Japanese-Americans Fight to Preserve Wartime Internment Camps
As survivors of the camps age, their cause becomes more pressing
Reader Comments
Internment Camps and TGhree points
I was a child living in Southern California before and during WWII.
[1] I remember my family driving by Santa Ana Race Track (when it was a temporary internment camp before the Japanese-Americans were relocated to Permanent Camps).
[2] I remember looking out the car window at children standing at the fence looking out.
[3] I remember my father saying that the internment was one of the worst mistakes American had ever made.
[4] Neither German American or Italian Americans on the East Cost were interned.
[5] There are numerous documented records of spying and sabotage on the east coast as well as some off shore attacks.
[5] Japanese-Americans in Hawaii were not interned although there were more of them there ( as a % of the population ).
[6] Please provide Documented Proof of spying and sabotage by West Coast Japanese-Americans interned in the camps.
Yes we can and should judge mistakes our government has made, both now and in the past. We've had the SAME constitution for over 200 years. It either means what it says and we believe in it and live by it, or it is not relevant and we have an imperial government.
TGhree points:
(1) The japanese resettled were only from the Pacific Coast. There were substantial populations throughout the US in other areas, particularly Colorado. The Colorado population even published a newspaper :The Prarie Shimbun". It was anti American and supportive of Japan.
(2) Yes, there were some spies and sabotuers among those relocated.
(3) While we should support all of the remedies, one cannot understand the fear and terror that a Japanese invasion of Hawaii and the Pacific Coast was imment.
Yes, the Pacific Coast was attacked by Japanese submarines. Twice...once in Oregon and once in Southern California. There was also a baloon bomb that killed six people near Bly, Oregon. While one might argue that the internees had nothing to do with this, there was scant information available that they were not somehow abetting Japan's efforts against us.
Let's memorialize the event, but we cannot, ever, judge 60 year old history by contemporary standards.
Just a thought....just a thought...
interment camps
I support the Japanese-Americans that want to save the sites. If the constant -endless -drumbeat for forever remembering the plight of jews in WW2 is ok---then other minorities deserve as much.
