The Forgotten Citizens of WWII
By: Hannah Gordon-Kirk
This research project discusses the misrepresentations of WWII Japanese internment camps during the 1940’s. The following post aims to accurately represent the realities that Japanese Americans faced when forced to leave their homes during war-time.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 the U.S. entered WWII. The horror of the unprovoked attack on the U.S. naval bases in Hawaii resulted in xenophobic behavior towards Japanese Americans throughout the country. With growing suspicion of Japanese spies and pressure from the military, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. This order alienated people of Japanese ancestry from their homes, workplaces, and schools. Almost 120,000 people, over 60 percent of whom were American citizens, were removed from the West Coast and forced to live in internment camps (Backman & Gonchar).
Within only six days of receiving notice to evacuate their homes, people were forced to make life-changing decisions. U.S. citizens of Japanese descent were allowed only to bring what they could carry to these camps.
In many cases this meant leaving irreplaceable valuables behind, ones that they may never see again. In rare cases, neighbors and friends of Japanese Americans would store the family’s heirlooms and watch over their homes. However, in almost all cases, Japanese-American families had their homes raided and stripped of all valuables while they were living in camps.
Military camps were set up in rural, remote locations throughout the western states. Upon arrival to the camps, some families and friends were split up and transferred to other relocation camps and were permanently separated until 1946.
The United States and its allies were at war against the declared Axis Powers of Germany, Italy and Japan. The same designated internment and mistreatment was never extended to American citizens of German or Italian descent.
Not only was this alienation happening in the U.S, but in Mexico and Canada as well. In 1942 the Canadian government incarcerated over 15,000 Japanese Canadians in fifteen hastily built internment camps located in isolated mountain valleys throughout British Columbia (Mcallister).
The Conditions of these camps were far from satisfactory, many of them were built on old fairgrounds, such as the Puyallup Assembly Center in Washington state. In order to use the bathroom or take showers, residents had to leave their rooms. To access different parts of the camp, such as the hospital, residents had to obtain signed papers and were personally escorted by armed soldiers everywhere they went (Needles). People were deprived of fresh fruits and vegetables and were instead served canned food like sardines. Each family unit had a stove, cots, a single light bulb and windows without curtains. The mattresses were thin, so they stuffed them with straw, unused by the horses and cows. Some units hadn’t been finished, leaving a two-foot gap near the ceiling. Horse stalls were converted into rooms for bachelors and couples (Needles).
The realities of these camp conditions were never made public to a mass audience until decades after the war ended. The video below, produced by the U.S. government shows the fabricated and false livelihoods that residents experienced while at the camps. The happy-go-lucky feel and American pride that exudes out of this short film paints the camps and the situation in a positive light. Through media messages like this, the American population were misinformed about the basic human rights that were stripped away from people of Japanese ancestry. The video excludes the harsh environments, climates, food shortages, and racist behavior that was targeted at Japanese Americans on a daily basis.
The consensus in creating internment camps for the Japanese population in the U.S. at the time was far from unanimous. A famous activist promoting a dissenting opinion from President FDR, was none other than his wife Eleanor Roosevelt. In the early beginnings of the internment camps Eleanor begged her husband to rethink the relocation plan of thousands of innocent Americans. Against the President’s will, Eleanor toured these camps on the west side of the country and made a famous speech in Arizona at the Gila River camp on April 23, 1943.
“We have no common race in this country, but we have an ideal to which all of us are loyal: we cannot progress if we look down upon any group of people amongst us because of race or religion. Every citizen in this country has a right to our basic freedoms, to justice and to equality of opportunity. We retain the right to lead our individual lives as we please, but we can only do so if we grant to others the freedoms that we wish for ourselves.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
At the end of the war, the camps slowly released U.S citizens back into the real world. For Japanese Americans it was an emotional and confusing time. Many were lost in consideration on how to move on and where to pick up life from where they had left it four years previously.
There was no official recognition or apology for this devastation until 42 years later.
The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was signed by President Ronald Reagan, who said that it was a mistake for the government to incarcerate Japanese Americans without trial during the war. It awarded victims and their families $20,000 and, perhaps more importantly, an apology (Migaki).
President Obama gave a national monument status to a plot of land in Hawaii that served as an internment camp for Japanese Americans detained during World World II. The designation is designed to promote greater awareness to the nationwide internment of Japanese Americans. (Jackson)
The lack of coverage in Japanese internment camps during WWII is an unfortunate low point in American history. Citizens of their own country were exiled from their homes because of suspicion of espionage. There was never concrete evidence, or any trials presented on this account throughout the duration of WWII.
Sources
Gonchar, Michael and Backman, Marjorie. “Teaching Japanese-American Internment Using Primary Sources.” The New York Times, 7 Dec. 2017, https://nyti.ms/2AG21tk
Migaki, Lauren. “At 92, A Japanese-American Reflects On The Lessons Of Internment Camps.” NPR, 7 Dec. 2016. https://www.npr.org/2016/12/07/504602293/at-92-a-japanese-american-reflects-on-the-hardships-of-internment-camps
Roosevelt, Eleanor. Speech at Gila River camp. 23 April 1943. “Eleanor Roosevelt: Undo the Mistake of Internment.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/erooseveltinternment.htm
Mcallister, Kirsten. “Photographs of a Japanese Canadian internment camp: mourning loss and invoking a future.” Visual Studies. Oct 2006, Vol. 21 Issue 2, p.133.
Needles, Allison. “People held in Japanese internment camp at Puyallup fairgrounds share their memories.” The News Tribune, 20 Oct. 2018, https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/community/puyallup-herald/article220052520.html
Jackson, David. “Obama to memorialize Japanese internment camp.” USA Today, 18 Feb. 2015, https://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2015/02/18/obama-hawaii-japanese-internment-camp-world-war-ii/23607287/
