Fitting Fiction with Facts for
Japanese-American Internment
Barney & Pamela Rickman
bubble-gum cards entitled
"The Horrors of War”
“THAT DAMNED FENCE”
(anonymous poem circulated at the Poston Camp)
HTTP://PARENTSEYES.ARIZONA.EDU/WRACAMPS/THATDAMNEDFENCE.HTML
Japanese American Internment, WWII
• By Dec. 1942, >110,000 people of Japanese
ancestry interned as an “enemy race”
• 65% of "evacuees“ = U.S. citizens
• None ever charged with treason
Final destinations: 1 of 10 camps constructed by War Relocation Authority in 7 states.
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/anthropology74/images/figure1.1.jpg
Reasons:
• Immediate Reasons:
– Anger @ Pearl Harbor attack
– Fear of attack on West Coast after Japan’s early
victories
• Longer-term Reasons (since late 1800s):
– Racism
– Economic competition
• Asian immigrants to USA suffer discrimination
(see Timeline)
• Immigration restrictions:
– 1882: suspend Chinese immigration
– 1907 & 1908: significantly restrict number of
Japanese immigrants
No Japs in Our Schools / Citizens'
Mass Meeting"
"Under the Auspices of the
Japanese and Korean Exclusion
League / The Meeting will be
Addressed by Mayor Eugene E.
Schmitz... and Other Prominent
Citizens / Be Sure to Attend and
Register Your Protest By Your
Presence"
CREDIT: Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkley
DATE December 10, 1906
http://americanhistory.si.edu/per
fectunion/nonflash/immigration_racism.html
Woman pointing to sign displayed
above porch.
Signs in front window:
"Japs Keep Out"
"Member Hollywood Protective
Association"
CREDIT: National Japanese
American Historical Society
DATE ca. 1920
http://americanhistory.si.edu/per
fectunion/nonflash/immigration_racism.html
CREDIT: Rebecca Damren,
Japanese American Internment,
Photo 3
Photo: Densho: The Japanese
American Legacy Project.
www.densho.org/assets/images/c
auses-racism.jpg
• Post Pearl Harbor
DESCRIPTION
Garage door, painted with words
"NO JAPS WANTED/ HERE"
Seattle, 1942.
CREDIT: Museum of History and
Industry, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Collection
http://americanhistory.si.edu/per
fectunion/collection/assets/0007
64.jpg
• Post Pearl Harbor
"A Jap's a Jap. It makes no difference whether the
Jap is a citizen or not."
Lt. General John L. DeWitt, Commander, Western
Defense Command, 1942
CREDIT: National Archives &
http://americanhistory.si.edu/perfectunion/collecti
on/image.asp?ID=614
"I am determined that if they have one drop of
Japanese blood in them, they must go to camp."
— Colonel Karl Bendetsen, DeWitt's chief aide for
the mass removal
CREDIT: National Archives &
http://americanhistory.si.edu/perfectunion/nonflash/removal_process.html