And Then? Part Two

On December 7, 1941 the Imperial Japanese Navy launched a sneak attack on a deep water U.S. Naval base located in the island of O'ahu, west of Honolulu. The attack on Pearl Harbor woke the sleeping giant and plunged the United States into World War 2. This was our wake up call. The world was at war and it was taking us with it. At least to the general public, this attack was a complete surprise. It was a slap in the face, and we were both scared and pissed off.

In olden times it was a common practice to drive a goat off into the wilderness to die. The thinking behind this was that the goat would carry their sins and thus their guilt away with it. This is where we get our modern word scapegoat. And that is what we needed. Humanity has an inborn need to blame. We are problem-solvers. It is why we are currently the dominant species on the planet. We need to be able to point to something and say: "That's it, that's what caused this. Now lets deal with it." This is usually a good thing. But in the absence of something to blame, we will reassign the blame to something we can deal with.

Japan, for all intents and purposes was on another planet. It was so far away as to be, to most Americans at the time, an abstract concept. No good as a focus. It was too far away to relieve the helplessness that we felt. But there were Japanese people living here, right?

With Franklin D. Roosevelt's signing off on Executive Order 9066, the internment camps were born. This resulted in the forced removal of roughly 120,000 Japanese and people of Japanese ancestry from their homes on the west coast. At least 62 percent of these people were American citizens. To be fair the camps themselves were not bad places. The occupants received free food, lodging, medical and dental care, clothing allowance, education, hospital care and all basic necessities. But a gilded cage is still a cage.

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In 1943, this poem began circulating at the Poston War Relocation Camp. The writer is anonymous.

THAT DAMNED FENCE

They've sunk the posts deep into the ground

They've strung out wires all the way around

With machine gun nests just over there,

And sentries and soldiers everywhere.

Imprisioned in here for a long, long time

We know we're punished -- though we've commited no crime.

Our thoughts are gloomy and enthusiasm damp

To be locked up in a consentration camp.

Loyalty we know and patriotism we feel,

To sacrifice our upmost was our ideal,

To fight for our country and die perhapse;

But we'er here because we happen to be Japs.

We all love life and our country the best,

Our misfortune to be here in the west.

To keep us penned behind that damned fence

Is someone's notion of national defence.