Posted on 03/08/2011 3:08:04 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
During the chaotic days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Basim Elkarra was passing by an Islamic school in Sacramento when he did a double-take: The windows were covered with thousands of origami paper cranes - peace symbols that had been folded and donated by Japanese Americans.
Amid the anger and suspicions being aimed at Muslims at that time, the show of support "was a powerful symbol that no one will ever forget," said Elkarra, a Muslim American community leader in California.
It was also the beginning of an unlikely bond between the two groups that has intensified as House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) prepares to launch a series of controversial hearings Thursday on radical Islam in the United States.
Spurred by memories of the World War II-era roundup and internment of 110,000 of their own people, Japanese Americans, especially on the West Coast, have been among the most vocal and passionate supporters of embattled Muslims. They've rallied public support against hate crimes at mosques, signed on to legal briefs opposing the indefinite detention of Muslims by the government, organized cross-cultural trips to the Manzanar internment camp memorial in California and held "Bridging Communities" workshops in Islamic schools and on college campuses.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
whiney politics at play again
there were more Germans rounded up than Japanese
As far as being offered an option of repatriation, the US made a deal with latin American countries to ACCEPT all their Japanese as detainees here.
We even had Canadian Japanese held as detainees. Didn't matter what their citizenship was ~
The vast majority of detained Japanese-Americans were American citizens. The vast majority of detained Germans were German citizens.
The US population at the time had at least 35 million people who KNEW they had German ancestry ~ Harry Truman had German ancestry. Arguably so did Roosevelt although I think the Germans cleverly tricked the Dutch into accepting that particular province way back in the Dark Ages.
Where were all those Germans rounded up? Are you perhaps thinking of the Jewish Germans who were rounded up in Deutschland itself? Hmm ~
Right. Thats why I included parenthesis.
The majority - 63%.
There is a single number of 5,000 out there regarding the number of Japanese-American citizens held by Japan through the war, and that will show up sometimes as the number of KIBEI ~ which is erroneous.
There were a few thousand Kibei. Most of them ended up staying in the US once Japan sent them "back home" to America. Some then went back to Japan having stronger ties there ~ many of them having married, or who had elderly relatives to care for.
Be very careful of the discussions of Kibei. Everything has been said about them that can be said.
The one thing for certain is that NO SERIOUS AMOUNT of repatriation of Japanese to Japan or Americans to the USA from Japan occurred in WWII. ALL the agreements are 1946 or later ~ WHICH IS AFTER THE WAR.
Think about it ~ we were sinking every Japanese ship we could find. They were sinking all our ships. What boat would you put those deportees on?
I would have put a “/s” just to make sure.
Think about it ~ we were sinking every Japanese ship we could find. They were sinking all our ships. What boat would you put those deportees on?
Early in the war I believe our respective diplomats and their families took ocean liners back to their home countries. I assume those wishing to return could've been returned the same way. If not this way, then there was a route open west fm Japan and East fm the US. Admittedly, I need to do a little more research.
Though at war, the U.S. and Japan negotiated a plan for the repatriation of their diplomatic corps. In July 1942, Grew and 1,450 other Americans and foreign nationals sailed from Tokyo to Lourenço Marques in Portuguese East Africa (now Maputo, Mozambique) aboard the Japanese liner Asama Maru and its backup, the Comte di Verdi. Japan's ambassador to the United States, Kichisaburo Nomura, along with 1,096 other Japanese dignitaries, sailed from New York to Lourenço Marques on the Gripsholm, a liner registered to neutral Sweden. On July 22, the exchange took place, and the Gripsholm sailed to Rio de Janeiro and then to New Jersey. [10].
His last book was about a sub-set of little known Japanese immigrants ~ the railroad guys. His father was a railroad worker.
The two big Asian groups to work the railroads were the Chinese who built the Union-Pacific, and the Japanese ~ who mostly didn't build anything, but who were decidedly more important than anyone would have imagined.
Their experience is tied in pretty much with the Chinese railway workers. If you've seen old time pictures there are these INCREDIBLE trestle bridges crossing seemingly infinitely deep chasms and holes. Those bridges followed ancient Chinese designs ~ but as a locomotive crossed over they MOVED SIDE TO SIDE and UP AND DOWN. This was unnerving to most riders. You can imagine the way the engineers took the experience.
Anyway, the way things worked out in the railroads in the 1800s you had, in general, white engineers and ticket takers, white, black and Chinese jack turners, black firemen, black brakemen, Chinese bridge builders and an assortment of others with special "skills". Some of those jobs were incredibly risky so even specialists, like brakemen, didn't last long. They either got killed, got hurt, or got another job.
