>>Americans believed that enemy spies and saboteurs lived among us. Some did, though not nearly as many as we imagined
How many did we imagine, Daniel? Have you read Magic: The Untold Story of U.S. Intelligence and the Evacuation of Japanese Residents from the West Coast During Ww II? I strongly doubt it. Japanese / Japanese-Americans were reporting home all ship movements in Long Beach harbor, for but one example, from a fishing village on a small island there.
https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Intelligence-Evacuation-Japanese-Residents/dp/0960273611
Further, Japanese / Japanese-Americans tended to send their kids back to the mother country for schooling, which very much included indoctrination in Japanese militarism. This was unlike German and Italian immigrants.
This is just another standard “Pearl Harbor was bad, but America was so evil and racist for interning the Japanese, let’s talk about that” type article. Bleh.
You’re right. In the reading I’ve done on WW2 one of the recurring themes is American soldiers meeting Japanese soldiers who went to school in the US, who grew up in the US, played baseball, and etc.
When these Japanese-Americans had to choose between the US and Japan they chose Japan.
Thus there was good reason to be cautious about a population within our borders who were known and proven to have had loyalties to and sympathies with the enemy.
Not unlike today with the Muslims who lobby for Sharia law in the USA. They’re our enemies, too.
Michelle Malkin wrote an excellent book on the same subject, 'A Case for Internment', that presented angles that I had not heard previously. Perhaps similar to what was written in 'Magic'.
Trying to play 'Monday Morning' quarterback, from the comfort of American society some 40 - 50+ years after the war, and asking why those who just had their Pacific Fleet basically destroyed in one day (and the fall of the Philippines, shortly afterward) could have acted the way that they did - is the epitome of moronic arrogance.
One is going to blend into the country they are joining. The other intends to import and impose their own culture.
They were still loyal citizens of Japan for the most part.
We need to remember this as the mohammedans move in. They are not immigrants or refugees, they are colonists.