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Japanese Concentration Camp
When people think of concentration camps, they automatically think of Auschwitz and the Holocaust. Believe it or not, the United States houses its own concentration camps as well. However, they do not use the literal name 'concentration camp' but rather a softer term, internment. According to Princeton University, a concentration camp means:
- A penal camp where political prisoners or prisoners of war are confined (usually under harsh conditions).
- A situation characterized by crowding and extremely harsh conditions.
On the way to Mammoth, California (About 100 miles south) is the Manazanar War Relocation Center. It is actually the best preserved camp of the ten built through out the United States including Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. Over 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans were evacuated and sent to the "War Relocation Camps," under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066. Canada also did something similar to the Japanese, about 23,000 of them. These camps were used during World War II to house the Japanese residing in the United States, but mostly on the West Coast. The reason behind it was due to the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in 1942.
During that time, two cases were brought to the Supreme Court concerning the camps. These cases were known as Hirabayashi vs. United States in 1943, and Korematsu vs. United States in 1944. Both argued that their rights as Americans under the fifth amendment were being violated due to their ancestry. Unfortunately, both cases were lost. The Executive Order was eventually rescinded in 1944 by President Roosevelt. Towards the end of 1945, the remaining camps were closed. Eventually the American government executed several formal apologies and paid reparations to the Japanese. But yet the remnants of America's dark past exist, though many do not know of it.
Racism At Its Best
You would be surprised to know that some of your Japanese friends' families may have been part of that internment. I found yesterday during my French class that a Japanese-American student's grandparents were a part of that, though they were too young to remember. To learn more about Manazanar or visit it, check out here.
Do you think the Japanese deserved to be treated like that?
[Images via Google Images]
7 comments:
Before someone says it was a precautionary necessity in the name of homeland security, the order was rescinded before the end of the war, proving that it wasn't an essential security measure. Not just that, but the spies that were found while America was locking up innocent citizens were all White.
if you really want to hate the US, it is also the only people who has slaughtered millions using nuclear and biological weapons (Japan and Vietnam). But what's the point? Is the present situation really like this? In my opinion, no.
JAPAN was Germany's best friend... see when they say "what goes around comes around"... on the other side I am for the HUMAN race, don't care where you're from or what religion you have, as far as respect remains the foundation of our relationship.
I didn't know that Holly joonam! thanx for sharing.
holly, a lot of what is taught at UCLA today represent the world of 50 something and is preventing young people from dealing with real problems facing our generation. Many professors try to reinvent racism to keep it alive, because in our world their ideas are becoming increasingly irrelevant (they are useless). Let's take a real good look at the development of Asian American Studies, what you have are many professors writing about 1940s concentration camps and their low self-esteem on 2009 lap tops made in Chinese dorm-factories. What they don't care to know or teach the undergrads is that many of these factories that support our comfy life-style impose "curfews" for its workers (lock them up at night) and allow ethnic discrimination to run rampant. Are these not the concentration camps our generation should focus on getting rid of? Let our generation focus on making ourselves better and distinguish ourselves from what has become the whiny irresponsible "New Left."
^^^ Completely irrelevant, Jeff. COMPLETELY. IRRELEVANT. You're fighting a civil war on foreign land.
Internment camps, though barbaric and inhumane, aren't comparable to concentration camps. Why? Because the aim wasn't to kill or wipe out an entire race of people.
Discrimination, while horrid, is significantly less serious than mass murder and genocide. Please do not attempt to equate them.
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