Lock Up the Innocents
Concentration camps. Prison guards. Structured time. With those words it is easy to think of a Nazi concentration camp, or a Soviet gulag. But they can also describe the imprisonment of people who were simply different anywhere in the world. The United States is guilty of such an inhumanity, not once, but twice, and to people we don't tend to think of as "enemy aliens" in our wildest dreams. People like Joe DiMaggio's father. Yes, the famous ball player.
The relocation during World War II of the Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast has long been known and considered the lowest point of modern America. But, though they were the largest group so mistreated (around 120,000 displaced and imprisoned), others were also rounded up or had restrictions placed on them because of their ancestry. German-Americans and Italian-Americans were considered "enemy aliens" as well. Around 11,000 Germans and 2,000 Italians were also interned in different camps. Others had curfews and restrictions imposed on them, including DiMaggio's father, who was forbidden from visiting the family restaurant at Fisherman's Wharf and had his fishing boat taken away from him. He also had to apply for permission to travel further than five miles from his house.
Other Italians on the West Coast had their houses searched for flashlights, short-wave radios, cameras, and guns, fearful that they might send sensitive information to Italian spies. On the East Coast, they were imprisoned with less frequency (probably because they would have had to constrain half of New York or Boston), yet some were still detained and locked up, or issued a special photo ID that labelled them as "enemy aliens." Germans here were also very closely watched and some were sent to camps, as well.
Boston had one such detention center. It was the East Boston Immigration Station, on Marginal Street. It was built in 1920 to house those immigrants that arrived by ship and had to be quarantined or detained for a time, or deported. After having been abandoned for a number of years, it was torn down around five or seven years ago. During World War II, it was used to house those Italian-, German-, or Japanese-Americans that were detained in Boston. Among them was a Japanese who had a rosary with a "secret" compartment (in reality it was meant for a relic), and another one who went for a shoe shine across from a General Electrics plant, and whose shoes shone too much when he came out (he was considered to be signalling the enemy). A German-American Harvard professor of aeronautics was also held there.
Those who were detained were not informed of the reasons why. A 17 year-old German boy, Max Ebel, who had escaped Nazi Germany to live with his father in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was detained in 1942. He was sent to the East Boston center. At his internment hearing he had no counsel and no right to ask questions; he was only allowed two character witnesses. The entire process took only fifteen minutes. Whereas the board recommended parole, the Attorney General rejected it and had him interned. He was first sent to Ellis Island (yes, that famous symbol was used for internment, too), then to Fort Meade, Maryland, on to Camp Forrest in Tennessee, and finally to Fort Lincoln, in Bismark, North Dakota. There, he volunteered to work on the railroad, for which he received a very small salary. His father was not told when Max was sent off to internment. Max was finally allowed back to Boston on parole in 1944. Once in Boston, he was not allowed to go near any railroad lines, nor even the subway, and had to report to a parole officer once a week.
All this happened because of prejudice and fear. America was supposed to be over it. Apologies (and indeminizations) were sent out to the Japanese victims of American concentration camps. Germans and Italians were apologized to later. It was supposed to be a very low moment in our history that should not have happened again. Yet it is happening. Some might argue that the people coming across the border now are illegally on U.S. soil and should have properly applied for entry. But the proper application for asylum is to cross the border and ask for asylum inside the U.S. What the United States has no right to do is deny due process to these people and treat them like animals.
I suppose the mindset of the 1940's never really went away, just descended into twilight until it could show itself again. But it should not have been allowed to surface. If, in retrospect, it was monstrous to do things like these to immigrants and citizens alike simply because of their origin, it is equally monstrous to lock people up indefinitely, or separate and keep apart parents and children, when they are trying to escape death and fear. The land of the free cannot become once more the land of the free-depending-on-where-you're-from. The golden door is become fool's gold.
The relocation during World War II of the Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast has long been known and considered the lowest point of modern America. But, though they were the largest group so mistreated (around 120,000 displaced and imprisoned), others were also rounded up or had restrictions placed on them because of their ancestry. German-Americans and Italian-Americans were considered "enemy aliens" as well. Around 11,000 Germans and 2,000 Italians were also interned in different camps. Others had curfews and restrictions imposed on them, including DiMaggio's father, who was forbidden from visiting the family restaurant at Fisherman's Wharf and had his fishing boat taken away from him. He also had to apply for permission to travel further than five miles from his house.
Other Italians on the West Coast had their houses searched for flashlights, short-wave radios, cameras, and guns, fearful that they might send sensitive information to Italian spies. On the East Coast, they were imprisoned with less frequency (probably because they would have had to constrain half of New York or Boston), yet some were still detained and locked up, or issued a special photo ID that labelled them as "enemy aliens." Germans here were also very closely watched and some were sent to camps, as well.
Boston had one such detention center. It was the East Boston Immigration Station, on Marginal Street. It was built in 1920 to house those immigrants that arrived by ship and had to be quarantined or detained for a time, or deported. After having been abandoned for a number of years, it was torn down around five or seven years ago. During World War II, it was used to house those Italian-, German-, or Japanese-Americans that were detained in Boston. Among them was a Japanese who had a rosary with a "secret" compartment (in reality it was meant for a relic), and another one who went for a shoe shine across from a General Electrics plant, and whose shoes shone too much when he came out (he was considered to be signalling the enemy). A German-American Harvard professor of aeronautics was also held there.
Those who were detained were not informed of the reasons why. A 17 year-old German boy, Max Ebel, who had escaped Nazi Germany to live with his father in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was detained in 1942. He was sent to the East Boston center. At his internment hearing he had no counsel and no right to ask questions; he was only allowed two character witnesses. The entire process took only fifteen minutes. Whereas the board recommended parole, the Attorney General rejected it and had him interned. He was first sent to Ellis Island (yes, that famous symbol was used for internment, too), then to Fort Meade, Maryland, on to Camp Forrest in Tennessee, and finally to Fort Lincoln, in Bismark, North Dakota. There, he volunteered to work on the railroad, for which he received a very small salary. His father was not told when Max was sent off to internment. Max was finally allowed back to Boston on parole in 1944. Once in Boston, he was not allowed to go near any railroad lines, nor even the subway, and had to report to a parole officer once a week.
All this happened because of prejudice and fear. America was supposed to be over it. Apologies (and indeminizations) were sent out to the Japanese victims of American concentration camps. Germans and Italians were apologized to later. It was supposed to be a very low moment in our history that should not have happened again. Yet it is happening. Some might argue that the people coming across the border now are illegally on U.S. soil and should have properly applied for entry. But the proper application for asylum is to cross the border and ask for asylum inside the U.S. What the United States has no right to do is deny due process to these people and treat them like animals.
I suppose the mindset of the 1940's never really went away, just descended into twilight until it could show itself again. But it should not have been allowed to surface. If, in retrospect, it was monstrous to do things like these to immigrants and citizens alike simply because of their origin, it is equally monstrous to lock people up indefinitely, or separate and keep apart parents and children, when they are trying to escape death and fear. The land of the free cannot become once more the land of the free-depending-on-where-you're-from. The golden door is become fool's gold.
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