Learning about the Japanese-American incarceration during World War II
Growing up in Poland, I learned a lot about the tragic toll of the Holocaust and visited the Auschwitz concentration camp three times. But it wasn't until I moved to the United States that I learned about Japanese internment camps during WWII. This topic came up again this month as May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, approximately 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, the majority of whom were U.S. citizens, were forcibly relocated and incarcerated in ten concentration camps built in remote areas of Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming.
Source: National Park Service
This is how the U.S. National Archives describe what happened:
On March 29, 1942, under the authority of the executive order, DeWitt issued Public Proclamation No. 4, which began the forced evacuation and detention of Japanese-American West Coast residents on a 48-hour notice. Only a few days prior to the proclamation, on March 21, Congress had passed Public Law 503, which made violation of Executive Order 9066 a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Because of the perception of "public danger," all Japanese Americans within varied distances from the Pacific coast were targeted. Unless they were able to dispose of or make arrangements for care of their property within a few days, their homes, farms, businesses, and most of their private belongings were lost forever.
From the end of March to August, approximately 112,000 persons were sent to "assembly centers" – often racetracks or fairgrounds – where they waited and were tagged to indicate the location of a long-term "relocation center" that would be their home for the rest of the war. Nearly 70,000 of the evacuees were American citizens. There were no charges of disloyalty against any of these citizens, nor was there any vehicle by which they could appeal their loss of property and personal liberty.”
So, on May 19, I attended a lecture given by Anne Shimojima at Naperville Public Library, determined to learn more. Shimojima recalled how her grandparents went through the experience of internment and organized their lives in the camp and beyond. It was extremely moving to be able to hear personal stories from those who witnessed the cruelty of those times for the first time.
Because I find graphic novels to be excellent for explaining difficult topics, I also turned to George Takei’s 2019 comic They Called Us Enemy. Takei, an actor and activist, recalls his four years in an internment camp as a child with his parents and siblings, and how that experience influenced his life mission. After reading the comic over a few days and studying the illustrations of the camp, I was able to better internalize the message of Anne Shimojima: the humiliation that came from living in horse stalls and barracks of people who did nothing wrong except work hard for their families. The feeling of betrayal as your beloved country turns its back on you. The fear and uncertainty that comes with leaving everything you know behind and then having to start all over after incarceration.
Despite the trauma of these stories, they exhibit remarkable strength, courage, and trust of those that have been treated unjustly as in the quote that Anne Shimojima decided to end her lecture with:
