At first glance, the photograph at the top of this post looks like it
might have been taken at a US military encampment somewhere on the far
side of the world. There are neat rows of uninsulated tar paper covered
temporary barracks, facing onto a central, dust-swirled bare dirt parade
ground, an American flag flying prominently, all in the shadow of high,
almost indescribably beautiful mountains. A closer look, however, shows
a very human, very non-military detail: children running through an
otherwise static scene.
Manzanar
In reality, this picture was taken at a United States concentration
camp. In 1942, over 110,000 men, women and children of Japanese descent,
the vast majority of whom were US citizens, were rounded up at
gunpoint, their homes and property seized and forfeited, and
transported, along with only those few possessions that each could carry
in their hands, to various camps such as this one at Manzanar, located
in the high desert of California's Owens Valley.
Herded into crudely built, inadequately heated shacks with questionable
communal sanitation, and forced to work in plantations surrounding the
compound, none of them knew how long they would be held, or if they
would ever be free again. One detail seldom mentioned today are the
eight guard towers that were placed around the perimeter of the
facility, each with multiple, permanently mounted large caliber machine
guns capable of a high rate of fire, manned 24 hours a day, pointing
directly into the residential area.
In a testimony to the resilience of the human spirit, the detainees were
able to maintain their dignity under almost intolerable conditions. A
patchwork social structure was soon established out of a population that
up until then were mostly strangers to each other; what they all had in
common, besides sharing a heritage, and the reality of their detention,
was a basic sense of honor and courage in the face of adversity, passed
down through Japanese families over centuries. Schools were
established; sports, music instruction, art classes and other
recreational activities encouraged, and those with prior medical
education and training cared for the ailing and infirm. And throughout
the years of their imprisonment, they never let go of the hope that some
day, they would be released from their long exile.
After the end of World War II in 1945, these Japanese prisoner of war
families were allowed to return "home" to rebuild their lives, although
the houses they once owned were no longer theirs, their businesses and
financial assets seized, their jobs long gone. It is a supreme irony
that, even while our nation was fighting, in the noblest of causes,
against the oppression of Fascist powers overseas, we engaged in a
certain amount of tyranny ourselves.
These events aren't taught in U.S. history classes, but luckily, this
one small part of the American experience has been well documented, and
anyone wishing to really dig into the history of the so-called "war
relocation camps" can do so easily. Also fortunately, there are numerous
photos taken at the camps, by such well known photographers as Dorothea
Lange and Ansel Adams, as well as by some of the internees themselves,
like Toyo Miyatake.
After Manzanar
Although I'm not old enough to have been a witness to that time and
place, I did meet many others of Japanese descent who were. My family
moved to the US from Japan not very long after the camps were closed,
and settled in a town that had a sizable Japanese community. The
interesting thing is, that even though I grew up among, and had daily
interaction with families whose older members had themselves been
incarcerated, I was totally unaware until much later in life that
anything so momentous had ever happened: they simply never talked about
it.
The Japanese families of my youth lived in neat, well kept houses,
unsegregated, alongside everyone else in what was then a dynamic,
multi-ethnic working class town, among first and second generation
Italian, Yugoslav, Polish, Hungarian, and Jewish families, as well as
long time US residents, and other immigrants from all over the world.
Many of the new arrivals had their own stories to tell, as refugees who
fled the horrors of war torn Fascist Europe, but they didn't dwell on
it; instead, they were all busy becoming, or getting back to being,
fully American.
The Lessons Of History
The story of Manzanar and the incarceration of an entire nationality
of people is just an example of an essentially good and decent society
collectively having a really bad idea, fostered in a climate of
xenophobia and fear, and turning that bad idea into reality. It's nice
to think that we can learn the lessons of history, and that nothing like
this could ever happen again, but - we might just be wrong about that.
When
the eventual nominee of one of our major political parties came down a
gold plated escalator and announced his intention to run for the office
of the Presidency of the United States, he immediately made clear what
was to be the focal point of his candidacy. From the beginning, and
throughout the long campaign season, the former television "reality"
show star has demonized those of Mexican descent as thieves, rapists and
murderers, and threatened a crackdown on followers of Islam. For the
first time in the history of our country, a presidential campaign has
been explicitly based upon bigotry, religious intolerance and openly
voiced racism. Nothing underscores this point better than the fact that
every Neo-Nazi and white supremacist group, including the Ku Klux Klan,
has endorsed the Republican candidate.
Deliberately
using fear as a rhetorical device, and stoking resentment and hatred
among his followers, a disproportionate majority of whom are white
males, the Republican party nominee has called for the rounding up of
millions of immigrant families of Hispanic descent, repeatedly
denigrated members of other nationalities, encouraged violence at his
political rallies, and suggested the assassination of the opposing
party's candidate. He has portrayed the press as corrupt, mocked the
disabled, demeaned the service of veterans and aid workers, and
regularly directs derogatory language and fat-shaming towards women.
Endangering both our economic stability and national security, he
advocates cancelling international trade agreements, backs the
dismantling of long standing multi-nation treaties and non-aggression
pacts, and has considered the use of nuclear weapons in Europe and the
Middle East.
As extreme as this candidacy may appear,
the Republican party's leadership has nevertheless given their blessing
and full backing to the nominee, effectively endorsing his policies and
positions. Since that party currently controls the other branches of
government, there is the very real possibility that the outcome of this
year's presidential election will not only determine the short term
political landscape, but also alter the very fabric of our nation's
society, in ways we may not be able to imagine.
* * *
A final note (thanks to
Charles Pierce for the info):
Korematsu v. United States, the legal case argued before the Supreme Court
in
1944, which by a vote of 6-3 upheld the government's right to mass
incarcerate U.S. citizens of a given ethnicity or nationality, has to
this day never been overturned.
