The full interview with George Takei is here: ua-cam.com/video/MB_Y8wotxUM/v-deo.html We had a very poor internet connection, so my apologies for the jitteriness of some of the interview.
My neighbor told me the worst thing for her family wasn't the camp but the return home. The govt(? someone?) sold her family's home, farm, and all their possessions to strangers. Every Japanese family from her town had everything they worked so hard for stolen from them. They left the camp, returned to the outside world with absolutely nothing and no compensation from the govt with young mouths to feed. She said that's what broke her family
I think that was the point - one of the groups that lobbied the hardest for the incarceration of Japanese Americans were the white California farmers who were envious of the success of their farms. So the moment the Japanese farmers were away, the same group took the opportunity to loot what they left behind to the bedrock. Good old all American racism.
Agreed. While the camp itself was not exactly a great place to be, it was not terrible. But finding out that your life outside was completely destroyed is another thing entirely. A very shameful history of the USA! Edit: Ok guys, the camp was terrible. I get it and agree with you. Enough of you have corrected me that I have chosen to edit my comment.
Hi Max, I wanted to let you know your videos have pierced through the gates of academia and are part of the syllabus at the University of Ottawa history graduate program! I have been watching you for a few years now, so amazing to end up seeing you at school!!! Edit: No, they are not stealing Max's content. We are just given links to his channel in the syllabus.
I remember my Grandad telling about his hometown soda fountain/drugstore owner being taken away because of his race. (He was a second generation Japanese American citizen.) The town looked after his store until he got out, when its operation was returned to him. A lot of folks were confused and angry about why the US would do that sort of thing. On the plus side, the store stayed open for years after that until the gent got too old and retired, and eventually passed away. That town was his home until the very end; he was grateful people had not only looked after his store, but also his home and gave him & his family a warm welcome back afterwards.
the government may suck but it's nice to know that good folks will always step up when needed. that guy must have been so happy to see how much the town cared about him and missed him
My great aunt and grandparents grew up in a very Japanese agricultural area. When my great aunt’s neighbor was sent away they could only take one bag of luggage and were forced to leave behind many precious items. The little girl left behind her dolls and my great aunt (around 5 years old) promised to give them back when she returned. The family never returned to their little farm and my great aunt spent a lifetime searching for them. 80 years later they found each other and she returned the dolls.
Amazing story! Kids seem to know what’s wrong, even when their government is saying it’s right. Was she able to return the dolls in person? Have the families kept in touch since then?
@@TheBusyJane Most likely they were moved a couple states away to a camp and couldn't afford to go back after they were released. Little to no money to travel meant they were stuck wherever the government dumped them.
My grandma very vocally disliked apple butter because she says they ate a lot of it in the mess hall/cafeteria when they were there. She and my grandpa met in the camps. She’s since passed, but he’s still alive at 102 years old and can beat you in pool.
I used to be in a ballet company. Our ballet master (mistress) had been interred in Manzanita. She used to tell us all about it. She created a ballet titled "Winter War" that we performed at the Kennedy Center. Sadly, she's no longer with us, but she was amazing. Her name was Mariko Murikami.
As a Finn, I find it a "funny" coincidence that the Winter War is what we call the 1939-1940 war between Finland and the USSR (nowadays seen as a larger part of WW2, but originally seen as a separate conflict in Finland). I wonder, if there could've been any actual connection between the titles.
Growing up in Utah there was a man who went to my mother’s church who had worked at Topaz, I think as a delivery driver or something, and he would speak to us about it on Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. One thing he said that stood out to me was something like, “Just cause we treated our prisoners better than the Germans, didn’t mean they still weren’t prisoners, and it didn’t mean we had any good reason to keep them there.” He did that lesson every year until he passed away.
@ Uh yeah, the US did. Same with Canada, for that matter. Though a separation should be made between Japanese-descended and German-descended civilians. German colonists arrived in the US in great numbers around/past 1820. Japanese colonists, however, began immigrating much sooner, thus having A) less an impact on local economy when interned and B) more of a potential connection to their home.
@@ASlickNamedPimpbackand C) weren't white. that's the important one. they weren't white, so their homes and businesses were stolen by their white neighbors while they were in camps where their population was concentrated. a camp of concentration, if you will. a concentration camp. don't pretend it was a reasonable policy, they didn't do it in Hawaii because it wasn't worth the effort but you'd think that's where the most harm could be done by a fifth column of old loyalists. stop defending the concentration camps. it's weird as hell.
Many Native Americans of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska went through a similar "relocation" process during the war so their homes could be used for military purposes. I remember hearing the story from one of the survivors at my high school school, and he broke down in tears multiple times telling it.
I took an American history class when I was in college that was taught by a man who spent the first few years of his life with his family in Manzinar Internment Camp. This was around 2002, and he was ardently against the a sentiment going around at the time: forced internment of Muslim-Americans. He said it was shockingly easy for people to forget--and then repeat--the mistakes of the past, and that's why we MUST study history. Thanks for the video, Max.
Being Japanese-American, this video was equal parts emotional and hilarious. I recognized so much from what I've been brought up with, and I also learned new things too! Bravo was actually touching on the proper wording for the camps. That's a very common point of contention. My great aunt is Sue Kunitomi-Embry. She worked for the Manzanar Press and was very involved with preserving the site post-war. I also had family in the 100/442 and MIS, so thank you so much for telling a part of their story. Definitely sharing this with the fam. Can't wait for the next one, Max!
@@VivianLinMusic During World War II, Japan operated "internment camps" within its own territory where they detained citizens of Allied nations, particularly from countries like Britain, America, and the Netherlands, who were living in Japan at the time; these camps were used to hold civilians suspected of espionage and often involved harsh conditions like forced labor, malnutrition, and limited access to basic necessities. The primary reason cited for Japanese internment camps during World War II was to prevent potential espionage and sabotage by Japanese Americans, particularly following the attack on Pearl Harbor. From google. The USA and the Japanese had imprisonment camps . The difference is ,is that the Japanese imprisonment camps were far worse than the US camps were.
A memory so vivid to me is in 5th grade when talking about WW2 I mentioned the interment camps to my teacher and she looked me in the eye and told me it didn’t happen. I’ll never forget the feeling of being the on,y Asian in my school and being told by a teacher that this horrible moment to the Asian American population didn’t happen
It was a horrible moment for *Japanese/Americans (and people mistaken as Japanese, I guess). Because as an Indonesian from Asia (like, Asian from Asia?) I can assure you my parents and grandparents did not for one bit feel any kinship to the Japanese people during WW2... :/
Similar to what happened to my son this year. His English teacher was teaching about the Japanese American camps, and when my son asked him about the German Americans and Italian Americans also put in camps he refused to discuss it because he said they “don’t matter”.
@DizzyBusy That was the attitude of my father as well. I found it hard to believe that people allowed their neighbors to be treated in this way so unjustly. But every word of it was true. My fear is that the exact same thing is about to happen with a larger group of people again. We'll never live this down ever--nor should we. 🫤
@humanbeing1168 What is wrong with these people? This is what happens when compassion and ethics are abandoned by leaders and their base. It becomes a widening tidal wave of bad acts and behavior. We must not allow any of it happen again!
My dad's childhood friend was Japanese and his family owned a farm in southern California. The farm had been in the family for several generations. The family were all American citizens. But when they were released from the internet camp, they found that their farm had been seized by the government and sold. The family lost everything. They did not return, and my dad never saw his friend again.
This really illustrates to me how racism translates into wealth disparities year after year. If that farm was anywhere near the San Diego or Los Angeles metros, that land would be worth an incredible fortunate. Even if it's further out, it'd still be incredibly valuable land. Whatever white family bought that stolen land is probably now extremely wealthy while the Japanese family had to start over from nothing. And this has happened to Black and Indigenous people for century after century, but some people will still blame anything other than structural racism for the results.
@@paigeh1670 This is exactly what happened, they used war as a cover to do a land grab and relocate the Japanese to poor land. It was racially motivated, like internal conquest even though the Japanese were citizens too. To those that don't believe; many of these official projects are now declassified. It is truly despicable and gets worse the more you dig through those documents.
@@paigeh1670 This is exactly what happened, they used war as a cover to do a land grab and relocate the Japanese to poor unwanted land. It was racially motivated, like internal conquest even though the Japanese were citizens too. To those that don't believe; many of these official projects are now declassified. It is truly despicable and gets worse the more you dig through those documents.
@@paigeh1670 This is exactly what happened, they used war as a cover to do a land grab and relocate the Japanese to poor unwanted land. It was racially motivated, like internal conquest even though the Japanese were citizens too. To those that don't believe; many of these official projects are now declassified. It is truly despicable and gets worse the more you dig through those documents.
@@paigeh1670 This is exactly what happened, they used war as a cover to do a land grab and relocate the Japanese to poor unwanted land. It was racial1y motivated, like internal conquest even though the Japanese were citizens too. To those that don't believe; many of these official projects are now dec1assified. It is truly despicable and gets worse the more you dig through those documents. Typos are intentional due to YT censorship deleting my comments.
In 8th grade we learned about these camps and someone who grew up in one came to speak at my school. He was young at the time but still had clear memories of it. I'll never forget the face he made when asked about the "compensation" his family got from the government, the disappointment and exhaustion was super evident. His family lost everything
@ They lost everything being sent to the camps. Their house, their business, all their belongings, everything. All they got in recompense was $20k which is far from the full value of what was taken
My father worked for an international company in the mid 60s. One of his postings was in a Chicago neighborhood. He hired a wonderful woman to take care of me. She had been in several internment camps. The first time I met her, I was 3. I called her ‘grandma’. She taught my mother how to cook. My mother was from a class in Japan who did not do household things. I remember the first time she learned how to make tuna casserole. She made it every day until I begged grandma to teach her something else.
Three generations of my dad's family were detained at the Poston III camp in Arizona. My dad, who was born in San Luis Obispo, CA, was 10 and the oldest of 4 siblings when he went in as a "threat to the country." The family lost 500 acres of ready to crops, 2 houses and multiple vehicles. The appliances stored in the basement of a temple for when they got out of the camps also disappeared. My dad said he remembered issei walking off into the desert and never coming back because they had lost hope. The story was extremely well told. Thank you.
My mom was in Gila River . They lost everything. They could only take what they could carry in a suitcase. They had to give away their dog! Her father had a stroke . Two government officials came and took him away., as he couldn’t go to the camp with them. My mom was 13 years old and they made her sign papers to take him! They never saw him again. He died where ever they took him . She had so much guilt over that. After the war, They had nothing to go back to in Santa Maria CA. There was too much hate. They ended up in Cleveland where her brothers found work. Thanks for sharing your story here. It’s always tough to hear, but appreciated
@@kiyoko65 what a heartbreaking story. Thank you for sharing. I hope your mom wrote down her story. Someone killed my dad's dog right before the camps. When my grandfather got out to help find jobs for people, someone shot up the house where he and other men were staying. They all survived, thankfully. I appreciate Max doing this. I've been reading so many experiences.
Poston concentration camp was turned into a part of the Colorado River Reservation and later came under control the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The substandard housing was later used by the BIA. The documentary Passing Poston connects the two communities' histories well.
@@krispyier I bet the Japanese and indigenous people could relate to each other a lot. I hope they both are fighting for each others rights and actual sincere apologies from America.
Rumor has it the Madonna family, of the Madonna Inn fame in San Luis Obispo, bolstered their wealth by stealing a lot of what was formerly Japanese owned land when incarceration camps started! There is a super, super small plaque in the back of a parking lot of the back side of a street in SLO commemorating Japanese internment, but how hidden it is feels like such a disgrace, I wish there was more honor and visibility given to it.
One thing i love about your channel, Max, is the comment section! Every episode has comments from people sharing their own histories about the food, the events, or the countries discussed in your video. The anecdotes and aadditional hustorical tidbits flesh out the stories even more. You've built an awesome community, Max! Thank you, fellow Tasting History enthusiasts! ❤
Hello from France, the 442nd American Infantry Regiment was made up of soldiers of Japanese origin who fought in Europe while their parents were interned in the camps. ps: to write in English I use google translate so there may be errors
Most decorated unit in American history. They didn’t get the name “Purple Heart Battalion” accidentally though - the number injured and lost was also remarkable.
Hello from California, my grandfather served in the 442nd and fought in France until he was wounded outside of Bruyeres France. I'm happy to hear France still remembers my grandfather's sacrifice.
My mom's best friend was taken to Manzanar with her family in 1942. They were at school together one day, and the next day, her friend was gone. The Japanese family didn't have time to sell their house or nursery, and they never came back. In the 80's, I had a friend who was born at the Tule Lake center. He couldn't even talk about it, it was too upsetting. This is what angers me about people not learning history or even trying to re-invent it (the number of people denying the Holocaust increases every year): as Winston Churchill said, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Bravo to George Takei for talking about his history!
If you look at the next administration going in, I think it’d be hard not to think we’re gonna have work camps on the border, you can’t deport millions and millions of people all at once without doing something with them and I believe they’re gonna be putting camps on the border of Mexicoand shoving immigrants in there, this is not a good look for the country. There are better ways to handle a bad situation than turning back the clocks to 1930s Germany.
@@PunchesCouchesI'm sorry but you're the one who was wrong here. Anyone, Japanese or Japanese American were taken to internment camps. Almost 120k of people taken to internment camps were children. And in some cases they were seperated from their family. You're talking like it wasn't hell on earth for the Japanese but it was exactly that. Many died in internment camps because of inadequate care, a portion of them BEING CHILDREN. Most were taken to internment camps without consent, anyone Japanese was taken regardless of whether they were born in America or not. Internment camps were also not limited to Japanese either, Jews were also taken to them.
@@PunchesCouches you know that’s a bunch of bullshit, right? You have no idea what happened, that’s what a press secretary said, maybe you should ask the people that were thrown in there the truth? Don’t be ridiculous, this country is about to go through this again, I’m curious if you’re gonna support work camps again?
my grandma's family were farmers in Washington and the cops just showed up and took everyone with no interviews or anything and then the neighbors stole their land why are you trying to justify something that the govt already officially recognized as bad and paid reparations for?
@@karaamundson3964 Ronald Reagan gave the $1.3billion worth to the victims.... that being said I think someone should have spent time in JAIL for allowing doing such a despicable act. For one i despise the Democrat Party. Say what you will against the Republicans - I hope Left-wing voters just stop supporting the party. They are the fri&#$@cken party of slavery for crying out loud. I know Left-wingers HATE the Right but God, can't they just stop supporting the NAME. Delete the name from existence.
It wasn't enough, but it wasn't zero. In the 80s Japanese families were given reparations by, of all people, the Reagan administration. I think it amounted to something like $30,000 per family.
I was fortunate to be taught this in Junior high. They didn't try to sugarcoat it and they didn't try to say it was right. I was very fortunate because reading the comments it looks like a lot of people didn't have the luxury of learning about this. History should never be forgotten, that way we don't repeat our sins again. I love your content very much Max.
This reminds me of a story my grandma told me. In the town she grew up in, there was a Japanese family that she was acquainted with. They weren't super close or anything, but she remembered them as being nice people. Right after the news of Pearl Harbor had been broadcast over the radio, an angry mob began to form and started to head towards my grandma's neighborhood to enact "revenge" on the Japanese family. Thankfully, the town sheriff saw what was happening and was able to get over to the family before the mob did and helped them to safely evacuate, but the fact that he even needed to is an absolute travesty. The way Japanese-Americans were treated during the war was an absolute disgrace.
@@applesandgrapesfordinner4626 They're just ignorant and want attention. Probably hurting a lot and so wants to hurt others to try and fill that void. Just ignore them tbh
I have family who were sent to Camp Amache and Manzanar, and as someone who grew up hearing their stories, thank you so much Max. Its so nice to see someone discussing what happened, especially someone outside the Japanese-American community. As the generation who survived these concentration camps pass on, its up to us to continue their legacy and keep their stories alive. *Also I know they’re typically referred to as internment camps/incarceration camps, but my family says concentration camps. My grandmother specifically once told me: “We say concentration camps because we knew what they really were. Others call it that because they only heard about it or saw what the government wanted them to, we lived it.”
A Californian, I visited what was left of Manzanar yrs ago (it's since been made more of a national monument/park and re-built or built to show some of what was there in the 40s). I went on a typical dry, hot August day and it was easy to understand how desolate and difficult being interned there had to have been. As Max said, these internment camps were all away from populations; Manzanar was isolated, many miles away from population, hot as hell in the summer, and being high desert it was very cold and miserable in the winter. People lived in tents or tacked up flimsy buildings that gave little protection in heat or cold, and families had little space or privacy. As humans will do, and as the Japanese culture of those interned taught them, those interned made do as best they could, creating activities, working on the farm/orchard, providing support and entertainment among themselves as best they could to bear the elements, desolation, and sheer injustice of being bereft of their own homes/property and stuck miles from where they had called home. Saying it was injust and cruel is not at all enough, whether the people in Manzanar were newly immigrated Japanese or second or third generation Americans of Japanese descent. The US govenment incarcerated peoople without due process and out of blatant fear and racism. That so many of them came out of Manzanar and other camps and eventually excelled and rebuilt lives is amazing; most remained loyal to the US despite the US not being loyal to them. My European immigrant grnadparents and parents lived descent normal lives (farmers and dairy-related jobs) in their nice homes, while natural-born and immigrant Japanese Americans were incarcerated and suspected of disloyalty just because of their skin color and heredity.
My mother used to tell us about her Japanese neighbors (in El Monte, California), and how they had to flee. We were always encouraged to be polite of everyone, and it was especially crucial when we went to a local fruit stand. Mr. Sukada (as we were taught to greet him) owned it, and he was such a nice man. In high school, my daughter was required to read the book Farewell to Manzanar. Mrs. Roosevelt was correct: this was a terrible error.
Thank you so much for making this video. My great-grandparents (Issei/Japanese immigrants) and grandparents (Nisei, natural born US citizens) were all incarcerated in Tule Lake. When I was growing up, my grandmother would sometimes make a Weenie Royale-like dish that was cabbage, pieces of hot dogs, and eggs cooked together with soy sauce and some ketchup and served with rice. She called this "camp food" and said they would make it with soy sauce when they were lucky enough to have it, but usually just the ketchup. The dish you made here reminded me of that a lot. I also want to thank you for making the point about "internment" vs. "incarceration" in the video. In our community we often try to make a point of not using euphemisms for this dark piece of history. We call them prison camps or even concentration camps, since that's what they were -- camps constructed to concentrate an ethnic minority away from the general population. We recognize the "internment" as one of the United States governments' many historical instances of using concentration camps against segments of its own population. It's great to see someone from outside our community making that point. Thank you, Max.
I did an excavation at the Amache internment camp this summer. It was such a hostile and tiring environment that whenever I had a bad dinner after 11 hours of intensive archaeology, it made the day even worse. I can't imagine how it felt for them, having that same experience in the first couple of years before they figured out their own food system. (Side note: if you ever find yourself passing through Granada, Colorado, please visit and support the museum!)
My grandmother grew up in Camp Amache, and yes their food system was a mess. She told me how her parents used to wait long times just to get food for them and her younger siblings
Small world, one of my close friends is a former student of Dana. Puts it all in perspective seeing in a small part what those folks went through, right? They have a great museum out there and thank you for spotlighting it. ✌️
@@taylorwong6966 You should visit Amache during one of their dig seasons and tell them that story, they would love that information! They might even have something to show you relating to that, like their film footage collection showing mess hall lines.
About 9 years ago I was privileged to meet the sweetest little old woman named Rose. She had grown up in Washington as the daughter of Japanese immigrants, and loved to tell stories all about her childhood and living on her family’s farm, and how her father grew the most enormous, vibrant, and flavorful rhubarb for miles around 😂 She and her family were forced into an internment camp when she was about 14, and she didn’t shy away from talking about it. I’m so grateful that I got to meet her and hear her incredible stories before she passed a few years ago. The knowledge that there are people out there who would forget or even worse, flat out deny what happened to her and so many others just like her is deeply disturbing and cruel. Thank you for not forgetting them, Max.
I'm not going to lie Max, I want to see the cabinet where you keep all the pokemon plushies you have that are always relevant to either the dish or the topic at hand.
@@KetchupwithMaxandJose Any plans for a new Episode soon? I always love behind the scenes stuff and would love to hear news from you two, though I understand how it might get harder these days, with all the work on the main channel.
In the high school I went to, there were big frames on the walls of the main hallway to the cafeteria that had the senior pictures of every class dating back to the 20s or 30s. This was in Idaho and about 2-3 hours away from Minidoka (an incarnation camp). You can tell the exact year the camps were in full swing because all the Japanese family names that had been prevalent and consistent across the years before that were suddenly gone completely. The classes were also smaller for a short while but that wasn’t noticeable unless you were paying attention, which was the same for the disappearance to begin with. Even after the imprisonment period ended, the Japanese population/presence never recovered and remained nearly non-existent up to when I graduated in 2020. I think most people walk by those pictures every day never realizing that clue to history sitting there. There isn’t anything mentioning it anywhere and I figured it out on my own because I knew about the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans during WW2 and spent time staring at the photos and names. It makes me upset to think some people believe it never happened and that it was made up. Why then, I must ask, would a random high school in Idaho have an unacknowledged story like that silently on its walls? I was curious and a bit nervous about how this episode would be handled but I should know by now that Tasting History has tact and it would be okay. Really I’m just glad we’re refusing to forget a dark part of our history and the people it impacted.
My highschool dated back to the early 1900s in Arizona and we had plaques on the walls for students dating back to the 1910s. There were noticeably fewer plaques from 1917/1918 and 1942 - 1945.
@@oliviawolcott8351 that’s not totally true, some Americans approve of the cruelty…I mean there’s people in this comment section defending the camps as necessary. If their family ended up in a camp I suspect they’d think differently but since it’s “other people” it’s totally okay.
My grandfather, who was a fruitfarmer/ rancher during the war. We had several Japanese ranchers in the surrounding ranches. My grandfather hired migrant workers and kept five ranches going while our Japanese friends and neighbors were relocated to Tule Lake Internment Center. The families came home to fully functioning ranches and a substantial amount of money in a savings account for them.
Your Grandfather was a Great Man among men. I hope his legacy lives on through his grandchildren. When I read your comment, it brought me to tears of joy for the humanity that your Grandfather showed toward his neighbors. He saved their lives, and subsequent generations of his family. Thank you for sharing this great story.
I knew a lady that was a neighbor of my grandmother that was in one of these camps when she was just a toddler. She told me she used to act cute and make friends with guards and they would give her things like chocolate bars/other candies. She would always share whatever she got with her family but she had to hide it bc some of the guards didn't like it and would stop sharing.
Hi Max Thank you so much for shedding light on the Internment. My grandfather (who was born in Fresno) and his family were incarcerated at Poston in Arizona, and it’s always great to see people from outside the Japanese American community educating people about the camps. Really love your channel. I wish there was more content like your in UA-cam. Keep up the good work!
I remember being a sophomore in Catholic High School in 1982. We had an absolutely amazing teacher named Mr. Sherman. Even people who weren’t interested in history LOVED his class, and we didn’t want to leave when the bell rang. He taught us about the Japanese internment camps. I remember we all sat there, just staring at him, because none of us had EVER heard about our country doing such a thing, and obviously didn’t want to believe it. I felt sick to my stomach, and asked my WWII veteran, Dachau-liberating father about it when he got home from work that night. He said he wasn’t aware that it had happened until after he returned from the war, and he could never understand why. It upset him, too, because he was a fan of FDR - but he certainly didn’t agree with what he did regarding the internment camps.
@@QueenOfTheNorth65 This isn't the only time the US has done this kind of thing. Eisenhower did something similar to Americans of Mexican decent in the 1950s. The "Operation" even used the slur for Mexicans in its title. 😕
Sounds like when I asked my Silent Gen dad about the Tulsa Race Massacre. Turned out his (white) dad got picked up for curfew while dating my grandma. If we were Black, the story would have ended very differently.
@@SpukiTheLoveKitten75FDR has a few of those. My wife’s grandfather was in the 442nd, which was only maybe 1/3rd from mainland US and would have had family in the camps…
@Justanotherconsumer It just shows how bigoted people were back then... where even people who were considered good would pull stuff like that. I'll bet German Americans didn't get dumped into internment camps.
My ex husband was born in Camp. His parents met and married in Camp. The only stories about food they talked about was how the families in their blocks would share supplies for special occasions, like weddings, to make a cake. Flour, butter, sugar were not always available to every family for such things, so trading and promises of help later were worked. Suits and wedding dresses were shared.
I worked for a woman who was a child living in one of these camps. Thanks for telling this story. She had a lot of unusual food habits that reminded me of how people managed during the Great Depression. This explains a lot of why she was so obsessed about food hoarding and storage.
Apparently a lot of people on the east coast don't even know about the internment camps, simply because there was little to no Japanese population there. It would be cool to see you cover the German and (much smaller) Italian camps too, or POW food.
most of my Japanese grandma's family moved to NYC area after being sent to Minidoka and having their farmland stolen while they were incarcerated the history books barely mentioned it but I remember doing the family tree project in school and learning about all of this and explaining it to the rest of the class
I grew up on the East Coast and did know about it as a child, but I think it only came up because I am Jewish and we were told in Hebrew school about Japanese Americans who were incarcerated in these camps - we learned about it in the context of WWII and the Holocaust. Part of the reason they told us about it was to explain the difference between different types of camps: concentration camps (which is what places like Manzanar were), death camps (Auschwitz-Birkenau), forced labour camps, and displaced persons camps. It was also to remind us that no country is immune to the idea of rounding people up based on their race or ethnicity.
