Talk:Manzanar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Manzanar is part of WikiProject Japan, a project to improve all Japan-related articles. If you would like to help improve this and other Japan-related articles, please join the project. All interested editors are welcome.
Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the quality scale.
Low This article has been rated as low-importance for this Project's importance scale.
Japan To-do:

This article is within the scope of the National Register of Historic Places WikiProject, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of listings on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the assessment scale.
This article is part of WikiProject California, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to California on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page to join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
This article lacks sufficient references and/or adequate inline citations.
Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the quality scale.
Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.

Contents

[edit] Article title

Consistent with the reorganization of the Japanese American Internment article, I propose that we move this article under a new title Manzanar Internment Camp. The rationale for dropping the word 'Japanese' from the title is covered in the discussion concerning the Japanese American Internment reorg. It is reasonable to assume that "Manzanar Internment Camp" is unique; besides, it also reflects common usage. Comments from others? ishu 06:43 27 Jul 2003 (UTC) Bold textItalic textI believe that the word Japanese internment camps is to the point and basically that is who was there, "the Japanese". It really isnt any of the united states fault at all and im sure i speak for most americans by saying that the relocation camps were the best and safest idea just because of what was going on at the time because we all know know that if we were in school or working with a "JAPANESE AMERICAN" we really wouldnt feel very comfortable and we couldnt trust them.The "JAPS" Bombmed us we didnt bomb them so there fore thats why we dont feel bad and all for the titles that are going on these informational papers and everything should say " JAPANESE OR JAPANESE AMERICAN INTERNMENT CAMPS" so be it. and besides its all done and done so dont try to change it.

Not the United States' fault? The historical record proves that it was. As for how one felt about their personal safety or security in the presence of someone of Japanese ancestry during that time, again, the historical record proves that the US Government knew that the Japanese in the US were highly loyal at the time, but they chose not only to ignore that, but perpetuate false charges of espionage and sabotage. Indeed, the US Government bears most of the responsibility for how the American people felt about their neighbors who were of Japanese ancestry. And as for bombing, I guess those two atomic bombs dropped on Japan, not to mention Doolittle's raids, weren't dropped from US warplanes.
Next time, try learning the facts before spouting off. Gmatsuda 21:07, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Why not just Manzanar? It is already a redirect here. --mav
I have no objection to that. Short, simple, to the point, and consistent with common usage. Let's do it.--ishu 07:12 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Done. --mav

[edit] NPOV?

I have a NPOV issue with the term "loyal" and "disloyal" to describe the detainees sorted out in 1943. It implies that those who refused to take the loyalty oath, which was required to avoid being evacuated to the Tule Lake Segregation Center, by definition were "disloyal" to America, when they were simply resentful of the treatment they had received by the federal government and the WRA. The loyalty oath, by the way, would have also made them eligible for the draft.

It may be more accurate to say that in 1943, a policy decision was made to transfer anti-administration internees away from Manzanar and other relocation centers to a segregation center at Tule Lake. --khaosworks 09:15, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Relocation/Internment/Concentration

Not to sugar coat anything, but I think that it is POV to outright call Manzanar a concentration camp, because of the general association of that term with genocide. -Willmcw 21:33, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Let's not confuse concentration camp with extermination camp. --mav
Let's not confuse any terms. ;) "Relocation camp" is too much of a euphemism, while "internment camp" is the commonly accepted term for Manzanar, etc. Those camps certainly resembled the concentration camps of the Boer War but not those of Nazi Germany. Just as the swastika had a different connotation before being employed by the Nazis, so too does the term "concentration camp". -05:09, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Japanese Americans were scattered along the Pacific Coast before the war began. When the war broke out, they were forced to gather in designated areas. This is something more than relocation. --a user from Japan3 March 2005

