Constitution

American Concentration Camps

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The day after Pearl Harbor, an angry FDR called it ‘a date which will live in infamy’, and he began to restrict the rights of Japanese Americans. First there was a curfew, then bank accounts were seized overnight, businesses shuttered, homes were searched, guns were collected, cameras and radios were taken, Japanese language schools were closed, and travel was restricted. US citizens of German and Italian descent were free to live their lives, but US citizens of Japanese descent were not. Then, at noon, on 30 March 1942: any person of Japanese descent found on Bainbridge Island—opposite Seattle—would be arrested and charged as a criminal. Families were given short notice, allowed two small bags—or one and a baby—, and were sent to the state fairground at Puyallup—near Tacoma. Barbed wire fences and armed soldiers surrounded the ‘assembly centers’. There, they were lined up by family, with their family number tags tied to their clothes, oldest in front, youngest in back.

San Francisco residents went to Tanforan—now a shopping mall on the peninsula. Los Angeles residents were sent to Santa Anita or Pomona. Some were housed in racetrack horse stalls, which they needed to clean out themselves. California and half of Washington, Oregon and Arizona were declared ‘exclusion zones’ by the military, and no person of Japanese descent was allowed to remain there. Instead, they were transported from the assembly centers to one of ten camps. The American woman and her baby above were sent to Manzanar in California and then to Minidoka in Idaho. Others went to Amache in Colorado, Rohwer & Jerome in Arkansas, Topaz in Utah, Heart Mountain in Wyoming, Poston & Gila River in Arizona, and some were sent to the ‘segregation camp’ at Tule Lake in California near Oregon. Some male inmates were ordered to build their own barracks, latrines and other buildings. Women prepared meals for thousands. Guard towers were raised along barbed wire fences with searchlights and machine guns pointed inward. There was no privacy, not among family, not at meals, not in the group latrines and not in the group showers. The camps were in remote, desolate, dusty, unpopulated areas away from towns, many were deserts, some mountains and all were sabishii—lonely and forsaken.

Many Americans, including those incarcerated, were lied to about the program by our government: “temporary”, “for your own safety”, “normal” and “happy”. Even today, the program is referred to as “Japanese Internment Camps”, but the vast majority of those incarcerated were not Japanese, they were US citizens, mainly by birth, many never having been to Japan. Propaganda films lied and stated that “household belongings” were shipped to “pioneer villages”, that only those “within a stone’s throw” of military bases were forced to move, that people were “given jobs and more space in which to live” and “managed their own security”. The program was sold as being exemplarily generous, that the military provided for all needs and that the Japanese Americans “approved whole-heartedly”. Journalists and others were periodically given limited access only to the barracks of the most cooperative inmates.

In fact, there were water shortages, food shortages, food poisoning, unsafe living and working conditions, military brutality, unfair punishments, false charges, and inmates fatally shot, including a dog walker at Topaz, a truck driver at Tule Lake, and two protesters at Manzanar where guards fired into a crowd. Some elderly patients had been taken to the camps from their hospital beds, and over 1,850 died of disease and medical problems, including many infants. Complaints were discouraged or mocked. Pressure campaigns were used to enlist men into active combat in Europe. And always, anyone suspected of being disloyal was encouraged to renounce their citizenship and leave the country. In this system, particularly at Tule Lake, some reacted to their treatment by trying to be more Japanese, organizing protests and yelling Banzai—‘long live the Emperor’—at the guards.

They were Americans, and their Constitutional Rights of speech, to be secure in their homes and to due process were all violated for years. The root of this program was racism. Americans of Japanese descent were assumed to have loyalty to a foreign power, and even when they were natural born American citizens, they couldn’t be trusted and would have to prove their loyalty again and again. The Issei—1st generation—chose this country rather than the one of their birth. The Nissei—second generation—were born here, but some parents sent their children back for schooling Japan to preserve their language and culture. These children were called Kibei—returnees to America—, indicating that their parents wanted them to live here. All were Americans, either by their own choice or by their parents’. Only their fellow citizens refused to see them as truly Americans.

Although I quote Eleanor Roosevelt below, FDR and many other Americans believed in the ‘melting pot’—meaning melting metal to forge steel—, that Americans had a duty to assimilate and that their cultures would be purified into one culture. But the price of citizenship does not include giving up one’s culture, whether your name is Ohara or O’Hara. Imagine something happens in the future, and people of your family background are herded up and sent to Guantanamo. Even though you did nothing wrong, your guilt is suspected based on your family cultural background. Your communications are censored, and you are treated the same as foreigners or prisoners of war. And when you finally are freed, all your property has been taken, and nobody will help.

