Eric Foner on Internment of Japanese Americans
Transcript From the Video
Q: Can you speak about the significance of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II?
A: The Japanese American internment—in which about 120,000 people, the majority of them American citizens, were rounded up on the West coast and moved involuntarily into what were called "concentration camps," which meant simply places to "concentrate" them (later on that term came to be used for the Nazi death camps)—was the biggest violation of civil liberties in American history, other than slavery. It shows what can happen in wartime when hysteria takes hold, when people are willing to sacrifice liberty in the name of security. There is no evidence whatsoever that the internment of these 120,000 people contributed in any way to the war effort, that it led to stopping any potential acts of sabotage, or treason, or anything like that. It was simply an act of racism, of fear, and also of economic self-interest. Large numbers of whites in California seized the property of Japanese Americans or bought it at fire-sale prices when people had to leave their homes. The Supreme Court upheld the internment in the Korematsu case later in the war, and I think that experience warns us that we must be vigilant about liberty and that even when it's only one group being stigmatized it still is a terrible violation of the principles for which the country supposedly stands.
A: The Japanese American internment—in which about 120,000 people, the majority of them American citizens, were rounded up on the West coast and moved involuntarily into what were called "concentration camps," which meant simply places to "concentrate" them (later on that term came to be used for the Nazi death camps)—was the biggest violation of civil liberties in American history, other than slavery. It shows what can happen in wartime when hysteria takes hold, when people are willing to sacrifice liberty in the name of security. There is no evidence whatsoever that the internment of these 120,000 people contributed in any way to the war effort, that it led to stopping any potential acts of sabotage, or treason, or anything like that. It was simply an act of racism, of fear, and also of economic self-interest. Large numbers of whites in California seized the property of Japanese Americans or bought it at fire-sale prices when people had to leave their homes. The Supreme Court upheld the internment in the Korematsu case later in the war, and I think that experience warns us that we must be vigilant about liberty and that even when it's only one group being stigmatized it still is a terrible violation of the principles for which the country supposedly stands.