[35997279]

One of the most affecting images in my high school history book for me was of Japanese American Boy Scouts hanging a sign declaring Japanese Americans “Aliens of Enemy Nationalities.” The caption mentioned that the young men themselves were afterwards sent to internment camps. [0]

This image so affected me that I once saw a copy of the book left behind at a coffee shop and had to thumb through it to see it again.

With all the editing of history curricula that states like Florida are doing, I hope it survives. It’s is a dark chapter in American history that wasn’t that long ago.

[0]https://www.mrginn.com/uploads/8/5/4/6/85468970/chapter35.pd...

[yummypaint]

Their property was also stolen from them. Much of Palo Alto was farms owned by Japanese americans originally

[35997279]

This page mentions they were forced to sell their land, of course at a much lower price than they would have gotten. They also weren’t allowed to take their pets, which the page says “were destroyed.” [0].

Shameful. This country took its own citizens, locked them up, stole their land and shot their dogs — without a trial.

https://www.paloaltohistory.org/japanese-american-internment...

[ant6n]

…of course the US still has officials (police) that act as literal highway robbers, systematically robbing people driving through small towns. With the loot going to local police departments, and local govt/judiciary complicit in the system. Or has the civil forfeiture issue been resolved?

[taeric]

I was surprised to find a Japanese Internment Memorial in my hometown when I moved here. Really proud when I found more about it.

I have no doubt that the internment had local support at the time. More, I suspect I would have been more for the idea than I care to think on. Glad to see we aren't pretending it didn't happen.

[wodenokoto]

I don’t understand what they are trying to say with that sign.

Does it mean “we are not of enemy nationality”? Or does it mean “we are foreigners in the US and our nationality is enemy nationality”

[gcr]

You can read the full text of a substantially similar sign here: https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/notice-to-alien...

One way of fulfilling requirements for some scout ranks is to partake in community service programs, so perhaps they’re running errands for their community by hanging this sign up. It’s a haunting image.

[burkaman]

They likely considered themselves Americans (because they were), and did not realize that even third-generation American-born citizens would be considered "aliens" and "enemies" and sent to the camps.

[35997279]

Here’s a higher resolution copy. https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/notice-to-alien...

[zo1]

I think I figured it out: If all non-citizens are aliens, then aliens of enemy nationality is a subset of that group. It's defined by aliens that are from a country that is designated as an enemy country. So French aliens are not included, but German and Japanese aliens were.

[burkaman]

No, they didn't care about citizenship or where you were from.

> "A Jap's a Jap. It makes no difference whether the Jap is a citizen or not." - — General John L. DeWitt, Commander, Western Defense Command, 1942

> "I am determined that if they have one drop of Japanese blood in them, they must go to camp." — Colonel Karl Bendetsen, Administrator, Wartime Civil Control Administration, 1942

- https://amhistory.si.edu/perfectunion/non-flash/removal_proc...

They also didn't really care about German or Italian ancestry, there were millions of such people and almost none were imprisoned. Nearly all Americans with Japanese ancestry were imprisoned, and most were American-born citizens.

[ericmcer]

They definitely aren’t erasing it in CA. My kid was taught to refer to them as concentration camps instead of internment camps.

It is a totally accurate term but it felt like a strong change after calling the Nazi camps by that name.

[mixmastamyk]

Right, concentration originally meant bring together. But then was conflated with torture and death camp via Europe.

But the American ones brought them into isolation, not primarily the other things. The terminology is now messy.