Displacement: Chapters 6–11

There was motion sickness, restlessness, claustrophobia.

STOP
Sentry on Duty

The military-style barracks were identical and set up in neat rows.

I was wondering if we could discuss the constitutionality of executive order 9066.

My grandmother was one of the beneficiaries.

A general registration at relocation centers of all evacuees who are seventeen or more years of age will start next week.

It was revealed that the government, seeking a feasible solution to the acute wartime problem of the Japanese American people, had decided to determine principally by means of questionnaires, the extent of the loyalty held by the evacuees towards the United States.

It was revealed that the government, seeking a feasible solution to the acute wartime problem of the Japanese American people, had decided to determine principally by means of questionnaires, the extent of the loyalty held by the evacuees towards the United States.

Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any and all attacks by foreign and domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or organization?

Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any and all attacks by foreign and domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or organization?

For Issei, who had been denied citizenship by the U.S. government, they worried they would become stateless if they renounced their Japanese citizenship.

The questionnaire caused a deep rift in camp.

I was part of a resistance that had never been taught to me.

Now I knew that almost every person at Topaz resisted their oppression in some way.

The tension that had divided the camp since the beginning, heightened by the loyalty questionnaire more recently, seemed to have dissipated for the funeral.

Camp was difficult, degrading, terrifying.

I'm just saying there is precedent for it.

In the '70s there was talk of reopening the camps for political dissidents, communists, Black Panthers.

It was also saying, basically, "Japanese Americans are mostly affluent and successful even though we put them in camps."

She was diagnosed with leukemia just a couple years later, as I was finishing high school.

Mom and I started doing our own research on the camps. We went to libraries, genealogy sites, newspaper archives.

Children are being held in detention centers with no clear time line for their release or reunion with family.

But one day this guy was railing about sending away this and that group, so my mom stood up.

The persecution of a marginalized group of people is never just one act of violence — it's a condemnation of generations to come who live with the ongoing consequences.

The persecution of a marginalized group of people is never just one act of violence — it's a condemnation of generations to come who live with the ongoing consequences.