#internment of Japanese-Americans

[captain-price-unofficially]

Policeman Sam Bozono at the Manzanar Relocation Center, 1943

[makingcontact]

Uncovering the Refugee Experience & Healing Through Storytelling (Encore)

Wilson Dairy Restaurant (Left), Helen Zia as a baby with mom (Right). Credit: Photo copyright Helen Zia used with permission. This week’s Making Contact episode is about two strong women who survived historic trauma, and the stories they later told their families.  We start with the story of Katie Wilson. Born to an Orthodox Jewish family in Kiev, Ukraine, she grew up safe and comfortable – until…

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[let-them-fight]

trump is threatening to send thousands of immigrants into camps stationed at the infamous guantanamo bay and it is somehow still just the first month of the year

[victusinveritas]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Amee Vanderpool at SHERO:

Before World War II, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had identified German, Italian, and Japanese aliens and claimed they were “suspected” of being potential enemy agents. These people, some of them American citizens, were legally kept under surveillance, and following the attack at Pearl Harbor, people from “enemy nations” and all people of Japanese descent were immediately considered suspect and referred to the US Army. In 1942, Executive Order 9066 was enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Under this order the entire west coast was deemed a military area, and was divided into military zones. Curfews were established that included only Japanese-Americans. Voluntary evacuation of Japanese-Americans from a limited number of areas, totaling about seven percent of the entire Japanese-American population, was begun. The issue of human rights had been briefly brought up at Congressional Hearings prior to the issuance of these new laws, but in 1942, no one felt these rights were important enough when compared to securing the United States. On March 29, 1942, Japanese-Americans on the west coast were given a 48-hour evacuation notice, and most of their land and private property was abandoned and never recovered.

From the end of March to August of that year, approximately 112,000 persons were sent to racetracks or fairgrounds, which had been re-labeled as “assembly centers.” People were tagged like cattle and sorted for removal to a more permanent "relocation center" where they would be imprisoned for the remainder of the war. In these "relocation centers,” also called "internment camps,” four or five families shared tar-papered army-style barracks for nearly three years or more until the end of the war. The people in these camps shared eating facilities and restrooms and had limited opportunity for work or school. Nearly 70,000 of these evacuees were American citizens, who were denied their due process rights as the federal government froze their ability to appeal their circumstances under the guise of “American security.” This was just 80 years ago. On Tuesday, Texas Governor Gregg Abbott, through the the Texas General Land Office, offered Donald Trump the 1,400-acre Starr County site to build new detention centers to fulfill his promise of mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said in the Tuesday letter that her office is “fully prepared” to enter an agreement with any federal agencies involved in deporting individuals from the country “to allow a facility to be built for the processing, detention, and coordination of the largest deportation of violent criminals in the nation’s history.”

We are again on the brink of repeating some of the most shameful and abhorrent lessons that America should have learned long ago. While Donald Trump and his Project 2025 implementation team move to enact the fascist promises made during the election, many of Trump’s cronies are already aligning themselves to profit from the impending migrant prison system that will be nothing short of a concentration camp. Due Process Rights will again be frozen, as amnesty and human rights will cease to exist within these militarized zones. Dismissing any warnings about where we are headed by calling these claims hyperbole will cease to matter after Donald Trump assumes his office on January 20, 2025.

Amee Vanderpool wrote an excellent blogpost on SHERO that the dark days of internment camps (or concentration camps) are back again, this time aimed primarily at undocumented immigrants. But will it stop with just undocumented immigrants? Absolutely not.

[vinescreens]

Mishima: a Life in Four Chapters

[originalleftist]

Some Words of Wisdom From George Takei:

"A Democrat was in the White House when my family was sent to the internment camps in 1941. It was an egregious violation of our human and civil rights.

It would have been understandable if people like me said they'd never vote for a Democrat again, given what had been done to us.

But being a liberal, being a progressive, means being able to look past my own grievances and concerns and think of the greater good. It means working from within the Democratic party to make it better, even when it has betrayed its values.

I went on to campaign for Adlai Stevenson when I became an adult. I marched for civil rights and had the honour of meeting Dr. Martin Luther King. I fought for redress for my community and have spent my life ensuring that America understood that we could not betray our Constitution in such a way ever again.

