It was seventy years ago today that America sent Japanese Americans to our own concentration camps.

[Stinky The Clown]

On this day in 1942, FDR signed the order that sent them there.

A VERY dark day in our history, indeed.

[limpyhobbler]

1. we shouldn't have did that

[blue neen]

2. Did you ever read "Snow Falling on Cedars?"

It's a fictional work, but it explained the Japanese American concentration camps so well.

We never learned anything about this in our history classes in school; the truth was hidden from us for many years.

Yes, it was a very dark day in our history.

[Stinky The Clown]

3. I do remember that.

It was a book and then a movie (can't recall is theatrical or tv movie).

[ellisonz]

21. Theatrical...

...and a fairly good film.

[Kalidurga]

4. I am doing a report on this...

well the broader issue of how "alien enemies" were treated during WWII. Executive Order 9066, was among the worst things a president has ever done. I can't get my head around how anyone could sign that. It was all bad. The Japanese being arrested. The German sailors, Italian waiters, housewives, children. Then the grab of Japanese and other "alien enemies" from South America. And then the cover up. To this day we know very little of what happened.

[Confusious]

5. While it was wrong, and bad

Please don't say it was a "concentration camp" with all the connotations that go with that word.

It was nowhere near as bad as NAZI Germany.

[BrentWil]

6. THe word fits...

a guarded compound for the detention or imprisonment of aliens, members of ethnic minorities, political opponents, etc.

However, the death rate was much much lower at US camps

[Muskypundit]

10. Yeah, like natural causes low.

[Confusious]

16. Why not use the word usually used

when talking about it? "internment camp."

Unless you want to make the comparison.

"Concentration camp" is the most controversial descriptor of the camps. This term is criticized for suggesting that the Japanese American experience was analogous to the Holocaust and the Nazi concentration camps. For this reason, National Park Service officials have attempted to avoid the term. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes each referred to the American camps as "concentration camps," at the time. When the nature of the Nazi concentration camps became clear to the world, and the phrase "concentration camp" came to signify a Nazi death camp, most historians turned to other terms to describe Japanese internment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment#Conditions_in_the_camps

[hfojvt]

32. it's not anti-American enough to say "internment camp"

That would imply that the USA is not worse than the NAZIs, and certainly no intelligent or sensitive person believes that.

[2ndAmForComputers]

74. Is the OP anti-American?

[Posteritatis]

44. "Internment camp" is to "concentration camp" as "enhanced interrogation" is to "torture."

Even the Nazis differentiated between prison camps and death camps.

[Confusious]

45. Sure it is

Left = Stalinist, Right = Fascist

Whats in a word?

Do you like it when the right refers to you as a Stalinist? They're all the left. Same as you using the term "concentration camp" for "internment camp."

1 death, 6 million+, no real difference.

It's not me playing word games, it's you. "enhanced interrogation" = torture.

Internment camps are not the same as concentration camps ( colloquial usage )

Both didn't have 6 million+ deaths in them.

[Bonobo]

55. In fact, most German concentration camps were not "death camps".

You need to do more studying.

[Confusious]

65. In fact, you have a disingenuous argument

You know what comes to mind when people (excluding the holier-the-thou crowd) use the word "concentration camp."

If you don't, you're the one who needs to do more studying.

[Bonobo]

67. I smell a person who lost the one prop holding up their argument

Your argument was that a "concentration camp" is a death camp.

A concentration camp is exactly what Japanese-American citizens were sent to. Where their homes, money and liberty were taken away from them --for YEARS.

The fact that YOU did not have a proper knowledge of the WW2 history is not the issue.

The fact that you want to paper over how wrong it was might be.

[Confusious]

68. Again, you're wrong

My argument is that the proper term, used by historians is "Interment camps," since most people associate "concentration camps" with places like dacahau. just using that word invites the comparison with German concentration camps and is not apt.

If you can't see that through your dogma, there's nothing I can do to help

I also never said it wasn't wrong, you ASSUMED I felt that way. Why do you ASSUME I think it was OK?

Would you like another try at being wrong?

[Bonobo]

69. Isn't it past your bedtime? nt

[Confusious]

70. If it is, then you should have gone to bed

A looong time ago.

