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Speaker 1: Welcome to steph you missed in history class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. This week's

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Speaker 1: episodes have been on our to do list basically since

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Speaker 1: Holly and I joined this podcast in uh it's been

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Speaker 1: there for a while. It's Executive Order nineties sixty six

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Speaker 1: and the removal of Japanese Americans to camps that followed

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Speaker 1: it during World War Two. Executive Order six was signed

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Speaker 1: on February ninety two, so we are coming up immediately

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Speaker 1: on the seventy five anniversary that will be These podcasts

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Speaker 1: are coming out on Wednesday, Monday, and Wednesday, and then

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Speaker 1: this weekend is when that anniversary takes place. These events

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Speaker 1: are most associated with Japanese nationals and Japanese American citizens,

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Speaker 1: and Executive Order ninety sixty six was framed specifically to

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Speaker 1: target Japanese immigrants and their citizen children, although it did

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Speaker 1: not specifically mention any nationality. At the same time, about

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Speaker 1: three thousand Italians and about eleven thousand Germans were also incarcerated,

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Speaker 1: but this was actually under the terms of the Alien

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Speaker 1: and Sedition Acts, which were a whole different set of

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Speaker 1: laws and much much older, as in hundreds of years older.

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Speaker 1: UH and these were in facilities that were overseen by

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Speaker 1: the Department of Justice rather than the UH the Japanese removal,

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Speaker 1: which was overseen by the Department of War. Most of

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Speaker 1: the Italians and Germans who were incarcerated were citizens of

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Speaker 1: Italy or Germany and were classified as enemy aliens, but

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Speaker 1: some were also US citizens, including family members. Uh and

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Speaker 1: a lot of times evidence used to justify this incarceration

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Speaker 1: was little to non existent or even made up. Roughly

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Speaker 1: a hundred and need two thousand Japanese immigrants and American

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Speaker 1: citizens of Japanese ancestry were removed from their homes on

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Speaker 1: the West Coast and incarcerated for much of the United

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Speaker 1: States involvement in World War Two. This is roughly two

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Speaker 1: thirds of them were United States citizens, and this was

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Speaker 1: effectively the whole Japanese population west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains,

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Speaker 1: with the exception of Hawaii. We are going to tackle

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Speaker 1: the story in two parts, as I alluded to earlier

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Speaker 1: in today's episode. We're going to talk about the historical context,

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Speaker 1: including an overview of the history of immigration to the

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Speaker 1: United States from Japan, and how the United States government

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Speaker 1: decided that interning people based on their nationality was in

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Speaker 1: the country's best interests. Then next time we will get

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Speaker 1: into the details of the incarcerations themselves, and then how

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Speaker 1: they were challenged at the time, and what happened when

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Speaker 1: they were over. Discussions of Executive Order nine zero six

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Speaker 1: six and the resulting incarcerations often start with the bombing

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Speaker 1: of the U. S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

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Speaker 1: by the Japanese Empire, which launched the United States entry

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Speaker 1: into World War Two. That attack came on December seventh

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Speaker 1: of ninety one, which was a Sunday morning, and many

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Speaker 1: of the military personnel stationed there were at church, leaving

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Speaker 1: the base short staff to muster a defense. Although it

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Speaker 1: had seemed quite likely that some kind of attack was eminent,

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Speaker 1: what actually did happen still caught the nation completely off guard.

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Speaker 1: It was terrifying and stunning. More than two thousand Americans

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Speaker 1: were killed in a surprise attack, and more than a

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Speaker 1: thousand more were injured. The nation's Pacific fleet was almost destroyed.

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Speaker 1: The following day, a joint session of Congress approved a

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Speaker 1: resolution declaring more on Japan Japanese nationals in the United States,

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Speaker 1: and American citizens of Japanese descent who had already been

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Speaker 1: subject to prejudice and discrimination, soon fell under enormous suspicion.

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Speaker 1: So a lot of times basically described as Japan bombed

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Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor and then the United States intern Japanese people.

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Speaker 1: But the events that led to this order go way

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Speaker 1: back farther than Pearl Harbor, and they're tied to the

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Speaker 1: overall history of Japanese immigration to the United States. In

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Speaker 1: the middle of the seventeenth century, the nation of Japan

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Speaker 1: was ruled by the Tokugawa shogun it and it adopted

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Speaker 1: isolationist policies and had very little contact with Europe or

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Speaker 1: European colonies for more than two centuries. That changed in

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty three, when commodore Matthew Perry and his fleet

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Speaker 1: arrived in Tokyo Harbor and essentially forced Japan to begin

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Speaker 1: trading with the United States. The next few years brought

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Speaker 1: massive changes to Japan. Its agreement to trade with the

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Speaker 1: United States had been reluctant and under duress, but that

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Speaker 1: agreement opened the door to trade with other nations as well.

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Speaker 1: A newly introduced stream of goods and cultural influences from

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Speaker 1: the West brought rapid changes to Japan, ultimately contributing to

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Speaker 1: a revolution that ended the feudal shogunate and returned imperial rule.

