this silly article does nothing and i mean nothing to address the death and sacrifice of our treasured american soldiers in the pacific-as well as europe. the japanese here were not law breakers. these "immigrants" that you are suddenly so fond are here illegally and should be treated as such.
11
For a better understanding of of Ms. Kakutani's main points in this insightful essay, I suggest that readers of this article look up and read her her terrific NYT's review of Assent - 1889 - 1939 by historian Volker Ullrich. He writes in the introduction, “In a sense, Hitler will be ‘normalized’ — although this will not make him seem more ‘normal.’ If anything, he will emerge as even more horrific.” The parallels are frightening.
11
There have been millions and millions of Japanese-Americans but ZERO American-Japanese. Not 1. Historically, it has been illegal for nonJapanese to learn Japanese just as it has been illegal in the past for nonChinese to learn Chinese. Japan is the worst possible basis of comparison under considerations of openness and treatment of foreigners, along with Korea and China. You might as well print a story of German inhabitants of the city of Auschwitz or Bergen-Belsen who were displaced and interned in 1945. The children, however, are innocent when illegal aliens break the law.
6
The whole premise yet another NY Times sponsored open borders propaganda piece is ridiculous. There is no comparison to the internment of Japanese-American citizens during WWII and the confinement of illegal aliens hopping over our borders. You have to have a lazy mind to think the analogy is convincing.
21
It was no picnic for these families, but neither were these concentration camps. Given that there were Japanese immigrants supporting the enemy, how was the government supposed to handle it? How were they supposed to distinguish between you? Your property should not have been stolen. But as a Jew, I am sick of the complaints by Japanese people, virtually all of whom were set free in time. Meanwhile, you were fed, clothed and schooled. How awful.
13
Great to see Ms. Kakutani's words as the source rather the review. She is right to draw the analogy in that people are being demonized although it may not be a perfect one in terms of context.
We should not demonize any human being but that said, we need to come up with a solution going forward as we've had many analogies to imperfect historical precedents which generates a lot of debate wo solving anything. I'm a liberal but I think liberals who accuse conservatives of being "scared of others" is also not a perfect analyses of what they feel. I think it's more of a fear of the situation rather the people -- a fear that migration from the south has been, is and will continue to happen and it has consequences to our society.
We need a Marshall Plan for LA. I bet the US as a whole would show more compassion to those at our border if they thought it wouldn't be regularly overwhelming. We do need to manage our immigration flows -- that is our absolute right but we also need to help those fleeing a burning house. To those who say it's not our responsibility, my question is wouldn't it make more sense if you don't want them migrating here? Incarceration are internment camps inside our borders and if outside, they're refugee camps. We need to start solving our issues soon so that half this country doesn't want to put the other half of their citizens in internment camps. The moral thing to do for everyone is to start helping those fleeing in their own home countries.
3
I appreciate Michiko Kakutani basing this incisive opinion piece on her family's history in Berkeley, CA. Long ago I was a member of the Asian Task Force, a committee of parents, students, and other community members appointed by the Berkeley Public Schools superintendent to develop an Asian American history curriculum to be taught to students from K to G12. Many Japanese American parents, mostly Nisei, came forth with the stories of their families' imprisonment in the camp in Topaz, Utah. They helped develop the curriculum and identify instructional materials, which came to include the book Journey to Topaz by Yoshiko Uchida, Kakutani's aunt. The parents wanted students to learn from their family/community history and work for justice. My takeaway from Kakutani's piece, written nearly 50 years later, is that the stories of the incarceration of Japanese Americans must be told over and over again, by each generation and the next, because we cannot see the moral arc of the universe definitively bend towards justice in our lifetime. We must educate, educate, educate, with the hope that the arc will trend towards justice as a result.
14
J.Edgar Hoover, of all people, was a staunch defender of the Japanese-American community, and strongly advised Roosevelt that the community was not a threat. He shared information from the FBI's surveillance that showed no danger from the community. In fact, Hoover suggested to Roosevelt, that the community could be an asset. Hoover's hard information fell on deaf ears, and Gen, DeWitt, a hard core racist, insisted the military designate the West Coast be deemed a war zone (it was not, practically speaking). That designation placed the West Coast under military rule, so all bets were off - civil law became irrelevant. It took G. H. W. Bush to represent America's admission of wrongdoing in 1982.
12
The problem with liars is that very soon they cannot distinguish between truth and falsehood. It all seems the same to them.
6
Michiko Kakutani has written a sad and touching piece that personalizes the shameful chapter of American history when we interred Japanese-Americans, most of them citizens, in concentration camps right here on US soil.
Yet, it is ultimately a straw man argument drawing a false equivalency between what happened in the 1940's to what is happening today. To wit, today's ILLEGAL immigrants are being DETAINED for trying to willfully enter this country with the complete knowledge that they and their children are breaking the law.
The US's immigration system was broken and mismanaged before Trump was elected president. It is galling, yet to be expected, that Democrats are now so willfully misconstruing practices that have been in place since prior Administrations. President Trump and his Administration are finally taking action to fix the the myriad of problems we have with illegal immigration - as he promised and much to the chagrin of the Democrats who've done nothing for years.
The NYT's and other MSM, pushers of the liberal agenda, are ginning up these stories about separation of illegal immigrant families with absolute disregard of the facts and what needs to be done. As a result, expect the consequences in the 2018 and 2020 elections - to the detriment of the Democrats.
10
Nobody gets through my junior immigration history course or even my freshman U.S. history survey without being exposed to the injustice of the internment of Japanese Americans, two-thirds of them U.S. citizens. (I also confront them with the bigotry and indifference that led us to turn away Jewish “asylum seekers” such as Anne Frank’s family.)
Then I ask my students why it's necessary to include these "un-American" aspects in the story of our Greatest Generation. Rather than answering myself, I leave the final word to Betty Kanameishi, who wrote a "love letter" to America from behind barbed wire in her 1944 internment camp high school yearbook: "I worship you in spite of the errors you have made. Yes, you have made errors and you have roamed on many wrong roads; but everyone makes mistakes. ... All I ask is that you do not make the same mistake twice."
That’s my job—and your job—I tell them.
14
The story of Japanese internment is, like the Holocaust, something that should never be ignored or forgotten, and the racism apparent in much of the rhetoric and policy of this Administration is alarming and appalling.
However, the policy of detaining people who choose to enter this country illegally is obviously reasonable and necessary, no matter what their racial background. Confusing the issues of racism and border security serves no good purpose, and in fact, probably serves the rhetoric of the GOP base by enabling the portrayal of the rest of us as irresponsible whiners.
12
Where do you get this stuff? Nobody is shouting "no borders". Nobody is advocating open borders. Nobody is OK with criminals entering the country. Democrats are calling for comprehensive immigration reform, Fox is calling it "open borders", Trump is spewing bigotry and lies, pardoning neo-fascist crackpots and overt racists, and Fox is calling it "law and order". It is Orwellian, and ignorant people fall for it. The gang of 8, including Marco Rubio, crafted a comprehensive immigration bill 6 years ago that had the votes to pass, but the Tea Party crackpots would not let Boehner put it on the floor. The Republicans have been blocking sensible immigration reform for years and blaming Democrats so they could mine the issue for bigoted voters who constitute their margin of victory.
17
This is a false equivalence. Japanese-Americans were already legally present in our country.
If you want to get yourself and your family incarcerated, get your family members together and trespass where you don't belong.
16
Silly comparison.
Illegal aliens and immoral parents who violate all rules to dump their kids - and their problems - on the American taxpayer;
vs.
American citizens mistreated by the government 70 years ago
24
Ms. Kakutani, the photograph of your fine family, so carefully dressed in their nice clothing and living in a concentration camp, brought tears to my eyes. I am an old man and I remember the deportation of the Japanese-American families to the high deserts of the West. It was the result of bigotry and ignorance combining to raise baseless fears in the general populace. I never thought to see such evil treatment meted out to anyone in this country again. Sadly, I was mistaken.
17
The internment of Japanese Americans occurred because the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, which among many, many other bad effects caused my father to lose four years of his life serving in the US Navy and being shot at by Japs.
7
History is repeating itself in oh so many supremely disturbing ways. As I look back at the history of our country I'm starting to realize that it's possible that it in the entire life of our nation it is only children of my race and generation, those born "white" in the 3rd quarter of the 20th century,
that could possibly have grown to full adulthood really believing that America was fully committed to "liberty and justice for all", as we proudly recited in our daily pledge to the flag in our childhood classrooms. I believe there may be no other 50-year period in the history of our great nation in which we were not explicitly and unequivocally depriving some whole category of people on our soil of some of the most basic and fundamental aspects of the "right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" promised in our Declaration Of Independence - the right to live unincarcerated with the people they love. I took it for granted that belief in and commitment to "liberty and justice for all" is what it means to be an American, that that is the glue that holds us together as a nation. I know now that there was so much, past and ongoing, that I wasn't aware of or could ignore or forget because it wasn't impacting me directly and wasn't being loudly broadcast in my face at every turn. Now I have no idea what it means to be an American.
6
I was astounded by the depth and quality of writing in this piece - until I saw at the end that the writer is Michiko Kakutani. Vanity Fair called her "the most powerful book critic in the English-speaking world." Kakutani was one of the most brilliant lights of The New York Times and hopefully, even though she just retired from NYT, she will continue to weigh in with her keen intellect during this civil rights- and soul-destroying Trump era.
14
"When lying is normalized...people begin to assume that all politicians lie...that there is no point in voting or protest." She got me. In trying to escape the 24-hour news that depresses and enrages me, I find myself disengaging more and more. Kakutani is right to slap us awake with her words. Attention must be paid.
16
When there is something good to say about liars and criminals I am sure reporters will say it.
4
Let's let this go already, it's been front page for over a week
What's with the NYT dragging the ugly past up over and over and over.
Yes, we know, we feel badly about it, we get it!
9
Especially as the detention of Japanese citizens and Japanese aliens in the US wasn't an immigration issue.
4
We will be happy to see The New York Times take this off the front page once Trump reunites ALL children he has kidnapped and imprisoned in detention centers BACK with their families, and all Trump administration perpetrators are brought to justice.
10
But we're doing it again! The NY Times isn't just randomly dragging up the past for no apparent reason. This is very much relevant to events going on today! 70 years from now the children of today's incarcerated immigrant families are going to be writing about the devastating impact of the actions our government in taking today in our name! We clearly don't feel badly enough to not repeat the same outrages again.
11
The specter of a child crying uncontrollably in the arms of a stranger is an irreversible sight never to be forgotten. This administration and the whole of the Republican party are sadistic misanthropes that must be voted out. The Democratic party shares in this nightmare we are experiencing today and the past. History will not judge them well, but for now, they just want to keep their jobs with the perks while America and all it stands for be damned.
3
Ms.Kakutani,it's about time Trump and his minions are put into internment camps like your family was put into in 1942.
This way these leeches will have a first hand experience of what it feels to be an inmate in detention centers all over the country where they've put younger than 5 year old migrant children after physically snatching away from their mother's breasts.
It is one thing to control the flow of refugees, who're fleeing from the rapists and murderers from mainly the three countries in central America, in a normal fashion.
But it is totally another to put the children as old as six months old into wire mesh dungeons without their parents around.
Unfortunately, Trump and his heart-less employees, working in his cabinet or in the White House are asking the ICE members to just send a lesson to would be immigrants all over the world, by just stuffing three thousand plus children and their parents in different detention centers all over the country and throw away the keys.
Now thanks to an order from a very kind and passionate federal judge, Alex Azar and his leeches working in HHS Dept. are scrambling to reunite as many children as possible within a time frame.
Every Americans with a conscience should remember that the first of those directives has already been flouted by this administration, drawing a rebuke and a contempt of court threat from the same judge.
So in the next phase,Mr.Azar is trying to hand over all those children to any parents he feels like.
11
This is shows how well-intentioned – but over-simplistic – logic spirals, when applied to systemic societal problems…To wit:
"...There are good people already in this country, and there are bad people already in this country…
“…The problem is, how do we get the bad people out…
Well, we think it well-intentioned to wait for them to do something bad, vs just calling them out, and indicting, convicting, and ostracizing them – and on Internet Time…
So – let’s talk about a cancer invading our own body, vs a cancer of violent crime invading a society…
Should we wait until our cancer does something bad – like preventing us from walking or even thinking – or should we strive to diagnose and counter it earlier…
.....
This goes to other socio-legal facets of life, like privacy…..
We think it well-intentioned to err on the side of privacy for individuals, and both consumer and corporate activists are agitating to keep it out of the hands of the law enforcement…
Yet, we all tacitly accept that law enforcement wouldn’t be half as effective without informants – and we exalt corporate whistleblowers…
And, one enabler for diagnosing our cancer earlier would be to be able to compare it with every cancer like it that’s afflicted someone before – especially everyone in our family, and perhaps our workplace…
Life – like investing - is a series of trade-offs and choices…
Not all made are good, in the long run…
But we don’t know – or perhaps don’t want to know – that, right now…
What happened to the Japanese Americans during WWII and what is now happening with the illegal immigrants are simply not comparable situations.
13
On the contrary, the author makes a point-by-point comparison. For instance:
A 1982 report by a congressional commission had concluded that Executive Order 9066 “was not justified by military necessity” and that the decisions to intern Japanese-Americans were animated by “race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership.”
President Trump’s calls for a “Muslim ban” and his “zero tolerance” border policy are similarly based on lies and racist stereotypes. During World War II, Japanese-Americans were described as animals. Satirical “Japanese Hunting Licenses” were printed (“this animal has the characteristics of a skunk in appearance and odor”), and the governor of Idaho, Chase Clark, said, “The Japs live like rats, breed like rats and act like rats.”
Today, Mr. Trump has branded some undocumented immigrants as “animals” and described them as “murderers and thieves” who want to “infest our country.” In tweeting about so-called sanctuary cities, he used the word “breeding” to refer to immigrants. He also dishonestly laments the “death and destruction caused by people that shouldn’t be here,” when in fact, studies show that immigrants are less likely to commit violent crimes than American-born citizens.
4
The sad thing is that President’s supporters will read this and say the author’s family got exactly what they deserved solely based on the color of their skin.
The problem isn’t Trump. The problem is the racists who support him.
9
It all started 100 years ago. IN 1919, Japan donated 3,0000 Cherry trees to the USA to be placed around American national monuments. The gift having been accepted, in 1920, Japan started its US spy network culminating in John Semer Farnsworth and Japan having the complete schedule of 7th Fleet ships exiting and entering original target San Diego and later Pearl Harbor. When Japanese pilots bailed out of their planes at Pearl Harbor, Japanese people hid them from the US Navy;Japanese on US soil knowing the pilots attacked the US safeguarded them. FDR considered this. When US President George H. W. Bush bailed out of his plane at Chiwo Jima, he was not eaten but the rest of his squadron was captured and became trophy dinner for Japanese officers. Japanese interned people as well and put them to work. But July 1942, Japan had conquered most of East Asia. That seems impossible except that people Japan interned were forced into slavery and Japan had a 10 million strong army of these slaves. Go to the Garfield Medical Center in Monterey Park California and you will see 2 busloads of Chinese women every other Saturday arrive at 9am to deliver anchor babies. The Chinese are smarter than the Japanese. What this story is about is opening all US borders and ending all immigration laws. Anyone can come and go as humans did 40,000 years ago in a veritable State of Nature.
6
The Republicans except for Senator McCain who is from a border state have systematically fought against migration reform for years. They represent the corporations who - face it - are the beneficiaries of illegal labor. Mexico is not in tatters, in fact it has lots of hope, great education, a healthy and vastly growing middle class and a new President who has managed in his long career as leader to work with the most wealthy business leaders like Carlos Slim, Lebanese-Mexican who owns a big chunk of this paper, and the very poor. President Lopez Obrador´s base is the middle class. Please do not confuse issues. There are "no border" radicals just as there are "white is right" fascists. The majority of Americans I continue to believe are reasonable. The problem is the Republican leaders have been anti-US in their pro-1% moves and many Democrat leaders have been coopted. The problem is people like you who believe hyperbole when you really do not have much information.
2
With all the respect and empathy I have for Ms. Kakutani, she falls for for a fallacy of analogy this time. When it comes to deeply emotional, traumatic experience, it is hard to avoid some cloudiness of the mind. She is right to recount and condemn the shameful injustice of our country, perpetrated more than 7 decades ago. But our country now is not that of 1941, and her experience, while absolutely valid and meaningful within her, is not to be extrapolated to our present illegal immigration problem.
8
All the good FDR accomplished is forever tarnished by his rush to judgement and the signing of an EO directing the incarceration Americans because of their heritage.
Sadly, DJT has not learned from history or perhaps refused to learn, and now repeats the horrific acts of the past. The targeted populations have changed but the rush to judgement and methods remain the same. The underlying message and impetus of this administration is “other” is not welcome here.
6
Perhaps things would be different in this country if we did not continually 'white'wash our own history.
2
And unless people are held accountable for their crimes against humanity, they will do it again. Sessions and Azar, at the very least, should face charges of child abuse.
7
Most Americans welcome legal immigrants, but not illegals. US laws allow foreigners (aliens) to seek entry and citizenship. Those who do not follow these laws are in this country illegally (i.e., illegal aliens) and should be detained and deported, as is policy in other countries, too.
We cannot support our own citizens: the poor, the ill, elderly, disabled, veterans, et al. It is thus utterly impossible for US taxpayers to support the millions of foreigners who would like to come here.
Responsibility for this sad state of affairs lies with the parents, who chose to take the children on long and dangerous journeys in hopes of entering the US without seeking lawful entry. Worse yet, some parents sent their children unaccompanied, or with parental pretenders. Many Americans consider such behaviors to be child abuse.
The cruelty lies not in detaining and deporting illegal aliens, or separating children from parents who have broken our laws. What is cruel, unethical and probably illegal is encouraging parents to bring their children on the dangerous trek to US borders and teaching parents how to game the system to enter the US by falsely claiming asylum, persecution, abuse, etc.
Abolishing ICE makes sense only to advocates of open borders, a policy no nation will ever accept. If open borders becomes a plank in the Democratic Party platform we are doomed to lose the midterm and 2020 elections.
9
There is a huge difference between internment of American citizens and jailing those violating the immigration laws at the borders. Catch and release is lunacy. To release a law-breaker and ask them to show for court with no bail or assurance is simply ensuring further law breaking as the support their illegal stay through illegal activities — identity theft, fraud in obtaining a job, and worse.
It’s been a year and a half. Will the NYTs ever find one positive thing to print about the current administration.
9
Ahhh..
Looks like folks are OK with what happened.
why am not I surprised ?
The atrocities that were committed in the past and are being committed overseas and on American soil as we speak are truly unconscionable.
I am so sorry to be an American citizen.
13
I live not far from Topaz. It disheartens me to think we the people allowed camps such as Topaz to exist and incarcerate, for the most part, honest citizens and legal residents in such places (my father and I had many heated discussions over this practice).
These camps and the treatment of a race of people was based on hysteria, racism and false narratives, the same rationale that Trump has used convinced many that his actions are in the "national security" justification.
Trump has painted all persons who appear before an agent at our borders who is brown, black or any skin color other than white is bad, is a drug smuggler, human trafficker, basically "bad hombres".
I do believe we do not let enter our country those who are criminals or have criminal history. I do not believe we restrict those of who are members of particular religions or country of origin.
Trump has built and populated his version of Topaz. And we the people have succumbed to the gaslighting and racist dog whistling and have given silent approval to the same justification that was used to populate Topaz-nativism, racism, hate of others not like us.
8
And in an other part of the paper is a story about the MO candidate for Senate for the Republican Party , Yale graduate, currently the Attorney General of MO and of course 'religious' - and all in for trump and his separation of families :
"
That includes contentious issues like the separation of parents and children who cross the United States border illegally. Asked last month about the practice, before Mr. Trump’s order reversing the policy, Mr. Hawley said it was a matter of upholding law and order.
“If people didn’t cross the border illegally this wouldn’t happen,” he said. “It is an entirely preventable tragedy: Don’t cross the border illegally and this won’t happen.”
There is a pox in America , the Republican Party - and they will gladly make detention camps for ethnic groups and separate children from their parents ( and not allow them to hug siblings - another story in todays paper) while protecting the unborn.
Ms Kakutani knows well that Americans will not only do this again - but do so gladly!
We are in deep .......
7
Many readers commenting here seem to misunderstand a basic fact. Immigrants seeking asylum who present themselves at an authorized port of entry, have the right to a court hearing on their claim. This is under U.S law and according to international law as well. What has been going on at our Southern border violates both and is a disgrace. As for separating parents and children, both the officials who ordered it and the employees who carried it out are beneath contempt. For shame!
15
All of these outrages during WWII were perpetrated by a beloved Democrat president. Ditto sending tens of thousands of unaccompanied alien children to detention centers during Barack Obama's first and second terms. The Democrats today are demogaguing this issue. They want catch and release policy, which ensures MORE illegal immigration, MORE gaming of the asylum process, and more border chaos. No. Join your colleagues across the aisle and fix this process, instead of using these kids--whose PARENTS put them in this situation--secure our borders and create sane immigration policy.
6
Enough already. The Japanese internment during World War II has absolutely nothing to do with enforcement of American immigration laws.
The only solutions offered by the Democratic-Progressive-Socialist-Indentity_Politics party so far have been open borders, abolish ICE, and amnesty, benefits and citizenship for illegals.
Let's put a lid on the rhetoric and irrelevant comparisons and deal with the issue at hand. Which is the mistake of encouraging illegal immigration. Which for one thing leads to horrid abuse of those who try to enter the country illegally
7
It has everything to do with this immigration and travel ban. The Trump administration is using a blanket national security reason to impose the restriction. This is based on the false accusation (constantly being broadcast by the president and current administration I might add) that those seeking immigration at the boarder are criminals and bad people without any proof. The Supreme Court allowed the national security justification without scrutinizing the factual basis. This is exactly the same thing that happened in the case of the wartime internment of Japanese Americans. People are being treated inhumanely because of bigoted fear-smearing based on race and national origin not because of factual information. These people are not all law-breakers, many are asylum seekers which is a legal way to enter the country and they are entitled to due process of receiving a hearing in front of a judge. That is the law and they are not supposed to be rounded up in mass separated from their children to be used as leverage in order to accept immediate deportation as a deterrent. This is immoral and not any law most of us would recognize.
2
The Korematsu case, in which the US Supreme Court upheld the validity of the internment of Japanese Americans, will go down in history as a terrible stain on our society. I read it as a first year law student in my Constitutional Law class. Sitting next to me in that class was a hulking, barrel-chested blond guy named Dan. Because we would sometimes discuss our assigned cases, I asked him if he had read Korematsu. “It was a really horrible case,” I opined. “You mean the one about the Jap in the camp?” he asked. After I heard him say that, I never spoke to him again. But it should come as no surprise that he later became a member of the Federalist Society.
10
Ms. Kakutani: it's so important to hear these devastating stories in all their particularity. In the midst of a war footing, Japanese-American families were doubly traumatized, and the true reckoning was delayed for decades as families sought to move on with their lives after the war was over.
Prompted by another period of national shame and trauma, the onset of the Iraq War and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2002, I made a film, Camp Diaries, about the internment camps that drew from two contrasting archival sources. The first was the trove of propaganda films produced by the United States to justify the unjustifiable. The second were the commissioned photographs by Dorothea Lange, featured in the collage of images accompanying your story, in which Lange searingly debunked the myths of that very Government propaganda. Unfortunately, the message of the film has once again become a concrete reality in the form of a lawless, un-American wannabe tyrant, set on isolating and demonizing groups by race and ethnicity.
Also included in the film are the shockingly racist propaganda cartoons of Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, about the invading hordes of Japanese infiltrators. The film can be seen on Vimeo at this link:
https://vimeo.com/86898332
2
Ma. Kakutani, Thank you. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if schools could use your commentary in the classroom? The American public dangerously lacks historical perspective.
4
We live in an age of false equivalences.
I have heard illegal immigrants -- most of whom are economic migrants and not asylum seekers, and some of whom are toting along children who are not theirs -- being equated with American and Allied POWs in Japanese camps during World War II, and with Jews fleeing Europe and certain death in all but the cases in which intrepid Christians saved them (and, mind you, often for a price).
Everyone wants to come to the United States -- even in the era of that loutish, lying parasite Donald Trump -- even in a time when both free-trade policies and protectionist policies mean the outsourcing of jobs -- even in a time when income disparity is growing (but mind you, the use of birth control would mitigate poverty in that people could get through school, find a job, and hitch up with a steady partner, as steady as partners are these days, before bringing babies into the world), and in a time when our cities are becoming increasingly unlivable thanks to developers' rapacity and an uptick in homelessness.
The world's tired, poor, huddled masses still see gold in our streets. My own tired, poor, huddled grandparents arrived with their paperwork in hand.
8
And depending upon which country they came from “paperwork in hand” or not, they were just as despised as those coming today, “paperwork in hand” or not.
For whatever reason some Americans need scapegoats to blame for all the ills of this country.
6
Nobody is shouting "no borders" . Where do you get this stuff? Nobody is advocating open borders. Democrats are calling for immigration reform, Fox is calling it "open borders", and ignorant people fall for it. The gang of 8, including Marco Rubio, crafted a comprehensive immigration bill 6 years ago that had the votes to pass, but the Tea Party crackpots would not let Boehner put it on the floor. The Republicans have been blocking sensible immigration reform for years and blaming Democrats so they could mine the issue for bigoted voters.
12
Thank you for sharing your family's story. It is one of the most important things I have ever read in the NYT. I visited the Manzanar Japanese Internment Camp a few years ago that is preserved by the National Park Service, and it haunts me still. I am so conflicted about being a citizen of a country that has done some of the most important things in world history - but is also capable of doing some of the most awful things... the Japanese internment camps, the Indian Schools, the McCarthy hearings, Jim Crow laws... We must always be vigilant against these evils. History will mark this as one of our darkest times. I have no doubt about that.
9
Fear and ignorance still wins out over truth, facts, and common sense. How many, if any Japanese people in this country were found to have been guilty of any crimes during the war? And yet, we still have people today listening to lies, and innuendo from hate filled bigots. True patriotic, hardworking people's lives were torn apart, out of misguided fear. You could say this era repeats itself. We haven't learned from our mistakes
3
The internment of the Japanese during WWII was indeed unfortunate but necessary to protect the nation. How was the nation to know if the enemy existed in their ranks? I really don't believe Americans truly appreciate the significance of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, much the surprise attack on the WTC and the Pentagon nearly seven decades later. The Japanese were determined to rid the Pacific region of the white Imperialists, yet they were Imperialists themselves in ruling the Korean peninsula and Manchuria and waging war on China. Wonder how many Americans today realize that? Also the issei, actual Japanese immigrants were not citizens of the US, only their children, the nisei, were by virtue of the 14th Amendment. How was the nation to know if the issei were loyal? Looking back upon the period of internment through the lens of political correctness and hatred of President Trump is the real falsehood, the death of truth. Thank you.
1
Yo, Southern Boy, we were at war with Germany at the time. Did we intern Germans? We were at war with Italy at the time. Did we intern Italians?
It's difficult to reason with unreason. Epic, pandemic stupidity has 'infested' the Trump cult. Indeed, stupidity is the coin of the Trump realm.
14
@chambolle
I sfand by my words.
Your father was a famous mathematician. The Kakutani fixed point theorem is a important result in topology and an essential theorem in economic theory. I believe that he formulated it in 1941. Was that before he married your mother? Did his renown protect him from deportation and imprisonment?
I find no comparison to what happened in these two incidents.
In one loyal American citizens and residents were rounded up and imprisoned solely because of their Japanese ancestry. In all fairness (can I use that word?) citizens of German and Italian descent should also have rounded up as possible saboteurs and spies. I guess that meant my family since among other nationalities we are also of German and Italian ancestry. The Japanese ethnics were singled out purely because of prejudice against the Asian peoples the same as when the Chinese were singled out as the "Yellow Peril".
In this new matter though these people have broken our laws on how one enters this country. They are not citizens nor resident aliens. Most are coming for economic reason and trying to cover that with a thin veneer of asylum seeking. All have passed through another country where they were safe from any perceived threat of persecution to get to the US, a violation of the UN rules on asylum seeking. Even if they were being persecuted against that action alone is proof of the economic desires driving them here.
Let's face it. The US is generous to a fault even to those spitting in our faces. How many today brag of their illegal status while marching with a flag representing their homeland? Now is not the time to slack off but to clamp down harder and discourage this insolence.
8
There is no question that FDR's order to imprison Japanese Americans following Pearl Harbor was one of the immoral episodes in American History. For sheer racism, only slavery exceeded its moral depravity.
That politicians lowered American values to whip up war fever was racist cannot be questioned since there was no comparable round-up of German or Italian Americans.
Trump is clearly cut from the same cloth, but is arguably much worse, since we are not at war with anyone from Latin America. Ok, the fact that the Latinos are illegal immigrants and not Americans distinguishes the situations. But the construction of the camps, the separation of families, all for the purpose of political theater is despicable. Despicable.
Even if you support border controls, which is a reasonable position to take, supporting Trump's actions makes you just as despicable as he is.
3
Not trying to be captain obvious but to make a point to counter one of the many straw man created by the American right:
All of us who do NOT support separating children from their families are NOT for bad people entering the country.
But we ARE FOR voting for ethical, moral, decent and non-criminal human beings to be President of this great country we love dearly.
5
As Ms Kakutani mentions in passing, in the present demonization of Latinos fleeing violence and poverty in their home countries, there is not even the pretext of this taking place in wartime. Making what's going on now doubly shameful.
It's important to understand that unlike his rabid followers, Trump himself is not a racist or white supremacist but rather something worse: he is completely and utterly cynical. He knows the fear-mongering and slander he's been mouthing for two years has no basis in fact. He's saying these things only to whip up his so-called base and increase power. Meanwhile, innocent children are suffering. For that alone he should be the one behind bars.
1
Both things are true: he is cynical and he is a racist.
3
“a camp where persons (such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, or refugees) are detained or confined.”
That’s Merriam-Webster’s definition of concentration camp. Americans can call it what we want but we actually put American citizens in concentration camps in recent history. We must apologize.
1
There is a material difference between internment of U.S. citizens and legal-entrant residents who have done nothing wrong based on ethnicity alone, and law enforcement towards those who have been caught smuggling themselves and/or their relatives across the border.
People of good will can disagree on what the rules should be for border crossing, but conflating these two unlike situations is not very helpful.
4
History is most assuredly NOT repeating itself. The internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry is different because these were American citizens, cruelly and illegally detained by Roosevelt, a President of Democrat ancestry. The Japanese-Americans did nothing wrong and had committed no illegal acts.
What is happening today with non-Americans who have broken the law by entering the United States illegally cannot reasonably be compared to what happened to the Americans during WWII.
And by the way, the Korematsu case was "settled law" until very recently. Thank God that precedent does not always rule.
5
The suggestion that enforcement of immigration laws is somehow equivalent of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during part of the war with Japan is just absurd.
6
Ms.Kakutani, you have a wonderful gift to,tell a story with clarity and emotion.We have not been reminded frequently enough about the internment camps during World War Two.That this was done to loyal American citizens is still unthinkable.Your narrative reminds us that those who do not learn their history are doomed to repeat it.There is no place in our democracy for shaming others and denying the importance of our judicial system and our free press.Anyone who does it is not a proud American!
1
I know what crime does to families. It's happened to me, my family, and friends -- and its awful, and can be fatal. So who cares about her story. It's a sentimental distortion of the issue of incarceration. The percentage of criminals incarcerated who are innocent is too small to merit an argument.
2
I care!
2
Ms. Kakutani makes it clear it's wrong to prejudge and demonize any people as a group. It's worse to then persecute them, particularly under the color of law enforcement and national security.
During WWII, lies were told about people of Japanese ancestry by our government. Lies about security risks and lack of loyalty were grounds for internment and later the Korematsu decision. Those lies were revealed 4 decades later and justified $10,000 reparation payments to each surviving internee.
Fast forward to 2018 and we have another administration lying about the security risks of indigent peasants from Central America. Most are fleeing lawlessness and deadly risks in their home countries. It is not illegal to seek asylum, and those who do are entitled to due process.
We are the lawbreakers when we deceive and connive as pretext to arrest for illegal entry. And it's a crime against humanity when we deliberately punish children and families to deter asylum seekers.
We recently had the spectacle of our Supreme Court repudiating the Korematsu decision while simultaneously allowing a Muslim ban based on blatant lies and religious animus.
Unfortunately, I have zero confidence our Supreme Court, now archly conservative, will treat the latest victims of a racist administration any better than it just treated Muslims. Given the deference they give the executive branch, lies and all, I even doubt they would actually decide Korematsu differently if transported back to 1944.
4
While I agree that Trump's separation of children from parents is extremely cruel and would never have occurred if the man wasn't a sadistic psychopath, I think comparing it to the Japanese internment is a stretch- they are both probably equally awful and should bring tears to anyone's eyes with an iota of compassion, but jailing American citizens based on their country of origin or that of their parents and to have it endorsed by the entire federal government is different.
We need to be clear about the nature of disgraceful moments in American history and the Japanese internment was the responsibility of a much wider swath of our government and citizenry than Trumps atrocities.
1
People like simple and accept the all or nothing approach. They live to be victims. Because the internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry was wrong, it follows there were no Japanese spies or disloyalty and that there was no problem of large Japanese populations on the west coast of the United States. There was a problem but our solution was a violation of our values and a miscarriage of justice. Much of it was based less on race than on profiteering. Today's illegal immigration problem is extremely different. Illegal immigrants are not American citizens or permanent residents and are not seeking asylum in the first country they flee after their home country. They are primarily here for economic reasons. I suggest we stop all immigration for 5 years and balance our budget. After five years with a balanced budget, we can discuss how many and which immigrants we should allow into the United States.
