Topaz Japanese internment camp

I have a very good friend named Patsy who is Japanese.  We've exercised together for many years.  We've walked miles and miles and talked and talked about all sorts of topics.  Some years ago, she told me the story of her parents who were children living in San Francisco at the outbreak of WWII.  When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, all of the Japanese on the pacific coast became suspect.  What followed is a very sad story of how their civil rights were taken away and they were ordered to gather up and leave all they had behind and move to internment camps.  All they could take was two suitcases per person.  They lost their homes, their property, their businesses, and their farms and their FREEDOM.  Two-thirds of them were American citizens, including her parents.  Her father and this family were sent to the Topaz internment camp in Utah and her mother and her family were sent to a camp in Arizona.  She has shared many stories that her father and mother have told about life in the internment camps for the three and a half years they lived there as 10 and 11 year old children.  It has been fascinating to me.   
Since then, I have read several books to learn more about the WHY, WHAT, WHEN, WHO and HOW of this incredible chapter in American history.  Here is a summary of that happened at Topaz and Here. I've been struck by many thoughts, such as:

• why were the Japanese Americans singled out as suspect and forced into camps when Italian Americans and German American and other Asians were not?
• the people in power removed a minority group from the general population and the rest of society let it happen.  It's easy to second guess that decision now, but it is very hard to understand it. 
• could something like this happen again in America?  Could American citizens be gathered up and denied their civil rights in the name of national security?

Several months ago, Rick was invited to visit the Topaz internment site in Delta, UT with a group of people with whom he works.  Guests were invited to go also.  When he told me about this opportunity, I was thrilled!  We went on this adventure the day after we got back from Bear Lake and squeezed it in before we started tending Lizzie and Will.  I am so glad we did.  It was a fascinating day and we learned so much about that happened between 1942-45 on the one square mile of desert land that was home to over 9,000 Japanese people in Topaz, UT.  We walked among the "ruins" of what is left of their homes, their schools, their dining hall, and their whole community.  There are nails, broken dishes, metal pieces, pottery, cement flooring and other reminders of life that went on there for over three years.  I tried to imagine what it was like to be a Japanese child growing up in a poorly constructed "home" with no privacy and no indoor plumbing for over three years.  It would have been even worse to have been a parent during that time and worry about how this internment was affecting family life.  It is hard to imagine.

Any yet, everything I've read and everything Patsy has told me tells of a people who (for the most part) cooperated with the authorities and made the best of a very bad situation.  Their sons would come home from fighting in the war and visit their parents who were being kept behind barbed wire! They were patient and long suffering and suffered this injustice with dignity.  Her parents families ultimately settled in the Ogden and Orem areas and raised their families in Utah.  They never returned to life in California. It was also very interesting to learn that there was another camp (there were about 10 total scattered throughout the western states) that was called the Minidoka camp and was located not far from Twin Falls Idaho, near where I grew up.  Who knew??
A Topaz museum is being built in Delta, UT and tells a story that needs to be told.  I marvel at the people and their resiliency, courage and honor and their ability to get on with their lives and not hold a life-long grudge against the US government.
 

From the Topaz Museum web site:

The story of these camps has become better known after President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 and President George H.W. Bush issued a formal apology and token monetary compensation ($20,000 per person)  to all former internees. However, the events and causes of this tragic page in history must never be forgotten. If we can understand what occurred and why, we can insure that a similar denial of civil rights will never happen to any future generation of Americans.