MovieChat Forums > American Pastime (2007) Discussion > American concentration camps

American concentration camps

posted 17 years ago by 74762-2104
23 replies | jump to latest

Imagine being born here in the US...A citizen of this country and because of your ethnicity being told you have just days to leave all your household goods, homes, businesses and such--Not knowing where you are going or when or if you will ever return. Allowed a single suitcase and being rounded up, taken to a racetrack paddock with thousands of others, instead of your nice warm beds you sleep for days on straw in horse stalls amid massive confusion, surrounded by armed military guards whose loathing, fear and hatred are palpable--You're then loaded on freight trains and journey through the night to be unloaded within a muddy field surrounded by barbed wire and more of the same armed military guards. Herded like sheep--children crying, screaming, confusion--Crowded tents to live in while the men among you are set to build shelters--Keeping in mind you are a US BORN CITIZEN who has not broken any law. Habeas corpus suspended for the Japanese on the West Coast. BTW, when Germany declared war on the US there was no roundup of German citizens. And for histories sake--There was NEVER a single incident of Japanese sabotage from any Japanese/American citizen during the war, but several from Germans on the East Coast. And the all Japanese combat regiment the 442 was the most decorated during The War.
Oh yeah, about this flick--I'd never even heard of it until I saw the trailer on the Eastwood dvd for "Letters from Iwo Jima" and found this site to see if it was available.

[–] metalliplasty 17 years ago

Let's not be too hasty. Calling the internment camps "concentration camps" is a huge slap in the face of those who actually suffered the devastating existence that were concentration camps. The internment camps weren't an easy pill to swallow, but they fall well short of concentration camps in terms of inhumanity and abominable conditions.

While it is true that no German or Italian Americans were interred, the reasoning is fairly obvious even if unfair. It was much easier to determine who the Japanese Americans were based on a simple a test as sight. Granted, there were other Asian Americans here at that point, but it was still simpler to find Japanese Americans than it would have been to find German or Italian Americans.

Furthermore, the Japanese were seen as the instigators of war in American eyes. Their attack on Pearl Harbor lead to a somewhat understandable anger in Americans towards all things Japanese.

Those things being said, the internment of Japanese Americans who were good and noble citizens of the nation is a blight on our history. There is no getting around that. It wasn't the first time a group of people were mistreated in America, and it wasn't the last. As horrible as the situation was, we still need to keep a great appreciation of context in place so that it isn't trivialized by overstating or understating the facts.

[–] UglyToesPete 17 years ago

Holy moly!

This is the first time in my life I utter this phrase.

Right metalliplasty. Plus, you can speak for me.

Obviously, I'm single.

UTP in Montréal.

[–] dolceveneno 17 years ago

Well said metalliplasty. In order for history to show us the truth, it must never be over or under exaggerated, it must be told in the context of the time and place.

That said, America has wronged it's own people because this group happens to have a Japanese ancestry, it is a form of racism and prejudice. Our country is very guilty of this throughout our history to many other groups of people.

We must never let fear control us or use fear to justify our ignorance.

[–] hartig 17 years ago

Well, you make the obvious point. Comparing the internment camps to concentration camps is not only absurd, it's offensive. How many Japanese-Americans were put into ovens and gas chambers or starved to death?

However, it's really easy for us to say, sitting here today with history all sorted out, that this was "a blight on our history." It certainly looks that way, knowing what we know, 66 years removed from Pearl Harbor, etc. And I'm sure some will think me some kind of fascist for even suggesting that maybe it was an understandable, if not necessary, evil.

I think, really, it just goes to show how rotten and awful a thing war can be -- not only for those actively fighting it, but those whose lives are impacted in other ways.

It's very sad, of course, that Japanese-Americans were sent to internment camps. But I think it's just way too easy to sit here in the position we're in now and cast stones at those who made the policy. They didn't have the comfort that we have -- comfort that these people are, in part, responsible for.

[–] 9inchnail 17 years ago

It's NOT offensive to call these camps concentration camps, people are not killed in concentration camps. What you refer to are extermination camps. Nazi Germany had many concentration camps but only a few extermination camps to which jews and other prisoners were deported. A concentration camp is simply a camp where a special group of people is held. The term concentration camp still applies to many prisons throughout the world. Guantanamo is per definition a concentration camp since only muslims are kept there. I'd also call the camps they recently had in Germany during the G8-summit concentration camps.

[–] adamchall 17 years ago

Calling the animals in Guantanamo Muslims is an insult to Muslims. And calling those holiday camps (ever see people playing baseball and gardening at Buchenwald?) where a certain percentage of Japanese american spies (and unfortunately some a number of innocent americans spent a number of months) a concentration camp IS insulting to Holocaust victims) Here is the definition of Concentration Camp from Websters, the Japanese had adequate facilities so your explanation really misses the mark as far as Webster definition is concerned (and they actually get paid to spout definitions!):

concentration camp
noun
a place where large numbers of people, esp. political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass execution. The term is most strongly associated with the several hundred camps established by the Nazis in Germany and occupied Europe in 1933–45, among the most infamous being Dachau, Belsen, and Auschwitz.

