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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 2600:1700:4070:6240:714e:aa6b:73bc:7817 (talk) at 00:33, 20 February 2018 (→‎Photo in Education Section: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Dovosh2 (article contribs).

Major Problem with "DOJ Internment Camps" Section

The section relating to the Department of Justice internment camps is written as if it were an editorial. Although it attempts objectivity, the section comes off as conveying a point of view. The problems start with the third paragraph and continue until the end. Lines like "your opinion of the facts", "one must wonder" and "This leaves one to guess", along with questions posed to the reader, need to be removed, and the entire section should probably be rewritten. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.84.107.194 (talk) 04:32, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree; that section is dreadful. Be bold. --Yaush (talk) 15:13, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
 Done. Still leaves one wondering about WP:SYNTH of material there. Student7 (talk) 17:19, 13 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Separate section for Japanese Latin Americans?

This section doesn't really discuss the actual DOJ facilities, which also held German and Italian Americans and about 5,500 Issei and Kibei, but focuses almost exclusively on the deportation and confinement of Japanese from Latin America. I propose moving most of the current text to a new section called "Japanese Latin Americans," probably after the sections on Hawaii in "Exclusion, removal and detention," and reworking the "DOJ Internment Camps" section. Do these changes seem appropriate to others? MartinaDee (talk) 01:21, 26 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a reasonable proposal. However, if there's not enough material left over to justify a separate "DOJ Internment Camps" section, then perhaps you could simply retitle the existing section. — Myasuda (talk) 00:16, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
 Done with 2 edits I feel I should mention here: One, I'm adding a brief reference to Japanese Latin Americans and German/Italian Americans in the article overview. (If it's discussed in the body of the article, it should be mentioned in the intro.) And two, I've removed the bit about deportees "not being traded against their will" because (a) it's misleading, as this is not entirely true, and (b) the previous editor's only citation to back this claim was a video made by the INS during the war, arguably propaganda but at the very least a biased source. MartinaDee (talk) 23:00, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This Article is Too Agenda-Driven to Have Any Credibility

This is not a balanced article. The "PC" agenda is obvious to any reader. Where is the section on the imminent danger of a West Coast invasion by the Japanese Navy, which then ruled the Pacific (until Midway) and the concomitant description of how the local Japanese populations had acted in all of the other places that had been invaded, throughout Asia and the Pacific? Where is the section on the Japanese spy ring that had just been busted in the summer of 1941 (and included local Nisei/citizen members)? Any article on this subject should include EVERYTHING that President Franklin Roosevelt can reasonably be assumed to have known, that went into his February 19, 1942, decision.

To use inflammatory language like "babies were interned" without explaining that the U.S. made the effort to keep families together, unlike what Imperial Japan did with Allied civilians, is just plain absurd.

"Misleading" does not belong in Wikipedia, if its articles are to be of any use to its readers.

```` — Preceding unsigned comment added by Starhistory22 (talk • contribs) 20:58, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There is not a single credible military thinker or historian who ever believed Japan was either capable of or interested in invading so much as the Hawaiian Islands, much less the West Coast mainland. The Japanese military couldn't even hold onto a couple barely-inhabited Aleutian rocks - you think they could,have dropped anchor in San Francisco Bay? Sorry, but that's just a lame attempt to retroactively justify oppression. Your "imminent danger" never existed.
And no, Pearl Harbor proves nothing. A hit-and-run surprise raid by carrier-based aircraft is a far, far cry from landing amphibious troops, seizing a beachhead and logistically supplying those troops over thousands of miles of ocean. The IJN practically ran out of destroyers just trying to keep Guadalcanal supported and reinforced, much less Honolulu, never mind the US mainland.
More to the point, the Constitution does not permit the president to arrest and indefinitely imprison US citizens without charge or trial for any reason - much less hysteria driven by false stereotypes and gross racism.
Congratulations, "families were kept together" behind barbed wire and under machine gun towers, with all of their land and property seized and dispossessed. What a great tribute to American ideals. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 21:51, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The Niihau Incident is the only case of a local Japanese American population taking action against the U.S. during an attack by the Japanese Navy, and while it could use some expansion, it does have its own section in this article. How Japanese communities in other parts of Asia and the Pacific acted is irrelevant. The Japanese spy ring you are referring to centered around a Japanese naval officer (Tachibana Itaru) who was posing as a language student. There were a few Issei but no Nisei or citizens implicated in the case. What Roosevelt knew is what he had been told by the Office of Naval Intelligence, the FBI and presidential investigators: that there was "no evidence which would indicate that there is danger of widespread anti-American activities among" Japanese American communities. (See the Munson Report)
I'm glad you are inflamed that "babies were interned," but there is nothing wrong with language that accurately describes a historical fact. There are plenty of sources documenting that infants went into camp with their parents, were born in camp, and were taken from orphanages and non-Japanese foster families and put into camp. As for "what Imperial Japan did with Allied civilians," that has no place in a discussion of U.S. actions against U.S. residents and citizens. MartinaDee (talk) 00:40, 26 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The article should be unbiased, if it isn't now. Quite rightly, the West Coast feared an invasion by the Japanese. The "third strike" of Pearl did not occur because the leader of the strike force realized that he didn't know where the American carriers were. Only their absence, prevented their destruction, the total destruction of Pearl as a base, followed by a planned invasion of Hawaii.
While there were no plans (as we now know) to actually invade the West Coast, it seemed like a real threat to most inhabitants. A fifth column was not only possible, it was likely among some of the first generation that inhabited the area. How effective it would have been is unknown as they were all interred. While everyone wrings their hands now, no one wrung their hands then. There was a general feeling of "Well, thank God for little favors!"
As far as "constitutionally" goes, Lincoln suspended habeus corpus during the Civil War. The Supreme Court chose to overlook that. Courts have done that sort of thing during times of crises. Also, the government ordered plants to produce war goods instead of what they were producing. Not exactly democracy, but, again, tolerated by nearly everyone. Along with rationing goods. Where is "rationing" given to the federal government in the Constitution?
Interment itself was hardly barbarous, except for the blatant loss of freedom. Obviously everyone lost their job. Most of them never got them back. People lost businesses which they never got back.
Note that the Hawaiian interment was mostly reversed for the simple reason that the territory couldn't run without them! Student7 (talk) 22:39, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The West Coast did not "rightly" fear an invasion. There was absolutely no military possibility that the Japanese could have invaded the West Coast.
No Japanese invasion of Hawaii is plausible. They had neither the amphibious ships nor sufficient land troops (remember, most of the Japanese Army was in Manchuria), and did not have the logistical capacity to supply and support such a large force at that distance. There's a good layman's explanation of that fact here, and if you need further references... well, basically any and every book studying World War II in the Pacific will explain it for you.
Your claim that a "fifth column was not only possible, it was likely" has been dismissed by a wide range of reputable historians as nothing but wartime hysteria. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 03:08, 12 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The "one drop of blood" is mere hyperbole and doesn't belong here.
The reason for the 1/16th (if true) could be traced to racism. This would be anyone who had a great-great-great grandparent who was Japanese could be interred. This was overkill since nearly everyone in the country with Japanese ancestry had at least one grandparent (or more) who was Japanese. Never mind triple-greats. Unlike the Nazis who were "really serious" about being Jewish, the Americans never bothered to track down people who were descended from Japanese but had "American" last names and didn't especially look Asian. At the time, they had no real way of tracing them. There was no "national registry." Student7 (talk) 22:58, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Your claim that the "one drop of blood" statement is "mere hyperbole" is interesting. Unfortunately, it is not supported by a reference. The statement was made and it speaks for itself. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 03:06, 12 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The statement comes from a 1942 letter sent from Karl Bendetsen to the director of the Maryknoll Home for Japanese Children, regarding the removal of orphans of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. It should perhaps be moved to the section that mentions the Manzanar Children's Village, or noted that it is in reference specifically to orphans and not the general JA population, but it is a well-documented quote from the man who was in charge of the incarceration. Not exactly irrelevant. MartinaDee (talk) 23:43, 25 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Gonna quibble slightly, for the record. Yes, there are credible historians who believe the Japanese contemplated invading Hawaii. However, the Japanese recognized that the operation would be extremely difficult; the Japanese military had other priorities before the battle of Midway; and the Japanese to abandon any thought of a Hawaiian invasion after they lost carrier supremacy. This is a quibble. The main point, that there was no credible threat of a West Coast invasion, is sound, notwithstanding the ravings of a few Japanese ultranationalist politicians about annexing Washington and Oregon and the Panama Canal. --Yaush (talk) 15:19, 12 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Even if the USN had been defeated at Midway, the Japanese didn't have sufficient amphibious lift or logistical support. There were the equivalent of 3-4 US divisions on Oahu by midsummer 1942, meaning that Japan would need a 5-division force to even consider a landing. They physically couldn't have landed that many troops at once, without stripping every other war theatre. It would have meant abandoning the Solomons, for one. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 16:33, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Being Japanese ethnically made them enemies hmm. You know the funny thing is we cry out that these wars were fought for freedom meanwhile we talk about how it was ok to Jail 3rd or 4th gen American citizens because their ancestors came from a country that was at war with them 50 years or so later. We also Denied many Jews from landing here even though they were fleeing the Nazis. We also talk about the holocaust and how every sane human is shocked at how even children and babies could be massacred just because they were Jewish and yet ignore the Chinese massacres committed by the Japanese for "Security" and how American forces nuked children, and babies and pregnant women and mutated human beings. But you know we are the good guys. Also your point about how Japan treated it's foreign populations? IRRELEVANT American citizens whose ancestors left a nation a few generations ago are not responsible, if the nation from which your ancestor lies where to persecute conservatives, would we suddenly say ok well that means we have legitimacy to now persecute you. How , unless we went to war where-ever your ancestors are from and than say well we are afraid and our security requires your internment. I bet we would here some protests from you than. If you support the internment of people even third or fourth generation Americans simply for ancestor than you should have no problem having your territory taken away and your freedom taken away and being treated by everyone for the next 20 or so years as an enemy or subhuman as many Japanese-Americans felt. The reason it seems PC to you is simply because just like the holocaust, 95% of scholars are going to recognize it for what it is. An injustice. The rise of some pseudo-neo-conservative movement only does damage to itself. Many times things are labeled liberal or leftist bias on Wikipedia, when really it is for the most part supported by CONSERVATIVE or REPUBLICAN tradition scholars as having offended American rights. Ridiculous. It is actually right wing or conservative values that support American rights from a government encroaching on them or the constitution. Ridiculous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.69.176.102 (talk) 04:01, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Answering the above, of course the Administration at the time was extremely left wing liberal, hardly conservatives. And liberal Attorney General Earl Warren ratified the internment. Conservatives had been ousted at the onset of the Great Depression and had almost no influence on much of anything until 1946, the next election after the war. It is a fact that incarcerating the Japanese was a highly popular outside of Hawaii, where they were too integral to the population to lose them. So ironically, the largest concentration of Japanese-Americans in the US, was essentially ignored.
The Jews wandering from Nazi Germany were turned away because no country wanted or needed more people during the Great Depression. Just add (or cause more) depression. There is no group that wouldn't have been turned away at the time. This is just basic history.
It is history that influences the future, not the future that tries to spin the past to "make them" wrong! We learn that 2+2 = 4 in the first grade, then the square root of tan theta in high school. We don't then say, "we shoulda known/been taught the square root of tan theta in the first grade"!
To answer the potential for a West Coast attack, it wasn't what we knew, it was what we thought we didn't know, exaggerated by the surprise attack on Pearl, which resulted in a lot of frightened decision makers. Yes, we know now, that there was no way they were going to invade Hawaii then. But we didn't know it at the time. I heard, but cannot find on the web, that Admiral Ernest King had thought that an attack on the West Coast was imminent. If true, people in "high places" were afraid as well. In short, it was pretty much what we saw immediately after 9/11 and the Kennedy assassination, except we didn't have the communications and extensive intelligence systems then that were developed by 1963 and 2001. So the decisions took longer then. Student7 (talk) 21:06, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure how useful it is to frame this as a liberals vs. conservatives issue, but it is worth noting that Roosevelt appointed two conservative leaders (Henry Stimson and Frank Knox) to head the War Department and the Navy, very high-level positions and where much of the push for incarceration originated — and then you have to take into consideration the actions of conservative politicians on the state level. But yes, Roosevelt's very liberal administration (and the general public) went along with it, so it comes out about even on both sides. Let's move on.
