Japanese in America: Railroads, Internment Camps & Little Tokyo

American History Hit

History Hit

America, History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2024

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When the US turned to Japan looking for workers in the late 19th Century, they probably never foresaw that one day soon they would imprison those who arrived, their successors, and their families, en masse in camps around America.

To hear about the Japanese American experience through history, Don is speaking to Kristen Hayashi. Kristen is Director of Collections Management & Access and Curator at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles.

Together, Kristen and Don explore the initial migration from Japan, the work offered, and the treatment of these first generations of Japanese Americans in life and under the law. They also discuss the contradictions of the Second World War - when some 120,000 people were forcibly moved to internment camps whilst, in Europe, an all Japanese American unit became the most decorated unit of its size in US history.

Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Autumn,
0:02.0	1944, World War II in Europe.
0:05.0	The first battalion of the U.S. Army 141st Regiment out of Texas
0:10.0	is stranded on a hillside in the Vauge Mountains of eastern France.
0:14.0	Two hundred seventy troops cut off behind enemy lines.
0:17.6	Situation critical.
0:19.9	Not far away though, the Army's 442nd regimental combat team, including the 100th Battalion,
0:26.3	is resting after having liberated two French towns from Nazi control, only a few short weeks
0:31.5	after arriving in Europe.
0:33.0	Despite a shortage of troops, the 442nd is ordered back into action to attempt a rescue of those stranded troops,
0:40.0	soon to be known as the Lost Battalion.
0:42.0	Trudging up and down steep grades, picking their way
0:45.9	through fields and ravines littered with landmines.
0:48.9	The 442nd lives up to its motto, go for broke.
0:53.0	For six interminable days, troops are engaged in pitched combat until finally three companies
0:59.0	break through and rescue the Texans.
1:01.8	Still the 442nd does not rest. Major General John
1:05.4	Dahlquist insists they fight on until November 8th. When their mission is
1:10.5	accomplished and the regiment assembles for a recognition ceremony four days after being stood down from their month of action.
1:17.0	Dahlquist impatiently demands to know why their ranks seem thin.
1:21.0	Lieutenant Colonel Virgil Miller answers, That's all that's left, sir.
1:26.2	The 442nd and the famed 100th Battalion is to this day the most decorated unit of its size
	...

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