Historical
See other Historical Articles
Title: Japanese-American Internment {Is history about to repeat itself?}
Source:
soso
URL Source: http://www.ushistory.org/us/51e.asp
Published: Nov 19, 2015
Author: USHistory.org
Post Date: 2015-11-19 15:59:20 by SOSO
Keywords: None
Views: 3551
Comments: 32
Japanese-American Internment Many Americans worried that citizens of Japanese ancestry would act as spies or saboteurs for the Japanese government. Fear — not evidence — drove the U.S. to place over 127,000 Japanese-Americans in concentration camps for the duration of WWII.Over 127,000 United States citizens were imprisoned during World War II. Their crime? Being of Japanese ancestry. Despite the lack of any concrete evidence, Japanese Americans were suspected of remaining loyal to their ancestral land. Anti-Japanese paranoia increased because of a large Japanese presence on the West Coast. In the event of a Japanese invasion of the American mainland, Japanese Americans were feared as a security risk. Succumbing to bad advice and popular opinion, President Roosevelt signed an executive order in February 1942 ordering the relocation of all Americans of Japanese ancestry to concentration camps in the interior of the United States. Evacuation orders were posted in Japanese-American communities giving instructions on how to comply with the executive order. Many families sold their homes, their stores, and most of their assets. They could not be certain their homes and livelihoods would still be there upon their return. Because of the mad rush to sell, properties and inventories were often sold at a fraction of their true value. After being forced from their communities, Japanese families made these military style barracks their homes. Ten camps were finally completed in remote areas of seven western states. Housing was spartan, consisting mainly of tarpaper barracks. Families dined together at communal mess halls, and children were expected to attend school. Adults had the option of working for a salary of $5 per day. The United States government hoped that the interns could make the camps self-sufficient by farming to produce food. But cultivation on arid soil was quite a challenge. Most of the ten relocation camps were built in arid and semi-arid areas where life would have been harsh under even ideal conditions. Evacuees elected representatives to meet with government officials to air grievances, often to little avail. Recreational activities were organized to pass the time. Some of the interns actually volunteered to fight in one of two all-Nisei army regiments and went on to distinguish themselves in battle. Fred Korematsu challenged the legality of Executive Order 9066 but the Supreme Court ruled the action was justified as a wartime necessity. It was not until 1988 that the U.S. government attempted to apologize to those who had been interned.On the whole, however, life in the relocation centers was not easy. The camps were often too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. The food was mass produced army-style grub. And the interns knew that if they tried to flee, armed sentries who stood watch around the clock, would shoot them. Fred Korematsu decided to test the government relocation action in the courts. He found little sympathy there. In Korematsu vs. the United States, the Supreme Court justified the executive order as a wartime necessity. When the order was repealed, many found they could not return to their hometowns. Hostility against Japanese Americans remained high across the West Coast into the postwar years as many villages displayed signs demanding that the evacuees never return. As a result, the interns scattered across the country. In 1988, Congress attempted to apologize for the action by awarding each surviving intern $20,000. While the American concentration camps never reached the levels of Nazi death camps as far as atrocities are concerned, they remain a dark mark on the nation's record of respecting civil liberties and cultural differences. Poster Comment: What made this a travesty is that the Military and FBI told FDR that there was no evidence to support the contention that Japanese Americans were anything but loyal citizens but FDR and SCOTUS went ahead with the program anyhow - in other words "Despite the lack of any concrete evidence, Japanese Americans were suspected of remaining loyal to their ancestral land." It seems pretty definitive that there was no evidence to support the claims that those in the Japanese American community were anything but loyal Americans. Can the same be said about the Mulsim AMerican community? Is there no evidence of Muslim Americans engaging in the planning and/or conduct of terroism within the U.S.? Does it matter if there is?
Until the camps were completed, many of the evacuees were held in temporary centers, such as stables at local racetracks. Almost two-thirds of the interns were Nisei, or Japanese Americans born in the United States. It made no difference that many had never even been to Japan. Even Japanese-American veterans of World War I were forced to leave their homes. 
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 31.