George actually held me as a toddler at a Star Trek convention. My Dad was a huge Trekkie. I remember it pretty well too, I believe I saw him in a hallway and went running at him yelling his character name "Sulu" and he just picked me right up!
The bit about other Americans thinking the interned people were "cheating" and getting better resources than those on the outside was fascinating. I've had many conversations with a particular family member who is absolutely convinced the same is true of current... disadvantaged groups of people in America, shall we say. The more things change the more they stay the same, it seems.
The "misery loves company" complex. The idea that someone has and you don't is as old as tribal Neanderthals. I will never understand the mindset, but I too have family that suffer with it. 😞
Such a shame that the same happens to this very say. There will always be people who point fingers at the victimized and who urge others to do so as well.
@@jeffslote9671 Doesn't really take that much to earn more than a pvt during WW2 though, also the people in the camps still had their freedom taken away, what about the business owners whose companies were sold to white Americans??. Who gives a fuck if they were paid more than privates when they couldn't exercise freewill, this is no different than a plantation owner talking about how well he treats his slaves, they are still slaves whether they are eating caviar or dusty bread.
@@jeffslote9671 it takes one google comparison to see that the highest paid Japanese interment personel were getting 19$ a month, with many getting as low as 12$. While the average privates salary throughout WWII was 50$
@@jeffslote9671 did you even watch the video? Not only did these people have their homes and property confiscated from the US government, what they could sell to their white neighbors with the agreement to buy back, many also lost because those white neighbors kept it for themselves. Japanese prisoners had significantly less during these times, it was designed that way by FDR & his advisors. We're others sacrificing and suffering too? Yes. But not in the same ways.
My grandfather grew up in an internment camp. I never got to ask him about it because dementia had already started taking him away by the time I found out. I found a letter he had wrote to the governor of Hawaii back in the 70's absolutely lambasting him when the governor had said something to the effect of "the camps weren't that bad."
There is an internment camp in Idaho that they taught us about when I was a kid. I’ll be 65 this month. One of our teachers was in the camp and would give a presentation.
I had a student that would do projects for a Manzanar competition that is held every year here in Los Angeles. It's a competition for students to bring awareness to the interment camps through art, music and essays. Since I'm not native to this state and given that my history knowledge is very lacking, I count myself blessed to have a student that taught me about this dark time in U.S. history. I learned a lot from her, her family and the kind people from the Manzanar Committee. Thank you for making this video! I hope that someday this topic is taught in public schools throughout the country.
NOT BACKGROUND NOISE People can study history, in a thousand silent ways. To actively consume every Tuesday, with the ring of perfect fire Mr Miller incites in all of us. Well, it comes with stories of triumph and chocolate bars. Fine cream on scones and celebrations and dancing. It also comes with the poverty of removed choice. The spoons set aside in internment. The big words that steal futures. People can be afraid of the crumbs. But it is the most important. These people lived They survived They ate Sitting with them in solace Max makes me smile in his kindness George Takei, has offered many perspectives and written plays on this matter Returned to childhood the food of his formative years, respected Sit with this and listen to the stories while whisking History is rarely without complex emotion It is not background noise, and neither is this episode.
As a Canadian, we had internment camps as well. I've always had a fascination with this dark period of our history after in my youth we drove on back roads into remote British Columbia to the remains of Minto Internment camp. With the bitter winters.... The suffering must have been intense.... Thank you for keeping this often forgotten sad part of our history alive.
I wish I knew more. My great grandfather (named Adolf...bad name at the time) was 'interned' out of Saskatchewan and died there but I know nothing about it because everyone is so ashamed.
My late mother in law was born in Minadoka camp in Idaho. She remembered it always cold. She said the food was not very good but you were hungry and there was no other choices. Her parents owned a small business in Seattle, that and the house was sold to someone before they left for camp. But family heirlooms were gone. Her father was very healthy before camp but got Emphysema there and was sickly afterward. When they went back to Seattle they were no longer Japanese, English names were used, no Japanese was spoken even at home anymore.
As a Japanese-American myself, I hereby present this comment as my sacrifice to the almighty algorithm. May this video spread far and wide. Go for Broke! Edit: probs should point out that I'm a nisei, so I have no known blood ties to anyone that was in the internment camps
My father is a little older than George Takei and his take on the camps was that as a young boy he had the time of his life. He basically lived with his friends and every day was an adventure. He said the guards would let the boys out to go fishing and such because they felt bad for the kids and knew they'd come back because, again, the kids thought life in the camp was great. I know from an older uncle that the adults were of course very distressed and angry, but as a kid my dad had a different perspective.
My grandmother was a refugee in Europe during WWII as a child and she also described it as feeling like a big adventure, because she was old enough to be aware of what was going on close to her but not what her family saw coming that forced them to leave.
The attitude of your parents and other adults should be commended. If they had imparted sorrow and distress on to the children, your memories would likely be different. Reminds of the movie, ' Life is Beautiful', which was a beautiful story of human decency in the face of human depravity.
My dad, who is about the same age, was incarcerated with his family in Grand Forks, BC, Canada when he was around 5. He also loved moving from downtown Vancouver to a place they could run around and play outside. At the same time, he acknowledged that it was, as Dave Eggars put it, "a supposedly fun thing I'll never do again." My grandfather, by contrast, was constantly being taken away to cut new roads or fight forest fires.
At Manzanar they have audio memories from different people involved with the camps. One was from a guard who saw kids he was guarding trying to fish. He then brought some fishing hooks and (if I remember correctly) put them in a brown paper bag and pushed it underneath the fence for them. Manzanar was a heartbreaking place to visit. But it was touching to know there were small moments of kindness like this there.
Most decorated, period. About 10k men, in two years, earned over 18k citations including: 4k bronze stars 4k Purple Hearts 7 Presidential Unit Citations 21 Medals of Honor
Being Asian American, I appreciate you sharing this part of our American history. I know I learned about this in high school and met one survivor who wrote a book about his experience.
I live in a city just east of Portland OR and in the summer love going to my local fruit stand for fresh berries and produce. It has been owned for generations by a Japanese family. Th family were incarcerated in a camp during the war. Their neighbors took over the farm for them and kept it going and when the family returned from the war it was returned. I've heard that this is not the only time a farm or business was kept alive and then given back. Great episode Max, looking forward to the interview with George Takei
As a Japanese-American who was born in L.A. and learned about the internment camps in Japanese school (which was attended on Saturdays), as well as absolutely adoring Mr. Takei for not only delighting my childhood with his portrayals of Mr. Sulu and his very vocal spreading of his and others' experiences in those camps at that turbulent time in our nation's history, I want to deeply thank you for taking the time to make this. I've been a longtime fan and will continue to be one.
Manzanar was a testament to the power of human resilience, and the museum there does an amazing job of telling the story of those who were forced to live there (it is in the middle of nowhere, but well worth the visit). One tiny artifact in the museum brought tears to my eyes: a gold class ring, from a high school student who graduated in the camp. Given the low wages of those who worked in the camp, it had to have been a major sacrifice to pay for that ring. That student opted to save their money instead of spending it on luxury items at the canteen, instead using it to celebrate their academic success in school. All this despite the injustice of having to live at Manzanar against their will. That person’s resilience and ability to rise above the injustice they were facing was truly inspring and heart wrenching to me.
Thank you for covering this. These policies were mirrored in Canada and becomes a single lost sentence in our history books. "Throw-Away Citizens" was a news special done highlighting treatment of Japanese citizens in Canada during WWII. It was the first and only time I heard my Bachan talk about what she and her family experienced.
@@ManCheat2and in many countries. America. Canada. England. Wales. Scotland. Latin America, very few LA countries left them alone. Australia. New Zealand. Probably Russia.
That was amazing you actually got to interview George Takei - and well done because it really shows your commitment to getting first-hand stories and facts right rather than copying and pasting from Wikipedia :)
While my family came to America after the war, I had always thought Vienna Sausages with rice and soy-sauce was such an odd dish when I was a kid. Now I know where it came from - we learned it from families who had connections to the internment camps! This was a really amazing episode, Max!
A former co-worker of mine's parents spent some time in the camps in the Central Valley (CA). Before they left, they buried a small tin of random coins, maybe $40 worth (at the time, so equal to $580 roughly in today's money), basically all the money they had left by that point. They were able to come back and dig it up and retrieve it when they were able to come back home. My co-worker still has the tin and coins.
My great grandparents actually had a farm next door to one of these camps and they always told us a story that they had an arrangement with the camp that they would allow the people they held there to voluntarily work on their farm in exchange for a bit of money and feeding them since the camps were not adequately providing food for them. It was apparently very popular because the food they were given in the camp was notoriously bad and they weren’t given enough and my great grandma was a good cook so everyday they took in as many people as they could and made a massive banquet type meal to feed them all. Later I found out my grandma on the other side of my family was held at that camp as a child but I didn’t get the chance to ask her perspective on the other side of the story.
There was a japanese interment camp in new zealand, in featherston, where a riot happened and many people died. It's good to not shy away from the hard parts of history. I can't imagine what the japanese-americans went through, being sovreign citizens to having lost EVERYTHING. It's so unfair, I have no words. Thank you for sharing.
My mom used to tell us about the Japanese neighbors she used to have (in El Monte, CA) and how they had to leave. We were always taught to be respectful of everyone and that was most important when we visited a local fruit stand. Mr. Sukada (and that's how we were taught to address him) owned it and he was such a sweet man. My daughter had to read a book in high school called Farewell to Manzanar. Mrs. Roosevelt was correct that this was a horrible mistake.
Eleanor Roosevelt was an interesting woman. Her extended family had money, but her immediate family did not. She was raised to keep up with others as if her family still had wealth. She volunteered in inner city slums, living there to help serve the poorest of the poor. She much more closely identified with the poor than the wealthy. She always understood that she was a half-step away from extreme poverty (her uncle Teddy kept her from that). This really helped to shape her husband's policies later. It also made her outspoken. He probably NEVER heard the end of it from her about the internment camps.
@@TheGelasiaBlythe I think that she should have been the president. If she was president, I doubt we would have to argue with nationalists and apologists like we do. Any other first lady would have been super happy with it, but not Eleanor. She was good. There is literally a mega big apologist in this comment section (moorek1967). Do not talk with her, she doesn't care.
This also happened in Canada. A substantial population in BC was dispossessed and sent to camps. They could not even return home after the war, until 1949. Many went to Québec and other Eastern provinces.
In the 1970s it was revealed that the Military Intelligence Service Language School in WW2 was located in Fort Snelling in St. Paul as only Minnesota agreed to have the school placed there to both teach the Japanese language to military translators and take part in codebreaking. Hundreds of Japanese American volunteers from the internment camps, both men and women joined the war effort on behalf of the US. As a result the Twin Cities became home to many Japanese Americans after the war, and the community has only expanded and grown over the decades.
When I was growing up, I didn’t learn about the Japanese internment camps from my classes, but from a book I found in the library. I can’t remember the name of it anymore - it was pale blue and probably from the 80s or early 90s, about a girl getting to know her neighbor who eventually shared he was once in an internment camp. It wasn’t touched on too heavily as the book was made for young readers, but it touched on a part of history that I was completely unaware of. The same classroom very much glazed over Asian and Asian American histories - described the Opioid trade in China as an addiction that started trade routes rather than the other way around, and described the US occupation of Japan as a happy solution to a disagreement rather than the result of full out war. I only learned a small amount about the internment camps in high school, with a much greater priority on Pearl Harbor, but I did much more extensive research on my own. By time I learned about internment camps in a school setting was when I was in college, taking a specific East Asian Politics class, which was undoubtedly taken mostly by people who were already aware of these historical events and wanted to learn more. An elective, not a requirement. We need to make our global history a larger part of our education. We need to share information as it is rather than from the perspective of the “righteous” and the “victors”. We’re already seeing the result of that kind of education - a growing rate of people denying the existence of past horrors, and remarkably dangerous trends that suggest that history is preparing to repeat itself in the worst manner.
I remember walking around Astoria in Queens, NY and stumbling upon the Noguchi museum. He was a sculpture, did amazing stone work, and inside was a room dedicated to his time at the internment camp. Wild story that he was living in NYC and asked the US Government if he could visit one of the camps to design a outdoor garden area to improve living conditions. They told him no, and he fought it, and finally they agreed, so he went. When he arrived he was interred, and when he tried to leave the camp officials said they didn't know anything about him or his garden and he was stuck inside the camp. I mean could you imagine? Anyway, super interesting and he's an amazing artist ... the museum is a stunner as well. If you're in NYC you should check it out.
17:21 If you've never had mochi, you don't know what you are missing out on. Mochi is great. It's chewy, gelatinous, and semi-sweet with a sweet filling in the middle. My current favorite mochi is infused with a very fragrant Thai tea. Red bean paste is a classic form of mochi. Would love to try a chai flavor infusion.
Hand pounded mochi is rare but if anyone has the chance to get some at a New Years Day ceremony it's worth it. Sweetened roasted soy bean powder (kinako) on top is my favorite for hand pounded mochi.
Mochi ice cream has really confused the lines...mochi is pounded rice. Monju is sweet rice and/or flour with sweet bean fillings, etc. Mochi ice cream is probably an American invention. Back when I was growing up, there were fresh monju shops in San Francisco's Japantown. One was named Benkyodo. Forgot the name of the other shop around the corner. I've also pounded mochi when I was an elementary school kid. lol
Peanut butter mochi is good Could even put chocolate or fruit in it Kinda like a filled doughnut but completely different textures and it's also chewy and a little firm But extremely soft It's unexpected for people who never had it Not something people in America typically eat for dessert But you'll easily find it in most Asian import/grocery stores Same with those little probiotic drinks, like yogurt but with the consistency of milk You can't eat just one of em
@@ReclusiveMountainMan Mochi ice cream is really common in Japan, I can't imagine it's an American invention. It's in all of the groceries. Donki has a section for it in the freezer aisle.
We used "They Called Us Enemy" with our gifted kids in 5th grade to teach about the WW2 era. It is sn amazing book to teach kids about war time, fear, and human rights.
I got to share this first. It's lines from a poem by Fuzuki Yumi "Gathering Voices" When we think of peace Let us look for the wounds So as not to cover over unseen injuries with vague big words. I have to write to that and this episode
Thank you so much for making this follow up video. My grandfather and great aunt where raised in the camps. My grandpa died when I was young, but my great aunt passed only recently. I think its incredibly valuable to highlight these aspects of history that are often ignored or worse, forgotten.
my grandpa was born in an internment camp in BC (canada) my grandma lovingly chastises him about the fact that he cannot eat any meal without rice lol. he was too young to remember much of the camp but his older siblings did, his older brother especially was very messed up by it. my grandpa and his siblings never learned to speak japanese, and they lost contact with family still in japan. I'm the first one since my great-grandmother to learn the language, and our family is trying to connect back with our japanese roots in our old family recipes and traditions. for example inarizushi (i hate it personally) we make it a special way that one day i'll pass on to my own kids!
The postwar generation is such a lost one in many ways. My father was born just before the war and was 7 when he was sent to the camps. After the war, there seems to have been such a push to never have it happen again that a lot of the culture wasn't passed down. All of the Japanese-Canadians who moved to Toronto after the war never lived in an area that could have been called "Japantown," for instance. Make it harder to round us up next time. But it came at a huge cultural loss to us. My dad and his siblings speak very rudimentary Japanese. It was only after living in Japan for 8+ years that I was able to talk to my grandfather in his first language. Of course, with him having moved away from Japan in the early 20th century and me moving back in the early 21st, our versions of the language were very different. But it was great to be able to do that.
One of the interesting things i find is how nostalgic people get for food even for rough times from their childhood, like the weenie supreme or in my case, the costco muffins, which got me through homelessness. Its a weirdly comforting thing to revisit those flavors
Maruchan (or Nissin) top ramen does it for me. I learned to stir fry or add other flavors, but while we grew many of our own veggies, other than that we were somewhat limited on food because of money. Top ramen was cheap enough that I was forgiven for eating them once in a while, and packed flavor I was sorely missing otherwise (apparently my mother had never considered adding salt or pepper to food until I was ~8)
I was recently asked if I watch content on UA-cam and if so, which channel was my favorite. Without hesitating, I said "Tasting History with Max Miller!" You teach about history better than any history teacher I ever had in school. I grew up in southern California and was never once told about these camps, or the fact that our government did this to its own citizens, from school or history books. I learned about from the sweetest older gentleman my parents worked with. He was in one of those American Concentration camps when he was a kid and he would tell my parents stories about living there and how he met his wife there. My mom told me these stories but I was so young then I didn't understand any of it. It was until years and years later when I heard George Takei speaking about his play Allegiance that I really understood what those stories of my mom's friend meant. I was horrified, and still am. Thank you for this video and the others you've done that tell us what others won't, or are afraid to. ♥♥♥♥♥
My Bachan(grandmother) and my aunt and uncle were sent to a “camp” in Arizona. My mother was born there. Part of the reason they wrote about how to entertain is because we tell stories through our food. They needed something to look forward to when they returned home. The egg/hotdog meal that remained was because when they went back home, not only was it affordable but when some returned, their homes/farms were stolen from them by their “friends” who were taking care of it for them. But my Bachan, never ate or made lamb, ever. So, cheap foods were all they could manage until they got better jobs. We came from the Salinas Valley where the farm lands still prosper. One part of our family still managed to get their farms back and strawberries/tree nuts were always in abundance. My Bachan rarely spoke of it but there was a documentary about it, can’t remember the name at the moment. She spoke about the heat and how it curdled the milk she had for my uncle who was a baby at the time. ‘Shoganai’ is what she’d say, it means to make the best of a situation that is beyond your control. Mochi is an unbaked dessert and during new years it’s made and eaten to symbolize good fortune. The apricots were boiled in the rice to make a sticky porridge texture. I really enjoyed your video, thanks for being informed and respectful of the information you share.
Such a shameful chapter of our history. My father was a chaplain at the Topaz camp, and I remember him saying that, as far as he was concerned, the only good thing about the camp was that, during he was there, the commissary had good access to fresh eggs, which were a definite rarity out west during most of the war. Great episode.
I think you forget it was a world war, and German Americans and Italian Americans were interned as well. As a matter of fact, of the 31000 people interned, 11500 were German American.
As a kid I got the very cool experience to meet a man that was in one of the camps through work he did with my grandfather who was a POW in Japanese/Chinese based camps in WW2. And I appreciate that you can showcase these delicate topics as well as you do.
My part of the world was cleared of Japanese people in WWII. What you haven't mentioned is that when they were removed, they had their property removed from them. Houses, cars, fishing boats businesses, household goods that were left in the houses they were forced to leave. If they couldn't carry it they couldn't take it. Their goods were sold at auction. Large numbers never came back here to live. A friend whose father was one of the deportees said he never, ever spoke of it and she believed he was deeply humiliated. Here, the families were forced into the animal barns at the fairground while waiting to be transported. Each family had a stall, and they used blankets to achieve some sort of privacy. There was one water faucet per building. I read of some local dignitary being walked throught the barns and commenting on how "these people" were dirty and no better than animals. Today there is a memorial garden and a large explanatory plaque at that site. What used to be called "Japan town" has little to mark its history.
THANK YOU very much for making this! I remember in a previous video when you asked if the audience wanted you to make this one; I replied that yes, this sort of video is a must, we can not shy away from knowing more fully about this part of our country's history. There were loads of people that agreed and wanted you to cover this topic, but there were also A LOT of comments from people that felt very strongly against diving deeper into this subject. I was concerned that it might result in you having to shy away from making this one. I AM SO VERY HAPPY THAT YOU CREATED THIS CONTENT!!! I think this video was fascinating, not only for the recipe covered but especially for getting to see bits from your interview and the information provided by a first hand experiencer of the camps and the food memories they had. I adore your channel, I respect all the effort you put into gathering true history, and I am grateful for you taking the time to share your passion with all of us. THANK YOU!!!
Wild to hear about Topaz. You can still go out to the site. The foundations are all there plus some small artifacts like bottles and cutlery (you are asked to leave them there). It is surreal being there, knowing about what it was for…but also keeping in mind that it is in Delta, Utah…the absolute very edge of the desert. There is no shade out there and it gets incredibly hot out there. Those poor folks were baking to death out there. And if they got it in them to escape or get free, the walk across the desert would absolutely culminate in being found by a local Utahan who would have been more than happy to turn them in. Absolutely awful situation.
How could they even contemplate escape when they could never find a community in which to blend and disappear? Would have to have been sheer desperation! Insidiously planned camp locations.😢
Thank you, Max. I have a friend whose family was interned during WWII. They were the only Japanese in our town. On a side note, the last time I was visiting family in Louisiana, I made a spaghetti dinner. While shopping at the Winn Dixie, I found the pasta I needed -- only it was called "long macaroni!"
I can't thank you enough for making this video. Many of my relatives were sent to internment camps and they never really told much to us younger generations, but at least I can understand a bit of what they went through by watching this...and also discover that "weenie royale" is the name of one of my favorite childhood dishes! (It's really good I swear!)
My mother-in-law grew up just outside the internment camp in Central Utah. Topaz. She lived in Salina. It was known for its severe winters. This Florida girl lived in Utah for 18 years. I can't even imagine having to live through those winters. And the summers were as hot and dry as the winters were cold and snowy. We drove past it several times in the mid 1980's. There was still barbed wire around parts of it. There was a single plaque hoisted up on a piece of wood and there was a cemetery. Of course, it was government owned, so no one could enter the grounds. There was really nothing there but what looked like several rotting barns. The ground was clay, so I can imagine how hard it was to farm. (I tried in my own yard. Not easy.) Thank you for this glimpse. Never again.
14:50 I remember reading Farewell to Manzanar in 8th grade or so and learning about the domestic problems that the Wakatsuki family would have because of the author’s father getting drunk off of his own homemade sake from the peach cans they were given. I don’t remember a ton from that book but that has always stuck out to me and i’m glad you included it :)
It always surprises me to learn how little most people know about the internment camps the US made during WWII because in my town they are EXTREMELY historically significant. The most well known examples here are that there is a huge concrete slab by a lake here that was the base for an internment camp for the Aleuts, and a local family who owned one of the few grocery stores in our town were interred. The family who owned the grocery store were so pivotal here that while in most areas on the west coast japanese-american families had their homes and belongings ransacked, here the whole town came together to keep that small store running until they could return and take back over, The grocery store closed down a few years ago in part due to covid but everyone who grew up with it misses it dearly and it's a vital part of our town's history
Thank you, Max. When the war was over, a family who had been in the camps moved to my father's neighborhood to start over. Like others, they'd been robbed of everything they'd owned, property and all. They deserved much, much better than they got- and the casual racism and misguided grudge from the war (they were - Americans - not Japanese, their son even serving in the US Army) they faced was awful to hear about. Glad to see even a bit of what they experienced being talked about.
I’m a Californian and I’d never heard of the Japanese internment camps until I was an adult. No one spoke of it. I’m so glad there’s more awareness and knowledge of what happened. A friend of mine took me to the corner where her mom and her family were picked up in Little Tokyo in Downtown Los Angeles. It is a dark part of our history that needs to be brought into the light.
I live right by tanforan mall in California, which used to be tanforan race track, and was used as an internment camp during the war, it is really messed up to think that these poor people were expected to give up everything they built in America to be treated like prisoners, then get released and have to basically start your life from scratch again since your house and business were sold, the most messed up part is that they don’t even have a proper memorial to acknowledge it in the mall, they hid the truth away in a small display in the train station behind the mall
As a Japanese Canadian who’s family was interned in BC I’m happy to see anyone sharing the history (and Max does such a great job) and I get a sense of comfort hearing stories about the resiliency of JCs/JAs in the face of such adversity. What happened was an egregious crime and violation of human rights and we can’t forget about this because no one should face what they had to.
Thanks for this. I live by Little Tokyo in Los Angeles and know people who were in the camps, and many more whose parents were. It was an extremely dark time for "the land of the free". On the somewhat bright side, our church helped store the possessions of many internees for the years until they were released so they weren't totally lost.
My mom grew up in a tiny town on Lake Superior. We knew there were 2 Internment Camps nearby. Now they are Neys Provincial Park and an empty beach called Angler's. I worked at the town museum for a summer: I digitized thousands of photos negatives of Angler's. Many photos and newspaper clippings about the Japanese people imprisoned there. A feature I remember is that the forest is super dense but the soil is sandy. That sand was chosen to prevent prisoners from tunneling out. The camps were built for black & grey-ranked German officers, aka the worst of the top brass. Then the camps were repurposed for Japanese Canadians. We must remember.
I told my mom about your earlier comment on Japanese farmers in the US home front video and she revealed that we actually had some history with that. My great grandfather was a farmer and had a Japanese supervisor during the war. He was going to be sent to the camps, but my great grandpa argued that he was absolutely vital to the farm and he couldn’t spare him. Fortunately he had enough sway in the community (and all of his sons had gone to fight, leaving him shorthanded) and the supervisor was allowed to stay even though his sons weren’t. Mom remembers that she and the other grandkids were all scared of him because of how strict he was.😂
Hi Max, I don't know what dish might fit, but pretty please continue on the topic of the Japanese-Americans during World War II by talking about the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which was a segregated US Army infantry regiment comprised of Nisei-soldiers recruited from the interment camps that fought in Italy and France with incredible gallantry and fierceness, so much so that even today, it is the single most decorated infantry regiment in American military history. 21 of it's members received the Medal of Honor and many many more reciveing other valor awards. Their story is one of my favorite and I would love to see a video on them from a channel as excellent as yours. Thanks for your fantastic work and have a great day.
