They had a choice of working on farms due to the labor shortages or on road projects. I did read also that "In 1988, 46 years after the first Japanese Internment Camps, Canadian Japanese were compensated for all that they had endured during the war. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney signed a compensation package giving $21,000 for each internee's survivor. In total 12 million dollars were paid out."

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

I have no problem with Japanese Internment, or Internment in general. I have problems with how it was carried out.

For instance, out of the Italian Americans interned for more than 2 years, the vast majority were not citizens of the USA. The same is true about German American internment. The same cannot be said of the two-thirds of the interned Japanese Americans who were citizens.

There are...issues...with the way the US government decided to intern the Japanese Americans. For example, trying to intern every Japanese-American on the West Coast, regardless of background, is not the most efficient way to catch spies, prevent sabotage, or respond to war-time hysteria. It's just as effective as trying to intern every German-American on the Coast to prevent Operation Sea Eagle, or whatever the name of the operation was to invade the USA. Except that never happened.

Considering that the government found that Japanese Americans were not a threat to national security before Korematsu vs. the US ever got off the ground...I really don't see the point of lying to the Supreme Court about it.

You'd think that the government would officially apologize immediately after the war, and pay monetary reparations for lost property. It's the least you can do. Waiting 35 years before paying off 20,000 dollars to each surviving internee is pretty harsh. Judging from how long reparations take for everything, I'm starting to think that governments wait that long just so more people die off, which means less government dollars spent.

I'm just glad we won. The world is stupid enough without the Nazis, it doesn't have to be even more FUBAR with them.

JC,
It strikes me as a very thin line-The Avalon Project : Convention Concerning Forced or Compulsory Labour (28 Jun 30) as Modified by the Final Articles Revision Convention, 1946
I can only think that the Canadian government somehow used article 2:2c & 2:2d as get-out clauses.
Then again, it's hard to tell where the 1930 original ends and the 1946 amendment starts.

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Regards,

Gordon
History Vault Bookshop
FortressScotland-http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y20/Historian/

What is a more efficient way, I'd like to know? Put an army of investigators to work looking into the background of each and every Japanese American on the West Coast? By the time such investigations were complete the war would be over. In a perfect world, that would be the way to do it. But in early 1942, the government didn't think it had months and months to carefully examine each and every person. The government knew there was an extensive Japanese espionage system on the West Coast but it didn't know how many Japanese Americans were loyal to the US. It turned out that a substantial number, somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000, were NOT loyal and potentially a serious threat to the US. It was far quicker and more efficient to intern all of them and sort them out while they were in custody.

Was it an unfair burden on Japanese Americans? Yes, no doubt about that, But war is inconvenient for most people. Millions of young Americans had their lives disrupted, many were maimed for life, about 300,000 Americans lost their lives, that in itself is an unfair burden. I see absolutely no difference between the government ordering Japanese Americans to internment camps, and the government ordering male teenagers and young adults into war zones where many will inevitably be killed or scarred for life. Both situations place an unfair burden on certain segments of the population who have presumably done no wrong, but the government must take those actions because there are no satisfactory alternatives if the country is to be protected.

I know a Japanese American woman whose parents were interned during WW II. She told me they were not bitter about the experience and understood the necessity, degrading as it was, for the US government to ensure that disloyal elements of the Japanese American community were quickly weeded out and neutralized. She also told me that they recognized that those disloyal elements did exist and did pose a threat to the US.

Of course, what do you expect from the Public Screw All system.

Yes and you don't hear them whinning about it. Some relations of mine from Heart Mountain don't whine about it. Usually some Liberal without a cause that had a bad childhood.

Their starting earlier than that, try Kindergarten

If it smells like a communist...


To the thread starter read Heart Mountain. Also if any are available talk with a PTO veteran and listen to what he has to say, it will give you great insight into the 40s and answer some of your questions much better than your history teacher.

A side note....bring in a copy of Pravda or wear a CITGO jacket and you will probably get an "A" for the term.

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Coir a glaive

Nemo me impune lacessit

I resemble that remark

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Certainly......Knuck Knuck Knuck

Curley is a cheery character.

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Coir a glaive

Nemo me impune lacessit

What now is Memorial Park in Houston, Texas was also a PoW camp w/ members of the DAK and also the Kriegsmarine imprisoned there. My Mother lived about two blocks from where it was located. I remember her telling me that many many mornings, she and some of her school friends would go by the camp and watch the Germans and also remembering the great smells coming from the Bakery within the camp. During Christmastime, the Germans used to make wooden toys and cloth dolls, and would be allowed to pass them out to needy children.

