Focus 580; World War II, Japanese American Incarceration: A Social History And Its Implications Today

In the spring and early summer of 1942 nearly 120000 Japanese-Americans were taken from their homes and put into concentration camps by the U.S. government at the time. Certainly some voices were raised against this incarceration of Americans but generally speaking the judiciary the Congress and the American people supported it. And it was quite a long time. It took quite a long time for the government in a formal way to acknowledge the fact that that had been a mistake. The executive order establishing the camps was only revoked in 1976 that was when Gerald Ford was the president and it wasn't until 1990 that Congress formally apologized. Why did it take so long for the government to acknowledge that this had been a mistake and what sort of lessons can we take from this chapter of American history. Well those are the questions we'll take up this morning in this part of focus 580 and our guest is historian Roger Daniels. He has written a number of books dealing with ethnicity and immigration and particularly with the experiences of Japanese-Americans during World War Two. He

is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Cincinnati. He's past president of the Society for historians of the Gilded Age and progressive era and also the immigration history society. He served as consultant to the presidential commission on the wartime relocation and internment of civilians. Also was planning committee member for the immigration museum on Ellis Island and has authored as I said a number of books one specifically that I want to mention because it deals with this subject is the book prisoners without trial Japanese-Americans in World War 2. And that was published in 1903 some of his Others include these books that have to do with immigration coming to America a history of immigration and ethnicity in American life and guarding the Golden Door American immigration policy and immigrants. And you can find them I'm sure in the library or the bookstore if you're interested in reading on the subject. He is here visiting the campus of the University of Illinois to take part in a major conference on Asian Americans in the law which is being sponsored by the University of Illinois College of Law. As we talk of course

questions are welcome. The number here in Champaign Urbana if you'd like to be involved in the conversation is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line and that means if it would be a long distance call for you. You may use that number that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 at any point your questions are welcome the only thing we ask of callers is that people just try to be brief and we ask it so that we can keep the program moving and getting as many people as possible but anybody who's listening is welcome to call. Thank you very much for being here. Well I'm glad to be here. It was a lovely day. It is indeed. It is indeed. Can we just go back and talk about what people were thinking at the time. Obviously there was there was a lot of fear and the concern was at least some people voicing that the fear was that some Japanese Americans might work against the interest of the United States and for the interest of Japan. Was there any real and I suppose that you know the question.

I asked the question looking back. Was there any real hard evidence that such a thing had taken place might take place. No not not at all. Not one single Japanese-American whether. Born here or an immigrant an immigrant from Asia could not become naturalized citizens at that time was even indicted for espionage no less convicted or seva ties. There were no such convictions. The best informed people in the government and in the security services did not recommend mass incarceration. The rationale if you can call it that. But some military leaders particularly

General do it who is in command of the Western Defense Command. Western states western states plus Alaska. Said that we believe that at least 90 percent of them are probably loyal but because they are. This isn't his words but it's what he meant because they are inscrutable Asians. We can't tell the difference we can tell for Germans and Italians. Who's likely to be guilty but we can't tell for Japanese So we have to send the we have to send put them all away. The presidential commission which of which recommended the apology and the redress payments that came summarized its massive reports in a short statement and in the midst of that short statement was a sentence and that sentence was this is almost a direct quote. The basic causes were were time hysteria race prejudice

and a failure of political leadership. Were time hysteria. Race prejudice and a failure of political leadership. I don't know any better way to describe this in a you know brief statement. Was there anything like this done to Italian-Americans or German-Americans. In the Western Defense Command non naturalized Italian Americans and German Americans were subject to certain kinds of certain similar but very different restrictions. These were people who could have become naturalized citizens and were not. They were required to move a talian aliens had to leave certain professions the most famous was Joe demise Hugo's father for those of you who aren't old time

baseball aficionados Joe DiMaggio was one of the two or three greatest players in the baseball and outfielder wonderful hitter still has the record for consecutive games with base hits at them 53 if I remember correctly. His father couldn't couldn't go to sea as a fisherman anymore. Some Germans German-Americans and Italian-Americans a naturalized had to move if they had American born children the children wanted to stay with their presence they had to move but they had to move within California at a time of their own choosing to a place of their own choosing. All Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast. And West Coast in this case meant the entire state of California the western half of Oregon the western half of the state of Washington and a tiny portion including mostly area around Boulder Dam of Arizona.

