On this day in 1942, approx. 120,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly incarcerated in American concentration camps after President FDR's Executive Order 9066.
It is estimated that at least 80,000 of these Japanese Americans were 2nd or 3rd generation American citizens.
It is estimated that at least 80,000 of these Japanese Americans were 2nd or 3rd generation American citizens.
The state of California defined anyone with 1/16th or more Japanese lineage as subject to the incarceration. The architect of this stripping of civil rights wanted to have anyone who had "one drop of Japanese blood" placed into concentration camps.
Many Japanese Americans who had made a living on the west coast lost their businesses, homes, and land. Neighbors took advantage of their incarceration in order to steal their property (a contemporary Saul and Naboth's vineyard situation).
Conditions at these concentration camps were horrible. 101 orphaned children of Japanese descent were taken away from orphanages and foster homes. Many were placed on Native American reservations that the U.S. government compensated them for.
Many Japanese American adults dealt with this trauma by embodying the phrase shikata ga nai, which roughly means "it cannot be helped" in order to protect their children from the full brunt of the trauma and anguish. Yet, these 30,000 Japanese American children
suffered much trauma.
A sizable minority of those who were placed in these concentration camps were professing Christians. American Christians as a whole not only either supported or were silently complicit with the incarceration, but even afterwards, Christians had a part to
A sizable minority of those who were placed in these concentration camps were professing Christians. American Christians as a whole not only either supported or were silently complicit with the incarceration, but even afterwards, Christians had a part to
play in "assimilating" these Japanese Americans into "normal American society." Remember - most of them were American citizens of 2nd or 3rd generation!
We need to remember this event of history to see the missed opportunity we had as the broader church to rightfully stand up
We need to remember this event of history to see the missed opportunity we had as the broader church to rightfully stand up
against a government that had engaged in systematic injustice and depravation of rights. We could have stood up for brothers and sisters of the faith who were literally being persecuted right in front of our eyes. The broader church in America must learn that when we are silent,
we are letting injustice and oppression have its way unchecked. The church has a mission to embody the kingdom of God in the present, and we must be mindful of the things that currently are that should not be so.
Whoops. Ahab, not Saul.
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