70 years ago today the U.S. prepared to "intern" all Japanese Americans; 120,000 were eventually imprisoned

by Jack Brummet, Green River Valley Editor

On June 4 and 5, 1942, more than 1,000 Issei (first generation Japanese immigrants) and Nisei (second generation Japanese Americans) were rounded up in the Yakima Valley and sent to a camp in Wyoming, far from the west coast, where they would be presumably unable to assist Japanese invaders or terrorists.  Other Japanese-named citizens and immigrants were shortly rounded up in other areas of the state, including Seattle.  Many more Japanese Americans were rounded up in other states and areas--120,000 people all together were imprisoned.  Three-fifths of those people were U.S. citizens.

Dust storm at an internment camp a/k/a relocation center

The Japanese-Americans were sent to hastily, and flimsily, constructed camps called "War Relocation Centers" (which we now generally call internment camps)  in remote parts of the nation's interior. . .far away from where they might have, say, used a flashlight to guide a fleet of Japanese bombers toward the Boeing warplane plant.

I focus here on Kent, Washington (now a suburb of Seattle), because that's where I grew up, and know first hand about some of the aftermath of the camps.  The first wave of immigrants to Kent, Washington happened shortly before 1900. The immigrants were mostly European. There were, even as I was growing up, several Italian families still farming the valley. The 1900 census count shows just 13 Japanese-named  families in and around Kent.

The number of Japanese immigrants rose steeply over the next few years until 1907, when the US Government put the brakes on the number allowed to immigrate. Eventually, in the 1920's, Japanese immigration was banned altogether. The Anti-Alien Land Law in 1923 barred these immigrants from owning land, or even becoming citizens. Those with a child born in America could put land in the child's name. Some of the Japanese worked for established farmers and some cleared land and began their own farms in Kent, Auburn, and the tiny nearby villages O'Brien, Orillia, and Thomas.

Many Japanese farmers owned dairy farms until the price of milk plummeted after the World War I. Those farmers jumped into vegetable and berry farming, and their truck farms were profitable. They sold produce in Seattle, at the public market and farm stands, and shipped lettuce and cabbage to the east coast.

By 1930 there were around 200 Japanese families farming the White/Green River valley. In 1942, months after Pearl Harbor, all people of Japanese descent in the White/Green River Valley were evacuated and detained at an internment camp at Tule Lake, California. They lost their businesses, farms and personal belongings. They lost everything in the war hysteria.

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President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered them jailed under Executive Order 9066, a law designating certain "military areas" as zones from which "any or all persons may be excluded." In one of our more shameful national acts of jingoistic racism, all people of Japanese ancestry were removed from the entire Pacific coast--all of California, Oregon and Washington. In 1944, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of this law, saying it is "permissible to curtail the civil rights of a racial group when there is a "pressing public necessity."

My mother, Betty Brummet, remembers Japanese American kids being marched from Ballard High School one day. Some of the students lined up and booed.

The phrase "shikata ga nai" (loosely translated as "it cannot be helped") summarized the interned families' resignation to their helplessness. This was even noticed by the children, as mentioned in Farewell to Manzanar. They tended not to make waves, and complied with the government to prove themselves loyal citizens.

Dust storm at an internment camp

In our war hysteria, we didn't want any Japanese Americans near the west coast. They would form cells and assist soldiers and pilots from the motherland in attacking The Pacific Coast. The number of Germans and Italians placed in the camps is only a fraction of their total population compared with the Japanese, virtually all of whom were locked up.

After the war only about thirty families (out of the original 200) returned to the valley area. I knew the Miyoshis, Yamadas, Nakaharas, Koyamatsus, Hiranakas, and Okimotos. Some of them got back into farming (not on their old farms, which had been confiscated and sold). I worked on the Yamada's farm a couple of springs, cutting and boxing rhubarb, and I worked for a couple of weeks on Kart Funai's farm one summer, bunching radishes and scallions.

Photo of a shop owner in my hometown of Kent, Washington, in 1942

In 1988, the U.S. Congress passed legislation awarding formal payments of $20,000 each to the surviving internees—60,000 in all. This same year, formal apologies were also issued by the government of Canada to Japanese Canadian survivors, who were each repaid the sum of $21,000 Canadian dollars. President Ronald Reagan even apologized on behalf of the United States. $21,000 would buy a fraction of the hundreds of acres of stolen land.  It's better than the reparations paid to the families of slaves (zero, to date), but a pittance compared to losing everything you owned, and the farms you nurtured. If they held on until now, they'd all be rich.

Through the 1950's the Green River continued to flood the valley floor in late spring. This is what made the valley floor some of the richest soil in the world. . .but, alas, flooding prevented big business from locating there. In 1963 the Army Corps of Engineers built the Howard Hansen Dam (an earthen dam, still protecting the valley from floods) to regulate the river waters. The danger of uncontrolled flooding ended. The flat, treeless land on the valley floor now was an attractive area for business. And build they did.

Boeing built an aerospace lab, and the floodgates were opened. Farming was over, and dwindled rapidly, although there are a few pockets left. One of my old high school mates, Danny Carpinito has in fact become a wealthy vegetable farmer. Of the Japanese kids I knew in school, virtually none remained in Kent after high school. Of course, neither did I nor most of my friends, although some of our families still live there.

Sources:

The Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment

The History of Kent, Washington: http://www.kent.k12.wa.us/curriculum/vtours/kent/

Japanese Relocation Centers: http://www.infoplease.com/spot/internment1.html

The Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American
Previous articles, and photos on the Green River Valley and Japanese-Americans from All This Is That (http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/)

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Drawing: The Air Force G-Force Tests

By Jack Brummet

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The end of the barn

By Jack Brummet, Green River Valley Editor

It was bittersweet today. The barn at my mom's house in Kent finally had to go. My dad bought the barn when I was about five years old. It came from about eight blocks up the street, where people had kept a horse or two in it. In about 1959, my Dad bought it when that house was sold to make room for a Big Bear grocery story in downtown Kent.

One of my first memories is of that barn traveling slowly down 4th Avenue to our house on 4th and Crow Street. I was about five, and actually remember that I was watching Howdy Doody on TV when the barn came into sight. It became my dad's workshop, and my Webelo group's meeting room. We made root beer and soap in there, and my dad and his pals cooked up their batches of home brew there. It was also lapidary central, where my father polished and cut the rocks and gems we found on our various rock knocker/pebble puppy trips and expeditions--obsidian, moss agates, jasper, opalized cypress wood, jade, morrisonite, fossils, and other rocks we found and dug up. He built at least three dinghys in there with his friends, as well as our home-made camper, my pinewood derby cars, cub scout genius kit constructions, and many other projects. My father would die in the garage, not totally unexpectedly, of heart failure, in 1964, a few months after JFK expired. It was moving, but not sad, to see it come down today.

Like a lot of barns you see as you travel in the hinterlands, it was not a beefy structure, and like many of those barns you see, it began to sag and lean in the last few years. I tried to find someone who wanted to recycle all that fine 100 year old shiplap and first growth beams and timbers, but I could find no takers. So, alas, we had to have it taken down. My brother Guy shot this video of the first moments of the demolition. And so it goes. . .

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ObamaCare -- The outsource shocker: Tijuana dentures, Bulgarian kidneys, Albanian hips, and Guatemalan rest homes

By Pablo Fanque, All This Is That Medical Editor

In recent conversations, well-placed senior administration officials told All This Is That that the health care plan championed by President Obama and the Democratic leadership includes little-known provisions for outsourcing surgeries and medical procedures. One official told me "Let's say you need false teeth, uh...dentures.  We can get this work done for you in Tijuana for less than half what it would cost anywhere in the states.  And that's after adding in plane fares, meals and a couple of nights in a hotel."

Several independent sources revealed to Mona Goldwater, in the course of fact checking this article, that the U.S. government has already contracted for outsourced medical services in at least seven foreign countries.  In some cases, the U.S. Government has purchased or leased land, and is breaking ground on a series of medical facilities in "medical outsource partner countries."

