What More
I used to be able to walk around without the stares
Then after the bombs fell out of the sky Then after the planes fell out of the sky
And more than 2000 people died And more than 3000 people died
Trapped by a fire that I did not create
I lower my head in shame I raise my head without shame
Because I did not do this.
I attract stares at the grocery store I attract stares at the airport
They tell me to stand in a different line and
Ask me questions about the government. Ask me questions about another government.
They say it is because of my eyes They say it is because of my clothes
That I am treated like this
I speak English, I am almost a citizen I speak English, I am a U.S. citizen
What more can I do?
I cannot change the color of my skin.
Mealtime in the Camps
This is the Manzanar Relocation Center in Manzanar, California. This is mess-hall number 15. As you can see, it is very crowded and much like a cafeteria. Living in the camps, an evacuee was treated more like a number than a real person, as shown by the massive cafeteria and similar living situations.
Archive about Japanese Internment Camps
http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/topics/japanese-americans/
This archive includes a variety of images of the people affected by Japanese Internment Camps in the United States. It also includes bulletins from the United States government and also excerpts from Newspapers that were popular at the time of the internment.
Flying While Muslim: Religious Profiling
In this article, a Muslim-American was picked out of a crowd, “interrogated, finger printed” at an airport because of his ethnicity despite his taking every precaution against such acts by speaking in english, wearing Western clothes, and in his group, booking seats away from each other. His group was escorted off the plane after other passengers claimed they were suspicious. This kind of racial profiling in the United States happens unprovoked over ten years after 9/11 and is very similar to the profiling seen during the period following the attack at Pearl Harbor in which there were Japanese Internment Camps. Despite a westernized way of life for both groups of people, they are still discriminated against based on their skin color or religion.
Excerpt from “The Daily Beast” by Jessica Bennett
As a Muslim-American and president of the North American Imams Federation, Dr. Omar Shahin is no stranger to the heightened security of a post-9/11 world. On more than one occasion, the Phoenix, Ariz., resident says he’s been picked out of a crowd by the color of his skin—interrogated, finger printed or detained. So when Shahin headed to the airport Monday with five other imams for a flight out of Minneapolis—where the NAIF had met for a conference—the group did everything they could to avoid suspicion, according to Shahin. They wore Western clothes, he says. The men spoke only English. They didn’t book their seats together. And when it came time to conduct their sunset-time prayers, Shahin says, they did so quietly, and not all together—hoping to avoid any unwanted attention.
But when the group boarded their U.S. Airways flight bound for Phoenix, on which Shahin (a frequent flier on the airline) had been upgraded to first class, they would never leave the ground. After finding their seats and preparing for takeoff, Shahin and the other imams were escorted from the flight in handcuffs after a passenger handed a note to a flight attendant expressing concern over the group’s “suspicious activity,” according to the airport police report. The group was taken off the flight in handcuffs, and after several hours of questioning by federal authorities, released. But though the airline refunded their tickets, U.S. Airways—which released a statement Tuesday saying it does “not tolerate discrimination of any kind”—reportedly denied them passage on any of its other flights and refused to help them obtain tickets through another airline. “This was the worst moment in my life,” says Shahin, who, after an overnight delay, was able to get himself and his colleagues a flight on Northwest Airlines. “When they took us off the plane, six big leaders, it was very humiliating.” U.S. Airways told NEWSWEEK late Wednesday that it would not comment on the case beyond its issued statement.
What was the group’s suspicious activity? According to the report filed by the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport police, the group’s loud chants of “Allah, Allah, Allah,” initially drew the suspicion of nearby passengers—one of whom said he heard the imams make anti-American comments regarding the war in Iraq. Once on the flight, the men—who allegedly boarded the plane with no carry-on luggage and used one-way tickets—seated themselves in pairs, two at the front of the plane, two in the middle, and two in the rear (all according to the police report). The men, three of whom are U.S. citizens, two of whom have green cards and one who has a worker’s permit, also allegedly asked the flight crew for seat belt extensions.