My mother said that many-a-time she would be standing outside the barbedwire fences adn the Germans would toss over a toy or an item from their bakery. We still have the toy Cat that my mother got from one of the prisoners.

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

That's a great story Carl!
Thanks for that!!

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Scott

When I lived in AZ during the 60s and 70s my father was serving in the AZ National Guard. He used to take me often to work with him. We used to go to Camp Papago Park all the time. That is the camp where the "Germany's 'Great Escape'" occured. The camp housed mostly German U-Boat crewmen, including some members of the crew of the U-118. In 1944, 25 German POWs tunneled out of the Papago Park internment camp

Camp Papago Park - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
uboat.net - The Men - Prisoners of War - German POWs in North America
One German POW's Story
Coyote Blog: WWII Great POW Escape - in Phoenix?
Flight From Phoenix, page 1 - News - Phoenix New Times - Phoenix New Times

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

You can't think of a better way to do things? You know, impose wartime restrictions and intern people the same way the USA interned other nationalities? Internment based on citizenry, activities, and association with suspected groups (the normal way things were done with German-Americans/Italian Americans, with far speedier results than Jap-American internment) seems far more efficient than interning an entire racial group, no?

That number you have, 15-20k, comes from a question, yes? The question from a US ballot that involves...

1: Are you willing to serve in the US armed forces?
2: Are you willing to renounce your Japanese citizenry?

Which answering "yes" causes the said person to both lack citizenry to any country and have an obligation to serve in the military of the country that locked you up in the ifrst place? Or do you refer to this flawed ballot...

Ques. 7.
a. If registered in Communist Party......2-Minus
b. If registered voter.....1-Plus
Ques. 8.
a. If spouse is citizen of Japan.....1-Minus
b. If spouse is a Nisei.....1-Plus
Ques. 11.
a. If one or more relatives in U.S. Military Service voluntarily.....1-Plus
b. If father is interned.....3-Minus
Ques. 12.
a. If subject has one or more of the following in Japan: wife, children, parents, brothers, or sisters.....3-Minus
Ques. 13
b. If subject attended school in Japanese territory six months or more, for each 2 years or part thereof......1-Minus
d. If subject attended Japanese Language School more than 3 years in this country......2-Minus
f. If subject received entire education from schools in U.S......3-Plus
Ques. 14.
a. If subject has travelled to Japan 3 or more times.....Reject
d. If subject has travelled to Japan once......1-Minus
e. If subject has travelled to Japan twice.....3-Minus
f. If subject has never travelled to Japan.....1-Plus
Ques. 15.
d. If subject was employed as Japanese Language school instructor.....3-Minus
f. If subject was fisherman, licensed or amateur radio operator, hotel owner or operator, steamship line, Merchant-Marine.....2-Minus
g. If subject was employed by reputable American business doing business only in U.S......2-Plus
Ques. 16.
a. If subject is Shintoist.....Reject
b. If subject is Buddhist.....1-Minus
c. If subject is Christian.....2-Plus
Ques. 17.
a. If subject is member of Kyudo, Jyudo, Kendo or other Japanese National Club or other Japanese named organization.....Refer
c. If subject is member of Japanese-American Citizens League.....1-Plus
d. If member of Boy Scouts of America, Y.M.C.A., Y.W.C.A. or other recognized American Clubs.....2-Plus
e. If member of K of C, Masons, Rotarian or other American fraternal society.....2-Plus

Ques. 18.
a. If subject reads, writes and speaks Japanese good [sic].....2-Minus
b. If subject reads and/or writes Japanese fair, or good [sic].....1-Minus
Ques. 19.
a. If subject is an instructor in Japanese hobbies or sports. (Jyudo, Kyudo, and Kendo).....2-Minus
b. If subject is an instructor in American sport or hobby.....2-Plus
c. If licensed or amateur radio operator.....2-Minus
Ques. 23.
a. If subject has made substantial contribution to organizations connected with Japanese Army, Navy or kindred agencies.....Reject
b. If a contribution were made to any organization containing a Japanese name.....Refer
c. If contributions were made to American organizations prior to Pearl Harbor.....2-Plus
Ques. 24
a. For each Japanese or Japanese-American periodical, trade journal or magazine.....1-Minus
Ques. 25
a. If subject's birth was or is recorded with Japanese Consulate and cancellation has been made or is pending.....3-Plus
Ques. 26
a. If subject himself has ever applied for repatriation......Reject

Or the Japanese-Americans in Japan, who have no bearing whatsoever to the case in the USA? I'd love to know where you got that number.

