Internment(89)
I see Khadijah auntie walking, resolute, cane in hand. She catches my eye and raises her fist next to her shoulder, giving me a small, kind smile before she boards a bus to whatever life awaits her.
My mom whispers in my ear, “They’ll take us to Independence. David will be waiting there for us. For you.”
I walk out, unsure of what lies ahead. Of how to recover from this camp that burned itself onto my skin. Blood and dust and razor wire. How will life ever be normal again? I’m not even sure if my body remembers how to take a real breath. If I will ever stop glancing over my shoulder. Ever feel free.
I stare down the desert road.
I might not know exactly where I go from here, but I’ll find my direction.
I take a small step forward.
I don’t look back.
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
When fascism comes to America, it will come draped in the flag.
You don’t need to be a student of history to see how nationalism, disguised as patriotism, can take hold of a country, justifying terrible and cruel acts. You only need to turn on the news.
The American government’s “zero tolerance” border policy has literally torn children from their parents’ arms as they attempt to cross into America for a better life, many seeking asylum and running from danger. As I write this, nearly 13,000 children, including infants and toddlers, many forcibly separated from their parents, have been detained by the government, often caged, before being transferred to shelters. In September 2018, under the cover of darkness, around 1,600 migrant children were taken from those shelters and relocated to a tent city in Tornillo, Texas—where they sleep in bunks, twenty to a tent, with no access to school. This camp is neither licensed nor monitored by child-welfare authorities. Further, there are orders for the Navy to erect austere detention centers in abandoned airfields in California, Arizona, and Alabama to hold nearly 120,000 migrants.
Make no mistake. These are internment camps. This is internment.
Pay attention to the racist demagoguery and scapegoating that aligns with that policy: immigrants and migrants are “animals” who “pour into and infest our country.” They are “rapists” and “criminals” who put a strain on our economy. Then turn to our history books to understand the rhetoric of extermination that has been used again and again by authoritarians the world over.
Consider, too, that half of all Latinx characters in popular TV shows are depicted as criminals. Representation matters. Racist stereotypes spread through our culture and politics too easily and give cover for racist politicians, who first dehumanize groups and then enact policies that take away their livelihoods and, often, their lives.
No moment in American history exists in a vacuum. Nationalism and fascism are not new; indeed, they are a part of American soil. This fact gave birth to this novel. The events in Internment—though they take place “fifteen minutes” into America’s future—are deeply rooted in our history. You are bearing witness to them now, in our present.
In 1924, riding a wave of anti-Asian sentiment, the US government halted almost all immigration from Asia. Within a few years, California, along with several other states, banned marriages between white people and those of Asian descent.
With the onset of World War II, the FBI began the Custodial Detention Index—a list of “enemy aliens,” based on demographic data, who might prove a threat to national security, but also included American citizens—second-and third-generation Japanese Americans. This list was later used to facilitate the internment of Japanese Americans.
In 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Alien Registration Act, which compelled Japanese immigrants over the age of fourteen to be registered and fingerprinted, and to take a loyalty oath to our government. Japanese Americans were subject to curfews, their bank accounts often frozen and insurance policies canceled.
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked a US military base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. More than 2,400 Americans were killed. The following day, America declared war on Japan.
On February 19, 1942, FDR signed Executive Order 9066, permitting the US secretary of war and military commanders to “prescribe military areas” on American soil that allowed the exclusion of any and all persons. This paved the way for the forced internment of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans, without trial or cause. The ten “relocation centers” were all in remote, virtually uninhabitable desert areas. Internees lived in horrible, unsanitary conditions that included forced labor.
On December 17, 1944, FDR announced the end of Japanese American internment. But many internees had no home to return to, having lost their livelihoods and property. Each internee was given twenty-five dollars and a train ticket to the place they used to live.
Not one Japanese American was found guilty of treason or acts of sedition during World War II. The 442nd Infantry Regiment of the United States Army, comprised almost solely of second-generation Japanese American soldiers, remains the most decorated unit in American history.