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."
Don't they bring this up every year? They need to be reminded annually of the vicious and cruel torture their homeland meted out to our allied forces.
With all due respect, this is right up there with one of the most ignorant statements I have ever heard.
these people may have been Japanese but they were Japanese-Americans!. Apparently your not aware that the Japanese-AMERICAN regiment that fought in the European theater (given the title, butter heads) during warII were the most highly declarated group of soldiers during the War in Europe and what did they come home to? Nothing! The US government had seized everything from them....
Read up on the Niihau affair then come back and comment.
We know all of that now. In 1941, that was not the case. We were naked in the Pacific and naked in home security. We had nothing.
In general, I'm still waiting for any nation to formally apologize or make reparations to the U.S. How about those Brits for the War of 1812? The Japanese for Pearl Harbor? The Germans, Italians, and French for their roles in World Wars? Anyone for Iranian hostage crisis, the 1983 bombing of our barracks, the Somalia fiasco, the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, or the WTC attack?
The U.S. is the only country that beats the hell out someone when attacks, then proceeds to give the clymers financial assistance to rebuild. The movie The Mouse that Roared is still applicable today.
Time to move on, Betty. The statute of limitations for whining expired some time ago.
Are you interested in defending the New Deal Democrats?
What a lark!
You're more interested in defending FDR liberal socialism and DemoKrat social engineering!
Are you REALLY a conservative?
Despite what the news media tries to convince us, most of the internees were *not* United States citizens. They were Japanese nationals.
Incorrect. Most were children and were born in the United States. Please see the website http://www.children-of-the-camps.org
Betty has already been compensated more than my father was for fighting her countrymen, who would have raped the United States just like they raped Nanking if we had lost the war
See above (the incarcerated were mostly US citizens). In fact, most of the individuals who were NOT US citizens were specifically barred from US citizenship by unconstitutional and un-American exclusion laws written under other Democrat regimes in the early 1900's.
Keep it up losers...you're a liberal mouthpiece and I'll hang your history like the ashheap it deserves.
He says: boo hoo hoo. you got shipped away . . . at least you weren't shipped away, gassed, and sent to the ovens OR sitting in downtown Hiroshima when a certain drop was dropped. You should thank God that it wasn't worse.
Well, the reality is that many of the family members of those INCARCERATED in FDR's concentration camps DID have family members INCINERATED at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. MOST of the immigration from Japan in the period from 1880-1920 came from the southern conservative regions of Japan (the island of Kyushu). The real history is that FDR nuked the areas which could serve as a immigration pathway for other family members. By incinerating two cities which had ties to the United States, FDR insured that the west coast Japanese community would not be capable of growing a conservative option.
This lead to 60 years of liberalism infecting the Japanese American community. It's called Stockholm Syndrome (when the captive begin to love their abusive terrorist-like captors... see any modern psych textbook).
By the way, since you bring up the ovens of Europe, you should correct your facts and realize that it was JAPANESE AMERICANS who were part of the initial allied forces to arrive in Dauchau. If you took the time to review the history of the 442/522nd Artillery regiment, you will find out that some of the guys in the 522nd were the guys who located some of the camps in Dauchau. It's why some Jewish and Japanese American families enjoy bagels and sushi parties. But, then again, you're probably not familiar with the people who either survived the US FDR camps or the German Nazi ones either.
It's ok. You're misshapen history and faked up facts are a great testimony to the ability of liberally controlled media to alter the facts and rewrite the history. In fact, you are a living example of the ability to propagandize an entire generation of Americans and to pollute the waters with ink from Communist origins.
The forcible confiscation of homes, businesses, land, and family members on the basis of race is NOT justifiable under ANY circumstances. This much is clear from our President's laudable commentary in the wake of the 9-11 attacks.
Removal of Japanese-Americans was couched by the liberals in FDR's cabinet as being for "security" and "protection of the individual". However, the real truth is apparent when one does a thorough analysis of the land, business, and asset conversion following 1942. Look at who and what gained the lands on Bainbridge Island, Washington and Terminal Island, California.
You should evaluate the real economic reasons that Americans of Japanese descent were put in a concentration camp by FDR. The reasons are political and economic. Someone wanted to alter votes. Greedy others wanted the land and businesses (because they were too weak and too corrupt to actually build it themselves).
I am not familiar with the Niihau affair. Please post info.
In another thought, I suppose you support the Jerry Bruckheimer version of Pearl Harbor? The imagery of civilians under attack were laughably incorrect and reflects the inherent bias of Hollywierd. The fact is that Japanese zeros were buzzing and threatening the Americans of Japanese descent who were a MAJORITY population in Hawaii. Keep up your history discussion. If you stray from facts with Hollywierd's propaganda, you'll rapidly be sunk by first person stories from first person reports from the people under attack.
Why don't you POST and WRITE regarding the Niihau affair yourself and present the info to us?
Afraid of a little review by minions like me?
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