As for Student's claim that by analyzing history we are trying to "spin the past," the evidence speaks for itself. It's been well-documented that the FBI and Naval/Military Intelligence debunked claims of Japanese American sabotage. The ONI and FBI had been conducting surveillance on Japanese Hawaiians and mainlanders for about a decade before Pearl Harbor and had concluded that the risk of a fifth column was virtually nonexistent. High-level military, political and intelligence officials argued against mass incarceration, both on national security and constitutional grounds. Yes, your average citizen was very concerned about an invasion of the West Coast, but most policymakers were not because, unlike the public, they had access to more accurate information. Student is right: history does influence the future, which is why you also have to look at the even earlier history of anti-Japanese prejudice and "Yellow Peril" agitation that formed the social/political context that influenced what happened during WWII. What Roosevelt and his advisers knew in 1942 was that it was not necessary, or legal, to put Japanese Americans in camp, and what we know now is that they chose to do it anyway. Pointing to definitive proof of this today is not the same thing as "making them" wrong. MartinaDee (talk) 20:31, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Drop of blood

Wikipedia is not WikiNews, nor television nor a journal. See WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Bendetsen was an appointee, not really a "political" appointee but a military one. While there may be nothing wrong with putting his comment in a "quote" in a citation, inserting it as though it were important in itself, is not useful. The genealogy of Japanese immigration would legally place every Japanese-American in interment (up to 1/16 Japanese). The "one drop of blood" is hyperbole. It might be appropriate if some ranking member of Congress had said it, or some political appointee, but Bendetsen was neither. The phrase meant nothing logically. It would have meant more if the Governor of California had said it, revealing what a most people thought at the time, BTW, though later denying it, of course.
Note that Earl_Warren#Japanese-American_internment did not try to lie about his complicity. Warren's comments would be more appropriate IMO. He was an elected official who (note) actually claimed to be the moving force behind actual interment. Note that the Hawaiian internment didn't last long for 98% of internees. Student7 (talk) 22:06, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Bendetsen was in charge of the internment program. Claiming that his words "meant nothing logically" is ridiculous on its face. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 22:26, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From Bendetsen's 1942 military record: "I conceived the method, formulated the detailed plans for, and directed the evacuation of 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry from military areas of the West Coast." (Klancy Clark de Nevers, The Colonel and the Pacifist: Karl Bendetsen, Perry Saito and the Incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, 313-315.) MartinaDee (talk) 23:43, 25 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The reason given for the incarceration was "military necessity." Executive Order 9066 gave the military the authority to designate military zones from which they could exclude anyone deemed a threat to military security. Bendetsen was in charge of the WCCA, the branch of the War Department that carried out the West Coast evacuation. Yes, Warren and other political leaders were a significant driving force behind EO 9066, but the incarceration was ultimately a military endeavor. MartinaDee (talk) 23:43, 25 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A major caveat

This article begins with the heading After Pearl Harbor - also spelled Harbour. Full understanding of the Japanese relocation must begin with material years BEFORE Pearl Harbor. It begins in the British and American embassies to Japan. The concerns of those ambassadors caused a chain of events political, military, legal, and geographic. The conferring heads of Canada and the USA triggered communication between their militaries, also between the FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The signal event in BOTH countries was the obligatory issuance of IDENTITY CARDS to residents of Japanese origin or descent. Each nation had plans on the books for dealing with "their Japs" - including potential intern camp sites - perhaps 2 years before December 1941. Finding this material now is not easy.

Missing from history, IMO, is mention of a fraternal organization called Sons of the Golden West. It existed from San Diego to Vancouver, and appealed mostly to police officers. It felt one of its social obligations was to address the "Yellow Peril" of Asian immigrants, who began arriving by 1850. It seems no coincidence that there are some similarities to the KKK. --Ed Chilton


Eleanor picture

Now I'm having trouble (can't see) "File:Eleanor Roosevelt at Gila River, Arizona at Japanese, American Internment Center - NARA - 197094.jpg". I've used windows-F5 and ctrl-F5. Neither works. Okay with everybody else?

Can see this just fine: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eleanor_Roosevelt_at_Gila_River,_Arizona_at_Japanese,American_Internment_Center_-_NARA_-_197094.jpg Student7 (talk) 22:49, 27 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Article totally biased

I don't have the time to get into an edit war with whoever is lording over this article but let me weigh in on any discussion. This article is totally biased. Like some activist wrote it.

For instance, a lot of the "nissei" were kids under 18. The article neglects to mention that key point.

Also, he article bends over backwards to explain the motivations of people renouncing their citizenship, explaining away people that won't foreswear allegiance to an enemy emperor, downplaying the REAL concerns of Americans. Yes some historians might say *now* that there was no real risk of invasion but war is chaos, information is imperfect, and things change. I'm sure the Japanese thought there was no real risk of two nuclear bombs being dropped on their heads.

The quotes are primary sources, and are disallowed by wikipedia because of the ease of which they can be cherry picked.

