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Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II (Critical Issue)
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Manufacturer: Hill and Wang
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.53089956073
EAN: 9780809078967
ISBN: 0809078961
Label: Hill and Wang
Manufacturer: Hill and Wang
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 144
Publication Date: 2004-10-15
Publisher: Hill and Wang
Release Date: 2004-09-23
Studio: Hill and Wang
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Editorial Reviews:
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Part of Hill and Wang's Critical Issues Series and well established on college reading lists, PRISONERS WITHOUT TRIAL presents a concise introduction to a shameful chapter in American history: the incarceration of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. With a revised final chapter and expanded recommended readings, Roger Daniels's updated edition examines a tragic event in our nation's past and thoughtfully asks if it could happen again.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: An updated assesssment of PWT
Comment: For the serious reader, very little time can be spent dealing with Daniels' literary diatribe. The title alone is explicit enough reason to doubt the seriousness with which the author attempts (again) to elucidate on the subject. Yet within these few pages, Daniels makes a valiant stand to proclaim injustices, to vindicate the victims, to show the world the innocence of a people. This is most surprising, considering Daniels' love of history.
I will focus on only one excerpt, on page 46, which exemplifies succinctly where the author stands:
"On February 19, 1942, a 'day of infamy' as far as the Constitution is concerned, Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which was the instrument by which just over 120,000 persons, two-thirds of them American citizens, were confined in concentration camps on American soil, in some cases for nearly four years... who were guilty of nothing other than being ethnically Japanese... surrounded by barbed wire and by troops whose guns were pointed at the inmates."
The Constitution is what Daniels seeks to uphold, but in doing so, he fails to see how that great document actually protected the people whom he feels were so discriminated against. The Constitution never was in danger of being trampled under the feet of those entrusted with its care. Indeed, the Constitution came out unscathed. Not a single case was brought by a person of Japanese ancestry (Nikkei) against the US Government that overturned its decrees. Convictions may have been set aside, but constitutionality was not. Liberty did not become a victim.
Daniels next turns to topple the authority of President Roosevelt, who was not only the longest serving, but one of the greatest Presidents the United States has ever had. It is at Roosevelt's feet he lays the charge that the President was to blame for the "incarceration" of so many innocent people -- unbelievably, shockingly, equating the President's action with the sudden and deliberate attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese Imperial forces.
Herein Daniels once again must acquiesce defeat. Not a single Japanese national nor American-born child of a Japanese national asked that Roosevelt be impeached for signing Executive Order 9066, for any sort of dereliction in his executive duties. It was just the opposite, for great was their sorrow when he died.
Next, Daniels fails in assessing the correct numbers. 120,000 Nikkei did not spend four years in relocation centers -- tens of thousands were gone within a year. Furthermore, close to 20,000 resident Nikkei were never in centers as they lived elsewhere in the country and were not affected by the evacuation order.
Daniels, then, fails in assessing the freedoms the Nikkei had at the centers by saying they were confined. They were never confined, but had the opportunity to leave the centers -- tens of thousands did, some spending only a few months there in their temporary quarters. Daniels dishonors those who were always free as Americans of Japanese descent.
Daniels favorite theme -- concentration camps (e.g. his book, "Concentration Camps USA") -- is his saddest tirade, relishing in showing how unjust, how barbaric American society was to the Nikkei by forcing them to live behind barbed wire, and threatening them daily with guns aimed at them.
Such haranguing has certainly had its effect on common sense, and historical correctness. There is no proof at all the assembly and relocation centers were incarceration centers of torture, starvation and psychological intimidation, and places of oppression from which not a single prisoner could escape. The authors insistence on using such terminology, no doubt, reveals just how bitter he himself is at America's history. He cannot admit that these centers were really places of refuge for its inhabitants.
Once again the author fails, most miserably, to prove his theory that these people were prisoners, incarcerated in concentration camps. Nothing was able to convince the Japanese Imperialists in Tokyo via the Spanish consular visits to the centers that they were camps of injustice. The centers were just the opposite, with plenty of nourishing food, suitable housing, medical care, education, and many other benefits. The records, and over 100,000 residents, attest to this fact. No resident ever attempted to escape; many happily and freely chose to remain at the centers, even going so far as to demand they not close.
The final point I touch upon is Daniels' use of the hackneyed phrase, "guilty of nothing other than being ethnically Japanese." A dangerous precedent is set here -- that non-US-citizen Japanese were on an equal basis with US-citizen Japanese. The author should know better. Immigration law will not bear his socialist idea of equality. The state of war with Japan did not bear this at all.
To give the Issei (non-US-citizen Japanese) equal status as an American citizen is to confound the very principles of citizenship. Were Daniels to promote his views with political backing, our country's polity would dissolve quickly. So then why does the author want to place the Issei and Nisei on the same level, entirely avoiding the truth that the Issei were enemy aliens, that we were at war with their homeland? There are ulterior motives lurking that only he can explain.
In conclusion, this short book is just another addition to Daniels' works on Japanese Americans which show his disgust with America's past, specifically what he perceives as its latent racism and abuse of civil rights. He purposely avoids any reference to intelligence documents which completely undermine his tenets, and instead relies on highly subjective sources and biased and flawed studies (e.g. "Personal Justice Denied" -- naturally, of course, as Daniels was historical consultant to this report).
In short, the material that Daniels presents adds nothing new. It is a rehash of the old re-interpretations and revisions of the wartime history about the Nikkei in the US during WWII -- those who suddenly became enemies of our United States and her leaders. It is also a vain attempt, in the name of civil rights, to exonerate the Nikkei and vilify US leadership.
Hopefully Daniels will come to his historically-correct senses and produce an untainted account of the people of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast during WWII.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Short Book on America's Biggest Black Mark
Comment: In 114 pages on actual text and several pages of pictures Dr. Roger Daniels shows the reader the plight of Japanese Americans through the war years and after. Dr. Daniels, who has written several books on the Japanese Concentration camps, shows us how discrimination against the Chinese led to later discrimination against the Japanese. He shows us how America reacated to Japanse-Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He shows us How the American Government can imprison its own citizends because of their racial heritage. This is a really good little book that will give the reader a good outline of how racial tensions with Japanese immigrants began, dealings with Japanese-Americans after the bombings, life in the Concentration Camps, and the redress movement. A book to be read by those who want to know the underbelly of American History
Customer Rating:
Summary: Superb and Succinct
Comment: With "Prisoners Without Trial", Roger Daniels provides an excellent starting point for anyone interested in the internment of Japanese American's during World War II. This well regarged historian has crafted a splendid little book that is a compilation of years of work, yet extremely clear and concise. The chapters are chronologically ordered to make this book easy to read for those who are not thoroughly versed in historical texts. There is an abundance of cleanly presented primary evidence along with interesting analytical viewpoints. This book was a quick, informative and interesting read, and I would highly recommend it.-Molly
Customer Rating:
Summary: Superb and Succinct
Comment: With "Prisoners Without Trial", Roger Daniels provides an excellent starting point for anyone interested in the internment of Japanese American's during World War II. This well regarged historian has crafted a splendid little book that is a compilation of years of work, yet extremely clear and concise. The chapters are chronologically ordered to make this book easy to read for those who are not thoroughly versed in historical texts. There is an abundance of cleanly presented primary evidence along with interesting analytical viewpoints. This book was a quick, informative and interesting read, and I would highly recommend it.-Molly
Customer Rating:
Summary: A book for every American who enjoys their liberty
Comment: Roger Daniels presents us with a book that speaks not only to those of Japanese American ancestry, but to all Americans. It brings into question our civil liberties and freeedoms. The Japanese American relocation during WWI serves as the first time that the American government has violated the rights of an ethnic group (the 2nd and 3rd generation Japanese Americans) to which its Constitution had given citizenship. The Japanese American incarceration was an example of the Anglo American propensity to react against non-whites. Not only did it violate the spirit of the Constitution, but it ironically took place within a nation which was simultaneously fighting for the release of another ethnic minority, the Jews from concentration camps across Europe.
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