[su_label type=”info”]Commentary[/su_label]

Block 60 of the barracks where the author’s family lived near the Gila River, 1943. Courtesy: Koji Ozawa

On Nov. 16, Carl Higbie, the former spokesman of a pro-Trump super PAC, remarked that the incarceration of Japanese Americans during the Japanese Internment of WWII provided legal precedent for the development of a Muslim registry for the purposes of national security. While these particular comments were swiftly rebuked, officials of the incoming administration have voiced support for such measures, as well as the  deportation of millions of undocumented migrants.

Survey photo of a child’s footprint in cement found next to a pond constructed by an incarceree in the Gila River Camp. Photo: Koji Ozawa

As an archaeologist researching the Japanese American incarceration camps, I am dismayed to see the utilization of this history as a justification for any policy. As someone whose grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins were unjustly incarcerated, I am enraged. The story of the camps stands as a reminder of the vulnerability of minority groups within the United States and the power of rhetoric when marshalled for movements of bigotry.

During the last decades of the 19th century and first of the 20th, great numbers of Japanese migrants came to the United States. They sought relief from poverty and marginalization in Japan, which was going through rapid economic reforms. They pursued many occupations, fulfilling a gap in labor left by Chinese workers. Chinese laborers were excluded from coming to the United States by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first immigration law to specifically prohibit a racial class of people from entering the country.

Over the years, the Japanese who settled in here, faced a series of systemic discriminatory laws. By 1940, Congress passed the Smith Act, requiring all aliens over the age of 14 to register with the federal government. Two years later, after the events of Pearl Harbor, all peoples of Japanese ancestry living along the West Coast were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to incarceration camps. Many lost most of their possessions as individuals; they were only allowed to bring two suitcases of belongings.

The author’s grandmother Shigeko Ozawa in 1944 with her children Patty Ozawa and Kenneth Ozawa, the author’s aunt and uncle. Courtesy: Koji Ozawa

My grandmother told me she remembered the train ride out into the desert of Arizona, trying to keep my aunt, her 9-year-old daughter, occupied as they rode with blacked out windows. They arrived at Gila River, an incarceration camp south of Phoenix, on the Gila River Indian Community reservation in August, one of the hottest months of the year. She recalled the poorly constructed barracks, the unbearably hot days and cold nights. Dust covered everything as frequent sandstorms swept through the camp, invading every gap in the walls and floorboards. Close to 120,000 people underwent similar experiences, confined in 10 camps across the country. Approximately two thirds were American citizens, with the remaining third legally barred from citizenship. Few groups spoke up for the rights of Japanese Americans at the time, and many actively supported the incarceration out of fear or prejudice.

I went to Gila River, nearly 75 years later, to document the archaeological remains of the prison that held my family. Broken glass, barracks footings and rusted cans laid strewn across the desert floor, a silent witness to the 13,000 people incarcerated there. My research focuses on the gardens constructed by those who were incarcerated, testaments to perseverance of a people and their struggle to find beauty in injustice.

As I work to record the remains of Gila River and tell the stories of my community, the past few months loom heavy in my mind. No laws have been passed, nor registries made, and yet the possibility hangs upon the horizon. As Muslim communities and undocumented migrants face the fear of persecution and Native Americans confront violent repression, it is incumbent upon us to stand in solidarity. Though many have said these things could not happen in America, they have happened, and not so long ago. The violence perpetrated against Japanese Americans 75 years ago is felt today in the bones of a community still wrestling with the trauma of the past. In these times it is important to speak up, remembering the words of the German Pastor Martin Niemoeller, who lived through the horrors of Nazi Germany:

They came first for the socialists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a socialist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Catholic.

Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.