Days of Infamy: How A Century of Bigotry Led to Japanese American Internment. Lawrence Goldstone. 2022. 288 pages. [Source: Library]
First sentence: On December 8, 1941, one day after the Japanese navy launched on American air and naval bases at Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii, President Franklin Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress. He told American lawmakers that December 7, 1941 was a "date which will live in infamy," and asked that a state of war be declared between the United States and Japan. While his denunciation of an unprovoked attack as the two nations were actively negotiating to resolve their differences was certainly justified, three years later, December 18, 1944, became another date that has lived in infamy, one about which President Roosevelt was silent. The reason for his lack of outrage on this occasion was perhaps because he was directly responsible for what would later be widely seen as an indelible stain on America's honor. On that day, with the defeat of fascism glimmering into sight, the United States Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote, ruled that the forced relocation of more than 100,000 Americans, two-thirds of whom were United States citizens, to what government officials themselves called "concentration camps," was fully justified under the United States Constitution. Not one of these Americans had been accused of a crime. They had been torn from their homes, jobs, schools, and communities to be deposited in tawdry, makeshift housing behind barbed wire solely because of their race.
Premise/plot: Two things this book is not: 1) It is not a graphic novel.* 2) It is not a nonfiction book focusing on Japanese-American internment (concentration) camps during the Second World War.**
Who can be a citizen of the United States of America? How has citizenship been legislated from the very beginning? What rights do citizens have? Do non-citizens have any rights? How has race been defined, regulated, legislated? Does "white" mean EVERY person who is not "black"? This begins to be an issue with Chinese (and subsequently Japanese) immigration in the nineteenth century. The east coast and the west coast have VASTLY different (equally strong) opinions on how big a problem or issue this immigration is. Politicians run campaigns (and sometimes win elections) based on the subject of IMMIGRATION. The book covers over a hundred years of policy. [What could rightly be called systematic racism.] The book examines the subject of race--sometimes Chinese, sometimes Japanese, sometimes all Asians--through the decades. This is done primarily through laws being legislated. (Sometimes these laws/bills are successful; sometimes legislation fails) And the book also looks at judicial cases. The book is definitely a LAW NERD book. Readers get a close look at case after case after case through the decades. It all leads up to HOW COULD INTERNMENT HAVE HAPPENED???? And the answer, of course, was it was inevitable. For over seventy-five years, there's essentially been one narrative being pushed. And that one narrative is undeniably bigoted.
My thoughts: I have read a handful of books (at least) about Japanese-American concentration (internment) camps. Some nonfiction. A few fiction. All of them thought-provoking. I hadn't ever read about the history leading up to this however. It was fascinating yet incredibly sad. All the legal cases were something unique. I've not read many books from this legal viewpoint one that uses the law as a way to bridge the story together into a wonderful whole.
*My local library actually has this filed as a "teen graphic novel" and assigned it a call number accordingly. It does future readers little good to come into the book expecting it to be a graphic novel.
**Yes, the book mentions this, of course it does, but it is the end-destination.
© 2022 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment