Japanese-American Internment Memorial

Last week my 100w class took a trip over to the Japanese-American internment memorial over on 2nd an San Carlos. I learned a lot about our nations history, some of which I wasn't too happy to find out. Read on for more...

The Japanese American internment era is not something many people talk about these days. To be honest, I didn’t even know much of anything about it until I started the research for this project in my 100w class a little over a week ago. I knew it existed, I just wasn’t sure what it was or even where it took place. I was a little startled to learn all the details of it, and even more taken aback at how much of it took place in the heart of the Bay Area. Almost everything about it is painful to read, from families becoming separated from their fathers, to huge neighborhoods of Japanese-Americans being herded to horse stables to live. Calling this course of action taken by the government ‘inhumane’ is putting it kindly; ‘disgusting’ and ‘appalling’ would be a more valid choice of words.

Ruth Asawa, a local artist, the Japanese American Internment Memorial for display in San Jose. It was unveiled on 2nd and San Carlos in 1994, and remains there to this day. I hope it stays there for a long time to come. Asawa, who gained her foundation as an artist while interned at the Santa Anita race track in California, created the sculpture as a public memorial for the approximately 110,000 other Japanese Americans who were interned. In a way, I see this memorial as spoken not only by Asawa, but by so many Japanese Americans who lived the same nightmare she did.

The memorial contains two sides of extremely detailed vignettes in a sort of time line layout portraying Japanese American life.

The first vignette that really grabbed me was of the immigrants fist steps out of the immigration office. What an amazing and exhilarating moment this must have been for so

many people. I realize sometimes I take for granted how easy we have it. Traveling across the entire world can take a mere hours for me, whereas only a short time ago it could have taken months, if not longer. Entering the United States brought along a feeling of freedom, promise, and hope. I’m sure however, a large sense of uncertainty and nervousness must have accompanied the excitement as well. The United States must have seemed so foreign, and finding a job to survive and feed their families must have been extremely tough. It’s easy to see this in the first vignette on Asawa’s sculpture.

Another portion of the memorial I couldn’t help but notice was of the man being taken away by the F.B.I. This must have been terrifying for men who had to face this. I’m sure officials must have been very vague about where they were taking them, if they even said anything at all.

From the image, you get a sense the investigators treated people they were taking away as criminals, which seems so unfair to me. One great thing about our legal system is we presume innocence until proven guilty. I get the idea this was not the case back then. The government presumed, merely because of ones nationality, they could possibly be involved in a future attack on America. It really is heartbreaking to see how families were separated in this way. They were forced to either sell their belongings or, as shown in the memorial, burn whatever they had left. Does this sound like the America you know and love? It doesn’t to me either. Treating humans like animals is something that should NEVER be done, under any circumstance, I don’t care what the person has done. And the final vignette I noticed was portraying Americans as doing exactly that, treating these people like animals. Herded into the Santa Anita race track and forced to sleep in the stables, so many of these people became sick because of the overwhelming stench. Many were forced to live there for about six months. I can’t even imagine living there for six days, let alone half of a year. I don’tcare what anyone thought these Japanese Americans might be planning, no one deserves treatment like this, no one.

One question that has been raised since 9-11 is “Could something like the Japanese Internment happen again?” A small group of men from one nationality, claiming religion as their inspira

tion, were responsible for a devastating attack on the United States. I’ve seen so many Americans take a stand against the entire nationality. I believe the answer to the question is “Yes, but I hope it doesn’t.” American’s have a tendency to forget lessons of the past when they are angry today. I’m just as upset as the next person about the attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001. I love this country, and would fight for it at any cost, if it meant that others could enjoy all the freedoms I have.

What I don’t believe though, is that we should hop on any bandwagon that comes along to throw bla

me on whomever we see fit. That simply shows ignorance and thoughtlessness. We need to become more aware that there’s a select group of people responsible, who may even be planning future acts of terror. We need to focus our energy on finding and stopping these people dead in their tracks, anything else would be a waste of time and an injustice to our nation and its citizens.