Visit national park sites for camps like Manzanar, Minidoka, Amache and Tule Lake, and interpretive sites in Seattle like the Klondike visitor center which partners with Bainbridge Island and the Wing Luke Museum. Topaz has a museum in Delta Utah (off I-15 towards Great Basin). Poston (off I-10) has a historic marker placed by internees & the Colorado River Indian Tribes near Parker on the Arizona border with California. Heart Mountain has an interpretive center between Cody and Powell in Wyoming (on the road between Yellowstone and Bighorn Canyon). Gila River is on restricted reservation land near Hohokam Pima—neither are open to the public—but the Huhugam Heritage Center has a small free exhibit, not far from Phoenix. There’s a museum in McGehee Arkansas for Rohwer and a monument for Jerome; both are just south of Arkansas Post. The Hawaiian experience was very different, but Honouliuli will eventually open as a historic site. Please encourage your elected representatives to preserve the history at all the camps.

I encourage you to read more about the experiences of the Americans who were sent to American Concentration Camps during WWII: Farewell to Manzanar, Only What We Could Carry, Journey to Topaz, Snow Falling on Cedars, and They Called Us Enemy, among many others. And take a moment to think about how you would feel, if it happened to your family.

“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, after visiting Gila River during WWII

Rohwer

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The last American concentration camp to close was Rohwer, Arkansas, deep in the delta near the Arkansas Post. There’s an echo of history, since that site is part of the Trail of Tears, when another group of Americans were forcibly removed from their homes unconstitutionally and sent to live in government reservations. The vast camp soon returned to farmland, so little remains besides the cemetery above. Several of the graves mark infants and elderly inmates. The monument to the right is to the 442nd Regimental Combat team, the most highly decorated unit in US military history. They served in Europe, while their families were imprisoned. 

The neighboring town of McGehee maintains the excellent WWII Japanese American Internment Museum about both Rohwer and Jerome. The sculptor Ruth Asawa was imprisoned here. Another inmate at Rohwer was a 5 year old boy named George Takei, who later played Lt. Sulu on the original Star Trek. 

“And it became normal for me to go to school in a black tar-paper barrack
and begin the school day with a pledge of allegiance to the flag.
I could see the barbed wire fence and the sentry tower
right outside my schoolhouse window
as I recited the words,
‘with liberty and justice for all’.”

George Takei, speech at the museum on 16 April 2018

Jerome

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Jerome was the last American concentration camp to open and the first to close, as it was converted into a POW camp for Germans. The military acquired the land as a result of a tax default, and over 8,000 Americans of Japanese descent were incarcerated here in the southeast corner of Arkansas, deep in the Mississippi Bayou. The Governor of Arkansas insisted that none of the prisoners be allowed to remain in his legally segregated state after the war and that all of the guards be white. When it closed, the prisoners here were mostly transferred to the other camp in Arkansas, with some sent to Amache, Gila River and Heart Mountain; ‘trouble makers’ who protested had already been sent to Tule Lake. Besides the monument above, there is a deteriorating old smokestack from the infirmary visible in the distance to the right. Nothing else remains, and the land is now a working farm. 

Nothing except a shameful unconstitutional history, a duty to be better Americans, and memories. Below is detail from a painting by Henry Sugimoto showing how he remembered his time at Jerome. The painting is on display with many other exhibits at the WWII Japanese American Internment Museum in McGehee about 20 miles north. The museum is excellent, open Thursday to Saturday, and is the result of talented, caring and dedicated townspeople working to preserve this important history without federal funding. 

Gila River

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Despite not being on the West Coast, the US military evicted all American citizens from the southern part of Arizona during WWII as potential ‘navy base saboteurs’, if they had Japanese ancestry. The military’s arbitrary exclusion zone ran through Phoenix, so if you lived on the south side of the city, you wound up incarcerated while your family on the north side kept their homes.

Like Poston, most Japanese-Americans were taken from their homes in Southern California. The barracks in the background of the photo above comprised a small part of camp 2 or Butte Camp at Gila. The Gila River Tribal Community protested, but the military appropriated over 17,000 acres of their land anyway and concentrated roughly 15,000 people here according to their ethnicity. 

The tribal community had been struggling since the Gila River was diverted by white settlers beginning in the 1880s. In 1934, archaeologists dug up their ancestral burial grounds, and after they dug again in 1964, the government also created a national park site. Now that site is closed and the tribes don’t allow visitors there. 

Survivors of internment built a monument on the ‘internment camp’ site, but someone shot it up with a machine gun a few years back, and unless you’re family, you can’t visit the site now. Given all the tragedies and harm done here under the American flag, seems like folks might benefit from a government funded educational center explaining the history and the importance of respecting Constitutional rights. 

