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Images and Imaginings of Internment: Comics and Illustrations of Camp

Terminology

"Internment" has been the most widely used term to define what happened to Japanese Americans during World War II. However, scholars have pointed out that the legal definition of this term does not accurately define what happened to 125,000 people of Japanese descent in the United States, the majority of which were US citizens, who were taken to camps.

Densho, The Japanese American National Museum, and other scholars of Japanese American history have posited alternatives, including incarceration camps and concentration camps in lieu of relocation centers and internment camps. This project continues to occasionally use internment in the title to draw readers into the argument. The text of this website will use the more accurate term, incarceration camp, within the text of the website to remind readers about this contested terrain.

For Further Discussion on This Topic

Terminology
In the 1940s, government officials and military leaders used euphemisms to describe their punitive and unjust actions against people of Japanese ancestry in the United States. The deceptiveness of that language can now be judged according to evidence from many sources, most notably the government’s own congressionally-ordered investigation, documented in Personal Justice Denied (1982-83), the report of the U.S. Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC).

Today, these decades-old euphemisms persist in textbooks, news sources, and other platforms—meaning that most Americans learn about this history through a distorted lens that diminishes the harsh realities of Japanese American WWII incarceration.

Forced Removal vs. Evacuation
In early 1942, Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from the West Coast and forbidden to return. The government called this an “evacuation,” implying the forced move was a precaution for Japanese Americans’ own safety, as in a natural disaster. In reality, this was a targeted exile of a single ethnic minority—carried out by armed soldiers, enforced by lawmakers and elected officials, and motivated, in part, by a desire to reap economic gains from the farmland and property Japanese Americans were forced to leave behind. “Exclusion” and “mass removal” are therefore more apt than euphemisms such as “evacuation” and “relocation,” because Japanese Americans were expelled from the West Coast and subject to arrest if they returned.

Incarceration vs. Internment
The commonly used term “internment” fails to accurately describe what happened to Japanese Americans during WWII. “Internment” refers to the legally permissible, though morally questionable, detention of “enemy aliens” in time of war. There were approximately 8,000 Issei (“first generation”) arrested as enemy aliens and subjected to what could be described as “internment” in a separate set of camps run by the Army or Department of Justice. This term becomes a misleading, othering euphemism when applied to American citizens detained by their own government; yet two-thirds of Japanese Americans incarcerated during WWII were U.S. citizens by birth and right.

Although “internment” is a recognized and widely used term, we encourage the use of “incarceration,” except in the specific case of Japanese Americans detained by the Army or DOJ. “Detention” is used interchangeably—although some argue that the word denotes a shorter period of confinement than the nearly four years the camps were in operation.

Concentration Camps vs. “Relocation Centers.”
There is still some debate over the most appropriate terminology for the camps where Japanese Americans were confined during WWII. At first, Japanese Americans were held in temporary camps the government called “assembly centers”—facilities surrounded by fences and guarded by military police. This term is clearly euphemistic in nature, as the “assembly” was carried out by military and political force. Therefore, we recommend its use only as part of a proper noun (e.g. “Puyallup Assembly Center”) or in quotation marks for specific references to this type of facility.

Japanese Americans were later transferred to longer-term camps which the government called “relocation centers.” (Some officials, including the president, also referred to them as “concentration camps” in internal memos.) Despite the seemingly innocuous name, these were prisons—compounds of barracks surrounded by barbed wire fences and patrolled by armed guards—which Japanese Americans could not leave without permission. “Relocation center” fails to convey the harsh conditions and forced confinement of these facilities. 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.” As such, the preferred term is “concentration camp” (e.g. “Minidoka concentration camp”). We do also use other terms, such as “incarceration camp” or “prison camp,” but urge the avoidance of euphemisms such as “relocation center” and “internment camp.”

Our use of “concentration camp” is intended to accurately describe what Japanese Americans were subjected to during WWII, and is not meant to undermine the experiences of Holocaust survivors or to compare these two histories in any way. Like many Holocaust studies scholars, we believe that “concentration camp” is a euphemism for the Nazi death camps where millions of innocent Jews and other political prisoners were killed. America’s concentration camps were very different from Nazi Germany’s, but they, and dozens more historical and contemporary examples, do have one thing in common: “people in power removed a minority group from the general population and the rest of society let it happen.”

