Imagine families being herded into camps by the train full. Now add to the picture that they are being forced into the camps by the will of the government not their own. Then even further they are over worked against their will and only have one room to each family. The picture most people would draw is one of Nazi concentration camps, however these are not the camps that I am describing to you.
During world war II many families of Japanese ancestry were forced in to relocation camps. When Pearl Harbor was attacked the American people went into a panic. The government began to conjure fear about the Japanese Americans. 62% were United States citizens. These people were taken to camps out in the middle of nowhere with nothing around. They were given low quality food. Japanese Americans were assumed to be more loyal to Japan than to America. So in 1942 after President Roosevelt signed the order they were shipped off.
As you may have guessed this has happened before with the Jewish people in Germany, who were the real threat and power we were fighting against in the war. Concentration camps was not a blemish in society for a brief moment but a very real past. Concentration/relocation camps have been in existence for many years. They all go by different names and severity, the worst to my knowledge is the Nazi camps. Europeans also interned the Native Americans. One of the more recent ways was boarding schools the Americans forced the Native children into in which the forced assimilation on to. But Also during the same time as the trail of tears where our government gave the Native Americans allotments of land where they could live.
The same fear and reasoning may be happening again today. After the 9/11 attacks people began to fear others from Muslim and Arabic backgrounds. Many other these people are American citizens and are being attacked alongside us. Yet out of fear we feel we must point fingers in a direction. There is a chance that we could create another system of camps for people with Arabic or Muslim backgrounds.
The fact of the matter is that internment camps have existed in and out of Europe for centuries. And if we are not careful we may see more in the future.