2
I think it is not quite ok to sell ( American ) cell phones / internet to countries where people live without dishwashers and expect " them" not to want to come to the land where they google everything they are not having.
Why are we entitled to have / live everything and " they"not?
1
They are entitled to whatever they can build in their countries. China, with a One Child Policy, to control population growth and aggressive development efforts has raised itself into a major world power. There is no reason the rest of the world can't do this except their lack of effort and vision. Jamaica and Haiti should be island paradises.
"Once again, national safety is invoked to justify the roundup of whole groups of people. "
That is not what's happening. Unless you count those breaking the law first and then claiming asylum when they're busted as a "whole group of people".
It's my understanding that people who try and hold up liquor stores are being rounded up and separated from their families. The same goes for those trying to hold up bodegas. Is there no end to the insanity?
If I went further into YOUR analogy I would be censored so I'll leave it at that.
4
More than one-third of Americans put "loyalty to him [Trump] or the Republican Party over facts, common sense and the Constitution." These are the same Americans who emblazon their sleeves with the symbols of "patriotism."
2
amen!
When I was a little kid, my friends and I regularly broke into the health club basketball courts across from my house. We were good kids and just wanted to play. The fact that we were good kids and weren't doing damage didn't mean we had a right to membership in the club. The nicest and hardest working illegal immigrant doesn't have a right to force his way into the United States and use our facilities. If you disagree with this concept, give us your address and we'll refer nice people to come and use your facilities without your permission.
6
what if you and your friends were jailed and incarcerated at that young age?
What's your point. We should have been given life memberships because we broke in?
This is not a lie: most of the people illegally crossing the border to not qualify for asylum and will never receive it.
This is not a lie: Australia and Europe have either created or are creating camps for "asylum"-seekers.
This is not a lie: the families are safer in these camps than they were on their journey to the U.S.
I hate to ask, but what exactly is the issue with detaining people who illegally crossed the border and will never have the chance to stay in the U.S. legally?
4
Do not be surprised, you almost ought to expect it, when history repeats itself, and sooner than later. American democracy is not perfect nor immune from fear mongering and demagoguery. Americans are not as pure hearted nor as caring more than others, Americans are simply humans with no higher moral standing or purity than the majority of other humans on this planet. This could be easily verified by the Trump's persistence in lying, GOP/Republicans' utter support and praise of Trump, and supporters with rising level of hostility and anger. There is so many factors that already in place for another American shameful act, fear mongering, demonizing and marginalizing of groups of people, hate and hostility of the populace toward so called "enemy/animals/etc.," courts ready to assist, political party enabling and protecting the executive branch, falsehood creation and maintenance by political leaderships and media outlets, etc. I would say, expect America to commit an atrocity soon, the conditions on the ground are, almost, calling for it!
6
Americans are unique among Western nations and indeed many Latin American nations in being bellicose and poorly educated, content to feel superior when indeed their country, my country has gone down the drain with no health insurance, no guaranteed education. They, the Trumpeters show, are unique in their ignorance in the face of destitution.
1
The government interned people of Japanese ancestry en masse on the mainland, while examining Italian and German Americans individually before internment. Why? Were not Italy and Germany our enemies also?
It was partly a knee jerk, punitive reaction to Pearl Harbor, partly pure racism, partly because it was simply easier to visually identify Japanese Americans, and partly because the number of recent Italian Americans and German Americans would be too great to manage.
The federal government is again promoting hatred and enacting policy based on race and ethnicity because it’s an easy solution to a complex problem. And it satisfies the base, who live safely protected and have no idea that this could explode to affecting Americans whose families arrived legally from the south. It already is, in fact. We have the technology to manage immigration responsibly and humanely. I don’t know how exactly it would work, but we should demand that the parties work together to stop ruining families indiscriminately, and that the president stop pouring gasoline on the fire.
3
"Secretary of War John J. McCloy shrugged off questions about the legality of the situation, writing 'the Constitution is just a scrap of paper to me.'" That is a terrifying sentiment shared today by way too many Americans, including Trump and, apparently, most of the GOP.
The immigrants coming here, legally and illegally, seem to believe in the Constitution and America's ideals more than our flag-waving, MAGA-hat-wearing patriots do. And let's be clear: these poor, desperate folks coming to our borders are nowhere near as dangerous as our homegrown lunatics who slaughter by the bushel their fellow citizens, be they newspaper journalists, school kids, church-, movie-, and concert-goers, fellow workers, and God knows who else. Yes, we need to protect our borders. But tossing people into internment camps for committing a misdemeanor certainly isn't the answer.
2
Quite frankly surprised by the level of vitriol in these comments.
No one is saying don't protect borders, or that the Japanese (not Japanese Americans) weren't cruel to US soldiers in war.
I would like to assume the best about my fellow readers, but I can't help but wonder how much innate racism motivates some of these comments.
Many seem to presume illegal immigrants are bad people or undeserving. Deep down we probably understand that dangerous illegal border crossings are only attempted by those with sheer grit and determination - the stuff that America mythologizes and reveres. And that many of our ancestors came to the US under similar motivation or even legal status (not that they'd necessarily tell you if they had entered initially illegally). Probably better people than all these nativists who failed it make it in life.
5
while i find trump policy inhuman, abhorrent, it is in no way comparable to the dispicable treatment by this country to it’s own citizens, those of japanese heritage, during ww2. the german heritage citizens faced no such action. not even close. the japanes-americans lost everything, received no compensation and lost their lives serving in the military. a shameful episode of incomprehensible horror.
1
This is an absolutely and fundamentally different problem, different issue; with a different solution. The media’s seeming insistence on equating protecting our borders from a stream of illiegal entry with that of imprisoning a select group already here, based upon race (some were citizens) during wartime is not serving anyone. It is misinformation and should not be promulgated in this manner.
3
I know a woman who is in her eighties who grew up in Berkeley during the same period. This woman had an older sister whose closest friend was Japanese American. One day the friend and her entire family just disappeared and my friend's older sister never heard from her again.
I keep trying to imagine what that would be like--to suddenly lose my best friend and not understand why. I keep trying to imagine what I'd pack in two suitcases and who would take my cats or care for my garden. I wonder what I'd tell my young daughter. What would it would feel like to work so hard for so many years to own my house and then to lose it because the government decided that I was the enemy? I don't think I really have any idea no matter how hard I try to imagine it.
3
John McCloy was one of the chief architects and supporters of the Japanese incarceration.
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/11/04/us/ex-aide-calls-japanese-internment-...
At hearings about the internment held in 1981 McCloy defended the internment and argued no reparations were called for.
In Peter Irons' book, Justice at War, Irons reports that at those hearings McCloy let slip that retribution for the Pearl Harbor bombing was part of the reason for the internment.
McCloy tried to retract his admission but it remained part of the record of those hearings.
Please note I thoroughly disagree with McCloy.
An excellent account of the internment and the legal arguments and social and political factors about the internment are discussed in Irons' book.
7
Beautiful and compelling. But Michiko doesn't touch on the effects of generational post-traumatic stress and how her parents, the Nisei generation, raised their kids not only in silence but in shame and fear and anger, which their children never understood. She doesn't mention that the suicide rate of former internees skyrocketed after they were released from camp and returned to the communities that had rejected them, stolen their possessions and didn't want them back. Many of them lived in poverty and isolation after camp, and they only had each other. This is the kind of world that Trump's child prison camps are creating, too.
26
There needs to be a new law: it is a crime for any government official or elected representative, including the President, to write or speak something they know to be untrue. Not just to Congress or a court, but to anyone, at any time.
17
Then we wouldn't have had Obamacare.
2
It is really difficult for those of us who remember and see echoes of the past repeating. Again, there is an artificial fear of the "other" and our current administration keeps declaring national security as the basis for unreasonable actions against people who have done nothing. Seems that mammals other than humans are more humane than us. Only in a world where individuals are not "classified" or labeled will we get past the outer perceptions of who we are will we find real peace.
11
From my elevated study in a city founded by the Romans I can only say "history is repeating itself, again and again". There seems to be no escape. Apparently mankind is unable to learn something out of former events that went awry. It is a pitying affair.
21
Thank you, Ms. Kakutani, for sharing your story.
As a young postdoctoral scientist I attended a conference in Toronto in the summer of 1988. I spent a fair bit of downtime socializing with three friends, all postdocs at Stanford. One had a Japanese surname. I'd known her for several years at that point; she is the _only_ Japanese-American I know who speaks with a distinctly Southern accent. Her parents lived in the Bay Area at the start of World War II, and were sent to an internment camp in Arkansas. Like so many others, they lost a home, a business, all their possessions -- without due process or compensation. After the war, they started over in Arkansas where my friend was born & raised.
The topic came up for conversation not because of curiosity about accents. It was on account of the Reagan administration having recently issued a formal apology for how Japanese immigrants and their US-born citizen children were mistreated by the US Federal Government in 1942-1945. The apology was accompanied by reparation payments to each internee family on the order of $40k (IIRC). To call this too late and too little is an understatement. The lessons to be learned -- don't be too quick to deal harshly with groups of people based on stereotypes, and don't be too slow to admit error, to apologize & to make restitution.
17
Kakutani and other opponents of any immigration control try shamefully to conflate the issue. Which is does a nation have a right to control its borders and what can it do to enforce those borders. National and international law has always respected the right of nations to determine who enters their borders, for how long, under what circumstances and whether these persons (called aliens) in our law can become citizens. They have been unsuccessful in their attempts to change the laws. But they have been successful in their attempts to encourage illegal entry and over the long run build up a base for electoral control. They are aided and abetted by business interests who support any activity that will deliver cheap and impotent labor that can be dealt with under an iron hand.
What they oppose is any attempt to build physical barriers to prevent this invasion of millions of aliens across thousands of miles of borders, but mostly along the range from Tx. to Cal. And they oppose efforts by Border Patrol to prevent entry. And they oppose efforts by INS to capture, adjudicate, and deport the invaders. And they support a process that permits catch and release that frees invaders to hide anywhere. Basically summarizing the strategy-Allow millions to cross the border, train them to claim refugee status, overwhelm the system so they are caught and released, set up roadblocks to INS enforcement, all of which leads to emotional situations to build sympathy. Dishonest and cynical.
23
I think you're confusing immigration reform and border protection with the cruelty of locking up immigrants & asylum seekers because of their skin color or place of origin. The latter is a human rights violation. Many of the people (described by you as "invaders") who had their children taken from them and lost by our government, were people legally seeking asylum. How much has this fiasco cost our country in terms of world respect and tax dollars? For what? Do you really feel safer now? I don't.
From what I've read, many people who stay in our country without legal documentation initially come here with legally attained visas and then simply stay past the legally permitted time. Why are only brown people on the southern border being targeted?
You've been conned into believing that immigrants and illegal immigration are the problems when the real danger is this administration. As my (immigrant) grandfather used to say, "Listen to what they say, but watch what they do." I'm watching this administration strip us of our rights, practically give away our country to Big Oil and other big industries, eliminate regulations that actually do protect us, crush unions, isolate us from our allies, humiliate us in front of dictators...
While you're shaking your fist at the Mexican family strolling down the street, the real thieves are busy emptying your house of everything valuable. Please look behind you and see what's happening.
4
Some of us think Trump captured all the ground there is on "dishonest and cynical."
2
The Japanese nationals at the language school across the street panicked and did something foolish and suspicious. The burned their documents and buried their shortwave radios. These individuals were interned as enemy although German nationals were not so interned. My other Japanese American neighbors were relocated to Manzanar and released to mid West venues. German and Italian Americans were never interned or relocated. My sister believed that the relocation and dispossession of the Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans was motivated by real estate interests which coveted their assets. I think this was a dark episode in the history of country. I believe this although Japan treated my relatives much worse as prisoners of war and European expats in China.
14
Of course the key difference being, our relatives who were in the Pacific theater during WWII were enemy combatants, not innocent civilians and children.
There is no doubt Japan was a brutal enemy in WWII, but no mater what side you may fall on, internment of innocents is a bridge too far.
1
Thank you, Ms. Kakutani, for sharing this moving story of your family and the truth about the internment of Japanese people in this country. This was a truly abhorrent decision, and one we should never have made again.
It’s also very disturbing that so many of the comments about your article focus on the perpetration of lies, hatred and racism about any group the commentators consider “other”. This has been the thread running through our history, from the moment we landed at Plymouth. Maybe it’s time we all toned down the rhetoric about things we think we know, and tried thinking about how we could be better human beings ourselves. And then reach out to someone with empathy and kindness.
10
Thank you, Michiko Kakutani and NYTimes. An affecting, frightening family history, framed in terms of immigration history, and drawing disturbing connections to the current Whitehouse's attempts to repeat this shameful and racist behavior--vile and despicable.
9
We all know what "concentration camps" were in World War II and these weren't them. It's morally disgraceful for the author to describe them as such.
17
The term “concentration camp” refers to concentrating a population in a single location. The fact that the Nazis used their concentration camps for so many atrocities does not mean that using the term concentration camp in this case is wrong or immoral.
2
Thank you
8
Some here take issue with Ms. Kakutani's use of the term “concentration camp” and point out that the internment of Japanese-Americans during WW2, while despicable, was not comparable to the persecution of the European Jews (not to mention other affected groups) by Nazi Germany. The German-run concentration camps were, with few exceptions, explicitly designed to kill their inmates within a short time, which was not the case with the internment camps for the Japanese-Americans. Nevertheless I find Ms. Kakutani’s use of the the term appropriate. A concentration camp (and there have been many, both before and after the German camps) denotes a collection point for the imprisonment of those deemed undesirable as a group, in order to “concentrate” them on one spot, usually without due process or even being accused of any crime. This distinguishes a concentration camp from a prison camp or a camp for prisoners of war.
The Nazi concentration camps, with their well-documented and unforgettable horrors, gave the term a special weight. They were, though, only one instrument of the German Holocaust.
Perhaps that “special weight” assigned to the term can serve to remind us of how dangerous such steps as the declaration of undesirable groups, the dehumanization of their members, internment without due process etc. can be.
38
yes.
so I guess the solution to our modern day crisis is.
1. No more detention.
2. No wall.
3. No borders.
4. No ICE.
5. Admit anyone who wants Asylum.
6. Free flow of people.
7. No consequences for crossing into the US illegally.
Wonderful!
22
Well, Congress could develop and pass reasonable immigration laws. Or just continue doing the useless stuff that doesn’t help anyone except themselves.
2
The US is a terrible country
5
(message cut off) . . . so why are so many risk life and limb to get here? Just asking.
1
There is a massive difference between the incarceration of Japanese citizens and legal aliens during WWII, and the current detention of illegal aliens caught in the act of breaking the law while crossing the border. The Japanese families were sadly and unfairly incarcerated for no crime at all.
Many are incarcerated in this country for crimes and thereby separated from their children. let's stop with the sob stories and look at the facts clearly.
16
I see that I am in a minority of one: I don’t blame the US for locking up the Japanese Americans. I would forgive people “war hysteria”.
And as for racism, given that Pearl Harbour had just been bombed, it is a big ask that the community not be racist. No one has ever asked me to be so restrained. I am not in a position to criticise those who were not similarly restrained.
7
Locking up or put in a stationary camp.
The WWII word: stalag means stationär Lager.
Stationary implies no motion in literary terms.
Stationery even implies making words stand still on paper in that moment as opposed to storytelling words which can be more flexible through history (In the modern view) unless words are a briefing or debriefing.
Mathematically and astronomically, the word stationary gets more descriptive.
Why then, did we not lock up Germans as well. We were at war with Germany. They bombed England our ally and as far as I know those of German ancestry were not removed to live in camps.
3
It is very true that the internment of Japanese-Americans was one of the most disgraceful chapters in this nation's history. It is equally true that Japanese-Americans were legally living in their own homes when this happened. And so, to compare what's happening now with what happened then is not appropriate. Two distinct things, two distinct sets of circumstances.
Trump Trap.
6
Different circumstances; same vicious racism, xenophobia, brutality. Only this time, perhaps even worse, because it is directed against people who are seeking asylum. Supplicants. The vulnerable. Those fleeing violence and poverty, begging for a chance at a new and better life, eager to work, eager to learn.
And we brand them criminals. We take their children from them. We revile them and reject them out of hand. We speak of them as animals, insects, vermin 'infesting' the country.
Go ahead and try to parse out the categories of vicious hatred and brutality to fellow human beings based on national origin, race, religion. Compare and contrast this flavor or racism with that flavor.
It doesn't get you a free pass. It's still reprehensible.
1
When I was in college, the Asian Center had copies of historical flyers on the wall, including an illustrated flyer from the WWII era explaining, "How to tell the good Chinese from the bad Japanese."
Michiko Kakutani use of the internment of Japanese Americans into concentration camps to help us understand the evilism of the Trump government policies -- don't these parallels tell us some truths about the American government?
The anti-Mexican racism and pervasive anti-Muslim bigotry, which Trump deployed to win the presidency, now animates government policy.
But, we should take hope from knowing that the American government most certainly doesn't represent the best of America -- it never has.
18
A shameful legacy that this country can't seem to overcome.
When will we learn?