Anyone who was in those areas of Japanese birth or ancestry not only had to move but was moved by the United States Army. Most of them first to a nearby temporary camp which was called an assembly center and eventually were moved to one of ten purpose built concentration camps surrounded by barbed wire with guards. The guns pointed in not out. Where some of them stayed for more than three years these were not death camps. The treatment was generally within it within the fact that they would be moved. I was humane but it was certainly an awful thing to do and it was done. Without exception. I know that there are some historians that have

questioned your use of the term concentration camp and they have been they have said that perhaps goes a step too far when you consider the conditions for people in the camps. Do you think that that is unimportant. The. Distinction and why is it that you feel strongly that you would you want to use that word as opposed to a different kind of war. Well the word was was used often during the war. Franklin Roosevelt himself in public statements called them concentration camps their concentration camps as opposed to internment camps. Because internment is a process we'd been using for enemy aliens since the War of 1812. These were selected individuals some of them were Japanese of foreign birth who for some reason or other usually guilt by association were put away one group for instance of Japanese who were interned almost universally

were Buddhist priests. We don't regard now as particularly dangerous but they were partially subsidized by the Japanese government so they were technically agents of a foreign power. But this is done according to American law. There were proclamations issued the Geneva Convention applied all sorts of things. This was internment. The process was simply Lawless. Roosevelt issued an order. And if you read that order it doesn't. Apply to Japanese or anyone else no one particular individual or group of individuals ethnic or otherwise is mentioned. If this document were found say in the year three thousand and five by some archeologist into a perhaps vanished or greatly transformed American civilization without supporting documents he would have to assume that this was a relief measure to

take care of certain kinds of people because commanders are instructed to provide transportation food medical that tension all of that was done. But these were concentration camps. The word in this sense came into the English language only in the Spanish in the Boer War. Where the British did this two wars in South Africa Dutch speaking individuals who are opposed to British imperialism. So concentration camps I think is correct. A number of people object to it not very many historians. Many. Victims of the Holocaust have said you know that's that's our word. Melissa these were not death camps. Many many more people were born in them than died in them. There was every attempt to provide humane treatment. There were schools etc. but no no system of

law governed who got in or who got out. It was simply what the government administrators decided. No court was willing to do anything until 1900. With your pardon one thousand eight hundred forty four in December when the third of the three Japanese-American cases the first two said it said in effect it's all right to put people in concentration camps. But a young woman named Mitsui endo and her attorneys filed for habeas corpus they filed in one thousand forty two. It got to the Supreme Court in December 1944 and the court said Oh she's a fish She's a loyal American against whom there are no charges. She ought to be free to come and go as she chooses. And the army had been releasing people but it had been releasing people. To resettle anywhere but on the West Coast West Coast was home to

her. But the court said was that was no longer legal. We have a caller to bring into the conversation for other people who are listening up. I think I should introduce Again our guest with this our focus 580 Roger Daniels he is Charles Phelps Taft professor emeritus of history at the University of Cincinnati and has written widely on issues of ethnicity immigration and also about the experience of Japanese-Americans during World War 2. He's here visiting the campus to take part in a conference dealing with issues of Asian-Americans and a lot sponsored by the College of Law. And we're pleased to have him here with us on the program as well. Questions are welcome. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 that's where Champaign-Urbana listeners we do also have a toll free line good anywhere that you can hear us and that is eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5. We do have a caller in The File a land line number one.