But Shahin, a lawyer, disputes many of these details. He says everyone in the group had round-trip tickets that he had booked—and that he has the documentation to prove it. The reason he was at the front of the flight was because he was upgraded to first class because he’s a frequent flyer on the airline. And the reason he asked for a seatbelt extension? Shahin says his 290-pound frame should make that obvious. As for the anti-American remarks, Shahin says the group was talking about the conference, which, ironically, was focused on building bridges to the non-Muslim community. And to avoid this very type of incident, Shahin says he’d already notified both the F.B.I. and local Minneapolis police department of the NAIF conference, as a precaution, in hopes of avoiding any problems. “What they claim [in the police report] is just not true,” he says.
Shahir and the North American Imams Federation say they’ve consulted their lawyer, and have called for a boycott of U.S. Airways. They’re also being backed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Washington-based advocacy group that has demanded U.S. Airways launch an immediate investigation (which the airline says it has done) and has called on the U.S. Department of Justice and the Transportation Security Administration to conduct separate investigations of the incident. (CAIR says it has received a letter from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties saying that it has opened a review of the case.) “Since 9-11, we’ve seen a great number of racial and religious ethnic profiling resulting in people being taken off airplanes summarily because they are Muslim,” said CAIR Legal Director Arsalan Iftikhar, who says the Imam case is another example of “flying while Muslim.” “Reactions like this to Muslims praying really strike at the heart of the fear and prejudice that’s still so prevalent in this country.”
This is at least the second time this year that U.S. Airways has removed a Muslim from a plane. In August, Rima Qayyum, a 28-year-old substitute teacher, was taken off a flight and detained for 14 hours at West Virginia’s Tri-State Airport when security officials reportedly mistook her facewash and bottled water for possible bomb-making ingredients. Nationwide, according to CAIR’s latest civil rights report, for 2005, complaints of anti-Muslim harassment, violence and discrimination have gone up 30 percent since the year prior. Additionally, for the second year in a row, the 1,972 reports received in 2005 mark the highest number of Muslim civil rights complaints ever reported to CAIR in its 12-year history.
Observant American Muslims—who must pray five times daily—are left with a dilemma. How do they maintain their religious faith without attracting attention in an environment of heightened fear? Some ask why they should be expected to change their behavior in a country that promises religious freedom. Amine Chigani, a Ph.D. student at Virginia Tech, raises some of these questions—and more—in a Wednesday e-mail to CAIR: “Is there anything that I should do so I won’t have the same experience as our imams did?” she writes. “I mean, should I ask the plane crew while I get seated that I will need to pray at a certain time, or should I tell them during check in? Should I explain to the passenger next to me that I will be praying? And if the worst happens and they ask me to leave, should I? … I am willing to do anything to avoid [causing problems], except not to pray. Please advise!” Chigani is traveling to Seattle in December.
Patrick Hogan, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Airports Commission, which owns and operates the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, says that everyone should have a right to pray, but that in this day and age, “people must be sensitive to how their actions might impact those around them.”
But Shahir says his group took every precaution possible. “That’s my question to the people,” Shahir says. “What more do I have to do? I am American, I speak this language, I do everything by the book and I’m still suspicious. I cannot change the color of my skin.”
Racial Profiling After 9/11
After the horrific event of 9/11, officials at airports across the United States use racial profiling of Muslim-Americans among many other people of different races and religions in the hopes of preventing another attack like the one that occurred over ten years ago.
Amina Sharif, CAIR-Chicago’s Communications Coordinator, says, “In the interest of national security I don’t mind [being searched]. American Muslims are also concerned about remaining safe. But we should not be singled out because of our religious beliefs.”
Fifty Years
Over fifty years later, after abandonment from the homes you built,
After evacuations, after internments,
After four years of suburbia, an isolation
With no recourse or route that could take you home
We send this letter as an apology
Fifty years later, if only
It could replace the hours lost, the time spent
Inside that asylum whose confines still
Have not been loosened, whose chains have not
Been broken; Fifty years and an apology of
Twenty thousand dollars to forget;
Fifty years later, there is an apology
That will not erase a fifty year ache
A fifty year burden had created.
Memoirs from the Interned
“We saw all these people behind the fence, looking out, hanging onto the wire, and looking out because they were anxious to know who was coming in. But I will never forget the shocking feeling that human beings were behind this fence like animals [crying]. And we were going to also lose our freedom and walk inside of that gate and find ourselves…cooped up there…when the gates were shut, we knew that we had lost something that was very precious; that we were no longer free.” – Mary Tsukamoto
“Most of the 110,000 persons removed for reasons of ‘national security’ were school-age children, infants and young adults not yet of voting age.” – Michi Weglyn
“At Gila, there were 7,700 people crowded into space designed for 5,000. They were housed in messhalls, recreation halls, and even latrines. As many as 25 persons lived in a space intended for four.”- Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
Presidential Letter of Apology
In 1993, more than fifty years after the opening of Japanese Internment Camps in the United States, then-President Bill Clinton sent letters to each survivor of those camps, asking forgiveness on behalf of the American people. This letter was the result of a piece of legislation passed by Congress and signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 which apologized for these internment camps on behalf of the United States government. The government distributed more than $1.6 billion in damages and reparations to Japanese Americans who were afflicted by this internment and their children, totaling about $20,000 per person.
二度とこの現象が発生します Never Again Will This Happen
I was a child of the double bouquet
Yaeko when I was loyal,
Yaeko when I was not.
I am still a child of the double bouquet
Living with these fingers
That touch the surface
The sanctuary of the keys.
They are my only way out of this heat
I met them there
Four years, one man, one piano
I was married to both
Their smooth sound freed me from this
This prison of little houses
Little white houses that never changed
Little white houses unlike my own
My own that was left behind
I play Ella’s song
She says somewhere there’s Heaven
And I teach it to all the others
So they can find Heaven too
This music I teach
Upholds the sanity in me
And it still will
Long after I leave this place
Executive Order 9066
EXECUTIVE ORDER 9066
February 19, 1942
Whereas, the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises and national defense utilities as defined in Section 4, Act of April 20, 1918, 40 Stat. 533, as amended by the Act of November 30, 1940, 54 Stat. 1220. and the Act of August 21, 1941, 55 Stat. 655 (U.S.C.01 Title 50, Sec. 104):
Now therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action to be necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any persons to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restriction the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion.
The Secretary of War is hereby authorized to provide for residents of any such area who are excluded therefrom, such transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations as may be necessary, in the judgment of the Secretary of War or the said Military Commander, and until other arrangements are made, to accomplish the purpose of this order. The designation of military areas in any region or locality shall supersede designations of prohibited and restricted areas by the Attorney General under the Proclamation of December 7 and 8, 1941, and shall supercede the responsibility and authority of the Attorney General under the said Proclamations in respect of such prohibited and restricted areas.
I hereby further authorize and direct the Secretary of War and the said Military Commanders to take such other steps as he or the appropriate Military Commander may deem advisable to enforce compliance with the restrictions applicable to each military area herein above authorized to be designated, including the use of Federal troops and other Federal Agencies, with authority to accept assistance of state and local agencies.
I hereby further authorize and direct all Executive Departments, independent establishments and other Federal Agencies, to assist the Secretary of War or the said Military Commanders in carrying out this Executive Order, including the furnishing of medical aid, hospitalization, food, clothing, transportation, use of land, shelter, and other supplies, equipment, utilities, facilities and services.
