were United States citizens, the Nisei population born and raised in America. The remaining 40,000 included their parents, the first generation immigrants from Japan.


Choose a link to explore portions of oral histories recorded with Japanese Americans interned in camps during the war:

RICHARD HENMI (nisei)

MICHEAL HOSOKAWA (sansei)

PAUL MARUYAMA (issei)

PETER MORIMOTO (issei)

GEORGE SAKAGUCHI (nisei)

PAULINE SAKAHARA (nisei)


Explore government documents concerning Japanese Americans from World War II:

NISSEI IN UNIFORM

WHAT WE'RE FIGHTING FOR

RELOCATION OF JAPANESE AMERICANS


<( document)[br />
Above is a copy of Civilian Exclusion Order Number 5, distributed on April 1, 1942 along the Western Coast of the United States.


HOME

[Jcrowley]

24. Excellent reminder

" The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it is profitable to continue the illusion.At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain,they will pull back the curtains,they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre"---
---- Frank Zappa, Prophet.
K&R

[ThomCat]

26. I expect that it will happen again at some point.

These things don't just happen once. Our country has not evolved beyond interments.

Excellent article.

[Cleita]

27. Here in California, it's not hard to find people who were

incarcerated in internment camps during WWII. Families were stripped of their property and businesses, which were never returned to them and these were often first and second generation Americans born to immigrants.

Now that we are building new internment camps and with the racist vitriol being directed to our undocumented immigrants and those of Middle Eastern ethnicity, I can picture this happening again. Many Americans, maybe first and second generation Americans will again be interred in these camps because the racist, white Republicans, who happen to be in power right now will allow it to happen if not outright ordering it.

The excuse given about the Americans incarcerated in WWII was that they could be spies because they were in contact with relatives in Japan like writing letters and sending birthday cards.

[thewanderer]

28. Una Storia Segreta - 10,000 Italian-Americans interned in WWII

The reason the order did not specify Japanese and Japanese Americans is because it wasn't only for them - (the following borrowed from wikipedia) The internment of Italian Americans during World War II has often been overshadowed by the Japanese American internment. But recently, books such as Una Storia Segreta (ISBN 1-890771-40-6) by Lawrence DiStasi and Uncivil Liberties (ISBN 1-58112-754-5) by Stephen Fox have been published, and movies, such as Prisoners Among Ushave been made. These books and movies reveal that during World War II, roughly 600,000 Italians who were citizens of Italy and had not become American citizens were required to carry identity cards that labelled them as "resident aliens." Some 10,000 people in war zones on the West Coast were required to move inland. About 250 supporters of Italian Fascism were held in military camps for up to two years. Lawrence DiStasi claims that these wartime restrictions and internments contributed more than anything else to the loss of spoken Italian in the United States. After Italy declared war on the U.S., many Italian language papers and schools were closed almost overnight because of their past support for an enemy government. President Roosevelt ended most restrictions on October 12, 1942. In 1943, Italy overthrew Mussolini, switched sides in the War, and became an American ally.


My grandparents on my mother's side were not interned, but they had their short wave radio taken away and thus were unable to get any news from Europe about the war - or the five sons they had over there fighting for the USA while their parents were treated as enemies of America....

Funny how German Americans weren't interned, nor French Americans - maybe because they share the same skin color of those who would intern the darker Italians and Japanese? Some of us are more equal than others, apparently....

[AliceWonderland]

41. German Americans were interned

http://www.foitimes.com/internment/history.htm

Thank you for bringing up Italian Americans -- good points.

[KurtNYC]

29. I used to drive past one of those camps in California

Manzanar is along 395 which connects Los Angeles to Reno Nevada. There are just a few small towns along the desolate 200-mile stretch of highway that runs up the east side of the Sierra Madres. It gets fiercely cold and windy in that valley. The buildings are all gone but the area is still marked.

