It reminds me of the scene in The Good Shepherd where Matt Damon's character, Wilson (aka "Mother") is making a deal with a mobster.
The mobster comments that the Italians, Irish, Jews, and Negroes all have cultural identites and traditions, then asks, "What have you got?"
Wilson says, "I have the United States of America. As far as I am concerned, you are all just visiting."
This statement had a profound impact on me. I am of mixed descent (Italian, German, Lithuanian), and there isn't a drop of Anglo-Saxon blood in my veins. My family has been here only for 100 years. We didn't build this country, but we are definitely enjoying the fruits of it.
That is the view that went into the internment camps for these Japanese Americans. That was the mentality. In an age where we were at war, it seemed like the smart thing to do. No doubt there were a few Japanese Americans who were spies, just like there were German Americans who ran off and joined the German Army to fight for the "Fatherland" during the war, even shooting at their fellow Americans. It wasn't necessarily just or right to punish all people of that descent, though, just to corral a few.
I am not a relativist, and I am not going to say that it wasn't absolutely wrong. It was. But they didn't see it that way because of the times. The point isn't to sling mud, but to make sure we don't repeat the mistake.
...
And we haven't. Arab Americans were not the targets of mass lynchings after 9/11. More Arabs were killed in England by mobs and murder after the train station bombing than by angry Americans after the World Trade Center. The United States government may be treating captured terrorists with an overly harsh hand, but they have yet to round up all of the Arabs in the United States and place them in internment camps. We might not be doing the best we can, but we have definitely improved from 1942, I think.