19
My Dad was caught in the pre-WW II draft. He continued to serve in the Army and hitchhiked to Manzanar to visit his family before shipping out to fight with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in Italy. I asked my Dad why he was not dismissed, like all the other soldiers of Japanese decent from the Army and sent to Manzanar? He replied he was the catcher for the All Army Baseball Team. The Army needed him to continue playing catcher as they didn't want to be beaten by Ted Williams who played for the Marine Corp.
My Mother and her family, like the author, were sent to Topaz. I used to wonder why my Mother and her sisters used to pack and protect items that were of value to them (pictures, important papers,...jewelry) in small plastic bags in their dresser drawers until the day they died. It dawned on me when you are forced to live in the desert sand and scorpions gets into everything.
My family and their friends from the relocation camps lobbied Congress, Presidents, and political figures tirelessly to repeal Executive Order 9066. They did not want anyone to be displaced from their homes, schools, neighborhoods, businesses, or suffer the loss and fear they felt as Americans again.
39
I'm a DAR. That's how far back my family goes in the USA. NOBODY in Trump's family can qualify for DAR nor the NSSAR. If you don't have any idea what that means perhaps you google it. But that's not the point. The point is that although my bloodline qualifies me and my children, we are remain immigrants to the New World which was already populated with several different cultures when my forebears arrived.
I seriously doubt that there are many Native Americans who do not share some DNA from us invaders. I doubt even more so that there are many Americans in either the DAR or NSSAR who also share a pure blood line based on whatever you choose.
I suspect that people who are prejudice suspect they just can't measure up to a certain standard. That they must be higher on 'the ladder or scale' than somebody else. I know this is Trump's phobia. What I also know is that culture is different, not people. Within 3 generations, regardless of the ethnicity of the individual, they family will acclimate to the culture in which they live.
It's a very real shame that this divide is taking place but it is often then 2nd and 3rd generation that feels this fanaticism this way. That doesn't excuse any American or person living in the USA, for harboring animosity and harm towards another group of individuals.
We have grown beyond the norms of the founding fathers. We need to be paying more attention to the education of the young and less to the idiocy of the Republican party. They are evil.
14
In the real concentration camps of the Boer War (British) and WWII (Nazi Germany) prisoners were deprived of food, clothing, adequate shelter and medical treatment. In both cases 1 in 3 died. (This does not include the death camps.)
The Japanese internment, while shameful, included adequate nutritious food, education and health care.The death rate was the same as the general population.
Referring to these camps as concentration camps trivializes the Holocaust and mistakes history in a way that as a Jew and a history teacher I find regrettable, to say the least.
12
I don't think its a comparison by any means but its a wrong on American history along with slavery. We point out the savagery of 9-11 because it is a despicable act on American soil. We don't say its a less barberic act because the death tolls are lower than other atrocities around the world.
10
I believe the Japanese internment was overwhelmingly supported by both Democrats and Republicans.
I believe FBI head J. Edgar Hoover spoke out against the internment as did Republican Senator Robert Taft.
I do not recall how Taft finally voted on the internment.
Republican California Governor Earl Warren enthusiastically supported the internment. Much much later when it no longer mattered he expressed regret over the internment.
Former Justice Hugo Black voted for the internment and never expressed regret.
His argument "We were at war" is not a constitutional argument but one based on expediency.
I was born in 1942 and only know from what I've read.
I believe the Pearl Harbor bombing gave racists on the West Coast an excuse for what they wanted to do, get rid of Japanese immigrants.
That internment was not done to Japanese living on Hawaii [where Pearl Harbor is located] demonstrates that the internment was an unnecessary racist action.
17
Earl Warren did indeed press for the internment of west coast Japanese, but he was California attorney general at the time. He only became governor later.
In his memoirs, he later deeply regretted this decision.
Popular support for internment was probably mostly motivated by widespread greed to confiscate Japanese property, which was often titled to Anglo neighbors because of discriminatory land laws in west coast states.
18
Thank you, Michiko.
22
The only saving grace today is that over 75 years later, major American newspapers, a HUGE majority of voters and citizens, and highly respected thought leaders are totally opposed to separation of families and family detention of immigrants mostly asking for asylum. And they also uniformly condemn the internment of Japanese-Americans and their still-Japanese relatives living in the U.S.A.
9
Trump does not like to read.
He loves watching TV.
He does not show any astuteness regarding past events— also known as history and historical record.
Someone who does not value and/or forgets the past, is bound to repeat the mistakes of those who have come before us. God help us and deliver us from this egomaniacal creature known as our 45th President.
14
Very good article, up until the "concentration camp" reference. All credibility and respect was given away because of that word choice.
5
That’s what they were. Please check out the camps of the Boer War.
7
Per Merriam -Webster, a concentration camp is a ‘a camp where persons (such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, or refugees) are detained or confined.’
16
They are free to leave anytime and go home. They are not free to enter our country at will.
AJNY: "Of course, if you're saying that the racially motivated internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII was acceptable or understandable because it wasn't on the same level as the Holocaust, I'd have to disagree with you."
Please, read my last sentence again. I said the US internment camps were "unjust". Sorry, but I don't understand how you could misconstrue that as meaning they were "acceptable" or "understandable".
3
I appreciate your concern. On the other hand, the use of the term concentration camp is accurate and predates the Nazi extermination or death camps. I found NPR has an informative article on the topic: https://www.npr.org/sections/ombudsman/2012/02/10/146691773/euphemisms-c...
1
First, never forget, it was progressive Democrats who did this and allowed by a liberal supreme court, the only dissenter a Republican judge. Second, most of these immigrants are not coming in lawfully to request asylum, they are jumping the border and any American parent who put their child through what these parents did, using human traffickers, would probably lose the child, possibly for good.
Finally, while I abhor what was done to Japanese Americans during WW2, I do wonder about your complaints re conditions in the camps. Are you aware of how non-Japanese civilians caught in Japanese territory were treated? I credit the USA for not retaliating. Despite the inhumanity of rounding up the Japanese, they did not starve or torture them.
9
It doesn’t matter what political party the people who did this belonged to, it was wrong. It was evil. It was immoral. And just as in the case of the Japanese, it is and was the responsibility of Americans to hold their government responsible no matter their own political affiliation. This is a country, not a football game!
26
The government did not "rounding up Japanese" during the war. They were rounding up Americans of Japanese decent! We were fighting the Germans and Italians as well in WW2, we did not round up Italian Americans in NY or German Americans in the mid west and place them in camps so why is that?
3
For Trump and his supporters,the fact that a particular policy is hateful,destructive,and historically discredited isn’t a flaw-it’s a feature.
12
What my country did to Japanese-Americans was so wrong. Literally a crime against humanity.
What ICE is doing with illegal aliens is not the same.
These are ILLEGAL ALIENS invading a sovereign country without permission or authority.
Our government is holding them until processed.
If the ILLEGAL ALIENS stay at home and apply for LEGAL IMMIGRATION none of this would be occurring.
So don't blame the US for protecting its borders.
Place blame for incarceration on the invaders.
9
It isn't against U.S. law to seek asylum here. It IS against the law to incarcerate families seeking asylum for more than 20 days, so doing so does not show respect for the law.
The fact that you are using the word "invaders" is telling.
26
They didn't stay home--perhaps what they faced there was too terrible to return to. Now that they're here, how we treat them reflects on us, not them. How much cruelty can you stomach?
22
"These people . . . don't value education, don't value reading, don't share our commitment to individual liberty and the rule of law"--most of what you're saying about the "illegals" perfectly describes Trump and his supporters! Can
16
Apples and oranges.
5
Oranges and apples
We are joined at the hip. My great grandparents were deemed the same in various spots of Eastern Europe on account of their JEwish heritage.
5
I'm only glancing quickly through the comments and, so far, no one has condemned FDR for allowing loyal Japanese Americans to be treated so unfairly for the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Guilt by association is the worst punishment of all.
2
I do condemn it. However, he had a war to win.
And he wasn't just making war on unarmed men, women, and children, who pose no threat to the country at all, and who basically walked over the border and turned themselves in.
FDR was no saint. However, the bigotry against Japanese that led to internment wasn't something he personally ginned up to win elections. He wasn't intentionally demonizing people to gain power he already had, and needed to use to get the country through a crisis.
A much better comparison with Trump would be Hitler, who did precisely that with the Jews in Germany.
8
did their family get back their house and the belongings that they had stored? I heard that some Japanese Americans' property was confiscated and never returned to them.
6
Many if not most lost everything. There is great Bill Mauldin cartoon that says it all
6
I think most property was confiscated and never returned.
7
Some tried to sell houses, stores and other assets before leaving, at grievous loss. See the Densho website, a collection of firsthand accounts of internment.
6
In spite of Republican supporters of Donald Trump who feel that there is "some good" in what he is doing, this era in American political history will go down as one of the darkest of all . Name calling will not be sufficient to the task but calling the wrongdoing by its name is not only preferable but absolutely essential at this point in time. Deflecting attention from a president who is under investigation and who has very likely been compromised by a hostile foreign power will also not work. What will work however, is the truth.
11
> Today, President Trump has branded some undocumented immigrants as “animals,” and described them as “murderers and thieves” who want to “infest our country.”<
He was speaking specifically of the MS-13 gang of murderers and thieves, and I don’t disagree with his characterization one bit.
11
MS13 started in CA and was exported
5
I feel that this cannot be said often enough, especially for the benefit of those who oppose the fair and humane treatment of supplicants seeking asylum in the US.
The majority of recent migrants have presented themselves at US ports of entry to apply for asylum as refugees from what is tantamount to a war zone. Not only is this lawful, but the US is acting unlawfully by not processing those applications. The US is a signatory to several important international agreements on refugees, as well as the architect of the hell that is currently the northern triangle of Central America, and the principal market for the drug trade that finances the drug gangs and corrupt police and governments that make these refugees' lives intolerable.
The animosity toward the Others who seek to make a life in the US is based in ignorance and, in too many cases, racist sentiment, rarely acknowledged, even by those who harbor it.
29
Not true. They need to apply for asylum at the first country they escape to. Let Mexico pay for their care
History rhymes.
Ms. Kakutani is a poet. She's distilled what connects Japanese internment and Trump's immigration tactics.
In one case it's asylum seekers and would-be immigrants, the other is an ethnic group recently immigrated. Only the ahistorical and unpoetic miss the rhyme.
Or, perhaps, only if one buries one's head in the sand.
6
Thank you, Ms Kakutani. This chilling account reminds us that the country we love has never been perfect. Even the Greatest Generation made the worst of mistakes. It is too easy to give power to authorities, to be swept into a movement that is evil (aka misguided).
3
Wonderful statement. We were wrong in 1942. We are wrong now. This President is divisive and destructive. Our Attorney General is an out and out bigot.
I love The NY Times for providing a forum for statements that identify us in our very worst moments. I hope deeply that just a few of the folks who voted for DT read this and allow themselves to be informed and change. One can always hope for change.
20
As Michiko Kakutani points out , among those who supported the paranoid policy was the often-admired journalist Walter Lippmann. And a " liberal" pol who stood firmly behind the internment was the wartime attorney general and governor of California Earl Warren.
After he retired later as Chief Justice of the U.S.Supreme Court, Earl Warren expressed remorse at his poor, heartless judgment in his memoirs. (I don't know if Walter Lippmann ever did before his death as a celebrated columnist).
The patently insecure President Trump is not known to apologize for any errors, of course. Should, Heaven forbid, the current disaster at the border become bigger, count on him to look for someone else to blame. That person would no doubt be the so-called "senior adviser" Stephen Miller. The buck never stops at DJT's desk.
4
Well,he might blame Obama.Or perhaps Earl Warren.Or the FBI.
Or...
2
Rick, the current crisis at our southern border is not about voluntary immigration, it is about refugees seeking asylum from the war zone that constitutes the northern triangle of Central America. The US is legally and morally obligated to process and admit legitimate refugees, of which the great majority of these supplicants are.
12
I am sad to read the comments that object to the parallels between Japanese American incarceration and our present incarceration of people from Latin America seeking asylum. It seems that inhumane treatment of people is justified because they violated a law. This simplistic view ignores due process, the root causes of migration, the role of the US in creating the problems in Latin America, and the blatant racism underlying our policies. All nuance is dismissed with the stamp: "ILLEGAL".
I still hear excuses for the incarceration of Japanese Americans without due process: that it was done to protect them, that Americans POWs were tortured by the Japanese, that it was a war emergency. Even after Reagan
officially apologized on behalf of the US, people still believe that it was justified. The Supreme Court recently vacated the Korematsu verdict that supported the incarceration, but then illogically affirmed Trump's Muslim ban. So racism is still alive and growing, albeit disguised in patriotic and legal clothes.
My uncle served in the 442nd regiment and was wounded in Italy. Another uncle was a doctor whose residency was interrupted by incarceration in Poston AZ.
Perhaps we should remove the plaque on the State of Liberty inviting the tired and poor until our policies align with our ideals.
34
There is a significant difference that breaks any attempt at making parallels. The migrants are volunteering to be detained after illegally entering into the US. The illegals know full well the consequences of their actions.
It seems to me that attempting to make parallels would be deeply insulting to Japanese citizens and their families who endured the injustice of the internment camps
8
At the time, dissent and criticism of the Japanese-American internment was extremely limited. We need to remember (and not repeat) this mistake by those who had questions or thought that the interment was wrong but failed to say anything.
8
As an Asian American myself and friends of many Japanese Americans suffered through the WWII internment camp experiences, I fully understand Ms. Kakutani's sentiments and feelings. In fact I have so many Japanese American friends have gone through this traumatic ordeals. My old boss Dr. Warren M. Tsuneishi and his parents were interned in Wyoming and he decided to join the US Army and dispatched to Asia/Pacific region to fight the Japanese until the end of the war. With GI bill he completed his college education Columbia and a PhD degree from Yale. A role model for all Americans. Mr. Key Kobayashi, another good friends of mine and his family were also interned during WWII. Mr. Kobayashi worked for the US Congress and testified on behalf of Japanese Americans in 1980s and 1990s. I can mention many more outstanding Japanese Americans who have served our country. Do we have any oral histories about these brave and courageous Americans? There are two shameful acts approved by American Presidents: 1) The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and 2) Internment of Japanese Americans decision signed by FDR after Pearl Harbor in 1942. If there is a war between US and China, I certainly hope that president of the US would not repeat the same mistakes. I will always remember my Japanese American friends.
7
There is a fantastic organization in Seattle called Densho that has collected oral histories of internment— check out their website at Densho.org
2
Author is a gifted book reviewer, a fine writer, and Times newspaper is lucky to have had her on its staff and I look for her writings in the future.But as a Cartesian, 1 who worships Rene Descartes as the father of logical analysis--"Cogito ergo sum--,"I believe that the internment of Japanese Americans in 1942 as a war time measure after Pearl Harbor was necessary to prevent any retaliatory acts against them by out of control vigilante groups here at home, as well as to insure the populace against any eventual, subversive acts committed by Fifth Columnists within that community against this country.This was an extreme measure,taken exceptionally to protect both the homeland and Japanese Americans themselves. Conditions in the camps could have been improved, and measures to protect the property of the interned should have been more far reaching, but did not many Japanese Americans successfully sue after the war for reparations?Easy to bemoan the forced internment without considering what might have occurred if FDR had not taken this radical measure. We might have ended up with worse problems on our hands!
4
Can you then explain why German families weren't similarly detained? It's hard to deny that racism played a part, just as it does today in Mr. Trump's policies. Shameful!
23
If I follow your logic, you would have supported the internment of German-Americans, correct?
6
Italians were!!
2
If anyone wants to see how effective it is to dehumanize a group by slandering them with a pejorative like "illegals" read the heartbreakingly callous comments justifying the horror we are inflicting on immigrant families.
24
The argument this opinion makes is fatally flawed. The Japanese were involuntarily placed in internment camps, unjust, horrible, and contrary to the constitution of the United States. In the case the illegal immigrants, illegally entering into the US, and voluntarily turning themselves in. The illegals are volunteering to be detained. No comparison, no parallels.
56
First of all, they are not 'illegal' immigrants. They may be undocumented, but it is not illegal to be a person of any stripe. You remark that they are illegally entering the US and voluntarily turning themselves in. What person, attempting something illegal, turns themselves in to the authorities? The bulk of these people are refugees seeking a safer life - that is why they come here and why they 'turn themselves in'. Somewhere along the line they got the mistaken idea that the US was a good place where they could live and work without the fear of persecution and violence they faced at home. Only a dire situation would cause people leaving their homes and homeland, leaving everything they know, in the hopes of something better. This opinion that you call fatally flawed is spot on.
4
Many of these immigrants are asylum seekers, which is a legal process. Even so, in many cases ICE were separating children from parents, or coercing parents into signing forms to renounce their asylum claim and accept deportation.
The situation is not identical to the Japanese-American internment, but there are similarities in the way we are treating fellow human beings, even if they're not fellow citizens. We're better than this, no?
2
I object to your use of the word "concentration camp" in the article. I had family members in what are commonly referred to as concentration camps in Nazi Germany, where they were starved, tortured, and mistreated on a daily basis. Thousands of the inmates were killed. I don't think that compares in any way to the internment camps set up by the US government during WW II, unjust as that obviously was.