Thank you. Yes Japanese brought the war on itself and had won all of the British colonies in the Asian Pacific area in the 10 years during which they did that without ending the war with China prior to Pearl Harbor. That's. Second world war was a classical tragedy that the Japanese brought on themselves by the neck and aggression that they met with an irresistible force by the Americans. The Japanese knocked out the American battle fleet on December the 7th 1941 at Pearl Harbor. And your point is sir. My point is that was without any aggression by the United States at that time. And then the Americans got together in general and started

retaliating against the Japanese. Well partly sir. I don't presume to speak for a guess but it seems to me that the people here were talking about the people who were put in these camps and they weren't Japanese they were Americans. It seems to me that that's a central issue. OK then if they were Americans how could those folks be identified as true Americans when the population of the United States was defending themselves and didn't have time to take all of those people to court to determine who was loyal and who wasn't. I mean you had Tokyo roses going on at that time and every day. Several hours a day she was proclaiming the horrendous terrible situation that the Americans were getting. Well let's let me give again the guest a chance to respond because that that was a point that people at the time raised as you said how how do we determine how do we determine whether in fact some Japanese Americans might be working against the United

States. Were you in the armed forces then. I'm a decorated veteran of two wars which has absolutely nothing to do with the question with a question by the way and and in the American army. The fact of the matter is that of course we were at war with three nations primarily Japan who attacked us Germany who declared war shortly thereafter and Italy who declared war shortly thereafter all in the first and second week of December 1941. We did not treat Germans in the United States and I'm not suggesting that we should have. As if they had to prove their loyalty. Indian ited States persons are assumed innocent until proven guilty. Japanese Americans whether born here or persons who had lived here and all of these persons

since we stopped immigration from Japan in one thousand one hundred twenty four had been living here and leading generally exemplary lives for at least 17 years. They were guilty simply by reason of their genes or their genetic ancestry. There is no place for that in the Constitution. There's no place for that in American law and the United States Congress both houses. I recognise this in 1998 three presidents Ronald Reagan the first George Bush and Bill Clinton signed letters of apology. Reagan did not sign a letter of apology because there was no money yet in the letter went along with that but he made a statement signed letters of apology. Well the survivors of this were paid $20000 that's the only formal apology to a group the United States has ever made. This was absolutely wrong.

Almost everyone recognizes this. This has nothing to do with the war against Japan to war against Japan was a just war. A war the United States eventually won at great cost. But these people living mostly in California had nothing to do with that had committed no crimes then. Well that's enough. I think I do have some other callers here and I want to just make sure that if the caller would like to make a quick follow up on him the opportunity to do that please. Quick follow up. Yes blood is thicker than water. I went in on the invasion of the site then June the 15th 1944 the 4th Marines and I caught hell I was in the first wave going in. On June 24th July 24th landed on white beach 1 and Canyon a shipwrecked ship wrecked on that island with more than 9000 fanatical Japanese waiting

for us on Kenyan. And that was terrible. Are you aware that thousands of Japanese Americans participated in both. Oh sure you had a lot of nice seas that were great but are you going to separate friends from enemy when a instantaneous situation occurs where they are battling each other. No no Japanese American was doing anything to harm the United States. Oh you knew all the Japanese Americans so you knew that didn't happen. Tokyo Rose just incessantly told us about the tragedies that they were inflicting on the Americans and what happened to Tokyo Rose was later rightly or wrongly indicted and convicted in American courts she was someone who was back to Japan. That's cool. That's quite correct. Whether she was guilty or not

she was tried and found guilty. We had we didn't try Japanese-Americans we said they were guilty by reason of their race really ethnicity. And it has nothing to do with with that. There were people drafted out of concentration camps who went into the forty second and other units are military intelligence specialist Japanese-Americans who performed ably. Not one I'm Japanese-American in the United States. Was even indicted for anything like sabotage or espionage. So that I'm sure you had a rough time. I think anybody who was in any war has to greater or lesser degree a rough time. You and I both survived lots of our friends did not. But that has nothing to do with the guilt or innocence of people here in the United States who had done nothing.

