Japanese-Americans seek redress for imprisonment

[davidnc76]

LIMA, Peru: Augusto Kague was only 12 when the U.S. government reached far south to his Peruvian farming town and tore his family apart.

It was January 1942 — a month after Japan attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, killing 2,400 and drawing the United States into World War II. The roundup of 110,000 Japanese-Americans had begun.

But internment efforts went far beyond U.S. borders — a little-known fact to this day.

Kague's father, a Japanese immigrant in Peru, was whisked away by security agents, one of 2,264 men, women and children of Japanese ancestry arrested in Latin America and shipped off to U.S. camps. They were interned under the guise of securing Western Hemisphere interests, including the Panama Canal. About 800 were used in prisoner swaps with Japan, turned over to a country that some — as Latin American-born descendants of Japanese immigrants — had never seen.


Read more:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/08/10/america/LA-FEA-Peru-US-Internment-Camps.php

[Faygo Kid]

1. I had the honor of knowing Fred Korematsu personally.

He and his wife were lovely people; he met her right after the war. She was a nurse in Detroit.

In the 90s, I had occasion to spend considerable time with him. His, of course, was the Supreme Court case, "Korematsu v. U.S.," that tragically upheld the internment. Supreme Court Justice Frank Murphy (from Michigan) wrote an impassioned dissent, and he visited the state to honor him at a dedication.

In 1998, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

What a bright, accomplished, quietly spoken man he was. Great sense of humor, too. But he was still passionate. He couldn't get past the "why." Why would the country he loved, of which he was a citizen, DO this to him? Why? I think after all the years, and all the attention, he never could come up with an answer, right until his death.

We need to continue to ask that question, on his and our behalf.

[ZombieHorde]

2. We need to continue to ask that question

I don't think that any logic was involved. Americans were scared and then acted like Hitler light.

[Solly Mack]

4. Thank you for sharing that

"Why?" a powerful question...a haunting question...so much pain in so small a word

[ZombieHorde]

3. What a dark and frustrating situation.

Brazil, Panama, Bolivia and other Latin American countries deported people of Japanese ancestry and allowed the U.S. to strip them of their citizenship.

It seems like these countries should have their part in paying reparations.