Manzanar:  The Contoversy                         

         It is not the place of this website to "second-guess" the actions of those who were in a different time and situation than the present, but historians are generally not very complimentary about the actions of the US government in regards to the wartime internment of Japanese residents in the United States.  The fact that legal residents of the United States, both citizens and non-citizens, were involuntarily removed from their homes and put in what some have termed "concentration camps," is universally condemned by nearly everyone day.  Was this action defensible? Was is fair? Was it even legal? Why did it happen and, most importantly, can it ever happen again?  These are the questions that concern those who view the episode from the safe distance of 60+ years and with no personal experience of the time.  To the people who were there--in that time and place--the questions were: Are the Japanese dangerous? Will these "foreign" residents among us cause trouble? Will the Japanese invade and, most importantly, can we stop them if they do?
         Hindsight and information not available to the people of the time indicate that there was little, if any, danger from the resident Japanese and not much more from Japanese forces as far as mainland America was concerned.  At the time, however, Imperial Japanese armed forces were rolling-over every enemy and every obstacle in the Pacific--including American possessions. The city of Santa Barbara on the coast of California was shelled.  The Aleutian Islands were invaded and some of them occupied by the Japanese. The British navy, thought at the time to be the most powerful in the world, had lost to the Japanese on numerous occasions and our own Pacific Fleet was crippled at Pearl Harbor.  Were Americans afraid?  Absolutely.  Was that feeling natural?  Also, absolutely true.  Were these fears unfounded? To a great extent it seems so and the happenings of history proved that they were unfounded. At the time, however, the average American citizen felt that Japan was not only an enemy, but a treacherous one at that. Couple this anxiety with the common racism that prevailed at the time and vast public support for the internment of Japanese residents was the result.
         What of the US government? How much of the responsibility for the internment was theirs?  The President of the United States was given unprecedented powers by the War Powers Act, but the situation was unprecedented. Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) had just been elected to an equally unprecedented third term as President (and would be elected a fourth time in 1944).  He was trusted by the American people--as was the government in general--to do the right thing. Under FDR's leadership, the country had pulled itself out of the "Great Depression," and the citizens of the United States were quite used to, and generally supportive of, government control of most economic aspects of their life. Under the War Powers Act and other congressional acts, the government interfered in the lives of ALL of its citizens. Necessary items--as determined by the government--were rationed or set aside exclusively for government use.  Travel by anyone was restricted by fiat in certain areas (especially so along the west coast) and, in general, by the rationing of gas, tires, and automobiles. Communications and the press were all controlled to an extent never before or since equaled and the military was present everywhere.  All this--and more--the people of the United States accepted as the price for protecting themselves against those who had attacked them.  Was the sacrifice spread equally? Absolutely not. Many people lost everything during the war while others gained much.  Were the Japanese people forced to give up their homes and livelihoods unfairly? Not any more so than those men--both citizens and aliens--who were in-voluntarily drafted for military duty. Many of those draftees lost their lives, others suffered permanent physical impairment, and still others were emotionally and mentally scarred for the rest of their lives. In comparison to the suffering and sacrifice of the men called to fight, the Japanese internment seemed almost like a vacation. When compared to other non-military persons, however, the evacuated Japanese were not treated equitably. Were they called upon to sacrifice for their country? Absolutely. Was their sacrifice greater than some others? Also absolutely true. Were others called upon to sacrifice more than the internees? Again, absolutely true.  Ask the mother of the Sullivan brothers about sacrifice (her four sons served together on a naval vessel that was sunk by a torpedo and all four were killed). Ask those who survived the Bataan death march and subsequent imprisonment by the Japanese about sacrifice. its The sacrifice of such men, while not absolving the American government of its responsibility for inequitably treating the Japanese portion of their citizenry, does place the sacrifice of those citizens in perspective. 
          Military service, rationing, censorship, relocation . . . Were all these necessary to winning the war and was winning the war so important as to justify the putting aside of normal rights?  At the time, under the circumstances, the answer was yes.  With hindsight, some of the answers should be no.  Was it wrong to force Japanese residents into concentration camps?   Hindsight says it was unnecessary and the Japanese people did their best to prove it. Did the internment prevent fifth column activities? No one will ever know as the internment prevented any Japanese who might have been inclined to such activities from carrying them out. The general attitude and behavior of the internees suggests that anti-American actions would have been extremely few in number. 
