The Asian American Experience | Golden Skate

The Asian American Experience

NanaPat

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 25, 2014
Country
Canada
There was a Canadian interment camp in New Denver, BC. That should be in easy reach for you once the borders open up.

In the meantime, you'll have to "stay the blazes home".
 

CoyoteChris

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 4, 2004
There was a Canadian interment camp in New Denver, BC. That should be in easy reach for you once the borders open up.

In the meantime, you'll have to "stay the blazes home".

Wow! After all the movies, specials and books, I didnt know you had a camp! Must look it up!
 

ice coverage

avatar credit: @miyan5605
Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 27, 2012
Wow! After all the movies, specials and books, I didnt know you had a camp! Must look it up!

The injustice in Canada went far beyond just "a" camp. :(

Canadians of Japanese descent were forcibly sent to 10 internment camps, 3 road camps, 2 "prisoner of war" camps, and 5 "self-supporting" camps, as shown/discussed here:


Japanese Canadian organizations have offered tours lasting several days with visits to multiple sites of camps. Examples:

 

Ross74

Medalist
Joined
Oct 8, 2015
This is coming up on PBS here in the states. A five hour series on the Asian American experience. Should be good.
I am slowly visiting a number of US concentration camps around the west.
https://video.ksps.org/video/asian-..._lznSDG4nvZoksMu0bBeUQV1mdad5YmPwkEFaFzeK7vF0

Have you been to Amache in southeastern CO or Heart Mountain in WY? Those are the two camps I've been to and both were very moving, but very different experiences. Amache has most of the building foundations visible, I believe the only camp to still have this. So you can walk up and down the "streets" and see where the buildings were. They had one barracks building recreated and the goal is to create an entire block of buildings. I was there 4 years ago, so there may have been significant progress made on this. A high school teacher and students in the nearby tiny town have been responsible for preserving the site, gathering the memories of former residents, and facilitating exchange programs between the local students and Japan. I believe they also run a small visitor's center in town that is open on weekends during the summer. We learned so many interesting facts from just walking through the foundations and reading the signs. I would love to go back. When we were at Heart Mountain a couple of years ago, they had just finished building a new visitor center on the site, and it's fabulous. It's small, but full of fantastic photos and memories.
 

elbkup

Power without conscience is a savage weapon
Medalist
Joined
Mar 3, 2015
Country
United-States
This is a bitter heinous time in America's history. As an Art History student years ago I learned of sculptor Isamu Noguchi's volunteer internment at the Posten Camp; his experiences, efforts to lobby against the injustice and his attempts to use his talents to improve conditions there are well outlined in the article from The New Yorker linked below. He was born of a Japanese father and American mother and struggled throughout his life to come to terms with his heritage. An exhibit at his exquisite museum in Queens NY is dedicated to the time he was interned at the camp. Visiting the museum some years ago I was wandering through one of its many beautiful gardens with its water sculptures and the security guard approached me. His voice dropped an octave as he discretely indicated a secluded corner. He said: "You didn't go far enough". I walked alone to the corner .. a small patch of eart covered in lush green ivy... and there, in the midst was a tiny terracotta urn and my eyes misted. The guard later asked me not to say anything... no one knows Isamu Noguchi's ashes are there... or, more accurately, half are there... there is a duplicate Noguchi Museum in Japan and the other half of his ashes are in Japan..

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ne...ican-artist-who-went-to-the-camps-to-help/amp
 

CoyoteChris

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 4, 2004
The injustice in Canada went far beyond just "a" camp. :(

Canadians of Japanese descent were forcibly sent to 10 internment camps, 3 road camps, 2 "prisoner of war" camps, and 5 "self-supporting" camps, as shown/discussed here:


Japanese Canadian organizations have offered tours lasting several days with visits to multiple sites of camps. Examples:


I am utterly in shock.. They took 90 percent of Japanese Canadians, most who were Canadian citizens, and put them in concentration camps (internment camps are for nationals of other countries) and used the stolen money from them to fund it!
The nightmare went on till 1949
Beginning after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and lasting until 1949, Japanese Canadians were stripped of their homes and businesses and sent to internment camps and farms in the B.C. interior and across Canada.[3] The internment and relocation program was funded in part by the sale of property belonging to this forcefully displaced population, which included fishing boats, motor vehicles, houses, and personal belongings.[2]

In August 1944, Prime Minister Mackenzie King announced that Japanese Canadians were to be moved east out of the British Columbia interior. The official policy stated that Japanese Canadians must move east of the Rocky Mountains or be repatriated to Japan following the end of the war.[4] By 1947, many Japanese Canadians had been granted exemption to this enforced no-entry zone. Yet it was not until April 1, 1949, that Japanese Canadians were granted freedom of movement and could re-enter the "protected zone" along B.C.'s coast.[5][

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Canadians

I am now more proud than ever that our Supreme Court Kicked FDR in the %ss in 1944 and made him release our citizens. He dragged his feet till after the election and then died. My friend Tosh wasnt released till 1946 since his dad was a block leader.
 

CoyoteChris

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 4, 2004
Have you been to Amache in southeastern CO or Heart Mountain in WY? Those are the two camps I've been to and both were very moving, but very different experiences. Amache has most of the building foundations visible, I believe the only camp to still have this. So you can walk up and down the "streets" and see where the buildings were. They had one barracks building recreated and the goal is to create an entire block of buildings. I was there 4 years ago, so there may have been significant progress made on this. A high school teacher and students in the nearby tiny town have been responsible for preserving the site, gathering the memories of former residents, and facilitating exchange programs between the local students and Japan. I believe they also run a small visitor's center in town that is open on weekends during the summer. We learned so many interesting facts from just walking through the foundations and reading the signs. I would love to go back. When we were at Heart Mountain a couple of years ago, they had just finished building a new visitor center on the site, and it's fabulous. It's small, but full of fantastic photos and memories.

Heart Mountain is next. Here is Tule Lake where I stopped last year. As the sign says, its one of ten concentration camps. The Buildings still stand but I think they are used for other things now. My friend Tosh's mother died at their camp. His father never forgave them.....it broke him. The Spokane Public TV special on PBS, "Looking like the Enemy" is still the best TV program I have seen on this topic.
You can watch it in its entirety on Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8VbWG6Cxls
 

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purplecat

Final Flight
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
Country
United-States
I never knew about the Canadian internment camps - thanks for the history lesson! My mom's family were in Amache and my father's family were in Poston. Both my parents were 7 yrs. old at the time. My grandmother was pregnant with my aunt and before going to the permanent camp they were at Santa Anita racetrack for a few months and that is where my aunt was born! The only camp I've been to is Manzanar since we live in California and we visited a couple times after fishing trips up north.

I have my dvr set for the PBS special!
 

CoyoteChris

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 4, 2004
I never knew about the Canadian internment camps - thanks for the history lesson! My mom's family were in Amache and my father's family were in Poston. Both my parents were 7 yrs. old at the time. My grandmother was pregnant with my aunt and before going to the permanent camp they were at Santa Anita racetrack for a few months and that is where my aunt was born! The only camp I've been to is Manzanar since we live in California and we visited a couple times after fishing trips up north.

I have my dvr set for the PBS special!

Be sure to watch the speical I linked, on youtube. Looking like the enemy. I watched some of the two hour night one special today and recorded the second night 3 hour finale. A woman had a box full of tags put on her familiy. The shipping tags with their name and number and the badge with her mother's pic on it (a mug shot against a height ruler) with her finger print on the back...from Tule lake.....My friend Tosh and his family were taken at gunpoint from their home and taken to a stables in California for some months before going to their camp. Tosh said that those that went on to become US soldiers in Italy, if they were wounded to where they couldnt serve anymore, they were sent back to the camps!
 
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