I’m not American – certainly didn’t learn about this episode in the course of my formal education. Came across it in random reading some time in adolescence or later – don’t remember when, so have not voted in poll: worthwhile accuracy therein, not possible.
I don’t know. How many? Many of the Japanese internees were born in the USA. But they didn’t “look” like Americans.
The elementary school bus took us through an neighborhood of houses built by an oil company. Many were not inhabited–they’re all gone now. There were rows of tall overgrown shrubs & trees behind one house. It had been a nursery owned by a Japanese-American family. My mother said they had been sent to a camp; the daughter had been a classmate. The mother went to Japan as a missionary after the war.
I read a memoir by an internee when I was about 10 (I’m pretty sure it was Farewell to Manzanar, mentioned by others upthread, although I couldn’t have told you the title myself), so I chose “elementary school”. I remember the subject coming up very briefly in an American history textbook in either upper elementary or middle school, but I don’t think it was actually even mentioned in class.
My aunt’s father was in Auschwitz, and I have never not known about the Nazi concentration camps. Once, when I was about 9, and it was the anniversary of Hiroshima, and we were watching something on TV about it, I was feeling ashamed to be an American, and said something like, “At least we never had camps,” and that’s when my father told me that in fact, we did, albeit, not death camps.
The first time it came up in school was high school. Some people didn’t believe it, and I said “Yeah, it’s true. My father told me about it a long time ago.”
I also remember the Lou Grant episode, and am surprised to learn I was already out of college when it aired. I was in high school at the same time Typo Knig was, and similarly recall Farewell to Manzanar. I also had a classmate named Marc who once mentioned that his parents had been in the “concentration camps” (his wording).
I might well have known about Executive Order 9066 earlier, but since I can’t specifically recall how or when I learned of its existence, I picked the “high school” option.
Similarly, I first heard about it in the Marvel comic book series The Invaders. That would have been in the mid-1970s, so I would have 9 or 10 at the time.
My high school US history teacher at least didn’t downplay it. He was very wart-and-all about US history. It made the class exceptionally interesting. Also, it was called “US History,” not “American History,” but he actually spent the first two weeks on the pre-European inhabitants. It wasn’t as much as they deserved, but since most classes start with Jamestown or the Mayflower, it was nice.
8th grade reading class. We did a number of cells on different historical areas - WW2, slavery, etc. After we finished the part of the Holocaust, internment camps were brought up as an example of “Don’t think we’re so perfect, we did some shitty things too”. We also took a trip to see a nativity scene built by German POWs at the camp just outside of town during the war, and got a taste of slavery by holding auctions where half the class could buy the other half for two weeks, with rules in place to prevent too much abuse, and roles were reversed for the next two weeks. Twelve Years A Slave? Twelve days of something barely approaching servitude was enough for me.
As a kid, my family camped in the Eastern Sierras a lot, and we drove by Manzanar many times. Only stopped a few times, as this was before it was a National Monument and was just a guard shack on the west side of US-395. Also watched Farewell to Manzanar when it premiered on TV. Imdb says I would have been 10.
As for in school… When we got to WW2 my junior year of high school.
My kids got it in 8th grade, when they read the book as part of a unit with* Diary of Anne Frank* and The Watsons Go To Birmingham to prepare for a field trip to the Museum of Tolerance. They had already been to the much more developed and reconstructed Manzanar on a Sierras trip.
I learned about it in 4th grade American History, back around 1970.
It wasn’t hushed up.
The internment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry was a horrible thing, depriving them of property and income, but let us not forget the Niihau incident, cannibalism of POWs, and that Japanese school children glued together balloons that dropped incendiaries in the Northwest USA, one of which killed a picnicking Minister and his family.
WWII was a very bad time for many people.
Let us also not forget what happened to the Aleutians: The Other WWII American-Internment Atrocity : Code Switch : NPR
“The war in the Aleutians gave America its first theater-wide victory over Japan and the first experience at amphibious assaults in the war. Some 118 Aleuts perished from lack of warmth, food, and medical care. Smaller Aleut villages lost as much as a quarter of their pre-internment population. The Aleut deaths were avoidable. Medical supplies that had been allocated for the internment camps were instead taken by the military. The 700 German prisoners all returned home after the war without a single one dying during their imprisonment.”
Wow.
Thanks, mistymage.
I don’t remember specifically when, but I know I was an adult and hadn’t been in a classroom for some number of years. I remember thinking, “This seems like something they should have mentioned in History class.”
Niihau incident
Dec 7 - 13, 1941
-Shigenori Nishikaichi (Imperial Japanese pilot)
-Howard (Hawila ?) Kaleohano (rancher)
-Aylmer Robinson (ranch owner who lived on Kauai)
-Ishimatsu Shintani (an “issei” - a first generation Japanese residing on Niihau)
-Yoshio Harada and his wife Irene ( “nisei” - 2nd generation U.S. citizens, born in Hawaii to Japanese immigrants)
-Benehakaka “Ben” Kanahele and his wife Kealoha “Ella” (Niihau islanders)
A personalized and shortened version of events -
By midmorning, December 7, 1941, 22-year-old Airman 1st Class Shigenori Nishikaichi knew his Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero fighter was in serious trouble. After the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the plan was for Imperial pilots to rendezvous with returning bombers just north of Oahu’s northern tip. The bombers would be able to lead the fighters back to the carriers. A flight of nine American Curtiss P-36A fighters attacked the Zero’s but were all shot down. Nishikaichi’s fighter was hit and damaged. Imperial pilots had been told that crippled aircraft should attempt to make emergency landings on the Hawaiian island of Niihau, and await rescue by an Imperial Navy I-class submarine.
