Researchers uncover little-known internment camp

[AdamSmith]

A lady asked Dr. Franklin "Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy." "A republic" replied the Doctor "if you can keep it."

Researchers uncover little-known internment camp

NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS 4 hours ago

Kooskia, Idaho

Deep in the mountains of northern Idaho, miles from the nearest town, lies evidence of a little-known portion of a shameful chapter of American history.

There are no buildings, signs or markers to indicate what happened at the site 70 years ago, but researchers sifting through the dirt have found broken porcelain, old medicine bottles and lost artwork identifying the location of the first internment camp where the U.S. government used people of Japanese ancestry as a workforce during World War II.

Today, a team of researchers from the University of Idaho wants to make sure the Kooskia Internment Camp isn't forgotten to history.

"We want people to know what happened, and make sure we don't repeat the past," said anthropology professor Stacey Camp, who is leading the research.

It's an important mission, said Charlene Mano-Shen of the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience in Seattle.

Mano-Shen said her grandfather was forced into a camp near Missoula, Mont., during WWII, and some of the nation's responses to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 evoked memories of the Japanese internments. Muslims, she said Thursday, "have been put on FBI lists and detained in the same way my grandfather was."

After the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor plunged the nation into the second world war, about 120,000 people of Japanese heritage who lived on the West Coast were sent to internment camps. Nearly two-thirds were American citizens, and many were children. In many cases, people lost everything they had worked for in the U.S. and were sent to prison camps in remote locations with harsh climates.

Research such as the archaeological work underway at Kooskia (KOO'-ski) is vital to remembering what happened, said Janis Wong, director of communications for the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles.

People need to be able "to physically see and visit the actual camp locations," Wong said.

Giant sites where thousands of people were held — such as Manzanar in California, Heart Mountain in Wyoming and Minidoka in Idaho — are well-known. But Camp said even many local residents knew little about the tiny Kooskia camp, which operated from 1943 to the end of the war and held more than 250 detainees about 30 miles east of its namesake small town, and about 150 miles southeast of Spokane, Wash.

The camp was the first place where the government used detainees as a labor crew, putting them into service doing road work on U.S. Highway 12, through the area's rugged mountains.

This image provided by the University of Idaho shows the Kooskia Internment Camp during World War II …

"They built that highway," Camp said of the road that links Lewiston, Idaho, and Missoula, Mont.

Men from other camps volunteered to come to Kooskia because they wanted to stay busy and make a little money by working on the highway, Camp said. As a result, the population was all male, and mostly made up of more recent immigrants from Japan who were not U.S. citizens, she said.

Workers could earn about $50 to $60 a month for their labor, said Priscilla Wegars of Moscow, Idaho, who has written books about the Kooskia camp.

Kooskia was one of several camps operated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service that also received people of Japanese ancestry rounded up from Latin American countries, mostly Peru, Camp said. But it was so small and so remote that it never achieved the notoriety of the massive camps that held about 10,000 people each.

"I'm aware of it, but I don't know that much about it," said Frank Kitamoto, president of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Memorial Committee, based in Puget Sound, Wash., which works to maintain awareness of the camps.

After the war the camp was dismantled and largely forgotten. Using money from a series of grants, Camp in 2010 started the first archaeological work at the site. Some artifacts, such as broken china and buttons, were scattered on top of the ground, she said.

"To find stuff on the surface that has not been looted is rare," she said.

Camp figures her work at the site could last another decade. Her team wants to create an accurate picture of the life of a detainee. She also wants to put signs up to show people where the internment camp was located.

Artifacts found so far include Japanese porcelain trinkets, dental tools and gambling pieces, she said. They have also found works of art created by internees.

"While it was a horrible experience, the people who lived in these camps resisted in interesting ways," she said. "People in the camps figured out creative ways to get through this period of time."

"They tried to make this place home," she said.

http://news.yahoo.com/researchers-uncover-little-known-internment-camp-170350272.html

[RA1]

^{As should be well known, a large number of Japanese, some citizens but mostly not citizens, were removed from the west coast to places further inland after Pearl Harbor. There were some in Arkansas which are fairly well reported and remembered periodically in our local media. One strange fact was these placed in very rural areas and the locals resented the Japanese not so much for racial or political reasons but because they had amenities not available to the locals; namely electricity, better food and more.}

^{In hindsight, the US government treated these folks badly but, considering the times and the situation, what should the US government have done?}

^{Best regards,}

^RA1

[lookin]

. . . considering the times and the situation, what should the US government have done?

