Media Post #8

1. I found this flyer that was served to help the Japanese Americans along with the evacuation process at this website.
http://peacecorpsonline.org/messages/messages/2629/2028207.html

2. This was a flyer used to simplify the evacuation of many Japanese Americans in the San Francisco area. It was sent out by the Western Defense Command And Fourth Army Wartime Civil Control Administration on April 1, 1942. First of all it told what section of San Francisco this flyer applied to. It said all people would be evacuated by April 7, 1942. It also stated until then that no Japanese Americans could leave that area after April 2 until they were evacuated. It then states that the Civil Control Center would offer advice, provide services to assist them with all of their property and belongings, provide temporary residence for families, and transport a limited amount of their belongings to the interment camp that they would be sent to The last instructions said that the head of the household must report to the Civil Control Station to receive further instructions on Thursday April 2nd or Friday April 3rd. I chose this because became interested in the Japanese internment camps after we watched the movie about them. I also thought there were a few interesting things about the flyer.
3. This item relates to class material because we watched a brief video on the Japanese internment camps in class. We discussed how they were removed from their homes and taken to one room barracks. I wanted to find out how the whole process took place. This flyer is telling the Japanese Americans what they need to do before they are evacuated. I found a few things about this flyer/notice interesting. First of all it was sent out on April 1 and they were to be evacuated on April 7. This is only six days in advance. This had to be quite a shock to the Japanese living in the Pacific. You are living your everyday life, when suddenly you are told you have to go to internment camps in only six days. This had to be quite a shock for them and was probably and extremely hectic period. Also they couldn’t leave their area, so they would have been unable to visit family or friends that lived somewhere else before being evacuated. Another thing that we talked about it class was that the Japanese were not considered to be citizens. This notice reflects that as it says, “All Japanese persons both aliens and non-aliens.” It does not say citizens, instead they were referred to as aliens. One other thing that was discussed was when the Japanese were allowed to leave the internment camps and they went home, they found that there were other people in their houses and that their belongings that were left behind were no where to be found. Interestingly #2 on the list reads, “Provide services with the respect to the management, leasing, sale, storage or other disposition of most kinds of property including: real estate, business, and professional equipment, buildings, household goods, boats, automobiles, livestock, etc.” Clearly this statement was a lie as many Japanese Americans were forced to move elsewhere and create new lives for themselves after the war because all of their previous possessions had been taken by the “American” population.
4. I can’t imagine what I would have done if this had happened to me. I would have been so nervous and would have been anxiety plagued. I also think that it must have been terrible to have to give up valuable or important possessions that meant a lot and then never see them again because when you were gone they were taken. The American government tried to make this action seem harmless in their public service announcement, but that was not the case.