         Was rationing necessary?  For some things it was absolutely essential; for others not.  The industrial might of the United States went into a wartime footing and there were more of just about everything at the end of the war than there had been at the beginning--with one glaring exception: Males over the age of 18.  Rationing was necessary at the beginning of the war, but once American industry cranked into full production, it probably wasn't necessary to ration most things.  Did that mean that rationing stopped? No; it continued through the end of the war for many things.  Why did it continue? Mostly through inertia, but also because America was supplying most of the World with everything and it was politically important to maintain that situation. 
        Was required military service necessary?  Again, the answer is absolutely yes at the beginning and a qualified no at the end.  By the end of the war, volunteers would probably have been sufficient to do the job required, but the US could not afford to be unsure. It was policing the world, making the peace work, and rebuilding the war-torn nations.  Would enough American men have volunteered to fill the needs?  No one knows, though there is a good chance that fewer would have volunteered to fight against the Japanese than against the Germans in Europe.
         Was censorship necessary?  Absolutely. To safeguard lives and war materials, certain information had to remain secret.   To maintain a less troublesome attitude among the citizen population--as well as among military personnel--certain subjects (death, etc.) were best left unsaid. To help people handle the sacrifices they were making, they had to be convinced that what they were doing was right.  The wartime government actively issued propaganda to do just that.  
         To sum up: The war caused every man, women and child in America to sacrifice something. Some sacrificed more; some sacrificed less. Some sacrificed voluntarily; but most sacrificed involuntarily--although compliantly--for what they believed was the good of the whole.
         It is the view of this website that the Japanese internees during the war were called upon to sacrifice to a greater extent than other non-military personnel, but not as much as military draftees and not without reason.  As much as anything, their internment provided a fearful citizenry and a desperate military with some measure of peace of mind at a time when both needed it. Was if fair? Absolutely not, but little in life is.  Was it "fair" that some men died in battle and others survived?  No, but that determination is largely out of the hands of men. Was it fair that a certain portion of the population was called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice while others stayed home and worked? Only those who died can say for sure and they have no way to speak.
        The treatment of the Japanese residents of America was totally within the power of the American people and the American government to ascertain. Was it wrong? From an absolute moral standpoint, yes. From the standpoint of wartime concerns, no. Was it necessary? All indications are that it wasn't.  Was it legal? The Supreme Court of the time said "yes" on four separate occasions covering many sides of the question.  Were the Japanese mistreated and taken advantage of?  Sometimes and in some cases.
         Officially, the property and goods of the evacuees were supposed to be safe-guarded by the government, but little of it was. Was the situation taken advantage of by unscrupulous individuals? Absolutely and sometimes embarrassingly so.  Most Japanese sold their homes and properties at ridiculously low prices because they had no choice but to sell and unscrupulous people existed then as now.  Others--a lucky few--had non-Japanese friends who protected and safe-guarded their property for them--often at a large personal cost in both money and unpopularity (for being "jap-lovers"). Even others voluntarily followed the government's suggestion to relocate early and were able to secure good prices or protection to preserve their homes and businesses. It should not be overlooked that those who suffered the greatest loss of property were those who were last to evacuate and in the greatest hurry to leave--a situation due largely to their own (understandable) refusal to leave until forcibly evacuated by the military.
        Even though the internment camps were called "concentration camps," they were not concentration camps in the same sense as those in which the Jews suffered in Europe or American military personnel suffered in under the Japanese.  The evacuees were not mistreated and were able to do just about everything people outside of the camps were able to do.  While their freedom of travel was much more restricted, most wartime people didn't (couldn't) travel much except on war business, anyway.
       The camps were not the most comfortable places and conditions were crowded and inconvenient, but not cruel nor abusive.  At Manzanar, the internees created a city with everything other cities had, including its own government. In fact, the only real trouble that occurred (i.e., "the riot") was caused by opposing factions within the self-elected government. Many publications place the blame for the riot on the first administrator of the camp, but the blame is not solely nor mainly his.
