Rachel is a writer from Arkansas, most at home surrounded by forests and animals much like a Disney Princess. She spends most of her time writing stories and playing around in imaginary worlds. You can follow her writing at rachelbrittain.com. Twitter and Instagram: @rachelsbrittain
Concentration camps were not an invention of the twentieth century; they existed before, and, unfortunately, continue to exist today. For many, following World War II, the term “concentration camp” brings to mind the labor and death camps run by the Nazis. That’s understandable, and the continued remembrance of what Jewish, Polish, Roma, LGBTQ, and disabled people (among many others) went through during the Holocaust is incredibly important. But to narrow the definition of concentration camps to only those run by Nazis diminishes the realities of many other people who have found themselves relocated and detained in camps throughout history.
America has its own history of detaining civilians. During WWII, Japanese and German Americans were rounded up and held in isolated camps surrounded by barbed wire and military personnel. Japanese American internment is more widely known than that of German Americans, but it’s notable that while people of German ancestry made up much more of America’s population at the time, only around 11,000 German Americans were sent to camps compared to 120,000 Japanese
Americans.
These camps are often referred to today as “internment camps.” But what, exactly, is the difference between a so-called internment camp and a concentration camp? Densho, a website dedicated to preserving the history of Japanese Americans incarcerated during WWII, spells it out plainly:
“As prison camps outside the normal criminal justice system, designed to confine civilians for military and political purposes on the basis of race and ethnicity, these sites also fit the definition of “concentration camps.”
Out of respect to the harsh realities Japanese Americans—and other detainees of these prison camps—faced at the time, I’ll be using that terminology in lieu of the more euphemistic “internment” camp throughout this piece.
Past Tense
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Notably, and apropos of nothing, the Smithsonian Magazine defines anywhere “detaining groups of civilians without trial” as a concentration camp. Take a moment to let that sink in, in light of what’s happening in the United States of America—and many other places—today. When the right to due process is withheld (something mandated in the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, by the way, and not just for citizens), no one is safe from incarceration. That was true in 1940s America, and it’s true today.
Though I learned very little about them in school, my home state of Arkansas housed two of these camps in the southeast part of the state during World War II: Rohwer and Jerome. They wanted these places to be isolated in the middle of nowhere, after all.
These seven books about the experience of Japanese American civilians in concentration camps in WWII provide an important, intimate look into the realities of what it’s like to be torn from your home and life and forced to exist as a prisoner for no reason other than your ethnicity. Read them. Remember them. Learn from them.
Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara
In 1944, Aki Ito and her family are being resettled after years in detention at Manzanar during the war. Instead of returning to their home in California, however, they’re told to move to Chicago to a new Japanese American neighborhood, following Aki’s older sister, who moved there months ago. Just before they’re reunited, Rose is killed by a subway car. The police rule it a suicide, but Aki knows something else is going on. The sister she knows never would’ve ended her life on purpose. With no one else to turn to, Aki decides to take up the investigation herself.
Clark and Division is based on Naomi Hirahara’s decades of work and research into Japanese American history.
The War Outside by Monica Hesse
The war in Europe and the Pacific seems worlds away from Iowa and Colorado, where Margot and Haruko live. But when they’re forcefully uprooted from their lives to relocate to a concentration camp in Texas, the war is suddenly very close to home. Despite their many differences, the two girls find solace in their growing friendship. But with their families reckoning with what it means to be labeled the enemy and living in a camp supposedly full of spies, are they really able to trust anyone, least of all each other?
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
In this short book, each of the five chapters tells the story of one family’s internment in a camp for Japanese Americans during WWII from a different point of view. From the evacuation order and train ride to the father’s eventual release four years later, Otsuka paints an intimate portrait of displacement and its cascading effects, all within one family. It’s a beautiful book told with an impeccable economy of language.
Within These Lines by Stephanie Morrill
When Italian American Evalina Cassano falls in love with the son of Japanese immigrants, they vow to find some way to be together, even though interracial marriages are illegal in California. But growing anti-Japanese sentiment after the bombing of Pearl Harbor results in Taichi and his family being forced to give up their farm and move to Manzanar. His only source of comfort and connection to the outside world are the letters he receives from Evalina. Sending letters and speaking up against the injustices Taichi and other Japanese Americans are facing are the only actions Evalina can take to help the boy she loves. But with tensions increasing both within Manzanar and without, they’ll have to hold on to their love and their values if they hope to ever be united again one day.
No-No Boy by John Okada
The first book published about the Japanese American experience during WWII, and “the very first Japanese-American novel” according to Ruth Ozeki, author of A Tale for the Time Being, was initially ignored by the American public. The U.S. was eager to put the war, and their treatment of Japanese Americans, behind them. But John Okada tells an incredibly important story, that of a “no-no boy,” so called for answering “no” twice on a questionnaire asking them to serve and swear loyalty to a country that had interred them and their families. For Ichiro Yamada, this means serving a two-year prison sentence and facing the scorn of his country, his family, and his own community.
After the Bloom by Leslie Shimotakahara
When Lily Takemitsu goes missing from her Toronto home in the 1980s, her daughter, Rita, is left looking for answers. Her mother has a history of confusion and wandering off isn’t abnormal for her, but never for this long. Convinced the police aren’t taking their investigation seriously enough, Rita begins looking for answers herself. What she discovers is a trove of secrets surrounding her family’s time in a California concentration camp during WWII, their subsequent immigration to Canada, and the father she’s never met.
Block Seventeen by Kimiko Guthrie
When Akiko “Jane” Thompson’s mother goes missing, her only existence found in online remnants, Jane is forced to confront her family’s fraught past. Her mother was sent to a Japanese American concentration camp during WWII—a camp she soon learns her husband’s family was also held at. Their approaches to this familial trauma couldn’t be more different. Jane and her mother prefer to ignore their Asian heritage; Shiro and his family are determined to weed out racism and indignities, both past and present. But what does all this have to do with the disturbances they’re facing now? Is it possible the past is haunting their present?
English (US) · 