WEBVTT - Were U.S. citizens in Japanese internment camps? 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.920 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.560 It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should Know? 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:16.400 From House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:19.880 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant, 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:23.000 and that makes this stuff you should know you paranoid 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:26.279 or something. I just looked over my shoulder for Chuck Bryant. No, 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.560 that's that guy's going after me, the real Chuck Bryan. 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:32.840 Don't don't worry about him. Okay, he's taking care of Yeah. Good, 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:37.159 go back to being Armonton's area. Supposedly that was the 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:41.520 worst one ever. That's what Matt Greening said. I think so, Matt. 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:44.519 You told me once that, Matt Greening, it was asked 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:47.720 if there was one Simpsons that he could just take 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:50.720 a mulligan on and just not exist. You told me. 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:52.519 I don't think I did, because I've never heard that. 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:56.160 That's disappointing because I love that episode. That's the episode 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:59.280 that I based my episode on. Yeah, we've had this conversation, 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:01.840 you know, all right, well you just make up Matt 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:08.720 Graining quotes, right, Um, Chuck? Yes, speaking of TV? Uh, 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:11.880 did you ever see the season three episode of Magnum 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:16.279 P I called forty Years from Sand Island. No, you haven't. 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:19.200 I've seen them all, dude, No, tell me what it 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:21.959 was about, and I'll verify that. But I've just said yes, Well, 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:24.160 I mean I saw every Magnum, so I assume I've 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:27.679 seen it. Well. This one starts out in a Japanese 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:32.559 internment camp in Oahu called sand Island, and um, there's 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:36.000 a murder a guard. One of the guards murders this, uh, 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:41.280 this internee, I guess, and so what we means she 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.920 worked at the camp for fighting with that college credit um, 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:51.919 although there are some similarities between internment camps and internment um. 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:56.200 But this, this internee is murdered by this camp guard, 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.800 and uh, Higgins is writing a book forty years later 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:04.640 about this incident, and some mysterious things starting to happen, 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:06.960 and somebody's out to whack him. Some Magnum's got to 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:10.240 solve the case. Who was Higgins the guy who killed 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:12.600 the person? Did it haunt him years later? No? I 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:15.880 don't remember how he learned about it, like maybe from 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:18.079 hearsay or something like that, and he was doing research 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:19.840 on it. I don't know why he was writing a 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:23.840 book on it. I don't remember the episode there forty 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:25.799 years from Sand Island season three. It was a good one, 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:28.520 like they'd really hit their stride by then. But the 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:34.080 crazy thing is Sand Island really existed. It was a 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:37.600 Japanese internment camp and it didn't make this list. Strangely enough, 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:41.520 where was it? Who? Yeah, that wasn't in here, was it? No? 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:45.120 But it is. It was the main internment camp where um, 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:49.480 Japanese and Japanese Americans were intern during World War two. 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:52.560 Because something that I think probably especially a lot of 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.680 our younger listeners haven't found out yet. Uh, the United 0:02:55.720 --> 0:03:00.400 States interned a number of its citizens unconstitutional lead during 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:04.359 World War two. You know that one Simpsons where there 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:08.280 it's the soccer one? Uh give me more. Well there 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:11.040 they go to see this um their professional soccer team 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:13.160 or whatever, and they're in the soccer stadium. Margin looks 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:15.440 around and goes, I can't believe this used to be 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:20.680 an internment camp. Oh that's good stuff. Yeah. There are 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:23.920 a lot of shelters, temporary places set up, and a 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:25.840 lot of people were moved through them. There's a lot 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:29.320 of misery and heartache. Let's talk about it too. Simpsons, Uh, 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.760 and a magnum in the first six minutes. That is stellar. Yes, 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:36.840 all right, let's talk about it, all right, Josh. On 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:41.520 December seven, very awful thing happened, the Japanese attack Pearl 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:45.960 Harbor by surprise. I didn't know what's coming, and Michael 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.640 Bay ultimately made a pretty bad movie about it. I 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:52.080 actually went to see that and left after the attack, 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:54.480 just because that's you know, that's what I was there for. 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:58.160 I didn't need to see the love story attached, all right. 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:02.920 Moving on, President F. D. R at the time said, uh, 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:06.720 we're gonna relocate about a hundred thousand Japanese and Japanese 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:11.920 Americans put him in uh what he called concentration camps. Yeah, 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:14.240 which he wouldn't use that term today for these now 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.840 they're they're associated with Nazis exactly. And Jane mcgrathroy wrote, 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:20.520 this went to a lot of length to um to 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:24.440 differentiate the two a little unnecessarily. I mean, I don't 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:26.840 think anyone thought of them as the same thing. It 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:30.080 was a fine article, Jane, it was, But that was 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:33.360 not how it started, is it, Josh. He started out 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.080 a little slower and it sort of grew from there. Yeah, Well, 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:39.640 there was apparently intelligence that even before the attack on 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:43.839 Pearl Harbor UM in the on the Pacific coast, especially 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.760 in areas like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, there were 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:51.960 UM spy rings of Japanese and Japanese Americans UM being 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:55.359 set up. So right after the attack, UM they rounded 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:59.279 up about fifteen hundred aliens that they suspected of possibly 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:02.400 being engaged in spionage, and not just Japanese, but also 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:07.480 like Italians, Italian Americans, Germans and German Americans, the people 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:10.880 who brought us some liberty cabbage and stuff like that. 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:14.240 All right, so he reviews these people, finds out what 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:17.400 they're all about. He hasn't paraded in front of his desk, 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:20.800 and he's like that guy looks okay, not that one. 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:23.200 Well that's sort of what happened. And uh, some of 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:25.920 the aliens were released and some were sent to temporary 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:28.839 detention camps. Canada. If you think you're off the hook, 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.120 you're not, yeah, because you did the same thing. Yeah, 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:35.800 twenty thousand people UM. And I wonder how much how 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:38.640 much of that had to do with Canada UM bowing 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:42.080 to pressure from the US. I wonder. I wonder which 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:45.960 makes it even more shameful on us on both parties. 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:50.800 But so a couple of months after Pearl Harbor, and 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:55.280 this was I guess after the review of right, Yes, 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:59.360 that's when he issued the Executive Order nine zero six six, 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:04.160 which gave the military the power to create zones. And 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:06.800 what it says here is zones in which any or 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:09.960 all persons may be excluded. So that means they did 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:14.520 it like really indirectly. That's what I thought. They basically said, like, 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:19.840 you can't live here, you can't own property here at 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:22.240 the very least, you can't be here right now, but 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.920 you happen to live here. The military has designated this 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:30.080 like as an exclusionary zone, but we have this free 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:33.520 housing over here that you can come take advantage of um. 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:36.239 And I think that's how it was kind of sould 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:41.120 at first, But it became very obvious that the Japanese 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:46.240 didn't have a choice in moving to these camps. That's 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:48.200 the impression I have. That's the impression I have too, 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:50.640 So let's let's talk about them. They set up first 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:55.400 assembly Areas, which were temporary camps from February until the summer. Right, 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:59.440 first generation and second generation Japanese Americans, you say, which 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:02.680 is first generation, and Nissa which is second generation. And 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:06.280 they actually got folks from both coasts, although it was 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:10.360 largely West coast. It was almost Yeah, it was mostly 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:13.280 West coast because that's much closer to Japan than the 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:16.280 East coast, of course, and that's what the intel supposedly 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:18.480 said that they were living anyway, and they were also 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:22.080 I saw a government propaganda film from when they started this. 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:24.800 Camps were being built, so it would have been made 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:28.840 in like nineteen and Um. Basically they were they were 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.520 saying like we just you know, there's just too many 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:35.400 Japanese and these you know, large populations, they're not spread 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:39.440 out because they left people alone in Atlanta and Dallas 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:45.040 and New York generally, Um, because they were diffuse. Uh. 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:47.320 One of the reasons they went after the West coast 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:51.240 because they were huge concentrations of Japanese Americans and Japanese 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.040 that they were just worried about, you know, them coming 0:07:54.120 --> 0:08:00.400 up with problems. That's what the propaganda film said. If 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:03.520 they said problems, they didn't say problems. That was what 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:07.000 they're conveying. One of the problems here with how this 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:09.480 went down was they only got a couple of weeks. Notice, 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:12.880 at most they had to leave their homes with whatever 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:16.680 they could carry and go to these assembly centers. Can I, um, 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:19.720 can I tell you one more thing from the propaganda film, 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:23.240 So when they're for they show them putting up signs 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:26.080 that might as well say like you didn't get out. 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:30.360 It was basically like if you're if you are Japanese 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.480 or second generation Japanese, you you can't be here. You 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:36.760 have to go meet here at this time and we'll 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:41.120 process you. And basically processing meant here are some government 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:45.960 enlisted lawyers and they're going to um they're going to 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:50.360 help you basically sell your home and business and whatever 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.600 for a loss. In most cases, you don't have a choice. 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:57.360 Now did they force all that or strongly encourage them 0:08:57.400 --> 0:08:59.760 as far as like selling their they forced it. But 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:03.120 the propaganda film, which I recommend anybody seeing, I cant 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.480 remera what it's called. But um, it's only like ten 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:07.640 minutes long, but man, they pack a lot into it. 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:11.640 They say like the Japanese and Japanese Americans are happy 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:16.240 to help out. They're happy to prove their loyalty. Basically 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:18.560 they're doing their part by getting off of the West Coast. 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:21.600 That's how this propaganda film made. It seems very interesting. 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:24.559 But yeah, a lot of them were forced to sell 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:28.120 their stuff, often less than market value, right, So they're 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:31.000 starting off on a bad note to begin with. And 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:33.959 this is just what the temporary housing. Then in UH 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:38.120 late summer they had finally set up ten of these 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:41.959 internment camps ready open for business. The w r A, 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:50.199 the War Relocation Authority UH put up places in California, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Arkansas, 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.120 and it gets Hawaii. In Hawaii, even though that didn't 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:57.840 make this list. Sand Island, Sand Island, and they were guarded, 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:03.199 they were bar wired, they had hospitals, they had basically 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:07.440 everything you need to live, schools, little forms of government. Yeah, 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:10.920 there was no UM, there was no Basically they put 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:14.280 them in the in the camps, guarded them so they 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:18.280 couldn't they weren't allowed to leave or um come in 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.280 and out freely. But inside the camps that was up 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:25.000 to the Japanese to form their own democratic self government. 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:27.520 And they did this kind of like block captains and 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:31.200 things like that. Subpark conditions. Yeah, definitely, even the w 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:35.880 r A said that at the time, UH kind of 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:39.080 like army barracks. One family per room. You got you caught, 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:40.959 You got your mattress, you got a stove in a light, 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:43.520 you got some blankets. Right. The problem was, or one 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:45.600 of the problems was that these barracks, let's say there 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:49.280 were five apartments in the barracks, they were separated by 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:51.559 four walls, and the walls didn't go all the way 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:54.720 to the ceiling. So there was like no privacy in 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:58.560 a very private culture. Oh yeah, sure, So they started 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:02.400 wrecking their cultural heritage off the bat basically much uh, 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:06.480 public laundry, public bathroom facilities, mess hall. So they got 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:11.600 a small allowance of money foreclose personal expenditures and the like, 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:15.559 but it was pretty dang low. Um. And so if 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:19.200 they wanted a more comfortable life in there, they would 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:22.920 dip into your personal savings. Right. So that started wrecking 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:25.440 them on the financial front as well. Yeah, and the 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:29.720 low wages also, um had a strange indirect effect Chuck, 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:33.679 And that Um, the parents and the kids who were 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:37.920 old enough to work, we're making the same amount of money. Yeah. 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:40.360 One of the things that you know, one of the 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:42.960 ways parents exert controller of their children is like, I 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:46.080 make more than yeah, not, we make the exact same 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:48.680 amount of money. So that wrecked the family home front 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:52.480 a little bit more. It definitely eroded authority among parents. 