Japanese-American Concentration Camps

In February of 1942, President Roosevelt ordered that all Americans of Japanese ancestry be evacuated and moved into concentration camps scattered in remote areas of the US. Because of the waves of anti-Japanese paranoia from the beginning of the war, Americans were scared by the idea of having "enemies" among them, even though many of the people being moved into these concentration camps were legal US citizens.

When we talked about this in class, the video showed the evacuation mostly from a third party perspective, showing the two-day advance warning of the move and the people frantically selling off their belongings. There was a bit of footage from inside the camp showing the fences and the living quarters, but, for those like myself who like to hear some people talk about it for personal experience, here are some articles and short essays from people who lived in the concentration camps.

http://people.uwec.edu/ivogeler/w188/life.htm
http://www.edb.utexas.edu/faculty/salinas/students/student_sites/Fall2008/1/participant.html

http://www.sanleandro.org/depts/library/collection/california_history_videos/california_of_the_past____stories_of_japanese_american_relocation_and_internment.asp

For me, an especially profound quote from Reiko Oshima Komoto when she ended her account of trying to assimilate back into "normal" society outside of the camps.

"I recall trying to walk on ice and hitting my head after a fall and falling down a few more times before arriving at school. I still have a scar on my head as a reminder. Adjustment to life outside the camp was difficult. I was afraid a great deal of the time. I didn't want to encounter incidents of prejudice. I became a timid and introverted person, which I've overcome as I've aged.

Hopefully, people will learn from this unfortunate episode in our history. People are people; judge them as individuals, not by race, color, or creed. No Japanese American was ever tried for espionage."

It's crazy to think that people were interned in America during a time of war that was fought against Germany (who was at that time also, at a much more gruesome level, discriminating and throwing people into camps). In principle though, we see many race issues during World War II in America that contradict the very basis of the war being fought. Just as shown in Double Victory it is interesting and ironic to see that we were having our own problems at home with the very discrimination we were fighting.