Of course, being in the middle of a desert minimizes the need for barbed wire. Just how far were you going to go on your own two feet if you were miles away from anywhere.

Bob, let’s face it. nobody suffered more in America than those families who lost fathers, sons, sisters and mothers to the war fighting. Nobody else measures up. You talked about suffering, I just said it wasn’t justice. Listen up.

To think that internment camps were fair, government provided housing is contradicting history. And still not the point.

Let’s throw your family in the desert and see how you like it. Take nothing but a single suitcase per family member. Leave everything else behind. Now if you don’t own property, where will you leave it behind? The government doesn’t have to take something for themselves, they just have to deny you to keep it.

The point is, your freedom is being removed. Free room and board doesn’t matter, do you think? Accredited education doesn’t matter when you don’t get to choose the school best fit for you (sometimes by moving to a different community). Once again, freedoms are being removed. Try it, you won’t like it.

Most of the posts here are simply trying to minimize the impact of the camps because they “weren’t so bad.” I’m trying to point out that regardless how “OK” they seem, they still remove liberties which all Americans are entitled to. I’m not here to argue semantics.

Here’s a maximally stupid idea. Let’s make New York City a prison because I’m sure 1% of the people in the city are criminals of some sort. I’ll even bet there is one or two Al Quaida operatives somewhere in the city. Do you think anybody in New York City would mind? Would this be legal? I’m told they never rescinded the Executive Order which interned the Japanese Americans in the first place. So it’s still possible to relocate all Muslim Americans. Or whatever groups you may identify with.

Have fun arguing.

If you are trying to draw a meaningful comparison between your hypothetical situation and the reality of the circumstances surrounding the evacuation of Japanese from West Coast military areas in WWII, you must assume that the current government would have the same degree of intelligence about the potential for harm from unknown potential terrorists in our midst today as the WWII government had on the potential for harm which then existed from undetermined numbers of persons within the Japanese community. Such government actions do not occur in a vacuum, nor can they be publicly explained at the time. In the case of the WWII Japanese, it should be noted that only those in certain military zones were evacuated, and for good reasons now well-documented. Thousands of others living elsewhere were not disturbed at all.

As to your personal question, had I been one of a relatively small group which harbored an undetermined number of unidentified persons who were legitimate suspects, I believe I would appreciate the need for a reasonable suspension of civil rights for the good of the nation until the identity of those among us who would do our nation harm could be ascertained. Indeed, in WWII many persons of Japanese ancestry did understand the situation and willingly cooperated in their own relocation as did the Japanese American Citizens League itself which urged all ethnic Japanese to support the government action. Now, decades later, after the movement resulting in reparations of $20,000 for each evacuee was initiated, a new generation of JACL leaders did an institutional 180 and saw the wartime action of its own leadership in a different light. I wonder why?

Suppose the United States is hit with six terrorist attacks on the scale of 9/11 in the next three weeks. Suppose some of the terrorists are foreigners and some are American citizens who are [your own religion or denomination]. Suppose the Bush administration orders the detention of all non-citizen [members of your own religion or denomination] in the United States and the temporary detention of all [members of your own religion or denomination] who are citizens of the United States, at least to determine which may pose a threat to the security of the nation. Would you support this, including your own detention?

I would contend that only if you are willing to allow yourself to be interned for the actions of a few members of your own religion or denomination can you even begin to advocate such a detention for others.

“These were not proud times and if WJHopwood grew up then, his thoughts toward Japanese were probably not so positive”

I’d already grown up and was in the Navy by then and you’re right, after Pearl Harbor my thoughts toward Japanese were indeed “not so postitive.” Particularly when, along with the rest of America, I learned of the Japanese invasion of the Phillipines and how the resident Japanese there overwhelmingly welcomed the invading Japanese troops with wild enthusiasm.

Could that have happened in the U.S. under the same circumstances? Who could have said no at the time? Who can say no now?

So, Brian. I assume from your post above that your grandparents were relocated from the West Coast war zones because they were of Japanese ancestry, but how could they have been, as you say, “naturalized American citizens?” Japanese nationals could not naturalize until the law was changed 7 years after the war ended. Were they not Japanese nationals–enemy aliens?

And as for your emotional hyperbole about the hardships of the relocation centers, you seem to have forgotten a few things: Namely that they had accredited schools, churches, hospitals, stores, newspapers, post offices, all types of sports and recreational programs, and, as the official photographer at Manzanar, Toyo Miyatake, said: “The barbed wire at Manzanar consisted of three strings of cattle-guard wire through which anyone could walk if he wanted to. But nobody wanted to.”
In fact, many of the camp residents had never had it so good as some freely admitted it.

And as for the alleged losses–Bob, in his post above, is quite right. Although the government confiscated nothing as you imply, but did everything possible to minimize losses, in the confusion of war some were unavoidable. However, after the war legitimate loss claims were settled in amounts up to $100,000 dollars with only 15 appeals ever being made. So where’s the beef?

To sum up, Brian, times were tough for everybody during World War II but I can think of no group who has whined about their wartime experience more or has been treated better for it since then than the former resident Japanese enemy aliens and their families who were relocated from the war zones. Isn’t it about time they lay off?

Produce for me a picture of any barbed wire at Minidoka other than the three-strand cattle wire that served as a perimeter to the center and was routinely crossed.

Produce for me a picture of the “guard towers” at Minidoka other than the one fire tower and the one water tower.

Produce for me any evidence whatsoever that the government “took away” the possessions of any ethnic Japanese that was not paid back in the Evacuation Claims Act of 1948.

It’s a shame you think your grandparents and their Japanese neighbors were the only people who suffered during the war, and it does little to produce any sympathy for the sufferings they endured.

Rather than accuse Hopwood of being a racist why not have the courage to confront the darker chapters of your own history and acknowledge that many ethnic Japanese in the United States chose to remain loyal to the “old country”, the United States Government knew of this and took extraordinary measures during a time of war to ensure the security of all Americans….

I don’t really care what you call it. Take any other American family and take away all their possessions and throw them away in the desert for 3 years and call it what you will, it’s not called justice. At least you can call this a mistake or error in judgement. There is no defense for it.

Of course, at that time Japanese citizens weren’t allowed to own property, racism was rampant, and even most if not all newspapers were tuned to report the “Yellow Peril.” These were not proud times and if WJHopwood grew up then, his thoughts toward Japanese were probably not so positive.

If Congress really was duped (instead of trying to pretend it was), why not pass new federal laws overturning the offending portions of the Patriot Act?

You know the answer. The Patriot Act serves the interests of those in power. It will not be overturned until they are no longer in power.

People hold the Patriot Act responsible for the post-9/11 roundups, detentions and deportations of Muslim immigrants, but in fact the Patriot Act had very little to do with them. Virtually all of it made possible under preexisting “anti-terror” and immigration law and the discretion of the Attorney General.