[Bonobo]

73. Not at all.

I am in Japan and feeling smug to have demolished the lame arguments you made.

[Confusious]

75. Only in your mind....

[Bonobo]

7. It was the very definition of a "concentration camp".

No one said it was as bad as Nazi Germany.

[Confusious]

15. Then why not use the word usually used

"internment camp," unless you want to make that comparison?

"Concentration camp" is the most controversial descriptor of the camps. This term is criticized for suggesting that the Japanese American experience was analogous to the Holocaust and the Nazi concentration camps. For this reason, National Park Service officials have attempted to avoid the term. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes each referred to the American camps as "concentration camps," at the time. When the nature of the Nazi concentration camps became clear to the world, and the phrase "concentration camp" came to signify a Nazi death camp, most historians turned to other terms to describe Japanese internment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment#Conditions_in_the_camps

[CreekDog]

84. just came back from Dachau and you're confusing that kind of camp with a death camp

Dachau was unbelievably horrible, but it wasn't a Death Camp like Treblinka or something like that. And Dachau was a work camp or concentration camp of one type and it was in Germany. The Death Camps were actually mostly outside of Germany.

People who are interned and rounded up, whether they're in the former Yugoslavia, Germany or the high desert of California or Utah are in concentration camps. Surely, Germany's were worse than ours, but they were of a kind and the same thing by the standard definition.

Your posts really misunderstand the details and the problem with that is you're using factual errors to attempt to rebut what you are being told that is in fact, true.

[Confusious]

85. As I've said before, and you may have missed

It's not the dictionary definition, it's the common usage of the world.

A "reasonable person" would associate "concentration camp" with NAZI death camps. THAT is the point of the argument.

Dachau wasn't a death camp? Dachau had gas chambers and ovens.

Are you sure you where in the concentration camp and not the city?

"The internees who were brought to Camp Dachau for the sole purpose of being executed were in most cases Jews and Russians. They were brought to the compound, lined up near the gas chambers, and were screened in a similar manner as internees who came to Dachau for imprisonment. Then they were marched to a room and told to undress. Everyone was given a towel and a piece of soap, as though they were about to take a shower. During this whole screening process, no hint was ever given that they were to be executed, for the routine was similar upon arrival of all internees in the camp."

Quoted from The Official Report by the U.S. Seventh Army, released only days after the camp was liberated.

[CreekDog]

86. I keep trying to explain the difference between these camps as they explained them to us

This is not to take away any of the severity of what was going on. But some camps were used to essentially imprison and work people to death (it was quite an industry) and some camps were used to simply kill.

Dachau itself wasn't used as an extermination camp. They had a crematorium and a gas chamber that wasn't used to kill people --according to the museum there. I think they sent those to be killed elsewhere.

What I find frustrating is that you cannot accept that a place like Manzanar was a concentration camp, even though it was not the grisly place that Dachau was or a death camp like Auswicz. From wikipedia: 25,613 prisoners are believed to have died in the camp and almost another 10,000 in its subcamps.

If you're going to be pedantic about this, you should at least be right, which you aren't. Japanese Americans were put into concentration camps, yes. Though the outcome was better than at a place like Dachau, it was still a concentration camp, serving some similar purposes and fitting the definition of one.

The holocaust is the most monstrous thing I can think of. Saying the Japanese Americans were interned in concentration camps does not minimize that.

Make sense?

[Confusious]

87. You're misrepresenting what I said

I understand things might have been bad in the American camps.

But they were not even on the same level as the German camps.

Seems a lot of people can't seem to handle someone disagreeing with them, so they think the reason the person is disagreeing with them is because they're stupid and don't understand the argument. I understand your argument, I think it's wrong.

Again,

Most people would think of the German death camps when you use the word "concentration camp," by using that word, you place the American camps on the same level as the holocaust. or drag the holocaust down to the same level as the American camps.

Maybe you want to do that, I don't know.

"If you're going to be pedantic about this, you should at least be right, which you aren't."

I'm being pedantic? You're arguing for the dictionary usage of the word.