Well I appreciate the comments of the caller have some others who are waiting and like to go on we'll go next to someone here in Urbana this line too. Hello. Good morning. I lived in Downey California was a high school student there. And many of my friends were scooped up sort of to concentration camps. They were very active in our student body. I had lunch with a number of them every noon. Now it's interesting that I went back to Downey California high school this last June because there was some recognition programs this is 60 years after graduation and I got a letter shortly thereafter that at the graduation this last June in Downey they recognized that many of these new Saudi students who never were graduated and seven of them were present for the graduation in June. They were given for recognition and their diplomas. There are another 17 that they tried to contact and bring back for their graduation. Now I thought that was an interesting conclusion of their high school experience. But another sign

that you're of the kill that many of us felt about all of the some of my friends did fight with that army unit in Italy and performed marvelously and they were great kids and we had a panic. I remember those signs on telephone posts by general. Saying that this. Have to happen. But they lost their property. There was a truck garden a hundred yards from our home. They lost that property that would have been worth millions now but they lost the whole ball of wax. I wonder if we're not treating Middle Easterners now with the same attitude. But I thank you for your program. And I say blessings on them all. Thank you. Well thanks for the call. You want to comment on any of it. Well there have been a number of a a number of such ceremonies at colleges and universities. Each of the three West Coast states has made certain restitution to public employees who were denied. This is one of those things that we as a

nation did and eventually realized that it was wrong and eventually did something about it. The situation with Persians after 9/11 is nothing like the same. It's quite clear that there have been excesses although mostly directed against foreign born persons and it would not surprise me if 15 20 30 40 years down the line there will be certain kinds of revisionist notions from government officials about what was done now. But I think it was in no wise comparable simply because with the exception of people who were just a couple of people who were just technically United States citizens and had never really lived here the persons affected have not been American citizens or in many cases even longtime Merican residents that

doesn't mean that what was done to them was right because some of them were quite clearly. Picked up because they looked like they were Middle Eastern. Some of them were not. The first. Revenge killing. Supposedly for poor 9 11 would say a Sikh misguided person the South-West thought was Middle Eastern because he wore a turban and a man. We have other callers next and we'll talk with someone in Chicago. Why number four. Hello. Hi this is very enlightening for me I'm a I'm a student a college student and I've never heard anything about all of this having happened even though I have studied American history. And my question is very similar to the gentleman in the second caller and I was wondering in the post 9/11 makeup of our society help possible you think is that something like this could happen again. You know if it.

We faced another attack. Do you think we could return to the same kind of hysteria. I think that if it were bad enough it could happen it would probably happen under some under somewhat different circumstances. We have certainly given the government much more direct enforcement powers under the Patriot Act and certain other things but that's that's hypothetical. It should be pointed out that it was everybody just talks about Pearl Harbor but Pearl Harbor happened on December 7th 1941 Executive Order 9 0 6 6 was issued on February 19th 1940 to some 74 days later. And during that time there were just an absolute chain of disasters not on American soil. Will a Japanese submarine did pop up

and shoot three shells at some oil tanks at Santa Barbara Santa Barbara and missing them all. But in Southeast Asia the Japanese government Japanese forces were running wild. If we'd had a whole series of attacks God forbid following 9/11 I think that the reactions would certainly have been much much harsher. And there are clearly people in our security establishment who would have said that the reason is these later events happened was that we hadn't been harsh enough. You know our reactions after 9/11 but that's all hypothesis. Thank you. You're welcome to call. I wonder if I might ask you to pick up on another point that the caller made and it's something else that people have noted as well that this this chapter of American history seems to have been left out of a lot of books and there are a lot of people who would say well gee I studied American history and

this I don't know as to how anyone could say they had never heard that this had happened but I'm sure there are people who would say this comes as news to me. For years afterwards. There was almost nothing in American textbooks. A line and a line that didn't make it at all clear in one textbook that I always talk about. There's a sentence in a paragraph about the Second World War and this was written by. A distinguished American history a group of distinguished American historians the most prominent of whom was Richard Hofstetter this was a very liberal text but the only thing they said about Japanese-Americans during the Second World War was it under a section that was held headed civilian mobilization. And it started out by congratulating the United States for its better

protection of the civil liberties of German Americans in World War 2 than had taken place in World War One and that's true. And that is sort of an afterthought it said some people thought that what was done to Japanese-Americans had been say Japanese-Americans I forget the exact phrases was unfair or worse but never really made the point of just what was done to them. And that's all that was talked about. I know of no college textbook today that doesn't at least mention this. And a friend of mine who teaches in Minnesota wrote me recently that he's been asking this question for years but when he asked his class this year's freshman class this year how many of them had heard of the Japanese-American of what happened to Japanese-Americans in World War 2. More than half had heard about it and some of them could even describe it in some detail. These were people who were just starting college. So it's better than it was I don't think it gets as much attention as it should but