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Speaker 1: This return to imperial governance, known as the Meiji Restoration,

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Speaker 1: took place in eighteen sixty eight. After the Meiji Restoration,

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Speaker 1: life in Japan continued to change incredibly rapidly, with urbanization

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Speaker 1: and then industrialization, leading to job and income loss, especially

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Speaker 1: among agricultural workers. A newfound stream of foreign imports also

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Speaker 1: meant that Japan's laborers and craftspeople they were facing increasing

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Speaker 1: competition for work. At first, the Japanese government restricted immigration

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Speaker 1: out of the country, especially after the illegal recruitment of

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Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty Japanese citizens to work as laborers

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Speaker 1: on an American owned sugar plantation in the then independent

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Speaker 1: nation of Hawaii. But in eighteen eighty five, the Japanese

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Speaker 1: government started actively working with other nations, including Hawaii, to

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Speaker 1: send Japanese citizens to work as contract laborers. Initially, they

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Speaker 1: would work abroad for a few years before return home

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Speaker 1: to Japan. Some went abroad again on another contract after

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Speaker 1: returning home from their first one. At About this same time,

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Speaker 1: United States immigration law changed in such a way that

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Speaker 1: recruiting labor from Japan became a much higher priority. Until

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Speaker 1: the late nineteenth century, the United States had very few

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Speaker 1: laws governing immigration. For the most part, if you could

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Speaker 1: get to the United States or its territory, you could stay.

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Speaker 1: But that changed in two just fourteen years after the

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Speaker 1: Meiji Restoration, with the Chinese Exclusion Act. Although other acts

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Speaker 1: with a narrower focus came before it, the Chinese Exclusion

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Speaker 1: Act was the nation's first major law significantly restricting immigration.

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Speaker 1: It was signed into law by President Chester A. Arthur, and,

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Speaker 1: as its name suggests, it banned all immigration from China

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Speaker 1: to the United States. It also prohibited Chinese people that

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Speaker 1: were in the United States from becoming citizens. This act

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Speaker 1: came about in part because of high rates of employment

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Speaker 1: and low wages. Chinese labor had been a really important

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Speaker 1: part of the Gold Rush of eighteen forty nine and

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Speaker 1: the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, But once the rush

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Speaker 1: was over and the railroad was complete, the Chinese community

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Speaker 1: started taking the blame for a job shortage in low pay,

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Speaker 1: particularly in the Western and Northwest States. Additionally, Chinese people

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Speaker 1: were viewed as undesirable by the white community, and at

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Speaker 1: least some proponents of the exclusion law were motivated by

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Speaker 1: a perceived threat to their racial purity. To put it

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Speaker 1: in context, it was also in this same general time

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Speaker 1: period that many U s States were passing increasingly strict

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Speaker 1: anti missgenation laws outlawing interracial marriage. Even though Chinese immigrants

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Speaker 1: had become economic scapegoats, banning immigration from China cut off

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Speaker 1: an actually needed source of labor, and one way to

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Speaker 1: bridge that gap was with immigrants from Japan who were

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Speaker 1: not subject to the Chinese Exclusion Act. So just as

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Speaker 1: the United States began to need additional workers, Japan also

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Speaker 1: began to view working in the United States as an

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Speaker 1: opportunity for wealth and status. And we're about to talk

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Speaker 1: about what happened when Japanese immigration to the US started

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Speaker 1: in earnest But before we get into that, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: take a little break and pause for a word from

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Speaker 1: one of our fantastic sponsors. After about eighteen sixty one,

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Speaker 1: roughly two hundred seventy five thousand people immigrated from Japan

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Speaker 1: to the United States. As we said before the break,

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Speaker 1: at first, many of these arrivals arrivals were temporary laborers,

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Speaker 1: but eventually some did begin to make the United States

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Speaker 1: their home. Many worked in agriculture and in railroad construction,

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Speaker 1: particularly in the Pacific Northwest, or started businesses catering to

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Speaker 1: the Japanese community. By law, although Japanese people could come

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Speaker 1: to the United States legally, they along with all other Asians,

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Speaker 1: could not become citizens. Most of these Japanese immigrants arrived

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Speaker 1: between eighteen ninety eight and nineteen twenty four, during which

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Speaker 1: time the US passed a number of other immigration laws

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Speaker 1: along with the so called Gentleman's Agreement with Japan. Japanese

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Speaker 1: immigrants had started to face the same prejudice as Chinese

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Speaker 1: immigrants had before them, and the Gentleman's Agreement was meant

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Speaker 1: to reduce the number of Japanese people coming to the

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Speaker 1: United States. It limited entry to people who had already

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Speaker 1: been in the United States before, and to the families

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Speaker 1: of Japanese nationals currently living in the United States. The

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Speaker 1: reason Japanese immigrants effectively stopped coming in nineteen twenty four

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Speaker 1: was the Johnson Read Act, also known as the Immigration

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Speaker 1: Act of nineteen twenty four. This act capped the number

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Speaker 1: of new immigrants from each nation at two percent of

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Speaker 1: the people from that nation who were already living in

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Speaker 1: the United States as of the eighteen nineties census. It

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Speaker 1: also specified that any group prohibited from becoming citizens also

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Speaker 1: could not to the United States, and that meant that

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Speaker 1: Japanese immigrants who had been exempt from prior immigration laws

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Speaker 1: that targeted other Asians could no longer immigrate to the

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Speaker 1: United States because they were legally ineligible to become citizens.

