Poll: Was the Internment of Japanese in America during WW2...

LadyEagle · Aug 3, 2004

If you know the facts either way, please present them in the thread. Thanks.

rsr · Aug 3, 2004

I didn't know there were disputed "facts."

The internment was illegal and unwise. It also was costly and took thousands out of the West Coast war effort.

NATIONAL ARCHIVE MATERIALS

DeWitt gave the rationale of "military necessity" to protect the West Coast against sabotage in case of invasion, but such a claim was contrary to the actual U.S. Army "estimate of the situation" which concluded that an invasion of the West Coast was extremely unlikely. The claim was also inconsistent with the fact that Japanese Americans in Hawaii were not similarly incarcerated en masse. Hawaii was the site of the Pearl Harbor attack, some 3,000 miles closer to the enemy, and in far greater danger of invasion. There were 159,534 Japanese Americans in Hawaii, comprising 34.2% of the population, but Lt. General Delos Emmons, the military commander in Hawaii, decided that "military necessity" there required the Japanese Americans to remain free and help in the war effort.
Click to expand...

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Another sad aside is that many of the Japanese, faced with immediate removal, had to unload their homes, farms and businesses — often at pennies on the dollar and to the benefit of their Anglo neighbors.

dianetavegia · Aug 3, 2004

There was a very beautiful movie (Old B/W) made about this time and had a white girl who had fallen in love with a Japanese young man. Can't remember the name of the movie but a good watch.

Diane

LadyEagle · Aug 3, 2004

On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. Contrary to today’s widespread notions, it made no mention of those with Japanese ancestry. It merely created a zone "from which any or all persons may be excluded," at the discretion of the Secretary of War or appropriate Military Commander. In practice, this exclusion zone included the whole of California, the western halves of Washington State and Oregon, and the southern third of Arizona along the Mexican border.

(The U.S. Supreme Court later affirmed 6-3 that this Executive Order was constitutional because it was "nothing more than an exclusion order," not based on "racism," and because "there were disloyalties" during a time of war with the Empire of Japan.)

Under a nearly 200-year-old Federal Law, no U.S. citizen in America may be "interned," a term that applies only to detention of "enemy aliens." Thousands of Japanese citizens along the West Coast were moved into facilities such as the guarded camp at Tule, California, as were many Nisei who refused to take a loyalty oath to the United States. Many at Tule took part in marches and ceremonies honoring the Emperor of Japan. At war’s end, those at Tule were subject to deportation to Japan, although many asked to remain in the U.S.

More than 110,000 Japanese-American citizens were removed, often on short notice and with little opportunity to bring possessions or secure property, to "Relocation Centers" such as Manzanar near Inyo, California. These were barracks-like cities thrown together to house about 10,000 people.

Japanese-American citizens, at least initially, were free to move inland from these exclusion zones, according to controversial relocation historians such as Lillian Baker. But in wartime 1942 America, those who looked like the enemy usually found it safer to accept the free food, housing, and compatible community of the Relocation Centers than to seek scarce jobs and housing among suspicious and angry Caucasian strangers.

Japanese-American citizens who already lived outside the exclusion zone – e.g., east of Highway 97 in Oregon and Washington State – were not subjected to evacuation, nor of course were those who lived in the Midwest or along the East Coast. In Hawaii, where about 30 percent of the entire population was Japanese-American, there were no Relocation Camps such as Manzanar. (In British Columbia, the Canadian government imposed similar coastal evacuation and controls on Japanese-Canadians, but this reporter has found no evidence that Canada has paid them any reparations.)

Most Americans are surprised to learn that those of Japanese ancestry were not the only ones under suspicion. On February 24, 1942, about 10,000 Italian-American aliens living in California, many of them elderly and disabled, were ordered to evacuate coastal and military zones. Roughly 52,000 Italian-American aliens in California were subjected to an 8 P.M.-6 A.M. curfew and prohibited from traveling more than five miles from their homes. Hundreds of Italian-American citizen fishermen were prohibited from taking their boats to sea, and many of their boats were impounded.
Click to expand...

Source

Kiffin · Aug 3, 2004

A shameful part of our history.

LadyEagle · Aug 3, 2004

It can never happen again. Right?

Stratiotes · Aug 3, 2004

As shameful as the Union actions along the Missouri border with Kansas evicting families and burning their farms to the ground. Or the Alien and Sedition act. The federal govt is prone to such abuses of power in wartime. All the more reason to be alert to it especially during war.

LadyEagle · Aug 3, 2004

Or the razing of Atlanta.

Daniel David · Aug 4, 2004

It was another blunder of the democratic WH during WW2.

Stratiotes · Aug 6, 2004

I'm no relativist but it hardly seems unthinkable in a nation that rounded up and/or killed most of the native inhabitants in order to make the way "safe for the railroads." And that greatest of American crimes was predominantly thru republican presidents. I think every age and every country has its atrocities - its just that Americans tend to think too highly of themselves to the point that we refuse to believe our country could be capable of such things. The fact is, our leaders are human and we are all too prone to the nationalist ferver and fear that grips people of all nationalities during times of crisis. We support them out of our insecurities and give away the very things we claim to hold most precious as a country - and we stamp our nationalist zeal with the thin veil of "patriotism" to hide our shame at being just like everybody else.

PastorGreg · Aug 6, 2004

"Greatest of American crimes"? That's quite a statement.

Stratiotes · Aug 6, 2004

You disagree that what was done to the Indians was a crime or that it wasn't the greatest to have been perpetrated by an American government?

LadyEagle · Aug 6, 2004

Malkin's book -- "In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror" -- has created an uproar in the local Japanese American community."

Malkin purports to debunk the common historical view that the internment was largely driven by wartime hysteria and racism. She maintains that historians and federal panels have played down information showing that Japan had established an extensive espionage network on the West Coast.

Using the internment to criticize today's counterterrorism measures, including profiling, only jeopardizes homeland security, Malkin says.

[snip]

"I start from a politically incorrect premise: In a time of war, the survival of the nation comes first," she wrote. "Civil liberties are not sacrosanct."

Malkin writes that the so-called MAGIC messages -- Japan's diplomatic communications that were intercepted and deciphered before and during the war -- revealed Japan's espionage intentions. Among the messages are brief reports from the Japanese Consulate in Seattle about warships anchored in Bremerton.

The existence of the top-secret messages was known to only about a dozen people before and during the war, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The information was declassified in 1977 and written about by David Lowman, a former national security officer and Washington state native.

"Virtually every popular account of the ethnic Japanese experience during World War II has ignored MAGIC and its vital importance in shaping FDR's national security policies abroad and at home," Malkin wrote.

She cited Tetsuden Kashima, a University of Washington professor of American ethnic studies, several times in her book, noting that he gave scant mention to MAGIC in his own book on the internment.
Click to expand...

Source

http://www.michellemalkin.com

Stratiotes · Aug 7, 2004

LE, what do you think of Malkin's argument? You can probably guess what I think .

NaasPreacher (C4K) · Aug 7, 2004

Originally posted by Kiffin:
A shameful part of our history.
Click to expand...

dittos

mioque · Aug 8, 2004

If Malkin is right, the WWII era administration was dangerously incompetent.
Defeating a spyring by forcing more than 110.000 people to move somewhere else? The cost of that operation hampered the US war effort significantly more than the actual damage that spyring could have ever caused.
On top of that they did not do it in Hawaï the only spot where that spyring might have done some real damage.

Dr. Bob · Aug 8, 2004

When Japanese forces sallied forth after Pearl, the West Coast of the US was in an uproar. While Japan's goal was only Midway Island (where they lost their best pilots/carriers), the very real threat was to Seattle or Long Beach.

I don't fault the US Government for being concerned (after Pearl Harbor and the proven spying there). We ALL fault the "overkill" method of Heart Mountain . . .

billwald · Aug 8, 2004

As it turns out, Japanese inturnment was wrong, mostly because their property was stolen by "real" Americans.

Sometime you gots to do something even if it is wrong - thus profiling Moslem males is 100% OK with me.

mioque · Aug 9, 2004

"the very real threat was to Seattle or Long Beach."
''
The very real threat was to Hawaiï not Seattle. What was the imperial army supposed to do, invade the continental US?
The measures taken to limit German and Italian access to US military facilities would have effectively hamstringed that spyring.

"I don't fault the US Government for being concerned"
''
It would have been disturbing if they hadden't been.
Ofcourse if that spyring truly was the reason behind the internment. Than it succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of the folks that set it up. The effort needed to round up, deport and guard 110.000 people (who with their 'guards' could not participate in the wareffort), caused decidedly more shortterm problems for the USA than a large spyring located on the westcoast would have done.

Poll: Was the Internment of Japanese in America during WW2...

....the Right Thing to Do?

YES, based upon the facts.

NO, based upon the facts.

Don't know enough about it to say.

Undecided. Depends on which facts are true.

LadyEagle <b>Moderator</b> <img src =/israel.gif>

rsr <b> 7,000 posts club</b>
Moderator

dianetavegia Guest

LadyEagle <b>Moderator</b> <img src =/israel.gif>

Kiffin New Member

LadyEagle <b>Moderator</b> <img src =/israel.gif>

Stratiotes New Member

LadyEagle <b>Moderator</b> <img src =/israel.gif>

Daniel David New Member

Stratiotes New Member

PastorGreg Member
Site Supporter

Stratiotes New Member

LadyEagle <b>Moderator</b> <img src =/israel.gif>

Stratiotes New Member

NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

mioque New Member

Dr. Bob Administrator
Administrator

billwald New Member

mioque New Member

Useful Searches

Poll: Was the Internment of Japanese in America during WW2...

....the Right Thing to Do?

YES, based upon the facts.

NO, based upon the facts.

Don't know enough about it to say.

Undecided. Depends on which facts are true.

LadyEagle <b>Moderator</b> <img src =/israel.gif>

rsr <b> 7,000 posts club</b> Moderator

dianetavegia Guest

LadyEagle <b>Moderator</b> <img src =/israel.gif>

Kiffin New Member

LadyEagle <b>Moderator</b> <img src =/israel.gif>

Stratiotes New Member

LadyEagle <b>Moderator</b> <img src =/israel.gif>

Daniel David New Member

Stratiotes New Member

PastorGreg Member Site Supporter

Stratiotes New Member

LadyEagle <b>Moderator</b> <img src =/israel.gif>

Stratiotes New Member

NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

mioque New Member

Dr. Bob Administrator Administrator

billwald New Member

mioque New Member

rsr <b> 7,000 posts club</b>
Moderator

PastorGreg Member
Site Supporter

Dr. Bob Administrator
Administrator