"Relocating" is a synonym for moving. I guess I'm not sure what your point is. -Willmcw 20:53, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)
The temptation to magnify the injustice by adopting the semantically loaded term "concentration camp" has induced the predictable backlash effect that occurs when victims are perceived to be exaggerating their trauma. Non-victim groups don't want the additional implied guilt and social debt. People who had family in Nazi concentration camps don't want their family sufferring diluted by additional "lesser concentration camp" members. Confining people perceived as a threat during wartime is internment.
"Relocation" is the official name, thus the most correct. "Internment" is what was done in the relocation centers, and "internment camp" is a less-formal synonym which can us used interchangeably within the body of the article. While "concentration camp" is technically accurate, that term has pretty much become the property of the Holocaust survivors. -- Critic-at-Arms 15 APR 06
As a former member of the Manzanar National Historic Site Advisory Commission and a current member of the Manzanar Committee, we have long maintained that Manzanar, by definition, was a concentration camp (look up the definition in Webster's dictionary for confirmation). Even President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who signed Executive Order 9066, has been quoted as saying that the camps were concentration camps. Officially, the US Government called them "relocation centers." But that was their euphemistic term for what they really were. In fact, the US Government did the same thing that the Nazis did with their camps, only "concentration camp" was their euphemism. In fact, they ran death camps. And if you ask Holocaust survivors, including many who are active in or support organzations such as the Anti-Defamation League and/or the American Jewish Committee, they indeed call them "death camps." Further, no one has ever claimed that the camps where Japanese Americans were imprisoned were anywhere near as bad as those where Jews were exterminated in Europe.
In addition, using "internment camp" to describe Manzanar and the nine other camps is factually inaccurate, at least according to their official titles (since that is what many use to justify the use of "relocation center"). Japanese American community leaders who were arrested on December 8, 1941 or shortly thereafter were usually sent to Justice Department Internment Camps...not the same as camps such as Manzanar. There were also Citizen Isolation Camps for those who were thought to be "troublemakers."
*Weglyn, Michi. (1976, 1996). Years Of Infamy: The Untold Story Of America's Concentration Camps. University of Washington Press. ISBN 0295974842. -- Gmatsuda 19:30, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Manzanar Notables

I was wondering where or how it might be appropiate to place a wiki link for Koji Ariyoshi on the Manzanar page. He was interned there shortly after the war began, then left to serve in the U.S. Army for the duration of the conflict. Would it be suitable to place him in the See Also category, or should a new heading for individuals who spent time in Manzanar be created? If no feed back in a week or two, I'll go ahead and simply place him in See Also. RebelAt 15:30, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The most notable former Manzanar internee who served in the US Armed Forces was PFC Sadao Munemori, who dove on a grenade to save his platoon and was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. He was a member of the 100th Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team.
No offense to Ariyoshi, but If anything, a link to Munemori's story should go up on the Manzanar page before anyone else, IMHO.
*Medal of Honor Citation: Sadao Munemori. Retrieved on July 4, 2006.
*World War II Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Pfc. Sadao S. Munemori, US Army 100th Infantry Battalion. Retrieved on July 4, 2006.
Gmatsuda 18:02, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
No offense taken, Munemori certainly deserves the precedence. As is, I wasn't even aware of him at the time of my posting. I know only of Ariyoshi due to work unrelated to Manzanar. I'll establish a list of names, and perhaps depending on how large it is, it can be decided if they should be included in the article or another article or category established for them.RebelAt 19:23, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Another notable that must go up here (whenver a bio page for her is created) is Sue Kunitomi Embrey, the former chair of the Manzanar Committee who passed away at age 83 back in May, 2006. She was the primary force behind the creation of the Manzanar National Historic Site and one of the founders of the annual Manzanar Pilgrimage back in 1969. Without her efforts, Manzanar would not be preserved for future generations to learn from. Hopefully, a Wiki bio page will be created for her. Gmatsuda 10:47, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notables List

[edit] Map v. Pic

That map doesn't add anything to the article, an ambiguous red dot in California. I like the picture better personally. The National Register Wikiproject always prefers pictures. A mcmurray 20:25, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

BTW, a set of photos by Dorothea Lange of the internment process has just been released after being locked up for sixty year. They were made on government contract, so they are PD. -Will Beback 21:30, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../m/a/n/Talk%7EManzanar_e407.html"