This order shall not be construed as modifying or limiting in any way the authority heretofore granted under Executive Order No. 8972, dated December 12, 1941, nor shall it be construed as limiting or modifying the duty and responsibility of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with respect to the investigations of alleged acts of sabotage or the duty and responsibility of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice under the Proclamations of December 7 and 8, 1941, prescribing regulations for the conduct and control of alien enemies, except as such duty and responsibility is superseded by the designation of military areas hereunder.
Signed,
Franklin D. Roosevelt The White House
February 19, 1942
Timeline of Japanese Internment
August 18, 1941 In a letter to President Roosevelt, Representative John Dingell of Michigan suggests incarcerating 10,000 Hawaiian Japanese Americans as hostages to ensure “good behavior” on the part of Japan.
December 7, 1941 The attack on Pearl Harbor. Local authorities and the F.B.I. begin to round up the leadership of the Japanese American communities. Within 48 hours, 1,291 are in custody. These men are held under no formal charges and family members are forbidden from seeing them. Most would spend the war years in enemy alien internment camps run by the Justice Department.
February 19, 1942 President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 which allows military authorities to exclude anyone from anywhere without trial or hearings. Though the subject of only limited interest at the time, this order set the stage for the entire forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans.
February 27, 1942 Idaho Governor Chase Clark tells a congressional committee in Seattle that Japanese would be welcome in Idaho only if they were in “concentration camps under military guard.” Some credit Clark with the conception of what was to become a true scenario.
March 2, 1942 Gen. John L. DeWitt issues Public Proclamation No. 1 which creates Military Areas Nos. 1 and 2. Military Area No. 1 includes the western portion of California, Oregon and Washington, and part of Arizona while Military Area No. 2 includes the rest of these states. The proclamation also hints that people might be excluded from Military Area No. 1.
March 18, 1942 The president signs Executive Order 9102 establishing the War Relocation Authority (WRA) with Milton Eisenhower as director. It is allocated $5.5 million.
March 24, 1942 The first Civilian Exclusion Order issued by the Army is issued for the Bainbridge Island area near Seattle. The forty-five families there are given one week to prepare. By the end of October, 108 exclusion orders would be issued, and all Japanese Americans in Military Area No. 1 and the California portion of No. 2 would be incarcerated.
May 13, 1942 Forty-five-year-old Ichiro Shimoda, a Los Angeles gardener, is shot to death by guards while trying to escape from Fort Still (Oklahoma) internment camp. The victim was seriously mentally ill, having attempted suicide twice since being picked up on December 7. He is shot despite the guards’ knowledge of his mental state.
May 16, 1942 Hikoji Takeuchi, a Nisei, is shot by a guard at Manzanar. The guard claims that he shouted at Takeuchi and that Takeuchi began to run away from him. Takeuchi claims he was collecting scrap lumber and didn’t hear the guard shout. His wounds indicate that he was shot in the front. Though seriously injured, he eventually recovered.
June 1942 The movie “Little Tokyo, U.S.A.” is released by Twentieth Century Fox. In it, the Japanese American community is portrayed as a “vast army of volunteer spies” and “blind worshippers of their Emperor, ” as described in the film’s voice-over prologue.
June 17, 1942 Milton Eisenhower resigns as WRA director. Dillon Myer is appointed to replace him.
August 10, 1942 The first inmates arrive at Minidoka, Idaho.
August 12, 1942 The first 292 inmates arrive at Heart Mountain, Wyoming.
August 27, 1942 The first inmates arrive at Granada, or Amache, Colorado.
September 11, 1942 The first inmates arrive at Central Utah, or Topaz.
September 18, 1942 The first inmates arrive at Rohwer, Arkansas.
October 20, 1942 President Roosevelt calls the “relocation centers” “concentration camps” at a press conference. The WRA had consistently denied that the term “concentration camps” accurately described the camps.
November 14, 1942 An attack on a man widely perceived as an informer results in the arrest of two popular inmates at Poston. This incident soon mushrooms into a mass strike.
December 10, 1942 The WRA establishes a prison at Moab, Utah for recalcitrant inmates.
February 1, 1943 The 442nd Regimental Combat Team is activated, made up entirely of Japanese Americans.
April 11, 1943 James Hatsuki Wakasa, a sixty-three-year-old chef, is shot to death by a sentry at Heart Mountain camp while allegedly trying to escape through a fence. It is later determined that Wakasa had been inside the fence and facing the sentry when shot. The sentry would stand a general court-martial on April 28 at Fort Douglas, Utah and be found “not guilty.”
April 13, 1943 “A Jap’s a Jap. There is no way to determine their loyalty.. This coast is too vulnerable. No Jap should come back to this coast except on a permit from my office.” Gereral John L. DeWitt, head, Western Defense Command; before the House Naval Affairs Subcommittee.
September 13, 1943 The realignment of Tule Lake as a camp for “dissenters” begins. After the loyalty questionnaire episode, “loyal” internees begin to depart to other camps. Five days later, “disloyal” internees from other camps begin to arrive at Tule Lake.
March 20, 1944 Forty-three Japanese American soldiers are arrested for refusing to participate in combat training at Fort McClellan, Alabama, as a protest of treatment of their families in U.S. camps. Eventually, 106 are arrested for their refusal. Twenty-one are convicted and serve prison time before being paroled in 1946.
June 30, 1944 Jerome becomes the first camp to close when the last inmates are transferred to Rohwer.
October 27-30, 1944 The 442nd Regimental Combat Team rescues an American battalion which had been cut off and surrounded by the enemy. Eight hundred casualties are suffered by the 442nd to rescue 211 men. After this rescue, the 442nd is ordered to keep advancing in the forest; they would push ahead without relief or rest until November 9.
January 2, 1945 Restrictions preventing resettlement on the West Coast are removed, although many exceptions continue to exist. A few carefully screened Japanese Americans had returned to the coast in late 1944.
May 7, 1945 The surrender of Germany ends the war in Europe.
August 6, 1945 The atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima. Three days later, a second bomb is dropped on Nagasaki. The war in the Pacific would end on August 14.
March 20, 1946 Tule Lake closes, culminating “an incrediblle mass evacuation in reverse.” In the month prior to the closing, some 5,000 internees had to be moved, many of whom were elderly, impoverished, or mentally ill and with no place to go.
July 15, 1946 The 442nd Regimental Combat Team is received on the White House lawn by President Truman. “You fought not only the enemy but you fought prejudice — and you have won,” remarks the president.
July 2, 1948 President Truman signs the Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act, a measure to compensate Japanese Americans for certain economic losses attributable to their forced evacuation. Although some $28 million was to be paid out through provision of the act, it would be largely ineffective even on the limited scope in which it operated.
July 10, 1970 A resolution is announced by the Japanese American Citizen League’s Northern California-Western Nevada District Council calling for reparations for the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. This resolution would have the JACL seek a bill in Congress awarding individual compensation on a per diem basis, tax-free.
July 14, 1981 The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) holds a public hearing in Washington, D.C. as part of its investigation into the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Similar hearings would be held in many other cities throughout the rest of 1981. The emotional testimony by more than 750 Japanese American witnesses about their wartime experiences would prove cathartic for the community and a turning point in the redress movement.
June 16, 1983 The CWRIC issues its formal recommendations to Congress concerning redress for Japanese Americans interned during World War II. They include the call for individual payments of $20,000 to each of those who spent time in the concentration camps and are still alive.
August 10, 1988 H.R. 442 is signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. It provides for individual payments of $20,000 to each surviving internee and a $1.25 billion education fund among other provisions.
October 9, 1990 The first nine redress payments are made at a Washington, D.C. ceremony. One-hundred-seven-year-old Rev. Mamoru Eto of Los Angeles is the first to receive his check.
Japanese-American Internment Memories 