The internment taboo
The initial evacuation was only on the West Coast. Nisei and Issei further east were left alone. The U.S. government assumed, or hoped, that evacuees would find suitable jobs and homes in the interior, but only 5,000 to 10,000 did. The camps were set up when most evacuees either couldn't or wouldn't move east on their own. As Malkin points out, evacuees at first were free to leave the camps if they found work or educational opportunities outside--some 4,300 left the camps to attend college. Camp conditions were often harsh, and the evacuation attached a harmful stigma to all Japanese in America. But Roosevelt, much of America's liberal establishment, and the Supreme Court signed off on evacuation as a reasonable step taken under extreme wartime pressure.
Malkin's point is that if the threat to the survival of America is severe enough, some civil liberties must yield. She is right that the internment issue is currently being wielded as a club to prevent reasonable extra scrutiny of suspect Arabs and Muslims. But the twin towers were not brought down by militant Swedish nuns. It is always reasonable to look in the direction from which the gravest danger is coming. It's also reasonable and important to open an honest discussion of internment, past and present.
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