There are mispresentations, e.g. the cited work quotes the source as "impossible to establish the identity of the loyal and the disloyal with any degree of safety", but the article says "because of their race, it was impossible to determine the loyalty of Japanese Americans". Bad stuff guys, bad stuff.

There are also unsurprisingly, very few citations in the biased stuff. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Richmondian (talk • contribs) 05:16, 21 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Richmodian, you are the one who is POV-pushing here. I have twice reverted your deletion of properly sourced material germane to the article. You are deleting them under the pretext that they are primary sources and therefore disallowed; it seems clear you are, in fact, deleting them because you don't like the picture they paint. Neither do I, but it's the picture historians of this period have generally painted.
And I am not some kind of anti-American activist. Quite the contrary. But I know neutrality when I see it, and when I don't. --Yaush (talk) 00:28, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

All of the categories were removed from this article

I noticed that this article belongs to no categories at all, unlike one of its previous revisions, which belonged to several categories. Why were all the categories removed from this article? Jarble (talk) 01:32, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for pointing that out. I've restored the categories, which were removed without explanation by User:TehSharp about a week ago.—Myasuda (talk) 02:17, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The term "Japanese American"

Since they were ineligible for citizenship, the first generation, issei, were "Japanese," and could well be considered "enemy aliens." They were not "Japanese Americans." Granted that citizenship "should have" been granted, but it wasn't. In most cases, second generation+, unarguably real Japanese Americans, were also involved for most purposes in this article. But imprisoning or restricting the movements of actual "enemy aliens" was not (and is not) illegal. Student7 (talk) 19:13, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Without identifying your sources, it is unclear whether this is based on something you have researched or is your own personal commentary. VQuakr (talk) 20:35, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'd call it common knowledge. However ... what's Student7's point? Are you proposing a change to the article? --Yaush (talk) 21:08, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I would disagree that "non-citizen equals non-American" is common knowledge. That is, however, my personal preference for a cultural rather than legal reading of the definition (so not any more justification for word choice than anyone else's opinion). But that said, the pages on Americans and the word "American" include longtime residents who claim an American identity without holding U.S. citizenship, and this page (and the research it cites) defines the WWII incarceration as the detention of the Issei and the Nisei. MartinaDee (talk) 23:01, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Detaining Nisei was probably illegal, even from a 1941 perspective. Detaining Issei was technically legal, even now, though of somewhat immoral basis for failing to allow citizenship application. I think this point should probably be made somewhere. Just as the article concedes that most Japanese (in both categories) were mostly released or never detained in Hawaii since the islands couldn't run without them. Student7 (talk) 01:29, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
What sources do you propose using? VQuakr (talk) 17:43, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Good question! I was hoping for help from enemy alien but I just made changes to that article which doesn't have cites/links in proper places. No help there. That article tries to distinguish between "permanent resident alien" and "transitory (enemy) alien." If they can clarify that and it withstands scrutiny, my argument collapses. Student7 (talk) 20:47, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It turns out that Alien_and_Sedition_Acts is still in effect. Possible citations from there. Student7 (talk) 21:11, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Is that "concession" really necessary, though? I agree the article could use a better analysis of the enemy alien/non-alien classifications and how they were used to justify the internment. But if you concede that interning the Issei was legally permissible because they were enemy aliens, you also have to concede that they were prohibited from becoming citizens by government practice now recognized as legally impermissible. Essentially what you would be conceding is that their internment was legal based on illegal naturalization restrictions. Lots of illegal practices were legal "at the time." Redlining, alien land laws, poll taxes, etc. were never legally defensible, even if previous versions of our laws claimed otherwise. I don't mean to imply that this article can't or shouldn't make this concession, but it would be irresponsible and one-sided to explain how this one aspect of the internment was justified without honestly explaining why that justification is so problematic. MartinaDee (talk) 22:26, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I hope what is inserted is something short, like one or two sentences, maybe. The internment of enemy aliens was legal, the Nissei illegal. Stopping resident aliens from applying for citizenship is not illegal,as far as I know. Today (for example), Switzerland does this as a matter of common policy (for everybody). A nation can make any conditions it chooses for citizenship. No non-Swiss can apply for citizenship.