Nishikaichi crash landed on Niihau. He was rescued by Niihau islander Howard Kaleohano, who also confiscated Nishikaichi’s papers (which included military maps, radio codes, and Pearl Harbor attack plans) and Nishikaichi’s pistol.
Ishimatsu Shintani was later asked to translate between Japanese and Hawaiian, but left shortly after talking to the pilot. The Haradas’ then took over the translations. Loyal to the Japanese Emperor, neither Shintani, nor the Haradas’, told the Hawaiians about the attack on Pearl Harbor, or why Nishikaichi was in the area.
After hearing an evening radio report that Imperial Japan had attacked Hawaii, the islanders confined Nishikaichi to the Harada home. They posted guards and waited for the proper authorities to arrive.
On Dec 12th, Nishikaichi, Shintani, and the Haradas began to terrorise the islanders. Kaleohano, and his neighbors, rowed 20 miles to Kauai to inform authorities of the situation, and to bring back help.
On Dec 13th, the terrorists captured Ben Kanakele and wife Ella. They threatend their lives if they didn’t cooperate and return Nishikaichi’s papers. This eventually lead to a struggle over a shotgun. Nishikaichi drew a pistol and proceeded to shoot Ben Kanakele three times, which seems to have only made Ben Kanakele more angry than he already had been. Sheep rancher Ben Kanakele picked up Nishikaichi and hurled him into a stone wall knocking him unconsious, or killing him. His wife Kanakele began crushing Nishikaichi’s head with a large stone. Ben followed up by cutting Nishikaichi’s throat. Yoshio Harada then chose to commit suicide with the shotgun. Long live the Imperial Emperor???
*The significance of the Haradas’ stunning act of disloyalty and Shintani’s meek complicity in collaboration with Nishikaichi was not lost on the Roosevelt administration. The facts of the case “indicate a strong possibility that other Japanese residents of the Territory of Hawaii, and Americans of Japanese descent . . . may give valuable aid to Japanese invaders in cases where the tide of battle is in favor of Japan and where it appears to residents that control of the district may shift from the United States to Japan,” wrote Lieutenant C. B. Baldwin after a naval intelligence investigation.
The Haradas were neither radical nationalists nor professional spies. They were ordinary Japanese-Americans who betrayed America by putting their ethnic roots first. How many other Japanese-Americans - especially on the vulnerable West Coast - might be swayed by enemy appeals such as Nishikaichi’s? How many more might be torn between allegiance for their country of birth and kinship with Imperial invaders? These were the daunting questions that faced the nation’s top military and
political leaders as enemy forces loomed on our shores.*
http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=11861
There is a Japanese internment camp by Princeton Texas. I grew up in a school that made us tour it but they didn’t really explain what it was I didn’t understand it completely until I was grown. Actually George Takei did a talk at some point on TV and that’s when the pieces came together for me.
It’s of no direct relevance to the social/political aspects of the internment, but maybe just as a general reminder how stuff can get repeatedly published that’s questionable. I’ve seen that version of the story in more than one place but it seems to confuse the attack by six 45th and 46th Pursuit Sdn P-36’s on Zeroes near Kaneohe Naval Air Station. Those were Soryu a/c, with one Zero from the top cover element of Hiryu’s 2nd wave Zero contingent which wandered over and joined them, PO1c Tsuguo Matsuyama. The P-36’s downed two Zeroes for one loss, with other a/c of both types shot up. The rest of the Hiryu second wave Zeroes including Nishikaichi were strafing Bellows Field where they also shot down two P-40’s which had just taken off, and killed the pilot of another about to take off. This probably explains the claim of three aerial victories in Hiryu’s original combat report. Nishikaichi’s Zero was probably hit by ground fire while strafing.
I thought one of the P-40s got a zero. Perhaps my ages old source mistook the P-36 shoot down.
I always knew of the internment, for as long as I can recall.
On the corner, down the road from where I grew up, there were four WWII veterans. On the NW corner was a Sgt who served in Africa & the European Theater. On the NE corner was a crewman from the USAAC that flew in B-17s. On the SE corner was a Marine that did some “Island Hopping” in the Pacific Theater. On the SW corner was a soldier from the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. His family was living in the Topaz War relocation center at the time of his service.
These veterans were all very good friends. I spent many evenings at one or another of their homes from the time I can recall. WWII stories could be heard almost any night, if one was quiet as a door mouse, & stayed out of the lime light, that is. I am quite good at both. For them, the internment was just a fact of life in WWII.
I worked for all of them at one time or another. Two of them taught school. I had both of them as instructors. I used some of them as references when I applied for various jobs. I consider all of them as extended family. They have all pass on now.
Good idea. You know that some Muslims now are committing acts of terror. Let’s ban them from entering the US.
Do we really want to fall back on the “they were worse” argument here? I guess since America is rapidly proving to not have any moral authority left, then wouldn’t it be better to simply laugh at the United States citizens incarcerated? Especially since having 1/16 Japanese blood made one eligible?
Explain to me how this works. By remembering that the Japanese did some really horrific things then . . .
We weren’t quite as bad? No one said we were on the same level. In fact, this is why it was called the “good war.”
Deliberate policies on depriving people of liberty, property and based on racism really aren’t that bad because we didn’t kill anyone?
No. Actually, what your argument does is simply point out the inherent racism because the Germans did a lot of really, really horrific things and American citizens of German ancestry weren’t interned?
(Note that *citizens *of all three Axis countries were interned, but only American citizens of Japanese ancestry were detained.)
Your argument for downplaying the horribleness only demonstrates the racism of Americans at the time.
With the racism back in force in American politics now, this is really the wrong lesson to be taking from this.