       It is popular to "place blame" on the actions of those in the past--we today can play holier-than-thou and judge the past harshly, but that judgment is made in a different world and from an entirely different perspective than than that held by people in the past.  [The following was written two years before September 11, 2001; however, read it in the context of 9/11 to see if the predictions were accurate.-Ed] If America today was attacked by a foreign country, the reaction would be somewhat different today than it was at that time.  A sizable number of people would cry-out for immediate retaliation, "Let's nuke the b___________!"  A number of equally vocal people would decry military action and blame our own government for creating the problem (whatever it might be).  An equally large number of people (perhaps the largest segment of the population) would take a moderate stance: "Let's not go off half-cocked!"--and go along with whatever the government decided was best on the theory that the government has more information than they do.
         The same views were held just after Pearl Harbor, but the numbers in each camp would have been different.  The first group was the most prevalent: Pearl Harbor galvanized the American People like no other event since the secession of the southern states just prior to the Civil War. America was more divided at the time of the American Revolution than it was after Pearl Harbor--in fact, it is safe to say that the United States was never as united as it was in the days after Pearl Harbor. The American people, as has been previously stated, also trusted their government and their leaders to a far greater extent than people do today: FDR and his administrations had saved them from the Great Depression; American businesses had put them there. From the perspective of the American people, business was not as trustworthy nor as competent as the government had proven to be and they placed their trust accordingly.  Thus, when the government said rationing was necessary, the American people went along--with considerably less grumbling than would be the case today.  When the American government said that the Japanese residents among them were dangerous, most non-Japanese likewise believed it.
         Trust in the government, however, was not the only factor.  Racial prejudice played a part, too. The typical American of the time, regardless of ancestry, was prejudiced for their own ethnic group and against most others. Skin color was part of the prejudice, but economic competition played the greater part. The thing about non-white skin color or other distinguishing physical characteristics was that it was impossible to hide your ethnic background and "melt into the pot."  Germans, Italians, Irish, and other Caucasian ethnic groups found it easier to blend in behaviorally because they didn't have a physical sign that said they were different to point them out. 
          The Americans of Japanese ancestry have, since World War II, very successfully integrated themselves into American culture by the simple expedient of "out-Americaning" white Americans. They started doing that during the war. The internees earned the grudging respect of their guards and administrators by working hard, keeping their "noses clean," and generally being the ultimate "team players."  When given the opportunity for military service, instead of "spitting in the American eye" as would have been understandable, the Japanese internees' response was to see it as an opportunity to demonstrate their patriotism by being the best soldiers in the army--and the 442^nd Regimental Combat Group did just that.  By some calculations, it was the most decorated unit of the War.  The Japanese used the very western, Christian concepts of "heaping hot ashes" upon the heads of their abusers and "turning the other cheek" to turn their inequitable sacrifice into an honorable one.   Americans have never forgotten that and much of the national guilt regarding the internship probably stems from embarrassment that the Japanese proved themselves better patriots and better Americans than many of those who supported their enforced evacuation.
        In conclusion, the Japanese internment episode was not something the American people can be proud of, nor was it something that was necessary. It was, however, understandable given the time, the place, and the circumstances in which it took place. Should the American government have apologized for the internment on the behalf of the American people? That is a question only each Japanese internee can answer.  In Japanese culture an apology would be expected, in America it might not be. The cultures are different. Should the economic losses of the Japanese be repaid by the American people?  That is also dependent upon what period of time one is talking about. Today, the government steps in to help areas which have suffered disasters to recover. The Japanese economic loss was a disaster to that segment of the population. Consistency demands recovery for the Japanese. At the time of World War II, however, the Japanese economic loss in America paled in comparison with the economic losses suffered by the people conquered by the Axis powers and the treatment of such groups as the Jews by the Germans and the Koreans by the Japanese. The perspective becomes different when the plight of the Japanese internees is compared to the conditions of their own time as opposed to the conditions of today. Moreover, if being interned requires financial compensation, how much is being drafted and killed or wounded worth?
            And that, friends, is the crux of the whole matter: Contemporary historians are viewing the matter with contemporary eyes, judging yesterday's actions by today's standards, and doing so with the benefit of hindsight. Reverse the directions and many of the events of today would be severely condemned by the residents of the 1940's--and in many cases they would be justified in finding fault with the things that we do today. Just as surely, historians of the future will look upon the world of today with eyes of the future and--informed by hindsight--find us in fault. Once again, a Biblical reference seems to sum it up succinctly: "Judge not lest ye be judged;" or another, "Don't point out the splinter in another's eye when you have a board in yours."  Judge the motivations of the contemporary judges as severely as you judge the actions of those in the past whom they would judge.
                                                                                                                                                  
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