Which way do the guns point?
A beautiful weekend, so we visited Bainbridge Island in the middle of the Sound. The ferry ride was spectacular: Seattle's amazing skyline guarded by the ethereal presence of Mt Rainier in the background (the snowiest place in the contiguous states I learned today with an average of 60 feet of snow a year - wow).
Bainbridge Island itself is a delight - boasting the best-ice-cream-shop-in-the-world-ever. It also has a tiny but fascinating museum. One of the premier exhibits is a display on the internment of local Japanese-American in California following Pearl Harbour.
Lots of cameos that sum up the complexity of these things - including the story of the local weekly gazette editor heroically defending the rights of Japanese Americans while allowing an open forum of views. This seems to me an exemplar of all I, and I guess, Americans want America to be - you can just see Jimmy Stewart playing the editor.
They also had the traditional high school yearbook class photos for 1941 and 1942. In 1941 there were 45 students - about a quarter of whom were Japanese. In 1942 there were 30. None were Japanese. There was also one of those "our glorious dead" rolls of honour showing those who served and fell. About a fifth had japanese sounding names.
It set me thinking about comparisons with now, and the post-hoc justifications that locals would have made. "Other countries would have done just the same" - absolutely - the British invented concentration camps and our record is nothing to write home about. "There was a war on and people were scared" - this is absolutely true, and you don't how you would react - self-righteousness with hindsight is an ugly thing. "People didn't know any better then" - I'm not so sure this holds. The interners felt the need to justify what they were doing; this was for the Japanese-Americans' protection, to keep them safe from the mob. It doesn't ring true. "If these machine guns are to protect us in the camp from those out there", asked one internee, "why do they point inwards?".
Bainbridge Island itself is a delight - boasting the best-ice-cream-shop-in-the-world-ever. It also has a tiny but fascinating museum. One of the premier exhibits is a display on the internment of local Japanese-American in California following Pearl Harbour.
Lots of cameos that sum up the complexity of these things - including the story of the local weekly gazette editor heroically defending the rights of Japanese Americans while allowing an open forum of views. This seems to me an exemplar of all I, and I guess, Americans want America to be - you can just see Jimmy Stewart playing the editor.
They also had the traditional high school yearbook class photos for 1941 and 1942. In 1941 there were 45 students - about a quarter of whom were Japanese. In 1942 there were 30. None were Japanese. There was also one of those "our glorious dead" rolls of honour showing those who served and fell. About a fifth had japanese sounding names.
It set me thinking about comparisons with now, and the post-hoc justifications that locals would have made. "Other countries would have done just the same" - absolutely - the British invented concentration camps and our record is nothing to write home about. "There was a war on and people were scared" - this is absolutely true, and you don't how you would react - self-righteousness with hindsight is an ugly thing. "People didn't know any better then" - I'm not so sure this holds. The interners felt the need to justify what they were doing; this was for the Japanese-Americans' protection, to keep them safe from the mob. It doesn't ring true. "If these machine guns are to protect us in the camp from those out there", asked one internee, "why do they point inwards?".
posted by Exiled in mainstream at
7:27 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home