[John H K]

Shut Up! We won you lost. Get over it.

A large number of the interned were US citizens. Which is the point. They WERE "We".

[sailor4321]

Actually, the vast majority were American citizens. However, until 1924 "overseas" Japanese were also Japanese citizens --- and "overseas" Japanese born in the US after that year could become Japanese citizens simply by registering with the Japanese consulate which many did for a variety of reasons. You do the math regarding who were automatically considered "duel citizens".

[A2J]

A large number of the interned were US citizens. Which is the point. They WERE "We".

However, for the majority, they were Japanese expatriates who had become U.S. citizens. There was fear in the U.S. that because they may have harbored a deep love for their mother country and could have undermined the security of the U.S..

Right or wrong, but if the U.S. and China ever tie it up, I would have no problem removing many Chinese "Americans" for fear of espionage.

[visualops]

I found this a good summation-

"When war came the decision to evacuate Japanese residents from the West Coast was largely based on MAGIC intelligence. Since protection of this intelligence source was critical to the war effort, a cover story was developed to justify the evacuation, which eliminated Japanese espionage and potential sabotage efforts, without revealing our cryptologic success.

After nearly sixty years of questioning and hindsight, the government's cover story seems far less plausible today than it did during the early days of the war. This has led many to believe that our government's motivations during the evacuation were less than honorable.

The issue of evacuation was problematic from the outset because about two thirds of those evacuated were U.S. citizens, mostly the children of Japanese citizens. Citizen children enjoyed certain rights under the U.S. Constitution which alien parents, after the declaration of war, did not. Instead of separating families to accommodate an idealized concept of justice, the decision was made to evacuate everyone.

When President Roosevelt authorized the evacuation he observed that there would probably be "some repercussions" and urged the Secretary of War to "Be as reasonable as you can."

Considerable effort was made during and after the evacuation to provide for the material needs of evacuees and to compensate them for their losses. Crops in the field were purchased, land leases were transferred, personal property was stored and cars were bought by the Army at Blue Book value. After the war additional payments were made to settle claims against the government for losses resulting from evacuation. Seditious and treasonous conduct by large numbers of Japanese residents was not prosecuted.

To be sure, it was a difficult time, but it was a difficult time for millions of others whose lives were forever changed by the requirements and sacrifices demanded by war. For many Japanese residents evacuation and life under government care provided much needed relief from trials and threats they faced on the West Coast. Thirty-five years after the evacuation a large-scale release of MAGIC intelligence was made which provided credible justification for the evacuation, justification which the wartime cover story lacked. Although this intelligence was readily available, it was ignored by those who had begun a movement in the mid-1970s to obtain punitive damages from the U.S. government for human suffering.

In the days of national doubting following the end of the Vietnam War considerable headway was made convincing the American public that the government, acting irrationally and not from military necessity, had perpetrated a civil rights outrage worthy of redress.

In 1980 Congress established the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians to investigate the World War II incident. In 1983 the Commission's findings were presented to Congress without any reference to MAGIC and its relationship to the evacuation. Since that time, in an effort to obtain money and to rewrite history, there has been an unrelenting effort to recast the reasons for the evacuation solely in terms of racism, war hysteria and lack of political will. In short, the 1942 cover story has been ceaselessly attacked while the real reasons for evacuation as revealed by MAGIC intelligence are ignored or denied."