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Speaker 1: From the start of Japanese immigration to the United States

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Speaker 1: to the Immigration Act of nineteen four, most Japanese immigrants

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Speaker 1: settled in the West Coast or in Hawaii. Hawaii had

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Speaker 1: been an independent nation at the start of Japanese immigration,

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Speaker 1: but became a US territory in eight after United States

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Speaker 1: business interests, aided by American military, overthrew its monarchy in

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Speaker 1: eighteen ninety three. That sentence made you go, I'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: what code too missed in history dot com slash tags

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Speaker 1: slash Hawaii. Following the same pattern as other immigrant groups,

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Speaker 1: Japanese people generally settled together and formed communities. But it

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Speaker 1: wasn't just a matter of shared connections culturally or wanting

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Speaker 1: to live near other people who spoke the same language.

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Speaker 1: Though in many cases discriminatory housing and landing policies forced

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Speaker 1: Japanese immigrants to find homes and to start businesses only

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Speaker 1: in specific neighborhoods. In some cases, laws prevented anyone who

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Speaker 1: was not eligible to become a citizen, which Japanese immigrants

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Speaker 1: could not do from buying property. And if you want

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Speaker 1: to learn more about that, you can go to miss

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Speaker 1: in history dot com slash tag slash redlining. So by

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Speaker 1: the beginning of World War Two, the West Coast of

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Speaker 1: the United States was dotted with Japanese communities, with their

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Speaker 1: own schools and houses of worship and successful businesses owned

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Speaker 1: and run by Japanese proprietors. Since the Johnson Redact had

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Speaker 1: cut off immigration from Japan in nine Japanese immigrants to

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Speaker 1: the United States had generally been in the nation for

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Speaker 1: more than fifteen years. Hawaii also had a large Japanese population,

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Speaker 1: larger in fact, than the sum total of all of

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Speaker 1: the Japanese population on the entire West Coast. Many of

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Speaker 1: these communities were socially and economically thriving. For example, about

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Speaker 1: half of the Japanese residents of the West Coast were farmers.

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Speaker 1: Japanese owned farms made up about four percent of California's farmland,

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Speaker 1: but they produced more than ten percent of the total

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Speaker 1: value of the state's farm industry and forty of its

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Speaker 1: produce production. Although Japanese immigrants had been legally prohibited from

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Speaker 1: becoming citizens, birthrights citizenship meant that their children born in

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Speaker 1: the US were citizens automatically, so by one these neighborhoods

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Speaker 1: tended to be a combination of issay, or first generation

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Speaker 1: immigrants born in Japan, and nissa who had been born

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Speaker 1: to Japanese immigrants but were American citizens by birth. Included

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Speaker 1: among the niss a were key Bay who were born

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Speaker 1: in the United States but had been educated in Japan.

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Speaker 1: All of this finally brings us to the United States

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Speaker 1: response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the entire run

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Speaker 1: up to World War Two, and the US involvement, and

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Speaker 1: it could be at least an episode all of its own,

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Speaker 1: possibly more than one. So incredibly, incredibly briefly, on July seventh,

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty seven, Japan invaded China, and on September one,

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Speaker 1: nine thirty nine, Germany, under the rule of Adolf Hitler

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Speaker 1: invaded Poland, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany

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Speaker 1: on September the third of that year, and then over

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Speaker 1: the next year, more and more nations either invaded or

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Speaker 1: declared war again. This is not a remotely comprehensive sum

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Speaker 1: up of the beginning of World War two, and although

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Speaker 1: the United States had offered weapons an aid to Britain

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Speaker 1: and other allies, it had also tried to not get

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Speaker 1: directly involved with the conflict. As a general trend, the

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Speaker 1: public both wanted Britain and its allies to win the war,

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Speaker 1: but did not want American troops being deployed to foreign

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Speaker 1: soil to fight on behalf of other nations. A number

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Speaker 1: of organizations stridently advocated for staying out of the conflict,

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Speaker 1: including the America First Committee, which was motivated both by

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Speaker 1: isolationism and at least by some of its members anti Semitism.