The Gila River Tribal Community runs the excellent nearby Huhugam Culture Center free museum, which contains a small display case of ‘relocation center’ artifacts, including two busts of young prisoners. The one pictured is Sayoko ‘Jean’ Kawamura, and the other has no name, forgotten to history. 

Poston

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In Arizona, across the Colorado River from California, there’s a desert hamlet called Poston in an area governed by the Colorado River Indian Tribes. Spanish Missionaries visited in 1775 and their King recognized tribal sovereignty. Mexico lost the whole territory after the War, and the US government established reservations to ‘protect’ the Mohave, Chemehuevi and others here. Today, despite some irrigation improvements, much of the population is poor, and each winter many RVers spend months living cheaply in the desert nearby. 

But from 1942 to 1945, the US concentrated as many as 17,000 US citizens of Japanese ancestry forcibly relocated from their homes on the west coast to three camps, known as Roastin’, Toastin’ and Dustin’. The highs are over 105° all summer long. Besides the 50 year memorial (pictured above) to the families, children and highly decorated WWII veterans once incarcerated here, there’s not much left to see, except a few origami cranes left by visitors. 

But there’s much to think about. Constitutional rights and freedoms, so cherished in this country, are an ‘all or nothing’ deal. For you to enjoy a right or freedom, you must recognize that same right belongs to all your fellow citizens, regardless of their background or beliefs. Our legal system depends on the idea that the law applies equally to everyone, that no one man is above the law and that there are no permanent classes of people entitled to extra privileges. If we want to continue to enjoy our own full rights as citizens, we must make sure that no other US citizens are trammeled, as they were here, ever again. 

Tule Lake National Monument

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Sometimes the story is more important than the scenery, and Ranger Danny told it well. In April 1942, US citizens of Japanese descent on the west coast were given 2 days to pack 2 suitcases and check in to temporary relocation centers, losing their freedom and property in violation of the 4th Amendment. They were not given due process in violation of the 5th Amendment. FDR’s order was popular—especially among those who planned to take their property—, and the wartime Supreme Court partly upheld it, in the infamous Korematsu decision, while simultaneously partly dismantling it, in Endo. Reagan apologized and offered survivors small compensation.

Many Americans grew up either not knowing much about this or believing it justified by war. The Japanese military attacked Pearl Harbor without warning, after invading their neighbors, occupying Shanghai and committing atrocities in Nanjing. When FDR’s order went into effect, Japan had taken Hong Kong and Singapore, and they held several thousand American civilians as prisoners for the duration of the war, with insufficient food, forced labor and a high death rate. Americans did not want to prove themselves better; they wanted revenge.

And yet the Germans had acted similarly, with sneak attacks, invading neighbors and taking prisoners, but the US issued no similar order to imprison US citizens of German descent. Americans lost relatives in battle to both foes. Both aggressive countries employed spies. Japanese Americans do not appear different from other Asian Americans, so Japanese spies could still operate on the west coast. There is no justification for abrogating the rights of Japanese Americans, not expediency, not greed, and certainly not racism.

These ten American Concentration Camps were a failure of leadership, imagination, morality, of our government and of rational behavior. Having dispensed with our Constitution, the rules were arbitrarily made up on the fly. The US military defined a huge ‘exclusion zone’ from Washington state to New Mexico, fearing another naval assault in Arizona?!? Hawaii, despite being the location of Pearl Harbor, detained few Americans of Japanese descent. Japanese Americans who already lived in Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado or Arkansas witnessed their fellow citizens arriving in their states and being imprisoned for having the same cultural background as they did.

The US military still wanted to draft soldiers from the citizens they detained, so they created a loyalty questionnaire to invite them to fight in Europe. The government then started using the questionnaire to divide the incarcerated into loyal or not. The questions were convoluted, rewritten in some camps and many were misadvised on how to respond. Since Tule Lake only used the original version, they had a higher ‘failure’ rate, so they got a reputation for disloyalty. Inmates exercised their 1st Amendment right to protest, and the military sent in tanks. Then they had the inmates build a concrete jail inside the barbed wire, machine gun manned watchtower prison. One man was interrogated for 12 days because his mother accidentally played a borrowed radio. Many inmates here were pressured into renouncing their US citizenship.

One reason that most Americans don’t know much about this history, or have mistaken views, is that the US government intentionally misled the public about conditions here. The press was invited in to see the one barracks in Tule Lake where everyone was happy and would receive steak for dinner in return for cooperating, while the remainder of the massive camp was suffering from basic food & water shortages. The image of the ‘happy Japanese interns’ was amplified as propaganda, which some visitors still repeat today.