I do not think it was a secret at the time. Ansel Adams produced portraits of the adults and children interned there. Alan Parker made a movie in 1990 called "Come See the Paradise" about the lives of people who were taken to Manzanar.

http://www.owensvalleyhistory.com/manzanar1/page10.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099291/

[Lisa]

35. I loved "Come See the Paradise"

One of the most striking moments was when the mom casually told her daughter about the laws in California which prohibited mixed-race marriages (that's why she and her non-Japanese husband, played by Dennis Quaid, moved to Washington State). It was EXACTLY the tone of voice used by my own parents, when describing what the world was like in the 1930s and 40s.

They didn't give me much of the "good old days" nostalgia -- which is something that a lot of the right-wingers, conversely, are steeped in. They refuse to acknowledge that these weren't so "good" if you were from one of the less-favored ethnic groups, or poor, or a woman.

[hunter]

30. My mom's dad was beat up by the police for protesting the internment.

My mom also has a friend who's family was spirited out of California by coworkers so they could escape internment. These same coworkers also protected the family's property.

Many interred families lost their property and businesses to unscrupulous people who refused to transfer title back to the people they'd claimed to be protecting. Other Japanese sold their property at great loss to speculators. There are quite a few wealthy families in California who made their fortunes at the expense of Japanese.

You are exactly right, Plaid Adder: "There is no magic out there that protects democracy and preserves our freedom. We have to do that ourselves, every goddamn day."

[Lisa]

38. wow.

Kudos to your mom's father. It wasn't an easy thing to do, to speak out like that. I wish I could thank him personally. My mom and dad, both Japanese-Canadian, have often said that during that time, a smile or a handshake made them feel so much less isolated (and gave them the sense that there was something beyond the ugly headlines in the newspapers, or people throwing rocks through their windows).

One of the saddest historical documents that I've read was an account of how the progressive CCF party in Canada (one of the few groups to raise an official protest of the internments) was lobbied by many of its grassroots members in BC, to go along with it. They were scared about Japan's military strength. They were worried about being seen as traitors and "Jap-lovers". There was a relentless stream of media coverage which focused on how different the Asian community was (and how they might be stealing jobs from white Canadians). Even some of the unions (like the fisheries workers) decided to support the internments.

But my folks told me that there were a lot of non-Japanese who tried to support us. Some of them were teenagers at the time, who despite parental disapproval, came up to the internment camps to act as health care workers and teachers. E. Herbert Norman, later appointed as the ambassador to Egypt, was another -- he and his dad (a Methodist minister) helped my mom's family contact public officials (and eventually get permission to leave the coastal exclusion zone and live in a small northern town, rather than spending the rest of the war in the camps). I'm sorry to say that the ambassador died under mysterious circumstances during the McCarthy era ... my cousin was named after him, in memory.
http://archives.cbc.ca/400d.asp?id=1-73-2182-13227-10&wm6=1

[Xenotime]

32. Not only should the be removed from power...

They should never be allowed to have majority again. History has shown that when they do, quality of life diminishes.

[eppur_se_muova]

33. I read "Farewell to Manzanar" by Jean Wakatsuki Huston after seeing a PBS documentary on this.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/002-4929021-6974431?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=farewell+to+manzanar&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go

Several other interesting titles listed there.

The one thing that stuck with me most clearly is an incident she relates when a Japanese-American man (her father?) was being interviewed by a gov't official. He was asked who he wanted to win the war, America or Japan. His answer: "When your mother and your father are fighting, you don't want either one to win. You just want them to stop fighting." I can't help but wonder how many American Muslims feel the same way now (not that they're fighting us, but Bu**sh** seems determined to start a fight with them).

[Lisa]

39. "when your mother and your father are fighting"

I was thinking of that quote just a couple of days ago. I'm ashamed to say that when I first heard of it (from my Japanese-Canadian folks), I actually paused to think of which one ...

At the time, I was very young ... and so my mom and dad forgave me.

[Nothing Without Hope]

34. "Family Normalization Act" - yep, that's appropriately Orwellian n/t

[tom_paine]

36. Yes. Plaid Adder, you hit the nail on the head

The incredibly sad head, that is.

[Lisa]

37. I'm glad the US kept Manzanar -- the Canadian government razed its camps

My parents' families were interned, even though most of the older folks had been in Canada since before WWI, and the kids were born here.