A "better" way? The US accomplished the internment in the best and fastest way possible. In a perfect world, which you apparently live in, there might be a "better" way, but under wartime conditions when every day might be crucial, no. The Japanese were interned in pretty much the same way as other nationalities, although there were more of them, and the government felt there was less time to act in their case. Besides not all persons of Japanese descent were interned, just those living in the military exclusion zones.



No. the number comes from post war estimates based on studies of actual evidence of disloyal activities. At the start of the war, the government did not know how many Japanese might be disloyal, but realized it was probably in the hundreds, if not thousands. The Office of Naval Intelligence had certain knowledge of a Japanese espionage system operating on the West Coast, it had not been able to penetrate the system or determine how many operatives it employed. That was why it was imperative that the government act without delay.

The "Ballots" you refer to would be useless in determining the level of security risk a person would likely represent unless a diligent effort were made to check the accuracy of the answers. They are therefore "flawed" as you put it, and arguments for the initial indiscriminate and rapid internment. This would allow time for a more thorough investigation process.

As I mentioned earlier, the internment was inconvenient for Japanese Americans, but certainly no more inconvenient than other measures taken by the government, that impinged on the freedoms an rights of other specific groups, such as young males, in the US. Sorry, but I don't share your sympathy for Japanese Americans because they were just one of several classifications of people who were required to bear impositions for the security of the country.

In America, the majority of German internees were aliens. The vast majority of Italian internees were aliens. Why were the majority of Japanese internees American citizens? From this alone, this isn't "pretty much the same way". I don't see demographic shifts over the war due to other interned populaces in the USA, either.

Accusing me of living in a perfect world is like accusing you of being a brainwashed nationalist; it doesn't add up. It doesn't take a great deal of sense to realize that shifting an entire demographic group from the West Coast to internment camps is remarkably inefficient. They didn't try it with the Italians, nor did they dare try it with the Germans. Arresting several thousand aliens and those with nationalistic ties to Japan/Germany/Italy is far more efficient. It is, indeed, what the USA did to German and Italian Americans. And both those strategies were quicker than did Japanese internment.

I'd, once again, love to see these post-war estimates you reference. Sort of like the 5:1 Sherman to Tiger ratio...

The Canadian Government did the same to thier citizens too. So not just the US thought it was a logical thing to do.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

A part of the decision was racist, but a lot of it has to do with culture. Some cultures are very family and nationalistic orientated. No matter how long they have been citizens of other nations, a large proportion of them will remain loyal to the original home. Look how many Middle Eastern muslims have only loyalty to their tribe and sect. It presents the everlasting conundrum. How do you prevent the acts of the few when they blend in with the innocent.

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Lord, let me be the person my dog thinks I am.

I
Can you show that the situation with the German and Italian communities was exactly the same as the situation with the Japanese community? I don't think so. Therefore you are comparing two very dissimilar situations, apples and oranges, and arguing from the false premise that the same solutions would work.

For one thing, the ONI knew that there was a large and active Japanese espionage system centered on he West Coast. There was no such hard information about any such activity on the part of the Germans and Italians; the internment of German and Italian aliens was taken as a standard wartime measure to prevent likely individuals from acting in ways inimical to US interests.

Secondly, it was positively known that Japanese Americans frequently sent their children to Japan for education, and/or to maintain contact with relatives; this provided an excellent opportunity for Japanese intelligence operatives to recruit them and use them as a conduit for the flow of vital information back to Japan. This was a common practice among Japanese families, even those who had obtained US citizenship, the same was NOT the case with Americans of German and Italian descent. It was therefore reasonably believed to be very probable that the Japanese espionage system had recruited large numbers of "sleeper" agents who could not be identified simply by conducting a cursory investigation into their background. From what was known about the existing Japanese espionage system, it was obvious that American citizenship was no guarantee of loyalty among the Japanese community. For these reasons, it became imperative that persons of Japanese descent be removed from sensitive areas until their loyalty to the US could be positively established.

The fact that certain Americans used the process for racial or economic reasons of their own, does not obviate the very real security concerns that motivated the government's actions. It is regrettable that Japanese American citizens suffered a major inconvenience as a result, but, again, they were definitely not the only demographic group in this country which suffered major disruptions of their lives because of wartime measures taken by the US government to protect the country during the war.