Caption under map: Japanese American Dispersion in Western United States
The term Internment Center is synonymous with Relocation Center for all practical purposes.
In its 1983 report, "Personal Justice Denied," the Congressional appointed Commission on Wartime Internment and Relocation of Civilians explained its decision to use the term "relocation camp" thus: "The Commission has largely left the words and phrases as they were, however, in an effort to mirror accurately the history of the time and to avoid the confusion and controversy a new terminology might provoke. We leave it to the reader to decide for himself how far the language of the period confirms an observation of George Orwell: "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible ... Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness."
Although it was later disproven, the "Japanese" attack swayed public opinion.
Members of the American Legion and some veterans who fought in the Pacific theater have been vocal proponents of these viewpoints. Another defender of the internment is Filipino American opinion columnist Michelle Malkin, who authored a 2004 book entitled In Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling in World War II and the War on Terror. Critics have characterized her book as being one-sided, and a logically unsound justification for present-day racial profiling. [1]
In April of 1984, John J. McCloy was the ranking surviving individual who participated in the decision to relocate the Japanese Americans in the winter of 1941–42, when he was Assistant Secretary of War. He wrote a letter expressing his dissatisfaction with the hearing held to consider redress and compensation for Americans held in internment camps, defending the internment and claiming that the redress would be "a great injustice to the American taxpayer."
McCloy also claimed that the Japanese Americans "...were permitted to go anywhere else in the country they saw fit to go at the expense of the government. They were not 'interned.'" This denies the fact that they were placed under armed guard, behind barbed wire, and surrounded by guards who in fact did shoot and kill. He went on to once again attempt to connect all Nikkei to the attack on Pearl Harbor, saying "I believe it would be most unjust to all Americans, indeed, to all nationalities who suffered as a result of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, to have those who were affected by the President's order be further compensated for their removal from the sensitive military areas of the West Coast. ... Generally speaking, I would say that our Japanese/American population benefited from the relocation rather than suffered, as did so many others of our population as a result of the war. The so-called investigation which sought to obtain unconscionably large unproven lump sums for added compensation for the relocation which had been given when evidence was fresh and witnesses were alive and in a position to testify was really outrageous. No serious attempt was made to recreate the conditions that the Japanese attack created on the West Coast, nor, the reasonableness of the steps that the President ordered to meet the devastating attack."
Despite all this, it must be noted that the FBI had no documented proof of espionage or sabotage by any Japanese American or Japanese national in the United States,
Caption under map: Japanese American Dispersion in Western United States
The term Internment Center is synonymous with Relocation Center for all practical purposes.
In its 1983 report, "Personal Justice Denied," the Congressional appointed Commission on Wartime Internment and Relocation of Civilians explained its decision to use the term "relocation camp" thus: "The Commission has largely left the words and phrases as they were, however, in an effort to mirror accurately the history of the time and to avoid the confusion and controversy a new terminology might provoke. We leave it to the reader to decide for himself how far the language of the period confirms an observation of George Orwell: "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible ... Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness."
Although it was later disproven, the "Japanese" attack swayed public opinion.
Members of the American Legion and some veterans who fought in the Pacific theater have been vocal proponents of these viewpoints. Another defender of the internment is Filipino American opinion columnist Michelle Malkin, who authored a 2004 book entitled In Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling in World War II and the War on Terror. Critics have characterized her book as being one-sided, and a logically unsound justification for present-day racial profiling. [1]
In April of 1984, John J. McCloy was the ranking surviving individual who participated in the decision to relocate the Japanese Americans in the winter of 1941–42, when he was Assistant Secretary of War. He wrote a letter expressing his dissatisfaction with the hearing held to consider redress and compensation for Americans held in internment camps, defending the internment and claiming that the redress would be "a great injustice to the American taxpayer."
McCloy also claimed that the Japanese Americans "...were permitted to go anywhere else in the country they saw fit to go at the expense of the government. They were not 'interned.'" This denies the fact that they were placed under armed guard, behind barbed wire, and surrounded by guards who in fact did shoot and kill. He went on to once again attempt to connect all Nikkei to the attack on Pearl Harbor, saying "I believe it would be most unjust to all Americans, indeed, to all nationalities who suffered as a result of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, to have those who were affected by the President's order be further compensated for their removal from the sensitive military areas of the West Coast. ... Generally speaking, I would say that our Japanese/American population benefited from the relocation rather than suffered, as did so many others of our population as a result of the war. The so-called investigation which sought to obtain unconscionably large unproven lump sums for added compensation for the relocation which had been given when evidence was fresh and witnesses were alive and in a position to testify was really outrageous. No serious attempt was made to recreate the conditions that the Japanese attack created on the West Coast, nor, the reasonableness of the steps that the President ordered to meet the devastating attack."
Despite all this, it must be noted that the FBI had no documented proof of espionage or sabotage by any Japanese American or Japanese national in the United States,