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Internment camps



Sharon, Gunnar, & Others -

I receive the list as a digest so I apologize if this
message duplicates any responses already received...
There is an important distinction between foreign POWs
interned during World War II and Japanese Americans.
I am no expert on German or Italian internment, but
can give a basic explanation about internment of
Nikkei people (people of Japanese ancestry regardless
of citizenship).

The U.S. government had two types of camps for
Japanese and Japanese Americans.  Many people know
about and have written about camps run by the U.S. War
Relocation Authority (the ten camps in the Western
U.S.).  The U.S. government forcibly removed 120,000
Japanese and Japanese Americans from the West Coast
into these camps.  Among the internees, roughly 2/3
were U.S. citizens and the remaining 1/3 were Japanese
immigrants who were legally barred at that time from
obtaining U.S. citizenship because of their race.  Of
course, the important thing to stress is that the
majority of these folks were U.S. citizens jailed
without due process.

The other camps have not been written about as often
and are lesser known.  The U.S. Justice Department had
separate camps for "enemy aliens" including Japanese,
German, and Italian nationals.  Within these camps,
there were approximately 7,000 Japanese held.  Many of
these folks were immigrants from Japan (who unlike
German and Italian nationals were barred from U.S.
citizenship because of their race) or U.S. citizens
sent to Japan for their education.  Generally, these
folks were leaders in the Japanese American community
-church or organization leaders or newspaper editor -
that the government deemed particularly "dangerous."
The Justice Department camps also incarcerated Latin
Americans (mostly Peruvian) citizens of Japanese
ancestry who were kidnapped by their governments and
sent to these camps in the U.S.  The U.S. government
planned to use them in POW exchanges with Japan.

For more information about these topics, check out
"Japanese Americans:  From Relocation to Redress,"
edited by Roger Daniels, Sandra C. Taylor, and Harry
H. L. Kitano, revised ed., Seattle:  University of
Washington Press, 1991.

Again, I am not an expert and apologize for any
inadvertent errors.  But I thought I should respond to
this interesting query.

Debbie



=====
Deborah Mieko Burns, CA
Archivist
Japanese American Service Committee
4427 N. Clark Street
Chicago, IL  60640
PHONE: 773.275.0097 x22
FAX: 773.275.0958

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