What do you mean when you say that the internment of the Nissei was illegal? SCOTUS ruled that the exclusion order was legal, while the internment itself was never ruled on either way. We need sound secondary sources addressing the constitutional issues involved, not a couple of sentences of speculations or synthesis by editors. --Yaush (talk) 15:59, 3 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Was it "nice," or (by American standards, "moral?" Maybe not. But that is rather a matter of opinion which (you and I) agree on today. But the American people didn't then. All the article should contain is the facts. Right now it seems skewed towards branding all internment as "illegal." I don't think this is supported by the facts. Student7 (talk) 14:24, 3 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It's not illegal to restrict naturalization based on skilled vs. unskilled labor, or any other equally-applied policy. It is illegal to deny citizenship based solely on race, as was the case for the Issei. The legality of the Japanese enemy alien internment is not as clear cut as with the German/Italian internment because of that race-based restriction.
The SCOTUS ruling you're referencing was based on false and withheld information, which is why the conviction that resulted from that case was later overturned. And then there's the ex parte Endo ruling that it was illegal to detain loyal citizens without charge. There's a lot of grey area that those cases did not (choose to) cover, but the majority of the secondary sources addressing the constitutional issues involved here have drawn the conclusion that the internment, of the Nisei if not the Issei, was illegal. The government's own report on the internment calls it a "violation of our own laws and principles" (p460). The Civil Liberties Act acknowledged the "fundamental injustice" of interning both the Nisei and the non-citizen Issei. If the article seems "skewed" towards calling the internment illegal, that's because it's reflecting the pretty solid consensus among existing secondary sources, which is supported by the fact that the government had to pay reparations for what happened. MartinaDee (talk) 19:00, 3 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Also, the article doesn't currently claim that the internment, of the Nisei or the Issei, was illegal. It mentions how internee protesters argued it violated their rights, but most of the focus is on either describing the process of removal and conditions/events in camp, or explaining how it was justified by the Justice Department and the military. I can't seem to find an example where the article itself questions those justifications or presents "illegality" as a given fact, so what exactly are the changes you're proposing? MartinaDee (talk) 19:20, 3 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The Ex parte Endo was new to me. And is not terrifically clear, but does say the government shouldn't continue to intern (Nissei) without good cause. I now don't see that Wikipedia can say it was (retroactively) illegal, as well, which I was hoping to say. So we have some benchmarks for legality and illegality, which if they aren't mentioned somewhere, should be, since we talk all around the issue, using "non-military" opinions both ways, among others, then the "loyalty test" of the recruiters in another section.
I'm sure the current structure of the article was adequate at one time. It seems to me to need some sort of restructuring now. I do not have any specific recommendations as yet. Student7 (talk) 15:14, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Just for clarification: the Endo ruling said the government couldn't continue to intern Mitsuye Endo because it couldn't legally detain loyal citizens without charge. So... yes, illegal (at least for "loyal" Nisei).
I think we agree on the purpose of this article within the scope of Wikipedia, albeit clearly not on the issue itself. A more substantial discussion of the grey area surrounding the legality/illegality is needed; I just want to be sure all the facts are given so the article doesn't turn into a series of surface-level assumptions. That said, have at it. MartinaDee (talk) 19:53, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Medical care. Smallpox vs typhoid

I agree that something was wrong (overcrowding and sanitation facilities) when the authorities felt forced to inoculate the population against typhoid.

The smallpox entry is more nuanced or peculiar. Entering schoolchildren were forced to demonstrate that they had a smallpox inoculation in the 1930s. Immigrants were checked for smallpox inoculation before admitting them. So why didn't the Japanese already have a smallpox inoculation? It wasn't so much the danger of an incipient smallpox epidemic but rather the fact that the authorities had discovered that an entire group had fallen into a "failure to inoculate" hole. That is peculiar. At the time, the inoculation left a distinguishing "circle" on a person's arm, so there were no chance they were being "double inoculated" unless, of course, they simply didn't have written "proof", left behind with other belongings. Still, this was an 'important paper" back then, kept with visas, passports, drivers license, etc. It is something they would have brought with them to the camp. Odd IMO.

As to the "40,000" which may sound impressive to somebody: at one shot per minute, not an unachievable rate, even then, it would take 17 weeks for ONE person to administer 40,000 shots, working a normal 40 hour week. (but more likely done by a number of people working at once). The patients are people standing in line, not waiting in a doctors office! I think it is a bit WP:UNDUE and overdone. Sounds good on paper but fails under analysis to demonstrate an imperiled medical system.