Words Matter
Since the 1970s, Japanese Americans, historians, educators, journalists, and others have increasingly advocated for the use of terminology that more accurately represents this history. Rather than repeat the euphemisms used by the U.S. government and other defenders of WWII incarceration, we encourage individuals to think critically about the impact of words like “internment,” “relocation,” and “evacuation.”

In the words of Redress hero Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga, “words can lie or clarify.” [2] When we use language that distorts the past, we lose our ability to recognize patterns of repeating history. But language that imparts truth and understanding can help us avoid repeating those same mistakes today.

SOURCE: https://densho.org/terminology/
----------------------------
Bibliography
●   Daniels, Roger. Incarceration of the Japanese Americans: A Sixty-Year Perspective https://www.jstor.org/stable/3054440#metadata_info_tab_contents
●   Daniels, Roger. “Words Do Matter: A Note on Inappropriate Terminology and the Incarceration of the Japanese Americans” In Louis Fiset and Gail Nomura, eds. Nikkei in the Pacific Northwest: Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians in the Twentieth Century. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005, pp. 183-207.
●   Daniels, Roger. American Concentration Camps. vol. 1 Garland, New York, 1989
●   Daniels, Roger. Concentration Camps USA : Japanese Americans and World War II. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1971
●   Herzig-Yoshinaga, Aiko. “WORDS CAN LIE OR CLARIFY: Terminology of the World War II Incarceration of Japanese Americans*”
https://www.nps.gov/tule/learn/education/upload/words_can_lie_or_clarify.pdf
●   National JACL, Power of Words II Commitee: “Power of Words Handbook: A Guide to Language about Japanese Americans in World War II; Understanding Euphemisms and Preferred Terminology” (27 April 2013 – Revised August 2020) https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e8e0d3e848b7a506128dddf/t/5ffc861741448928cd131066/1610384921163/POW-Handbook-Rev2020-V4.pdf
●   Civil Liberties Public Education Fund (CLPEF) e. 1988: “CLPEF Resolution Regarding Terminology [of Japanese American Prison Camps] http://www.momomedia.com/CLPEF/backgrnd.html#Link%20to%20CWRIC
●   Yang Murry, Alice. Historical Memories of the Japanese American Internment and the Struggle for Redress. https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=4111
●   Bosworth, Allan R. America's Concentration Camps. 1967 W.W. Norton. https://www.worldcat.org/title/americas-concentration-camps/oclc/935083918
●   Drinnon, Richard. Keeper of the Concentration Camps: Dillon S. Myer and American Racism. https://www.amazon.com/Keeper-Concentration-Camps-Richard-Drinnon/dp/0520066014
●   Okamura, Ray Y. “The American concentration camps: A cover-up through euphemistic terminology” . Journal of Ethnic Studies, (10), 95-109. https://www.nps.gov/tule/learn/education/upload/Ray_Okamura.pdf
●   Weglyn, M. N.(1996). Years of infamy. The untold story of America’s concentration camps (updated edition). Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. https://www.amazon.com/Years-Infamy-Untold-Americas-Concentration/dp/0295974842
●   Embrey, Sue Kunitomi. “Concentration Camps, Not Relocation Centers” 1976. https://manzanarcommittee.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/embrey-terminology-1976.pdf
●   Hirabayashi, James A. ““Concentration Camp” or “Relocation Center” - What’s in a Name?” 24 Apr 2008 http://www.discovernikkei.org/en/journal/2008/4/24/enduring-communities/
●   Uno, Edison. “Concentration camps American-style : racism, greed and hysteria led to concentration camps.” (1974) New American Citizens' League of San Francisco, San Francisco, Calif. https://www.worldcat.org/title/1035719423
●   Grisham, L., Schumacher-Matos, E. “Euphemisms, Concentration Camps And The Japanese Internment.” NPR. February 10, 20123:18 PM ET. https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2012/02/10/146691773/euphemisms-concentration-camps-and-the-japanese-internment#Updated%2002/14%201:35%20p.m.
●   Ko, Nalea J. “Moving Beyond Euphemisms: Defining the WWII JA Experience” Pacific Citizen. July (Vol. 153-01.) p.4 https://pacificcitizen.org/wp-content/uploads/archives-menu/Vol.153_%2301_Jul_01_2011.pdf
●   Ko, Nalea J. “Emergency Resolution to Accurately Implement 2010 Power of Words Resolution Passes” Pacific Citizen. July-August (Vol. 153-02.) p.3 https://pacificcitizen.org/wp-content/uploads/archives-menu/Vol.153_%2302_Jul_15_2011.pdf
●   Nakagawa, Mako. “Power of Words (POW) Resolution – Three Months Later…” Discover Nikkei. 19 Oct 2010. http://www.discovernikkei.org/en/journal/2010/10/19/power-of-words-resolution/