In walked the Japanese (of that time) who had more than their fair share of devout Pure Earth Buddhists ~ and they not only believed in REINCARNATION they actually thought that if they died they would immediately be REINCARNATED as adults in The Western Paradise.
Men like that made great candidates for the job of engineer or engine driver ~ the guy who'd take that train across the most rickety Chinese trestle bridge or other improvised concoction ~ and he'd do it alone.
The rest of the crew and the passengers would dismount before the bridge crossing, then, if the train made it to the other side they'd walk across the bridge.
All of that didn't last terribly long and iron bridges were built through the Western mountains as fast as possible. But the Japanese stayed on ~ many brought over wives and they had children who still live in every Rocky Mountain rail town. We have several in this area whose grandfathers moved on to raising onions, a specialty of Rocky Mountain living ~ gigantic things ~ size of duck pins balls.
Another subgroup from Japan were the sons of noble families where the mother had passed on and the father had remarried. We can cover those stories later, but their experience was TOTALLY MEDIEVAL ~ American gave them plenty of distance from those out to kill them.
Your posts are always interesting, thanks.
*Where were all those Germans rounded up? Are you perhaps thinking of the Jewish Germans who were rounded up in Deutschland itself? Hmm ~*
link to list of German internment camps in the USA:
http://www.foitimes.com/internment/small.html
home page link, with many links (many photos) to navigate:
http://www.foitimes.com/internment/
another link German American Internee Coalition: http://www.gaic.info/
The first roundups of Japanese were of already FBI-identified ‘enemies’; then the obvious sympathizers, as were the first roundups of the German nationals. As the truths of horrific torture inflicted by non-Geneva-Convention-conforming Japanese combatants upon Allied troops, the Chinese, the Filipinos, Pacific Islanders became widely known, and as the sinking of Soviet, Alaskan and Mexican ships off of the West Coast continued (at one point leading to the infamous “Battle of Los Angeles”), it then truly became a matter of “their own safety” for all Japanese in California especially to be someplace other than on “The Front”, i.e., the West Coast.
What never rises above the political whine of ‘internment!’ is the background leading to it and the astounding fact that after the war, the Western Civilization was able to accept back into their communities those they warred with and lost children to; in less than 70 years that reintegration has become seamless. IMO, When viewed in a complete historical context there was nothing in the least 'sinister' about Japanese interrment during a World War, and it is a disservice to citizens of the USA to imply otherwise or attempt to link it in some way to investigation of radical Islam in America.
Oh, and they didn't lock the JAs up on the East Coast which was being assaulted by HUNDREDS of German submarines. You can see the memorials to their sinkings by the US Navy all up and down the highways from Maine to the tip of Florida.
A friend of mine who was in the German army at the age of 15 (at the end of the war) said US 1 has more memorials regarding German involvement in WWII than does all of Germany, or any other place!
I know a family who were American citizens and owned huge chunks of land along Wilshire Boulevard. The roundup and detention had to do with the desires of some with high level connections to achieve ownership of that property.
German atrocities were not revealed until the war ended and then only in murky pieces. The reporting on Japanese atrocities towards captives was very much an ongoing raw part of war reporting, primarily because the tortures were so incredibly barbaric to a civilized world otherwise fighting under Geneva Convention rules. The ruthlessness of the Japanese initially made the Germans look like rookies and raised an entirely different type of anger in the Western world than that towards the outwardly-complying-with-Geneva-Convention Germans.
I will not dispute that some Western Civilization internments (in the USA and in other nations) were of completely innocent men accused of being collaborators - i.e., neighbor ratting out neighbor or businessman ratting out a competing businessman for political/vindictive/personal gain reasons. Such is human nature and likely will never change. But I do find myself agreeing completely with the policy of removal within the context of an active and ongoing World war, and the practice of relocating the entire family instead of separating the men out and leaving the women and children behind to fend for themselves in an increasingly hostile environment. Had the Japanese military adhered to the Geneva Convention, perhaps there would have been less anamosity towards the Japanese as a whole.
"Sinister" is a good adjective for the behavior of the Japanese military during WW2, but it is especially poorly used as an adjective to describe Japanese interment camps and counts on the listener being completely ignorant of historical fact. Never Forget
The other 150,000 were free to continue roaming around.
Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, US Territory Hawaii was assigned a military governor and placed under strict Martial Law. Considering Hawaii is a cluster of islands, I’d say the imposition of curfews, and limits on island-to-island travel was a pretty equivalent lockdown for a island population that was at least one-third Japanese. And, it was much more logical than relocating that large of a population to the mainland. The key phrase is “US Territory”
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