In 1942, the U.S. government rounded up Japanese-Americans and forced them to “relocate” to America’s version of concentration camps (called internment camps). I have put relocate in quotes because my Jewish family in Hungary was told the same thing when Nazis forced them from their home in Nyrmada, Hungary in 1944.
By spring of 1943, the U.S. government changed its detention policy: Instead of assuming that every Japanese American was disloyal after Pearl Harbor, the government required these Americans to answers a four-page “loyalty” questionnaire.
Eric Muller, my colleague at the University of North Carolina School of Law, has produced a spectacular blog, Scapegoat Cities, with 20-minute podcasts that offer stunning visual chapters in the lives of our fellow Americans who were subjected to America’s official policy of racism.
If you are a teacher—at any grade level— please take a moment from your busy schedule to click here and see if any material is suitable for your students: https://scapegoatcities.org/. The blog is a professional quality narrated production, suitable for many students (guessing ages 10 years old and up).
This is directly relevant today. Steven Miller—a senior White House advisor—is leading a group of policymakers in rewriting immigration laws to require immigrants here and those applying for admission to prove they can assimilate—a nice way of saying pass a political loyalty test as in 1943.
I have taken this image from one of Muller’s podcasts—a Japanese-American Boy Scout parading the American flag with coerced pride, while the government detained him in a harsh camp setting simply because of his race. The photo evokes several comparisons to Donald Trump’s expanding racist vision for America.
No comments:
Post a Comment