American Concentration Camps Of World War II
By: Floyd Mori
Tags: History, Politics, World War II, Racism, Asian American

American Concentration Camps Of World War II

A World War II camp (Image in the public domain)

An injustice of World War II

After World War II started and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, the people of Japanese heritage living on the West Coast of the continental United States were forcibly removed from their homes. They were subsequently held as prisoners in camps which had been constructed in remote and desolate areas of the country. There were about 120,000 persons impacted with two thirds being American citizens. It was an egregious violation against the Constitution. The camps have become known as American concentration camps.

Asian Americans had long suffered from racism. The executive order was a racist action used mostly in the states of California, Oregon, and Washington where there were large groups of people of Japanese heritage. It was a political decision which harmed many people. The military commander over that area was General John L. Dewitt, who ordered the people to be removed from their homes. The order was not used in Hawaii where 150,000 ethnic Japanese people lived. The military commander over Hawaii deemed that it was not necessary because anyone believed to be potentially dangerous had already been picked up and imprisoned.

There were ten camps which were built to house those of Japanese descent. The military gathered up the people who were eventually put into a camp. There were two camps each in Arizona, Arkansas, and California. Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming each had one camp located in their states.

The people were first placed in assembly centers before the camps were ready for occupancy. These were mostly race tracks and fairgrounds where they lived in horse stalls. The horses were gone, but the smell remained. They lived there until they were transported to the various camps. The camps were surrounded with barbed wire and guarded by the U.S. military.

A camp guard tower (Image in the public domain)

During the war years, the camps were called internment centers. Years later, the camps became known as American concentration camps. The people were held as prisoners, and there was no escaping the incarceration. Some few had received permission to leave for education or work, but most remained incarcerated for the duration of the war.

It should be noted that these camps were different than the concentration camps of Europe where Jewish people were held unjustly, tortured, and killed. Some Jewish people have objected to the term of concentration camps being used for the American camps because the Japanese people were not treated as inhumanely as were the people of Jewish descent.

The American camps have come to be known as concentration camps because they were places where innocent people who had done no wrong were imprisoned unfairly. The people of Japanese heritage did not face the same kind of extreme cruelty and death in the camps, they lost their freedom and were held against their will.

The reasons for the incarceration were later determined by a commission to have been: racism, war hysteria, and a lack of competent government leadership during the period of World War II.

The people of Japanese heritage living in the United States were patriotic and loyal to the United States. Although the camps were said to be for national security, there was no espionage done by the Japanese people.

It has been disturbing that some Republican political leaders have stated that they would like to place certain people into camps such as was done in World War II to Japanese Americans. They mentioned undocumented immigrants among others.

No other people in the United States of America should ever have to suffer such injustices as were inflicted in the American concentration camps of World War II. The camps were a cruel means of punishing innocent people who had done no wrong.

[Source: The Japanese American Story As Told Through A Collection of Speeches and Articles, www. thejapaneseamericanstory.com, www.densho.org]