The highly recommended ranger tour is given on summer weekends out in the field (above) and in the jail, complete with jail cell bars saved by a local to preserve the real story. The camp is 10 miles outside town, per military requirement, and there are a few original buildings, the top of a watchtower and a stone monument, besides the small visitor center. The site is in the far northeast corner of California, in the reclaimed lake bed, quite close to Lava Beds. It’s remote, but important to visit.

Amache National Historic Site

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President Biden authorized this new park in March, but it will take time to become fully established. The local community is important in determining whether a park is created, how it will happen and when. In this case, the local Granada High School has been working on preserving the history here for many years and is largely responsible for the reconstruction of the guard tower above.

As with Manzanar and Minidoka, the image of a guard tower evokes the reality of the imprisonment of Japanese-American citizens during WWII. Each of the towers surrounding Amache was manned with a machine gun and a spotlight. But inside the camps, it is often the Japanese cultural touches that strike me, the rock gardens in Manzanar and the silk screen shop here. The silk screen shop was so good, that the incarcerated citizens made posters for the US Navy. Despite their incarceration and wrongful denial of their Constitutional rights, these citizens were proud of their country and many of the children joined the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts here.

There are various monuments and markers remembering the 31 killed in action fighting for our country in Europe while their relatives were imprisoned, for the over 1,000 US military veterans from this camp including many interpreters, and for the over 100 inmates who died here, some before their time. While many were later reinterred elsewhere, a few graves remain in a Japanese styled cemetery, along with a memorial stone and a photo of the original epitaph, written in Japanese.

Interestingly, Colorado citizens of Japanese ancestry were not incarcerated, because the governor, Ralph Carr, correctly believed the program to be unconstitutional, arguing that once a majority violates the rights of a minority, “then you as a minority may be subjected to the same ill-will of the majority tomorrow.” His principles likely cost him his next election. (If the nearby town of Chivington wants to replace its shameful name, they could rename their town Carr).

But the Japanese [Americans] are protected by the same Constitution that protects us.
An American citizen of Japanese descent has the same rights as any other citizen. …
If you harm them, you must first harm me.
I was brought up in small towns where I knew the shame and dishonor of race hatred.
I grew to despise it, because it threatened the happiness of you and you and you.

Colorado Governor Ralph Carr to a hostile audience in 1942

Manzanar National Historic Site

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Manzanar was the first of ten internment camps incarceration sites for Japanese-American citizens (and some non-citizens) to be recognized as a park unit in 1992, symbolizing the whole program fiasco. Minidoka was enacted in 2001, Tule Lake in 2008 and Amache in 2022.

Unconstitutional incarceration, while a Federal program ordered by FDR, varied by state: Hawaii incarcerated few and west coast states many. Rules regarding how much Japanese ancestry got a US citizen locked up without trial also varied by state. No other group was incarcerated en masse. Popular sentiment (racism) generally backed incarcerating Japanese-American US citizens during the war.

George Takei spent his “boyhood behind the barbed wire fences” in Arkansas. He remembers that after his family was imprisoned, his neighbors “came to our house and took everything”. He recounts how after Pearl Harbor, many young Japanese Americans tried to enlist, were refused and were incarcerated. His experiences were common, and in many cases homes and all belongings were permanently lost during internment.

It was an egregious violation of the American Constitution.
We were innocent American citizens, and we were imprisoned
simply because we happened to look like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor.
It shows us just how fragile our Constitution is.

George Takei

Many of the citizens imprisoned here were teachers, doctors, skilled craftsmen, farmers, community leaders and otherwise productive members of our society. (One was a Mexican-Irish-American who got locked up here in solidarity). They sued for their rights and in 1944, the Supreme Court declared that a loyal citizen could not be detained under the Constitution. The executive order was rescinded the next day.

In this blog, I try to encourage people to look at mistakes in history and imagine a better course of action, because if we can’t fix our mistakes, then we have no hope of solving the climate crisis. It’s morally wrong to visit this site and think, “well, I suppose there was no other way”. Some have argued that it was for the protection of Japanese Americans or to stop espionage. But there were better ways available at the time to accomplish those objectives.

FDR clearly failed in his oath as President when he did not uphold the Constitution and imprisoned these citizens without cause. He also suffered a failure of imagination. Instead of internment, FDR could have established voluntary Japanese-American citizens councils, led by Japanese Americans to meet regularly among themselves, with civil defense, local law enforcement, and with government representatives to propose ways of supporting their communities and the war effort. The councils could have addressed both safety and spying allegations.

Instead of being locked up, these citizens could have spent the war teaching, working in hospitals or factories, growing food and supporting our war effort. Instead of being an American example of “concentration camps” like those of our enemies, FDR missed his opportunity to stand up for the freedom of these Americans as a positive example of our Constitutional liberties for the world.