Respected the US Constitution, same as today.

( Did I pass? )

[RA1]

Sure, as always. However, what you suggest is a principle and generality. Specifically how could the government in those days have handled the situation to the satisfaction of today's generation? I don't think they could have and certainly did not.

Best regards,

RA1

[lookin]

No question, it's easier to hold onto a principle when we're feeling secure than it is when we're afraid. But just because it's hard doesn't mean it's not worth preserving our core values.

As the Japanese became our allies after World War II, we began to regret that we had ignored our principles, even as we were fighting to protect them. No one was proud of what we did to our Japanese citizens and, fortunately, we were able to avoid doing the same thing to our Muslim citizens after September 11th. But we had to make a conscious effort to keep away from that cliff and some folks did drift pretty near the edge. We had plenty of worried Muslim citizens a decade ago, and I'm sure there are still some who keep looking over their shoulders.

We should take some pride, I think, that we resisted a repeat of the actions we took seven decades ago. Although there's no doubt that we did some significant ethnic profiling after September 11th, and are still doing some today. During the past decade, the New York police department took some heat for mounting cameras near mosques and infiltrating them. But at least, when it became known, there was a public debate, and a renewed agreement that we didn't want a repeat of what we did to our Japanese citizens.

One thing that occurs to me now is that, in order to keep such ethnic profiling at bay today, the NSA has devised a workaround that involves profiling everybody. Seventy years ago, we couldn't keep everyone under surveillance, so we rounded up our Japanese citizens and put them inside barbed wire. Ten years ago, strategically placed cameras let us keep many of our Muslim citizens under close watch where they lived and worshipped. Now, to avoid that kind of scrutiny again, and since the technology allows it, our government has decided, in secret, to put everyone under some level of surveillance.

As the technology matures, I expect we'll all be under closer watch. And, as our government becomes more and more committed to secrecy, the opportunities for debate will be closed off one by one.

At least we don't have armed guards surrounding us.

Not every day anyway.

[RA1]

lookin-

I was right with you until you stepped off the path and said "all" of us are now under surveillance and that is equality or fairness or whatever. Sorry, but that is not a workaround, that is a breach of the Constitution and totally illegal. We have a lot of illegal actions by the US government going on right now and I think you know it. This being just one.

I appreciate your pointing out various failures of the government and society in general.

Best regards,

RA1

[lookin]

RA1, I expect we're still pretty much on the same path, at least on this issue. If you get a minute, look at my post again. You won't see anything that characterizes this surveillance as 'fair', 'legal' or 'Constitutional'. And the only thing equal about it is that all of us are getting our information hoovered up at the same time. What the NSA so far has been able to 'work around' is the issue of profiling. And that's because all the profiling is done behind a black curtain in Utah.

It was real clear when we were profiling Japanese citizens seventy years ago because we kept them behind barbed wire.

And it was real clear when we were profiling Muslims in New York because the cameras were mounted right outside their mosques.

It took a while for the penny to drop and, if it hadn't been for AdamSmith's most estimable opening post, it would have taken a while longer, but it's pretty clear to me now that the 'data mining' that goes on in Bluffdale is profiling, pure and simple. Doing nothing more than mapping folks' phone calls creates a web of contacts with, for example, a Muslim-of-interest in the middle, and many rings of law-abiding Muslim citizens all around. And the FISA court, if it's even consulted, can expand the ring any time it sees fit, and give the OK for listening to phone calls.

If the government actually said it was going to create a map of all U. S. Muslim contacts, there'd be a hue and cry, just as there eventually was with the Japanese camps, and just as there eventually was with snooping on Muslims in New York. And if it actually said it was profiling Tea Party Republicans or Progressive Democrats, which is quite doable with existing technology, the din would never die down.

But the profiling that goes on in Bluffdale is hidden behind layers of secrecy and the majority of us haven't yet managed to give a shit. In fact, lots of folks think Edward Snowden should be put in jail for even calling it to our attention.

And if the NSA ends up getting away with it, plus other stuff we may never even hear about, I'm going to call that a civil liberties workaround for the ages.

[ihpguy]

I fear that one sad fate will be younger generations forgetting that there even were camps and what happened there. Whether in the US or Europe, the witnesses to these atrocities are dying off quite quickly. My own Mom is waiting to go. In the past two years, three friends of hers who were in the camps in Europe, including one who escaped and became a guerilla fighter in the forests of eastern Europe. One of her best friends of 60 years is locked up in an Alzheimer's ward and its now an anytime thing. In another fifty years will people still remember or care about Manzanar or Kooskia? Auschwitz-Berkenau, Bergen-Belsen or Oranienberg? Or even all of our own civil liberties that we have lost?

[RA1]

lookin-

I suppose I was including a definition of workaround to mean another (legal) way of doing things.

ihpguy-

I would like to think that the US "relocation" camps were not the same as the death camps in Europe. As I mentioned yesterday, the ones in AR had the locals unhappy because they had better facilities than the locals. However, they were illegal as well as demeaning.

As you know, there already is a wide spread "conspiracy" to deny the holocaust. I certainly agree, too soon we forget.

Best regards,

RA1

[ihpguy]

Still histories that many wish would be hidden or be forgotten. Whether to whatever degree of cruelty.

Maybe I am just obtuse, but it seems as if you trying to be an apologist for some uneducated residents of Arkansas with some resentment as to how US CITIZENS were interned by their own government and most of whom lost everything of material value in their lives just because of where there ancestors originated before arriving in the US of A? And do not forget with their lives uprooted and placed into prison camps, many most likely died much earlier than would have been expected had they been allowed to continue living their lives where they had had homes?

I remember the father of a friend from college, less than 30 years after the end of World War II, who was a shell of a man, a survivor of Auschwitz. He was on a personal disability check sent monthly from the German government. Very sickly. No money could replace what he had lost nor payment what he had survived.

I remember seeing the movie SHOAH and the Poles interviewed who lived near Birkenau 1 & 2 claiming the did not know. I visited the camps in Germany and Poland about ten years ago, they had to know and chose to ignore.

Location or quantity of cruelty should not matter.

I do not think the feelings of a group of AR residents matter one iota.

What is the quote about those that do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it?

[RA1]

iphguy-

I think you are over playing the facts. Most of the Japanese who were sent to relocation camps in the US were not citizens, although too many were. I also think you are comparing US camps with European ones and there is not justifiable comparison.

Both were wrong and illegal. But, no US camp inhabitants were gassed or put to death with or without legal means employed.

And, yes, it does matter how the locals felt during the war. They were tax paying citizens who were deprived of several things. There was a ban on fuel, food and many other items that were furnished to the inhabitants of the camps.

Everyone worked during WWII to defeat Germany, Italy and Japan. There were sacrifices made by all. Unfortunately, one of the sacrifices made by Japanese citizens in the US was to be re-located but, again, most were not citizens.

I agree about history and the aspect of having it repeated. I do not wish to argue with you but we seem to have some difference of opinion here. I respect yours. Do you respect mine?

Best regards,

RA1

[lookin]

I do not wish to argue with you but we seem to have some difference of opinion here. I respect yours. Do you respect mine?

Can't speak for ihpguy but it would sure be hard for me to drum up respect for an opinion that it's OK for our government to toss its citizens (even one - especially one) into an internment camp without due process. I wouldn't like being 're-located', and I'll bet it's a 'sacrifice' you wouldn't like making either, even if it came with all the food you could eat and all the fuel you could burn. I'll grant you it's better than being cold and hungry, but it's still illegal imprisonment.

And the folks who locked you up are the very same folks who could decide one morning that, from now on, it was gruel for you - breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

The point is, the moment our government starts behaving extralegally, that's the time to start getting worked up about it. Not tomorrow, and not next year. History is chock full of examples of folks who figured they would never be personally affected by the bad things happening around them. Until they were. Erosion of civil rights doesn't just stop by itself. It takes awareness that it's happening and a commitment to stop it in its tracks.

Last week, I watched a program called Hitler on Trial in which a young lawyer named Hans Litten put Hitler in the witness box during a 1931 trial of SA thugs who had stabbed two leftist German workers. Litten's purpose was to expose the violent underpinnings of the Nazi party at a time when Hitler was hellbent on bringing it into the political mainstream. Had Litten succeeded, and had German citizens paid attention, imagine what future anguish could have been avoided.

I'm sure I'm 'preaching to the choir' here, RA1, as I believe we see many, if not most, of these issues through the same prism, you should pardon the expression. It's just that I think this is a time for an extra dose of clarity, as there are still many folks who do not yet appreciate what the harvest might be when a government starts treating its own citizens as the 'enemy'.

(And it was George Santayana who said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.")

[RA1]

lookin-

Were you ever in the military? There most of the Constitutional rules are suspended, at least for a short time aka basic training. There are many surviving rules that must and should be observed but many are somewhat changed from what we as civilians think are ordinary. I am sure you have heard of UCMJ which provides some different but still legal rules to follow.

As civilians, we are not subject to the UCMJ but we must observe other rules. I am sure you know this.

As a further point, what is your opinion of being tossed into jail? There many citizens lose a few or many of their otherwise acknowledged rights. But, most survive, one way or another. I have no wish to being tossed into jail but I have no doubt that I would survive. Short term arrangements that are not in the ordinary course of US existence are survivable regardless of why. That does not make them pleasant or even legal but it does not make then other than survivable.

We, the US citizens have a lot to learn and to hopefully change. I think we are mostly on the same page but there is always room for another opinion, don't you think?

Best regards,

RA1

[lookin]

lookin-

Were you ever in the military?

Nope. Peace Corps. More to my liking.

As a further point, what is your opinion of being tossed into jail?

Fairly low, but, again, no direct experience.

I think we are mostly on the same page but there is always room for another opinion, don't you think?

This is another one of those questions that just cries out for a bit of context. I've come across other opinions that were so appealing, I've latched onto them as my own. Then there were some others that were real stinkers. Case-by-case is my motto.

[AdamSmith]

Most of the Japanese who were sent to relocation camps in the US were not citizens, although too many were.

According to the U.S. National Archives, "Roosevelt's order affected 117,000 people of Japanese descent, two-thirds of whom were native-born citizens of the United States." http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/japanese-relocation/

Wikipedia gives the figure as 62%, sourced to:

1. Semiannual Report of the War Relocation Authority, for the period January 1 to June 30, 1946, not dated. Papers of Dillon S. Myer. Scanned image at trumanlibrary.org. Retrieved September 18, 2006.
2. "The War Relocation Authority and The Incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II: 1948 Chronology," Web page at www.trumanlibrary.org. Retrieved September 11, 2006.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment

[RA1]

I think I had the numbers reversed. However, my comment about too many were stands.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

But, no US camp inhabitants were gassed or put to death with or without legal means employed.

Not to keep picking nits, but then I don't think this is one: Several internees were killed by sentries.

Also, "put to death" may not strictly describe those who died of inadequate medical care in the camps, but dead is dead.

[AdamSmith]

This page on the National Park Service web site, part of an article on Manzanar and other relocation sites, gives a good summary of the military rationale, the political and economic pressures also in play, and the various court challenges and rulings:

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/manz/hrse.htm

[ihpguy]

I'm glad to see there are at least a few others on this site who can recognize right from wrong.

More WTF moments in this thread than I can comprehend.

I have visited the museum in LA dedicated to this terrible part of our nation's toward US citizens of Japanese descent. Funny, but US citizens of German and Italian ancestry were not interned in a series of US based gulags, were they?

I don't think so.

Not more than a bit of racism? Where were all of the AR residents protesting about their safety against the enemy within their midst?

Speak up.

[ihpguy]

Adam Smith,

Thank you very much for the link to the dissenting opinions of the Supreme Court's justices.

Much appreciated.

[ihpguy]

All I can say is that we are all lucky that as gay men, Reagan did not order in 1983 that all of our Lesbian sisters were not rounded up and placed in internment camps when the Marine Corps barracks were blown up in Lesbanon.

Oops, there I go again.

[RA1]

Yes, some of German and Italian ancestry were also put into camps but not nearly so many as the Japanese.

I do not quickly find any references to camp inhabitants being shot but I will take your word for it.

There are a lot of different aspects to this period of US history and I am about through writing about it.

Best regards,

RA1