The landscape of the forced migration of Japanese Americans in the years after Peal Harbor seems an aberration of the legal culture of the United States, as well as a mar on national identity. But did the legacy of Relocation Centers not only fit into American history but provide a basis for the growth of a number of "blank spots on the map" during the War on Terror? For all the very slipperiness of "ethnic/racial" categories as meaningful demographic tool, ethnicity albeit unjustifiably provoked the systematically organized deportation of Americans of Japanese ancestry. Did the confinement of a section of the population--and indeed the confinement of an arbitrarily reclassified class of citizens--build on compromises of individual rights and create a precedent for the remapping of individual rights in the US? Continue reading ![]()
