More about internment
The venue of the convention we "attended" (meaning, the convention was ostensibly our reason for being there, but I went to very few business events) last week was a resort on the Gila River Indian Community reservation. Deliberately so. Part of the reason for going there is the good relationship between the Japanese American community and the Gila River tribe -- and to see the internment camp. Ya' see, when the government removed the Japanese American community from the West coast and parked them in desolate, isolated lands, the tribe understood exactly how that felt. Apparently, back then, they helped each other, and there continues to be a good relationship between the tribe and the local Japanese American community.
My father and his family were interned in the Gila River camp from 1942-44. Now, that period of American history is well-recognized for the blot on our collective record as a democracy. Now, most -- except anignorant obdurate minority -- acknowledge the wrong that was done, but it's been a long, hard-fought battle to come to that recognition.
This is our history -- American history -- and now, 60+ years and a terrorist attack later, most know the basic numbers: approximately 120,000 people interned, 2/3rds of whom were American citizens and a small number of whom were orphans (a real security threat, those orphans). A few know a bit more... like the fact that Japanese Americans in Hawai`i were not interned en masse despite it being ground zero of the attack and that approximately 33,000 Japanese Americans served in the military during World War II. They volunteered from Hawai`i, from all over the mainland and from the internment camps. Many of them served while their families were held against their wills behind barbed wire. They saw combat on all fronts as infantry soldiers and military intelligence interpreters. They sustained enormous casualties. The 442 Regimental Combat Team is today still the most decorated unit of its size in military history. If you ask one of those veterans about their combat record, they'll tell you that they were "cannon fodder", that their unit was viewed as something to hurl at the enemy because they were dispensible.
Japanese American women served in the armed forces too. They were support staff and nurses and translators. They faced the same discrimination as the men for being Japanese American, but they also faced sexism -- from others in the military as well as from their families who didn't think their daughters/sisters should be members of the armed forces. These young women -- whether in uniform or in camp or working on the outside -- took on new responsibilies and roles and rose to the challenge of keeping their families together in the very worst of circumstances.
There was also a group of conscientious objectors who refused to serve while their families were incarcerated. Their civil disobedience was way ahead of its time -- reviled then by leaders in the Japanese American community who were intent on proving their community's loyalty in the face of adversity and ended up instead inflicting bitter wounds that are only recently beginning to heal. The veterans, the women who held their families together, the resisters -- all of them courageous. All of them served the ideals of American democracy.
This was the situation in which my family lived for a few years in the desert. Rejected and branded disloyal outsiders by the American government and divisive community politics (facilitated by government policies). Imagine sitting in the desert in an internment camp and then being asked to swear allegiance to a country that has locked you up without due process and also promise to defend a Constitution which hasn't defended you? Even harder for the first generation Japanese Americans (born in Japan) because they were legally barred from obtaining American citizenship, yet the American government demanded an oath of allegiance and a promise of military service if so asked. How do you swear allegiance to a country which has rejected you by throwing you into an internment camp? And pick up arms for combat when you're 50 or 60 and a grandparent and don't speak English all that well? And if you do take that oath of loyalty and foreswear allegiance to your native country (Japan), then you would be without a country at all. No easy choices here.
In my grandfather's case, I think he was too old to enlist (being approximately 35 at the time), and his skills as a dentist were needed in the camp. My grandmother was 27 or so and had two young sons, younger sisters, parents and parents-in-law to care for. No easy task. Imagine -- if doing the laundry for a family is an onerous chore now, imagine how backbreaking it would have been then. Hauling it across the block to the wash room, heating the water and doing it all by hand. And they didn't have many clothes -- only what they could bring in one suitcase each -- so laundry was a frequent chore, along with sweeping the dust.
It was a hard time, not just physically but also psychologically. Being branded a security risk by your country was a tremendous scarlet letter for the adults to bear. And I think it weighed on them heavily. My great-grandfather died in that camp. He came to the United States with the bright, shiny hope to build a better life than what they had back in Japan -- but instead he died believing that he had brought his family to a place of suspicion and distrust, incarcerated as disloyal by his adopted country, in the desert. Deserted. He probably died feeling responsible for the decision to bring his family to those awful circumstances, not knowing if they would ever get their lives back. And he didn't get that life back. My father thinks he died of a broken heart. My great-grandmother wouldn't let him be buried in the desert, so far from anywhere he ever considered home, so she carried his ashes with her for years and years until she could get him back to California for his final rest.
You may know the numbers about internment, but this dark period in history is the personal tragedies of those 120,000 people. Every single family interned experienced personal tragedy and devastation -- whether it be the loss of face and humiliation of internment or the loss of land, home and family businesses or the loss of American citizenship. Many families lost loved ones in the war during combat or through suicide or (a few) because a guard at the camp shot them. The camp experience defines the history of the Japanese American community. It changed the lives of every one of the 120,000 people. That's a big number, but it represents an even larger collective tragedy.
So the numbers are important to know, but so are the stories behind those numbers. Here is a little bit more about my family's story.
My father and his family were interned in the Gila River camp from 1942-44. Now, that period of American history is well-recognized for the blot on our collective record as a democracy. Now, most -- except an
This is our history -- American history -- and now, 60+ years and a terrorist attack later, most know the basic numbers: approximately 120,000 people interned, 2/3rds of whom were American citizens and a small number of whom were orphans (a real security threat, those orphans). A few know a bit more... like the fact that Japanese Americans in Hawai`i were not interned en masse despite it being ground zero of the attack and that approximately 33,000 Japanese Americans served in the military during World War II. They volunteered from Hawai`i, from all over the mainland and from the internment camps. Many of them served while their families were held against their wills behind barbed wire. They saw combat on all fronts as infantry soldiers and military intelligence interpreters. They sustained enormous casualties. The 442 Regimental Combat Team is today still the most decorated unit of its size in military history. If you ask one of those veterans about their combat record, they'll tell you that they were "cannon fodder", that their unit was viewed as something to hurl at the enemy because they were dispensible.
Japanese American women served in the armed forces too. They were support staff and nurses and translators. They faced the same discrimination as the men for being Japanese American, but they also faced sexism -- from others in the military as well as from their families who didn't think their daughters/sisters should be members of the armed forces. These young women -- whether in uniform or in camp or working on the outside -- took on new responsibilies and roles and rose to the challenge of keeping their families together in the very worst of circumstances.
There was also a group of conscientious objectors who refused to serve while their families were incarcerated. Their civil disobedience was way ahead of its time -- reviled then by leaders in the Japanese American community who were intent on proving their community's loyalty in the face of adversity and ended up instead inflicting bitter wounds that are only recently beginning to heal. The veterans, the women who held their families together, the resisters -- all of them courageous. All of them served the ideals of American democracy.
This was the situation in which my family lived for a few years in the desert. Rejected and branded disloyal outsiders by the American government and divisive community politics (facilitated by government policies). Imagine sitting in the desert in an internment camp and then being asked to swear allegiance to a country that has locked you up without due process and also promise to defend a Constitution which hasn't defended you? Even harder for the first generation Japanese Americans (born in Japan) because they were legally barred from obtaining American citizenship, yet the American government demanded an oath of allegiance and a promise of military service if so asked. How do you swear allegiance to a country which has rejected you by throwing you into an internment camp? And pick up arms for combat when you're 50 or 60 and a grandparent and don't speak English all that well? And if you do take that oath of loyalty and foreswear allegiance to your native country (Japan), then you would be without a country at all. No easy choices here.
In my grandfather's case, I think he was too old to enlist (being approximately 35 at the time), and his skills as a dentist were needed in the camp. My grandmother was 27 or so and had two young sons, younger sisters, parents and parents-in-law to care for. No easy task. Imagine -- if doing the laundry for a family is an onerous chore now, imagine how backbreaking it would have been then. Hauling it across the block to the wash room, heating the water and doing it all by hand. And they didn't have many clothes -- only what they could bring in one suitcase each -- so laundry was a frequent chore, along with sweeping the dust.
It was a hard time, not just physically but also psychologically. Being branded a security risk by your country was a tremendous scarlet letter for the adults to bear. And I think it weighed on them heavily. My great-grandfather died in that camp. He came to the United States with the bright, shiny hope to build a better life than what they had back in Japan -- but instead he died believing that he had brought his family to a place of suspicion and distrust, incarcerated as disloyal by his adopted country, in the desert. Deserted. He probably died feeling responsible for the decision to bring his family to those awful circumstances, not knowing if they would ever get their lives back. And he didn't get that life back. My father thinks he died of a broken heart. My great-grandmother wouldn't let him be buried in the desert, so far from anywhere he ever considered home, so she carried his ashes with her for years and years until she could get him back to California for his final rest.
You may know the numbers about internment, but this dark period in history is the personal tragedies of those 120,000 people. Every single family interned experienced personal tragedy and devastation -- whether it be the loss of face and humiliation of internment or the loss of land, home and family businesses or the loss of American citizenship. Many families lost loved ones in the war during combat or through suicide or (a few) because a guard at the camp shot them. The camp experience defines the history of the Japanese American community. It changed the lives of every one of the 120,000 people. That's a big number, but it represents an even larger collective tragedy.
So the numbers are important to know, but so are the stories behind those numbers. Here is a little bit more about my family's story.
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