Most historians don't use the word "concentration camp" when referring to the interment camps. You know better then a majority of PHDs?

let me highlight that, it's an important point. You know better then a majority of historians?

[CreekDog]

88. We're just arguing over terminology --but you made a mistake in describing Dachau

and instead of learning from it, and understanding how some camps were concentration camps and some "death" camps and the difference, you are missing knowledge of the holocaust.

that the death camps were mostly outside Germany is interesting.

that some camps were used to work them until near death without actually killing them first is also part of the history. apparently camps like Dachau were quite profitable for corporations, providing cheap labor.

and i'm not saying because i went to Dachau that it makes me an expert, i'm saying that the museum there and the grounds explained a lot about how the holocaust was carried out, who was rounded up, what was done to them, etc.

i think it's silly to carry this any further.

[LanternWaste]

46. Much as we may ask pregnant women if they've named the fetus yet?

Much as we may ask pregnant women if they've named the fetus yet?

Or do we conclude that contextually, one word may in fact be more appropriate than another with the same meaning?

[blue neen]

9. ?

"One of the most stunning ironies in this episode of American civil liberties was articulated by an internee who, when told that the Japanese were put in those camps for their own protection, countered "If we were put there for our protection, why were the guns at the guard towers pointed inward, instead of outward?"

Please do some reading and educate yourself about what these innocent American citizens endured. As mentioned in an earlier post, "Snow Falling on Cedars" is an excellent book on the subject.

[Confusious]

14. Why do you seem to think I know nothing about it?

Unless you want to correct me and tell me how it was as bad as a German "concentration camp," seems extremely arrogant of you to suggest I don't.

Were there gas chambers?
Were there ovens for cremation?
Were there mass graves?
Were there prisoners starving to death?

Unless you want to make the case, the usual word is "interment camp." That's what all the history books and papers I've read in the past 25 years have used.

"Concentration camp" is the most controversial descriptor of the camps. This term is criticized for suggesting that the Japanese American experience was analogous to the Holocaust and the Nazi concentration camps.[106] For this reason, National Park Service officials have attempted to avoid the term.[103] Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes each referred to the American camps as "concentration camps," at the time.[107] When the nature of the Nazi concentration camps became clear to the world, and the phrase "concentration camp" came to signify a Nazi death camp, most historians turned to other terms to describe Japanese internment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment#Conditions_in_the_camps

[blue neen]

26. President Roosevelt called them "concentration camps."

"These Japanese Americans, half of whom were children, were incarcerated for up to 4 years, without due process of law or any factual basis, in bleak, remote camps surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards."

"They were forced to evacuate their homes and leave their jobs; in some cases family members were separated and put into different camps. President Roosevelt himself called the 10 facilities "concentration camps."

"Some Japanese Americans died in the camps due to inadequate medical care and the emotional stresses they encountered. Several were killed by military guards posted for allegedly resisting orders."

<snip>

"Almost 50 years later, through the efforts of leaders and advocates of the Japanese American community, Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Popularly known as the Japanese American Redress Bill, this act acknowledged that "a grave injustice was done" and mandated Congress to pay each victim of internment $20,000 in reparations."

"The reparations were sent with a signed apology from the President of the United States on behalf of the American people. The period for reparations ended in August of 1998."

"Despite this redress, the mental and physical health impacts of the trauma of the internment experience continue to affect tens of thousands of Japanese Americans. Health studies have shown a 2 times greater incidence of heart disease and premature death among former internees, compared to noninterned Japanese Americans."

http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/history/index.html

No arrogance, just shock that you seem to want to downplay what we did to our own citizens. We can argue semantics and what word to call the camps all day long, but it doesn't take away the pain, injustice, and yes, death of those involved.

[Confusious]

38. So you're just following Roosevelts example?

I see you didn't do any reading.

Eisenhower called them that too. BEFORE they knew what was going on in the German camps.

I'm not downplaying it. On the contrary, I see you as equating it to the German concentration camps. I don't see them as equal BECAUSE THEY AREN'T. Maybe you should do some more reading on the horror that the german camps were, then you wouldn't be so willing to relate them.

Calling them "concentration camps" is a disingenuous argument. It is common knowledge, at least I think it is, what you are referring to when you use the term.