almost every specialist feels that what he specializes in doesn't get enough attention. But it's a good point. Little bit past the midpoint here. I have some other callers will get to in just a moment I do want to introduce Again our guest Roger Daniels is Charles Phelps Taft professor emeritus of history at the University of Cincinnati and has written widely on issues of ethnicity and immigration and also on the Japanese American experience in World War 2. One book if you're interested in reading on the subway you might look at his book prisoners without trial Japanese-Americans in World War Two he was here visiting the campus taking part in a conference on Asian Americans and the law that is sponsored by the University of Illinois College of Law. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 that's the champagne Urbana number we do also have toll free line good anywhere that you can hear us and that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 the next caller is here in Urbana. And that would be line number three. Hello. Hello. Yes hi. Also I want to mention I was in my

senior year of high school in 1975 in Ohio and we saw a very moving documentary about this and my history. The Navy didn't name me that wasn't the rule. The one thing I wanted to say to the caller a couple of calls that who had served in the Pacific theater during World War Two and talked about his terrible experiences there which of course were terrible but weren't the fault of Japanese-Americans brought up the question of you know well I said you know I guess one of the arguments I've heard people say before about like you know why they were against having Japanese American service soldiers because how do you tell. Like who's your friend or who's your enemy but I've never ever. Never heard anyone use that argument as a case for why you know white Anglo-Saxon soldiers shouldn't be sent to Europe. And so I find that kind of curious. That

as an argument I mean it just doesn't it doesn't seem like a reasonable argument. Just on that basis alone because most of the soldiers that went over to Europe would have looked just like the people that they were shooting and being shot by. So I just I've always wondered about that argument. So anyway I appreciate your program here and what you're saying and thank you. You want to come a little you know I think it's I think it's a very good point. More and more we don't we don't. Scholars at least don't think of the term white as really meaning very much. And it certainly covers a vast variety of shades and it's been all sorts of ways different but. Unstated.

You know articulate major premise in most of what most Americans say about these things is an assumption that if you're white you're all right if you're other than white. And there was a time when if you're other than white Protestant. Then then you're expected to behave a certain way and everyone else is what Kipling called the lesser breeds without the law. But I think the you the caller makes makes a very very good point that isn't made enough. And I was the first caller would think about let's talk with someone in Danville their next line. One. Well good morning. Thank you for taking my call. The first caller really kind of triggered a question and I have I've noticed over the last several years especially among your work to this. They don't seem to recognize the police state that is beginning to evolve in this country. In fact I've even talked to World War 2 vets that you know far as they're concerned police should be able to walk into your house at any time.

And I really find I couldn't understand why you know of anyone who would be very sensitive to a police state you would think it would be those people who fought you know so valiantly for our freedom. And I'm wondering if what happened and you know the first caller really talked about the fact that these people were you know associated with a regime that was you know had attacked. And I just wonder if part of that attitude today does not stem from that. Well it's a complicated thing let me let me broach into into what may seem to be a side issue. But I think really illuminates some of this very nicely. One of the divisions within the Japanese American community is the divisions among the Japanese American veterans of World War Two over how they should treat a small minority of Japanese-Americans who who while in concentration camps resisted the

draft. On the principle that since we are deprived of our rights we do not have to follow the duties if you want to release us in our parents from these camps we will serve. Otherwise we will resist and the largest dressed group of draft resisters in American history were tried in Cheyenne Wyoming in 1045 and convicted in a trial that was a farce because they were clearly guilty they had resisted the draft. And among Japanese American veterans there's been a real division over this. Some Japanese American veterans sound about this issue not about the concentration camps issue but about this issue the way the first gentleman this morning spoke about Japanese-Americans in general. Other Japanese American veterans have a different view and more and more have come to that view there's been that view there's been some reconciliation

to what are called the The Japanese American war resisters a very tiny minority that takes a lot of guts and most veterans but there are still some who who really have very little to do with them. And. There are plenty of them. World War 2 veterans I was in a Merchant Marine and second were myself. There are many veterans who who feel exactly this way. The other thing is that many people who principally identify themselves as veterans. Are more likely to have what some call militaristic views than others who regard their time in the military as a necessary. But really unpleasant part of their lives that they really want to have very little little to think

about the day they did their duty and they went home and let others know. Glory in that as and view it as the high point of their lives. We don't in any way impugning anyones. Patriotism loyalty and bravery it seems to me that if the high point of your life you something you did is a very very young person involved killing other people. You had a fairly empty life. Why I wonder also if it's the same issue is not also allowed the current administration to basically ignore the Geneva Convention and you know do the things that they're doing towards torture and the other internment of Middle Eastern people that we see happening.

And I'll listen off line. Further I think that all kinds of people there's been a military lawyers France's lawyers in the army have been very much concerned over this Geneva Convention thing as are as are many regular military officers simply because they aren't They know well that sooner or later we're going to have picked up persons taken prisoner and they very very much want the Geneva Convention to apply. The State Department during the Second World War for instance was very concerned that Japanese-Americans and interned Japanese nationals be treated properly simply because they knew that there were large numbers of Americans in Japanese hands in the hands of the Japanese government who wanted to be treated so it's it's a kind of mixed bag there are plenty of people in the military who don't approve of this. It was it was mostly civilian lawyers.

Who who dreamed up these things not. Not military lawyers military lawyers have been long trained under the Uniform Code of Military Justice to live with the Geneva Convention and understand it and to teach about it. In my military service in the Korean War because our unit was in part involved with. Building the prisoner camps up on the forty second parallel near pan when John I had to take special classes in the Geneva Convention so that we didn't do anything like point a gun at a prisoner which was which was not to be permitted at any distance simply because you didn't do that unless there was an emergency. Let's talk with someone else let's go to Homer for a next goal or one to follow. Oh yes I'm a 78 year old veteran of World War 2 and I'm hearing all these things but in retrospect it's easy to wring our

hands and so forth but at that time the environment is probably a minor thing when you stop to think about what has happened it is no secret that the Japanese and the Germans as well or not particularly kind to any group that they thought was different. And I wonder what would be the situation now if we were either speaking German or Japanese on this program as a result of what would happen. Another thing I wonder about is that a war is there any evidence that anybody in say even Hawaii or any of the other islands or in fact involved with this sort of thing and so that brings out the question again of how do you determine who is on your side and who's not. It's pretty easy to determine that they are Japanese so it makes it much easier to do it that. Third thing is this is a not a contest. This is not a debate. This is not a sporting contest where the winner went away. This is a kill or be killed situation. And the rules if you want to call it that didn't necessarily apply when you stop think about the number of civilians that are killed

on all sides. One of the comments on those. Well the first thing I'd say is that the real the real military leaders of the United States. General Marshall Admiral King and others thought that this was useless. That thought it was a detriment to the war effort military manpower all sorts of materiel was used to produce to create these 10 concentration camps with all their equipment. Some of the most food was a weapon during the Second World War. Some of the most productive farmers in the United States were taken off their farms. It was counterproductive when politicians tried to impose the same kind of

regulations on the Japanese. Americans living in Hawaii where every third person was Japanese where Japanese were. An important part of the war effort. Where in the dark days immediately after Pearl Harbor National Guard groups and even high school college and high school ROTC units largely of Japanese-Americans who every third person in the island were given guns and put into trenches to defend against an attack that never came. Nobody was concerned that they were that they had Japanese faces they were treated as Americans and they behaved as Americans. There were no convictions no indictments of any individual for SBN of Japanese ancestry or regardless of where they were burned. Born in the United States during the entire war in other words there was

no evidence against anyone no overt acts there were certainly people. Like the attorney general of California Earl Warren who argued that this fact that there had been no sabotage was the most ominous thing of all because that meant that there was some kind of in a plan to prevent sabotage or to withhold sabotage until everyone's guard was down. Now that's a wonderful catch 22. If there had been sabotage Warren was it see here's a case of sabotage that fellow's guilty there must be lots of others. But they didn't have one single case. So they said well there's an invisible deadline. How can you argue against a thing like that it's nonsense. Our society is based on law. Law requires that guilt be individual not collective.