Arguments against using ‘concentration camps’

●   Baker, Lillian. The Concentration Camp Conspiracy: a Second Pearl Harbor. Afha Publications; First edition. (January 1, 1981) https://www.amazon.com/Concentration-Camp-Conspiracy-Second-Harbor/dp/B0000EE3VF
○   Baker is a firm denier that the Japanese American “Concentration” Camps were a negative force, seeing them as a good thing and not any sort of imprisonment for Issei, Nisei, or any other Nikkei
●   New York Times : Somini Sengupta, “What Is a Concentration Camp? Ellis Island Exhibit Prompts a Debate,” 8 March 1998. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/08/nyregion/what-is-a-concentration-camp-ellis-island-exhibit-prompts-a-debate.html
●   NYT Opinion Piece: “Debate on Camps Goes Back to War; Japanese Atrocities.” 10 March 1998 https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/10/opinion/l-debate-on-camps-goes-back-to-war-japanese-atrocities-948314.html
●   NYT Opinion Piece: “Words for Suffering.” 10 March 1998 https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/10/opinion/words-for-suffering.html
●   NYT: Somini Sengupta. “Accord on Term 'Concentration Camp,’” 10 March 1998 https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/10/nyregion/accord-on-term-concentration-camp.html
●   NYT Opinion Piece: “Exhibition on Camps.” 13 March 1998 https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/13/opinion/l-exhibition-on-camps-998206.html
●   NYT: Clyde Haberman. “NYC; Defending Jews' Lexicon Of Anguish” 13 March 1998 https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/13/nyregion/nyc-defending-jews-lexicon-of-anguish.html

This page has replies:

Terminology - “Forcibly Removed” > “Incarcerated into Concentration Camps” Only what they could carry, after losing years of labor…the indignities
Contents of this reply:
1. Terminology "Internment" has been the most widely used term to define what happened to Japanese Americans during World War II. However, scholars have pointed out that the legal definition of this term does not accurately define what happened to 125,000 people of Japanese descent in the United States, the majority of which were US citizens, who were taken to camps.
  
  Densho, The Japanese American National Museum, and other scholars of Japanese American history have posited alternatives, including incarceration camps and concentration camps in lieu of relocation centers and internment camps. This project continues to occasionally use internment in the title to draw readers into the argument. The text of this website will use the more accurate term, incarceration camp, within the text of the website to remind readers about this contested terrain.
  For Further Discussion on This Topic
  Terminology
  In the 1940s, government officials and military leaders used euphemisms to describe their punitive and unjust actions against people of Japanese ancestry in the United States. The deceptiveness of that language can now be judged according to evidence from many sources, most notably the government’s own congressionally-ordered investigation, documented in Personal Justice Denied (1982-83), the report of the U.S. Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC).
  
  Today, these decades-old euphemisms persist in textbooks, news sources, and other platforms—meaning that most Americans learn about this history through a distorted lens that diminishes the harsh realities of Japanese American WWII incarceration.
  
  Forced Removal vs. Evacuation
  In early 1942, Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from the West Coast and forbidden to return. The government called this an “evacuation,” implying the forced move was a precaution for Japanese Americans’ own safety, as in a natural disaster. In reality, this was a targeted exile of a single ethnic minority—carried out by armed soldiers, enforced by lawmakers and elected officials, and motivated, in part, by a desire to reap economic gains from the farmland and property Japanese Americans were forced to leave behind. “Exclusion” and “mass removal” are therefore more apt than euphemisms such as “evacuation” and “relocation,” because Japanese Americans were expelled from the West Coast and subject to arrest if they returned.
  
  Incarceration vs. Internment
  The commonly used term “internment” fails to accurately describe what happened to Japanese Americans during WWII. “Internment” refers to the legally permissible, though morally questionable, detention of “enemy aliens” in time of war. There were approximately 8,000 Issei (“first generation”) arrested as enemy aliens and subjected to what could be described as “internment” in a separate set of camps run by the Army or Department of Justice. This term becomes a misleading, othering euphemism when applied to American citizens detained by their own government; yet two-thirds of Japanese Americans incarcerated during WWII were U.S. citizens by birth and right.
  
  Although “internment” is a recognized and widely used term, we encourage the use of “incarceration,” except in the specific case of Japanese Americans detained by the Army or DOJ. “Detention” is used interchangeably—although some argue that the word denotes a shorter period of confinement than the nearly four years the camps were in operation.
  
  Concentration Camps vs. “Relocation Centers.”
  There is still some debate over the most appropriate terminology for the camps where Japanese Americans were confined during WWII. At first, Japanese Americans were held in temporary camps the government called “assembly centers”—facilities surrounded by fences and guarded by military police. This term is clearly euphemistic in nature, as the “assembly” was carried out by military and political force. Therefore, we recommend its use only as part of a proper noun (e.g. “Puyallup Assembly Center”) or in quotation marks for specific references to this type of facility.
  
  Japanese Americans were later transferred to longer-term camps which the government called “relocation centers.” (Some officials, including the president, also referred to them as “concentration camps” in internal memos.) Despite the seemingly innocuous name, these were prisons—compounds of barracks surrounded by barbed wire fences and patrolled by armed guards—which Japanese Americans could not leave without permission. “Relocation center” fails to convey the harsh conditions and forced confinement of these facilities. 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.” As such, the preferred term is “concentration camp” (e.g. “Minidoka concentration camp”). We do also use other terms, such as “incarceration camp” or “prison camp,” but urge the avoidance of euphemisms such as “relocation center” and “internment camp.”
  
  Our use of “concentration camp” is intended to accurately describe what Japanese Americans were subjected to during WWII, and is not meant to undermine the experiences of Holocaust survivors or to compare these two histories in any way. Like many Holocaust studies scholars, we believe that “concentration camp” is a euphemism for the Nazi death camps where millions of innocent Jews and other political prisoners were killed. America’s concentration camps were very different from Nazi Germany’s, but they, and dozens more historical and contemporary examples, do have one thing in common: “people in power removed a minority group from the general population and the rest of society let it happen.”
  
  Words Matter
  Since the 1970s, Japanese Americans, historians, educators, journalists, and others have increasingly advocated for the use of terminology that more accurately represents this history. Rather than repeat the euphemisms used by the U.S. government and other defenders of WWII incarceration, we encourage individuals to think critically about the impact of words like “internment,” “relocation,” and “evacuation.”
  
  In the words of Redress hero Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga, “words can lie or clarify.” [2] When we use language that distorts the past, we lose our ability to recognize patterns of repeating history. But language that imparts truth and understanding can help us avoid repeating those same mistakes today.
  
  SOURCE: https://densho.org/terminology/
  ----------------------------
  Bibliography
  ●   Daniels, Roger. Incarceration of the Japanese Americans: A Sixty-Year Perspective https://www.jstor.org/stable/3054440#metadata_info_tab_contents
  ●   Daniels, Roger. “Words Do Matter: A Note on Inappropriate Terminology and the Incarceration of the Japanese Americans” In Louis Fiset and Gail Nomura, eds. Nikkei in the Pacific Northwest: Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians in the Twentieth Century. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005, pp. 183-207.
  ●   Daniels, Roger. American Concentration Camps. vol. 1 Garland, New York, 1989
  ●   Daniels, Roger. Concentration Camps USA : Japanese Americans and World War II. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1971
  ●   Herzig-Yoshinaga, Aiko. “WORDS CAN LIE OR CLARIFY: Terminology of the World War II Incarceration of Japanese Americans*”
  https://www.nps.gov/tule/learn/education/upload/words_can_lie_or_clarify.pdf
  ●   National JACL, Power of Words II Commitee: “Power of Words Handbook: A Guide to Language about Japanese Americans in World War II; Understanding Euphemisms and Preferred Terminology” (27 April 2013 – Revised August 2020) https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e8e0d3e848b7a506128dddf/t/5ffc861741448928cd131066/1610384921163/POW-Handbook-Rev2020-V4.pdf
  ●   Civil Liberties Public Education Fund (CLPEF) e. 1988: “CLPEF Resolution Regarding Terminology [of Japanese American Prison Camps] http://www.momomedia.com/CLPEF/backgrnd.html#Link%20to%20CWRIC
  ●   Yang Murry, Alice. Historical Memories of the Japanese American Internment and the Struggle for Redress. https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=4111
  ●   Bosworth, Allan R. America's Concentration Camps. 1967 W.W. Norton. https://www.worldcat.org/title/americas-concentration-camps/oclc/935083918
  ●   Drinnon, Richard. Keeper of the Concentration Camps: Dillon S. Myer and American Racism. https://www.amazon.com/Keeper-Concentration-Camps-Richard-Drinnon/dp/0520066014
  ●   Okamura, Ray Y. “The American concentration camps: A cover-up through euphemistic terminology” . Journal of Ethnic Studies, (10), 95-109. https://www.nps.gov/tule/learn/education/upload/Ray_Okamura.pdf
  ●   Weglyn, M. N.(1996). Years of infamy. The untold story of America’s concentration camps (updated edition). Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. https://www.amazon.com/Years-Infamy-Untold-Americas-Concentration/dp/0295974842
  ●   Embrey, Sue Kunitomi. “Concentration Camps, Not Relocation Centers” 1976. https://manzanarcommittee.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/embrey-terminology-1976.pdf
  ●   Hirabayashi, James A. ““Concentration Camp” or “Relocation Center” - What’s in a Name?” 24 Apr 2008 http://www.discovernikkei.org/en/journal/2008/4/24/enduring-communities/
  ●   Uno, Edison. “Concentration camps American-style : racism, greed and hysteria led to concentration camps.” (1974) New American Citizens' League of San Francisco, San Francisco, Calif. https://www.worldcat.org/title/1035719423
  ●   Grisham, L., Schumacher-Matos, E. “Euphemisms, Concentration Camps And The Japanese Internment.” NPR. February 10, 20123:18 PM ET. https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2012/02/10/146691773/euphemisms-concentration-camps-and-the-japanese-internment#Updated%2002/14%201:35%20p.m.
  ●   Ko, Nalea J. “Moving Beyond Euphemisms: Defining the WWII JA Experience” Pacific Citizen. July (Vol. 153-01.) p.4 https://pacificcitizen.org/wp-content/uploads/archives-menu/Vol.153_%2301_Jul_01_2011.pdf
  ●   Ko, Nalea J. “Emergency Resolution to Accurately Implement 2010 Power of Words Resolution Passes” Pacific Citizen. July-August (Vol. 153-02.) p.3 https://pacificcitizen.org/wp-content/uploads/archives-menu/Vol.153_%2302_Jul_15_2011.pdf
  ●   Nakagawa, Mako. “Power of Words (POW) Resolution – Three Months Later…” Discover Nikkei. 19 Oct 2010. http://www.discovernikkei.org/en/journal/2010/10/19/power-of-words-resolution/
  
  Arguments against using ‘concentration camps’
  
  ●   Baker, Lillian. The Concentration Camp Conspiracy: a Second Pearl Harbor. Afha Publications; First edition. (January 1, 1981) https://www.amazon.com/Concentration-Camp-Conspiracy-Second-Harbor/dp/B0000EE3VF
  ○   Baker is a firm denier that the Japanese American “Concentration” Camps were a negative force, seeing them as a good thing and not any sort of imprisonment for Issei, Nisei, or any other Nikkei
  ●   New York Times : Somini Sengupta, “What Is a Concentration Camp? Ellis Island Exhibit Prompts a Debate,” 8 March 1998. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/08/nyregion/what-is-a-concentration-camp-ellis-island-exhibit-prompts-a-debate.html
  ●   NYT Opinion Piece: “Debate on Camps Goes Back to War; Japanese Atrocities.” 10 March 1998 https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/10/opinion/l-debate-on-camps-goes-back-to-war-japanese-atrocities-948314.html
  ●   NYT Opinion Piece: “Words for Suffering.” 10 March 1998 https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/10/opinion/words-for-suffering.html
  ●   NYT: Somini Sengupta. “Accord on Term 'Concentration Camp,’” 10 March 1998 https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/10/nyregion/accord-on-term-concentration-camp.html
  ●   NYT Opinion Piece: “Exhibition on Camps.” 13 March 1998 https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/13/opinion/l-exhibition-on-camps-998206.html
  ●   NYT: Clyde Haberman. “NYC; Defending Jews' Lexicon Of Anguish” 13 March 1998 https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/13/nyregion/nyc-defending-jews-lexicon-of-anguish.html

For Further Discussion on This Topic

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