TBT: My Family at Manzanar
All dressed up in their Sunday best clothes, my paternal grandfather, father and aunt were one of the first to arrive at Manzanar (one of 10 relocation camps) after the US government imprisoned 120,000 Japanese Americans after the start of WWII in 1942.
My father and aunt were patiently waiting on the 2 suitcases that they were allowed to bring with them for this 3-year incarceration. Guilty of “looking like the enemy,” they lost all of their personal possessions and businesses. In hindsight, not one Japanese American was convicted of spying or doing any non-patriotic acts prior to, during, and after the war. As a matter of fact, many young Japanese American men enlisted in the 442nd Regiment – the most decorated battalion in WWII – to prove their loyalty to their home country of America, while their parents and family members were incarcerated behind barbed wire through the duration of the war.
This was the greatest violation of civil liberties in American history.