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Speaker 1: Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was an attempt to destroy

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Speaker 1: United States military forces in the Pacific, with the hope

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Speaker 1: that doing so would prevent the United States from intervening

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Speaker 1: against Japan in Asia and the Pacific Islands. While the

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Speaker 1: attack did do significant damage to the United States Pacific Fleet,

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Speaker 1: so it accomplished that part of the objective. It was

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Speaker 1: also what finally prompted the United States to enter the war,

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Speaker 1: which was not really a surprise, but the distraction of

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Speaker 1: the fleet had not been total enough to actually keep

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Speaker 1: the United States from then intervening in Asia and the

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Speaker 1: Pacific Pacific. While initial reports of the bombing in the

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Speaker 1: US were often horrified and angry at first, there were

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Speaker 1: also a number of appeals for calm. First, Lady Eleanor

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Speaker 1: Roosevelt went to Los Angeles on December eleven to meet

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Speaker 1: with Japanese American women, and upon returning to Washington on

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Speaker 1: December six, she wrote the following in her syndicated column,

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Speaker 1: which was called My day quote. Perhaps it is the

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Speaker 1: test which is going to show whether the United States

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Speaker 1: can furnish a pattern for the rest of the world,

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Speaker 1: for our future. Our citizens come from all the nations

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Speaker 1: of the world. Some of us have said from time

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Speaker 1: to time that we were the only proof that different

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Speaker 1: nationalities could live together in peace and understanding, each bringing

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Speaker 1: his own contribution, different though it may be, to the

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Speaker 1: final unity, which is the United States. She went on

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Speaker 1: to write that the United States needed to quote furnish

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Speaker 1: the pattern for the rest of the world living together

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Speaker 1: in peace and to say that if the United States

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Speaker 1: could not guarantee the freedoms of the Bill of Rights

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Speaker 1: to all of its people, keeping in check anti Semitic,

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Speaker 1: anti racial, and anti religious feelings, then quote, we shall

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Speaker 1: have removed from the world the one real hope for

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Speaker 1: the future on which all humanity must now rely. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: the Japanese American community was on the whole vocally supportive

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Speaker 1: of the United States and spoke out stridently against the attack.

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Speaker 1: In Rafu Shimpo, the largest Japanese language newspaper in the

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Speaker 1: United States, an editorial published in its first issue after

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Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor spoke against the Japanese Empire and its actions.

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Speaker 1: Japan started this war, it read, and it is now

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Speaker 1: up to the United States to end the war by

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Speaker 1: crushing the Japanese Empire and her ruthless barbaric leaders. However,

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Speaker 1: this appeal for calm and acceptance overall did not last

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Speaker 1: for very long, and we will talk about the first

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Speaker 1: actions against Japanese Americans after another quick sponsor break. In

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Speaker 1: spite of the initial appeals not to blame Japanese Americans

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Speaker 1: for the actions of the Japanese Empire, the United States

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Speaker 1: government took immediate action against the number of people who

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Speaker 1: were believed to be a threat, and the first few

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Speaker 1: days after Pearl Harbor, about three thousand foreign nationals were

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Speaker 1: arrested under suspicion of being dangerous enemy alien, and a

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Speaker 1: lot of these arrests were based on lists that had

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Speaker 1: already been compiled through census records and the FBI. About

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Speaker 1: half of the people in this first wave of arrests

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Speaker 1: were Japanese immigrants. They were sent to prisons, camps, and

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Speaker 1: jails around the United States, and in general, their families

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Speaker 1: had no idea where they had been taken enemy aliens.

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Speaker 1: Bank accounts were also frozen, and in many areas, travel

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Speaker 1: restrictions and curfews were implemented. And it's kind of a

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Speaker 1: side note, an enemy alien is just a person living

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Speaker 1: in a nation that's at war with their actual nation

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Speaker 1: of citizenship. Overwhelmingly, the people caught up in this first

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Speaker 1: sweep had done absolutely nothing wrong. They were religious or

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Speaker 1: civic leaders in the Japanese community, including priests, teachers, and

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Speaker 1: leaders of organizations like the Japanese American Citizens League. Some

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Speaker 1: just owned a boat or a radio and or had

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Speaker 1: donated to a Japanese community organization in the weeks after Pearl,

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Speaker 1: where public opinion turned increasingly against Japanese Americans. Fear of

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Speaker 1: a fifth column of Japanese Americans lying in wait to

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Speaker 1: secretly work against American interests swept through the government and

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Speaker 1: the population at large, and the government became increasingly focused

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Speaker 1: on how to handle this perceived threat. This is really widespread.

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Speaker 1: Theodore Geistl better known as Dr Seuss, drew anti Japanese

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Speaker 1: and anti German cartoons during the war, including one that

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Speaker 1: showed throngs of offensively caricatured Japanese people picking up blocks

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Speaker 1: of TNT at a little hut marked honorable fifth Column

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Speaker 1: under a caption quote waiting for the signal from home.

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Speaker 1: And it wasn't just Japanese immigrants who were the target,

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Speaker 1: it was their children born in the US as well.

