On February 19th, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 ordering all people of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast to be incarcerated in concentration/internment camps. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, HI, Japanese Americans were uprooted from their homes, jobs and schools and forced into barracks caged in barbed wire and gun towers. Many of these camps were located in desert areas such as Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Arkansas and remote parts of California. There, the Japanese spent over two years enduring harsh weather conditions, disgusting food, make shift schooling and mass isolation from the world. In late 1943, Japanese American's were forced to answer and sign a questionnaire declaring their loyalty to America and the American government. This prompted the US government to pull the second generations or the
nisei and recruit them for military service. This questionnaire later became an incentive for release from the camps so many Japanese citizens responded "yes". And the people who voted "no" were sent to a "maximum security prison camp" called Tule Lake, located in Northern California.
I decided to use the picture above to illustrate the fact that during World War II, the Japanese were a "stranger" or an "alien", despite their allegiance or citizenship. Their presence was legally mandated to be moved to a different part of the country. Japanese Americans faced prejudices and immense racism during this period in history to where people would write signs saying "Japs Keep Moving" or "Japs Get Out". Their businesses would be vandalized and their child How could a government incarcerate their own citizens, who were born on America's own soil? And in particular to present day time, why is the government still incarcerating their own citizens in prisons based on their religious preferences and race? I'm referring to the "mass surveillance and indefinite detentions" of possible "terrorist threats" that Muslim and Arab men face due to 9/11.Why is history repeating itself even after 72 years of "progress"?
Such an insightful posting, Veronica. The term, "enemy alien," which was applied to Issei, also--in practice--was applied to Nisei who, to no small degree, could be defined as "alien citizens" (in Mae Ngai's definition). I like how you bring Simmel's concept of the stranger to bear on Japanese Americans who, during a moment of perceived national crisis (i.e., wartime emergency), were sacrificed at the altar of national security.
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