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:54.760 And you know, I mentioned that they could dip into 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:59.320 their savings. Not the case with um first generation Japanese 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:02.160 because their assets were actually frozen, so they didn't have 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:04.760 the option to spend their own money. But you say 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:08.520 that they earned and put in the bank, right, Okay, 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:11.280 So like you said, they tried their best to do 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:15.400 normal things set up like baseball leagues. Evidently the Japanese 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:18.920 love baseball. Yeah. I saw a m I saw an 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:23.920 art um exhibit at a Smithsonian why was the Renwick 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:27.800 Gallery in DC, and they had um. It was called 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:33.040 Garmin the Art of the Internment camps. And a couple 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:36.680 of things they had were some like handmade baseball jerseys 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:39.400 for the leagues that they set up there. Yeah, that's 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:41.160 pretty cool. It was very cool. There's a lot of 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:43.920 really interesting stuff that bet is that was that still 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:46.599 on display right now or it just ended January? I 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:48.520 looked it out. I was gonna tell everybody to go 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:51.080 everyone in d C at least, Well, I bet it'll 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:52.560 set up somewhere else, So keep it out for it 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:55.640 fingers cross. Um. One of the other ways that sort 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:59.439 of wrecked the cultural family front was that Japanese traditionally 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:02.960 eate together as family family time, meal time, and now 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:05.520 that uh, the little boys and girls were living close 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:08.120 to their friends, they like, we're really hot to go 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.240 over and eat dinner with their friends. So that fractured 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:14.000 the family even more. Yeah. Plus, also, if you didn't 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:16.160 want people to know you were arguing with your wife, 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:18.240 you better not do it in the barracks, because again, 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:20.760 the walls didn't go all the way to the top. 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:25.520 That's right. Um, there's just a lot more insight into 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:29.959 your neighbors private life than than the Japanese were ever 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:33.520 comfortable with. Yeah. I don't think any culture would be 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:37.720 fully comfortable with those conditions. I agree. But yeah, so 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:41.439 let's move forward to three when the w r A says, 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:43.880 you know what, maybe we should let some of these 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:46.160 folks out to go to school and work, and let's 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:50.200 make a questionnaire and base their release on this the 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:53.720 results of this. Yeah, so you have that questionnaire, Well, 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:57.800 there's there's a lot of personal information, like, um, you 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:01.600 know where are you're born? Uh, can you give five 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:05.840 character references, five work references, and there's some other kind 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:09.560 of odd questions like, UM, name some newspapers that you 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:13.880 subscribe to a regularly read UM, what are your hobbies 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:18.400 and interests? Uh? Would you volunteer for the Army Nurse Corps? 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:21.840 Would you denot's there for Japan? What are some other 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:25.600 hobbies of your interests to you? They just slipped that 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.040 denouncing emperor of Japan in there, Yeah, and a lot 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:31.200 of people hopped at this opportunity. They saw what it 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:34.960 was and they said, sure totally. All I'm an American 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:37.960 citizen anyway, So yeah, that's fine, I'll denounced the Emperor 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:40.840 of Japan. One thing we I don't think we really 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:43.440 touched on, Chuck. There was a hundred and twelve thousand 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:47.000 people who were relocated to these internment camps. Seven thousand 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:51.840 of them were, no doubt about it, American citizens. UM. 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:54.080 So yeah, there are a lot of people who were 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:59.000 happy to sign this UM pledge of allegiance basically or 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.160 pledge of loyalty, and those who did were released. There 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:04.480 are a lot of people who took it the opposite way. Well, 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:06.320 they were released just to go to work in school 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:08.840 at the time, right, they weren't released released, were they 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:11.120 I think, Uh yeah, I think that that did gain 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:15.280 them early release or release before other people. UM. Yeah, 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:17.400 well I think they were allowed to leave for work 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:20.120 or school, but they weren't like released release at that 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:23.400 time at least okay. UM. There were some other people 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:28.040 who took great offense to these questionnaires UM and refused 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:30.560 to sign them. And there was actually a big protest 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:34.520 at tool Lake. UM. And even if they were citizens, 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:38.280 American citizens refused to Yeah, there are actually people who 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.960 renounced their citizenship in the face of being forced to 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:45.280 sign this loyalty oath on top of already being a citizen. 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:49.160 So they actually verbally renounced their citizenship. At tool Lake 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:52.000 there was a mass protest UM. And there was a 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.520 guy named Jimmy Americatani who had a pretty cool UM 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:58.960 documentary made about him, Cat the Cats Americatani. He was 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:03.280 at tool Lake, he denounced the citizenship. UM. He was 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:06.120 finally released from the camps when they were closed uh 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:10.240 and basically went to be homeless. And he didn't realize 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:13.160 that his citizenship had been restored in nineteen fifty nine, 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:16.040 and as recently as like two thousand two, he still 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:19.040 thought he was like an illegal alien living on the streets, 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:22.320 almost like a Japanese drags kind of. Yeah. Yeah, he 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:24.360 was like, that's exactly what he was, like, was a 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:28.120 Japanese straggler of the camps. Basically. Wow. Yeah, it's really interesting. 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:31.080 It's it's worth seeing. But I love it. He state 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:33.360 in the United States in New York. He's actually he 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:37.200 was a master artist. He was really good. Yeah, you 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:40.320 should check it out. Well. But yeah, most if not 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:42.320 all of the people who were in this protest at 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:45.600 tool Lake and renounced their citizenship. Um. There was this 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:47.720 one lawyer who went back and said, dude, they did 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:49.360 this under durest. It shouldn't have been in the camps 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:52.120 in the first place. Let's restore their citizenship. And I 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:58.560 think most, if not all, had their citizenship restored years later. Yeah, alright, Josh, 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:02.080 let's go to ninety four December. Uh, this finally comes 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:04.800 to an end after a lot of public outcry. Uh, 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:08.560 they were allowed to leave, Um, but they couldn't exactly 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:11.040 just jump back into their regular life in many cases 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:14.040 because a lot of times their business or property was 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:19.679 taken over or neglected in shambles. At this point, and 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:24.960 an alarming amount of money. Yeah, four hundred million dollars 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:30.119 in financial losses by the Japanese internees in two thousand nine. 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:33.600 That's about five point two billion, but I think lower 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:35.440 now because I looked up at different calculator. It's at 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:39.280 four point eight So maybe it went down since two 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:45.399 thousand nine. Deflation. Deflation good? So what was what's the 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:47.399 problem here? Why is this a big deal? Why should 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:51.639 I care? Is this constitutional? Well? Yeah it is. It 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:57.280 was extremely unconstitutional. UM A panel later found out right, 0:17:57.480 --> 0:17:59.280 And of course I was being facetious with that. By 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.920 the way of UM, there was this girl named mits 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:05.600 Sue Endo who was a twenty two year old. She 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:10.200 was born and raised in Sacramento. UM had never been 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:12.840 to Japan, couldn't. I don't think she could speak or 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:16.160 read Japanese. And she was interned at one of these 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:21.960 camps UM and she basically appealed. She she appealed for 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:25.520 a writ of habeas corpus we've talked about before. It 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:28.240 got denied. She started appealing up to the Supreme Court. 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:30.280 Supreme Court got ahold of it and was like, this 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:34.800 woman should be granted unconditional release immediately. And that opened 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:38.600 the floodgates for every other US citizen who was intern 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:42.800 there UM. And then eventually that couple with the popular 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:46.760 outcry against it because people even while it was going on, 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:51.560 Americans everyday, Americans who were saying, this is horribly wrong. Yeah, 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:54.399 it was pretty controversial. And so finally, even before the 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:57.440 war ended, the camps were shut down. But this wasn't 0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:01.159 before some people died. Oh are you talking about the 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.959 on the island. That's different, but we can talk about that. Well, 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:08.880 let's talk about both. At the UM the art exhibit 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:11.439 I was telling you about the Renwick Gallery, there was 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:15.879 this guy UM named Shura Obada and he did some 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:19.000 really cool ink illustrations. But one of the ones he 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:21.040 did was an old man doubled over and there's a 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:24.440 dog nearby, and there's the fence and then the mountains 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:28.399 in the background. And if you read the caption beneath 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:33.480 the explanation, it's of an actual event that took place UM. 