Nick,

This was one of the most shameful episodes of modern US/Canadian history and
one that Canada has never apologized or compensated in any meaningful way.

In Canada (I don't know the US side of this as well, so I can't generalize)
families were all rounded up, their possessions taken away from them and put
into (concentration) camps for the entire war with Japan.  In the camps, the
internees were unable to speak their own language and they could not observe
their cultural traditions.  Virtually all of the people were from the west
coast and they were all resettled in Ontario (ie Central Canada) without any
kind of compensation for their property or the time spent in the camps.

The children of the internees have virtually the same social and emotional
problems as the children of Nazi concentration camp survivors.  In the
neighborhood I grew up in, there were several families where the parents had
been through this experience and it was obvious they had been through an
extremely traumatic experience (ie unable to look anybody white in the eye
and at 10 years old I was called "sir").

What I always found to be the sad irony about all this is that before and
after this experience the families did not consider themselves "Japanese"
nor did they call themselves "Japanese Canadians" - they all call themselves
"Canadians".

The rational for doing this was to protect these people from possible racist
attacks.

myke


----- Original Message -----
From: "Nick Taylor" <ntaylor@JPS.NET>
To: <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 5:44 PM
Subject: [OT] A war question


> Please forgive yet another OT post.  There are many thoughtful and
> well informed people on this list who have posted a wide variety of
> positions on the current situation ... great food for thought.
>
> One of my neighbors posed the following:
>
> In early 1942 the US government rounded up and interned ALL persons
> in California (and a few other areas) of Japanese heritage; American
> citizens, non-citizen permanent residents, and visitors.  He proposed
> that within the next few days that we collect and intern all persons
> of Arabic descent.  What do you think of his proposal?
>
> My memories of the family of one of my best friends down the street
> packing a few meager belongings in suitcases ... abandoning their
> house, furniture, pets, and much of their possessions ... driving
> off into the unknown ... are still very clear almost sixty years
> later.  I never did see my friend again.
>
> I am very much against taking such action, and deplore the recent
> reports of bombings of mosques.
>
> Regards,
>   -Nick T.
>
> --
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>
>

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