I also still say it's arrogance: as I posted before most historians turned to other terms to describe Japanese internment. You know better then people who have studied history all of their lives?

We should only listen to experts when we agree with those experts? i.e. Global warming exists because I agree with it. I don't agree with the historians usage of "internment camps," so I'll use "concentration camps." What's in a word anyway?

[blue neen]

50. I've done plenty of reading on German concentration camps.

I've also done a lot of reading about the Japanese-American "internment" camps (we'll spin the word your way).

Oh yes, and BTW, there is a wealth of information out there about what we as Americans have done to the Native Americans. How about the barbaric institution of slavery?

It's all cruel, inhumane, and wrong. It's all about bigotry, mass hysteria, and hatred.

If we do not look upon these instances for the abominations that they truly were, then we will be doomed to repeat the behavior.

If some "historians" had been left to their own devices, we never would have known the truth about many of these atrocities, so yeah, maybe sometimes the "little people" do know better than "people who have studied history all of their lives."

What's in a word anyway? Multitudes of meanings...and the word for today is "compassion."

[Confusious]

51. You're the only one with compassion

I suppose.

I'm the one whose not, I suppose.

Trying to take some imaginary high ground where none exists, because I never said anything about not caring. Trying to take some imaginary high ground by including native Americans and slavery, when the topic is something else entirely. I don't need you to tell me about the Native Americans. My great-great-grandfather was one.

I just don't like the word people are using. I would like the correct word.

"If some "historians" had been left to their own devices, we never would have known the truth about many of these atrocities, so yeah, maybe sometimes the "little people" do know better than "people who have studied history all of their lives." "

Ahh, yes, the "I'm the hero, it's academia that's the villain" justification. unbelievable.

Sorry, most of these things get tossed around in little historian circles, or cultural circles, until the public at large is ready to take notice.

"If we do not look upon these instances for the abominations that they truly were, then we will be doomed to repeat the behavior."

And if we don't look at them as they truly were, without our little ideologies getting in the way, we're bound to make things worse.

Maybe you can climb a little higher on that cross in your next post.

[blue neen]

53. What cross?

.

[Confusious]

72. Figure it out. nt

[former9thward]

57. I notice there is no link for Roosevelt calling them "concentration camps"

That does not surprise me.

[blue neen]

58. Please notice that there is indeed a link in post #26.

You will find the article there.

[former9thward]

60. That is what I'm posting about

The article does not give any link or quote to that statement. Whoever wrote the article just asserts it without documentation. Either a very sloppy writer or they were just making it up.

[blue neen]

66. Here's a quote:

You're right. The article doesn't give a link to the statement.

PRESIDENT FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT, Press Conference, November 21, 1944, FDR Library, #982.

"I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. . . . One is my part in the evacuation of the Japanese from California in 1942. . . . I don't think that served any purpose at all. . . . We picked them up and put them in concentration camps. That's the truth of the matter. And as I look back on it--although at the time I argued the case--I am amazed that the Supreme Court ever approved it."

IMHO, what is so special about this is that he realized and acknowledged his mistake. It's a shame so many people had to suffer, though, because of that mistake.

[former9thward]

77. Thanks for the quote!

[RZM]

17. The term is probably technically correct, but in the popular mind it's associated with the Nazis

Most people haven't heard about other such camps in history, such as the Spanish camps in Cuba or the British ones in S. Africa during the Boer War. Many haven't even heard of the Soviet camp system. But they have heard about the Nazis. For that reason I tend not to refer to the Japanese-American camps as 'concentration camps' to avoid conflation with Nazi camps. While the concepts have some parallels, the legacies really do not.

[Confusious]

18. Thank you

Nobody else seems to want to admit that. I always heard them referred to as "internment camps" to avoid the conflation.

Not that it was right, but it was no where near as bad.

The only reason you would use the word is if you wanted to make a relationship.

[RZM]

19. I've usually thought of it the same way

Everybody knows about the Nazi legacy. While the Nazis shouldn't necessarily get to 'own' the term, for all intensive purposes they do. And everybody who refers to the US camps that way is aware of that.

Some have even taken to calling Guantanamo the 'American Gulag.' That's even worse, IMO, because if you know even a little bit about the Soviet camp system, you're well aware that it's not much like Guantanamo. That's an even more transparent example of going for the false equivalence.

The internment camps and Guantanamo were/are not great places. But they were nothing like their German and Soviet counterparts.

[indepat]

34. Concentration camp is such a much more straight-forward description than the sanitized

internment camp euphemism.

[RZM]

37. Not really

Britain interned Germans during the Second World War and placed them in camps as well. You almost never see those referred to as 'concentration camps.' The numbers weren't as large and the process different (most were eventually released during the war). But it still happened.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/research-guides/internees.htm

[Confusious]

39. I guess 2+2=5

After all, they are all numbers?

the left = Stalinist, the right = fascists.

There are no shades of grey.

[backscatter712]

8. George Takei mentioned this on Facebook.

He was one of those Japanese-Americans sent to the camps.

[Stinky The Clown]

11. Some years ago I worked with a woman who spent her childhood in one of the camps

I recall her having gotten some sort of financial settlement from the feds. Maybe back in the 80s?

[dynasaw]

27. reparation and redress

Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Popularly known as the Japanese American Redress Bill, this act acknowledged that "a grave injustice was done" and mandated Congress to pay each victim of internment $20,000 in reparations.


http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/history/index.html

[eShirl]

20. He talked about it at a Science Fiction convention I attended 25 years ago.

In my understanding, it was/is his regular practice to take some time discussing it whenever he was a guest speaker at one of those.

[marasinghe]

12. while their sons fought, & died, with extraordinary valor, in the US Army ....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)

From the Wiki' article:
".... The 442nd Regimental Combat Team ( Japanese: 第442連隊戦闘団 ) of the United States Army, was composed of Japanese-American enlisted men and mostly Caucasian officers .... The families of many of its soldiers were subject to internment. The 442nd was a self-sufficient force, and fought with uncommon distinction in Italy, southern France, and Germany. The unit became the most highly–decorated regiment in the history of the United States Armed Forces, including 21 Medal of Honor recipients ...."

(bold/italics mine)

[davidthegnome]

13. FDR, of all people...

I wasn't alive during his Presidency, but many have told me that he was one of the greatest (if not the greatest) Presidents in our history. I didn't live during that time, so I can't judge what his reasoning was, why he felt it necessary to sign that order. It just seems so out of character for the man who I've heard so much about.

I've read stories, seen a documentary or two, I have a very vague idea of what happened in those camps. Enough to know it was beyond bad - it was a crime and should be acknowledged as such. Innocent people made to live in little camps, crowded with very poor food and living conditions, treated as if they were the enemy when they had done nothing wrong.

Yes... a dark day in our history, one we cannot afford to ever forget, lest we ever repeat that tragic mistake.

[Stinky The Clown]

22. I'm not defending the order. It was just plain awful. But . . . .

. . . . . it happened in a VERY different era with a VERY different set of national sensibilities. We were at war with another nation, three nations, actually.

Think back to the days shortly after 9/11 and magnify that ten fold . . . .

[dynasaw]

31. Let's Get This Straight

those interned were Americans. They happened to have yellow skins.

The redress movement was part of the civil rights movement that began in the 60's- 70's and it involved a generation of Asian Americans who recognized the acts of racism against people of Asian descent which paralleled the injustices against African American, Latinos and Native Americans. This happened in an environment fired by racist hysteria against a longtime historical backdrop of anti-Asian sentiments--yellow perilism was very much the order of the day. People of Chinese or other Asian descent went about in fear of being mistaken for being of Japanese descent.

These were concentration camps period. They were located in the most in the most inhospitable areas of the nation, enclosed with barb wire with watch towers, search lights, guard dogs and armed guards with orders to shoot to kill anyone attempting to escape. In some camps, the guards were themselves prisoners (white) suspected of being Nazis. Some camps like those in Idaho used the internees as farm labor. Groups of them were taken, under armed guard to work the beet fields.

Americans tend to think of concentration camps only in regard to the Nazis, because with their pitiful ignorance of world history, those are the only ones they know about. Most don't even realize that there were concentration camps all over Asia and Manchuria during World War II where those interned suffered the horrors that equaled the situation in Europe.