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Speaker 1: An editorial in the l A Times summed up what

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Speaker 1: was the increasingly prevailing view quote, A viper is nonetheless

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Speaker 1: a viper wherever the egg is hatched, So a Japanese

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Speaker 1: American born of jet Banese parents grows up to be

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Speaker 1: a Japanese, not an American. Within the government, there was

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Speaker 1: general agreement that at least some people of Japanese ancestry

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Speaker 1: were dangerous and needed to be incarcerated, although there were

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Speaker 1: both voices both for and against doing this on a

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Speaker 1: massive scale. Curtis B. Munson, who was one of President

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Speaker 1: Franklin Delano Roosevelt's spies, wrote a report to the President

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Speaker 1: that between ninety and of niss were completely loyal to

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Speaker 1: the United States, with the exception of those who had

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Speaker 1: been educated in Japan. Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Ringele of the

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Speaker 1: Office of Naval Intelligence had uncovered real Japanese espionage efforts,

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Speaker 1: but his recommendation was also that not all Japanese Americans

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Speaker 1: should be targeted. His estimate was that at least three

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Speaker 1: quarters of second generation Japanese Americans were actively loyal to

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Speaker 1: the United States, and that most of their parents were

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Speaker 1: passively loyal. The only group he advocated investigating on man

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Speaker 1: Us where the Key Bay who had returned to Japan

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Speaker 1: for their education. Especially at first, the Justice Department was

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Speaker 1: generally opposed to the idea of a mass incarceration on

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Speaker 1: the grounds that it was unconstitutional. There are many, many,

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Speaker 1: many parts of the Constitution that this did directly violate,

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Speaker 1: so this is not an unreasonable suspicion. This included Edward J. Ennis,

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Speaker 1: a lawyer with the Justice Department, the FBI's j Edgar Hoover,

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Speaker 1: and Attorney at General Francis Biddle. Battle not only thought

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Speaker 1: the incarceration of citizens without cause was unconstitutional, but he

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Speaker 1: also thought a much bigger threat was German and Italian

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Speaker 1: nationals on the East Coast, especially given threats to American

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Speaker 1: shipping and passenger lanes in the Atlantic. One of the

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Speaker 1: loudest voices in favor of a mass incarceration was Lieutenant

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Speaker 1: General John L. DeWitt of the U. S Army. He

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Speaker 1: was at the time headquartered in San Francisco. In his

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Speaker 1: office sent seemingly continual reports of aggressive Japanese activity. In

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Speaker 1: the days after December seven. There were reports of bombings,

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Speaker 1: sightings of entire Japanese fleets, air raids, Japanese American farmers

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Speaker 1: plowing signals into their fields, signal flares at sea, mystery

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Speaker 1: radar echoes, strange radio transmissions, on and on, and none

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Speaker 1: of these turned out to be legitimate. Another voice in

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Speaker 1: favor of a mass incarceration was Earl Lawren, who was

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Speaker 1: at the time California's Attorney General, and his support for

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Speaker 1: a mass removal would ultimately help him win the governorship.

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Speaker 1: As a side note, he would also later become the

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Speaker 1: chief Justice of an incredibly civil rights minded Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: that ruled on things like Brown versus Board and Loving

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Speaker 1: versus Virginia. And he never spoke about this during his lifetime,

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Speaker 1: but a number of biographers and historians and me feel

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Speaker 1: like the incredibly progressive stance that his Supreme Court took,

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Speaker 1: especially in terms of things like civil rights and civil liberties,

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Speaker 1: was atonement for this. Like he wrote one sentence about

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Speaker 1: it in his autobiography or his memoir or or whatever

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Speaker 1: you want to call it, that was just basically expressing remorse.

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Speaker 1: And during an oral history project he broke down so

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Speaker 1: hard when asked about it that like they had to

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Speaker 1: stop the interview. And to me, it is a completely

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Speaker 1: logical step from there that like all the work that

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Speaker 1: the Warren uh that the Warren Court did when he

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Speaker 1: was the Chief Justice, was like to make up for

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Speaker 1: having supported this. Yeah, it's certainly, I mean, it's not

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Speaker 1: like a big leap of logic. It it makes a

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Speaker 1: lot of sense given his behavior in those moments. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And as time passed, public and political opinion turned increasingly

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Speaker 1: in favor of amass incarceration of Japanese Americans. Some of

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Speaker 1: this was fueled by the media more than once. For example,

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Speaker 1: American planes and ships spotted from a distance were mistaken

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Speaker 1: for a Japanese attack fleet, and newspapers reported on them

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Speaker 1: before it became clear that there was absolutely no threat,

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Speaker 1: because of inaccurate news reports and a generally heightened sense

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Speaker 1: of panic. By the time a Japanese submarine really did

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Speaker 1: torpedo and sink the U S S. Montebello, which was

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Speaker 1: a Union well tanker, on December twenty three, non Japanese Americans,

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Speaker 1: particularly on the West Coast, had already felt like they

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Speaker 1: had been under attack by japan for weeks. The Coast

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Speaker 1: Guards censored the news of this and two other actually

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Speaker 1: for real torpedoed American vessels, but officials knew that if

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Speaker 1: word got out there would be a huge outcry and

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Speaker 1: possibly violence against the Japanese community. Gradually, the US government

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Speaker 1: and law enforcement stepped up its targeting of Japanese Americans.

