"Manzanar: 65 Years Later"
James W. Ochi and his family put together a 2-minute video montage of his father at the Manzanar concentration camp available for viewing on youtube.com. The Ochi family recently had a reunion at Manzanar where James's father was incarcerated during WWII. "This was such a special time for our entire family; we all gained a newfound appreciation of what he went through during that difficult time," James Ochi said. James's hope is that this video will encourage other families to gather at Manzanar and learn about their family history.  "Concentration camps" is the term actually used by U.S. officials at the time of World War II (see the Japanese American National Museum's fact sheet for the exhibition America's Concentration Camps: Remembering the Japanese American Experience"). It has been replaced over time by many different euphemisms, including "internment camps". For other perspectives on this issue, see the Densho web site and the California Civil Liberties Public Education Fund's Resolution on Terminology. From that Ive seen, the term concentration camp was used less than internment camp - Ive read a lot of the orginial documents, as well as house and senate hearings, and it seems to be in the minority. Im not really trying to address how the term was used - rather how its used now, especially in light of the ways in which the meaning of the term changed following the holocaust. Is it really right to call the nazi death camps and the relocation camps of the WRA by the same name? |
I don't know if this has been discussed in past board posts, but I'm curious as to what everyone thinks about referring to the internment camps as "concentration camps." Thoughts?