I agree the typhoid was serious stuff and deserves mention. Student7 (talk) 21:35, 30 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Merge discussion in re Presidential Proclamations 2525, 2526, and 2527

Editor User:Compassionate727 put tag to discuss merging the Presidential Proclamations 2525, 2526, and 2527 article with this article.

  • Oppose the merge - I am against merging for the following reasons.
  • 1 - The first reason is that two of the proclamations apply only to Germans and Italians. The proclamations had effects on Germans and Italians that is very different from their effect of leading to internment of Japanese.
  • 2 - The second reason is that on 12-8-2015, Donald Trump cited these proclamations as good precedents in relation to his proposal to temporarily disallow all Muslims from entering the US. At the same time as citing these proclamations, Mr. Trump specifically stated his opposition to internment of Muslims. The article on the proclamations should mention Mr. Trump, since the proclamations are the only precedent cited by Mr. Trump for his proposal, and the proposal is receiving significant media coverage. Many people will be coming to Wikipedia to get information on the proclamations. This article on internment of Japanese should not have any mention of Mr. Trump, since it violates NPOV to link his proposal to any internment, which he claims to be against. Having information on the proclamations be in an article on internment is not NPOV as to Mr. Trump. MBUSHIstory (talk) 15:50, 8 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalization of titles, etc.

@Gmatsuda: our style (MOS:JOBTITLES) is generally that job titles following a name should be in lowercase. Therefore, Dr. James Hirabayashi, Professor Emeritus and former Dean of Ethnic Studies... should be lowercase: Dr. James Hirabayashi, professor emeritus and former dean of ethnic studies..."

This lowercase style is very widespread: not only is it used in our own Manual of Style, but the Chicago Manual and the AP have the same rule, and probably other style guides as well.

As for the "unsigned editorial" vs. "editorial" - if you want "unsigned" in there, I'm OK with it, although as I noted in my prior edit summary, almost all NYT editorials are unsigned in any case.

I would ask that you not mark reverts as minor (they are not, typically). --Neutralitytalk 16:15, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I removed "unsigned," since that is normal practice for newspaper editorials. Sincerely, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 21:27, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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"Determined" versus "claimed" to result primarily from racism

When Japanese Americans were asked to confirm whether they were loyal to the Emperor of Japan or the US, "17 percent of the total respondents, 20 percent of the Nisei — gave negative or qualified replies". The reason was not "out of confusion, fear or anger at the wording and implications of the questionnaire". It is quite possible that 17-20% were loyal to the Emperor. Why assume that none were, and that all negative answers were a mistake. That is totally illogical and unsubstantiated.Royalcourtier (talk) 08:23, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like your personal analysis of a primary source. That's not really a policy-based reasoning for this edit. VQuakr (talk) 08:28, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

While there's no serious doubt racism was a major factor, the article itself gives considerable evidence that war panic was a major factor as well. "Determined" is a bit strong to base on a single source, especially one as dubious as a blue-ribbon commission, unless there is language in there naming the commission as the source of the determination.

I suggest changing the sentence to read: "The Commission on Wartime Relocation of Civilians determined that internment resulted more from racism in the West Coast rather than any military danger posed by Japanese Americans.[7][8]"

I prefer the active voice anyway. Yaush (talk) 19:17, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To what "single source" are you referring? Two are in the lede, which summarizes the more extensive discussion in the body starting with the "Reparations and redress" section. Characterizing the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians as a "dubious" source is silly; it is an authoritative source and one that reflects the broader consensus assessment of the motivation for the internment. There might be room for improvement in the sentence, but implying that the Commission is isolated in this viewpoint would mislead the reader. VQuakr (talk) 02:56, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Do you object to my proposed wording? --Yaush (talk) 22:43, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I object to the proposed wording because it ascribes a widely held characterization to a single entity. VQuakr (talk) 04:33, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No discussion of worldwide context

Internment of enemy nationals was a common practice in WWII. The internment of Japanese-American citizens happened in that context. What is distinctive here is that many of the Japanese-Americans were citizens. The internment is not unique; their citizenship was. (U.S. citizenship law is of course much different from the citizenship laws of other countries.) --Iloilo Wanderer (talk) 12:20, 20 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Los Banos Internment Camp and Santo Tomas Internment Camp articles are too remote from this article to justify links in the "See also" section. Why not link to the Buchenwald or Dachau articles? They're actually much more related to the Japanese American internment in that the Germans incarcerated many of their own citizens at those camps simply due to ethnicity. Your examples don't show the Japanese incarcerating their own citizens based on ethnicity, so I don't think there's a good rationale for their presence in this article. — Myasuda (talk) 13:53, 20 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Evaluation of this article

Questions: 1. Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? 2. Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?