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Speaker 1: Arrests became more widespread, and law enforcement started reporting that

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Speaker 1: they had confiscated huge numbers of weapons from Japanese residents.

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Speaker 1: Leaving out the fact that most of these had come

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Speaker 1: from Japanese owned sporting goods stores. On January four, two,

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Speaker 1: the play Serville Times published the first public call for

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Speaker 1: Japanese Americans to be placed in concentration camps. Today, the

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Speaker 1: term concentration camp has become nearly synonymous with the Holocaust,

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Speaker 1: but camps like Auschwitz and Treblinka, which were built for

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Speaker 1: the purpose of killing the people in prison there are

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Speaker 1: more properly called death camps or extermination camps. The word

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Speaker 1: concentration camp, on the other hand, was coined in eighteen

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Speaker 1: ninety seven, and it comes from the Cuban War of Independence.

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Speaker 1: It simply means a camp where a large number of people,

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Speaker 1: particularly political prisoners or racial or ethnic minorities, are to

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Speaker 1: be imprisoned, often without adequate facilities, and sometimes also being

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Speaker 1: forced into labor, generally during wartime. So the camps that

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Speaker 1: soon came into existence in the United States, which are

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Speaker 1: euphemistically called relocal Haitian centers or internment camps, were by

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Speaker 1: definition much more properly called concentration camps. Other newspapers soon

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Speaker 1: followed with a call for concentration camps, Comparing Japanese Americans

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Speaker 1: two rats and other vermin and portraying them as thieves

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Speaker 1: and spies waiting to rise up and overthrow the whole

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Speaker 1: of the West Coast. Soon, public sentiment was overwhelmingly in

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Speaker 1: favor of a mass removal of all Japanese Americans from

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Speaker 1: the West Coast to be incarcerated for the duration of

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Speaker 1: the war. Finally, the United States government did plan a

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Speaker 1: massive removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast and

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Speaker 1: construction of camps where they would be incarcerated, which is

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Speaker 1: where we will pick up next time. Okay, Tracy, So

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Speaker 1: we're headed into very depressing territory next time. But do you,

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Speaker 1: in the meantime have listener mail? Do you have listener mail?

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00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:55,440
Speaker 1: It is from Emily and it is based on or

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Speaker 1: in response to our Edmonia Lewis episode, which you actually

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Speaker 1: researched and I wanted to read it after having a

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Speaker 1: conversation on Twitter with a listener named Margaret on a

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Speaker 1: very similar like train of thought. Uh. And Emily says,

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Speaker 1: my name is Emily and I am an artist and

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Speaker 1: art student in Toronto, Canada. I'm currently finishing my undergraduate

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Speaker 1: thesis with a particular emphasis on queer art. History. I

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Speaker 1: just wanted to say I love the podcast and really

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Speaker 1: enjoy hearing about all areas of history, but especially love

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Speaker 1: the art historical episodes. I'm writing this email because I

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Speaker 1: really appreciate that you mentioned the consideration, however vague, of

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Speaker 1: Ammonia Lewis's sexuality. I know you said a lot of

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Speaker 1: lgbt Q groups claim her as a queer historical figure

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Speaker 1: without any real evidence or expression on her part. I

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Speaker 1: understand this is not the usual historical practice, but thought

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Speaker 1: that from an LGBTQ and art perspective, I might be

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Speaker 1: able to shed some light on the idea. In queer history,

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Speaker 1: we're often working with very little information on whether or

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Speaker 1: not to include a figure into queer history. I find

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00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:07,080
Speaker 1: this issue is sometimes more difficult and queer art history

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Speaker 1: because many historians and academics actively avoid the subject or

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Speaker 1: work to make excuses against queer themes and artwork or

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Speaker 1: events in the artist's life. However, I've been working for

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Speaker 1: the last three years on ideas of queering art history. However,

436
00:27:21,359 --> 00:27:25,520
Speaker 1: most historical figures there is no obvious label for exact

437
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:28,680
Speaker 1: historical record of their own identity, so we often describe

438
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 1: what we can about them and Admonia Lewis's case, she

439
00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:34,119
Speaker 1: was a woman and an artist who lived outside of

440
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:36,560
Speaker 1: the confines of the role of women in her day.