Thank you for making this video. I appreciate that you don't shy away from telling these stories. It's so important we remember them, both to honor the suffering and resilience of the victims as well as to make sure we never allow something like this to happen again.
My family and I visited where Topaz used to be, it was a very emotional visit as a Japanese American family. Nothing left there but desert and foundations, but if you look close you can see where families made paths or had gardens. After the war, buildings not torn down were actually moved to Delta, and you can drive around and see them as homes and businesses and such. Thank you for the video
Thank you for doing your part to try to educate the ignorant that surround us. There’s a whole mess of people trying to make the world a worse place, dead set on repeating our past mistakes. So thank you for doing what you can to spread that spirit of humanity a little farther.
Thank you so much for highlighting a crucial part of my family’s history♥️ My grandparents were in the camps and it has largely shaped who I am today, generations later. It shows up in unbreakable pride in being Japanese, in the years of asking why Grandpa won’t talk about it but seeing the pain in his eyes, in the overflowing containers of food they send us home with whenever we visit. They can’t always be there for us emotionally due to the unresolved pain of their past but they will never let us know what it’s like to be hungry. It’s very important that these stories aren’t forgotten.
The full interview with George Takei is here: ua-cam.com/video/MB_Y8wotxUM/v-deo.html
We had a very poor internet connection, so my apologies for the jitteriness of some of the interview.
YAY! You spoil US max! Thanks For this amazing video❤❤❤❤
Oh my.
Oh MY!
You da best Max!
It is important that histories like George's are repeatedly talked about.
My neighbor told me the worst thing for her family wasn't the camp but the return home. The govt(? someone?) sold her family's home, farm, and all their possessions to strangers. Every Japanese family from her town had everything they worked so hard for stolen from them. They left the camp, returned to the outside world with absolutely nothing and no compensation from the govt with young mouths to feed. She said that's what broke her family
The policy destroyed a lot of generational wealth that some families have yet to recover from. The reparations were late and negligible.
A terrible thing to go through.
I think that was the point - one of the groups that lobbied the hardest for the incarceration of Japanese Americans were the white California farmers who were envious of the success of their farms. So the moment the Japanese farmers were away, the same group took the opportunity to loot what they left behind to the bedrock. Good old all American racism.
I agree
Agreed. While the camp itself was not exactly a great place to be, it was not terrible. But finding out that your life outside was completely destroyed is another thing entirely. A very shameful history of the USA!
Edit: Ok guys, the camp was terrible. I get it and agree with you. Enough of you have corrected me that I have chosen to edit my comment.
Hi Max, I wanted to let you know your videos have pierced through the gates of academia and are part of the syllabus at the University of Ottawa history graduate program! I have been watching you for a few years now, so amazing to end up seeing you at school!!!
Edit: No, they are not stealing Max's content. We are just given links to his channel in the syllabus.
That is awesome! Congratulations, Max!
Congratulations 🎉
Congratulations Max you are making education more interesting
Amazing, that's my alma mater! Which course? I want to look up the professor
😮 good going, Max!
I remember my Grandad telling about his hometown soda fountain/drugstore owner being taken away because of his race. (He was a second generation Japanese American citizen.) The town looked after his store until he got out, when its operation was returned to him. A lot of folks were confused and angry about why the US would do that sort of thing.
On the plus side, the store stayed open for years after that until the gent got too old and retired, and eventually passed away. That town was his home until the very end; he was grateful people had not only looked after his store, but also his home and gave him & his family a warm welcome back afterwards.
I'm glad your granddad had a loving community. It shows that we don't have to delve into mob mentality and instead share kindness.
I like your town.
Yes. I can’t stand Roosevelt because of this.@@dolphincrescent54
the government may suck but it's nice to know that good folks will always step up when needed.
that guy must have been so happy to see how much the town cared about him and missed him
That warms my heart. 🇺🇸💪💋😉
My great aunt and grandparents grew up in a very Japanese agricultural area. When my great aunt’s neighbor was sent away they could only take one bag of luggage and were forced to leave behind many precious items. The little girl left behind her dolls and my great aunt (around 5 years old) promised to give them back when she returned. The family never returned to their little farm and my great aunt spent a lifetime searching for them. 80 years later they found each other and she returned the dolls.
Amazing story! Kids seem to know what’s wrong, even when their government is saying it’s right. Was she able to return the dolls in person? Have the families kept in touch since then?
Amazing, thanks for sharing.
I would love to hear more about why they never came back.
@@TheBusyJane Most likely the government took and sold their farm, and they didn't have the money to come back.
@@TheBusyJane Most likely they were moved a couple states away to a camp and couldn't afford to go back after they were released. Little to no money to travel meant they were stuck wherever the government dumped them.
My grandma very vocally disliked apple butter because she says they ate a lot of it in the mess hall/cafeteria when they were there. She and my grandpa met in the camps. She’s since passed, but he’s still alive at 102 years old and can beat you in pool.
Say hi to ur grandpa from kenya
God bless your Grandpa!
Grandpa the pool shark! Amazing! Please wish him well from a stranger in NH.
Sending high-fives to your grandpa from Ohio.
Hi Grandpa!
I used to be in a ballet company. Our ballet master (mistress) had been interred in Manzanita. She used to tell us all about it. She created a ballet titled "Winter War" that we performed at the Kennedy Center. Sadly, she's no longer with us, but she was amazing. Her name was Mariko Murikami.
Thank you for sharing! ❤
It's so sad that such beauty is forged in sorrow. Frankly, I'd prefer a world of rice and ramen and monotony.
Cringe
As a Finn, I find it a "funny" coincidence that the Winter War is what we call the 1939-1940 war between Finland and the USSR (nowadays seen as a larger part of WW2, but originally seen as a separate conflict in Finland). I wonder, if there could've been any actual connection between the titles.
@@TheUmbravulpes I'm not sure, but I will ask her daughter who I am still in contact with.
Growing up in Utah there was a man who went to my mother’s church who had worked at Topaz, I think as a delivery driver or something, and he would speak to us about it on Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. One thing he said that stood out to me was something like, “Just cause we treated our prisoners better than the Germans, didn’t mean they still weren’t prisoners, and it didn’t mean we had any good reason to keep them there.” He did that lesson every year until he passed away.
That man is right.
I mean... a World War...
@@ASlickNamedPimpback we didnt jail germans
@ Uh yeah, the US did. Same with Canada, for that matter.
Though a separation should be made between Japanese-descended and German-descended civilians. German colonists arrived in the US in great numbers around/past 1820. Japanese colonists, however, began immigrating much sooner, thus having A) less an impact on local economy when interned and B) more of a potential connection to their home.
@@ASlickNamedPimpbackand C) weren't white. that's the important one. they weren't white, so their homes and businesses were stolen by their white neighbors while they were in camps where their population was concentrated. a camp of concentration, if you will. a concentration camp. don't pretend it was a reasonable policy, they didn't do it in Hawaii because it wasn't worth the effort but you'd think that's where the most harm could be done by a fifth column of old loyalists. stop defending the concentration camps. it's weird as hell.
Many Native Americans of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska went through a similar "relocation" process during the war so their homes could be used for military purposes. I remember hearing the story from one of the survivors at my high school school, and he broke down in tears multiple times telling it.
Wait, hold up. Survivor??? How badly were they treated?
US army raped the women and children of Aleutians
And of course the U.S.A armed forces used the Orthodox churches for target practice, because they were not truely American
@@achanwahnit’s a concentration camp. I highly doubt it was enjoyable in any way.
Whatever wasn't used was burned so the Japanese couldn't shelter there. The natives on Attu and Kiska were butchered by the Japanese.
I took an American history class when I was in college that was taught by a man who spent the first few years of his life with his family in Manzinar Internment Camp. This was around 2002, and he was ardently against the a sentiment going around at the time: forced internment of Muslim-Americans. He said it was shockingly easy for people to forget--and then repeat--the mistakes of the past, and that's why we MUST study history. Thanks for the video, Max.
They are not americans
@@Itnaxsg93 That's the same thing you nazis said about the Japanese-Americans in the 40s.
@@Itnaxsg93based on your other comment on this video, the very real racist history of America seems to make you uncomfortable. Why is that?
They were assholes for it 🤦🏻♀️
@@Itnaxsg93 how's that?
Being Japanese-American, this video was equal parts emotional and hilarious. I recognized so much from what I've been brought up with, and I also learned new things too! Bravo was actually touching on the proper wording for the camps. That's a very common point of contention. My great aunt is Sue Kunitomi-Embry. She worked for the Manzanar Press and was very involved with preserving the site post-war. I also had family in the 100/442 and MIS, so thank you so much for telling a part of their story. Definitely sharing this with the fam. Can't wait for the next one, Max!
I'd love to hear some of her stories. If she's willing to be recorded and to recall the time, i think that would be an incredible resource.
@elibunches6044 That doesn't excuse detainment without trial -
Kinda weird how your immediate reaction is to defend why the camps were ‘needed’
@@andrewwebb917Absolutely!
@@VivianLinMusic During World War II, Japan operated "internment camps" within its own territory where they detained citizens of Allied nations, particularly from countries like Britain, America, and the Netherlands, who were living in Japan at the time; these camps were used to hold civilians suspected of espionage and often involved harsh conditions like forced labor, malnutrition, and limited access to basic necessities.
The primary reason cited for Japanese internment camps during World War II was to prevent potential espionage and sabotage by Japanese Americans, particularly following the attack on Pearl Harbor. From google. The USA and the Japanese had imprisonment camps . The difference is ,is that the Japanese imprisonment camps were far worse than the US camps were.
A memory so vivid to me is in 5th grade when talking about WW2 I mentioned the interment camps to my teacher and she looked me in the eye and told me it didn’t happen. I’ll never forget the feeling of being the on,y Asian in my school and being told by a teacher that this horrible moment to the Asian American population didn’t happen
@BuzzingBrina Holy CRAP. What year was that?
It was a horrible moment for *Japanese/Americans (and people mistaken as Japanese, I guess). Because as an Indonesian from Asia (like, Asian from Asia?) I can assure you my parents and grandparents did not for one bit feel any kinship to the Japanese people during WW2... :/
Similar to what happened to my son this year. His English teacher was teaching about the Japanese American camps, and when my son asked him about the German Americans and Italian Americans also put in camps he refused to discuss it because he said they “don’t matter”.
@DizzyBusy
That was the attitude of my father as well. I found it hard to believe that people allowed their neighbors to be treated in this way so unjustly. But every word of it was true. My fear is that the exact same thing is about to happen with a larger group of people again. We'll never live this down ever--nor should we. 🫤
@humanbeing1168
What is wrong with these people? This is what happens when compassion and ethics are abandoned by leaders and their base. It becomes a widening tidal wave of bad acts and behavior. We must not allow any of it happen again!
My dad's childhood friend was Japanese and his family owned a farm in southern California. The farm had been in the family for several generations. The family were all American citizens. But when they were released from the internet camp, they found that their farm had been seized by the government and sold. The family lost everything. They did not return, and my dad never saw his friend again.
This really illustrates to me how racism translates into wealth disparities year after year. If that farm was anywhere near the San Diego or Los Angeles metros, that land would be worth an incredible fortunate. Even if it's further out, it'd still be incredibly valuable land. Whatever white family bought that stolen land is probably now extremely wealthy while the Japanese family had to start over from nothing. And this has happened to Black and Indigenous people for century after century, but some people will still blame anything other than structural racism for the results.
@@paigeh1670 This is exactly what happened, they used war as a cover to do a land grab and relocate the Japanese to poor land. It was racially motivated, like internal conquest even though the Japanese were citizens too. To those that don't believe; many of these official projects are now declassified. It is truly despicable and gets worse the more you dig through those documents.
@@paigeh1670 This is exactly what happened, they used war as a cover to do a land grab and relocate the Japanese to poor unwanted land. It was racially motivated, like internal conquest even though the Japanese were citizens too. To those that don't believe; many of these official projects are now declassified. It is truly despicable and gets worse the more you dig through those documents.
@@paigeh1670 This is exactly what happened, they used war as a cover to do a land grab and relocate the Japanese to poor unwanted land. It was racially motivated, like internal conquest even though the Japanese were citizens too. To those that don't believe; many of these official projects are now declassified. It is truly despicable and gets worse the more you dig through those documents.
@@paigeh1670 This is exactly what happened, they used war as a cover to do a land grab and relocate the Japanese to poor unwanted land. It was racial1y motivated, like internal conquest even though the Japanese were citizens too. To those that don't believe; many of these official projects are now dec1assified. It is truly despicable and gets worse the more you dig through those documents.
Typos are intentional due to YT censorship deleting my comments.
In 8th grade we learned about these camps and someone who grew up in one came to speak at my school. He was young at the time but still had clear memories of it. I'll never forget the face he made when asked about the "compensation" his family got from the government, the disappointment and exhaustion was super evident. His family lost everything
You're exaggerating
@ They lost everything being sent to the camps. Their house, their business, all their belongings, everything. All they got in recompense was $20k which is far from the full value of what was taken
@@agentwashingtub9167as a Polish descendent all I can say is "you got compensation?"
My uncle-in-law’s parents were interned and both received compensation checks. They refused to cash the checks.
@@agentwashingtub9167 And DECADES LATER. Big deal.
My father worked for an international company in the mid 60s. One of his postings was in a Chicago neighborhood. He hired a wonderful woman to take care of me.
She had been in several internment camps. The first time I met her, I was 3. I called her ‘grandma’. She taught my mother how to cook. My mother was from a class in Japan who did not do household things. I remember the first time she learned how to make tuna casserole. She made it every day until I begged grandma to teach her something else.
Three generations of my dad's family were detained at the Poston III camp in Arizona. My dad, who was born in San Luis Obispo, CA, was 10 and the oldest of 4 siblings when he went in as a "threat to the country." The family lost 500 acres of ready to crops, 2 houses and multiple vehicles. The appliances stored in the basement of a temple for when they got out of the camps also disappeared. My dad said he remembered issei walking off into the desert and never coming back because they had lost hope. The story was extremely well told. Thank you.
My mom was in Gila River . They lost everything. They could only take what they could carry in a suitcase. They had to give away their dog! Her father had a stroke . Two government officials came and took him away., as he couldn’t go to the camp with them. My mom was 13 years old and they made her sign papers to take him! They never saw him again. He died where ever they took him . She had so much guilt over that. After the war, They had nothing to go back to in Santa Maria CA. There was too much hate. They ended up in Cleveland where her brothers found work.
Thanks for sharing your story here. It’s always tough to hear, but appreciated
@@kiyoko65 what a heartbreaking story. Thank you for sharing. I hope your mom wrote down her story. Someone killed my dad's dog right before the camps. When my grandfather got out to help find jobs for people, someone shot up the house where he and other men were staying. They all survived, thankfully. I appreciate Max doing this. I've been reading so many experiences.
Poston concentration camp was turned into a part of the Colorado River Reservation and later came under control the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The substandard housing was later used by the BIA. The documentary Passing Poston connects the two communities' histories well.
@@krispyier I bet the Japanese and indigenous people could relate to each other a lot. I hope they both are fighting for each others rights and actual sincere apologies from America.
Rumor has it the Madonna family, of the Madonna Inn fame in San Luis Obispo, bolstered their wealth by stealing a lot of what was formerly Japanese owned land when incarceration camps started! There is a super, super small plaque in the back of a parking lot of the back side of a street in SLO commemorating Japanese internment, but how hidden it is feels like such a disgrace, I wish there was more honor and visibility given to it.
One thing i love about your channel, Max, is the comment section! Every episode has comments from people sharing their own histories about the food, the events, or the countries discussed in your video. The anecdotes and aadditional hustorical tidbits flesh out the stories even more. You've built an awesome community, Max! Thank you, fellow Tasting History enthusiasts! ❤
I actually hope some historian is collecting all of these narratives. They will inform the next generations, often because they are so emotional.
Hello from France, the 442nd American Infantry Regiment was made up of soldiers of Japanese origin who fought in Europe while their parents were interned in the camps.
ps: to write in English I use google translate so there may be errors
Most decorated unit in American history.
They didn’t get the name “Purple Heart Battalion” accidentally though - the number injured and lost was also remarkable.
Wow, did not know this.
“Go for Broke”
Senator I
Hello from California, my grandfather served in the 442nd and fought in France until he was wounded outside of Bruyeres France. I'm happy to hear France still remembers my grandfather's sacrifice.
My mom's best friend was taken to Manzanar with her family in 1942. They were at school together one day, and the next day, her friend was gone. The Japanese family didn't have time to sell their house or nursery, and they never came back. In the 80's, I had a friend who was born at the Tule Lake center. He couldn't even talk about it, it was too upsetting. This is what angers me about people not learning history or even trying to re-invent it (the number of people denying the Holocaust increases every year): as Winston Churchill said, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Bravo to George Takei for talking about his history!
If you look at the next administration going in, I think it’d be hard not to think we’re gonna have work camps on the border, you can’t deport millions and millions of people all at once without doing something with them and I believe they’re gonna be putting camps on the border of Mexicoand shoving immigrants in there, this is not a good look for the country. There are better ways to handle a bad situation than turning back the clocks to 1930s Germany.
@@PunchesCouchesI'm sorry but you're the one who was wrong here. Anyone, Japanese or Japanese American were taken to internment camps. Almost 120k of people taken to internment camps were children. And in some cases they were seperated from their family. You're talking like it wasn't hell on earth for the Japanese but it was exactly that. Many died in internment camps because of inadequate care, a portion of them BEING CHILDREN. Most were taken to internment camps without consent, anyone Japanese was taken regardless of whether they were born in America or not.
Internment camps were also not limited to Japanese either, Jews were also taken to them.
@@PunchesCouches you know that’s a bunch of bullshit, right? You have no idea what happened, that’s what a press secretary said, maybe you should ask the people that were thrown in there the truth? Don’t be ridiculous, this country is about to go through this again, I’m curious if you’re gonna support work camps again?
my grandma's family were farmers in Washington and the cops just showed up and took everyone with no interviews or anything and then the neighbors stole their land
why are you trying to justify something that the govt already officially recognized as bad and paid reparations for?
@@PunchesCouches Then you should take the time to learn some facts from sources that can be trusted.
In SF we learned not only were they unconstitutionally detained, their farms and properties were basically stolen😢
Truth. Recompense? Zero.
That is true.
@@karaamundson3964 Ronald Reagan gave the $1.3billion worth to the victims.... that being said I think someone should have spent time in JAIL for allowing doing such a despicable act.
For one i despise the Democrat Party. Say what you will against the Republicans - I hope Left-wing voters just stop supporting the party. They are the fri&#$@cken party of slavery for crying out loud. I know Left-wingers HATE the Right but God, can't they just stop supporting the NAME.
Delete the name from existence.
It wasn't enough, but it wasn't zero.
In the 80s Japanese families were given reparations by, of all people, the Reagan administration. I think it amounted to something like $30,000 per family.
Yeah what about the Bataan Death March in Japan. I bet this comment will be censored by lefties.
I was fortunate to be taught this in Junior high. They didn't try to sugarcoat it and they didn't try to say it was right. I was very fortunate because reading the comments it looks like a lot of people didn't have the luxury of learning about this. History should never be forgotten, that way we don't repeat our sins again. I love your content very much Max.
Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
Those who ban the teaching of history *intend* to repeat it.
@@Lucius1958absolutely. well said.
But I guess it's anti-patriotic and the japs did horrid stuff so it's fair game. Some brain-rot seem to think so.
@@Lucius1958 Remember war never changes
This reminds me of a story my grandma told me. In the town she grew up in, there was a Japanese family that she was acquainted with. They weren't super close or anything, but she remembered them as being nice people.
Right after the news of Pearl Harbor had been broadcast over the radio, an angry mob began to form and started to head towards my grandma's neighborhood to enact "revenge" on the Japanese family.
Thankfully, the town sheriff saw what was happening and was able to get over to the family before the mob did and helped them to safely evacuate, but the fact that he even needed to is an absolute travesty.
The way Japanese-Americans were treated during the war was an absolute disgrace.
Yeah, that happened for sure. $100
@@Itnaxsg93What's wrong with you?
@@applesandgrapesfordinner4626 They're just ignorant and want attention. Probably hurting a lot and so wants to hurt others to try and fill that void. Just ignore them tbh
@@Itnaxsg93 It happened, I was the radio.
@@Itnaxsg93 And you're a real person and not a troll. For sure. I'll give you $100 if you can prove it.
I have family who were sent to Camp Amache and Manzanar, and as someone who grew up hearing their stories, thank you so much Max. Its so nice to see someone discussing what happened, especially someone outside the Japanese-American community. As the generation who survived these concentration camps pass on, its up to us to continue their legacy and keep their stories alive.
*Also I know they’re typically referred to as internment camps/incarceration camps, but my family says concentration camps. My grandmother specifically once told me: “We say concentration camps because we knew what they really were. Others call it that because they only heard about it or saw what the government wanted them to, we lived it.”
A Californian, I visited what was left of Manzanar yrs ago (it's since been made more of a national monument/park and re-built or built to show some of what was there in the 40s). I went on a typical dry, hot August day and it was easy to understand how desolate and difficult being interned there had to have been. As Max said, these internment camps were all away from populations; Manzanar was isolated, many miles away from population, hot as hell in the summer, and being high desert it was very cold and miserable in the winter. People lived in tents or tacked up flimsy buildings that gave little protection in heat or cold, and families had little space or privacy. As humans will do, and as the Japanese culture of those interned taught them, those interned made do as best they could, creating activities, working on the farm/orchard, providing support and entertainment among themselves as best they could to bear the elements, desolation, and sheer injustice of being bereft of their own homes/property and stuck miles from where they had called home. Saying it was injust and cruel is not at all enough, whether the people in Manzanar were newly immigrated Japanese or second or third generation Americans of Japanese descent. The US govenment incarcerated peoople without due process and out of blatant fear and racism. That so many of them came out of Manzanar and other camps and eventually excelled and rebuilt lives is amazing; most remained loyal to the US despite the US not being loyal to them. My European immigrant grnadparents and parents lived descent normal lives (farmers and dairy-related jobs) in their nice homes, while natural-born and immigrant Japanese Americans were incarcerated and suspected of disloyalty just because of their skin color and heredity.
Camp Amache is still there in CO just across the KS state line on US54. Concrete slabs remain. There are signs showing what it used to be.
I’m told that the really rebel types got sent to Manzanar. My father was in Poston Az.
He remembers sleeping in the horse stalls at Santa Anita in Ca.
As a Japanese American and descendant of internees, thank you for this video.
My mother used to tell us about her Japanese neighbors (in El Monte, California), and how they had to flee. We were always encouraged to be polite of everyone, and it was especially crucial when we went to a local fruit stand. Mr. Sukada (as we were taught to greet him) owned it, and he was such a nice man. In high school, my daughter was required to read the book Farewell to Manzanar. Mrs. Roosevelt was correct: this was a terrible error.
Nice bot
Farewell to Manzanar is a very good book to read.
The author currently lives near Santa Cruz , Ca. I think …
This is great Max. Thanks for not shying away from uncomfortable conversations and American history.
Thank you so much for making this video. My great-grandparents (Issei/Japanese immigrants) and grandparents (Nisei, natural born US citizens) were all incarcerated in Tule Lake.
When I was growing up, my grandmother would sometimes make a Weenie Royale-like dish that was cabbage, pieces of hot dogs, and eggs cooked together with soy sauce and some ketchup and served with rice. She called this "camp food" and said they would make it with soy sauce when they were lucky enough to have it, but usually just the ketchup. The dish you made here reminded me of that a lot.
I also want to thank you for making the point about "internment" vs. "incarceration" in the video. In our community we often try to make a point of not using euphemisms for this dark piece of history. We call them prison camps or even concentration camps, since that's what they were -- camps constructed to concentrate an ethnic minority away from the general population. We recognize the "internment" as one of the United States governments' many historical instances of using concentration camps against segments of its own population. It's great to see someone from outside our community making that point. Thank you, Max.
I did an excavation at the Amache internment camp this summer. It was such a hostile and tiring environment that whenever I had a bad dinner after 11 hours of intensive archaeology, it made the day even worse. I can't imagine how it felt for them, having that same experience in the first couple of years before they figured out their own food system. (Side note: if you ever find yourself passing through Granada, Colorado, please visit and support the museum!)
I definitely will, thanks for the recommendation!
My grandmother grew up in Camp Amache, and yes their food system was a mess. She told me how her parents used to wait long times just to get food for them and her younger siblings
Small world, one of my close friends is a former student of Dana. Puts it all in perspective seeing in a small part what those folks went through, right? They have a great museum out there and thank you for spotlighting it. ✌️
@@taylorwong6966 You should visit Amache during one of their dig seasons and tell them that story, they would love that information! They might even have something to show you relating to that, like their film footage collection showing mess hall lines.
@@IvanIvanoIvanovich That's awesome! Dana was wonderful, anyone's lucky to learn from her! Small world indeed!
Thank you for making this video. My father, who is still alive, was at Manzanar. I appreciate the research and time you put into this.
About 9 years ago I was privileged to meet the sweetest little old woman named Rose. She had grown up in Washington as the daughter of Japanese immigrants, and loved to tell stories all about her childhood and living on her family’s farm, and how her father grew the most enormous, vibrant, and flavorful rhubarb for miles around 😂 She and her family were forced into an internment camp when she was about 14, and she didn’t shy away from talking about it. I’m so grateful that I got to meet her and hear her incredible stories before she passed a few years ago. The knowledge that there are people out there who would forget or even worse, flat out deny what happened to her and so many others just like her is deeply disturbing and cruel.
Thank you for not forgetting them, Max.
I'm not going to lie Max, I want to see the cabinet where you keep all the pokemon plushies you have that are always relevant to either the dish or the topic at hand.
@@KatieAngelWitch I’ll share a pic this week
I have a Short up in our side channel too
@@TastingHistory YAY
@@TastingHistory Yays! I love seein your pokemon plushies as someone who only felt safe to start collectin stuffies of my own about six yrs ago now
@@KetchupwithMaxandJose Any plans for a new Episode soon? I always love behind the scenes stuff and would love to hear news from you two, though I understand how it might get harder these days, with all the work on the main channel.
In the high school I went to, there were big frames on the walls of the main hallway to the cafeteria that had the senior pictures of every class dating back to the 20s or 30s. This was in Idaho and about 2-3 hours away from Minidoka (an incarnation camp). You can tell the exact year the camps were in full swing because all the Japanese family names that had been prevalent and consistent across the years before that were suddenly gone completely. The classes were also smaller for a short while but that wasn’t noticeable unless you were paying attention, which was the same for the disappearance to begin with.
Even after the imprisonment period ended, the Japanese population/presence never recovered and remained nearly non-existent up to when I graduated in 2020. I think most people walk by those pictures every day never realizing that clue to history sitting there. There isn’t anything mentioning it anywhere and I figured it out on my own because I knew about the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans during WW2 and spent time staring at the photos and names. It makes me upset to think some people believe it never happened and that it was made up. Why then, I must ask, would a random high school in Idaho have an unacknowledged story like that silently on its walls?
I was curious and a bit nervous about how this episode would be handled but I should know by now that Tasting History has tact and it would be okay. Really I’m just glad we’re refusing to forget a dark part of our history and the people it impacted.
My highschool dated back to the early 1900s in Arizona and we had plaques on the walls for students dating back to the 1910s. There were noticeably fewer plaques from 1917/1918 and 1942 - 1945.
the US doesn't like to be self reflective.
@@oliviawolcott8351 that’s not totally true, some Americans approve of the cruelty…I mean there’s people in this comment section defending the camps as necessary. If their family ended up in a camp I suspect they’d think differently but since it’s “other people” it’s totally okay.
TY for sharing.
Yes, sometimes it's these little community things like school photos that show the real story. Broken lives and education and friendships snapped off.
My grandfather, who was a fruitfarmer/ rancher during the war. We had several Japanese ranchers in the surrounding ranches. My grandfather hired migrant workers and kept five ranches going while our Japanese friends and neighbors were relocated to Tule Lake Internment Center. The families came home to fully functioning ranches and a substantial amount of money in a savings account for them.
Your Grandfather was a Great Man among men. I hope his legacy lives on through his grandchildren. When I read your comment, it brought me to tears of joy for the humanity that your Grandfather showed toward his neighbors. He saved their lives, and subsequent generations of his family. Thank you for sharing this great story.
@@caroleannfujioka6036 thank you for your kind words.
What an honorable grandfather you have!!
@@foreverlovesophie thank you
I knew a lady that was a neighbor of my grandmother that was in one of these camps when she was just a toddler. She told me she used to act cute and make friends with guards and they would give her things like chocolate bars/other candies. She would always share whatever she got with her family but she had to hide it bc some of the guards didn't like it and would stop sharing.
Hi Max
Thank you so much for shedding light on the Internment. My grandfather (who was born in Fresno) and his family were incarcerated at Poston in Arizona, and it’s always great to see people from outside the Japanese American community educating people about the camps.
Really love your channel. I wish there was more content like your in UA-cam. Keep up the good work!
I remember being a sophomore in Catholic High School in 1982. We had an absolutely amazing teacher named Mr. Sherman. Even people who weren’t interested in history LOVED his class, and we didn’t want to leave when the bell rang. He taught us about the Japanese internment camps. I remember we all sat there, just staring at him, because none of us had EVER heard about our country doing such a thing, and obviously didn’t want to believe it. I felt sick to my stomach, and asked my WWII veteran, Dachau-liberating father about it when he got home from work that night. He said he wasn’t aware that it had happened until after he returned from the war, and he could never understand why. It upset him, too, because he was a fan of FDR - but he certainly didn’t agree with what he did regarding the internment camps.
@@QueenOfTheNorth65 This isn't the only time the US has done this kind of thing. Eisenhower did something similar to Americans of Mexican decent in the 1950s. The "Operation" even used the slur for Mexicans in its title. 😕
Definitely a huge "What the hell, hero?!" moment from FDR.
Sounds like when I asked my Silent Gen dad about the Tulsa Race Massacre. Turned out his (white) dad got picked up for curfew while dating my grandma. If we were Black, the story would have ended very differently.
@@SpukiTheLoveKitten75FDR has a few of those.
My wife’s grandfather was in the 442nd, which was only maybe 1/3rd from mainland US and would have had family in the camps…
@Justanotherconsumer It just shows how bigoted people were back then... where even people who were considered good would pull stuff like that.
I'll bet German Americans didn't get dumped into internment camps.
My ex husband was born in Camp. His parents met and married in Camp. The only stories about food they talked about was how the families in their blocks would share supplies for special occasions, like weddings, to make a cake. Flour, butter, sugar were not always available to every family for such things, so trading and promises of help later were worked. Suits and wedding dresses were shared.
I worked for a woman who was a child living in one of these camps. Thanks for telling this story. She had a lot of unusual food habits that reminded me of how people managed during the Great Depression. This explains a lot of why she was so obsessed about food hoarding and storage.
Apparently a lot of people on the east coast don't even know about the internment camps, simply because there was little to no Japanese population there.
It would be cool to see you cover the German and (much smaller) Italian camps too, or POW food.
most of my Japanese grandma's family moved to NYC area after being sent to Minidoka and having their farmland stolen while they were incarcerated
the history books barely mentioned it but I remember doing the family tree project in school and learning about all of this and explaining it to the rest of the class
I grew up on the East Coast and did know about it as a child, but I think it only came up because I am Jewish and we were told in Hebrew school about Japanese Americans who were incarcerated in these camps - we learned about it in the context of WWII and the Holocaust. Part of the reason they told us about it was to explain the difference between different types of camps: concentration camps (which is what places like Manzanar were), death camps (Auschwitz-Birkenau), forced labour camps, and displaced persons camps. It was also to remind us that no country is immune to the idea of rounding people up based on their race or ethnicity.
If they don't know it's their own fault.
You don't and can't learn everything in school especially if they don't want you to know it.
@leedoss6905 that's funny
Yeah, it’s very scary to think that if I had just been alive at a different time, I would be imprisoned.
George actually held me as a toddler at a Star Trek convention. My Dad was a huge Trekkie. I remember it pretty well too, I believe I saw him in a hallway and went running at him yelling his character name "Sulu" and he just picked me right up!
The bit about other Americans thinking the interned people were "cheating" and getting better resources than those on the outside was fascinating. I've had many conversations with a particular family member who is absolutely convinced the same is true of current... disadvantaged groups of people in America, shall we say. The more things change the more they stay the same, it seems.
The "misery loves company" complex. The idea that someone has and you don't is as old as tribal Neanderthals. I will never understand the mindset, but I too have family that suffer with it. 😞
Such a shame that the same happens to this very say. There will always be people who point fingers at the victimized and who urge others to do so as well.
@@jeffslote9671 Doesn't really take that much to earn more than a pvt during WW2 though, also the people in the camps still had their freedom taken away, what about the business owners whose companies were sold to white Americans??. Who gives a fuck if they were paid more than privates when they couldn't exercise freewill, this is no different than a plantation owner talking about how well he treats his slaves, they are still slaves whether they are eating caviar or dusty bread.
@@jeffslote9671 it takes one google comparison to see that the highest paid Japanese interment personel were getting 19$ a month, with many getting as low as 12$. While the average privates salary throughout WWII was 50$
@@jeffslote9671 did you even watch the video? Not only did these people have their homes and property confiscated from the US government, what they could sell to their white neighbors with the agreement to buy back, many also lost because those white neighbors kept it for themselves. Japanese prisoners had significantly less during these times, it was designed that way by FDR & his advisors. We're others sacrificing and suffering too? Yes. But not in the same ways.
My grandfather grew up in an internment camp. I never got to ask him about it because dementia had already started taking him away by the time I found out.
I found a letter he had wrote to the governor of Hawaii back in the 70's absolutely lambasting him when the governor had said something to the effect of "the camps weren't that bad."
There is an internment camp in Idaho that they taught us about when I was a kid. I’ll be 65 this month. One of our teachers was in the camp and would give a presentation.
Frankly there's "internment camps" in every state now. Not for Japanese either.
I had a student that would do projects for a Manzanar competition that is held every year here in Los Angeles. It's a competition for students to bring awareness to the interment camps through art, music and essays.
Since I'm not native to this state and given that my history knowledge is very lacking, I count myself blessed to have a student that taught me about this dark time in U.S. history. I learned a lot from her, her family and the kind people from the Manzanar Committee.
Thank you for making this video! I hope that someday this topic is taught in public schools throughout the country.
Your comment about Spam reminded me of Korean Army Stew, which I think would be a great topic/recipe to cover!!
Spam took much of East Asia by storm. It's popular for its affordability, convenience, and shelf life
Crazy that back then Americans basically considered Koreans Japanese also
army stew and food in postwar Korea would be an excellent topic!
@cheef825 Budae Jjigae
It's pretty much the one war time recipe in Korea that has not only survived, but has actually grown in popularity.
NOT BACKGROUND NOISE
People can study history,
in a thousand silent ways.
To actively consume every Tuesday,
with the ring of perfect fire
Mr Miller incites in all of us.
Well, it comes with stories of triumph and chocolate bars.
Fine cream on scones and celebrations and dancing.
It also comes with the poverty of removed choice.
The spoons set aside in internment.
The big words that steal futures.
People can be afraid of the crumbs.
But it is the most important.
These people lived
They survived
They ate
Sitting with them in solace
Max makes me smile in his kindness
George Takei, has offered many perspectives and written plays on this matter
Returned to childhood
the food of his formative years, respected
Sit with this and listen to the stories while whisking
History is rarely without complex emotion
It is not background noise, and neither is this episode.
As a Canadian, we had internment camps as well. I've always had a fascination with this dark period of our history after in my youth we drove on back roads into remote British Columbia to the remains of Minto Internment camp. With the bitter winters.... The suffering must have been intense.... Thank you for keeping this often forgotten sad part of our history alive.
I wish I knew more. My great grandfather (named Adolf...bad name at the time) was 'interned' out of Saskatchewan and died there but I know nothing about it because everyone is so ashamed.
Wow, I had no idea about this. You learn something new and disappointing every day!
I used to live in the Fraser valley in Grand Forks and I can't imagine how they did it with the heat of summer abd intense cold of winter
thanks for mentioning this, very few people know this also happened in the UK and Australia.
@@KeiPalace Here in the US, it's taught in schools. It was a terrible chapter in our history, but we do try to make sure it's not forgotten.
My late mother in law was born in Minadoka camp in Idaho. She remembered it always cold. She said the food was not very good but you were hungry and there was no other choices. Her parents owned a small business in Seattle, that and the house was sold to someone before they left for camp. But family heirlooms were gone. Her father was very healthy before camp but got Emphysema there and was sickly afterward. When they went back to Seattle they were no longer Japanese, English names were used, no Japanese was spoken even at home anymore.
As a Japanese-American myself, I hereby present this comment as my sacrifice to the almighty algorithm. May this video spread far and wide.
Go for Broke!
Edit: probs should point out that I'm a nisei, so I have no known blood ties to anyone that was in the internment camps
I wish to stand alongside you as well. May the stories of your ancestors be shared.
442nd Infantry Regiment, 100th battalion aka the "purple heart" battalion
I concur and also stand alongside you. These events should not be forgotten.
My father is a little older than George Takei and his take on the camps was that as a young boy he had the time of his life. He basically lived with his friends and every day was an adventure. He said the guards would let the boys out to go fishing and such because they felt bad for the kids and knew they'd come back because, again, the kids thought life in the camp was great.
I know from an older uncle that the adults were of course very distressed and angry, but as a kid my dad had a different perspective.
My grandmother was a refugee in Europe during WWII as a child and she also described it as feeling like a big adventure, because she was old enough to be aware of what was going on close to her but not what her family saw coming that forced them to leave.
The attitude of your parents and other adults should be commended. If they had imparted sorrow and distress on to the children, your memories would likely be different. Reminds of the movie, ' Life is Beautiful', which was a beautiful story of human decency in the face of human depravity.
My dad, who is about the same age, was incarcerated with his family in Grand Forks, BC, Canada when he was around 5. He also loved moving from downtown Vancouver to a place they could run around and play outside. At the same time, he acknowledged that it was, as Dave Eggars put it, "a supposedly fun thing I'll never do again." My grandfather, by contrast, was constantly being taken away to cut new roads or fight forest fires.
At Manzanar they have audio memories from different people involved with the camps. One was from a guard who saw kids he was guarding trying to fish. He then brought some fishing hooks and (if I remember correctly) put them in a brown paper bag and pushed it underneath the fence for them.
