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The story of US internment of Japanese families is one I was taught in school. I also remember watching a video which depicted a Japanese family who was forced to live in a stadium simply because they were Japanese. I remember getting the impression, somehow, that this was something which happened to all US citizens of Japanese ancestry who lived along the West Coast. I remember getting the impression that it was a terrible thing our government did, motivated only by racism and fear of "the enemy" in our midst. But, once again, I'm learning that I wasn't told the whole story. Lately, this has been a familliar feeling. In The American Conservative, Roger McGrath (and also this article) fill in the parts of the picture which were missing from what I was taught. I do not remember being taught, for example, that out of all the "enemy" ethnic groups in America (German, Italian, Japanese), only among the Japanese were there those (nearly 6,000) who renounced their US citizenship after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Nor was I told of the behavior of some of these "renunciants" during their internment: "In camp they greeted the rising sun, cried 'banzai,' blew bugles, drilled, celebrated on Pearl Harbor Day, rioted, and demanded expatriation to Japan." I didn't know that there were 20,000 American-born Japanese who were sent to Japan for education, and considered themselves to still be citizens of Japan more than the US. I was unaware that many Japanese Americans sent their children to "Japanese school" on Saturday, partly to counter assimilation:
I wasn't aware that 94% of Japanese military-aged men said they would not serve in the US Armed Forces, nor that many such residents refused to take a loyalty oath and promise to abide by American laws. Nor that there were no comparable refusals among Germans, Italians, or other Europeans living in America. And though some Japanese men did serve in the US military with distinction (in Europe) I wasn't told that far more, some 19,000, applied return to Japan to help kill their fellow US citizens, nor that hundreds of them actually did serve in such a manner:
Nor was I told that the release of the Defense Department "MAGIC" files showed that there were, in fact an, active network of Japanese spies -- again, contrary to what I had been taught Nor did I learn that, as with the "Ultra" secret (that we had cracked the German "Enigma" code) these spies could not be arrested individually without revealing the crucial secret (dubbed "MAGIC") that we had broken Japan's "Purple" and diplomatic codes:
I don't remember being told that tens of thousands of Germans and Italians whose loyalties were suspect were also detained; only the Japanese detainment stands out in my memory as an alleged atrocity. And, later, like most Americans, I'd never heard that Japanese US Senator Hiyakawa, frustrated at what he felt was a biased government commission looking into the matter, wrote a letter to the President in which he stated that he felt the detainment was justified:
I'm not here to "whitewash" what happened. Nor should these revelations taint contemporary assimilated Japanese. But how can we be expected to make an informed judgement about the wisdom of US actions during WWII when so much crucial information is missing from the picture which is presented to us? Perhaps that's the point? it's nice to see that all conservatives arn't demagogue. a commitment to balence is greatly needed by all section of the social spectrum. but i the interest of balence, pleace look beyond all that america mythology your teachers told you. yes, the japanese were released, after three years spent in internment camps, where they were never charged with crimes or given human rights. and a note on slavery, which is indeed an ancient practice. african slavery, especially before 1500 c.e., had very little in common with american and european slavery after that date. slaves in african communities were treated much better than in the americas, often living in the same house and eating the same food as their masters. african slave owners were also not allowed to draw blood of their slaves. it bore little resemblence to the colonial system. Posted by: jake barrett on February 10, 2008 01:53 PM As for those "nearly 6,000" who renounced their citizenship: "Some Japanese Americans did question the American government, after finding themselves in internment camps. Several pro-Japan groups formed inside the camps, particularly at the Tule Lake location. When the government passed a law that made it possible for an internee to renounce her or his U.S. citizenship, 5,589 internees opted to do so; 5,461 of these were at Tule Lake." Now, how much allegiance would you hold to a country that detained you based on your ethnicity? Posted by: Brent on June 22, 2008 12:43 PM People attempt to peer back through history and apply today's logic, values, mores and perceptions. It is a completely bankrupt philosophy. We certainly can find some personal hygene from 800 AD, abhorrent but why must that influence our perceptions on events unfolding during that time? We still have the opportunity to ask people who were living at the time their feelings then. "Then" is the key word. It's not about what they NOW think or feel, it's what they thought then. As they say, hindsight projection is great but it doesn't detail the logic back then of the general population's feelings. See it doesn't matter what people think in later times. We don't live for them, or to be judged by history. No we can't live like that. Hey we did what we did and if the