#6. To: SOSO (#0)
It was believed to be a necessary act for national security in a very desperate time of war. Pearl Harbor had been bombed, the fleet was sitting on the bottom of Pearl Harbor. The IJN outnumbered the USN in the Pacific heavily in every key weapons system. Hitler was overrunning the USSR. The danger was vast, and was perceived to be even vaster. There had apparently Japanese collusion with the attackers at Pearl Harbor. And the Chinese in California were more anti-Japanese than the whites were. Manzanar was not a death camp. None of the camps were. The internees were eating the same food as the Army. Japanese Internment was viewed as a necessity by the Commander-in-Chief. And had there been none, and the Americans had lynched the Japanese out of hatred, as things against them became harder and harder, would that have been better? Korematsu was correctly decided. The US properly paid compensation for the taking, but in the same circumstance, we need to have the power to do it again. We can pay some cash for it later.
Inter arma enim silent leges ?
I would say no. I would say that the law was clear, delineated and respected in the Korematsu case. What was done with the Japanese was limited, temperate, and commensurate with the threat as understood at the time. Like Sherman's March or Dresden or Hiroshima, long after the fact people with different values can re-judge as they please.
The 3 examples you cite were against enemies during war (yes even Sherman's march was conducted against a people who had revokes Constitutional protection when they seceded ). In the Korematsu case,"the law" ;a combination of executive order 9066,9102 ,and the Public Law 503 that was passed by Congress were clear violations of the Japanese Americans(many of whom were born here) Constitutional rights .The rights violated are almost too many to mention. But I'll give it a quick shot .Executive Order 9066 and Public Law 503, made it a crime with penalties to violate curfew and not to comply with the removal orders. Together, the orders constituted a Bill of Attainder which were unconstitutional enactments against Japanese Americans pronouncing them guilty without trial. In the camps ,Free exercise of religion was denied . Shinto religion was prohibited in the camps. Freedom of speech and press with the prohibition of using the Japanese language in public meetings and the censorship of camp newspapers. The right to assemble was abridged when mass meetings were prohibited, and English was required to be the primary language used at all public gatherings. Freedom to petition for redress was violated when a few Japanese Americans exercised their citizen rights and demanded redress of grievances from the government. The War Relocation Authority administration labeled them as "troublemakers" and sent them to isolation camps. Their homes were often searched without search warrants .Items which appeared as contraband such as short-wave radios were confiscated. Their forced removal and detention resulted in the denial of witnesses in their favor, the denial of assistance of counsel for their defense. They were denied a speedy trial or access to any legal representative. They could not call upon witnesses nor confront witnesses. They were not told of their crime or the charges against them. They were not given bail and their internment was cruel and unusual punishment . The facilities like hospitals were grossly understaffed. They were denied the franchise. When they worked in camp it was involuntary servitude ,or another word for it is slavery . The equal protection clause of the 14th was violated because the government acted solely on the basis of race and national ancestry in this law. Liberty and property was seized without compensation. It was up to SCOTUS to stop this . SCOTUS to this day does not say Korematsu was wrongly decided . That makes it precedence . Justice Robert Jackson wrote in dissent that the precedent of Korematsu might last well beyond the war and the internment: A military order, however unconstitutional, is not apt to last longer than the military emergency. Even during that period, a succeeding commander may revoke it all. But once a judicial opinion rationalizes such an order to show that it conforms to the Constitution, or rather rationalizes the Constitution to show that the Constitution sanctions such an order, the Court for all time has validated the principle of racial discrimination in criminal procedure and of transplanting American citizens. The principle then lies about like a loaded weapon, ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need. Every repetition imbeds that principle more deeply in our law and thinking and expands it to new purposes. He went on to write : Korematsu was born on our soil, of parents born in Japan. The Constitution makes him a citizen of the United States by nativity and a citizen of California by residence. No claim is made that he is not loyal to this country. There is no suggestion that apart from the matter involved here he is not law abiding and well disposed. Korematsu, however, has been convicted of an act not commonly a crime. It consists merely of being present in the state whereof he is a citizen, near the place where he was born, and where all his life he has lived. [...] [H]is crime would result, not from anything he did, said, or thought, different than they, but only in that he was born of different racial stock. Now, if any fundamental assumption underlies our system, it is that guilt is personal and not inheritable. Even if all of one's antecedents had been convicted of treason, the Constitution forbids its penalties to be visited upon him. But here is an attempt to make an otherwise innocent act a crime merely because this prisoner is the son of parents as to whom he had no choice, and belongs to a race from which there is no way to resign. If Congress in peace-time legislation should enact such a criminal law, I should suppose this Court would refuse to enforce it.
In Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1868), the U.S. Supreme Court opined that the U.S. was an indestructibe union of indestructible states, that it was impossible for a state to secede, and that Texas had never seceded, and remained in the union at all times. If it is conceded that the Southern states actually seceded, issues about the legality of the war ensue. The entire initial justification for sending troops into the South was made as a civil action under procedures set forth in the applicable Militia Act of that time. Under this theory, the union troops were aiding the marshals of the courts to enforce the laws that were being resisted (tax and revenue collection). Texas v. White appears to be a case concocted to give SCOTUS an excuse to declare secession unlawful. This was during the time they were trying to figure out how to drop the charges against Jefferson Davis who would not make a deal for a pardon. I would be remiss if I did not note the dissent of Justice Grier (74 U.S. 700, 737). The following excerpt is from pages 738-740. But conceding now the fact to be as judicially assumed by my brethren, the next question is, whether she has a right to repudiate her contracts? Before proceeding to answer this question, we must notice a fact in this case that was forgotten in the argument. I mean that the United States are no party to this suit, and refusing to pay the bonds because the money paid would be used to advance the interests of the rebellion. It is a matter of utter insignificance to the government of the United States to whom she makes the payment of these bonds. They are payable to the bearer. The government is not bound to inquire into the bona fides of the holder, nor whether the State of Taxes has parted with the bonds wisely or foolishly. And although by the Reconstruction Acts she is required to repudiate all debts contracted for the purposes of the rebellion, this does not annul all acts of the State government during the rebellion, or contracts for other purposes, nor authorize the State to repudiate them. Now, whether we assume the State of Texas to be judicially in the Union (though actually out of it) or not, it will not alter the case. The contest now is between the State of Texas and her own citizens. She seeks to annul a contract [74 U.S. 700, 740] with the respondents, based on the allegation that there was no authority in Texas competent to enter into an agreement during the rebellion. Having relied upon one fiction, namely, that she is a State in the Union, she now relies upon a second one, which she wishes this court to adopt, that she was not a State at all during the five years that she was in rebellion. She now sets up the plea of insanity, and asks the court to treat all her acts made during the disease as void.
There are no replies to Comment # 31. End Trace Mode for Comment # 31.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#23. To: Vicomte13 (#6)
Korematsu was correctly decided
#26. To: tomder55 (#23)
(Edited)
Inter arma enim silent leges ?
#28. To: Vicomte13 (#26)
(Edited)
Like Sherman's March or Dresden or Hiroshima, long after the fact people with different values can re-judge as they please.
#31. To: tomder55, Vicomte13 (#28)
The 3 examples you cite were against enemies during war (yes even Sherman's march was conducted against a people who had revokes Constitutional protection when they seceded).
It is true that no organized rebellion now exists there, and the courts of the United States now exercise jurisdiction over the people of that province. But this is no test of the State's being in the Union; Dacotah is no State, and yet the courts of the United States administer justice there as they do in Texas. The Indian tribes, who are governed by military force, cannot claim to be States of the Union. Wherein does the condition of Texas differ from theirs?- [74 U.S. 700, 739] Now, by assuming or admitting as a fact the present status of Texas as a State not in the Union politically, I beg leave to protest against any charge of inconsistency as to judicial opinions heretofore expressed as a member of this court, or silently assented to. I do not consider myself bound to express any opinion judicially as to the constitutional right of Texas to exercise the rights and privileges of a State of this Union, or the power of Congress to govern her as a conquered province, to subject her to military domination, and keep her in pupilage. I can only submit to the fact as decided by the political position of the government; and I am not disposed to join in any essay to prove Texas to be a State of the Union, when Congress have decided that she is not. It is a question of fact, I repeat, and of fact only. Politically, Texas is not a State in this Union. Whether rightfully out of it or not is a question not before the court.
Replies to Comment # 31.
[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]