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One of the most affecting images in my high school history book for me was of Japanese American Boy Scouts hanging a sign declaring Japanese Americans “Aliens o
by 35997279 3y ago
One of the most affecting images in my high school history book for me was of Japanese American Boy Scouts hanging a sign declaring Japanese Americans “Aliens of Enemy Nationalities.” The caption mentioned that the young men themselves were afterwards sent to internment camps. [0]
This image so affected me that I once saw a copy of the book left behind at a coffee shop and had to thumb through it to see it again.
With all the editing of history curricula that states like Florida are doing, I hope it survives. It’s is a dark chapter in American history that wasn’t that long ago.
[0]https://www.mrginn.com/uploads/8/5/4/6/85468970/chapter35.pdf https://www.mrginn.com/uploads/8/5/4/6/85468970/chapter35.pd...
- wahnfrieden 3y ago[flagged]
- refurb 3y agoAnd to the Germans and Austro-Hungarians during WW1.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- 03857292756 3y agoAnd the Ukrainians. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Canadian_internment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Canadian_internmen...
- yummypaint 3y agoTheir property was also stolen from them. Much of Palo Alto was farms owned by Japanese americans originally
- 35997279 3y agoThis page mentions they were forced to sell their land, of course at a much lower price than they would have gotten. They also weren’t allowed to take their pets, which the page says “were destroyed.” [0]. Shameful. This country took its own citizens, locked them up, stole their land and shot their dogs — without a trial. https://www.paloaltohistory.org/japanese-american-internment.php https://www.paloaltohistory.org/japanese-american-internment...
- ant6n 3y ago…of course the US still has officials (police) that act as literal highway robbers, systematically robbing people driving through small towns. With the loot going to local police departments, and local govt/judiciary complicit in the system. Or has the civil forfeiture issue been resolved?
- wodenokoto 3y agoI don’t understand what they are trying to say with that sign. Does it mean “we are not of enemy nationality”? Or does it mean “we are foreigners in the US and our nationality is enemy nationality”
- 35997279 3y agoHere’s a higher resolution copy. https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/notice-to-aliens-of-enemy-nationalities https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/notice-to-alien...
- gcr 3y agoYou can read the full text of a substantially similar sign here: https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/notice-to-aliens-of-enemy-nationalities https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/notice-to-alien... One way of fulfilling requirements for some scout ranks is to partake in community service programs, so perhaps they’re running errands for their community by hanging this sign up. It’s a haunting image.
- burkaman 3y agoThey likely considered themselves Americans (because they were), and did not realize that even third-generation American-born citizens would be considered "aliens" and "enemies" and sent to the camps.
- zo1 3y agoI think I figured it out: If all non-citizens are aliens, then aliens of enemy nationality is a subset of that group. It's defined by aliens that are from a country that is designated as an enemy country. So French aliens are not included, but German and Japanese aliens were.
- burkaman 3y agoNo, they didn't care about citizenship or where you were from. > "A Jap's a Jap. It makes no difference whether the Jap is a citizen or not." - — General John L. DeWitt, Commander, Western Defense Command, 1942 > "I am determined that if they have one drop of Japanese blood in them, they must go to camp." — Colonel Karl Bendetsen, Administrator, Wartime Civil Control Administration, 1942 - https://amhistory.si.edu/perfectunion/non-flash/removal_process.html https://amhistory.si.edu/perfectunion/non-flash/removal_proc... They also didn't really care about German or Italian ancestry, there were millions of such people and almost none were imprisoned. Nearly all Americans with Japanese ancestry were imprisoned, and most were American-born citizens.
- rayiner 3y ago[flagged]
- cbolton 3y agoThat comment is quite the mix of good information and political cheap shot. You could have stopped at the first sentence, or given the people that push for these things the benefit of the doubt, that maybe they believe in what they say and just want to do good whether you agree or not...
- mbostleman 3y agoBut if it were true that the inclusion of such information is, in fact, framed to promote a narrative beyond just the facts, how is it a political cheap shot to point out the distinction, and wouldn't "[stopping] at the first sentence" be bias by omission? I would suggest that "the editing of history curricula that states like Florida are doing" is a political cheap shot if what Florida is doing is putting up firewalls that prevent such narrative propaganda. I think it's worth having a factual discussion about.
- rayiner 3y ago[flagged]
- taeric 3y agoI was surprised to find a Japanese Internment Memorial in my hometown when I moved here. Really proud when I found more about it. I have no doubt that the internment had local support at the time. More, I suspect I would have been more for the idea than I care to think on. Glad to see we aren't pretending it didn't happen.
- ericmcer 3y agoThey definitely aren’t erasing it in CA. My kid was taught to refer to them as concentration camps instead of internment camps. It is a totally accurate term but it felt like a strong change after calling the Nazi camps by that name.
- mixmastamyk 3y agoRight, concentration originally meant bring together. But then was conflated with torture and death camp via Europe. But the American ones brought them into isolation, not primarily the other things. The terminology is now messy.