15
Fred, I think that you're getting hung up on the term "concentration camp". Although they were bad and inflicted suffering (and were contrary to stated American values), no one is saying the Japanese American internment camps were as bad as the Nazi death camps. The term "concentration camp" was actually first used by the Spanish military in 19th Century Cuba, and later by the American military during the war with pro-independence groups in the Philippines and by the British during the Boer War. (Of course, if you're saying that the racially motivated internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII was acceptable or understandable because it wasn't on the same level as the Holocaust, I'd have to disagree with you).
10
Sorry, but that’s what they were - Japanese were stripped of their property, and shipped to far-off places, fed poorly and kept behind barbed wire.
Many chose forced-labor farm camps (usually males only, family stays behind), why Bridgeton, South Jersey, has the largest traditional Buddhist community in the US to this day.
They were NOT death camps, or the kind of forced labor camps used by the Third Reich to work people to death. My grand uncle, one of the lucky ones, only lost a leg to frostbite, at one of those.
Records in the Polish-based death camps turned up my father’s side of the family - now ashes under one of two or three dozen grave stones reading “50,000 Jews” here,”70,000 Jews” there, thanks to the Nazi meticulous record-keeping machinery.
But they sure were CONCENTRATION camps.
14
AJNY: "Of course, if you're saying that the racially motivated internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII was acceptable or understandable because it wasn't on the same level as the Holocaust, I'd have to disagree with you."
Please, read my last sentence again. I said the US internment camps were "unjust". Sorry, but I don't understand how you could misconstrue that as meaning they were "acceptable" or "understandable".
Since 1945, the word "concentration camp" has been commonly used to refer to the camps in Nazi Germany, like Dachau, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, etc.
Ms. Katutani: I am very sorry for your family's experiences, 70+ years ago. However, it was during WARTIME and under the Presidency of THE MOST LIBERAL Democrat of all time -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Not a Republican or a conservative!
People sometimes do terrible things in wartime out of fear; the US had just been attacked by Japan in a terrifying way not repeated until 9/11.
That is not meant as an excuse, but as an explanation. If a LIBERAL DEMOCRAT like FDR can be afraid and react in this way....can you really not understand the fears of other Americans?
Even more so: your parents and grandparents were AMERICAN CITIZENS. They were NOT foreign nationals. They were NOT illegal aliens. They did not come here illegally gainst our laws. They did not lie about "asylum" to sneak in. They did not drag your parents as small children through a hot desert, to use your parents as "free passes" to get into the US (then disappear and never show up for that fake asylum hearing).
Your parents did not come here deliberately to steal a job from a US citizen (because they WERE citizens!). Or to drive down wages. I'll bet not one person in your family ever went on welfare -- or worked "under the table for cash" to evade both taxes and legal authorities.
LEGAL CITIZENS have nothing to fear from ICE nor from the detention and deportation of ILLEGAL aliens. Legal vs. illegal -- is it really that hard to understand?
19
Concerned Citizen, unfortunately you are not completely informed about the situation. LEGAL CITIZENS have frequently been harassed by authorities because of their ethnic background.
6
Southern Boy, the internment camps were populated by UNITED STATES CITIZENS of Japanese descent. In the full context of CITIZENS of any ancestry, who were either legal immigrants or born and raised in America, is rounding up their families, confiscating their property, and sending them to desert prison camps really okay with you? There was some talk of interning German Americans during World War II as well, but there were just too dang many of them.
3
A concise account of this shameful chapter in American history is Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II by Roger Daniels http://plunkettlakepress.com/pwt
2
Thank you.
3
Sad to see the Trump enablers hiding behind the illegal entry defense. As if those crossing the border were committing a crime against humanity. I am in my mid-sixties, and my great hope is that I will live long enough to one day witness former Trump foot soldiers acknowledge the horror of their actions and hang their heads in shame.
16
I find it amazing that any group of immigrants would want to relocate in a country that doesn't want them. Japanese-Americans were targeted because they were the descendants of an enemy nation with which the United States was at war. They were US citizens as were "emancipated" black Americans but that didn't matter but their race did. Their isolated and quarantined status was unconscionable and will always be a dark stain on America's soul.
The president's animus towards Latinos was his springboard to America's highest office. His cruelty to asylum seekers is fully supported by his party and 35% of the electorate. Only widespread public outrage at his separation of families made the administration opt for a Plan B because their lack of planning further complicated a crisis they never saw coming.
The president has a "zero tolerance" for minorities from any country or nations that are predominantly Muslim. His callous use of words like "animals", "breeding" and "infesting" to describe immigrants plays well to his base but it also illuminates the window to his very dark soul.
8
It also illuminates the windows into the souls of all his supporters and loyal followers.
Separating migrant children from parents arrested at the border was never a Trump administration policy. It was done to comply with a 2015 federal court order that the Obama administration opposed but could not overturn. Judge Dolly Gee of the U.S. District Court of Central California ruled accompanied children must be treated the same as unaccompanied children; they cannot be held in custody. As a result of Judge Gee’s order, Customs and Border Protection agents sent migrant children whose parents were arrested to licensed child-care centers operated by Health and Human Services.
Now Judge Dana Sabraw of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California has ruled accompanied children qualify as a “separate class” apart from accompanied children. He ordered the Department of Homeland Security to reunite children with their parents. If they wish, the parents can opt to leave their children in the less restrictive child-car centers.
3
The charges of "racism" are so tired and stale that we conservatives don't care anymore. So you might as well stop with them.
That said, we don't owe foreigners anything. Even if you accept the assumption that U.S. intervention in Latin America has made things worse (which I don't), it's still not our problem, and we don't owe its people residency or citizenship.
These are overwhelmingly unskilled, illiterate people who will not be able to function in our modern service-based economy without massive, and permanent, subsidies. That means that every migrant we accept lowers our collective standard of living, something that no nation is ever morally obligated to do.
Last, these people largely are from an alien culture that don't value education, don't value reading, don't share our commitment to individual liberty and the rule of law, and don't share our historical identity or aspirations. If you admit enough people in that category, you no longer have a nation. This is what is happening throughout Europe, and it will happen here too.
11
Thank you! Well stated response to yet another article with out of context "facts"
1
Who do you think picks the tomatoes, the apples that you eat. Do you really think that our young people are lining up for these jobs. How many would be willing to work in 90 plus temperatures because many fruits and vegetables must be cared for by people not machines or robots.
Our school superintendent gave a talk asking for mentors not for the children of immigrants, who he said were doing quite well but for the white children the descendants of people who have been here for 200 years, who thought the havipickup truck was proof that you had made it.
9
What a strange comment. These people, whom you look down upon, have been functioning quite well in our service-based economy without subsidies of any kind so far.
7
Some people want to characterize what's going on now as "asylum seeking". I am not buying that. Asylum is Jews escaping from nazis, Sunnis escaping from Shia, Armenians leaving Turkish occupiers, you know, escaping persecution.
The current batch of would-be immigrants want to upgrade their lives. There is nothing wrong with that just do it the right way. Don't traverse Mexico, (Mexico should answer for this), and sneak in here. Go to your local US embassy or consulate and apply to immigrate here. Or do it online. Learn our language, some of our history, pass a test, take an oath, and you're in, legally, just like the millions of immigrants who preceded you.
This unfettered sneaking in stuff has got to go.
15
I hear your argument, but I suggest you do some research on the top countries people are seeking assylum from in America. Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela are some of the most dangerous places in the world outside of war zones. People are not leaving these countries just so they can have a more comfortable lifestyle, as you suggest. They are fleeing violence, kidnapping, rape, theft, and death from local gangs while their governments are unable to protect them. They would not take such a perilous and risky journey unless they were in clear danger back home, which they are. If risk of potential death does not warrant assylum status, what does?
Please, look up these facts for yourself and do some investigating into the violent conditions people face on a daily basis in these countries. Now imagine yourself in their position: what would you do?
26
American people: look in the mirror
illegal immigration was just fine as long as the powerful derived what they wanted from it-- none of them have endured even a wrist slap.
illegal drugs and our vast increasing appetite for them is a greater scourge than all the "Illegals" combined
American people have lost their ability to discriminate, instead regurgitate whatever "facts and issues" they've been led to swallow, consequences be damned. It's a sad situation.
4
Thank you for offering some truth in the time of lies.
7
Another attempt on the part of the NYT to help confuse the issue. The issue of Japanese internment and illegal aliens has nothing in common.
10
And yet, when anyone tries to point this out he/she is told that this is different. If there's a real difference I don't see it. Requesting asylum is not an illegal act and doesn't make one an illegal immigrant. Illegal immigrants are those who overstay a visa.
7
I'm tired of all the false claims that "It's not illegal to request asylum."
No, of course it's not. However, requesting asylum doesn't transform an otherwise illegal entry into a legal one. Second, nearly none of these people are eligible for asylum. It's like claiming self-defense when your assault was obviously unjustified. Yes, you are entitled to claim it, but without evidence, you are going to be convicted. It's a similar situation here.
Since the people fleeing are not being persecuted for a very specific set of reasons, they're not eligible. Period.
8
Jon W., that's not what I've heard. I've heard of gang threats, religious threats, domestic abuse, death threats from gangs and governments. Those sorts of things usually make a person eligible. The difference is that Trump doesn't want them here just like you and others don't want them here unless they are mowing your lawn or waiting on you.
12
No, gang threats, death threats, and domestic abuse do not make a person eligible. Religious threats may, but I've heard no evidence that is going on.
And you're right, I don't want them here, as they're unskilled peasants that we don't have a need for. Every one of them means America is collectively less well off.
1
The difference is that you and your family committed no crime. The families detained today all knowingly committed crimes and for some reason believe that they are above the law.
6
As opposed to all the American citizens who are currently employing undocumented workers and don't think the law should apply to them?
In 1942 my family, farmers, with the help of The American
Friends Service Committee, had a couple, Ted and Kio Kosudo,
come from an internment camp in Arizona and live with us.
After that we remained good friends for many years.
4
The big difference between the unjust calamity inflicted upon your family and what's going on now is that your family was here legally while the present batch of would-be immigrants are getting here by illegally sneaking across our borders.
Sorry sir, but I do not buy your analogy.
9
Sorry, sir, but Michiko is not a sir - unless that the way she wants to be addressed. And the a lot of the folks in the batch of would-bes are human beings fleeing for their lives. But if legalistic distinctions make it easier for you to justify the heinous treatment of the present batch, good for you I guess.
7
America is a unique experiment in multiculturalism. It is truly frightening to see how quickly the whole enterprise can unravel when a vulgar, ignorant and mendacious President seeks to undermine America's values. And so many Americans are acquiescent if not willing accomplices, how sad!
6
German Americans and Italian Americans were not sent to concentration camps. German and Italian POW's were able to patronize places closed to African Americans.
America currently has 25% of the world's prisoners with only 5 % of humanity. And the 2.3 million Americans in prison are black like Ben Carson even though only 13 % of Americans are black. Blacks are persecuted for acting like white people do without any criminal justice consequences. Prison is the carefully carved colored exception to the 13th Amendments abolition of slavery and involuntary servitude.
See "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness " by Michelle Alexander; "Dog-Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class " by Ian Haney Lopez
8
I believe that Italians were also placed in camps! Not as many as the Japanese but many!
1
Perfectly well said. But Black Americans never really figure into the cries of white liberals or "people of color". Just look at all the other comments talking the horrible injustice done to illegal immigrants and what it means for American freedom and democracy. What has those words meant to Black America?
Utter paranoia. We were at war with Japan.
We are not at war with Mexico and Central America.
But they are invading us and many activists seriously want the southwest United States returned to Mexico.
6
disingenuous at best to even compare the two.
7
Today, immigration authorities are dealing with those unlawfully in the USA who have entered unlawfully. After December 1941 any Japanese caught unlawfully entering the USA would have been shot dead on the spot, not put in detention. The comparison of American citizens to aliens unlawfully in the USA is nonsense and betrays the author's disengenuousness.
5
At least in those days the Army didn’t lose track of whose toddler was whose. Having to substitute DNA mass testing for oaktag seems pretty stupid.
5
Why does it feel like almost every 50 years or so, America has to be reminded no to do something horrible. Whether it was the Trail of Tears, discrimination of the Irish, The Chinese Exclusion Act, internment of Japanese Americans, labeling of Italians as aliens,Turning away Jews escaping the Holocaust, the civil rights movement for equal treatment or now the Muslim Ban and separation of migrants and their children. It seems America will never learn. And as an added bonus 30 or so years from now some tangential person will apologize for the treatment and think like kissing a bloody wound it will fix the past.
7
Why does everyone forget how the Italians were also arrested and placed in internment camps?
4
Yes, some Italians were arrested by the FBI, but only if they publicly expressed overtly fascist sympathies. Italians, just like Germans, were interned on an individual basis. There were no mass arrests of Italians living on the east coast just because they were of Italian descent. Quite a difference to what happened to Americans of Japanese descent living on the west coast.
4
One becomes tired of the "Times'" endless propagandizing for open-border --especially when it does so in such a heavy-handed and ahistorical manner. The Japanese Americans interned during WWII suffered an outrage not because of ANYTHING WRONG they had done but because of who they were: it was government paranoia taken to the extreme. There is NO PARALLEL with illegal aliens who consciously violate American law by illegally entering the US. The Republican member of Congress who only yesterday argued that we can stop playing "catch-and-release" and avoid incentivizing illegal aliens from risking their children's lives by making a first border offense a felony. This story, which has NOTHING to do with the rights and wrongs of current US immigration policy, is propaganda designed to capture the unwitting. And you do this in the same issue that has yet another photo-essay about criminally irresponsible parents who take their children on treks across the desert in mid-summer to try entering the US illegally. Such narratives may cause kind people to feel sorrow, but the story is about child abuse and the willingness to violate US law, and a bit of reflection after the impact of the photos and cloying rhetoric wears off often leaves readers angry at the way you have endeavored to manipulate them.
9
It is absolutely ridiculous to conflate what happened to Japanese Americans during WWII to what is currently happening with illegals here now. First, most of the Japanese were American citizens that did nothing wrong. The illegals broke our laws and have invaded our county illegally. What are we supposed to do?
A country without borders is no longer a country. If you want to emigrate to America then get in line and do it legally, we will welcome you with open arms when you get here. If you do it illegally, we don’t know who you are or why you are here, of course we’re not going to let you in.
By the way, the Japanese internment was the idea of a democratic president and it was upheld by a liberal democratic Supreme Court.
12
What does Japanese internment really have anything to do with now? Japanese Americans were interned enmasse in fear of their disloyalty to America after the attack on Pearl Harbor. They had no say in this and most were citizens. The alien families crossing the border illegally are breaking the law where parent lawbreakers are incarcerated and their kids aren't. The parents through their own fault, unlike the Japanese American citizens in the 40's, are to blame for the separation. Don't come to America illegally and you can keep your kids.
10
History is not repeating itself, and you insult your fellow Japanese Americans by making such a comparison. Those interned during WWII for the most part were American citizens. The people coming across the border are illegal aliens. Many are here for nefarious purposes, while others are looking for a better life, but all are illegal.
4
It was not America that interned "enemy aliens" in both WWI and WWII. These acts were done because of Presidential orders--- issued by Democrat presidents and approved by the majority of Dems in both houses.
Hysteria is not limited to any single party. Just consider the ongoing demonization of anything "Russian" today.
4
It was one Democratic President, under a lot of pressure, from Democrats and Republicans alike. The policy is evil no matter which party is implementing it, but the most important difference today is not that the Japanese Americans were legal immigrants, but rather that we had just been attacked by the country they came from, and there was general fear of an invasion of Hawaii and our western coast.
It was America that did it, because America still had a lot of racism towards Asians (less today, but it's far from gone). It didn't happen to the Germans and Italians--not as a group. It happened because the assumption was that because Japanese people looked so different, they could never become truly assimilated, could never be trusted.
Their ability to harm the war effort was effectively nil, even if they'd all been spies. German Americans were a much bigger danger, since they could blend in. But they were white, so they were mainly all right. With the Japanese, it didn't matter how much baseball they played, how hard they worked, how good their English was, how they sounded and dressed and behaved. They couldn't change their faces.
Neither can people from south of the border, and their faces are the issue, not their legality.
I see nothing happening to Russians here at all. Except favoritism. Russian women are coming here to have babies in private clinics, so the kids can apply for citizenship someday. The response from Trump? Crickets.
100% about race
5
Guess we should just expect this kind of "connect the dots" in todays climate ... be it in the NYT or 5 nights a week with Rachael Maddow.
Is it someone trying for an additional 15 min of fame -- what ?
Let us not diminish what occurred (with little or no protest) during WWII.
3
What a load of hysterical claptrap - inflating the treatment of the Japanese in the US (some citizens, some not) during WWII with the
ARRESTING and JAILING OF PEOPLE WHO COMMIT A CRIME
Yes it is a CRIME to sneak into the US
8 U.S. Code § 1325 - Improper entry by alien
Misdemeanor on the first offense (same class as first time DUI) carrying up to 6 months in jail
Felony on second or more offenses carrying up to 2 year in jail
That has been the law for 66 (SIXTY SIX!!!) years!
