4 ms·
Yeah, the Japanese interment sucks, but I wonder what would have happened if there was no internment. Could US wartime industry on the West coast have operated
by oh_sigh 6y ago
Yeah, the Japanese interment sucks, but I wonder what would have happened if there was no internment. Could US wartime industry on the West coast have operated successfully under constant sabotage? Would it be better for America to lose the war to Japan (or at least reach a deal and let Japan keep all of the Pacific islands and Chinese land holdings) if it meant that the internment didn't happen?
It's impossible to figure out what percentage of Japanese people in the US would have sided with Japan over America. But it might be telling that during the Niihau incident, literally every Japanese person the pilot ran across decided to help him, in contrast to helping the native Hawaiians they had been living with for decades. I wonder at what point the internment becomes acceptable. If 99% of the Japanese people in America would have supported Japan in the war, would the internment have been okay?
- crooked-v 6y ago> literally every Japanese person In this case, "literally every" means exactly three people, two of whom were first-generation immigrants without citizen. I do hope you understand how that's not a sufficient basis to make conclusions about 120,000 people.
- oh_sigh 6y agoThere isn't a shortage of bytes for storing HN comments - you can go ahead and quote the full phrase of "literally every Japanese person the pilot ran across". Would you have supported the internment if 110,000 of those 120,000 people supported Japan in their war against the USA?
- loriverkutya 6y agoThe more important question is, why you seems to be supporting putting 120,000 people to camps based on the fact, that 3 people helped the pilot.
- oh_sigh 6y agoI clearly said 110,000 in this hypothetical, not 3.
- crooked-v 6y agoYour hypothetical isn't even worth responding to, given that your only basis for proposing it is those same three people.
- oh_sigh 6y agoThose 3 people establish a lower bound for the amount of people of Japanese descent who would have aided Japan, given the chance. I've heard people argue that no American of Japanese descent would have aided Japan which just clearly isn't true.
- baddox 6y agoThe US should have simply interned all citizens regardless of their background to fully guarantee that no citizen could have sabotaged the war effort.
- oh_sigh 6y agoSome groups presumably would be much more likely to sabotage the war effort than others.
- redis_mlc 6y agoA Japanese sub also shelled San Diego, and balloons were launched into the West coast with either flares to start forest fires, or plague. Pearl Harbor was surveilled by a Japanese officer attached to the Japanese Embassy from restaurants above the base. The endgame for both Germany and Japan was to invade the USA. Having studied WW2 at length, I don't see an alternative to the Japanese internment at the time.
- chefkoch 6y agoSo why didn't that happen with the germans and italians in the US?
- ElMono 6y agoEspecially for the roughly 20,000 supporters of the German American Bund that openly supported the Nazi regime. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_American_Bund https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_American_Bund
- oh_sigh 6y agoThe group whose leaders were thrown into jail, stripped of citizenship, and forced to flee to Mexico?