Bill Clinton broke my heart when he signed DOMA into law. It was a slap in the face to the LGBTQ community. And I knew that we still had much work to do. But I voted for him again in 1996 despite my misgivings, because the alternative was far worse. And my obligation as a citizen was to help choose the best leader for it, not to check out by not voting out of anger or protest.

There is no leader who will make the decision you want her or him to make 100 percent of the time. Your vote is a tool of hope for a better world. Use it wisely, for it is precious. Use it for others, for they are in need of your support, too."

[historicity-was-already-taken]

Re: ethnic cleansing, sincere question, would the US government Japanese internment policy count as ethnic cleansing? I know they were still within US borders, but they were forcibly removed from their property and relocated with no legal recourse. Since death isn't the main goal of cleansing, sounds to me like this could count.

I’m a bit out my depth with regard to this particular subject, so I reached out to my girl Dr. Stephanie Hinnershitz, who has published extensively on the topic, and has another book on it set to be released by the University of Kansas Press in 2026.

Here's what she said:

“I would not categorize it as ethnic cleansing, no; particularly not in comparison to US indigenous policies, which are considered ethnic cleansing in many cases. (And Japanese Americans did actually have legal recourse, eventually; it’s how they could appeal to the Supreme Court. They didn’t as far as the rights of other internees to appear before loyalty review boards but if they didn’t have legal recourse you wouldn’t have had the big court cases). For comparison to what could be considered ethnic cleansing, see: all the state-condoned attacks on Chinese migrant communities in the 19th century in the West.”

She adds:

"I am in no way saying that the internment of Japanese Americans wasn't bad; just that it's not an example of US ethnic cleansing policy."

[kaleidoscore]

actually mutuals what's your favorite American candy/soft drink/chocolate/snack

[rabbitcruiser]

On August 10, 1942, incarcerees arrived at the Minidoka War Relocation Center. The number of incarcerees reached 7,318 at its maximum population.

[captain-price-unofficially]

A WWI US Navy veteran arrives at Santa Anita Japanese American internment camp, 5 April 1942

[wmaf-world-international]

WMAF couple # 55 - American 🇺🇸 and Japanese 🇯🇵

Nicholas and Mayumi are an international couple living between USA and Japan. They've been married since 2022

[deanpinterester]

i was going to make a post telling yall to stop calling godzilla minus one a low-budget film (because it isn't) but then i remembered disney regularly drops 12 million for ONE EPISODE of their shows without nearly the same cultural impact so. yeah godzilla is low-budget as far as i'm concerned idc

[under-a-punkrock]

For people who don’t think that America would put people in concentration/Labor camps:

Let’s look at America’s actions during World War Two.

During WWII, America did not join the war to fight Hitler or Germany.

The American government was known to have knowledge of what was happening in German internment camps, however the horrors of the camps weren’t revealed to the American public until after the war. Despite this knowledge, America not only did not enter the war to oppose Germany but they also rejected Jewish refugees; as did many of the other allied powers.

America did not enter the war until after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and shortly afterwards The United States opened containment / concentration camps where they forcefully collected and held Asian American citizens for years. There are many of these concentration camps that are still standing as historical locations which are open to the public if you would like to research, or tour the locations.

Not only are containment camps not below the American government’s ethics, but we also have a history of using racially profiled containment camps within our own country. And now, just like in the past, there are many members of the public who are willing to turn a blind eye.

America did not care about ending fascism in World War 2, and our current cabinet does not have a problem using laws written during by-gone eras to justify fascism and labor encampments now. Their push to end birthright citizenship and take citizenship from Native Americans, with promises of deportation is a direct path sliding quickly into concentration camps built by private prison companies.

They will flood the zone with insane news to distract and drive you crazy until you stop paying attention.

If you can only pay attention to one thing at a time, let it be this.

[victusinveritas]

Fred Korematsu sometime before 2005.

Today is the birthday of Fred Korematsu, who fought Japanese internment in the Second World War all the way to the Supreme Court and lost. SCOTUS had three strong dissenting opinions that basically said "This is racist as shit and the kind of thing we are fighting a war against." From Wikipedia: Korematsu was discussed seventy-four years later in Trump v. Hawaii (2018), with Chief Justice John Roberts writing: "The forcible relocation of U.S. citizens to concentration camps, solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of Presidential authority."