The fact that somebody else treated a bunch of people worse than we treated the Japanese-Americans does not make what did right or OK or acceptable.
One David Crockett in his autobiography did, in fact, describe American colonials burning opposing Natives alive during the “Indian Wars”. As he mentions only the incidents he witnessed and did not actually give a specific number it isn’t possible to say it was “hundreds” but it would seem to be evidence that some burning alive did occur.
Said biography is available for free at the Gutenberg Project should anyone wish to confirm this independently.
But back to the OP, only 3 months passed from the bombing of Pearl Harbor to the start of internment–very different situation than the gradual path of anti Jewish legislation to full blown extermination camps in Nazi Germany. IOW Jews in Germany had a much longer time to realize what was going to happen to them & make plans.
In my dad’s case, his parents owned a home and a dry goods business. He was only 16 at the time but remembers the few months after Pearl Harbor as a very stressful and hectic time. My grandfather (& all Issei men as far as I know) were interrogated by police and the FBI & had to surrender their cameras, radios, bicycles, & cars.
My dad remembers his parents burning the Japanese flag they brought from home and the family felt tremendous shame for being of Japanese decent.
They learned from notices posted in the neighborhood that they would be sent to camp in 3 days and they had to bring clothing, linens and dishes for their family. They had no idea where they were going so there was a lot of discussion about what type of clothing to bring. They had an “internment sale” on their front lawn and sold all their belongings at a fraction of the cost.
My grandfather’s business was abandoned and the house was sold at auction since they could not longer continue to pay the taxes (they owned it free and clear).
However, the US (awesome as we are) made reparations and my dad got a check for $20,000 during the Reagan administration (sadly those who were most impacted had already died). Then in 2010, shortly before his death, my (and all internees who served in the military during WW2) received a Congressional Gold Medal of Honor. The trip to Washington DC was a highlight of his life.
IMO the US redeemed itself and the lesson should be that we should not compromise our principals out of fear.
When Italy invaded Ethiopia, the US placed an embargo on raw materials. The Italian-American community manufactured postcards of sheet copper and mailed them back to the old country. Tons of the godamned things. The Japanese-Americans did not engage in anything similar, but they were the ones herded into camps.
Hard too see that as anything other than what it obviously was.
The executive order that allowed internment was extremely broad. Note that the the word “Japanese” does not appear in the text of the order.
Then there’s 1930s and 1940s (and 50s) Russia under Stalin; South Africa to the 1990’s; and 1990’s in the Balkans. Or British against the Boers in South Africa (where concentration camps were invented, IIRC). Basically, people behaved badly all over the world. No race has a monopoly on oppression or being oppressed.
I think the point to make is, horrible as sending Japanese to concentration camps and stealing their possession may have been, it pales in comparison to outright genocide or wholesale slaughter that happened at other times or places. For example what happened to Americans of Japanese ancestry is less that what white Americans did 9are doing) to Americans of African ancestry or native American ancestry over the years. It doesn’t make it right, and it’s not an excuse, but there are degrees of wrong just as there are circles of hell… but it’s still all hell.
Nope. Earlier than that. Concentration camps were set up during the US Civil War (one of the most notorious was Andersonville) and there are candidates for the title dating back to the 1700’s.
“Concentration camp” doesn’t mean an especially awful prison camp, it simply means a camp where a civilian population is being held. Andersonville was just a POW camp, so it wouldn’t qualify.
I remember Okinawans (they didn’t consider themselves Japanese) in northern California. They got sent to camps, I’m pretty sure it was Manzinar, and then returned back to the bumfuck farm town I grew up in. They literally had no where to go. So they came back to the farm town they had settled in. I don’t know if any of the locals did any favors, kept their house, or just gave them a job when they returned.
concentration camp (from the Online Etymology Dictionary)
Boers living in the country supported the commandos. The Brits thought to starve them by removing women, children & old men from the countryside to camps. The deaths from disease were really not intended. Shit happens…
Ok, I can see some justification in say 1941-1942 that some Japanese could provide some assistance to the enemy but after 1943 when Japan was clearly losing their really was no need anymore and they should have been allowed to return to their homes.
I remember a movie where many of the young Japanese were getting pissed at the situation and were protesting and some were even allowed to leave the US and move to Japan. Is that true?
The problem is that it wasn’t just actual Japanese citizens–you know, “enemy aliens”–but Americans included in that fiasco of relocation to prisons. Those Americans, like the folks who were still Japanese citizens because the law prohibited them from getting naturalized, did not provide any assistance to the enemy. They shouldn’t’ve been removed from their homes in the first place.
I remember one scene in Come See the Paradise where some of the “No, No Boys” who renounced their citizenship while in the camps were “repatriated” to Japan; and this included actual American citizens who were born in the US and had never been citizens of Japan.
Yeah, that was it.
Now I will say it could have gotten much worse. IF the war with Japan had not gone in Americas favor and there were indeed a real Japanese invasion it would have been worse.
I don’t know a source but in truth, during the attack on Pearl Harbor a Japanese plane did crash land on one of the remote Japanese islands and the pilot was given assistance by local Japanese. Many Japanese had never given up the Japanese idea that ALL outsiders are lower than them and did have loyalties to Japan. Many Germans had the same idea.
There simply was not any possibility of a Japanese invasion of the US. Period. Not the 48 States. Not Hawaii. They snagged a couple of the Aleutian Islands during the war but were completely unable to go any further.
That was the Niihau Incident.
This is GQ and we try to be factual here. Uninformed opinions based on stereotypes are not actually a substitute.
Any potentially significant military threat was completely nonexistent for the reason, among others, that the Japanese government did not trust the Japanese who had emigrated to the US.
I believe it was Gen Vinegar Joe who said the West Coast has something like 20 rounds of ammo per man, and the the Japanese could have walked ashore with no real opposition. Largest field weapon were French 75’s from WWI.
Mind you, it wouldnt have lasted but in 1941 the US Army was woefully unprepared.
Plus, you couldn’t tell just by looking at someone if they were Italian or German.
But how would Japanese soldiers get to the US West Coast in any significant numbers? They couldn’t deliver enough soldiers across the Pacific to capture the docks in a port city, let alone much more.
I think that about that’s all they could do. But not more.
The first in a series of light novels by Mary Lasswell – *Suds in Your Eye *-- was written in the early 1940s. A minor plot point has a Chinese Anti-Defamation League (or something like that) give a reward to the main characters for their role in bringing down a dirty attorney who (in addition to other dastardly deeds) was helping Japanese people pass as Chinese.
Of course, just because something happened in a novel doesn’t mean it happened in real life. But I do believe that it means that people then didn’t find the notion too far-fetched, that some thought it was happening or at least might have happened.
Some have posted that Italian-Americans of German-Americans weren’t interred in part because you can’t tell a white person’s nationality by looking at them. I maintain that many Americans (indeed most Americans) can’t tell a member of one Asian nationality from another.
Generally, all “enemy alien” citizens were interned- on both sides. So, if we had stopped at interning Japanese Citizens who lived in America, there’d really be no issue. The racism came about as we interned American Citizens, even those born here, because of their race.