For many Japanese Americans, the Bush-fanned hysteria after 9/11 and the suspicions cast on any one who looked middle eastern evoked memories of what took place during World War II.

Neither FDR nor the ACLU come out looking very good where this page in history is concerned.

[backscatter712]

29. Ah, we have Mr. Sensitive here.

You stay classy!

[NNN0LHI]

24. Italians and Germans too

[Lydia Leftcoast]

28. But Italians and Germans had to actually DO something suspicious to be interned

My mother's side of the family included a lot of German immigrants. The only one who was interned was one who joined the German-American Bund (Nazi sympathizers).

Japanese-Americans were simply rounded up en masse with no regard for guilt or innocence.

[Bruce Wayne]

56. Except the ones who lived in the Panama Canal Zone

They got rounded up "just because."

[zoechen]

25. K&R

Everyone must know about the Japenese Holocaust caused by the U.S.

[blue neen]

30. Here's some reading material for you:

http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/history/index.html

You will find some very compelling information that I hope will give you some compassion for what these American citizens endured.

[Confusious]

40. Sure it was.

We killed 6 million+ in those camps.

[blue neen]

49. One life taken in those camps, whatever YOU choose to call them, was too much.

We, as Americans, imprisoned our own people and some of them died because of it. The fact that you find that to be a subject of sarcasm and derision is deplorable.

Bless your little heart.

[Confusious]

52. Do you ever get any point I'm trying to make?

Or are you so high up on that cross you can't hear anything except yourself?

the small number of deaths that were in those camps doesn't make them equal to "The holocaust" or what happened to the native Americans. To raise the internment camps to that level is to lower the suffering of the people in the actual "holocaust," and to raise the "internment" of the Japanese to a point of a lie. If you lie enough, people no longer believe you.

Believe it or not, there are grey areas in life.

[blue neen]

54. What cross?

.

[Confusious]

71. Figure it out. nt

[uppityperson]

64. Who is saying they are equal to "The holocaust" (quotes yours) or what happened to NA?

[Liberal_in_LA]

61. yep. I recently spoke to a former internment camp resident. He described how

they lost EVERYTHING. Imagine one day the authorities show up at your house and force your family to move to a camp. Your properity, assets, job - all gone. Given to someone else.

[jwirr]

33. This is a history that should be remembered along with the treatment of German Americans. With

the hateful attitudes we have today we need to make absolutely sure we do not do this again. Schools should have been teaching the whole truth from the beginning. And they should do it now if it is not a part of their curriculum.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

35. My brother in law was a guard at one of those concentrtion camp.

And, being from California, he knew some of the prisoners. He asked for a transfer because of the inhumanity of it. He was transferred to Idaho to guard Italian and German POW's who worked in the fields. He said the Germans, mostly captured Afrika Korps types, were arrogant bastards. The Italians had a grand time frolicking with the local farm girls.

The internment was a national disgrace.

[KurtNYC]

36. I used to drive past those camps

they are on 395 near Lone Pine and Independence. The location was still clearly marked in the early 1990s. Howling winds sweep the barren valley, starved of water by the Los Angeles aquaduct.

Around the same time, the Japanese were launching incidiary balloons in Japan that rode the jetstream and would start fires in Arizona. They were trying to stop the A-bomb research (with fairly sophisticated low tech methods).

Dark days indeed.

[hobbit709]

62. That part about the balloons is total BS.

There were some that landed in the Pacific northwest. As far as trying to stop the A-bomb-that is totally made up.

[KurtNYC]

78. The BS killed 6 in Oregon; stopped a nuclear weapons plant in WA

http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/05/0505japanese-balloon-kills-oregon/

"In all, the Japanese released an estimated 9,000 fire balloons. At least 342 reached the United States. Some drifted as far as Nebraska. Some were shot down."

edit to add the next paragraph from that story:

"Some caused minor damage when they landed, but no injuries. One hit a power line and temporarily blacked out the nuclear-weapons plant at Hanford, Washington."

