Blog 9 - Japanese Internment Memorial essay

The Japanese internment was the forced relocation of Japanese and Japanese-American people living along the Pacific Coast of the United States. This occurred in 1942, after Japan’s attacks on Pearl Harbor in December of the previous year. Over a hundred thousand people of Japanese origin were banished to official military zones labeled “exclusion zones.” The order was given by then President Franklin Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. Multiple branches of government were involved in rounding up Japanese people.
Ruth Asawa was one of the many unfortunate people to be relocated to an internment camp. However, Her story did have a happy ending. After all, she is one of the main reasons for this blog post. She created the Japanese Internment Memorial that we visited for our field trip.
I found it to be an extraordinary piece of art. It represented a real occurrence in this nation’s history. There’s no denying that the Japanese internment was a mistake, but more on that later. However, the fact remains that it happened and is very much a part of American history. There is no way to change it so why not embrace it and use it as a source of strength and culture. This is exactly what Ruth Asawa accomplished with her sculpture.
There were a couple vignettes that caught my eye at the memorial. The first one was of the Japanese victims being herded onto the train to take them away to one of the internment camps. I can imagine that many people were in disbelief at what was happening to them. Let’s keep in mind that the majority of those interned were American citizens. Getting their rights trampled on by their own government must have truly outraged them. I think the act of boarding the trains was the point at which those unfortunate people realized that what was happening to them was in fact a reality. At that moment, their lives changed forever.
Another vignette that intrigued me was one of a family being supervised while they were gathering their belongings from their home. There were many different camps scattered around the U.S. The victims were not informed of where they were being sent and therefore could not pack accordingly. There existed camps in locations like Wisconsin, which gets very cold in the winter. The point is that these people had no idea what to expect and were bound to be ill prepared for the journey ahead. It was truly a crime against humanity.
In 1988, Congress passed legislation signed by President Ronald Reagan that apologized for the actions of the U.S Government in regard to the Japanese Internment. Branches of government that initially denied any involvement in this matter ended up confessing. For example, the United Census Bureau provided confidential information on the Japanese victims. At first, they denied it but in 2007, their involvement was proven
But with all said and done, the Japanese Internment was a dreadfully bad mistake in every sense of the meaning. Will something like this ever happen again? To be honest, it would not surprise me if it did. Men are capable of great and terrible things. I like to think we are more intelligent and advanced than people were all those years ago. But history has a way of repeating itself. Although, I don’t believe something of that magnitude and extremity could reoccur, I think that something similar is completely possible.