We were American citizens. We were incarcerated by our American government in American internment camps here in the United States. The term 'Japanese internment camp' is both grammatically and factually incorrect.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
But when we came out of camp, that's when I first realized that being in camp, that being Japanese-American, was something shameful.
During World War II, law-abiding Japanese-American citizens were herded into remote internment camps, losing their jobs, businesses and social standing, while an all-Japanese-American division fought heroically in Europe.
You know, I grew up in two American internment camps, and at that time I was very young.
It was an egregious violation of the American Constitution. We were innocent American citizens, and we were imprisoned simply because we happened to look like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor. It shows us just how fragile our Constitution is.
The detention of Japanese Americans during World War II would qualify as an example of majoritarian tyranny and misuse of executive prerogative, driven by fear and racial bias.
I still remember, 40 years ago, when I was shackled and put in prison... Being an American citizen didn't mean a thing.
I'm not American. I still have my Japanese citizenship.
When Pearl Harbor was bombed, young Japanese-Americans, like all young Americans, rushed to their draft board to volunteer to fight for our country. That act of patriotism was answered with a slap in the face. We were denied service and categorized as enemy non-alien.
I was six months old at the time that I was taken, with my mother and father, from Sacramento, California, and placed in internment camps in the United States.
If we look at American history, between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the Census Bureau was handed over to the FBI and other organizations at the request of President Roosevelt, and that's how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps.