Spring Break
Opinion: Exploring the experience of internment
Brandon Iwamoto
Issue date: 3/3/09 Section: Special Sections
This time 67 years ago, Japanese-Americans and Japanese nationals living on the West Coast were stripped of their homes, businesses and lives.
With the stroke of a pen, more than 110,000 lives were shattered. Imagine the entire CSU population -- times four -- being rounded up and taken away because they had names like Tanaka, Minoru and Taniguchi.
Families were shipped to one of the 10 concentration camps in barren, desolate locations scattered across the Midwest in one of the most overlooked blemishes in American history.
My family was one of them.
In a few short days, a small group of Colorado State students and I will be trekking to the remains of the most well-known relocation center, a desert facility in southern California known as Manzanar, now a National Historic Site.
My grandma, a sansei (third generation Japanese-American), was not sent to Manzanar -- she and her family were taken from their home in Stockton, Calif. and sent to Camp Rohwer, located in a small town in southeastern Arkansas (the same camp that actor George Takei, known to Star Trek fans as Mister Sulu, was interned at).
However, the experience of internment was such that even a chance to visit the most well-preserved of the former camps was too much to pass up.
My great-grandma and great-grandpa were nisei kibei, or second generation American-born Japanese educated in Japan. They had jobs, friends, parents and children. Like the thousands of other Japanese-Americans on the West Coast, they were living the American Dream.
Then in one fell swoop -- FDR's signing of Executive Order 9066 on Feb. 19, 1942 -- it was taken away.
The "enemy aliens," as Japanese-Americans came to be called soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, were allowed two bags each to bring everything they owned, clothes and all. Many family heirlooms such as samurai swords and Buddhist altars were buried or destroyed.
After being "processed," they were taken by bus to their barracks in the sand.
With the stroke of a pen, more than 110,000 lives were shattered. Imagine the entire CSU population -- times four -- being rounded up and taken away because they had names like Tanaka, Minoru and Taniguchi.
Families were shipped to one of the 10 concentration camps in barren, desolate locations scattered across the Midwest in one of the most overlooked blemishes in American history.
My family was one of them.
In a few short days, a small group of Colorado State students and I will be trekking to the remains of the most well-known relocation center, a desert facility in southern California known as Manzanar, now a National Historic Site.
My grandma, a sansei (third generation Japanese-American), was not sent to Manzanar -- she and her family were taken from their home in Stockton, Calif. and sent to Camp Rohwer, located in a small town in southeastern Arkansas (the same camp that actor George Takei, known to Star Trek fans as Mister Sulu, was interned at).
However, the experience of internment was such that even a chance to visit the most well-preserved of the former camps was too much to pass up.
My great-grandma and great-grandpa were nisei kibei, or second generation American-born Japanese educated in Japan. They had jobs, friends, parents and children. Like the thousands of other Japanese-Americans on the West Coast, they were living the American Dream.
Then in one fell swoop -- FDR's signing of Executive Order 9066 on Feb. 19, 1942 -- it was taken away.
The "enemy aliens," as Japanese-Americans came to be called soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, were allowed two bags each to bring everything they owned, clothes and all. Many family heirlooms such as samurai swords and Buddhist altars were buried or destroyed.
After being "processed," they were taken by bus to their barracks in the sand.
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