future doesn't like it they can bite me. Posted by: Jack Ormsby on December 4, 2008 08:39 PM I don't recall any mention of the espionage when visiting the Japanese Museum dedicated to the memory of the internment camp experience. If it is true that women took the jobs of men during this conflict because men joined the military then it would seem odd for Japanese Americans not to enlist as a clear statement of their loyalty to the U.S. No doubt it might be emotionally challenging to enlist if your friends or relatives are openly hostile to the U.S. government or involved in espionage. I suspect an average American male forced to enlist would be less than sympathetic for Japanese American males that refused to enlist. Besides, by Dec 7, 1941, almost all industrialized countries were already at war. Posted by: Tim on April 15, 2010 07:12 PM Additional point with facts to follow: How would you feel if as an American citizen your Constitutional rights and those of over 100,000 others were taken away and you were imprisoned without charge, or any due process of law, and all property except what could be carried with you was forfeit solely on the basis of your ethnicity? After you and your entire family was imprisoned for over a year in inhospitable camps, after losing most of your property, and still without your Constitutional Rights because you weren't "Real Americans" you were then asked to go fight and die for the country that did this to you. How would you react? There is a pretty clear example of the patriotism of Japanese Americans who received this treatment vs. those who did not. Hawaii, the American territory with the largest percentage of Japanese Americans and most at risk of espionage and sabotage did not have mass internment. "When Pearl Harbor was attacked, the Nisei, like everyone else on the island, responded to the emergency. No one rejected them as they pitched in to aid the wounded, give blood and bury the dead. On the day of the bombing and for six weeks after, the Nisei cadets in the University of Hawaii’s ROTC guarded vulnerable areas against enemy attacks. But on January 19, 1942, the Army discharged all the Japanese Americans in the ROTC - and changed their draft status to 4C - “enemy alien.” The Nisei cadets felt such despair that the very bottom of their existence fell out. But community leaders convinced the demoralized students to turn the other cheek. One hundred and seventy students petitioned the military governor: “Hawaii is our home; the United States our country. We know but one loyalty and that is to the Stars and Stripes. We wish to do our part as loyal Americans in every way possible, and we hereby offer ourselves for whatever service you may see fit to use us.” The students gave up their books, and their chance for the education that would lift them up from their menial plantation jobs. Instead, the “Varsity Victory Volunteers” picked up shovels and hammers. From January to December 1942, they built barracks, dug ditches, quarried rock and surfaced roads. When Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy visited the islands, military and community leaders made sure he saw the VVV hard at work breaking rocks. Apparently that made an impression. The Varsity Victory Volunteers finally got their chance to fight. On January 28, 1943 the War Department announced that it was forming an all-Nisei combat team and called for 1,500 volunteers from Hawaii. Ten thousand men volunteered, including men from the Varsity Victory Volunteers. Meanwhile, on the mainland, the War Department tried to recruit 3,000 soldiers. But only 1,182 enlisted." Posted by: Kyle on May 26, 2010 12:19 PM Finally yyou tell the true story and what is your feedback, 2 Marxists simply repeating the same lies that you discredited. That is the way Marxist operate, they are fanatics who do not listen, they only perceive a propaganda opportunity. The truth does not matter. Marxists! I stand against your lies which have now become part of the so-called acculturation (incultation of communist and black victim/supremacy lies) and pseudo-education of America's ignorant masses. Bring it on! Posted by: Kurt Steiner on July 17, 2010 10:46 AM ASre you not going to print what I said in the interest of political correctness? (Free speech suppression!) Posted by: on July 17, 2010 10:47 AM This paranoid fantasy is pathetic. The chief Japanese spy serving in the Japanese Consulate on Oahu, who's reports WERE decoded by the US, tried and notably failed to recruit locals of Japanese ancestry. Unlike the German-American Bund, a very public pro-Nazi group of German immigrants and Americans of German ancestry, there were no large, public, groups of persons of Japanese ancestry supporting Japan. There were people of every ethnicity who left one country and went to another during the war- we got Einstein and Fermi, the Japanese allegedly got a psychopath... you judge what had more significance. Banzai cheers at sunrise in the internment camps? Seriously? The camps were secured military facilities, run by armed US Army soldiers. That doesn't pass the 'sniff' test. Unless you're prepared to believe that all the "Marxists" in the US Army hid this "truth"... Get the facts, not the "conservative" facts. If you want to do something for your country, stop acting like a fool. Bill Posted by: Bill Abbott on July 28, 2010 01:57 PM Add your two cents...
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Excellent post on the Japanese internment, bringing much needed info to properly balance the subject. However there are some points that do not seem clear in your list, and some key items were not mentioned.