As you might imagine, the anti-terrorism legislation of the past few years, on both sides of the border, has brought back some rather frightening memories for my parents (now in their 80s). Some of the language used sounds chillingly familiar. I'm glad that FOX News and some of the US talk-radio shows do not broadcast in Canada, because I think that hearing people calling for new internments would damn near finish off my folks! Dad was upset enough about what North American Muslim kids might be feeling, to grant a detailed interview to my hometown newspaper, begging people to think about the consequences of rushing to blame an entire community.

I am starting to realize the extent to which the internment tore the internees apart. People had to confront dilemmas such as "do we accept this humanitarian aid delivered to us from Japan, now declared as Canada's enemy?"; or "should I join the armed services and end up fighting friends and relatives who were conscripted into the Imperial Army?" Thank God they didn't make the Japanese-Canadians sign that loyalty oath -- because there really wasn't any way out, that didn't have consequences. Some people went along with it because they wanted to show they were good Americans, while others decided it was a violation of the US Constitution to make the assumption that citizens might not be faithful to their birth country. I'd like to add a link about this video, "Conscience and the Constitution", which examines what happened to some Japanese-Americans who protested the loyalty oath.

http://www.pbs.org/itvs/conscience/

More info:
http://www.resisters.com/


When I was growing up, my parents downplayed the internment, because they didn't want to frighten me, or have me feel ashamed of belonging to a once-stigmatized group. There were no pictures I could look at, because cameras were contraband for the inmates. Dad made it sound like a fun, interesting time (and as one of the older kids, he decided to help organize the camp's educational and recreation services, to keep the younger children busy and maintain some kind of normality so they could keep going to school). At one time, his camp had the largest Cub Scout group in the British Empire! (The authorities forbade them from teaching semaphore, in case there were any pre-teen spies hoping to pass intelligence to the Japanese Army .... so the kids never had a chance to earn their signalling badges.)

But I know there were bad times. Dad told me what it was like, for high school students and shop clerks who were used to big-city life in Vancouver, being dropped off in the mountains in the winter, and forced to build tarpaper shacks to house the next wave of internees. I still remember coming home and finding my mom weeping and trembling in the upstairs bedroom, scared to go downstairs because the wool carpet we'd ordered from the store had an infestation of moths, and the larvae wriggling on the floor brought back memories of the maggots in the livestock barn at the Pacific National Exhibition grounds, where her family were forced by the police to assemble for transportation to the camps.

After the war, my mom and dad were able to complete their education (unlike a lot of other family members)and went on to help build our society, as a public health nurse and a teacher. They received the Canadian government's apology and payout of compensation, in the 1980s.

I took note of the sum, and have decided, during my lifetime, to contribute an equivalent amount back to various organizations and causes which are working to prevent this kind of trauma from ever happening again. (Earlier this year, I took the money I'd been saving up to buy my first car, and gave it to this emergency effort to save Joy Kogawa's family home in Vancouver. I figure it won't kill me to walk or bus to work -- and now I can say that I "own" property in Marpole!)
http://www.conservancy.bc.ca/news_view.asp?id=692

Not for my family's honour, or to demonstrate that Japanese-Canadians cared about something other than the financial payout -- it's hard to explain, but I want it to be for all of us, the whole country, to show that there are things which nations should not do, if names like "Canada", or for that matter "The United States", are to mean anything at all. (I'm sorry about what happened to Maher Arar. I feel as if I let him down. Knowing that a few Muslim Canadians, if not entire communities, have been incarcerated -- and worse, tortured -- makes me worry that this could all happen again.)

My mom and dad stand as a living rebuke to the way of thinking which locked them away for years. I am still shocked to discover that there are people who think that this was a good idea, that it was to protect Canada from the presumed damage that could be inflicted by parents -- or conversely, to protect my parents from homicidal reprisals by their non-Japanese friends and neighbors enraged by news of Canadian casualties in the Pacific. (I don't know which argument is favoured now, since the internment apologists keep going back and forth!) After my folks are gone, I guess I will have to stand as a reminder too -- I won't be as effective because I wasn't there, and because I'm not as strong and brave as they are -- but somebody has to remind governments that there must be a better way.

After all, if those in power who panicked and sent tens of thousands of people to the camps because Japanese were thought to be fanatical, vicious fighters who would go on suicide missions, even the women and children (check the wartime propaganda, I'm not making this up!) -- the whole lot of us would be on no-fly lists to this day! So whenever I read dire accounts about entire Arab and Muslim populations embarking on a war against the west .... if I start getting scared, and believing the newest propaganda .... all I have to do is imagine my parents' faces. (Or the time I cat-sat for an Iranian Communist Party member -- but that's another story.)

[Karenina]

44. Kick!

:kick:

[lonestarnot]

40. Damn straight we have to do it ourselves. No magic there.

[yorkiemommie1]

42. I've met several former internees

in fact a couple of them were doing mailings w/ me on a local campaign. i asked them how they felt and they said that being children, they hadn't taken it that hard. it must have been very hard on their parents who bore the brunt of the hardships and humiliation.

[girl gone mad]

43. My uncle's parents were sent to a camp..

before he was born.

After internment, they effectively hid their ancestry for decades. They never spoke Japanese in the home and my uncle was taught to try and pass for hispanic. He was shurprised to learn later in his life that he was a direct descendent of samurai.

[melissinha]

45. My grandma was playing tennis with a Japanese person when PH was bombed

It is really gratifying to know that she was open to immigrants then, but I am sure she was devastated when they were sent away... I should ask her about that... don't know why I haven't....

It wasn't right then, like it isn't right now. But like you said it really means that no party should have control of all branches;...

[Lisa]

46. some people in my family went back to their old hometown 50 years later

They had been teens and pre-teens in 1941, and for many of them the world changed abruptly after Pearl Harbor. Virtually overnight, entire communities were relocated, and after the war there were laws passed in Canada which banned them from returning. Some of the families were deported back to Japan, and the immigration laws weren't changed to allow them back until the 1960s. Many families moved east (my folks ended up near the Great Lakes). There was a big Japanese neighbourhood in Vancouver which disappeared.

My aunt described what it was like, to see her non-Japanese schoolmates decades after. Some of them were weeping, saying how the classroom and playground "felt so empty" after the Japanese kids were sent away. They were very young so they felt powerless to do anything.

p.s. my dad said he was listening to music with some of his high school friends, when they heard the news about the bombing (ironically, most of the immigrants in the group were the English and Scottish kids -- virtually all the Japanese in the class had been born in Canada!).

[melissinha]

47. Wow, I had no idea it affected Canada!

My grandmother was in California at the time... so I could see that... but how was it that our policies affected Canada?

Come to think of it, I know where a lot of people went... my birth city has 1 million... that would be Sao Paulo Brazil... hmm I wonder... I guess if the Nazis can go there so can the Japanese expelled from Japan, US, Canada.etc....

[Lisa]

48. I heard that some Japanese immigrants in Latin America

... also ended up interned in the US. I don't know if this number included people who were born on this side of the Pacific.
http://www.uidaho.edu/LS/AACC/KOOSKIA.HTM


I haven't read this book yet, but it sounds rather interesting. By the way, I have a distant cousin in Brazil -- her name being "Mona", I wonder what it would be like meeting her someday ("Hi Mona, I'm Lisa.")

http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/110.1/br_103.html

[mulsh]

49. still fresh in my mind

even though I was born in the 50's. My grandfather and a greatuncle who was a florist saved a number of japanese citizens businesses by paying the owners for title to their property. Since internees were limited in what they could take to the camps this meant my relatives got everything on site.
when the war ended and the internees were released every person recieved their property back from my relatives with out any expectation for repaying those guys. my grandfather and uncle always said they wished they could have done more for these folks. My mother has photos of them visiting people in the California camps, very sad.

A couple of years ago I was out to dinner with some friends and a middle aged Japanese guy told us the story of how his family's business was saved during the war by two Irish guys, my grandfather & great uncle. small world.

your're right we can never let something like that happen again

[jokerman93]

50. Beautifully stated

:applause: