If I may ask Amedeus where did you go to school? In California, the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII is taught in the public schools.
Also, not every Japanese-American was interned. Those living in Hawaii were not interned, but the Islands were under martial law during the war anyway. There also would have been no place to intern anyone in the islands, let alone removing a crucial sector of the economy.
Also, Japanese-Americans living outside of the West Coast were not interned. Executive Order 9066 described a particular area where Japanese-Americans were prohibited. Of course, few Japanese-Americans lived outside of the West Coast. Some chose to move to the Midwest or East Coast, but that was a very small portion of the Japanese-American community at the time.
The internment crisis also was a big black eye for the U.S. Census Bureau. While information given in the Census is supposed to be unavailable to other government agencies, the Census Bureau did work with the Army to aid them in identifying areas where the large concentrations of Japanese-Americans. The Census Bureau also helped develop a plan to send Japanese-Americans from particular parts of the country to different camps. Highly detailed maps were drawn.
However, the Census Bureau and the Army (to be specific the War Relocation Authority) didn’t take into account that they were putting together groups of Japanese-Americans that had little in common and really didn’t get along too well. In one camp, Amache in Colorado, there were two main groups. One a group of Japanese-Americans from Downtown L.A. and another group from rural Northern California. Even in 1942, Japanese-Americans were not some large monolithic group that all acted alike.
There’s only one bright spot in this whole dismal story. Governor Ralph Carr of Colorado invited the Japanese to come and live in his state to avoid the camps. The Japanese-American community of Denver made a monument to him at Sakura Square. It was a courageous stand he took that amounted to political suicide. He served only one term and was defeated in running for the Senate. If anyone ever deserved a Profiles in Courage award, it would have to be Governor Carr.
“We cannot test the degree of a man’s affection for his fellows or his country by the birthplace of his grandfather.”
—Ralph Carr
As Rickjay said, the same happened on Canada’s west coast. I think David Suzuki and/or his family spent time in one when he was a kid. There was a novel I read in high school about these times and places, although I can’t recall the name… written by a japanese lady I believe.
I apologize for giving the wrong impression about German and Italian-Americans in my earlier post. I realize that when I said that they were not interned I was wrong. All I can say is that I was working from memory and that most of the times I have read or heard about the Japanese internments, the fact that German’s and Italians weren’t interned was brought up. I think it is valid to say that the German-americans and Italian-Americans generally weren’t interned based on their ethnicity alone as was often the case with Japanese-Americans, which is, I think, the crucial point.
As MGibson said earlier “What’s to debate?” We all agree they existed and I think we can agree that, of the interned groups, the Japanese probably recieved the most egregious treatment.
P.S. Thanks to everyone who straightened me out regarding the internment of other ethnic groups. Sorry again for not looking more deeply into the subject before posting.
There is an excellent book, quasi-famous, about the psychological aftermath of the interment, told from the point of view of a young man who declined the “opportunity” to leave the camps and fight for the US forces. It is by John Okada, and called NO-NO BOY. Quite good.
Further to comments by RickJay and mmmiiikkkeee, the government of Canada went one step “better” than the U.S. government. In addition to the internment camps, after the war Canada forcibly “repatriated” some Canadians of Japanese descent, even though they were British subjects, having been born in Canada. The Supreme Court and the Privy Council upheld the forced repatriation (see: Co-op. Committee on Japanese Canadians,[1947] A.C. 87 (P.C.) - internet link not available).
People of German and Italian origin were also interned in the UK. The ironic thing about this was that a lot of these people had only just fled from Europe to get away from the Nazis and Fascists. It took a couple of years for some of them to gain their freedom.It was also decided to send some of these internees to Canada and Australia. This was stopped after a couple of ships were sank by the Germans and many lives were lost. When the people were releasd some of them did great service to the country ,either in the armed forces or as agents in occupied Europe.