And since any kid they drag along is probably not old enough to be criminally responsible for sneaking into the US (5 year old vs 17 year old), the kid does NOT get arrested and go to jail
Ergo the CRIMINAL parent goes to jail and, with no one to take the kid, the kid goes into care.
When the criminal parent finishes the criminal proceedings, then they have to deal with the civil deportation proceedings and the other civil case to get the kid back.
Don't want the trouble? Do NOT SNEAK over the border. Go to the border gates and apply properly
Yeah and sneaking in over the border and when caught doing the "oh I want to apply for asylum" does NOT wipe out the crime of sneaking over the border and trying to evade Immigration officers.
The after-the-fact assertion of wanting to apply for asylum is a nothing more than a stalling ploy by someone who got caught doing a crime.
This kind of over-the-top hysterical false drama turns people off - stop with the OPEN BORDERS articles!
11
Japanese Americans were just that, Americans.
Illegal aliens have no right to be in the United States. There is absolutely no similarity between the wrongful incarceration of American citizens during World War II and the present attempt to stop the flow of illegal immigration across our southern border by detaining illegal aliens.
15
What happened to the Japanese during WWII is a crime. However, the situation with illegals crossing the border for a better job is just not the same.
4
The attempt to link events from 75 years ago to the appalling Donald Trump and his legitimate attempts to reverse decades of Democrat Party enabling of rampant illegal immigration is weak.
And never forget that the rancid internment of Japanese-Americans happened solely because they were of Japanese ancestry, and that horrific and destructive policy occurred through an executive order from Democrat icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt (maybe we should take him off the dime at this point). Far from living in dangerous times, absolutely nothing DJT has done to enforce existing US law is remotely comparable.
2
I will give the capitalists credit, this is one impressive propaganda campaign. Months of pro-illegal immigrant opinion pieces here in the times. They won't give up their cheap imported labor without a fight.
Unfortunately, the backlash is going to cost the democrats the election. Maybe that's also their goal.
5
The author aeems to have forgotten that the Japanese were interned because the Japenese had attacked Pearl Harbor. Her article implies that they were rounded up and imprisoned for no reason at all! Is this what is being taught today in schools, that the internment of the Japanese during WWII was dine solely out of racisl animus? The Japanese had attacked the USA naval base in Hawaii, it was part of Japan's effort to rid the Asian Pacific of white European influence and exert its own authority over the region. Afterall it controled the Korean peninsula and Manchuria and had invaded and bombed China. Let's put this episode in context. The Japanese were evil and the USA did what it had to do to protect itself. Thank you.
6
By that argument, every white person in the North should have been tossed in an internment camp following the bombardment and destruction of Fort Sumter.
5
@Anon,
Why would the North had wanted to intern its white populace for attscking Fort Sumter? The North attacked Fort Sumter because the South eanted to bresk away from the Union. Besides your argument suggests that the Japanese themselves should have interned themselves for the attack upon Pearl Harbor which would havr been quite absurd.
Why indeed, since it was the rebel forces that fired on and eventually forced the surrender of Fort Sumter, which was a Union outpost? That was how the war started, though no major battles occurred for some time afterwards.
As every American should know.
1
So much vitriol in these comments! If nothing else (and it matters most of all), children are being separated from their parents, and all are being treated like violent felons. After WWII, displaced person camps were established for the hundreds of thousands of people who fled war, had been in concentration camps, had their homes and property destroyed or expropriated. Some national borders had changed so many people were stateless. These people stayed under guard and behind fences. The displaced persons were processed, investigated, and ultimately sent on their ways. Because of the sheer number of the displaced persons, it took nearly 15 years for all the camps to be emptied of their residents. Within the camp they were not put in cells and were free to gather, seek relatives and friends, etc. In the meantime, the residents, from many countries all over Europe, established communities, created cultural groups, published newspapers. No, it was not paradise but certainly far better than what this country has done to the people it has captured 75 years later.
6
This essay made me cry while I was reading it on the train. I hope that more voices like yours will reach the people who need to hear it most - those Republicans in Congress and also all their constituents who have been brainwashed by the fear-mongering rhetoric of Fox News.
2
So many feel compelled to point out that those crossing the border illegally are breaking the law. Where is the sense of proportionality? Jaywalking is breaking the law too, but we don't shoot people for it, nor for speeding. We don't label people "illegals" for any other kind of crime. And yet for coming across the border--in smaller numbers than ever before, mind--or for overstaying a visa, you feel justified in breaking up families, taking away children, incarcerating people in desert camps for months? Why not just write them a ticket and set a court date?
The punishment does not fit the crime here because it's motivated by political animus. It's based on lies, such as vaguely conflating border crossers with violent criminals (MS-13!), or claiming that they are "animals" somehow less than human, or that they're harming the economy. If we're being honest with ourselves, illegal immigrants are really just a minority vulnerable to exploitation for political gain, and some of us are all too willing to exploit.
11
So many feel compelled to point out that those crossing the border illegally are breaking the law. Where is the sense of proportionality? Jaywalking is breaking the law too, but we don't shoot people for it, nor for speeding. We don't label people "illegals" for any other kind of crime. And yet for coming across the border--in smaller numbers than ever before, mind--or for overstaying a visa, you feel justified in breaking up families, taking away children, incarcerating people in desert camps for months? Why not just write them a ticket and set a court date?
The punishment does not fit the crime here because it's not about solving a real problem, it's about making political hay out of resentment. It's based on lies, such as vaguely conflating border crossers with violent criminals (MS-13!), or claiming that they are "animals" somehow less than human, or that they're harming the economy. If we're being honest with ourselves, illegal immigrants are really just a minority vulnerable to exploitation for political gain, and some of us are all too willing to go along with it.
3
41,000 American POWs were captured during the course of the war. Of those captured by the Germans 10% lost their lives. Of the more than 5,000 captured by the Japanese, half died. This speaks to the brutality of the conditions for POWs held by the two Axis powers.
4
Yes, what was done to POWs by the Axis was terrible.
It’s also utterly irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
8
Canada marched in lockstep with the usa in this. worse in some ways.
about the only 'good' thing was the Canadian government apologized a little before the usa and it 'only' took four decades or so.
1
Ms. Kakutani, a treasure to anyone who reads, is right on target. We keep doing stupid stuff. Partly, this is because we Americans know so little of our own history. And, then, we often lack the empathy that follows from being able to imagine ourselves as being victimized. Then, when the realization sinks in that we have sinned, we seem to learn nothing from this. The GOP relied on this kind of ignorance and scare mongering long before Trump came on the scene. He has, however, given permission to the ahistorical know-nothings to take things to a new level.
9
A poignant story and wrong to have happened to American citizens, but there was a world war where millions of lives were being lost and in such times too often expedience and fear take over--e.g., 9/11, but when it comes to those who illegally cross the border, or even those seeking asylum, families or not, not to believe that they will be incarcerated when they "arrive" is to believe that borders don't exist and the sovereign laws of the US are meaningless.
Let's remember, too, that Ellis Island was a form of incarceration--many were sent back before they were granted entry even with legal visas in hand.
Unfortunate about the family separation, but they should have thought about that "step-one".
4
As a two year-old, my mother was interned at Gila River in Arizona. She is a U.S. citizen by birth, born in California as was her mother and grandmother before her.
I've never read a piece about the internment that is as forceful and moving as this. Thank you.
5
The works of Julia Otsuka have profound meaning in these days but also for all other times.
2
My dad who is 95 still remembers the day all the Neisei were rounded up by the military. He was a Junior in high school.
Some of his friends and family were stunned this could happen.
Ignacio Carmonas family stepped up and helped the Tagasuki
family who ran a market on 7th and Oxnard Blvd.
Mr. Tagsukis brother was part of the 446th Regiment the most
highly decorated ever! He and many other Neisei, died for this country.
Mr. Tagasuki retuned,and served as our Mayor of Oxnard, Mr.
Carmona returned the store back. Our community has never been so torn.
9
I have always enjoyed Michiko Kakutani's book reviews and was heartened to see her byline appear again in the Times. But her family story is heartbreaking. The parallels she draws of internment of immigrants is so compelling. The racism we hear from our current President does have echoes of the past and yet we are repeating the past with his assault on the Constitution. Of course his lies are mounting so that we are becoming numb to them. There is no rose in crime due to immigrants. There is no border crisis. Trump thrives on creating crises where none exists. Thank you Ms. Kakutani for the best opinion piece of 2018.
12
The comparison is valid in that the immigrants persecuted by the Trump administration are persecuted because of race--but the situations are vastly different. I would stress, that my incarcerated grandparents, father, uncles and cousins were citizens of the United States.
4
Due process applies to citizens and noncitizens equally. My family and your family were not accorded due process. And that includes my grandparents who were forbidden by law from becoming citizens of the United States.
8
The lies of the right wing media machine are the source of nothing less than a massive public health crisis, in which too many of us have been deliberately addicted to ideas that serve the interests of a wealthy cabal of power mongers. The FCC’s Fairness Doctrine must be brought back and enforced. It’s long past obvious that the American public can’t handle such a constant flood of lies.
11
What you refer to as "lies" are actually the other side of the truth you don't hear from "progressive" media.
2
Fox News and similar organizations (infowars,etc.) don’t even claim to be reporting news. They are “entertainers”. They claim to therefor have no responsibility to provide balanced news, or even truth.
2
This is a moving essay. It reveals once again America’s heart of darkness, namely, fear and exploitation of those groups we deem “other.” This fear has led not only to the internment of Japanese people but to our current immigration “facilities” and, on a larger scale, to our imperialistic activities around the world. Until we truly come to terms with this darkness, its will never be dissipated.
7
What's been most stunning here are the numerous commenters trying to make a distinction between the cruelty exhibited to the Japanese (and Germans and Italians) during World War II and the cruelties being exhibited to central Americans and others now, primarily on the grounds of citizenship status.
Citizen or not, cruelty is cruelty. I am amazed at the endless ability of some to justify inhumane treatment on the grounds of "citizenship". Aren't we supposed to treat everyone with compassion and justice, as fellow human beings? Apparently not.
45
The biggest differences I can see from then and now:
1)We're not at war with Mexico or Central America. They didn't attack us. It was not unreasonable to at least consider the possibility that some Japanese might have divided loyalties, though the response was far out of proportion to the threat. What's the threat here? They'll pick our crops for us? In some cases, defend our country for us without even getting the full rights of a citizen in return?
2)We didn't separate Japanese families for the most part. They were allowed to live together, in houses, albeit inadequate ones, surrounded by barbed wire. We didn't take nursing babies from their mothers' breasts, then say we couldn't find them.
3)The people of Mexico and Central America are our neighbors. Their ancestors trekked across North America thousands of years ago, they've been in this part of the world longer than anyone. That doesn't give them defacto citizenship, but you know, we claimed a big piece of Panama for quite a long time. We've interfered in their politics over and over, for our own ends. If they are now oppressed by tyranny and crime, in part because of what our governments and corporations have done for over a century, we sure as hell at least owe them a fair hearing if some want a fresh start here. As our ancestors did, and very few of them filled out any forms and waited.
Them asking for such a hearing is not a crime. Nobody with any respect at all for law would say that it was.
1
I am grateful to Ms. Kakutani for this clear-sighted and important contribution. I remember her mother well, and I'm sure that kind and gentle woman would approve. It is not easy to write with such clarity and quiet conviction. I applaud her courage, as well, in sharing this painful family history.
13
Thank you for this informative and moving article.
33
Julie Otsuka: "When the Emperor Was Divine."
1
Michiko Kakutani’s assertion that history is repeating itself is nonsense.
The United States does not round up Central Americans and force them to move to detention camps in the United States. It arrests illegal border crossers and holds them for prosecution.
The United States does not prosecute unaccompanied migrant children. It sends them to licensed child-care centers, which are not detention centers. Most spend less than two months at the centers before they are transferred to parents, relatives or other guardians. Does Kakutani think unaccompanied children should be abandoned to fend for themselves on the streets?
The United States once separated accompanied children from parents arrested at the border and sent them to the child-care centers because a federal judge ordered accompanied children must be treated the same as accompanied children. She ruled that they cannot be held in detention. Now a different federal judge has ruled that they must be reunited with their incarcerated parents. Most of the incarcerated parents say they want their children with them, but they could allow them to remain in the less restrictive child care centers if they wished.
There is no “Muslim ban” on travel to the United States. The travel ban applies to residents of eight countries, one of which is predominately Christian and one which is predominately Buddhist. It affect a small percent of Muslims.
10
You miss the point.
We are no longer a free and just society when any group for any reason is treated inhumanely. And the actions that are being taken today and the rhetoric supporting it are clearly tipping in that direction.
Mr. Case, let's say (for the sake of this hypothetical) you are of German descent. Let's say the tensions between Merkel and Trump further deteriorate into an actual conflict. Let's say Trump decides, on his own, that anyone of German descent, must vacate their homes with only 2 suitcases and report to barracks in the desert. And let's say Trump finds you, because he has authorized the govt to look at DNA records, the ones from the family ancestry report you paid for last year. Maybe two years ago, I would have said such a scenario is impossible. Now, it scares me to see just how fragile our institutions are....
16
That's a bad example, JJ. There are over 45 million German Americans in the US, probably the largest white ethnic group. Even Trump is of German descent.
Just an impossible scenario.
There is a slight difference with today's problem, your family were citizens of the US.
6
This observation appeared in John Thomas Flynn’s As We Go Marching, published in 1944:
But when fascism comes it will not be in the form of an anti-American movement or pro-Hitler bund, practicing disloyalty. Nor will it come in the form of a crusade against war. It will appear rather in the luminous robes of flaming patriotism; it will take some genuinely indigenous shape and color, and it will spread only because its leaders, who are not yet visible, will know how to locate the great springs of public opinion and desire and the streams of thought that flow from them and will know how to attract to their banners leaders who can command the support of the controlling minorities in American public life. The danger lies not so much in the would-be Fuhrers who may arise, but in the presence in our midst of certainly deeply running currents of hope and appetite and opinion. The war upon fascism must be begun there.
26
There is a vast difference between interning American citizens who are accused on no crime just because of their ethnicity and temporarily confining illegal immigrants who have illegally crossed our border. The Democrat Roosevelt did keep families together though. He locked up men, women, children, and the grand-parents. He believed in family unity. And then to top it off the Democrat Truman approved dropping the atomic bomb on two Japanese cities, causing over 100,000 deaths. But lets talk about Trump.
12
Scholars and critics have been “talking about” FDRs internment policy and Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb for years. Now it’s Trump’s turn to field criticism for his “zero tolerance” policy. Whataboutism is a lame defense in this case.
29
We can hopefully prevent Trump from doing more damage with his racist policies. Roosevelt and Truman are history, Trump is NOW.
2
I had the honour to work as a young man for a brilliant Japanese-American biochemist who had been confined in the camps as a teenager. He was eventually released to attend college in the South, where he discovered to his relief that he was so unusual there as to not be the focus of race prejudice. Racism is a curse. Trump and Sessions are willing practicioners of its evil. Their apologists claim they are not racist; if they are not, they surely know how to act like it. The WWII detention of Japanese-American citizens on the basis of race alone is a stain on American honour to this day. That Trump, Sessions and company are prepared to detain Latinos in violation of the Constitution's guarantee of due process and in flagrant disregard of international law regarding asylum seekers clearly establishes their credentials as thugs who have no respect for the rule of law.
37
As a Canadian citizen in Quebec, you likely do not know that the detainees are not detained due to being LATINO -- nor are Latino-American citizens ever detained -- the detentions have NOTHING to do with race, ethnicity, religion or national origin. This is solely about illegal immigration -- which your own nation of Canada DOES NOT PERMIT. You deport your illegal aliens! you have strict immigration laws and ENFORCE THEM -- few Americans could ever pass your "points system".
5
Like a few other commenters, I would point out that the author fails to mention that the current situation is a consequence of a deliberate violation of US law. The Japanese-Americans were guilty of nothing.
16
But your assertion overlooks the fact that legal asylum seekers from Central American nations are being persecuted by having their children taken from them. Seeking asylum is not illegal, not by any stretch.
Ironically, it’s US intervention in many of those Central American nations that has led to their political and social situations being so bad that migrants feel they have no other choice but to leave. And it’s bald-faced racism that your country doesn’t seem to want to allow these people to enter.
213
There is no violation of law by the people crossing the boarder. People from other countries are allowed to show up and ask for asylum without being prosecuted or detained. It’s in our laws. The violation of the law is on the US Government.
25
OK, right, a violation of law, but hardly one that merits such punishment on the CHILDREN of the offenders. Analogous to the interment of Japanese families because they looked like the enemy.
5
Thank you for sharing your story and warning. We should all be very frightened about what is happening to our country. We must all swear to vote in this November election and make better choices than last time.
27
It is ironic that the 442nd Infantry Regiment, which was the most decorated unit in WWII, and the troops in the unit were Japanese-American citizens.
