Rare Day: UIUC Campus Honors & 4th Grade Class Study Japanese Internment Together

It’s not every day that a college class and fourth grade class have a common homework subject and meet in class together. But that’s what happened today when my class (“Immigration and Race: Inequality in Work”) and my wife’s class met in the Rare Book Room at the University of Illinois Library.

Our librarian retrieved fascinating materials from the UI library stacks and other collections. One show-stopper: Our library has a full folio of newspapers published by inmates at the Manzanar camp.

One student noticed great irony in the title of the newspaper: “Manzanar Free Press.” Click on the full page and think about these headlines: “Workers Line Up to Receive Pay.” Yes, these “workers” were paid pennies on the dollar for their work. “Citizens’ Group in First Meeting.”  Yes, these citizens were incarcerated simply and only because of their race … but they were able to hold a meeting behind barb wires. “Pears, Apples To Be Harvested Soon.” Click on that story and at the end read: “All residents are requested to resist temptation and not pick the fruits.” We learned that the food raised by inmates was sold to outside markets (white people).

The most surprising lesson for me? Military leaders opposed the internment idea! They told politicians that only about 500 Japanese Americans out of 117,000 were considered subversive—the rest were loyal. 
About 90,000 were citizens (the rest had an early version of a green card, meaning lawful resident). Lt. Gen. DeWitt privately expressed outrage that U.S. citizens could be rounded up and relocated simply because of their race. 
Three months later, he was charged with the task of making this happen.

The story made me reflect on the tense exchange last week between Chief of Staff  General John Kelly and National Security Adviser John Bolton. The military leader believes that the Army should not be used to patrol the U.S. border for migrants. Mr. Bolton favors this.

To Caroline Szylowicz (Rare Book Room Librarian), thank you a day that UIUC and Leal 4^th Grade students will not forget. 
The world they are inheriting from my generation is on course to revisit the bigotry, segregation, and racial pride that we had hoped was eradicated 70 years ago. 

To our students, we look to you for new hope, new ideas, courage, and compassion.