Responses: 1. Each and every fact is referenced with an appropriate and a reliable reference. This article uses superscripts in blue font that if clicked links you to a whole list of sources used on the bottom of the article. 2. Everything in the article is relevant to the article topic. Not only that it's related text, but also pictures and photos that depict the things and locations that are related to Japanese Internment Camps in the US.Dovosh2 (talk) 17:32, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would have to say that many of the references are not neutral, and some are WP:Original research. This WP article is not the final word on this topic, so one should not edit as if it were. Thanks. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 21:30, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Endo decision in lead

I reverted a vague reference to this added to the already overly long lead. If added back (and my preference would be not to), it should probably mention the actual decision and not include a footnote to another wikipedia article. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 00:24, 11 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Ordered or Allowed?

What sources are there if any that say president Roosevelt ordered the internment? Executive Order 9066 signed by him allowed it but he did not order it. -- Dvorak4159 (talk) 00:45, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Let's not get caught up in semantics here. The military knew what they wanted to do. EO9066 may not have explicitly ordered it, but it was a carefully crafted plan. Also, to place that much emphasis on DeWitt is almost totally misleading when FDR was ultimately responsible. -- Gmatsuda (talk) 09:53, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

But its not a matter of responsibility, it's who ordered it and Dewitt Signed/wrote Civilian exclusion order No. 34 as per https://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/89manzanar/89facts2a.htm is that not a reliable enough source? yes, FDR did allow the order but he didn't author it. Also, in what document/speech does it say they ordered the internment as the NPS did not specifically mention that? Dvorak4159 (talk) 13:53, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The bottom line is the FDR is ultimately responsible. DeWitt implemented a previously designed plan. This is all documented in several sources. You might want to do more extensive research. -- Gmatsuda (talk) 01:33, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Densho Encyclopedia

A couple of citations to Densho Encyclopedia are tagged as "Better source needed". Densho is an archive specializing in the internment of Japanese Americans, so I'm not sure what sources would be considered better. I'll remove the tags, but if anyone thinks they should stay then please undo my edit. Mcampany (talk) 05:57, 31 January 2018 (UTC)Mcampany[reply]

Imperial Japan

There was a sentence in the article that used the phrase "Imperial Japan." True enough that Japan thought itself to be an empire, but for most of the world it was just plain old "Japan," and that's the way Wikipedia should have it, because we rely on English-language sources for usage. Check just about any source, and you will find that it was "Japan," with no modifier. I don't mind linking to "Empire of Japan"; that is entirely appropriate. Thanks! BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 02:54, 2 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Empire of Japan (1868-1947) did not only control the traditional Japanese islands. It annexed the Korean Peninsula, areas of China, and during World War II it was occupying large areas of both East Asia and Southeast Asia.

The article specifies that the internment orders were not only covering those of Japanese ancestry, but populations which were subjects to the Empire: "Korean-Americans and Taiwanese, classified as ethnically Japanese because both Korea and Taiwan were Japanese colonies at the time, were also included." Dimadick (talk) 10:19, 2 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In addition to Dimadick's above post, plenty of sources say "Imperial Japan", including:
https://dp.la/exhibitions/exhibits/show/japanese-internment
https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2012-featured-story-archive/japanese-americans-WWII-intel.html
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/i-cant-believe-im-responding-to-another-pro-japanese_us_588ffab7e4b080b3dad6faf3
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Japanese_American_internment
http://hekint.org/2017/11/13/japanese-american-internment-camps-world-war-two/
As well as others: https://www.google.com/search?q=Internment+of+Japanese+Americans+imperial+japan&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS755US755&oq=Internment+of+Japanese+Americans+imperial+japan&aqs=chrome..69i57.60j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Simply saying "Japan" would be grossly and intentionally misleading, confusing modern "Japan" with the "Empire of Japan". We could easily say the "Imperial Japanese Navy". Vivexdino (talk) 01:26, 15 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Photo in Education Section

The photo in the section on education in the camps is partially captioned, "Flag of allegiance pledge." This makes no sense and is simply grammatically incorrect. It should be rewritten to read something like, "Pledge of allegiance to the flag," or simply, "Pledge of allegience." 2600:1700:4070:6240:714E:AA6B:73BC:7817 (talk) 00:33, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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