13
Totally irrelevant to today's illegal immigration problem. The internment of Japanese-Americans in WW2, however ill-advised it now appears in hindsight, was a result of national security concerns. Attempting to draw an analogy between that event and today's internment of illegals is just one more example of the Left's emotional response to every issue instead of the careful and logical thought process these issues demand.
10
If you seriously think that the national security concerns of WW2 were legitimate and rational and not based on mass hysteria coupled with racism, then you are delusional. And just as such, it is emotional knee-jerk reactions regarding illegal immigration that are feeding the issues of today.
8
I beg to differ. Your comments reveals a lack of empathy and understanding of genuine family values by the Right.
2
“Ill-advised?”
Wow.
5
It seems the only real difference between the 1942 internment of Japanese-Americans and the 2018 separations of families is the current photographs are in color.
The only photographs I want to see is a gathering of the Trump administration at their own relocation wearing orange jumpsuits.
76
"It seems the only real difference between the 1942 internment of Japanese-Americans and the 2018 separations of families is the current photographs are in color."
Well, one very big difference is that the Japanese who were interned after the bombing of Pearl Harbor were people who owned property and businesses and whose families had been in America for generations.
They did not cross the border without having come through the usual channels -- laborious, time-consuming, but the way it's done -- and then arrested for entering the United States illegally.
Nor should we equate today's economic migrants from Mexico and places south with Jewish refugees from Europe who were turned away in the late 1930s and even into the 1940s when most of their brethren were living on pallets behind barbed wire or in mass graves.
Or with -- and this strains belief -- with American and Allied POWs in Japanese internment camps during World War II, when most of our men lost fully half their body weight and underwent torture that boggles the mind. But one of my more liberal friends did put forth that analogy.
1
I have read many times that the number was exactly zero. By the way, that Regimental Combat Team, composed of Japanese Americans, most of whom had relatives in the concentration camps, was one of the most highly decorated units in the war. There's plenty of information available. I recommend "America's Concentration Camps" by Allan R. Bosworth.
4
The internment of American citizens was indeed wrong. Because it was done on the orders of a Democratic President in the time of war is no excuse.
However this is not what is going on now. Non citizens who are illegally trying to enter this county are being arrested for breaking our laws. In 1986 there was a “one time” Amnesty for 3.5 illegal immigrants. In return immigration laws were to be enforced to prevent this from occurring again. We now have an additional 11-13 million illegal immigrants.
The immigration system is not broken, what has occurred is that for the past 3 decades immigration laws have not been ENFORCED. There is nothing racist about this. People of any race, any nationality, any religion that breaks our immigration laws should be deported.
What is Ms. Kakutani’s solution to stop illegal immigration or is she forgetting in as many people who want to come in? I am sure there are Billions that would love to come here.
I am all for spending her net worth on paying for the education, health care etc for these people, many illiterate with no skills whatsoever who come here illegally. I am not willing to spend mine.
18
The US, like many nations, has a mixed record on human rights. As WWII was brewing and unfolding, the US turned away many European Jews seeking safety here while eventually allowing some European Jews refuge in a War of 1812 fort in Oswego NY. Eventually, these refugees were allowed access to normal American life.
The internment of Japanese Americans should stand as a caution against nationalized bigotry. Of course, in recent years , it seems that all manner of bigotry is demonstrated as "telling it like it is" by those who cannot or will not see through their own small and warped perceptions.
14
Absolutely ridiculous. Whether they're enemy combatants or not is irrelevant. We don't have the moral obligation nor the ability to take all of the world's downtrodden, especially as our economy is moving to one that is mostly service (read: skilled) based.
12
Several thousand is not all the worlds population.
4
Brilliant. And I wept.
12
I am crying now. I start crying every time I read about, hear or see stories of the cruelties perpetrated under directions from Trump.
I start crying when I hear Trump belittle, mock and libel decent human beings who are simply trying to live a decent life.
I start crying when I read Trump's lies and his efforts to undermine our democratic principles and establish a cruel authoritarian regime.
I start crying when my neighbors -- decent people themselves -- accept without question Trump's lies, his self-congratulatory boasts, his praise of tyrants like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un.
The quality of my emotional life has deteriorated so seriously that I find it difficult to enjoy the simplest of pleasures -- the smile of a child, the beauty of a sunset.
I am clinging, almost without hope, to the last shreds of my joy at being alive.
18
YOU MUST urge everyone you know who is of voting age to get registered and do so this fall. Otherwise your despair will prove to be justified.
5
Thank you for sharing what so many Nisei and Sansei have experienced, and are so horrified by now - the similarities, the ignorance, and lack of humanity being exercised - shocking. To witness our country literally sliding backward is beyond appalling. Not without a fight!
31
In another comment I had said that my country, Australia, should welcome anyone that shows up at borders after having endured a harrowing voyage on barely seaworthy dinghy.
The principle question all developed countries have to ask is: "Why do people want to come here?" And the answer is not because we have more dishwashing, baby sitting, lawn mowing, strawberry picking, or similar unskilled jobs here than there exist in the nations from where these folks are arriving. It is also not because the streets of developed countries are lined with gold: we know they are not. The real answer is that we have a reasonable administration of laws and that the laws are applicable to all citizens (I am using this term loosely - citizens being inhabitants) with any jurisdiction. For example, a Sikh or a black or a white person are all equal under the administrative, civil, and criminal laws.
These immigrants have to work very hard to win jobs and earn their keep i.e. enjoy the services that the cities or states provide collectively to everyone. So, an immigrant arriving from Guatemala or Honduras or Norway all have to work according to their abilities and earn fair wages. No immigrant is going to take a long standing citizen's job unless that immigrant shows competency...
Here is what will make the playing field equal: Give the immigrant full protection of the laws so no one will exploit him/her, punish employers who want to and lone behold there will be no wage deterioration either.
17
Apparently, what the Trump administration and his minions would prefer to do, instead, is make the USA so unequal, uncivil and dangerous to minorities as to make it unattractive to would-be immigrants, at least those not from Norway.
1
Ms. Kakutani and almost all commenters disregard her admission that fully one-third of those interned were not Japanese-Americans; they were citizens of Japan. Without excusing the racist excesses inherent in all out war (“Huns”), didn’t this present a serious question of loyalty to the desperate government which was responsible for our very survival?
Were there any Japanese or Japanese-Americans interned who otherwise might have worked for a Japanese victory? I doubt it, but I really do not know.
Some of you need to be reminded that in order for asylum status to be granted, they have to go to our country to get. It is the burden of the government to prove that they earn that status or not, and as such,treated as innocent before being proven guity should be what is done.
38
Actually to be granted asylum status they should apply at the first safe nation. That would be Mexico or other nations in Central America.
4
As an African-American teen growing up in suburban Maryland outside D.C. in 1970's, I was haunted by reading the book, "Farewell to Manzanar". It described the trials and tribulations of a teenaged Jaoanese-American girl who's family was interned at Camp Manzanar during WWII. I had never before heard about such camps and was incredulous. Then my young imagination speculated: could this happen again? Could it happen to other groups, such as black Americans or other ethnic minoritied? Never would I have thought as a grown woman that the answer to my earlier questions as a teen would be, "Yes".
138
I remember reading that book in the 1970s as well. It haunted me, along with the many other books I read about children in World War II. As a Jewish American, I always wondered if it could or would happen here. Today I'm sickened by what we're doing at the border, as well as by the dehumanizing rhetoric aimed at people of color more broadly. America is great as it is, thanks to our diverse population. No need to make it white "again." (Quotes added because it was never all-white.)
3
"Just us" from a Richard Pryor comedy routine as to what he found when he visited a prison looking for justice.
You should visit a state or local prison. They are full of African Americans.
You should read "The New Jim Crow : Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander; "Locking Up Our Own : Crime and Punishment in Black America " James Foreman, Jr. You should see " The Wire" and "The Chi", "Get Out" and "Moonlight".
3
"When lying is normalized, the sort of cynicism found in autocracies like Vladimir Putin’s Russia takes hold — people begin to assume that all politicians lie, that all knowledge is relative, that there is no point in voting or protest. Without truth, informed public discourse is hobbled, and politicians cannot be held accountable." I think you're quite right. I also think that that's exactly the aim of the Leader and his followers.
95
Thank you Ms. Kakutani. A beautifully written and incredibly timely essay. The almost mathematical precision of your prose reminded me once again of your brilliant father’s theorems and elegant proofs.
72
The author's family had a legal right to be in this country. Had WWII and the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese not happened, there's no reason to think people of Japanese ancestry would have been interned. (On a more limited scale, Germans and Italians were as well.)
The people being detained now have NO legal right to be in this country. That is what the criminal prosecutions (for those who enter illegally) and the asylum hearings (for those who claim asylum) are about. Letting them loose into the interior of the US gives them exactly what they break the law to get, and most are NOT appearing for hearings.
16
And yet, reports from the nongovernmental organizations that monitor compliance with appearances for hearings report that 90% to 99% of migrants appear/
15
That’s not what I’ve read—I’ve read that one study at least showed that 99% showed up for court hearings. This may have been only if they were promised a court date within a year though. It would be really useful for the Times to explore this issue more thoroughly, and present all the data...
10
Individual Italians and Germans were interned. Not whole communities of German Americans. Individuals. For specific reasons, just simply because they were Italian or German.
They were a much more serious security risk, precisely because they looked and sounded like everybody else.
As was pointed out at the time, Japanese-Americans were too easily identified to be good spies or saboteurs. There were German Americans who engaged in espionage, quite effectively, even while most remained loyal. But thing is, they were white.
All these excuses were given for the very different treatment meted out to overwhelmingly loyal citizens, but the real reason was they were too racially dissimilar, too 'other'. In the stress of wartime, old hates and distrusts came bubbling back to the surface.
Must have also sucked to be Chinese or Korean in America then, even though Japan was brutally subjugating both countries. I'm guessing people from other southeast Asian countries here went out of their way to make sure people knew they weren't Japanese.
How many Sikhs have been attacked here because people don't know the difference between Sikh and Muslim? ICE agents don't seem to know the difference between Mexico and Central America. Bigots don't tend to be very perceptive people, on the average.
Japanese Americans came from a distant continent, as most of ours did. These people are descended from the original Americans. Is that the real problem?
4
The horror and shame of the internment of American citizens was further compounded by the Supreme Court's Korematsu holding laying unchanged for almost 75 years.
However, the difference between that act and what is happening at our borders (or the Travel Ban), is citizenship.
Ignoring this crucial element in equating what is happening today at our borders to non-citizens to the interment of American citizens mischaracterizes Roosevelt's shameful, illegal, and immoral Executive Order 9066.
And that our Supreme Court could not find any point in 75 years to overrule it will always be a mark on that Institution.
16
A sobering article. Sadly, a bell clanging alarm to deaf ears.
Do Republicans have any decency? Do they have any shame? Does America have any virtue?
Republicans, now a party devoted to Trump, are repeating our most despicable history.
"Bigotry and conspiracy thinking lay behind the internment of Japanese-Americans and the 1944 Supreme Court decision on Korematsu," and bigotry and conspiracy thinking are now planks in the Republican Party platform.
It remains to be seen whether America can rise above the gutter of shame that Trump and the Republican Party have pushed and shoved our nation into. November will give us an answer.
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This is such a moving and important piece and will be printed out to be hung where those in favor of these deplorable policies will read it tonight.
I think many people commenting can relate on some level, my family escaped to this country, and we need to use that empathy to fight against this government.
Thank you for writing this.
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Thank you for this very personal reminder of our history. The use of racism to erode our democracy is again being used quite effectively. Vote.
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This is a wonderful contribution to the discussion. I just wish we would stop concentrating so much on Trump alone. He has collaborators, accomplices and henchmen in his cabinet and in Congress. And he's stocking the Supreme Court with allies to his cause and making side deals with them that violate everything that's supposed to be exceptional about this country. Trump, Trump, Trump is not enough when there are more names to be named.
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I agree. But Trump is president, and a fish stinks from the head down.
5
What utter nonsense. The forced incarceration of American citizens of Japanese origin was a shameful thing. Note however that this was done to US CITIZENS. The current rounding up and incarceration of those entering the US via Mexico is of those who are entering the country ILLEGALLY. They are not citizens of the US. Trying to portray the current US policy on handling such people as at all similar to what was done to US citizens in the 1940's is beyond mendacious.
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The majority of these migrants have presented themselves at US ports of entry to apply for asylum as refugees from what is tantamount to a war zone. Not only is this lawful, but the US is acting unlawfully by not processing those applications. The US is a signatory to several important international agreements on refugees, as well as the architect of the hell that is currently the northern triangle of Central America, and the principal market for the drug trade that finances the drug gangs and corrupt police and governments that make these refugees' lives intolerable. It would be in your interest to get the facts right, or at all.
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mls
The rules of applying for asylum require the applicant to stop in the first country they arrive in that would offer a reasonable level of safety; last I checked, they would ALL arrive in Mexico prior to coming to the US border. They may WANT to live in the US but that's more a matter of finances, not personal safety.
Mention of the horse stables brought memories of a Japanese-American family we had the honor of knowing in Munich several decades ago:
http://www.wbur.org/all-things-considered/2016/05/27/akimoto-family-sacr...
Ted is gone now, but we've never forgotten the kindness he and his family showed us when our small daughter was gravely ill. The best of Americans.
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Everyone who values civil liberties should read Michelle Malkin's book "In Defense of Internment". In her view Ronald Reagan was duped into signing the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, and the original 1944 Korematsu case should have remained as the law in this land. It is sadly ironic that Korematsu was overturned as part of the decision to uphold Trump's Muslim travel ban.
Quoting from Malkin "Civil liberties absolutists have invoked the World War II evacuation and relocation of ethnic Japanese to attack virtually every Homeland security initiative aimed at protecting America from murderous Islamic extemists."
So here we are, historical revisionism in support of Trump's policies.
8
The parallels chronicled here between the hysteria fueling the establishment of the Japanese internment camps and Trump's fanning the flames of fear of immigrants and refugees are both stark and terrifying.
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I can imagine that a Trump supporter has already posted a comment that distinguishes the interned or otherwise mistreated Japanese Americans from the asylum seekers and refugees at the south of the border (the former were citizens, the latter were not, etc.), which will excuse the current mistreatment of our fellow humans sufficiently to allow them to both sleep soundly and continue to support the oppression.
This really boils down to whether or not we treat human beings with compassion, dignity, and respect. Whether we grant them their full humanity or instead attribute to them the most odious characteristics of the rodent and treat them accordingly (and then cover up that mistreatment with lies and facile euphemisms, or give it cover with moralistic justifications that appeal to abstractions such as "the rule of law").
Thank you, MIchiko Kakutani. This piece hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, it will resonate only with those who are already inclined to sympathize with your point of view.
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"This really boils down to whether or not we treat human beings with compassion, dignity, and respect."
By all means we should do that, They should also be respectful of our laws and not attempt to break them. The United States admits more than 1 million immigrants into this county, year after year. That shouts of compassion and respect.
However there are 100's of millions if not billions of people who would do much better if here. What would that do to our fellow citizens? How could we pay for the education, healthcare and other needs of these people. Allowing in exactly how many will show we have " compassion, dignity, and respect"?
While I am sure you have no problem with giving all your monies to help these untold millions, many Americans may not be so willing.
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The Constitution uses two terms for people: "Citizen/s" and "Person/s". It is noteworthy that "citizen" is used concerning eligibility for office, and "person/s" is used for conferring rights. And "person/s" is used much more frequently. We need to keep that distinction in mind as we discuss the treatment of those who cross the Southern border, both the asylum seekers and the economic refugees.
The 14th Amendment makes clear that the apportionment of congressional seats is based on a count of persons (not citizens). The text: "...counting the whole number of persons in each State."
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Sleep tight as we continue to separate children from their parents. No one said anything about giving them your money. By all means, hold on to your wallet for dear life, Rob.
On the other hand, I was looking forward to them coming and contributing to the tax base. I actually had more self-serving motivations for showing them compassion, dignity, and respect.
To each his or her own, I guess.
I find what is happening now, the zero-tolerance policies under President Trump's administration more than appalling, and yes, although the zero-tolerance part of legislation is gone - the emotional scars of these young children remain. What about the parents who have already been deported? How will those children be reunited with those parents? What about the father who hung himself when separated from his son? Who will reunite them?
I thank our great former First Lady, Laura Bush, for pointing out the similarity of those internment camps from WWII for Japanese citizens and those we are dealing with now for illegal immigrants who dare to cross our borders. And I thank the author, Michiko Kakutani, who beautifully, albeit painfully, described the conditions that her family were forced to endure under U.S. political policies at that time in history. I look forward to your new book, "The Death of Truth" very much, and I pray for this great nation of ours. It doesn't appear that we have learned very much at all.
I am a Christian, yet I do NOT support the building of a wall, or these barbaric family separation or family internment policies under immigration law now: this goes against everything that Jesus ever stood for, and the spiritual adviser to President Trump, Paula White, can state that she is for these present policies of immigration law, and claim Bible verses to back her up, but I KNOW in my heart, that Jesus does NOT approve. Jesus taught love, not hate.