[hobbit709]

79. Prove to me the Japanese knew about the plant.

Last edited Wed Feb 22, 2012, 11:14 PM - Edit history (1)

Americans didn't even know about the plant.

[KurtNYC]

80. So who was working in the plant in your theory of history?

Underpants Gnomes? or perhaps Americans who didn't know what they were doing but somehow managed to make A bombs? Of course not...

"The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project

[hobbit709]

81. And about 99% of them didn't know anything beyond "Top Secret"

But you didn't answer about how the Japanese supposedly knew about the plant.

[miyazaki]

76. The location is quite the museum now.

Done up very nice. (Manzanar).

[Another Bill C.]

41. My late wife

lived in one of the internment camps after the Japanese-Americans left. She was among a group of Hopi and Navajo people who were being resettled. They probably could have left but there was nothing but bare desert for many miles around. She didn't say much about the camp except that the Japanese left some beautiful things behind which the new settlers really appreciated.

[bvar22]

42. The Counter Point: Historical, Social, and cultural context is IMPORTANT.

This won't be popular here,
especially among those who enjoy branding FDR a "racist" because of the Japanese internment.
A valid case CAN be made that FDR actually saved Japanese American lives.
Understanding the West Coast in 1941, and acknowledging the very successful government propaganda campaign to Demonize the Japanese Race, and whip the American citizens into a blood frenzy fueled by racial hatred of the Japanese
is important.

The West Coast after Pearl Harbor
The citizens of California were absolutely certain that the Japanese were going to land in California RIGHT NOW!
They were hysterical, in the true sense of the word.

They formed Citizen Patrols to protect the beaches (think: armed Citizen Broder Patrols X 1 Million),
AND they were also on the look out for Japanese Spies that were actively helping the Invasion by collecting information
and sabotaging shore installations. This was fueled by "reports" that Japanese Spies had helped in Hawaii by cutting arrows in the Sugar Cane fields that pointed to the Battle Ships. Ridiculous rumors of atrocities committed by ethnic Japanese during the attack on Pearl Harbor were rampant among Californians who repeated them, and embellished them with every telling.
These rumors spread quickly across the nation.

ANYONE that appeared even remotely Japanese was immediately suspect,
AND treated with suspicion by every "patriotic" American.
EVERY plane flying overhead, especially at night, was reported hundreds of times as a Japanese Bombers.
Nowhere was there a voice of reason or restraint.
Nobody, not the Media nor the government, made ANY attempt to quell the rumors until an official statement from the government was issued until well AFTER the internment.

The WAR HYSTERIA and PANIC at imminent Japanese Invasion on the West Coast wasn't just widespread,
it completely dominated everything else.
The Steven Spielberg Movie 1941 was not comedy.
It was understatement.

The Government War Campaign to Demonize the Japanese
The propaganda campaign against the Japanese was very different from the one waged against Germany.
After all, most Americans were of European descent, and resembled the Germans racially.
We were at WAR with Hitler and the NAZIS, not every single ethnic German or Italian.

The WAR propaganda campaign against the Japanese was very different.
The Japanese Race was successfully portrayed by our government outlets and Media as sub-human, inferior, inbred, and bestial,
with no respect for Human Life, defective mental capabilities, an unquenchable lust for white women, and a hatred for Americans.
Our government wanted Americans to HATE the Japanese Race, and they were successful.

The following is just a very small sample of the War Posters that appeared on every street corner in California.





It was PATRIOTIC to HATE the entire Japanese race during World War 2,
and this only got worse as the casualties from that unbelievable brutal war in the pacific grew.

Again, NOWHERE was there a voice of reason.
NOBODY ever said, Hey wait a minute, they can't ALL be that bad."

The interment of the Japanese Americans during WW2 was a BAD thing,
a shameful part of our national history,
and completely unjustified,
but I understand WHY it happened.
It is NOT fair to blame FDR for this shameful episode, as had been done ad nauseum, even here on DU.

The BLAME belongs to our entire country, and the insanity of that World War.

[Stinky The Clown]

47. The OP has only facts (and one opinion)

Facts:
It happened 70 years ago yesterday
FDR ordered it.

