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Will Bush's War on Terror Bring Back Detention Camps?
Parallels between U.S. government actions following Pearl Harbor and
steps taken after 9/11 -- including a Halliburton contract for U.S.
detention centers -- are troubling
By Ronald Takaki, New
America Media
BERKELEY, Calif. - Feb 6, 2006 - On Jan. 24, the Halliburton
subsidiary KBR announced that it had been awarded by the Department of
Homeland Security a $385 million contract to build detention centers in
the United States. The purpose was to prepare for "an emergency influx
of immigrants, or to support the rapid development of new programs" in
the event of emergencies. What lessons can we learn from the history of
detention centers of an earlier war?
Like the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centers, Japan's
military attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, was a shattering
experience for Americans. Parallels between these two "days of infamy"
have already been widely discussed by politicians and pundits as well as
by everyday people. However, most of us today do not know what actually
happened to Japanese Americans on the West Coast as well as in Hawaii in
the wake of the devastating bombing.
Shortly after he inspected the still smoking ruins at Pearl Harbor, Navy
Secretary Frank Knox issued a statement to the press: "I think the most
effective fifth column work of the entire war was done in Hawaii, with
the possible exception of Norway." At a cabinet meeting, Knox
recommended the internment of all Japanese aliens in the islands.
Meanwhile, in California, Attorney General Earl Warren pressed federal
authorities to remove Japanese from sensitive areas on the West Coast.
The Japanese, he declared, "may well be the Achilles heel of the entire
civilian defense effort. Unless something is done it may bring about a
repetition of Pearl Harbor." Congressman Leland Ford of Los Angeles
wrote to the Secretaries of War and the Navy and the FBI Director
insisting that "all Japanese, whether citizens or not, be placed in
concentration camps."
Leading the campaign to do exactly that was Lieutenant General John L.
DeWitt, head of the Western Defense Command. In February, DeWitt sent
Washington a recommendation for the mass evacuation of all Japanese: "In
the war in which we are now engaged racial affinities are not severed by
migration. The Japanese race is an enemy race and while many second- and
third-generation Japanese born on United States soil, possessed of
United States citizenship, have become 'Americanized,' the racial
strains are undiluted... It, therefore, follows that along the vital
Pacific Coast over 112,000 potential enemies, of Japanese extraction,
are at large today."
On Feb. 19, in Executive Order 9066, President Roosevelt granted General
De Witt authorization for the evacuation and internment of 120,000
Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were citizens by birth.
Unlike their counterparts in California, Hawaii's public officials urged
restraint and reason. Congressional delegate Sam King advised the
military that nothing should be done beyond apprehending known spies.
Unlike General DeWitt, General Delos Emmons as the military governor of
Hawaii opposed Washington's efforts to evacuate and intern Japanese
Americans in Hawaii. Emmons believed that the Constitution guaranteed
the right of due process of law to every person, and was determined to
base his policies and actions on this principle.
In a radio address broadcast shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor,
General Emmons assured Japanese Americans: "There is no intention or
desire on the part of the federal authorities to operate mass
concentration camps. No person, be he citizen or alien, need worry,
provided he is not connected with subversive elements.... While we have
been subjected to a serious attack by a ruthless and treacherous enemy,
we must remember that this is America and we must do things the American
Way. We must distinguish between loyalty and disloyalty among our
people."
Many years after the war, in 1982, the Commission on Wartime Relocation
and Internment of Civilians reported that "not a single documented act
of espionage, sabotage or fifth column activity was committed by an
American citizen of Japanese ancestry or by a resident Japanese alien on
the West Coast." Six years later, the U.S. Congress passed legislation
giving an apology and reparations of $20,000 to each of the survivors of
the internment camps. Signing the bill into law, President Ronald Reagan
admitted that the United States government had committed "a grave
wrong."
Will history repeat itself today as Americans find themselves swept into
the hurricane of post-9/11 fears? Engaging in racial/religious
profiling, will our government continue to detain and incarcerate
Muslims in the U.S. without due process of law? Will it
unconstitutionally force them into detention camps to be built by
Halliburton? Will our government later regret it had violated their
constitutional rights and have to offer them redress and reparations?
Or, like General Emmons, will federal officials remember that "this is
America" and do things "the American Way"?
Other Readings of Interest from the Archives
PNS contributor Ronald Takaki, professor of Ethnic
Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of
"Strangers From Another Shore: A History of Asian Americans." |