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My Italian born grandfather who worked for an Italian shipping company lost his job during WW2; his son, my uncle, would later be blinded during the Battle of the Bulge serving in the US Army. My American born mother remembers having rocks thrown at her and her friends because they were Italian. The biggest difference, and still not excusable, is that the US was at war, a declared war.
Anyone who voted for Trump bears some responsibility for what is happening now. You voted for him, knowing his views, at his rallies people would cheer when he even hinted at doing what our government is now doing. OUR government. Children are not enemy combatants. And those you call "illegal" make a death defying trek to reach the US because we have always been the beacon to the rest of the world. YOU the Trump voter have much to answer for. The rest of us can only vote and hope we can end this madness.
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Although the less numerous Japanese Americans on the east coast did not experience the mass internment those further west did, my father told me a chilling story about one family his own Irish immigrant parents had befriended. Storekeepers in New York. Their son was a scoutmaster, I assume had been a scout himself as a boy. It was a very important part of his life.
Sometime after Pearl Harbor, he was forced to resign. My dad didn't know the details, but one can guess. He went into a deep depression, that ended in suicide. As I understand it, he was an only child.
It's important for us to remember that just ending the current situation, releasing the asylum seekers, giving them a fair hearing, reuniting families--even ending the Trump era, and abolishing ICE--none of this will undo the damage that has been done to thousands of people.
We owe them a debt. Our honor demands we pay it.
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The Japanese-Americans who were interned during World War II had done nothing wrong, while the illegal immigrants being interned now are foreign nationals who committed a crime by sneaking across the border. It is a lie to equate them.
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If you will reread the article you will see that Michiko Kakutani is stressing the demonizing and dehumanizing of other human beings. Mr Trump's rhetoric is reminiscent of the kind of racism her family experienced.
It is not a crime to seek asylum. Mr Trump is trying to unilaterally criminalize that act. It is only a misdemeanor and is not an act that requires prosecution or separation of families with little hope of reunification.
This policy is born out of cruelty, nothing less. It can not be justified by claiming that laws are being violated. Our constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment and family separation as well as the harsh treatment many immigrants are receiving while in custody are certainly that.
Kakatuni is not lying, I think she speaks from her own experience and heart. It is Mr Trump who lies repeatedly.
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Actually, most of the families being detained, and separated, are those who have applied for asylum at the border, which is not a crime. And that is what Ms. Kakutani is talking about, detained families. So in that context, who's telling the "lie" here?
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"Sneaking" across the border because they have no other way to get out of life-threatening situations that US foreign policy created.
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Thanks for a needed reminder of what happened here and how current circumstances are similar. Julie Otsuki has written a fine book on the camps. Isabelle Allende has a character in her most recent novel who went through the camps, too.
FYI, there were German Americans who were detained as well.
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Let us not forget the differences between then and now. The Japanese internees were all either US citizens or legal residents. Their internment was supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans - including Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss), who published a number of virulently racist anti-Japanese cartoons. It was also ratified by a 6-3 Supreme Court decision - one that has never been overturned. And of course, it was a Democratic president who issued the order for Americans of Japanese descent to be interred. Those who think the situation is nearly identical need to tell us what they think should be done with individuals who come to this country illegally.
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So you're arguing that the cases are dissimilar, because the Japanese concentration camps had shamefully wide public support, but only the right-wing fringe has embraced Trump's vermin talk? Or that the latter is justified because these border crossing are illegal, and the former is justified because "everyone" thought internment was a great and noble idea?
That confusion aside, I can tell you how to deal with "with individuals who come to this country illegally", if that's your real object, rather than promoting racial hatred for political gain, like Donald Trump.
Here's the "solution": do to American employers of illegal aliens, from factory owners to Aunt Sue -- and to Donald J. Trump, when he for years knowingly employed illegal aliens on construction sites and even stole their [already low] wages -- exactly what we're doing to detainees . You know, cages, jail, child separation. Then see what happens.
That's if you're serious, of course.
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Well, the Supreme Court in the recent opinion upholding Trump’s horrible Muslim order (call it what it really is) did repudiate Korematsu. Not that it did Ms. Kakutani’s relatives any good.
2
At Mar -a-Lago, Trump is still employing temporary non-immigrant foreign nationals through the B-1 (?) program. So much for "employ American."
Although not incarcerated, during WW II, my Italian born grandmother and aunt were required to register as "aliens", at the same time that my father and his brothers were serving in the armed forces in Europe. What was done to Japanese Americans was more horrifying.
These are indeed terrifying times.
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My black father and uncles fought for a WW ll USA army and navy that legally made them separate and unequal.
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Ms. Kakutani and almost all commenters disregard her admission that fully one-third of those interned were not Japanese-Americans; they were citizens of Japan. Without excusing the racist excesses inherent in all out war (“Huns”), didn’t this present a serious question of loyalty to the desperate government which was responsible for our very survival?
Were there any Japanese or Japanese-Americans interned who otherwise might have worked for a Japanese victory? I doubt it, but I really do not know.
Canada also had those camps in Alberta during WW2. And yes, it looks very much like history is repeating itself. We live in very dangerous times.
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The Japanese living in Canada and America during World War II were people who lived in those countries for generations and were part of their communities. Their incarceration was unnecessary and cruel -- even though, in fact, there were indeed Japanese spies in the United States.
The migrants coming through from Mexico are crossing a border illegally. A very different thing.
Last week, I told a friend of mine about a book I was reading that detailed Japanese atrocities committed in POW camps during World War II. He said, yes, very much like the way we treat refuges from Latin America.
Really? Very much like?
How can he say that?
I am not bringing up the inhuman treatment of American and Allied prisoners of war in order to denigrate the Japanese experience in American detention camps but to point out that we live in an age in which making invidious comparisons has become the norm.
1
Ms. Kakutani, over the years I have read countless book reviews in the Times under your byline. I never agreed with all of your conclusions, of course, but they were always—not just sometimes—educational, informative, interesting and enjoyable. I never knew that your history was such a painful one. I am sorry that it happened to your family—and to every loyal American citizen of Japanese ancestry.
In all my long life I have known people born here who have always taken their American citizenship for granted, as if it was an entitlement not worth treasuring. For “disfavored groups,” like yours and mine, citizenship meant more to us because we never assumed—history told us in the bleakest terms that everything was ephemeral and that “belonging” never quite conveyed the authenticity of “citizenship” that it surely granted to the majority culture and their posterity.
Japanese-American soldiers—just like their African-American counterparts—played heroic roles in World War II, but returned to an America that was far from grateful for their service and sacrifice.
We see today, as you eloquently write, that fully one-third of America is now given over to the alarums of fear and hate, aided by politicians and the media and corporate interests who may fear that by not aligning themselves with the rancid tenor of the times that their own narrow definitions of “citizenship” might place them at odds with powerful interests.
We live, indeed, Ms. Kakutani, in seriously perilous times.
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Who is we?
But black lIves still don't matter as they are persecuted into prison after being profiled, stalked, stopped, harassed , beaten or shot. Members of my family have been and still are incarcerated. While the Japanese Americans got an apology and reparations.
One of my black uncles was in the US Navy and took part in the Port Chicago Mutiny in the wake of the Port Chicago Disaster. Another had the misfortune to be black while in an American military uniform on Iwo Jima. He has never fully recovered emotionally and mentally from the trauma but with be 94 years old later this month.
2
Unspeakable sadness, compounded by the fact that there will be those who read your essay and will still support the Trump administration’s approach. To them I say, is there not a better approach?! If so many thousands are coming daily risking their life and limb, ask yourself why they come. Ask what depravity they must be seeking to escape and what opportunity and admiration they must see in the US. If we would rather they not see the US in such great light, for what do we, as a country, claim to be exceptional? Are we exceptional merely to lay claim to being the best and then to turn away those who seek to be a part of that opportunity? American exceptionalism fails when it is no longer a beacon of hope for the hopeless. What greatness lies in living in a mansion without magnanimity?
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The article draws absurd comparisons. The japanese were unfairly and immorally imprisoned. The asylum seekers do not need to show up at the border. They can get in line like everyone else.
We can't be a beacon of hope for the hopeless. We have millions of American citizens, elderly, children, vets, who need help. The world is not a nice place. I'm sure there are millions in multiple areas in the middle east, Africa, Far east who would love to come here and stay. We can't afford to take all of them in.
To the illegal aliens:
Please don't risk your life. Do it the legal way, not the illegal one.
If you choose to jump the line, then you choose to run the risk.
Every day American citizens are separated from their families and children when they commit crimes. You are no different . Except they have rights here, you don't.
Maybe it would be better to stay in your own country and work on improving that.
3
There is nothing unlawful about applying for asylum, and to do that they have to be at a border crossing or in the US. Asylum is a protection granted to foreign nationals already in the United States or at the border.
"...these people largely are from an alien culture that don't value education, don't value reading, don't share our commitment to individual liberty and the rule of law and don't share our historical identity or aspirations."
If you remove the word alien from that statement you would be describing large numbers of our current citizens.
Yes, America’s approach to immigration and asylum is horribly broken. It has been for decades. And if anything good comes out of the Trump administration’s bumbling efforts to shut down immigration, we can hope that it will be an eventual dialog about how immigration should work in our country.
But comparing any of this to the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII is ridiculous. Every country has the right to set and enforce immigration policies. No country has the right to imprison its citizens because of their racial and ethnic backgrounds.
68
I'm third generation Japanese-American. I always contrast accounts of the internment of Japanese-Americans on the west coast with that of my parents, aunts, and uncles who lived in Hawaii and were of fighting age on Dec 7,1941. Despite living in the place most vunerable to reattack, they were never subjected to the pain and humiliation of internment. Military governor Delos Emmons, the FBI, and local police resisted calls for internment.
In response, young Japanese-American men volunteered for manual labor on military construction projects to prove their loyalty. Gen Emmons put Japanese-American solders into the 100th Battalion and sent them to MN for training where they did so well, Roosevelt agreed to allow 3,000 men from the camps and 1,200 from Hawaii to join the Army. In Hawaii, 10,000 volunteered while in the camps, about 1,200 signed up. Eventually all eligibles were subjected to the draft.
The 100th Battalion and 442d Regimental Combat team are the most decorated unit in the history of American warfare. They proved in blood that race has nothing to do with patriotism. They are proof of the folly, bigotry, and stupidity of Trump's polices that seek to demonize people in the same way as Japanese-Americans.
Their sacrifice makes one thing clear: Given a chance, all immgrants, legal or otherwise will love this country as long as they're given a chance to succeed. Not even a fair chance, just a chance.
246
Our immigration policies include the right to apply for asylum.
3
Our immigration policies include the right to apply for asylum. People who are afraid for their lives and for their children's lives have the right to come here and ask to be let in. So that's not illegal.
If you scorn them, and call them names, and imprison them, it is a reflection of our country now. And of the country that imprisoned its own citizens for the same reasons: hatred of "the other."
3
I have nothing to add to the rancorous debate about immigration laws. But this article was not about enforcement of law, but about the absence of law and the inhumane extremes it may go to when an entire people is defamed and debased.
MIchiko Kakutani deserves our thanks for sharing this compelling description of her family's incarceration. Her analysis of the Orwellian lies and race-baiting to justify the current round-up of "undesirables" also commends our respect - and more importantly, our attention.
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Minor correction: commands our respect.
1
Best response to Kakutani san's article so far. The current political crisis over immigration is race baiting at its worse.
4
My mother's family had similar experiences to Ms. Kakutani's. When the FBI came to her house in Berkeley, CA, the afternoon of Dec. 7, 1941 my mom watched in terror as the agents leafed through the Japanese language magazines, books, and newspapers on the tables. My grandfather was taken away for interrogation but thankfully was returned home later that night. Eventually her family was incarcerated at the camp in Gila River, AZ. My father's family had lived in Los Angeles and they were sent to the camp in Heart Mtn., Wyoming. After WWII they became refugees in their own country and relocated to Chicago to start new lives. My mother is nearly 90 yrs. old and cannot believe that within her lifetime, there is talk of internment camps again. And Thank God my father, who fought with the US Army's 442nd RCT against the Nazis and my uncle who served in the Pacific as a Japanese-language translator in the Military Intelligence Service - are not alive to see the erosion of Democracy and blatant racism perpetrated by the Trump Administration. Surely their hearts would be broken.
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There is no talk of internment camps again. I am also of Japanese descent. This hysteria about "separating families" is all just another ploy blaming Trump, but the true blame lies with the parents. It is all for sympathy in the hopes they'll just let them in...."Think of the Children". Think about staying home. We are not the world's biggest refugee camp.
15
Au Contraire ...
Historically speaking the United States (even prior to it's conception as a country) had ALWAYS been a refugee camp. My guess is that least some YOUR ancestors were poor immigrants and/or refugees as is the case with the majority of us, including DJT. We like to conveniently forget that. Additionally many of these people were LEGALLY seeking asylum at the time.
8
The true blame is the American citizens right next door to you, who hire undocumented people at poverty wages so that they can benefit financially. It's called the law of supply and demand. People would not be coming here if there were no jobs for them. You want this to stop? Arrest any and all American citizens who hire them. 20 years hard labor with all assets seized by the government. When released they would be convicted felons. No American would want that fate. The labor pool would dry up, and the people would stop coming. Blame and punish the greedy Americans, not these poor souls.
1
Dear Ms. Kakutani: This is the first time I am commenting on an article before completing it. Your own family's history is so searing and such an indictment of what we always thought were our "democratic" values that to see its current incarnation in full daylight is almost too much to bear. Thank you for sharing your own history.....and now I will take a deep breath and continue reading.
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There are good people who want to enter this country, and there are bad people who want to enter this country.
The problem is, how do we keep the bad people out?
We have immigration laws in place so that people who enter the country will not cause harm to it. In fact, every country on the planet has immigration laws for that reason.
Why are the people who shout "no borders" okay with criminals entering this country? That includes child traffickers, gang members, murderers, rapists. Why not have some basic laws in place to make sure those people do not enter?
I'm pretty sure the people for open borders do not have any idea about what is going on in Mexico and Central American, and do not know that murder, rape and crime are more than common--the numbers are astronomical.
What is wrong with wanting the good people to enter and the bad people to stay out? Also, for that matter, how are we helping these countries to become safer by draining them of the good people?
57
Nothing is wrong with that.
But everything is wrong with your assumptions.
Nobody is saying open borders. Nobody is saying let everybody in without question.
These people turned themselves in at the border. They asked for asylum. Yes, there is a lot of crime over there. (There's a lot of crime over here too, but very little from immigrants).
Many of them came here because they had the courage to leave a place where they knew their children could never lead good lives, and come here to work. At jobs we desperately need people to work in.
No, we can't let everybody in. But does that mean we had to separate families, send little children thousands of miles away from their parents, create a situation where they might never be able to find each other?
We never had to do this before--why now? There is no crisis. Immigration is down. Even legal immigration is down, because the Trump administration, for all its promises, is refusing to let non-white people immigrate here when they follow every law, submit applications.
It's all based on race.
Otherwise, we'd just follow the old procedures, which were working. We wouldn't separate families. The idea is to make them more frightened of us than they are of the gangsters and oppressive governments they face back home. It's not working. They keep coming. How evil do we have to become before nobody wants to live here anymore?
How long before the wall, if it ever happens, is to keep us from leaving?
46
1. "Nobody is saying open borders."
Yes, lots of people are literally using the word "open borders." And if people are flowing in & there are no ways to properly assess who they are & reject them, then you have open borders. That is clearly what had been going on for some time here, & clearly what is now happening in Europe, where people who are rejected for asylum just simply do not leave.
2. Many are not really asylum seekers. Many are migrants claiming asylum. Even the mother of the little child on Time cover, it turns out, came here simply for preference, not hardship. The father did not want her to leave. (Also, that child was never separated from the mother.) We WANT the genuine asylum seekers. We are making it HARDER for genuine asylum seekers from all nations when we allow this chaos.
3. "But does that mean we had to separate families..."
Obama was sued for the conditions in which he separated children from their families. I hate Trump, I am a liberal, but this is something that has always gone on that the press is NOW running with. Sadly, it is also true that people are bringing UNRELATED KIDS into this country for easier entry. Kids are with criminals. Are you OK with that?
4. As bad as crime is here, you need to check out the stats in Mexico & Central A. No comparison. And to imagine that no crime is trickling into this country from outside is an absurdity. Why allow it?
P.S. Lower wages are inevitable, paying for basic life services is untenable.
1
Interesting. Few, if any, people "shout 'no borders,'" though the GOP would like voters to believe that that is what Democrats want.
I find the statement that the rate of violent crime in Mexico & Central America is "astronomical" interesting. It is true, but something folks on the right generally want to ignore in their claim that these folks crossing the border have no need of asylum.
As to the "good people" and "bad people" query of the comment - note the crime stats - they put most of those immigrants into the "good people" category. It is lovely to say 'just give us the good people,' but, of course there is no way to tell with any group.
To help these countries be "safer" we can do several things. One is to help their economies - something Trump is not likely to do. Another is to work on the illegal drug trade in this country (no market, no profit).
10