Sarah Lewis Instagram – Thank you to three women who have so touched my heart! I’ve been a chapter about the history of Japanese Internment for book #3 for One World / Random House. During World War II, ten internment camps for Japanese Americans were purpose built by the military scattered across more rural, remote sites in the western United States. Over 120,000 Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps in the United States after Executive Order 9066, issued by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in February 1942.
There were no trials. There were no hearings. Those with Japanese ancestry were given days to pack and board trains and buses for detention centers and internment camps where they stayed for up to three years. Their main crime was simply being. Not a single person was convicted of espionage toward the United States.
The constitutional rights of Japanese Americans were infringed. Will overrode law. The constitution did protect their rights.
After stays of up to three years, those interned left to find their homes taken, the businesses gone, needing to rebuild their lives. The intergenerational impact remains a hidden history.
I flew back to Utah to interview three women about this history. What stays with is their positivity in the face of this injustice—all of the good she wrested from it—was moving beyond measure.
Slide two shows Jeanette, to my right, in a photograph taken by Dorothea Lange just before they were sent to an internment came. I have taught from that image before. I had no idea that I was meeting her just a few days ago.
Thank you to my three graces and to the universe for conspiring to bring us together. I hope to do justice to it all. | Posted on 25/Dec/2023 00:19:29