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:36.840 An old man who was deaf was chasing a stray dog, 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:40.040 trying to catch it, and apparently a guard was shouting 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:42.400 at him forgetting to get away from the fence. Old 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:44.359 man was deaf, didn't hear it. The guard shot him 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:47.160 to death. This is in one of the camps. Yeah, 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:49.760 and I mean, like if this is unconstitutional, it never 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:54.520 should have happened, then just that alone is makes it horrific, 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:56.920 you know. But then there are a lot of other 0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:01.359 people who who died of um, just deplorable conditions in 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:04.080 the Aleutian Islands, right, Yeah, I mean it wasn't just 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:08.000 rounded up in the United States, as we found out 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:13.480 when we read this, Uh, Japan was apparently we got 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:16.600 word that Japan was going to attack the Aleutian Islands 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:20.120 Kiska and A two, so before they did so, we said, 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:24.119 let's get in there and round up Ah, I guess 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:30.320 is it was it locals, Yeah, the Nihan, the Unan Gas, 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:33.880 Union Gas, un Gas. Yeah. I don't understand is why. 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:37.600 I mean, they weren't Japanese American, they weren't American. Why 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:41.000 did we round them up for their own protection? Supposedly? Well, 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:43.119 I think not even supposedly. I think that was the 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:45.640 whole thing, that that we were pretty sure the Japanese 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:48.080 were going to capture this island, which they did, so 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:53.000 we were we evacuated them from their home. Okay, Well, 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:56.320 sadly what happened though was eighty one of these uh 0:20:56.480 --> 0:21:00.600 unan Gas were rounded up and they saw U servicemen 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:03.440 burning their houses and their villages down, so the Japanese 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:05.960 couldn't use them. So the Japanese couln't use them, and 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:08.520 that that that was just when they were setting sail 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:11.280 for their new home, where like, you can't stay here, 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:13.760 and we're gonna take you someplace where a lot of 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:16.480 you are gonna die, okay, So they took them um 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:21.160 further into Alaska and basically used an old fish canary, 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:26.320 uh an old fish salting place, herring salterry, and then 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:29.560 UH an old mine of some sort, gold mine camp. 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:33.080 That was like riding out that these were the temporary 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:36.280 quarters for these people. And um out of eight one 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:41.679 chuck four people died of things like um consumption, UH 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:45.760 the damp TB which are all I think the same thing. Well, 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:48.320 they didn't have plumbing, they didn't have electricity, they had 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:51.760 no toilets, they didn't have the food was poor, they 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:54.840 didn't have winter clothes, and the water was tainted. And 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:58.080 this is where they sent them. Yeah, unbelievable. So the 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:01.480 inning Gecks basically said, okay, well, we're just gonna take 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:04.360 matters into our own hands. They built themselves, their own quarters, 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:07.600 they raised the church there. They it was pretty inspiring. 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:11.400 And again this one wasn't like interment against I guess 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:14.119 it was against their will, but it was supposedly for 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:16.280 their own safety. Well that's what they said about the 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:19.280 Japanese Americans too, we should point out, right, And we 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:21.960 should also say, well, let's talk about that panel in 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:25.000 ninety eight that found that that was not the case 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:27.199 at all. Yeah. Well, before we move on, though, we 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:30.840 should say that the union, the Union gacks twenty five 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:34.120 of the men actually joined the American Armed Forces. Despite 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:36.560 the fact that they were rounded up and putting these 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:40.280 camps and some of them died, they still supported America 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:41.680 to the extent that they would fight and died for 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:45.119 the country. Pretty amazing, is very amazing. All right. So 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:48.040 now we flashed forward once again through our little time 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:55.399 machine to when redressed payments. Uh, we're basically on the table. Right. 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:58.960 In nineteen eighty, Congress created um the Commission on Wartime 0:22:59.000 --> 0:23:02.320 Relocation in Kerman of civilians, and they came to their 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:06.360 decision in nine right, and their decision or their judgment 0:23:06.440 --> 0:23:09.119 on whether or not I was constitutional or what was 0:23:09.160 --> 0:23:12.480 the motivation behind it was that it was racism, pure 0:23:12.480 --> 0:23:16.880