Japanese-American internment refers to the repositioning and confinement by the United States administration of about 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese to base camps popularly referred to as War Relocation Camps. This took place in 1942 following Imperial Japan’s assault on Pearl Harbor. Those detained were drawn from the Pacific seaside of the United States.
The incarceration of Japanese Americans was carried out lopsidedly right through the United States. Japanese Americans who resided on the west shoreline on the United States were each incarcerated (World War Two – Japanese internment camps in the US).
On the other hand, in Hawaii which held over 150,000 Japanese Americans, who accounted for a third of the region’s populace, between 1,200 and 1,800 Japanese Americans were incarcerated. 62 percent of the persons interned consisted of American nationals.
President Franklin Roosevelt consented to the incarceration with Executive Order 9066 that he gave on February 19, 1942. The order consented to home armed forces commanding officers to allocate military regions as segregation areas from which any or the entire people may be barred.
This order was used to announce that all persons of Japanese origin were barred from the whole Pacific coast, as well as the entire California and for the most part of Oregon and Washington, with the exception of the individuals in incarceration base camps.
Later on in 1944, the Supreme Court supported the consistency with the law of the incarceration orders, at the same time as maintaining that the orders that discriminated persons of Japanese origin were a separate matter not in the range of the procedures.
The United States Census Bureau lent a hand to the incarceration efforts through offering top secret region information on Japanese Americans. The body’s partaking was refuted for decade but was at last confirmed in 2007.
During this period Nazi Germany as well upheld concentration camps all over the regions it was in charge of. The initial Nazi concentration camps were to a great extent spread out in Germany following the Reichstag fire in 1933. These camps were going to detain political detainees and challengers of the administration.
The amount of camps went up fourfold in the period from 1939 to 1942 (Clay, 122). This was due the increasing number of detainees who composed of Jews, Bohemians, political detainees, crooks, homophiles, the psychologically ill and others were detained, by and large minus trial or court process.
Japanese-American Internment Camps
Around 110,000 and 120,000 persons of Japanese origin were subject to this mass incarceration course. The other one third were not citizens as they had been refuted the chance to achieve citizenship by regulations that barred Asian-descent nationals from ever attaining citizenship.
The detainees in these camps were put up in tar paper-enveloped quarters of plain structure erection minus plumbing or cookery provisions of any form (World War Two – Japanese internment camps in the US). These provisions were at par with international regulations, but at the same time left much to be desired.
A majority of these base camps were put hastily by civilian outworkers in the summer of 1942 founded on blueprints for armed forces quarters, making the constructions poorly set for overcrowded family existence.
Armed security officers kept vigil at the camps, which were all in far-off, uninhabited areas far from population centers. Detainees were usually permitted to live with their families and were well treated as long as they obeyed the set rules.
There are authenticated cases where security officers shot detainees who allegedly tried to walk outside the fences. One such incident led to the re-assessment of the security regulations at the camps. A number of managements later permitted reasonably free movement outside the marked barriers of the camps.
German Concentration Camps
Conditions were pathetic in the German Concentration Camps as compared to those in Japanese-American Camps. A lot of detainees lost their lives through purposeful mistreatment, illness, malnourishment, and doing too much work. Others were deliberately put to death as they were considered unfit to work.
The detainees were moved in atrocious conditions by rail stowage cars. A lot of them lost their lives in these even before getting to their destination. They got locked up for several weeks without essential commodities such as food and water. A lot of them lost their lives due to dehydration in the extreme high temperatures of summer or the freezing temperatures of winter (The Nazi Death Camps).
After 1942, a lot of small base camps were established close to industrial units to offer forced labor. Conditions were inhumane and detainees were in most times sent to gas compartments or killed if they did not carry out their duties fast enough.
Towards the closing stages of the battle, the camp bases were turned into sites for therapeutic try outs. Many things were reformed in the camps including medications to detainees. Female detainees were more often than not sexually assaulted and demeaned in these camps. Since 1943 to 1945, the Allies focused on setting the camps free even though it was a bit late.
Works Cited
David Clay, “Contending with Hitler: Varieties of German Resistance in the Third Reich”, p.122 (1994).
The Nazi Death Camps – Middle Tennessee State University. 2009 – April 23, 2011.
World War Two – Japanese internment camps in the US. 2010 – April 23, 2011.
Internment is the act of confining people in isolated places on the basis of their ethnic origin, political ideology, or enemy aliens’ status. It has been taking place in society since ancient times when certain populations were resettled to gain control over the territory. With time the meaning of the concept slightly changed, though ‘resettlement’ is still associated with it. In the 20th century, internment was carried out in Canada during wartime; it took place in the course of World War I and World War II. The main reasons for it were the maintenance of national security, which demanded separating people of a certain ethnicity, as well as political beliefs, from the rest of the society. This process had certain advantages from the political perspective for it allowed the government to keep the countries safe. Taking this into account, the internment can be totally justified because any government “has the strictest duty to act in the most rigorous manner required by circumstances to protect the order and security of the whole nation which is asked to give copiously of its money and blood”. [1]However, internment was inhumane with respect to the internees most of who suffered undeservedly only because of their ethnic origin or political ideologies which they followed. State internment can not be regarded as a process beneficial for society for it has led to ethnic discrimination, resulted in sending innocent people to the internment camps, destroyed a number of families, and affected health and welfare of interned women and men who have been kept in poor conditions when interned.
To begin with, the internment affected a number of ethnic communities with their interests being largely neglected, which with time led to ethnic discrimination. The Canadian internment of civilians which took place during World War II had purely political goals for its main focus was the wartime bureaucracies. Back then, “the social and economic repercussions affected the communities’ relationship with the host society and their very sense of identity as ‘ethnic communities’”.[2] Italian Canadians were the target of internment in the 1950s-Canada. They stopped being perceived as a part of the society, which led to worsening of relations between them and the host society. Though the Italian Canadians managed to avoid ardent prosecution which the Japanese Canadians have experienced, they still were discriminated against their ethnicity and interned, in particular those who have been pro-Fascist (a number of people, however, were sent to internment camps by false accusation). Italian fascists were especially persecuted since the Canadian government was convinced that they could “adapt to Canada only by abandoning their Italian and Catholic identity”.[3] The reasons for sending people to these camps were debatable for sometimes the real fascist leaders remained free, while those who had almost no relation to fascistic organizations were sent into internment camps:
Some people argued that Fascists were left free while innocent individuals were apprehended. Leading fascists such as A.D. Sebastiani and A.S. Biffi of Montreal had not been interned. The first was a friend of Italy’s highest Fascist leader […]. The second had been one of the founders of the fashion Luperini Volpi. [4]
This creates an idea that it was not fascism that was the main ground for sending the Canadian Italians into internment camps, but namely ethnicity. Even though the prosecutions of Italian Canadians began as the government’s fight with this political ideology, sending the Italians to the internment camps turned into ethnic discrimination and resulted in forming the prejudices of the population towards these particular nations. In this way, “ethnicity was replaced by ideology as grounds for internment”,[5] which later was used by the internees as a reason for demanding apologies from the government. Therefore, state internment, though it helped to maintain national security or fight with dangerous political ideologies, was completely non-beneficial for the society because it promoted ethnic discrimination within it.
While some Canadian citizens were mostly interned because of their ethnicity, there was a group of people interned on the basis of namely their ideology, Communism; though this was in accordance with the then governmental policies, this internment should also be criticized for it was not organized, which resulted in random imprisonment of the citizens. The group of the interned Communists consisted of around 100 citizens most of who have been Canadian-born and, thus, could not have been interned on the basis of their origin. Driven by Communist ideas, namely, criticism of the state power, the internees expressed their indignation with the situation in the country and with labeling people as ‘enemy aliens. From the beginning of internment, the Communists realized that they were likely to become the target for internment, though this did not disturb them much. The supporters of this ideology were proud to become political prisoners who have been bold enough to express their indignation and dissatisfaction with the state power. Since the Communists presented a hazard for the country’s peaceful existence, they also started to be interned, though rather randomly, since the government could not decide which of them were indeed dangerous for the society:
Most party members escaped internment, even many of those individuals known to the RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] as Communists. Among those arrested were a few people whose detention seems curious indeed. One Ukrainian Canadian, who evidently had not had any political connections for years, was interned on the charge that he had belonged to the banned ULFTA in 1918! Police appear to have acted on the advice of a police informant who happened to be the man’s vindictive ex-son-in-law. [6]
This shows that the internment of innocent people took place in Canada with the criteria for interning people being “completely arbitrary and based largely on incomplete information”.[7] This testifies to the fact that this process, though it was aimed at establishing peace and maintaining safety in the Canadian society, was unfair with respect to some of the country’s citizens.
What else should be mentioned is that a number of families have been broken as a result of state internment with the society being characterized by panic and the lack of trust, which does not allow considering this process as beneficial in any way. The families of the internees have been separated; some of the internees were unaware of what happened to their children, while the others were deprived of husbands who kept their families:
The absence of a chief breadwinner resulted in economic hardship. This was compounded by the family’s inability to retrieve savings, as all assets were legally frozen and held by the dominion Custodian of Enemy Property […] Under these circumstances, livelihoods were lost and businesses sold of […] The amounts in lost wages, property loss, and legal and other costs … ranged from $2,500 to $66,500 per family. [8]
Since the bank accounts were frozen, the wives of incarcerated men had no access to them. This is why “valued assets had to be sold, often at below-market values, so as to clothe and feed families”.[9] The greatest losses suffered by the internee families, however, were not economic, but psychological. Shortly after the persecution of the Italians (and everything connected with Italian culture) started, the panic based on fear for the welfare of one’s own family emerged within the population. In Canada, all the Italian books have been burned; the part of the population who has hardly spoken any English before started speaking it fluently. This shows that people were trying to pass themselves off as another nationality being ready to refuse of their origin for the sake of their families; this further points at the fact that the values of the host culture were imposed on those who had no other choice but accept them. Thus, not only the social life of the Italian Canadians was affected, but their dignity and their pride for their nation; they had to sacrifice these values in order to be accepted by the society which did not want them. What is even more resentful, this has been done because of fear, not because of the Italian Canadians’ sincere desire to become integrated into the Canadian society.
Moreover, Italian Canadians’ interrelations worsened with people being afraid to speak in public about the events which were taking place in the country, let alone mentioning the names of those who had been arrested. State internment led to depriving this society of trust; Italian Canadians lived by the principle “say the wrong thing to the wrong person and you could be next”.[10] This means that people were deprived of not only the freedom of choice but the freedom of speech as well. Moreover, suspicion developed within the population with those who have been interned believing that “others had avoided imprisonment by fingering their compatriots”.[11] In addition to this, even the lives of the families within the enclaves underwent certain changes. The internees’ desire to survive was immense and most of them agreed to merge businesses with other families trying to salvage what they could. This often resulted in shifting family roles: “In most instances, the internees’ wives took on additional responsibilities and gained familial respect as the effective heads of household”.[12] Some modern feminists can regard this as a benefit of internment for the women got access to the family business and could even manage the property; in reality, however, women were forced to do this since they were left alone with their children and had to look for the means to keep their families. Thus, state internment turned out to be destructive for the lives of Italian Canadian families, as well as for the families of other countries where internment was practiced; people’s families were destroyed, their businesses ruined, and their rights neglected. This does not allow considering state internment as favorable in any sense.
One more repulsive fact about the state internment is the way women were treated in internment camps. For the period of three years (from 1939 till 1942) twenty-one women were interned in Kingston Penitentiary for Women in Canada, let alone those who were detained and arrested. The grounds for accusation were the violations of Canada’s Defence of Canada Regulations (DOC) under which a number of Japanese Canadians were interned and Italian and German Canadians detained. These regulations made no distinctions between male and female detainees; their primary purpose was to ensure the country with a proper level of national security. To do this effectively, the officials were given “the state power to arrest and intern anyone deemed to be acting contrary or in a manner prejudicial to public safety or safety of the state”.[13] Consequently, the officials were entitled to decide which actions on the part of the citizens should be considered prejudicial. Quite an interesting fact, however, was that the detention of women, though it took place in accordance with these regulations, was carried out in a haphazard manner. It was rarely that the women were arrested for political reasons or for their being hazardous for the country’s security:
There seems to be no rational explanation for the fact that some women were interned and others left at large. The IDC [Inter-Departmental Committee on Internment] claimed it was interning only women who flagrantly violated the DOC and who were a danger to the state. But this category included women who had the venereal disease or ran a successful business. Rather, it would appear that women were interned for a variety of reasons, very few of which were solely political. [14]
Just like in the case with arresting Italian fascist leaders, some women were simply warned or detained and interrogated and then released, while the others were interned for the same activities as those who were released. Rather often, the female leaders of the fascistic organizations were not interned, while those who were simply the members of such organizations were sent to the internment camps: “Several of those interned met the same criteria as that left at liberty – they were married and naturalized Canadians – hence it becomes difficult to pinpoint any real differences between those interned and those simply warned”.[15] This testifies to the fact that some women had to abandon their children and families only because the officials would consider them dangerous for the country, though at this time those who indeed threatened its safety would enjoy their freedom.
Even more disturbing was the women’s confinement in jail were the conditions in which they were kept were not the worst of what they had to experience. It is natural that general treatment and food were complained of because the penitentiary where the women were kept had to survive on $1.50 a day per internee[16], but the fact that women could not avoid contact with criminals who were also kept in this penitentiary was more concerning. The jail administration was also preoccupied with this issue, but there was hardly anything to do to improve the situation. The idea of building a separate internment camp for women was not even discussed due to such construction being cost-taking. This is why the women were kept in Kingston Penitentiary together with the convict population. Such a treatment was unfair with respect to female internees for two reasons. Firstly, they were kept in one place with those who committed real crimes; thus, the internees were exposed not only to the risk of attack on the part of the criminals but to the criminal environment which could turn them into lawbreakers. And secondly, the fact that no separate premises to keep the internees was found shows the government’s careless attitude to them, people who have been convicted for their political ideology or simply ethnic origin. This is especially resentful taking into account the fact that some women had been falsely accused. Taking this into consideration, it can be stated that state internment cannot be regarded as positive for it resulted in unfair treatment of the interned women.
Finally, state internment, no matter how good it could have been for the governments of the countries that practiced it, led to the development of anti-social behaviors in internees due to poor conditions they were kept in. One of the worst things about state internment was that it bred cruelty in the internees; the conditions in which they were kept in the internment camps made them violent and revengeful. Most people who have gone through wartime internment have borne this feeling of grudge throughout their lives. Anti-social behaviors have often been exhibited by the internees in the camps for they suffered from the lack of food and unfair treatment on the part of the others. The camps in which the internees were kept were desolate and their uniform only made they’re being there harder:
Enclosed by thick barbed wire and surrounded by towers equipped with machine guns, huts holding twenty-eight men became their home for endless months. A British observer described the uniforms issued to all the internees – ‘a circular flat-topped hat, strangely reminiscent of that worn by habitual criminals in England, a jacket on whose back was emblazoned a huge red circle, and a pair of bright blue trousers seamed by a broad red band. The whole effect,’ he noted, ‘was derogatory and ridiculous’.[17]
This is how the Canadian internment camps looked like, this is why there is no wonder that the internees developed a violent attitude towards life after spending months in such places. This attitude was often expressed during the interaction between the internees: “Little things, like having a little extra butter, or jam for breakfast in the morning … could easily lead to a fight … It was a very sore point if anyone got a little more than anyone else”.[18] The reason of those fights lies much deeper than a mere desire of internet to get more food. Each of them harbored resentment against other people, and this resentment was rooted in the society’s unwillingness to accept those who were different.
In addition to becoming violent, some of the internees even developed mental diseases. This is another reason why internment cannot be considered a beneficial process. The number of nervous breakdowns was immense, which led to sending some of the internees to mental institutions. One of the factors which contributed most of all to the internees’ becoming mentally disturbed was isolation. Unlike the situation in the ordinary army where isolation leads to the unity of soldiers and to their developing attachment and loyalty to other soldiers and the native country, the internees developed only hatred and grudge since they had nothing to hope for; their native country has exiled and repudiated them, their ‘commandment’ treated them with disrespect, and the connection with their families was lost. Thus, state internment deserves criticism due to the fact that, apart from the troubles it brought to the internees, it has significantly deteriorated their health.
Drawing a conclusion, it is worth stating that internment had nothing positive in itself for a number of people suffered as a result of it. Carrying out of the internment in Canada during wartime promoted ethnic discrimination, destroyed numerous families, made people suffer, and led to the development of mental diseases in the internees. Italian and German Canadians, as well as those who were of Canadian origin but followed certain political ideologies, have gone through persecution, arrests, imprisonment, and isolation either because of their origin or due to their political ideologies. They were marked as ‘aliens’ by society and were ready to reject their culture and origin to keep their families safe. Most of them managed to escape the prosecution; those who have been found were sent to the internment camps. These places were equally terrible for men and women. The former had to suffer from violence as a result of which they themselves turned into relentless people who have developed mental diseases and who have borne hatred in their hearts throughout the rest of their lives; the latter were kept together with criminals and sometimes interned by falsely accuse. All in all, state internment simply could not be positive because it changed the society for worse and resulted in ethnic discrimination which is impossible to eradicate even at present; moreover, it has ruined the lives of some of those people who have been interned once by turning them into violent individuals.
References
Franco Iacovetta, Roberto Perin, Angelo Principe, Enemies within: Italian and other internees in Canada and abroad, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000.
Ian Radforth, Ethnic Minorities and Wartime Injustices: Redress Campaigns and Historical Narratives in Late Twentieth-Century Canada, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
One of the darkest times in United States history was the forced incarceration of Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II. As the United States raged war against Japan, there was nationwide distrust and even fear based on irrational and racist tendencies. It led to the relocation of thousands of innocent Japanese Americans into specially constructed internment camps, several of which were located in Idaho. This essay will discuss the events leading up to the incarceration, comparison of Minidoka and Kooskia internment camps, and comprehensive analysis of historical implications for violation of legal rights of Japanese Americans.
Leading Events
The events leading up to the imprisonment can be traced back to an early 20th century which led to the beginning of racial tensions. The Japanese began immigrating to the United States in quantity attracted by economic opportunities. Idaho offered work in the beet sugar industry, and the Japanese soon began to find success in farming and merchant trade. There was evident social discrimination from early days which transitioned to legislative limitations by the 1920’s that prohibited non-citizens to own agricultural land.
While still relatively small, Japanese-American communities grew, and the majority consisted of U.S. born citizens by the 1940’s. Over 100,000 Japanese-Americans were living in Western United States and as tensions with Japan escalated, so did public and political attitudes. Politicians such as Idaho’s Governor Chase Clark openly voiced racism and opposition to the relocation of Japanese-Americans to Idaho (Sims 103-104).
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 which had the primary purpose of preventing espionage. However, before Pearl Harbor, similar events were taking place as Japanese Americans were removed from sensitive military posts or harassed by the public to relocate. The executive order authorized the creation of specialized internment camps to house anyone of Japanese descent.
These people were labeled as “enemy aliens” and were arrested, detained, and not offered the due process guaranteed by the Constitution. The United States collaborated with Canada and Latin American countries to relocate Japanese Americans living there as well. Approximately ten major camps existed, two of them in Idaho named Minidoka and Kooskia. Idaho farmers and politicians believed that having the camps in the state was necessary to put the enemy alien labor to use for the war effort (Wegars).
Comparison
However, conditions in the two camps differed significantly. Minidoka was a camp supervised by the War Relocation Authority (WRA). It was a massive camp, housing more than 10,000 Japanese Americans which was more than the local population (Sims 104). Although Draconian rules of strict oversight set forth by Roosevelt’s executive order were not strictly enforced, the population remained prisoners and were under careful watch nevertheless.
Conditions were poor as the camp was located away from society in an uninhabitable wasteland. The families often faced a lack of availability for essential services such as schooling. The prisoners were employed to work in the area, a majority of them as hard farm labor for Idaho beet farms. Farmers and local residents resented Japanese Americans and treated them with disrespect in the early years of the war (Sims 107).
Meanwhile, the Kooskia Internment Camp was run by the U.S. Department of Justice. This was critical since it meant the prisoners were protected under the Geneva Convention, an international law which guaranteed humane treatment and conditions. Kooskia was a much more relaxed internment camp than any other under the WRA. It was much smaller, consisting of approximately 250 men. Individuals could volunteer to be transferred here to work on a road and highway system in the state. Prisoners were paid wages for their work and were provided with comfort, shelter, and a relative degree of freedom (Wegner).
Discussion
The internment of Japanese Americans was clearly a violation of fundamental human and civil rights, which was later recognized by Presidential administrations, legal courts, and civil rights organizations as well as the general public as well. Although the Supreme Court ruled that such actions were justifiable in time of war, President Ford issued a statement that the incarceration was detrimental to American principles (Frail).
The Justice Department rescinded the Supreme Court decision in 2011 and admitted error. Roosevelt’s executive order was an unprecedented, targeted, and illegal decision. While many Americans saw the European Axis powers as evil through their infamous leaders, the Japanese leader was not well-known, and racial social tension contributed to the blame for the Pearl Harbor attacks to shift to the race and culture as a whole. Thus, Japanese Americans were incarcerated while those with German or Italian descent were largely ignored.
An intelligence report by the State Department before the Pearl Harbor attacks outlined that Japanese Americans posed no security threat to the United States, nor was their loyalty under question. Despite such knowledge, the executive order was issued, based on political and social assumptions and discrimination (Goldsmith). Ultimately, the order was a violation of human and citizenship rights.
Many of the Japanese American families were second or later generation immigrants with full U.S. citizenship. Despite potential security risks posed by the anti-Japanese sentiment in American society, the decision was unconstitutional. It violated various fundamental rights outlined by the Constitution, including the First, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, all of which prohibit such overreaching government manipulation and an unjustified limitation of privileges.
Sims, Robert. “Japanese Americans in Idaho.” Japanese Americans From Relocation to Redress, edited by Daniels, Roger et al., University of Washington Press, 2013, pp. 103-110.
Wegars, Priscilla. Imprisoned in Paradise: Japanese Internee Road Workers at the World War II Kooskia Internment Camp. University of Idaho Press, 2010.
The fight for civil rights is a continuous battle that needs to be supported by people driven by the intention to educate and promote global well-being. Therefore, understanding the experiences of the most prominent civil rights activists is crucial to the further promotion of justice and equality. Mary Tsukamoto, an educator of a Japanese American origin, is well remembered for the positive change that she managed to prompt. The experiences of her family display the barbaric nature of internment camps and signal the need to introduce the idea of humanity into the treatment of people belonging to opposing political movements.
Retaining the basic semblance of human dignity could be named as the min challenge for Japanese people that entered American internment camps at the time of WWII. The inhumane conditions in which political prisoners were held, as well as the cruel treatment that they received, served as the grim reminder of how far hatred for political opponents may go, affecting even the lives of innocent people that happened to be on the other side of the barricades.
To learn about the terrors of internment camps, one does not need to search much. For instance, SECCEducationalTV addresses the injustice of internment camps by providing an interview with Tsukamoto herself (“Internment – Time of Remembrance – Mary Tsukamoto Interview”). The site in question addresses the problem of internment camps briefly, yet it manages to render the sense of hopelessness and despair that it instilled into its former residents, as well as the challenges that they had to face regularly. To honor the memory of Marielle Tsukamoto, one has to keep the principles of justice as an indefeasible right of every human being.
Getting a chance to interview individuals who experienced American history was a lifetime opportunity that I will always be grateful for. The realization of my dream was channeled through working for the RSVP Company during my Service Leadership Class. Cindy Power, who is the company director, was more than willing to introduce me to one lady by the name of Sue Nagumo who had worked for the company as a volunteer for more than seventeen years. Scheduling an interview with Sue was an easy task for Cindy since the lady was simply enthusiastic about narrating her experiences in the concentration camps. Sue is more than eighty years, but her memories of her teenage years in the concentration camps are still vivid and fresh in her mind, just like they happened yesterday. She makes this more interesting by stating that people may forget what you do to them, they may also forget what you say to them, but they will never forget how you made them feel. They say experience is the best teacher and so it was for Sue as she narrates the impact of life in the camps.
Who is Sue Nagumo?
Sue sets the stage of the interview by telling me more about herself. She is a lady who has her ancestral background traced to the Japanese community. “My grandfather had migrated from Japan in 1890 to settle in the United States. Fourteen years later, her parents followed the footsteps of their grandfather, and they all migrated to America. Before the 1900s, in Japan, the major driving force for emigration was the harsh economic conditions that were experienced. Life was simply unbearable in Japan, and people were relocating to other areas for greener pastures.” Her grandfather had spotted the growing oil industries in America through the various trade agreements that existed between Japan and America. “California was the base of oil supply since it had good storage of oil facilitated by its numerous oil tankers. This gave my grandfather a job opportunity within the oil industry which enabled him to improve his living condition. With time, his grandfather settled in America as a farmer and this finally granted him citizenship.
When and where was this interview conducted?
I had three interviews with Sue Nagumo. The first interview was on Monday 01.00 pm in the RSVP office. Cindy Power helped me to schedule my appointment with Sue Nagumo. The interview lasted for two hours. I also did bring my recorder, just in case if I forgot what Sue told me about the story. On the other hand, I could also quote from what she said more precisely than without a recorder.
After the first interview, Sue invited me to go to her house for the next two interviews. The last two interviews in her house were more relaxing and also she could show me her photo while she was in a concentration camp.
Describe your grandfather’s economic situation before he moved to America?
“My grandfather’s economic situation back in Japan was as poor as for the rest of the Japanese. Most of them resulted in moving to other countries such as America where life seemed to be more promising. I think that the opportunities in the American market were plenty, and most Japanese just relocated to work in the American industries. My grandfather just like most Japanese had moved to America to look for a job. Most Japanese did not have any intentions of settling in America and most of them just worked and then moved back to Japan after retirement.” She expressed this as the major reason why the United States government hesitated to grant citizenship to Asians until 1952. She further clarified, “In 1918, the government had put a limit on the number of Asians who were migrating to the United States. Even, there was a quota to limit Asian student in their school.” This was probably because the American government felt that the Asians wanted to exploit their resources to benefit themselves.
How do you feel being an American citizen and what was your experience at the start of the War?
On posing this question to Sue, she frankly gave her answer as, “I don’t know. I mean, I was only thirteen years old when the war broke out. I just realized Americans went on war from a big radio that we had in our house. “She could not, however, distance her feelings from her children, who never had any experience of living in Japan. She simply considers herself as an American, just like her children, who were born and brought up in the suburbs of Chicago and also acquired their education in Chicago.
I diverted the progress of the interview by asking her about her life during the onset of World War II. “I was thirteen or fourteen years old when the war broke out on one Sunday morning. We had a radio stand as the only means of communication since we did not have any TV sets. The news delivered by then U.S President Roosevelt was quite terrifying. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The decision of the government that all the Japanese ancestry had to go to the concentration camps spread out very fast,” she explained. I could not fail to notice the remorse in her as she expressed the fear in her mother who was dead scared about their life in the concentration camp. “Moving to the camps was a bitter experience for her as she watched her helpless mother cry day in day out in their small room.
My father was the only standing pillar in the family. He especially was the source of courage and comfort for my mother as he explained that the U.S governor had every reason to be scared of the Japanese sabotage.” He explained that the Japanese efforts to bomb America were a sign of war and the Americans had to protect their territory. Americans were not sure of the Military power of the Japanese and they, therefore, had to fear the next actions that the Japanese would take. She went ahead to explain that her father also expressed the fears of the U.S governor of the Japanese helping the enemies if they came along the shore. Her father believed that the Japanese Americans would help the Japanese in case they invaded America. The Americans took them to the concentration camps to avoid any reinforcements for resistance. Just like the other Japanese Americans they were first taken to the Santa Anita Tract and then to the Manzanar. The government could not distinguish between the Japanese and the Chinese and this propagated some of the Chinese to wear shirts with writings such as, “Am not Japanese.” It was during this time that she got the reality of racism against Asians.
How was life in the concentration camps?
Sue must have been waiting for this part of the interview, as she moved swiftly to demonstrate some photographs of the camp in response to this question. She also had a map of North America which contained the names of the concentration camps and also their locality in every state. Just like an experienced teacher, Sue explained that there were three kinds of camps. “First of all, people were put in the Assembly Center hall that was located mostly in California. This was the first type of camp which was referred to as the temporary camps. The camps were made from the barn and they were so awful because the barn was so dirty with excess from the horses. So we have to clean that up before we stayed there.”They were meant for horses, and the smelly stench in them forced people to clean them if they had to live there. The Japanese Americans were first taken to these camps, and later they were moved to the second type of camps, which were referred to as the permanent camps. These camps were built by the soldiers and they were located in the East. Sue explained that the government moved them to the East because they were afraid of the Japanese resistance and support against the Americans in case they were attacked by their enemies. The first landing zone of the Japanese to America was in California. This was in the west shore where the Japanese Americans were located and the Americans had to move them to the East.
Sue then showed me her second photograph, which pictured the Manzanar concentration camp. The camp was located somewhere in the middle of a desert.”This was Manzanar Concentration Camp which she considered as a permanent camp. This concentration camp is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada in California’s Owens Valley between the towns of Lone Pine to the south and Independence to the north. I think it is approximately three hundred miles northeast of Los Angeles.”Behind the camp was a mountain which she quickly identified as, “Mount Whitney.” The construction of the barracks and the concentration camps had taken just only one month. “One of the most horrifying things in the camp was watching the soldiers patrol the tower holding on to their sniper. I mean, the soldiers dared to shoot you if you tried to escape from the camp. I think that horrified me the most.”
She then moved on to the third type of concentration camp, which was referred to as the Internment Camp. “These camps were not more than five,” she explained. The camps were distinguished from the temporary and the permanent camps because they were more like prisons. The Americans used the Internment Camps to lockin the important Japanese people. This included those individuals who had connections with Japan.
Were there any rebellions or resistances at that time?
Sue explained that during the first one and half years of life in the Manzanar, there was no resistance at all. “How could you run away from the concentration camp? There were soldiers in every tower watching every movement on the ground, and we were living in the middle of the desert. I mean, how you could run away from there?” she firmly responded. “Were there any Caucasians inside the concentration camp? Was there anything shocking that happened inside the camps? I asked.
“From what I know, there were no Caucasians inside the camp unless if they intermarried to the Japanese and they choose to accompany them to the camps,” she responded. She further explained that Caucasians also came to the camp to visit their friends or families for those who were intermarried. Next to the hospital inside the camp, the soldiers set apart an orphanage camp for the children from Seattle who were mixed race Japanese-Caucasians. Sue explained that it was very frustrating for the helpless young orphans to experience the horrific shooting of the soldiers inside the camps. “How could such young children aged around seven and eight years join the enemy in shooting the Americans? It was crazy!” she exclaimed.
What other activities did people engage in inside the concentration camps?
Sue explained, “One of the major activities that were predominant is the commitment to religion. There was a Catholic church, where people worshiped every Sunday. Apart from this, there were also Buddhist temples for non-Christians. Agriculture was another activity that was done in the camps. “People had different farms in the camps, where they grew different crops and vegetables. They also kept livestock such as chicken,” she explained.
Sue then described a section in the concentration camps which was called the fire break. She explained that this was a section in the camp that was a route of escape for people in case there was fire broke out in the camp. People would assemble in this field which was located between the cluster of 12 blocks. The field also served the purpose of preventing the fire from spreading to other sections of the barracks. On other occasions, the fields were used as playgrounds for baseball games. She concluded by adding that there was also a YMCA building in the Camp. “Were they selling the vegetables or chicken outside the camp? I asked. She explained that the farmers were not selling their produce from the farm, since this was used as a source of food inside the camp. At this point, Sue could not hesitate to show me another one of her photographs that pictured the chicken farms inside the camp.
How about the condition of the bathroom? Were they clean?
“In each block, they had twelve barracks. We lived in the 24th Block and between there was a bathroom that we could share among us. The soldiers had put effort to separate the female and the male bathrooms.” Then I asked, “Were you living with other people inside the barracks?”
“Oh, yes,” she replied. “There were four rooms in every barrack. Living with other people was on the condition that you had a small family of a minimum of eight people. Our family, for example, was comprised of five individuals, and together with three other relatives, we lived eight people in our room.”Sue also mentioned that in between each barrack there was a washing room where people could do their laundry. On a personal level, she explained that she had to use a regular sink and a washing board for her laundry. One could then hang their wet clothes outside to dry. “Were the bathrooms clean?” I asked. “Oh, there was somebody who cleaned the bathrooms. They got paid between $8 and $10 in a month, “ she explained. She further explained that the cleaners were individuals who had volunteered to work as interns inside the camps.
How big was your room? When did you leave the camp?
I asked Sue whether the rooms were big enough to accommodate 8 people.
“No, I mean you could barely walk inside the room!” she exclaimed. “Each room had been furnished with eight beds. The rooms had terrible bare walls which were covered with tar paper on the outside. She explained that the rooms were nothing close to the modern houses we have today. Most people who lived inside the camps made their furniture from the wood they had gathered from outside the barracks. On asking her when she left the concentration camp, Sue explained that she believed they left the camp after one and half years. She debated the exact dates to be between June and July 1943. Leaving the camp was only guaranteed if you had permission from the government. “ The government made sure that the Japanese who migrated to the East had a job to keep them busy to avoid any motives to rebel against the government.” She said
Describe the food?
According to Sue, the officers in the barracks provided them with lunch or dinner in the camp. There were also picnic benches inside the barracks. They also had stoves and utensils where they could cook their meals. Who prepared their meals,” I asked her.
“Well, there were volunteers,” she said. “Every day, a truck came to the camp and dropped the food. They supplied raw meat, raw vegetables, milk, and bread among other raw foods. There were also volunteer cooks, who were probably very inexperienced. We had to bear with the food no matter its final condition,” she explained in disgust. She further explained that most of the foods were lamb stew, beef stew, and very little meat with milk. Milk was mostly provided for women with young infants.
“How was the food? I asked. Sue could not hide the fact that the food was very disgusting as she explained how terrible it was. “However, the condition of the food improved after a former restaurant owner volunteered to be a chef in the camp. With time, the condition of the food improved greatly.”
Describe the weather back then?
“Well, it was warm, but sometimes it was really hot, almost 110 degrees. It was also very dry. We did not experience any snow during the time we were in the camp. During winter the mountains were all covered with white, but the ice did not form on the ground. I, however, believe that there was snow after we left the camp, as we experienced a lot of snow when we moved to Utah. Sandstorms were very common in Manzanar, and the biggest threat that we faced was that the floors of the barracks were not properly attached while others had holes,” she explained. The sand would easily get into their houses and this forced their parents to constantly move their beds out to shake off the sand and also to ensure even ground in the house.
How was your life after the concentration camp?
Sue explained, “The war had not been halted by the time we left the concentration camps. We faced a lot of discrimination and racism in Utah, where the locals discriminated against the Japanese Americans. My high school experience was the worst as racists addressed me as “The Japs.” Other students threw stones at her as she waited to board the school bus.
Finally, at the end of the interview, I asked her if she was willing to go back to Japan.
“No, I mean I have been living in America for more than eighty years. I know a little bit about the Japanese language, but even when I visit my relatives in Japan, I feel weird conversing with them. I think we have a different culture,” she concluded.
Conclusion
In conclusion, life in the concentration camps was not easy for anyone. However, Sue stands as a strong woman as she said that tough times never last but tough people do. Even after facing all the difficulties in the camps, they have always been raced against especially by the Native Americans. This however has not deterred Sue to pursue her dreams in life since nothing is impossible to a willing heart.
From my point of view, having an interview with Sue Nagomo was a great experience. I could learn that racism was a big problem in America, even until now. I think that it was abnormal and unacceptable for the American president to put Japanese Americans in concentration camps. I think that there were many other solutions in handling immigrants who came to America instead of reallocating them to the concentration camp.
Partiality in historical events is such a delicate issue where sometimes an ordinary person would mostly rely on his common sense rather than on any historical resource. If stating that the aforementioned statement is completely true, a historical event, era, or epoch would be filled with controversy when studied by an ordinary person. However, this statement should be corrected in the sense that it is true when it concerns events where more than one party is involved and the interest of one of these parties were somehow affected. One of the historical events that can be of such nature is the Japanese-American internment – a process that took place during the World War II where more than 110,000 Japanese of American descent were forcibly relocated to facilities that were called “Relocation Camps”.
In general, the process of relocating had to do with the participation of Japan in that War and the attack on Pearl Harbor which forced this process to be realized. This paper is discussing the partiality in the historical discourse in the context of the aforementioned historical event. The paper is based on two sources, a book titled “Born Free and Equal” by Ansel Adams, about a visit to Manzanar Relocation Center published in 1944 and the film “History and Memory” by Rea Tajiri, premiered at 1991, which is constructed as a history of one family while focusing on the internment and the evidences that surrounded that process.
The paper through the analysis of both resources present an idea that the history sometimes can lie in the memory of the persons that participated in it and fade with time and at times can be constructed and rebuilt with a clear purpose to erase-omit unpleasant episodes and be presented as a historical material for the following generations, while the absolute truth often somewhere in between stays unknown.
Analysis
Ansel’s book as a historical resource can be found helpful in providing information from a first look. The author personally visited Manzanar Relocation Center, and he personally took the photos that were used as illustrations in his book. The only thing that can distinguish him from a direct resource carrier might be the fact that he was not on the other side of the “fence”. In other words despite the attempts to be objective, the author as an American, visiting a part of the population that were forcibly relocated and of which 62 percents were also “Americans” is more of a personal opinion rather than a historical perspective. Although the objectivity is not in question, the tone of the book is set toward directing the reader to be led to his own certain conclusions based on the narration of the author himself as a visitor, thus the history is written based on his vision. This in no way judges the trustworthiness of the material, rather than underlines that the writings of a visitor and a prisoner will always have different visions although both will be honestly transferred. The general tone of the book can be sensed as understanding the situation as it is. The author states that he wants the reader “drawing his own conclusion-rather than impose upon him”, and at the same time the author agrees upon the quotes that were mentioned about the possible benefits for the relocation of the Japanese.
The pictures of the people provide a clear idea that the atmosphere in the relocation center was mostly healthy, the photos show happy faces, the people are reading newspapers, and the boards are filled with job offers. These pictures imply along with the author’s commentary certain direction for the reader to make his conclusion, which can be read as “despite the fact that relocation is a black dot in the history, the Japanese-Americans took it as a necessary action that did not affect them much and after that they returned to their normal life”. This can serve as an example of the perspective that is set for the reader to see through, while it can not be said that the photos are simulated, rather than they are placed with a certain purpose, i.e. show happiness. Whether there is a partiality or not, this can be shown in the following example which is fictionally created. Photos of children from poor region were taken, and two books were illustrated with these pictures. One book contains pictures of smiling kids called “The Innocence of Childhood” and the other will contain crying children and titled “The Abandoned Childhood”. Both books will be true, but both will serve different purposes and summon different emotions.
The film by Rea Tajiri acts as a personalized perspective of her vision of history, simultaneously telling a story and explaining the various carriers of history and their importance in the modern world. The carriers of the information in the world, as the film states are as important in the film as the historical event it attempts to analyze. In the same manner as the previous source, the images and the narration of the film draw the viewers to specific conclusions, but unlike the book it presents several points of the same event including the participants of the same event. The maker of the film – Rea Tajiri is herself in some way a participant with her family and thus the film is personal. The visual accompaniment in the film is not filled with the happy atmosphere. The letter in which the veteran telling that the anti-Japanese feeling in the US is more intense than ever, The Japanese Americans being finger printed, public official Milton Eisenhower explaining the logic of relocation, and the narration that the barracks were horse stable are images far from being representation of happiness.
Such images also can not be all true, not because they were fabricated, but because it is only a part of the whole image. A part that for a certain family that participated is true, but for the history only fragments that need other fragments to form the whole picture. The film is also significant in a way that it presents the concepts by which the history in many young minds are made and the importance of memories in forming the history, if not for the fact that they can be erased.
Conclusion
The two sources are perfect examples where the history of an event involving two parties is written by a representative of these parties. The comparison shows the differences between the separate visions on the same event. The book shows us that the history can not be written by a mere observance from one side no matter how objective the author wants to be, especially in years when human rights were dropped in favor of security. The film on the other hand shows that taking an event personally can be very honest but historically can not be neutral. Combining the two sources we come to the fact that the history is somewhere there in between.
In these days where the opinions can be manipulated by polls and surveys and where the absolute truth is something dependable on which side the person is standing, the only thing that remains to hold for is the history. In this paper it is shown that the history tends to be colored with different emotions which although honest gives the viewer or the reader different impression according to the presented “color”. It proves that the history would never be neutral because there will always be people for whom it will be personal.
Works Cited
Adams, Ansel, and Wynne Benti. Born free and equal. Bishop, CA: Spotted Dog Press, 2002. Web.
History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige. Dir. Rea Tajiri. Washington State Arts Commission, 1992.