[–] salimy3k 13 years ago

Over half of the people herded into Guantanamo were freed due to 'lack of evidence' - oh, but they're all animals to you right? I guess according to adamchall you REALLY ARE guilty until proved innocent!

[–] chrissso 8 years ago

You have issues comprehending English ... your definition of concentration camp describes the Topaz camp perfectly. See here ...

a place where large numbers of people, esp. political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass execution.

The term is most strongly associated (this does not mean exclusively) with the several hundred camps established by the Nazis in Germany and occupied Europe in 1933 to 45, among the most infamous being Dachau, Belsen, and Auschwitz.

Topaz was certainly a concentration camp and sugar coating it in any way is denial and justification. There is no justification for what we did to Japanese Americans. It was racism and bigotry and fear mongering to the max.

Also there was a class of camps in Germany known as Extermination Camps. They were Auschwitz/Birkenau, Majdanek, Chelmo, Belzec, Treblinka and Sobibor.

[–] thebloody9 17 years ago

Lots of people were interned. Germans, Italians, Japanese, Latin Americans.

And the fact is the only Japanese that were interned are the ones that refused to renounce their loyalty to Japan before Pearl Harbor and their immediate families.
There were over 20,000 American citizens of Japanese descent that relocated to Japan before Pearl Harbor and supported the Japanese war effort against America.

Meanwhile Japanese spy rings were active in the USA.

The most widely reported examples of espionage and treason are the Tachibana spy ring and the Niihau Incident. The Tachibana spy ring was a group of Japanese nationals who were arrested shortly before the Pearl Harbor attack and were deported.[citation needed] The Niihau Incident occurred just after the Pearl Harbor attack, two Japanese Americans on Niihau freed a captured Japanese pilot and assisted him in his machine-gun attack on Native Hawaiians there.[21] Despite this incident taking place in Hawaii, the Territorial Governor rejected calls for wholesale internment of Japanese Americans in the Islands.

"Some present-day supporters of the internment have argued that some Japanese Americans were indeed disloyal, as seen by the approximately 20,000 Japanese Americans in Japan at the start of the war who joined the Japanese war effort, hundreds joining the Japanese Army.[citation needed] One particular example is Tomoya Kawakita, an American citizen who worked as an interpreter and a POW guard for the Japanese army, and who actively participated in the torture (and at least one death) of American soldiers, including survivors of the Bataan Death March. Kawakita was convicted for treason and imprisoned"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment

[–] jinhay 16 years ago

The loyalty question was asked after the Pearl Harbor attack in 1943 to the "enemy aliens" incarcerated in the internment camps.
http://densho.org/learning/spice/lesson5/5reading5.asp

I won't argue that it is absurd to believe there weren’t any disloyal Japanese-Americans in a group of people that numbered at least 110,000 interned plus those living in Hawaii and other parts of the internal areas of the U.S.

But please consider the following question.
If you relocated 100,000 people of any nationality behind barb wire with armed guards, denied the immigrants among them naturalization rights through immigration laws and interned their children who were natural-born citizens... What are the chances that many of them would not be willing to give up their citizenship to another country or would be willing to fight for the country that imprisoned them?

I find it remarkable that in this situation, 95% of the people still remained loyal to the U.S. and only 5% refused to give up their citizenship to another country.

Even in times of war, there have been people with a lot more freedom and privileges who have been more disloyal, yet were not imprisoned for their actions.

The argument between calling “internment camps” and “concentration camps” seems silly. There is little to compare between the German and American camps.
But if President Roosevelt and Truman and General Eisenhower could use the term “concentration camp” to describe the American camps, why the uproar? While it was not a picnic to live in the American camps, they also weren’t death camps or extermination camps like those in Germany.

My hope is that the internment camps provide a lesson on what happens when people let the fear of the unknown overcome their sense of reason.

[–] jmatsu 15 years ago

The selection of who to intern and who not to, was NOT based on their renouncing Japan--that is one of the many things that make the internment wrong.

The loyalty questionnaire was administered after internment. Many found the wording confusing and didn't know how to respond. Some were concerned about the consequences of answering yes. Some rejected it because they were angry.

You probably know this, but I mention it because perhaps other people do not: but some of the people that were taken away to the camps never returned. They died there. For some it was the harsh living conditions. At least 6 were shot and killed.

A man was shot for standing too close to a fence. Some were shot during peaceful demonstrations. One was shot because the guard was in a bad mood. Some were shot "trying to escape"--though there were questions about how accurate that reason was.

The internment wasn't just a brief interruption--like being sent to jail for a few years, after which they could go back to their normal lives. The lucky ones had friends on the outside who looked after things, but many lost their homes and almost everything they owned. After the war they had to start over, sometimes in an atmosphere of great hostility.

[–] Ddey65 17 years ago

While it is true that no German or Italian Americans were interred...

Actually, that's not true. We interred Germans and Italians, but mostly those who sided with the Axis.

[–] borisf_98 17 years ago

Actually there was roundup of German and Italian Nazi sympathizers. I saw a documentary on American Nazis and showed internment camps where Germans, Italians and Japanese were help together.

[–] definately_dodgy_d 17 years ago

You dont produce trailers for movies do you ?

very dramatic statement.....but woefully off the mark of what was reality.

Keep writing the stories for left wing wannabe.com, im sure you'll get there in the end.

[–] Carly_fan 17 years ago

We Americans always held ourselves higher than the Japanese and Nazi's during WW2, but what about the treatment by Americans against Native Americans?

The Nazi's could've learned a thing or two about torture amd ethnic cleansing from the US Army and US government in the way they butchered and slaughtered them like animals.

but I guess that's different...

[–] flame_heart 17 years ago

you think similar *beep* happens with any "arab-looking" people?

[–] Ddey65 17 years ago

They're certainly more likely to be suspected of terrorism, since radical islam does fuel most of the terrorism today(the keyword being "most"). But to answer your question, "no." America is not throwing "arab-looking people" in conectration camps.

[–] adamchall 17 years ago

Just the ones that swear allegiance to Al-Qaeda , like the folks that did the same for Hirohito. Not every Japanese American went into a relocation center (some were in the Army!) just like not every Muslim is arrested for being a terrorist (some are in the Army!). It becomes sticky when you refuse to swear allegiance to the U.S. Constitution in favor of Hirohito (they usually forget to mention that part in the movies and "survivor" novels), when your not a US citizen (over 40% of the Japanese interned were Japanese nationals!) and when you spend your days playing baseball and gardening its not exactly the worst place in the world considering the nation was in a full tilt war (just think they COULD have been in the Army getting shot at). People want to lump this in with the great suffering of the 20th century as if it even holds a candle to what was happening to innocent Jews/Catholics/Gypsies at the hands of the Axis powers, not to mention what the Japanese did to the Chinese at Nanjing which was probably one of the most unspeakable acts ever committed and with the sole purpose of killing civilians for sport ,not just for the pleasure of the Japanese Army but for the Japanese citizens reading the papers back home in savage body count contests, not to mention what Mitsubishi (bet some of you buy there cars to this day without a thought!) did with U.S. war prisoners, the list goes on. Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not have enough eyes and teeth to make up for what was done to China, U.S. Australia etc. With these sort of folks breathing down your necks, its regrettable the US government overreacted and innocent people were forced to leave there homes, but comparing this action to genocidal regimes like the Nazis and Japanese Imperials is insulting to Americans, you spoiled brats who think it would be such a tragedy if the relocation center today didn't have a Starbucks. Statistically, there had to be innocent Japanese American folks mixed up in getting sent to baseball camp, but none of them were beheaded with a Samurai sword because of the shape of THEIR eyes or whether they were Japanese.

[–] JJC-3 15 years ago

Love the way "adamchall" calls these concentration camps "baseball camps" like they were a FUN place to be!!!!!!!!!!!!

You had AMERICAN CITIZENS BORN HERE IN THE GOOD OLD US OF A. Herded up & fenced in just because their ancestry was of Japanese, German & Italian background.

Families had two choices their children could be separated from them and the "state" would take care of them if no one else would or they could go with the parents. Since many parents were the immigrants and the children were American citizens many Americans were in prision through no fault of their own!

As the movie so plainly depicts the older son of one of the families come back from Europe and is treated like dirt by the townspeople despite having given his all (losing a leg) for AMERICA!

Yup sounds like this was a real fair arraingement to me, NOT!

The same kind of crud the media tried to stir up after 9/11.

[–] adamchall 17 years ago

The U.S. Army fighting some battles with tribes had nothing on what certain tribes had been doing for centuries before to one another. And they have nothing on what was done by that group of folks that gets a pass these days on there own brutal history in the Americas - The Spanish.

[–] Tsavo 8 years ago

The United States Army was not just "fighting some battles with tribes". While battles did indeed take place, a lot of the time rather one-sided, there were also wholesale massacres of tribes, women, and children being beaten to death, raped, mutilated, amongst other things. Using the term "battle" to describe events like these is woefully dishonest. Additionally, the argument that some were worse than we were does NOT make us any less guilty of said acts.

"Aw Crap!" - Hellboy

[–] ghatbkk 15 years ago

During WWII, the United States interned US Citizens of German, Italian and Japanese descent. Not just Japanese. And it did so without ANY due process, completely in violation of the US Constitution, the very document that EVERY Federal Government elected official and EVERY serviceman swears to uphold. Even J. Edgar Hoover, not exactly known for his concern with the Consitution, recommended against the internment camps. They were wrong and they were illegal. The fact that they came into existence just demonstrates that we, the American people, are just as susceptiple to fears and to being manipulated as the German people were.

[–] chrissso 8 years ago

BRAVO! BRAVO! BRAVO!

I am amazed at the small minds that try to justify this horrid part of our history. Simply put peoples lives were ruined for no reason at all except small minded fear!