Camp The Japanese example essay topic

Barbara ni naruCivilian Exclusion Order No. 79 Effective Friday 22 May 1942 On this fateful day the evacuation of 100,000 (+) Japanese immigrants and Japanese American citizens during World War II were forced into incarceration (internment compounds). These compounds were placed inland throughout the Western United States. The Japanese peoples of the greater Seattle and Puget Sound areas were forced to leave their homes, schools, temples (and churches), and shut down family businesses in Seattle's Nihonmachi (Japan town) community area. In the basement of the "Panama Hotel", at the corner of sixth and main street, a time capsule of eight days of diaspora that scattered Japanese American Heritage exists. Because the Federal government acting upon President Roosevelt's signed Executive Order 9066, employed agencies including the FBI and the Army, giving those Japanese peoples only eight days to settle their personal affairs while processing them for wholesale evacuation from Seattle's Nihonmachi community, and forcing their culture into internal exile.

The internees were allowed to take only what they could carry with them. All other items were to be discarded or left behind, such as the many personal items placed into suitcases and trunks found in the basement of the "Panama Hotel. In that darkened basement room, an accidental time capsule, can be seen worn suitcases and trunks adorned with travel tags from Tokyo or Kobe, along with stacks of other household belongings left behind 57 years ago when the American government incarcerated its own Seattle citizens and shipped them via truck, bus, and train to internment compounds like Idaho's Minidoka and yet closer to Seattle was the Puyallup Assembly Center. More than, 7,000 Japanese spent the spring and summer of in the Puyallup Assembly Center, an internment camp, located on the Washington State fair grounds. They were greeted by barde d wire and armed guards and placed into bad housing. The whole fair grounds area was to house 7,000 (+).

Living in every space around the race track and under the grandstands. Japanese men were immediately employed to build and set up further living quarters, mess halls, and administrative buildings. The living quarters were comprised of barracks that were 15 by forty feet buildings and each divided into 6 rooms, each room was 20 square feet. Each room would house a Japanese family. Euphemistically called "apartments" the furnishing consisted of army cots, family personal items and suitcases, one window and one light bulb hanging from the ceiling. The apartment walls gave no privacy for they did not reach the ceiling.

So the noise level all the time, talking, crying babies and snoring were some of the things that were often heard. There was no running water. Toilets and showers were a walk away as were the mess halls and laundry rooms. Privacy was lacking in the toiletries and shower facilities. Group showers were a normal routine until the inmates built on further walls for themselves. The camp (resettlement center) was actually a penitentiary, with armed guards in towers with Tommy guns and fifteen foot barbed wire fences surrounding the camp The Japanese were confined to there quarters from nine " oclock and lights go out at ten.

No one was allowed to take the two block walk to the latrines after nine what so ever. Petty regulations ruled every day life; twice a day role calls, curfews, lights out, set meal times. Other regulations denied basic rights such as the right to assemble organizations, religious freedom, speech (Japanese material was confiscated) and privacy (police could enter your room at any time). All radios and lights should be turned off no later that 10: 30 PM. Lights should remain off through out the night until the morning. Exceptions were made for the ill, pregnant women or other necessary cases.

All evacuees shall be in there rooms from 10: 00 PM to 6: 00 AM. A daily door to door check of every evacuee in camp was a normal routine. The camp life during mess hall feeding times, consisted of six mess halls, serving 3 meals per day. Mess hall meal times were at 6: 00 to 7: 00 AM, lunch from 11: 30 AM to 12: 30 PM, and dinner from 5: 00 to 6: 00 PM. Lining up to eat every day became the rhythm of life for the Japanese. Traditional Japanese food was not served, only replaced with Vienna sausages, stewed tomatoes and bread.

Food later improved with fresh fruit and some Japanese dishes included rice. No second servings were served only bread and milk. There was not Enough food to go around because there were more people that had come to the Camp than expected. There were some instances were people went without meals. Long lines outside the mess hall that bottle necked and lead to the scant portions of canned wieners and boiled potatoes, hash for breakfast and beans for dinner. The food and sanitation problems were the worst.

There was no fresh meat, vegetables or butter. Some families had to split up when it came time to eat because the mess halls were to crowded. Milk was only for the kids, coffee or tea dosed with saltpeter and stale bread are the adults's tables. Many cooks were beginning to get discussed. Complaints on unbalanced meals came to them, and its not their fault at all. The Armies allowance was approximately fifty cents per person a day.

Later the Army rations changed and food began to get better. Soon they were getting Cantaloupes and raspberries. Then one memorable day there was steak for lunch and three pork chops a piece for dinner. The Puyallup Assembly Center was under jurisdiction of the Wartime Civilian Administration (WCC A) and the center manager. The day-to-day administration of the camp was in the hands of a select group of Japanese American Citizens League (JACK) members which have been considered "The most thoroughgoing example of self-government" evident at the assembly centers. The Japanese American governing board was based on a military model with Headquarters staff in each of the camps divided into four areas.

A Mr. James. Sakamoto, chair of the Emergency Defense Council, former national leader of the Japanese American Citizens League, was the chief supervisor. The situation in Puyallup was unique. A headquarters staff was set up to Administer the government of all four areas. Set up on military basis, it was Divided into four sections. G-1 personnel-2 information-3 operations-4 supply And a special section to take care of such matters such as policing, fire watch, etc...

This headquarters staff was to plan and set policy for the entire camp. Each of the four areas is to its own area staff, planned on the same order as the headquarters staff. Each area is broken down into sections, each section into groups, and each group into sub-groups, with about 30 individuals in each sub-group. This is very similar to an Army structure where the breakdown is from division down to the platoons.

The ways that the Japanese had to endure for there time of incarceration, was at a tremendous cost. The suppression, destruction, and the scattering of their culture institutions and disassembled heritage has unjustly deprived such a beautiful innocent people of their freedom. In the 1980's a redress campaign began to heal the wound from the past. Political structure in our federal government was to redress the past wrongs of our actions. President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act in 1988. A public apology by the Executive branch under President George Bush in 1990, provided payments of $20,000.00, to the survivors of the internment.

Also the redress of historical revisionism and the changing of public perceptions from a "military necessity", to the survivors' view that it was unjust abrogation of civil liberties. The Seattle Nihonmachi community during the 50-year anniversary of Executive Order 9066 worked hard to set up an exhibition at the Wing Luke Asian Museum in 1992. Through out the United States Public commemoration, exhibitions, monuments, parks and memorials have been dedicated to honor those who sacrificed so much and lost it all. The pilgrimage to the Minidoka internment compound, where very little remains, serves as a touchstone for difficult memories.

A place of conscience for the American peoples facing our legacy of racial injustice. And a final note -- -in the darkness of a basement room at the "Panama Hotel" scattered, lost and broken pieces from the past remain to remind us -- -- not to repeat such an injustice.