Prospective plans include, but are not limited to, outsourcing kidney and liver procedures to Bulgaria, knee- and hip-replacements to Albania, dental work to Mexico, and reproductive services to Yemen.  The most potentially explosive outsourcing initiative involves exporting virtually all geriatric, rehabilitation, and rest home care to Guatemala, where per-patient costs are a fraction of those in the United States.

As one government health services analyst on Capitol Hill told me, "Change.  And you guys thought we were bulls***ing, didn't you?"

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Drawing: eyes

by Jack Brummet

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Mitt Romney takes one more courageous stand

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor

(Reuters) -"Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney chose Veterans Day to proclaim to the American people his conviction that the world is a dangerous place, and the United States must remain its most formidable military power."  OK.  And how is this different from every other Presidential candidate of any party in the last fifty years?  Except for a few random dingbats and  Ron Paul, Dick Gregory, and The Greens, this is what every single politician says, and, except for a few extreme cynics, actually believes.

I have to say it again--I think Mitt Romney is probably the most charmless Republican candidate I remember in my lifetime, and in recent memory, only Steve Forbes comes close.  And that list includes Dick Nixon, 41 and 43, David Duke, and a whole raft of other cretins, pinheads, charlatans, and mountebanks.

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Two colored drawings: Blockage and Ocho

By Jack Brummet

Blockage

Ocho

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Revisiting The Rapture, A Year Later

by Jack Brummet, Apocalypse & End Times Editor

A little over a year ago, some of us were bracing for The Rapture.  I did a series of drawings/collages for about a week before and after The Rapture, which either never happened or was far more subtle that we'd been expecting. . .

Here was my take on The Rapture:

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Middle Finger roundup for May (including Anthony Bourdain, Andy Warhol, Ashton Kutcher, Kathy Griffin, Vince Neill, Mr. Rogers, and a host of unknowns)

By Mona Goldwater, Signs, Symbols, & Gestures Editor

Our latest release of middle finger images sent in by our readers. Send us your fingers!

Anthony Bordain

interspecies middle finger

Vince Neil

an arrestee

Ashton Kutcher

Kathy Griffin

Mister Rogers

Australian fellas

The famous finger in a protest march. This was a ubiquitous poster in the 

60's and 70's, hanging in just about every dorm room and bedroom I visited.

Shaft.  John Shaft.

Andy Warhol 

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Michael Jackson Moonwalk Compliation

By Jack Brummet, Music Editor

I could watch Michael Jackson moonwalk for hours. I've seen articles on "how to moonwalk," but never wanted to read them. I've never wanted to spoil the magic. MJ owns the moonwalk.

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Photo: Hitler's Party Games (probably NSFW)

Submitted by a reader, who can't remember where they found it. . .TinEye finds the images on numerous sites, but none of them appear to have originated the photo. . .

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Alien Lore No. 226 - The Bill Moore Area 51 Research File

By Jack Brummet, Alien Lore & Paranormal Editor

Bill Moore was one of the best known UFOlogists in the late 70s/80s.   His credibility and fame came from the best seller he co-wrote, The Roswell Incident.   His book was the catalyst in launching a heated up UFO movement.  T.R.I. helped make Roswell a household name.  Now, everyone knows about the 1947 Roswell UFO crash.  The book also helped popularize the controversial and hotly debated notion of back-engineered UFOs.

Moore went on to release the famous Majestic 12 documents with Stanton Friedman and Jamie Shaandera. Moore later became involved with a shadowy spook in defense intelligence code-named Falcon. Falcon promised to deliver evidence of some of the darkest secrets in government conspiracy to cover up the presence of UFOs.  in 1989, Moore in 1989 gave a speech outlining his work with Falcon and the world of counter-intelligence.  An article in the Wikipedia detailed these events:  

"The original contact Moore later met was to be known as 'Falcon'. In exchange for information received Moore would keep tabs on sections of the UFO research community. This also included taking part in disinformation activities against Paul Bennewitz with AFOSI agent Richard C. Doty, as Moore would later admit at the 1989 Las Vegas MUFON conference. Throughout the 80s the group of intelligence contacts grew in number, each given a bird name - hence they became known as 'The Aviary'."

