Posted on 02/18/2002 4:05:49 PM PST by RCW2001
Japanese-Americans recall the pain of World War II internment 60 years later
Monday, February 18, 2002
©2002 Associated Press
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2002/02/18/state1949EST0101.DTL
(02-18) 16:49 PST SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) --
It's been 60 years, but the pain of destroying her mother's kimonos and anything else of Japanese origin still stings Betty Haruko Nishi. She remembers all too well how the federal government forced thousands of Japanese to give up their homes and businesses to live in internment camps during World War II.
"Everything happened so fast. My dad's new tractor, we had to leave behind. We couldn't take anything Japanese," Nishi, 72, told the San Jose Mercury News. "It was horrible."
President Roosevelt signed an Executive Order on Feb. 19, 1942, forcing about 120,000 Japanese-Americans -- many of them U.S. citizens living on the West Coast -- away from their homes, jobs and farms and into 10 internment camps.
The U.S. government did not formally apologize or make reparations to internment survivors until 1989.
Former internees say they hope a lesson was learned from their pain and that others aren't treated the same during America's war on terrorism.
"I hope the same thing doesn't happen to the Middle Easterners," said Dave Tatsuno, whose family was forced to sell their store's merchandise and move to Topaz in the Utah desert. "Most of them are innocent like we were. The country has to be careful to never again fall into the trap of condemning a people due to ancestry."
Nishi had just celebrated her 12th birthday with her family in Turlock when she was sent to a filthy assembly center in Merced with her parents, five brothers and sister. Nishi's mother went temporarily blind with stress, and her siblings got pneumonia and ulcers.
Four months later, they shared two stark rooms in Amanche, Colo., and watched many young men leaving the camps to fight for the United States overseas. Ultimately, the all-Japanese 100th Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team suffered the highest casualty rate and became the most decorated unit in U.S. military history for its size and length of service.
"Looking back I remember the deep well of pain the experience caused my parents," Nishi said. "It is something that will always be in my heart."
Katie Hironaka, 82, also can't forget, even though she admits the camps -- in a strange way -- may have saved lives.
"What was done to us was wrong," said Hironaka, who was a new mother sent to Heart Mountain, Wyo., with her parents and brothers.
"And yet, there was so much prejudice and ignorance, who knows how many Japanese homes would have been burned, how many citizens would have been hurt or even killed if we had been around?" she said. "In that way it was good, and yet it was so terrible as well."
Around here, an 8 hour second shift usually ends between 11:00 pm to 12:30 am. Get off at 12, grab some groceries, come home, fix supper, eat, and sit down for the daily freep and it's 3:30 am. :^)
They thought the Constitution was a suicide pact.
I hope you enjoy Ameristan...
Hmmm, some math. End of shift at 12:30 AM minus an 8 hour shift would mean you should be at work at 4:30 PM, if you skip lunch.
You're posting at 4:45 PM.
You don't really have a job, do you? (Unless you count welfare recipient as a job)...
My statement: Besides that thread looked like it started because someone questioned the true brutality of it. Anyone that does not believe that really happened. I have a couple of vets that work at the local VFW that would like to punch them square in the nose. They were two of the soldiers that took the survivors home.
Your response: What happened happened. A necessary deed, legalized by the Constitution.
Whew and you question my patriotism? You are calling the torture against Americans in Jap POW camps "A necessary deed"
Yet, we digress from the fact that you're still arguing for a "classless" society... which is straight out of Marx...
If you are a second-shifter...it explains that you're a tired worker who wants to unite his union/workers party.... NOT!
What the hell are you talking about?
I never said I was a second shifter. I'm a day shifter and an at-home currency trader. Used to be a second shifter back in February. The currency markets have their changes-of-trends from 2 am to 9 am Central mostly, that's when the action is. Sometimes my sleep is divided in half. I'm only in my thirties and I'm trying to retire by 40. :^) If not, fine, I can keep working too.
Ok, I believe in principles. LOL
How am I outnumbered if my community is all Americans?
If everyone is the same, move to Harlem.
I don't live in Harlem because I don't live in New York.
A truly principled man would move to New York to prove that all people are tha same. :^)
DUH!! Why don't you live in Harlem?
Because I prefer the people I live around to be a lot like me, like 90 percent of everyone else.
Is Harlem the only place in the US where a white American can be outnumbered?
Pick anywhere where there are less than 10% of your race. There are plenty of places.
I have all along said Japs were interned and it was wrong. You say yes, then no not quite, then yes again then, not that way then, yes again then, no, no, only some of them. You need to get your story straight. Everyone knows in order to hold a citizen without cause or reason you need to suspend habeas corpus. I will remember next time I debate with you that I need to start at a more elementary level so you can keep up.
Yes you could at least know the particulars of the subject, instead of relying on your discussion partner to explain everything to you.
Besides since it can only be suspended during rebellion or invasion, where was the rebellion or invasion?
The Japanese invaded our airspace.
Don't give me that invaded airspace song and dance either. Show me where a Jap army set foot on continental US soil.
So an invasion isn't an invasion unless feet are on soil? OK, they invaded the Philippines, an American possession. Something else you probably didn't know.
Whew and you question my patriotism? You are calling the torture against Americans in Jap POW camps "A necessary deed"
What torture?
I can't post on the job. We have intranet, not internet.
Yet, we digress from the fact that you're still arguing for a "classless" society... which is straight out of Marx...
I am opposed to government-subsidized classes.
If you are a second-shifter...it explains that you're a tired worker who wants to unite his union/workers party.... NOT!
I never said I am a second-shifter.
You say the word "racist" as much as a liberal.
You can't or won't answer questions.
I've answered every one of your questions.
You can't get your story straight.
Where have I been inconsistant?
So now you are saying that American soldiers were not tortured by the Japanese soldiers.
I never said that.
You just keep getting more stupid as you go.
You're getting more and more out of touch with reality.
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