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1) You say you were not aware that 94% of Japanese military aged men refused to serve in the US Armed forces. If this were so, how do you account for the existence of one of the most decorated military units in US History, the Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team? Upon perusal of the original article you reference, the authors seem to be referring to *a particular camp of 19,000 internees* where apparently 94% refused, not the Japanese American adult male military-age population as a whole, which your post implies.
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Quote from the original:
"19,000 Japanese applied to be returned to Japan during the war. 94% of military-aged men said they would not serve in the U.S. Armed Forces.."
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2) You mention the negative behavior of many Japanese and their ties to the ancestral homeland. All this is true, but it would not be unusual for an ethnic population as segregated as the Japanese, as in California, or where such a population existed in large ethnic enclaves as in Hawaii. Things like ethnic schools or persons returning to the ancestral homeland for "study" are not unusual in the history of US ethnic groups. The Jewish day school is an example, as are various Irish-American initiatives to cultivate Irish culture and promote hatred towards the English oppressors. Mexican Americans show similar strong patterns of attachment to their homeland, as did Italians in the 19th and early 20th centuries before heavier assimilation. The peculiar Japanese cultural emperor devotion of course reflects negatively on them (rightly so during a war), but again, deep cultural attachments in unassimilated ethnic populations are nothing unusual. Germans and Italians were more assimilated and less segregated, accounting perhaps for more patriotism.
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3) The fact that hundreds of Japanese were spies in the US also is nothing unusual in any ethnic enclave. Japan would have been foolish not to take advantage of such a resource. Examples of German and Italian Americans in service to the Axis can also be found in several books on WW2 espionage. Various nations have always made extensive use of spies and informers from ethnic enclaves- from the British Empire's use of Arab and Armenian supplied data against the Turks, to Israeli use of information from Jews in numerous countries (particularly during the early years of the Jewish state), to the US use of the large Iraqi exile population today.
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4) I agree in part with Hayakawa's assessment that the relocation was for the protection of many Japanese Americans, given the burning desire for revenge after the Pearl Harbor sneak attack. It should be discussed and featured more widely. But there is also another side beyond mere physical protection which the original article mentions:
"Over 112,000 residents of Japanese ancestry were excluded from regions of the US, however nearly 40% of those excludees were enemy aliens who should have been interned, the remaining 67,000+ were US citizens by birth. The last of these "subversives" was not removed until 11 months after Pearl Harbor, 3 months after the last exclusion order was issued. The leisure with which such orders were issued, and the fact that martial law was not declared, leads to the conclusion that military necessity was not as urgent as represented..."
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5) You mention that tens of thousands of Germans and Italians whose loyalties were suspect were also detained. This is quite true, but you don't say whether they were citizens or aliens, and detainment of foreigners is not the same as uprooting citizens and interning them in camps. The fact is that only among the Japanese population were such a large number of citizens uprooted and relocated.
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Don't get me wrong. I believe in balance and carry no brief for the oft bogus "history" of the multi-culti brigade. Just want to clarify some things in the interests of balance. If anything, the Japanese example shows the importance of governments taking steps to promote common unity and patriotism, rather than the divisive "multiculturalism" that holds sway today, including the disparaging of the United States.
If anything, in many ways, the episode reflects commendably on the US, something multi-culti hypocrisy avoids. To the credit of the United States, many of the Japanese held were released, and even given the opportunity to serve in the Armed Forces. After the war they even got some compensation- a stark contrast to the behavior of other nations. When for example will the Turks get around to that re the Armenians? As such the US stands unique among nations, and indeed the West. It is only in the West generally that SELF-CORRECTIVE moral sensibilities are brought to bear to correct past abuses, and make reforms.
Slavery is a prime example. It is the West that eliminated this milennia old institution, even going to war against black African kingdoms and the Arabs that continued it into the 20th Century, and currently such slavery is still underway in the Sudan. Compare to the activities of OTHER non-Western peoples and you hear a defeaning silence. Where for example are comparable slave Abolition Movements or Aborigine Protection Societies, or Anti-Slavery Fleets etc. among our Arab, black African or Chinese friends as they robbed, raped, conquered and enslaved? The examples can be multiplied, but they illustrate why the heritage of the West, particularly the SELF-CORRECTIVE mechanisms brought in by reformed Christianity (despised by Facist, Communist and multi-culti alike), should be vigorously defended and promoted against all comers.
Posted by: Carlos on April 8, 2004 10:59 PM