Erickson 1

Wynter Erickson

Professor Bradford

INTL 2040

April 6, 2016

Topaz: A Disgrace to Humanity

From the very beginning of human existence, humanity has struggled with the idea of

equality and human rights to all people. The world has a history that is violent and brutal to these

ideas and unfortunately, very little has changed despite the time that has passed and the atrocious

things that people have been forced to experience. One of these events that is very well known to

the world is the Holocaust, when millions of innocent men, women and children were not only

killed in droves, but starved, and tortured. However, there is an event, not too unlike the

Holocaust, that occurred at the same time and many people are unaware of. During World War

Two, due to the pride and fear created after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, 10 internment camps

were created for all innocent Japanese Americans to be forced into and imprisoned. These camps

were made to isolate them from the other Americans and basically turn them into nothing more

than animals. One of these camps was called Topaz. America was born from the dream of

equality and human rights for all. However, it has struggled greatly to bring these dreams into

reality. Although America helped fight in the great World War Two to bring down corrupted

governments and rescue the millions of innocent lives that were being destroyed, many of these

same horrific crimes that thousands of Americans were dying to bring to an end were being

practiced within their very own country.

Since the 1800s, America had been at the center of racial discrimination against people of

Asian nationality. Having already had a ruthless history with the Chinese and the Chinese
 Erickson 2

Exclusion Acts, the bombing of Pearl Harbor only intensified Americans racial discrimination

towards Asians, and specifically, the Japanese. As many Japanese immigrants had come to the

U.S in search of work during a time when cheap labor was valued, many of them and their

descendants, now American citizens, lived along the west coast at the time of World War Two.

On February 19, 1942, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7 of the

previous year, President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved the executive order #9066 and the use

of relocation camps and ordered the removal of all Japanese American residents away from the

West coast regardless of their citizenships or loyal military history. The 10 internment camps

were created and located in various locations around the country. All located in the states of

California, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas. This was done because the

United States government was afraid of any connections or loyalties that the Japanese Americans

might have to the enemy. Immediately following the Pearl Harbor attack, Japanese American

men and leaders were arrested and imprisoned by the FBI. Families were forced to sell their

homes, their land, and most of their property for a small fraction of what they were worth.

Within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor, west coast Japanese Americans were given a weeks

notice of their removal to unknown destinations, taking with them only what they could carry.

Thousands of families were initially placed in temporary encampments such as fairgrounds and

racetracks (Children of the Camps 13). One of these places was the Tanforan thoroughbred

stables in San Bruno, California. From April to October, nearly 8,000 innocent Japanese

Americans were held here against their will surrounded by barbed wire and eucalyptus trees and

were made to live in dirty, unfinished barracks converted from horse stalls that were completely

unfit to host human life (Tanforan Japanese American Confinement). 7,676 of Topazes residents

came from Tanforan.

 Erickson 3

Construction on Topaz began immediately following the signing of executive order

#9066. Although Topaz had not been completed, the government was anxious to transfer their

prisoners over. So, on September 11 1942, the first prisoners arrived. They were 214 men who

volunteered to finish the camp, and in October, the rest of the prisoners were sent over in droves.

To come here, families were separated. Children watched as their parents were arrested and taken

away in front of them. Some were sent to the other 9 Internment camps in the country. Most of

these people were placed in a world quite foreign to them. Being located in the dry, windy, and

dusty landscape of Utah, Topaz was a harsh and unsuitable environment for the 8,000 people

who had been relocated there. The barracks, or homes, that were built for the prisoners were

20x20 and were made from pine planks and were covered with tar paper on the outside for walls.

Each barrack held two families. As time passed and the Utah environment worsened, the already

flimsy barracks began to fall apart. The weak walls were thin and unable to protect the families

inside from the dust and in the winter seasons, the bitter cold. The floors wasted away and

because they were slightly elevated from the ground, this resulted in stronger winds and worse

conditions inside of the barracks. Because most of the residents of Topaz were from the San

Francisco Bay area, they were not accustomed to Utahs harsh conditions. In the summers, the

heat reached over 100 degrees and in the winters, it dropped below zero. The temperature inside

the barracks never met the needs created by the harsh conditions outside. In the winter, the bitter

cold penetrated the thin walls and the freezing cold winds blew through with little resistance.

Although some of the barracks had coal burning stoves to produce heat, it could not endure the

fierce cold and still left them too cold for the people. Besides the extremely poor living

conditions these unfortunate people had to endure, they also had to withstand being treated as

dangerous criminals. Barbed wire surrounded the 19,000 acres that was Topaz. Armed guards
 Erickson 4

patrolled the grounds, intimidating the residents and occasionally firing warning shots when they

stepped out of line or got too close to the barbed wire fence. The already uneasy atmosphere

faced even more serious strain when James Hatsuki Wakasa, age 63, was shot and killed by a

guard for walking too close to the fence on April 11, 1943 (Huefner, Topaz Encyclopedia). This

even made the prisoners even more uneasy then they already were and heightened their

resentment towards the camp authority. To show their resentment, mass amounts of prisoners

ceased to do their work. As a result, the amount of guards and patrols were increased, frightening

the prisoners, and returning Topaz to its former order. Although the Topaz residents were not

treated fairly, life in the camp was not completely intolerable. There were schools for the

children, recreational activities such as sports and dances, beauty parlors, movie theatres and jobs

for those who needed to work for a wage, even an unfair one. All prisoners were given a clothing

allowance and ration cards, and those who could not find employment were given compensation

to support their families. .

Finally, after three years of enforcing the imprisonment of over 11,000 innocent Japanese

Americans, Topaz closed permanently on October 31, 1945. On August 10, 1988, President

Ronald Reagan signed a redr3ess bill into law, issuing and apology to those interned and calling

on Congress to budget compensation for the survivors. In 2007 the Topaz site was listed as a

National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service (Topaz Camp). Although the treatment

that the Japanese Americans received in Topaz was tame compared to the victims of the

Holocaust thousands of miles away, the injustice of what was done to them in their very own

country for the crime of being a specific nationality is still unthinkable, especially in what is

suppose to be the land of liberty. Although the Japanese American internment camps are

something that Americans look back on with shame, the possibility of history repeating itself is
 Erickson 5

not only possible, but very likely. America has gone down hill in the last decade. Racial

discrimination is as bad as ever today, and sadly, many people will look for any excuse to

discriminate against people of other nationalities, colors, languages, etc. Although we have

gotten to the point where we almost accepted people of other cultures, recent events have

brought farther and farther away from ever reaching nation wide integration. We have gone from

near acceptance to near denial. The American dream is dead.

 Erickson 6

Works Cited

History.com Staff. "Japanese-American Relocation." History.com. A&E Television Networks,

2009. Web. 04 Apr. 2017.

Huefner, Michael. "Topaz." Densho Encyclopedia. 14 Jul 2015, 21:51 PDT. 4 Apr 2017, 15:52

Satsuki, Ina, Ph.D. Children of the Camps Racism, Culture and Trauma: The Japanese

American Internment. the Children of the Camps Documentary and Educational Project

2001. 4 Apr 2017.

"Tanforan." Japanese American Confinement. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2017.

"Topaz Camp." Topaz Camp | Topaz Museum Foundation. N.p., 08 Aug. 2012. Web. 04 Apr.

2017.