After that speech, the UFO community was outraged that he had collaborated with these domestic spies, and heaped abuse on Moore, who eventually abandoned UFO research, saying there was nothing more to be known than he had already uncovered.

While Moore was active, he collected voluminous information on Area 51.  That information has now been released.  You can find all the research here, on the Presidential UFO site.

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Faces No. 299 - Mujahideen

by Jack Brummet

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Alien Lore No. 225 - Jackie Gleason's tale of President Dick Nixon and "The men from Mars"

By Jack Brummet, Alien Lore & Paranormal Editor

On February 19,1973, according to White House records, President Richard Nixon met Jackie Gleason on the 18th green at the Inverness Golf and Country Club. He was there to help kick off a charity golf tournament founded by Gleason. If rumors are true, Nixon also came to Florida in 1973 to show Jackie Gleason the bodies of extraterrestrials (knowing, he too, believed there was something Out There).

True or not, it's a good story. . .Dick Nixon and The Great One driving in the dead of night, without Secret Service protection, to the cooler where they kept the recovered alien bodies.

Timothy Green Buckley said in an interview once: “I'm afraid I am a bit of a fence setter. All this could be real or none of it could be!” What follows is his strange and funny article from UFOs Among the Stars.

Mixing Richard Nixon, Jackie Gleason, conspiracy, and Aliens together, how can you really go wrong?

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

Jackie Gleason & The Little Men From Mars
by Timothy Green Beckley

Way back in the mid-1960s, I got a letter in the mail from Jackie Gleason Productions, Hollywood, Florida, ordering a copy of a mimeographed booklet I had put together relating to UFOs. This, to me, was confirmation of what I had heard rumors about for a long time ... that "the Great One" was personally involved in researching UFOs. Supposedly - and I've since found out that this is true--Gleason had one of the greatest UFO book collections in the world. This is where the tale gets a bit wilder. A story circulated by Gleason's ex-wife, Beverly, has Jackie actually viewing the bodies of several aliens who died when their craft crashed in the Southwest.

The story was carried originally in the National Enquirer, and though Beverly Gleason later confirmed it to members of the press who were able to track her down, independent confirmation of Gleason's supposed experience could - for the longest time - not be certified.

Now with the striking revelations of a young man who knew Gleason personally, it can safely be said that such an event did take place... 

Larry Warren was an Airman First Class stationed at Bentwaters Air Force Base in England (a NATO installation staffed mainly by US. servicemen) when an incredible series of events took place over Christmas week of 1980. A UFO was picked up on radar and subsequently came down just outside the perimeter of the base in a dense forest.

On the first of several nights of confrontation with the Unknown, three security police ventured into the area across an eerie-looking object hovering just above the ground. One of the MPs was mesmerized by the UFO and was unable to move for nearly an hour. While in this mental state, he received some sort of telepathic message that the craft would return. For the next few nights, up to 80 U.S. servicemen, British bobbies, as well as civilians from some nearby farms, witnessed an historic event. According to Larry Warren, who stood within feet of this craft from another world-three occupants came out of the ship and actually communicated with a high ranking member of the U.S. Air Force.

This close encounter at Bentwaters has become the subject of several books (see "From Out Of The Blue", Jenny Randles, Inner Light Publications) and has been given wide publicity on CNN, Home Box Office and more recently "Unsolved Mysteries." Warren has, in a sense, become somewhat of a celebrity himself as he remains in the public eye, willing to talk about what he observed.

"Jackie Gleason was interested in hearing my story first hand," Warren offers as a means of explaining how he met the famous comic in May, 1986. "At the time I was living in Connecticut and both CNN and HBO had run pieces on the Bentwaters case. Through mutual friends who knew members of his family, I was told that Gleason would like to talk with me privately in his home in Westchester County, and so the meeting was set for a Saturday when we would both have some time to relax'".

