Posted on 06/23/2006 12:37:12 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
HUNT, Idaho - The National Park Service wants Congress to remove the word "internment" from the name of a national park commemorating a World War II prison camp for Japanese-Americans.
In a management plan for the Minidoka Internment National Monument finalized this week, the Park Service says the term legally means imprisonment of civilian enemy aliens during wartime and does not accurately reflect the government's forced relocation of thousands of U.S. citizens of Japanese descent.
The agency wants the name changed to Minidoka National Historic Site, which would match with the only similar prison camp under its protection, California's Manzanar National Historic Site.
Monument superintendent Neil King and the leader of a group of Minidoka internees and their descendants said former camp residents have been divided over the name.
Some felt "internment" did not accurately describe what happened there, while others wanted to emphasize the injustice by changing the name to "Minidoka Concentration Camp National Historic Site," King said.
James Azumano, leader of the internees' association, said his group plans to discuss the name during a pilgrimage there next month.
"It is a real dilemma and a constant challenge: How politically correct do you want to be over what at the time was a civil rights atrocity?" said Azumano, of Salem, Ore. "It's a struggle with terminology that continues today. What are you going to call Guantanamo 50 years from now?"
At its peak in 1943, the Minidoka camp became one of the largest cities in Idaho, housing 9,397 people, primarily from Seattle and Portland, Ore. It closed Oct. 28, 1945, and was dismantled. The 73-acre park was created in early 2001 by President Clinton.
Today, it remains a ghost town in rolling wheat fields, with only a portable toilet for visitor facilities. The management plan recommends creating an interpretive center in a warehouse still standing from the camp.
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On the Net:
Monument: http://www.nps.gov/miin
Friends of Minidoka: http://www.minidoka.org
I don't think the death rate at our "concentration" camps was anything like the Boars or the Jews.
But it WAS an "internment" camp. Can't rewrite history guys.
"...Park Service says the term legally means imprisonment of civilian enemy aliens during wartime..."
And "gay" means happy and carefree. What's your point?
"...Park Service says the term legally means imprisonment of civilian enemy aliens during wartime..."
And "gay" means happy and carefree. What's your point?
EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 9066 http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5154/
FEBRUARY 19, 1942
Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas (The President Authorizes Japanese Relocation).
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/bendet1.htm
Oral History Interview with
Karl R. BendetsonExecutive Order No. 9066 did not relate exclusively to persons of Japanese ancestry. It established wartime civil control over the Western Sea Frontier on a broad basis. The Western Sea Frontier here described consisted of the Pacific Coastal regions lying west of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada Mountains as well as of Alaska. The Executive Order dealt with German and Italian aliens, as well as with persons of Japanese ancestry.
Some readers may find it useful for reference purposes to here describe the coverage of the official Report dated June 5, 1943 which I prepared for General DeWitt.
The Library of Congress card catalogue reference under the letter "U" is officially titled: United States Army, Western Defense Command and Fourth Army, Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast
The Executive Order also provided for the designation of "military areas" from which all persons would be excluded other than those expressly authorized to enter. The principal "military area" so designated was Alaska. An agency entitled "Alaska Travel Control" governed all travel to and from Alaska.
The Report discusses the need for military control and for evacuation; and discusses the establishment of wartime civil control under Executive Order 9066.
"To the Japanese themselves great credit is due for the manner in which they * * * responded to and complied with the orders of exclusion."
They could just open it as a japanese-american owned long-term-stay hostel where you are allowed to work, raise a garden, educate your kids, eat whatever food you want, no danger of rations, law enforcement securing the grounds, etc. Same ole, same ole.
Sell it to the private sector and develop it into subdivisions to help the school district with property tax revenues.
Those folks are morons. It was just what it said - an internment camp for foreigners and their families whose loyaties were severely in question.
And Japanese were not the only folks interned. Germans and Italians were interned on the East Coast.
No, you're wrong. Japanese and Japanese-Americans were excluded from the 100 mi military exclusion zone. They could, for much of the period, go whereever they wanted, outside of military exclusions zones (which often excluded everybody but the military).
If they (J and JA) couldn't find a place to go, they went to relocation camps. (Which the government was reluctant to even get involved with.) Due to anti-Japanese sentiments of the time, many chose that route.
Also, once at a relocation camp, J and JA were allowed to leave if they found other places to live or to go to school.
It was not internment in the same sense that Germans and Italians and those J and JA who were considered to be active riskes experienced.
They really were relocation camps.
In any case, they weren't prison camps or concentration camps.
No, they weren't. (Though there were a few J and JA prison camps.)
But sites like Wikipedia delight in calling them concentration camps.
It's all part of the hate America first agit-prop of our one party establishment.
Just being argumentative but not attacking your point.
Technically they could indeed have been called "Concentration" camps. But not in the same way they were called that in Nazi Germany.
For they did "Concentrate" a certain race of people in one general area.
However 99% of them got out alive and absolutely NONE were ever murdered by our government.
You're absolutely right. Even FDR called them concentration camps.
But that was before the Nazi concentration camps were discoverd to have been murdering millions.
The relocation camps are always portrayed as so horrible, but in fact to my mind they look like an average Army base of the time.
They weren't day spas. But they weren't Treblinka either.
And people could leave. In fact, more than a quarter of the "internees" left, to live some place outside the exclusion area or, even move back to their homes inside the exlusion area if they could get someone to vouch for them.
I know for a fact that the vast majority of Italians interred had been active in Fascist exile politics. Remember that if you would have gone into any Italian neighborhood of the 1930s, many store owners would have had large photos of Mussolini displayed.
"By 1944, after the J-A's had lost most of their real estate, then they could look forward to a chance of getting out."
This is always advanced as the other crime (when the camps turn out to not be Dachau).
But a lot of that loss was the J-As selling to low bidders and other unscrupulous types on their own accord.
The government had set up a stewartship to take care of their property, even rent it out, etc. But a lot of the J-As didn't want to go that route, so they sold very cheap. Their choice.
Also, lest we forget, there was compensation paid right after the war. Not inconsiderable amounts, considering the circumstances and the times.
It's a canard to say that the military exclusion district was a land grab by the locals. It came from the top down.
"Remember that if you would have gone into any Italian neighborhood of the 1930s, many store owners would have had large photos of Mussolini displayed."
A sight still not uncommon in Little Italys across the country.
German and Italian nationals were interned.
American citizens of German and Italian descent were not.
Clinton is the problem - he made it a Park. i bet all of the "guests" think they were interned.
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