5 ms·
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment I had never heard of this.
by lukeqsee 13y ago
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment
I had never heard of this.
- JackFr 13y agoAre you an American? I'm curious, because in my experience the American interment of Japanese is fairly well known among Americans and Japanese, and not well known by everyone else.
- lukeqsee 13y agoI am. Most likely I learned about it in passing in a history course and have since forgotten because it didn't make an impact at the time. I doubt I'll forget again.
- ck2 13y agoInternment is a revisionist word to make it sound less harsh. They were concentration camps.
- pc86 13y agoPlease point me to the source showing that we used them to manufacture munitions, or to the one showing me that we gassed and burned them.
- pc86 13y agoIs there a reason I'm being downvoted? There are almost no parallels (beyond the most literal) between a concentration camp and an internment camp.
- jlgreco 13y agoHe is using the term "concentration camp" in the original sense of the term to mean "prison camp". What we call "Nazi Concentration Camps" were often "death camps" and/or "labor camps", but those are not what he means by "concentration camp". "Internment Camp" is a euphemism for "concentration camp", which is itself a euphemism for "prison camp". "Concentration camp" has also come to be a euphemism for "extermination camp". So: Is a: | Can be called a [...] Camp -------------------------------------------------------------------- Prison camp | Internment, Concentration Prison camp with labor | Internment, Concentration, Labor Extermination camp | Concentration, Extermination, Death He is talking about the first line, you are talking about the third. In modern English, the term "concentration camp" is most strongly associated with the third. (Actually, IIRC some Japanese prison camps were in fact labor camps, though I think the work they did was almost entirely agricultural. No bomb-assembly to my knowledge.) @dragonwriter suggests avoiding the terms "concentration" and "internment" entirely and only using "prison" and "extermination" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6260756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6260756). I think this is a reasonable suggestion.
- mason240 13y agoConcentration is a revisionist word to make it sound more harsh. They were internment camps. Concentration camps are where you send people to die.
- 67726e 13y agoI'm not sure wether to chalk that up to ignorance or just a cultural understanding of the word. I realize here in the US, "Concentration Camp" has become synonymous with the Nazi death camps. However, a concentration camp is just another word for a place to intern people. A death camp is where people are sent do die.
- jlgreco 13y agoThe term "concentration camp" really only came to mean "death camp" during/after WWII. Before then it was used more or less literally, a camp where people are concentrated (which is not to say that they were not often brutal and deadly... but the purpose of the camps was not extermination)
- javajosh 13y ago"Concentration camp" has been used to describe Nazi death camps for a long time, and has come to be more-or-less synonymous. None of the Japanese camps systematically killed people, as far as I know. Manzanar was an atrocity, but it was not in the same league as Dachau. To call them both by same name is misleading. That said, 'internment camp' sounds far too weak. From what I've read, every piece of property they couldn't carry was taken, and they were rounded up and forced to live in horse-stalls for the duration of the war. Every single family, as far as I know, had to not only suffer the indignity of being held without cause, but then had to rebuild from zero after the war. I can't think of a better term, but it needs one.
- tobiasu 13y agoConcentration camp (KZ) sounds about right. The term for places like Dachau and Auschwitz is Vernichtungslager (extermination camp). A concentration camp is not set up for industrial mass-murder of its prisoners.
- jlgreco 13y agoIn modern English the distinction is not consistently made. Sometimes you see extermination camps and concentration camps talked about, but other times you see both talked about just as 'concentration camps'.
- tobiasu 13y agoI certainly agree. Concentration camp is an umbrella term, both in German and English. However, if we're talking about the exact type of camps, it makes sense use the proper words and inform readers of the distinction. It's only fair to the victims to use appropriate language and not play down the severity of their situation.
- jlgreco 13y agoYes, I agree. To be clear, I do prefer using the term "concentration camps" to refer to what the US did to the Japanese, but I understand that others object to that and find their objections fairly reasonable.
- JackFr 13y ago"the American encampment in a higher ethnic concentration of Japanese" doesn't roll off the tongue quite as easily. I'm not sure what the distinction is you're trying to make. That calling them 'interment camps' is somehow better than 'concentration camps'? Both words refer to holding a designated group of people, perceived to be a threat against their will without evidence or trial.
- ZoF 13y agoThe distinction he is trying to make is quite clear... The term 'concentration camp' has a far greater negative connotation associated with it for glaringly obvious reasons...
- spartango 13y agoFortunately, there is a good historical and photographic record, and it's actually presented to students of US history in school.
- jlgreco 13y agoYes, "interment camp" is a euphemism for "concentration camp", but to be fair at about the same time "concentration camp" become a euphemism for "death camp". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment#Concentration_camp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment#Concentration_camp
- dragonwriter 13y ago> Yes, "interment camp" is a euphemism for "concentration camp", but to be fair at about the same time "concentration camp" become a euphemism for "death camp". And "concentration camp" is itself a euphemism for "prison camp". So its probably better if we strip out the euphemisms and refer to: 1. "Prison camps", and 2. "Death camps" (or, even more accurately, "Extermination camps") (Recognizing that the second is a subset of the first, not a disjoint category.) And avoid "concentration camps" and "internment camps" entirely.
- bct 13y ago"Concentration camp" is just a Boer War-era euphemism for "prison camp".
- icelancer 13y agoI can't say I agree. My grandparents were interned at Tule Lake and they (along with my other Japanese-American family) prefer "internment" as the nomenclature. "Concentration camp" implies something else entirely, to them.
- GFischer 13y agoIt's been linked to several times in Hacker News, here is where I read it first (I'm from Uruguay, South America). Over here, the U.S. are reviled due to their part in the local dictatorships (they trained torturers, among other things).
- waffle_ss 13y agoThe Canadians did as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Canadian_internment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Canadian_internment
- canistr 13y agoIt should be noted that other Asian people of non-Japanese descent were also wrongly forced into the same Japanese concentration camps. This occurred both in the United States and Canada.
- duggieawesome 13y agoYeah, it's a part of American history that schools skip quite often.
- kevinnk 13y agoReally? I just asked 5 people around me. None of them have ever had an American history class that covered WW2 and not cover the internment camps.