Opinion:
It was a dark day in our history





Nowhere is FDR blamed. It was, as you say, consistent with the national psyche at the time. I am not blaming FDR, although, who else could be blamed, really?

To say FDR did it to save Japanese American lives is pretty much a stretch. I'd like to think that was the case, too, as I think very highly of FDR for a WHOLE lot of things. But the fact is, this was not his finest hour.

[Bruce Wayne]

63. The context is important, I agree. And yet...

Eleanor Roosevelt had the light and wits to oppose the decision (tho, of course, she didn't criticize it in public). The ACLU also fought against both the 1941 Japanese curfews and the 1942 interment order. There were people even in war time willing to stand up and say this is wrong.

The panic in December 1941 was certainly understandable. By the summer of 1942, if there was still a coastal panic, it was the result of a moral failure of the leadership. I say this as an unabashed admirer of FDR's moral leadership. But this was one fucking Moby Dick of a moral flaw.

[rug]

43. And Guantanamo's still open.

[HeiressofBickworth]

48. It wasn't just the internment

The property, homes, belongings and businesses of the Japanese-Americans were sold out from under them and no, they didn't get the proceeds. They were allowed one suitcase each. After the war was over and they were released, they had nothing to go home to. They were further punished with years of deprivation, starting over, re-building the lives they were taken from. Yes, there are a few exceptions where some kind neighbor bought and held the property until the end of the war, but that was the exception, not the rule. They were sentenced to confiscation of everything, liberty, home, livelihood, based on the color of their skin. As it was pointed out in another post, Germans and Italians who were arrested were DOING something to warrant arrest. The Japanese-Americans were arrested for having the wrong color skin.

As for calling them concentration camps, I think it's appropriate. What I've always wondered is if the war in the Pacific had gone badly, how close was the United States to executing Japanese? If the Pacific war had gone badly, could the government keep people from demanding their execution. In other words, how close in mentality was the US to the Germans?

[Boojatta]

82. What was the mentality of people in Germany?

What I've always wondered is if the war in the Pacific had gone badly, how close was the United States to executing Japanese? If the Pacific war had gone badly, could the government keep people from demanding their execution. In other words, how close in mentality was the US to the Germans?

[HeiressofBickworth]

83. All I know is what I've read

If you compare the propaganda at the time by the Nazis against Jews and the US against the Japanese, there is little difference in the objective -- to reduce the "enemy" to sub-human, worthless and a foment a desire to rid the population of their presence. The first Nazi camp was Dachau in 1933 which at first used the forced labor of political dissidents, later Jews and other groups were added. They were first deprived of their homes, businesses and possessions and allowed one suitcase to take with them on the expulsion from German territory. Although many deaths were caused by the forced-labor of the first camps, the first camp for the purpose of execution (Chelmno) began operating in 1941.

If you look at the time progression of the US and Nazis, the US had already overcome the first hurdles. Japanese were made first an object of ridicule and then objects of fear, suspicion and terror. Then the Japanese were deemed to be such a threat (real or perceived) that they were deprived of their homes, businesses and all of their belongings save one suitcase, and sent to camps.

So, I go back to my original question, if things had gone badly in the Pacific, how close did the US come to executing Japanese in the camps?

[Bruce Wayne]

59. Interesting sidenote: the RW governor of Hawaii decided not to inter

Hawaii was about 1/3 ethnically Japanese in 1941/42. When the governor of Hawaii was tasked with protecting the island, he realized locking up one third of the populace was madness. He still locked up some Japanese-Americans, but only community leaders--community leaders, priests, business leaders, etc--but, ironically, only after they had warned the other members of their community that they should be unerringly loyal to the United States. After all, most Japanese immigrants had come to America to get away from the stultifying air of Japan's authoritarian regime.

Thus, while there was a wholesale round up along the relatively safe Pacific Coast, the rather vulnerable Hawaiian islands left 99% of their Japanese population intact and unmolested. Any real spies or saboteurs hiding among the Nissei population probably would have had a freer hand, actually, with the community leaders best in a position to turn them into authorities then locked up. But, as it happened, all Japanese who'd come here (and their kids) turned out to be loyal to here.

There were a total of nine Japanese spies caught in the US during World War Two. All 9 were Caucasians.