After being formally introduced, the two men ventured into Gleason's recreation room complete with pool table and full-size bar. "There were hundreds of UFO books all over the place," Warren explains, "but Jackie was quick to tell me that this was only a tiny portion of his entire collection, which was housed in his home in Florida." For the rest of the day, UFO researcher and UFO witness exchanged information.

"Gleason seemed to be very well informed on the subject," Larry says, "as he knew the smallest detail about most cases and showed me copies of the book "Clear Intent" that had just been published, as well as a copy of "Sky Crash", a British book about Bentwaters that was published, actually, before all the details of this case were made public. I remember Gleason telling me about his own sightings of several discs in Florida and how he thought there were undersea UFOs bases out in the Bermuda Triangle."

But it wasn't till after Warren had downed a few beers and Gleason had had a number of drinks--"his favorite, Rob Roys"-that conversation really got down to brass tacks. "At some point, Gleason turned to me and said, 'I want to tell you something very amazing that will probably come out some day anyway. We've got em!' 'Got what', I wanted to know? 'Aliens!' Gleason sputtered, catching his breath."

According to Warren, Jackie proceeded to tell him the intriguing set of circumstances that led him to the stunning conclusion that extraterrestrials have arrived on our cosmic shores. "It was back when Nixon was in office that something truly amazing happened to me," Gleason explained. "We were close golfing buddies and had been out on the golf course all day when somewhere around the 15th hole, the subject of UFOs came up. Not many people know this," Gleason told Warren, "but the President shares my interest in this matter and has a large collection of books in his home on UFOs just like I do. For some reason, however, he never really took me into his confidence about what he personally knew to be true... one of the reasons being that he was usually surrounded by so many aids and advisers."

Later that night, matters changed radically, when Richard Nixon showed up at Gleason's house around midnight. "He was all alone for a change. There were no secret service agents with him or anyone else. I said, 'Mr. President, what are you doing here?' and he said he wanted to take me someplace and show me something." Gleason got into the President's private car and they sped off into the darkness--their destination being Homestead Air Force Base.

"I remember we got to the gate and this young MP came up to the car to look to see inside and his jaw seemed to drop a foot when he saw who was behind the wheel. He just sort of pointed and we headed off." Warren says that later Gleason found out that the secret service was going absolutely crazy trying to find out where Nixon was. "We drove to the very far end of the base in a segregated area," Gleason went on, "finally stopping near a well-guarded building. The security police saw us coming and just sort of moved back as we passed them and entered the structure.

There were a number of labs we passed through first before we entered a section where Nixon pointed out what he said was the wreckage from a flying saucer, enclosed in several large cases." Gleason noted his initial reaction was that this was all a joke brought on by their earlier conversation on the golf course. But it wasn't, as Gleason soon learned. "Next, we went into an inner chamber and there were six or eight of what looked like glass-topped Coke freezers. Inside them were the mangled remains of what I took to be children. Then - upon closer examination - I saw that some of the other figures looked quite old. Most of them were terribly mangled as if they had been in an accident."

According to Larry Warren's testimony (regarding Gleason's lengthy conversation about UFOs and space visitors), "I forget whether he said they had three or four fingers on each hand, but they definitely were not human...of this he was most certain!" For three weeks following his trip with Nixon to Homestead Air Force Base, the world famous entertainer couldn't sleep and couldn't eat. "Jackie told me that he was very traumatized by all of this.

He just couldn't understand why our government wouldn't tell the public all they knew about UFOs and space visitors. He said he even drank more heavily than usual until he could regain some of his composure and come back down to everyday reality." Larry Warren is convinced that Gleason wasn't lying to him. "You could tell that he was very sincere - he took the whole affair very seriously, and I could tell that he wanted to get the matter off his chest, and this was why he was telling me all of this." And as far as Larry Warren was concerned, the Great One's personal testimony only added extra credibility to his own first hand experience with aliens while he was in the service.

"Jackie felt just like I do that the government needs to 'come clean,' and tell us all it knows about space visitors. It time they stopped lying to the public and release all the evidence they have. When they do, then we'll all be able to see the same things the late Jackie Gleason did!" Hopefully this day may arrive soon.

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