441
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 1: She did not marry, she had her own successful career

442
00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:42,120
Speaker 1: and made a name for herself in a time when

443
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:45,480
Speaker 1: women were not expected to be independent. She also lived

444
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:48,919
Speaker 1: and worked alongside other women who were artists, creating a

445
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:52,600
Speaker 1: community for themselves. All these things I would consider, and

446
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:56,200
Speaker 1: so would queer theory. A queer act and Monia Lewis

447
00:27:56,240 --> 00:28:01,360
Speaker 1: lived outside heteronormativity, so despite her ambiguous sexuality, she will

448
00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:04,359
Speaker 1: always be a queer artist. As a queer artist myself,

449
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: I always hope for undeniable proof of queer people in history,

450
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:11,360
Speaker 1: but those moments are rare and highly debated, so over

451
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:13,879
Speaker 1: time I've come to accept that those who led queer

452
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:17,199
Speaker 1: lives are in many ways enough representation. Thank you for

453
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 1: all your work, Emily. Please feel free to share this

454
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 1: email on the podcast if you like. Uh we are

455
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:27,760
Speaker 1: indeed sharing this email on the podcast. Thank you so much, Emily, UM,

456
00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:29,879
Speaker 1: and thank you also, Margaret, who talked to me on Twitter.

457
00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:35,680
Speaker 1: Weird so I feel like Emily and we were saying

458
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 1: the same basic thing, but not in the same words

459
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:41,720
Speaker 1: at all. Uh. You and I have talked about before

460
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:45,160
Speaker 1: on the show in prior episodes about how important it

461
00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 1: is to both of us to have representation of people

462
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:53,680
Speaker 1: from all across the spectrum of human experience. Uh. And

463
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 1: we are resistant to labeling people with like a specific

464
00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:00,240
Speaker 1: orientation when there are things that are unclear here for

465
00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:02,520
Speaker 1: a lot of different reasons, and one of them is

466
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 1: that the language people have used to talk about their

467
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:11,640
Speaker 1: own identity has changed radically, just in yours, in my lifetime,

468
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:17,920
Speaker 1: just in the last decade. Yeah, so, like I know,

469
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:22,840
Speaker 1: when I was twenty, uh, the way people framed their

470
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:26,720
Speaker 1: own experience in the world, especially regarding gender and sexual orientation,

471
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:29,800
Speaker 1: was incredibly different from how people do now. And I

472
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:33,480
Speaker 1: really think this will continue to be the case, especially

473
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 1: if the ark of society keeps bending toward more acceptance

474
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:42,320
Speaker 1: of people like all across the spectrum. So it's really

475
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:44,520
Speaker 1: important to both of us to talk about and acknowledge,

476
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:49,520
Speaker 1: um the nuances of people's lives, and also important not

477
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 1: to like give someone a specific label when we don't

478
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 1: know how they would have describe themselves, which was the

479
00:29:56,760 --> 00:29:59,800
Speaker 1: case with Edmonia Lewis. UM. I do like the fact

480
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: that Emily wrote to us herself to talk about queer

481
00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:08,960
Speaker 1: art theory because when I was in college, queer theory

482
00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 1: was really in its infancy, total infancy um. And I

483
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:21,400
Speaker 1: think has become a much broader, uh set of ideas

484
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 1: and a more widely accepted term. But it's not a

485
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 1: term we have used on the podcast a lot because

486
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 1: it is brand new to a lot of people who

487
00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:33,240
Speaker 1: are not like within that community. Yes, and I will

488
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:36,120
Speaker 1: admit there is also a certain degree to which when

489
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:42,360
Speaker 1: we're talking about people that perhaps would fit into different

490
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:46,240
Speaker 1: categories now that didn't even exist. Then I also wonder

491
00:30:46,280 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 1: if in five years whatever we were to say on

492
00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:54,920
Speaker 1: the podcast now would also seem completely like incorrect and

493
00:30:54,920 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 1: out of step as we continue to rapidly evolve. And

494
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:01,240
Speaker 1: so I that's part of my reluctance is that I

495
00:31:01,280 --> 00:31:05,800
Speaker 1: don't you're in a shifting linguistic landscape at the moment.

496
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 1: It When I think about the first episodes of trans

497
00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:14,960
Speaker 1: History that we did, which like I did talk to

498
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:17,880
Speaker 1: trans people in my life about while trying to figure

499
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:21,560
Speaker 1: out how to best make decisions about how to discuss

500
00:31:21,560 --> 00:31:25,880
Speaker 1: people's lives, there are things I absolutely would never have

501
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: said or gotten into if we were redoing those episodes

502
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:33,680
Speaker 1: now and that was only three years ago. Yeah, well,

503
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 1: and I mean, I know those are discussions that having

504
00:31:37,880 --> 00:31:40,960
Speaker 1: nothing to do with anything made for public consumption, like

505
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:45,720
Speaker 1: a podcast that happened among my friends just casually, where

506
00:31:45,720 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 1: it's like, man, we never would have talked about this

507
00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:51,280
Speaker 1: this way if if we were having this conversation now

508
00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:53,640
Speaker 1: that we had like at that party or in that

509
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:57,640
Speaker 1: class or in so I mean, it's it's we're all

510
00:31:57,680 --> 00:32:01,480
Speaker 1: evolving understandings the realest in very rapidly in terms of

511
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:06,000
Speaker 1: all of our understandings of UH, gender and sexual orientation.

512
00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:08,280
Speaker 1: I say all of our in a very welcoming way.

513
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 1: I know there are folks who resist the idea that

514
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 1: that there is fluidity and gender and sexual orientation, but

515
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:16,080
Speaker 1: like from our point of view as a podcast, there

516
00:32:16,120 --> 00:32:21,120
Speaker 1: is a whole, huge spectrum UH to talk about that

517
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:24,160
Speaker 1: does not a lot of times not easily pigeonholed into

518
00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 1: a particular UM label. Yeah. And when I talk about, like,

519
00:32:29,160 --> 00:32:31,760
Speaker 1: you know, within my friend group having those discussions, I'm

520
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:35,240
Speaker 1: talking about a pretty diverse friend group in terms of

521
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:39,040
Speaker 1: gender and sexuality. Like there are people that identify in

522
00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:44,560
Speaker 1: ways that they acknowledge didn't exist several years ago, even

523
00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 1: or they identified in a way several years ago that

524
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:51,440
Speaker 1: they now feel is not a smart way to identify,

525
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:55,120
Speaker 1: or that it's you know, not an accurate representation of them. So,

526
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 1: I mean, I think we are all having this conversation

527
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 1: and it moves very quickly, and so I'm always part

528
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:02,959
Speaker 1: of it too, is that I'm always keenly aware of

529
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 1: my ability to put my foot in my mouth. You know,

530
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:11,720
Speaker 1: I certainly don't want to ever, you know, make anyone

531
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 1: feel like their situation is degraded or look down upon

532
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:18,400
Speaker 1: or not respected, even on the most basic level. So

533
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 1: that's that's part of why we don't tend to start

534
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:24,360
Speaker 1: assigning things to decease to people who cannot be part

535
00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:27,200
Speaker 1: of this conversation. Yeah, And in my Twitter conversation with Margaret,

536
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 1: one of the things I talked about was how I

537
00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:33,440
Speaker 1: I I like words like like queer that are more

538
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 1: broadly inclusive of more different types of orientations and genders

539
00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:43,400
Speaker 1: and all of that. But I also feel like the

540
00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:46,479
Speaker 1: world the word queer as a word is still like

541
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:51,240
Speaker 1: very early in its life of being reclaimed from being

542
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:55,440
Speaker 1: sure an active slur to a word that is okay

543
00:33:55,480 --> 00:33:58,960
Speaker 1: for people to use in a non slur context um,

544
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:01,560
Speaker 1: which is one of the reasons that I've been reluctant

545
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:05,560
Speaker 1: to just put that out there on the podcast. So anyway,

546
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:08,799
Speaker 1: thank you so so so much, Emily, Thank you so

547
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:13,399
Speaker 1: so much, Margaret for talking to me on Twitter. Thank

548
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:15,400
Speaker 1: you to the folks who have written in with various

549
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:19,279
Speaker 1: thoughts about Edmonia Lewis. We definitely do know that she

550
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:23,520
Speaker 1: was a Google doodle. We know it a lot of time. Uh.

551
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:25,920
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but my homepage is Google

552
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:29,839
Speaker 1: because I use it so much in my work. Uh

553
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:33,480
Speaker 1: So I generally see Google doodles right away. Anyway, if

554
00:34:33,480 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 1: you would like to write to us about this or

555
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:37,439
Speaker 1: any other podcast, where History podcasts at how stuff works

556
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:40,279
Speaker 1: dot com. We're also on Facebook at Facebook dot com

557
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:42,680
Speaker 1: slash miss in history and on Twitter at missing history

558
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:45,399
Speaker 1: or tumbler missing history dot tumbler dot com. We're also

559
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:47,880
Speaker 1: on Pinterest at pinterest dot com slash missed in history.

560
00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:50,840
Speaker 1: Our Instagram is at miss in history. How to stop

561
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:53,680
Speaker 1: and think about it for a minute. You can come

562
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 1: to our parent companies website, which is how stuff Works

563
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:59,480
Speaker 1: dot com. You will find all kinds of information about

564
00:34:59,560 --> 00:35:01,799
Speaker 1: whatever your heart desires. And you can also come to

565
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:04,160
Speaker 1: our website which is missed in history dot com, and

566
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:06,040
Speaker 1: you will find show notes for all the episodes of

567
00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 1: Holly and I have ever worked on, and an archive

568
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:12,600
Speaker 1: of every single episode. Ever. You will find episodes talking

569
00:35:12,600 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 1: about that time that American business interest over through the

570
00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: Hawaiian monarchy, for example. You can do all that and

571
00:35:20,560 --> 00:35:22,480
Speaker 1: a whole lot more at how stuff works dot com

572
00:35:22,680 --> 00:35:30,680
Speaker 1: or missed some history dot com For more on this

573
00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:33,359
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works

574
00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:46,080
Speaker 1: dot com