We ignored that to our detriment. In World War 2 in terms of Japanese-Americans the whole Congress the whole United States government now recognizes that this was a fact and there are you know I'm a. 77 year old. I was a merchant marine in the second world war with under-age and fought in the Korean War so I'm up I'm almost as old as you are. I was horrified when I got back from a trip in 1945 and met someone in New York City an American citizen who had been in a camp and had only recently been released because what I thought I was fighting for were American principles. And that it seemed to me at the time and it seems to me now was essentially

the most un-American kind of activity to incarcerate persons not because of their personal guilt but because of who their ancestors war were and what kind of genes they had. And if we as a nation continued to do something like this we won't be worth fighting for and my notion but we haven't done that. This was an aberration. We're not doing that now we have there's been a lot of hysteria but nothing comparable to this has happened. And I hope nothing comparable to this ever happens again. But certainly it could. Anything that has happened in history can clearly be repeated although history never fully repeats itself I've gone. And one about three four minutes left one more call I want to make sure we include This is someone listening in Lafayette Indiana. And our line for hello hello. Yes my name is Dawn and I lived in the lone pope Valley in the 1960s and worked there and

I learned from the locals that there was a young man of Japanese descent who flew over the Pacific Coast in that area taking photographs and sending them to the Japanese for four shelling of the West Coast. And after the war the Japanese were not welcome back to back into looked along Polk Valley. In fact when they came back they were shunned poke. But they went to the Valley just north of there the Santa Maria Valley where I saw my first Japanese Bobby suckers by the way. But anyhow that has been my experience in this and that that so did graduate from the Polk high school. And they just so

devastated that one of their own would be spying for the Japanese. You don't know this you just heard this you know the person's name. Well they're all dad. Well you know it's it's a nice story but you think you could check it out if you want to go to poke. L o m p o c I know I know exactly where it is OK and I know that that was an area where there had been much Japanese lease holding and after the Japanese left many people got those leases and didn't want the Japanese to come back. Whether this was a story concocted to justify their exclusion of Japanese from what had been not land that they own because it was in an alien land. But these people certainly didn't want the Japanese to come back but whether it was because of this mythical spotting of the AIRC craft or whether it was

a sense of guilt over what they done I've got the foggiest idea and I don't believe you really know either because what you are talking about is hearsay. No I think. This is correct but I thought you might want to know this because if you want to you could check out see the alum Polk high school yearbook book and and find out more about it. And as I said they they were not welcome into that valley. The working people in that valley after the war who were welcomed more were the Filipinos. And like you who were not involved the same extent during the war they would do were agricultural laborers who didn't take the crops actually who didn't know him well and Mexicans and and and Filipinos were the major laborers when I was there. Well again I thank you for the call. We're just about THE POINT we're going to have to do to stop

the order that created the these camps this was signed in 1900 to it was not until 1976 that it was officially revoked it was Gerald Ford and it wasn't until 1990 that there was there was the formal apology only late in 88 I guess the question I am left with why is it take what it did take so long. That's a good question. But sir there were there were some ameliorative measures taken fairly soon thereafter. President Truman for instance in one thousand forty six when some Japanese American and Japanese American units came home some of them. He reviewed them behind in the Ellipse behind the White House gave them another distinguished unit's decoration and said not quite correctly but his heart was in it. You have fought against prejudice and you of

won. In 48 There was a little property compensation not much in one thousand fifty two. We revoked. Or change the laws so the Japanese Americans and other Asians could be naturalized so that there were a number of the merely approved measures. But this took a lot of doing. This is the only formal apology the United States Congress has ever made for this kind of a group action. It was an unprecedented event and if someone had told me that it was going to happen as early as the mid sixties I would have said you you're crazy that can't happen. But it did happen. Well I will have to leave it at that. Asked Roger Daniels Charles Phelps tapped professor emeritus of history at University of Cincinnati if you're interested in reading on the subject one book you might look at is his book prisoners without trial. Japanese-Americans in World War 2. Thank you very much.