Manzanar was a heartbreaking place to visit. But it was touching to know there were small moments of kindness like this there.
"Back when we were slaves Massa treated us real good, we has rest in the afternoon and beer once a month. Life was good."
Oh, and you're an idiot.
442nd regiment combat team was the most decorated unit of WW2
Most decorated, period.
About 10k men, in two years, earned over 18k citations including:
4k bronze stars
4k Purple Hearts
7 Presidential Unit Citations
21 Medals of Honor
Correction: most decorated unit in United States Military History.
Being Asian American, I appreciate you sharing this part of our American history. I know I learned about this in high school and met one survivor who wrote a book about his experience.
Thanks, Max, for not shying away from uncomfortable subjects. History should be remembered and talked about so we (hopefully) dont repeat the negative
I live in a city just east of Portland OR and in the summer love going to my local fruit stand for fresh berries and produce. It has been owned for generations by a Japanese family. Th family were incarcerated in a camp during the war. Their neighbors took over the farm for them and kept it going and when the family returned from the war it was returned. I've heard that this is not the only time a farm or business was kept alive and then given back.
Great episode Max, looking forward to the interview with George Takei
As a Japanese-American who was born in L.A. and learned about the internment camps in Japanese school (which was attended on Saturdays), as well as absolutely adoring Mr. Takei for not only delighting my childhood with his portrayals of Mr. Sulu and his very vocal spreading of his and others' experiences in those camps at that turbulent time in our nation's history, I want to deeply thank you for taking the time to make this. I've been a longtime fan and will continue to be one.
Manzanar was a testament to the power of human resilience, and the museum there does an amazing job of telling the story of those who were forced to live there (it is in the middle of nowhere, but well worth the visit).
One tiny artifact in the museum brought tears to my eyes: a gold class ring, from a high school student who graduated in the camp. Given the low wages of those who worked in the camp, it had to have been a major sacrifice to pay for that ring. That student opted to save their money instead of spending it on luxury items at the canteen, instead using it to celebrate their academic success in school. All this despite the injustice of having to live at Manzanar against their will. That person’s resilience and ability to rise above the injustice they were facing was truly inspring and heart wrenching to me.
Thank you for covering this. These policies were mirrored in Canada and becomes a single lost sentence in our history books. "Throw-Away Citizens" was a news special done highlighting treatment of Japanese citizens in Canada during WWII. It was the first and only time I heard my Bachan talk about what she and her family experienced.
Japanese and Italians
@@CaptHollister Italians,Germans, and Japanese were all internned.
@@ManCheat2and in many countries.
America.
Canada.
England.
Wales.
Scotland.
Latin America, very few LA countries left them alone.
Australia.
New Zealand.
Probably Russia.
That was amazing you actually got to interview George Takei - and well done because it really shows your commitment to getting first-hand stories and facts right rather than copying and pasting from Wikipedia :)
While my family came to America after the war, I had always thought Vienna Sausages with rice and soy-sauce was such an odd dish when I was a kid. Now I know where it came from - we learned it from families who had connections to the internment camps! This was a really amazing episode, Max!
A former co-worker of mine's parents spent some time in the camps in the Central Valley (CA). Before they left, they buried a small tin of random coins, maybe $40 worth (at the time, so equal to $580 roughly in today's money), basically all the money they had left by that point. They were able to come back and dig it up and retrieve it when they were able to come back home. My co-worker still has the tin and coins.
My great grandparents actually had a farm next door to one of these camps and they always told us a story that they had an arrangement with the camp that they would allow the people they held there to voluntarily work on their farm in exchange for a bit of money and feeding them since the camps were not adequately providing food for them. It was apparently very popular because the food they were given in the camp was notoriously bad and they weren’t given enough and my great grandma was a good cook so everyday they took in as many people as they could and made a massive banquet type meal to feed them all. Later I found out my grandma on the other side of my family was held at that camp as a child but I didn’t get the chance to ask her perspective on the other side of the story.
There was a japanese interment camp in new zealand, in featherston, where a riot happened and many people died. It's good to not shy away from the hard parts of history. I can't imagine what the japanese-americans went through, being sovreign citizens to having lost EVERYTHING. It's so unfair, I have no words. Thank you for sharing.
My mom used to tell us about the Japanese neighbors she used to have (in El Monte, CA) and how they had to leave. We were always taught to be respectful of everyone and that was most important when we visited a local fruit stand. Mr. Sukada (and that's how we were taught to address him) owned it and he was such a sweet man. My daughter had to read a book in high school called Farewell to Manzanar. Mrs. Roosevelt was correct that this was a horrible mistake.
Eleanor Roosevelt was an interesting woman. Her extended family had money, but her immediate family did not. She was raised to keep up with others as if her family still had wealth. She volunteered in inner city slums, living there to help serve the poorest of the poor. She much more closely identified with the poor than the wealthy. She always understood that she was a half-step away from extreme poverty (her uncle Teddy kept her from that). This really helped to shape her husband's policies later. It also made her outspoken. He probably NEVER heard the end of it from her about the internment camps.
@@TheGelasiaBlythe I think that she should have been the president. If she was president, I doubt we would have to argue with nationalists and apologists like we do. Any other first lady would have been super happy with it, but not Eleanor. She was good.
There is literally a mega big apologist in this comment section (moorek1967). Do not talk with her, she doesn't care.
This also happened in Canada. A substantial population in BC was dispossessed and sent to camps. They could not even return home after the war, until 1949. Many went to Québec and other Eastern provinces.
In the 1970s it was revealed that the Military Intelligence Service Language School in WW2 was located in Fort Snelling in St. Paul as only Minnesota agreed to have the school placed there to both teach the Japanese language to military translators and take part in codebreaking. Hundreds of Japanese American volunteers from the internment camps, both men and women joined the war effort on behalf of the US. As a result the Twin Cities became home to many Japanese Americans after the war, and the community has only expanded and grown over the decades.
When I was growing up, I didn’t learn about the Japanese internment camps from my classes, but from a book I found in the library. I can’t remember the name of it anymore - it was pale blue and probably from the 80s or early 90s, about a girl getting to know her neighbor who eventually shared he was once in an internment camp. It wasn’t touched on too heavily as the book was made for young readers, but it touched on a part of history that I was completely unaware of. The same classroom very much glazed over Asian and Asian American histories - described the Opioid trade in China as an addiction that started trade routes rather than the other way around, and described the US occupation of Japan as a happy solution to a disagreement rather than the result of full out war.
I only learned a small amount about the internment camps in high school, with a much greater priority on Pearl Harbor, but I did much more extensive research on my own. By time I learned about internment camps in a school setting was when I was in college, taking a specific East Asian Politics class, which was undoubtedly taken mostly by people who were already aware of these historical events and wanted to learn more. An elective, not a requirement.
We need to make our global history a larger part of our education. We need to share information as it is rather than from the perspective of the “righteous” and the “victors”. We’re already seeing the result of that kind of education - a growing rate of people denying the existence of past horrors, and remarkably dangerous trends that suggest that history is preparing to repeat itself in the worst manner.
The book might have been Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston.
Shared this video with the University of Florida Japanese Department chair!
I remember walking around Astoria in Queens, NY and stumbling upon the Noguchi museum. He was a sculpture, did amazing stone work, and inside was a room dedicated to his time at the internment camp. Wild story that he was living in NYC and asked the US Government if he could visit one of the camps to design a outdoor garden area to improve living conditions. They told him no, and he fought it, and finally they agreed, so he went. When he arrived he was interred, and when he tried to leave the camp officials said they didn't know anything about him or his garden and he was stuck inside the camp. I mean could you imagine? Anyway, super interesting and he's an amazing artist ... the museum is a stunner as well. If you're in NYC you should check it out.
17:21 If you've never had mochi, you don't know what you are missing out on. Mochi is great. It's chewy, gelatinous, and semi-sweet with a sweet filling in the middle. My current favorite mochi is infused with a very fragrant Thai tea. Red bean paste is a classic form of mochi. Would love to try a chai flavor infusion.
Hand pounded mochi is rare but if anyone has the chance to get some at a New Years Day ceremony it's worth it. Sweetened roasted soy bean powder (kinako) on top is my favorite for hand pounded mochi.
Mochi ice cream has really confused the lines...mochi is pounded rice. Monju is sweet rice and/or flour with sweet bean fillings, etc. Mochi ice cream is probably an American invention. Back when I was growing up, there were fresh monju shops in San Francisco's Japantown. One was named Benkyodo. Forgot the name of the other shop around the corner. I've also pounded mochi when I was an elementary school kid. lol
Peanut butter mochi is good
Could even put chocolate or fruit in it
Kinda like a filled doughnut but completely different textures and it's also chewy and a little firm
But extremely soft
It's unexpected for people who never had it
Not something people in America typically eat for dessert
But you'll easily find it in most Asian import/grocery stores
Same with those little probiotic drinks, like yogurt but with the consistency of milk
You can't eat just one of em
@@ReclusiveMountainMan Mochi ice cream is really common in Japan, I can't imagine it's an American invention. It's in all of the groceries. Donki has a section for it in the freezer aisle.
I love green tea mochi ice cream and would definitely try chia tea mochi😋
We used "They Called Us Enemy" with our gifted kids in 5th grade to teach about the WW2 era. It is sn amazing book to teach kids about war time, fear, and human rights.
I got to share this first. It's lines from a poem by Fuzuki Yumi "Gathering Voices"
When we think of peace
Let us look for the wounds
So as not to cover over unseen injuries with vague big words.
I have to write to that and this episode
Thank you ❤
A pleasure. The whole poem is awesome. UA-cam wont let me share it but its on the Poetry Foundation site ❤ @dmckim3174
Thank you so much for making this follow up video. My grandfather and great aunt where raised in the camps. My grandpa died when I was young, but my great aunt passed only recently. I think its incredibly valuable to highlight these aspects of history that are often ignored or worse, forgotten.
my grandpa was born in an internment camp in BC (canada) my grandma lovingly chastises him about the fact that he cannot eat any meal without rice lol. he was too young to remember much of the camp but his older siblings did, his older brother especially was very messed up by it. my grandpa and his siblings never learned to speak japanese, and they lost contact with family still in japan. I'm the first one since my great-grandmother to learn the language, and our family is trying to connect back with our japanese roots in our old family recipes and traditions. for example inarizushi (i hate it personally) we make it a special way that one day i'll pass on to my own kids!
I'm glad you're getting in touch with your roots. Don't let anyone or anything stop you from exploring and expressing your heritage.
The postwar generation is such a lost one in many ways. My father was born just before the war and was 7 when he was sent to the camps. After the war, there seems to have been such a push to never have it happen again that a lot of the culture wasn't passed down. All of the Japanese-Canadians who moved to Toronto after the war never lived in an area that could have been called "Japantown," for instance. Make it harder to round us up next time. But it came at a huge cultural loss to us. My dad and his siblings speak very rudimentary Japanese. It was only after living in Japan for 8+ years that I was able to talk to my grandfather in his first language. Of course, with him having moved away from Japan in the early 20th century and me moving back in the early 21st, our versions of the language were very different. But it was great to be able to do that.
Sounds very much like the history of my family as well. My father was born in an internment camp in BC. 😢
One of the interesting things i find is how nostalgic people get for food even for rough times from their childhood, like the weenie supreme or in my case, the costco muffins, which got me through homelessness. Its a weirdly comforting thing to revisit those flavors
Maruchan (or Nissin) top ramen does it for me. I learned to stir fry or add other flavors, but while we grew many of our own veggies, other than that we were somewhat limited on food because of money. Top ramen was cheap enough that I was forgiven for eating them once in a while, and packed flavor I was sorely missing otherwise (apparently my mother had never considered adding salt or pepper to food until I was ~8)
I was recently asked if I watch content on UA-cam and if so, which channel was my favorite. Without hesitating, I said "Tasting History with Max Miller!" You teach about history better than any history teacher I ever had in school. I grew up in southern California and was never once told about these camps, or the fact that our government did this to its own citizens, from school or history books. I learned about from the sweetest older gentleman my parents worked with. He was in one of those American Concentration camps when he was a kid and he would tell my parents stories about living there and how he met his wife there. My mom told me these stories but I was so young then I didn't understand any of it. It was until years and years later when I heard George Takei speaking about his play Allegiance that I really understood what those stories of my mom's friend meant. I was horrified, and still am. Thank you for this video and the others you've done that tell us what others won't, or are afraid to. ♥♥♥♥♥
My Bachan(grandmother) and my aunt and uncle were sent to a “camp” in Arizona. My mother was born there. Part of the reason they wrote about how to entertain is because we tell stories through our food. They needed something to look forward to when they returned home. The egg/hotdog meal that remained was because when they went back home, not only was it affordable but when some returned, their homes/farms were stolen from them by their “friends” who were taking care of it for them. But my Bachan, never ate or made lamb, ever. So, cheap foods were all they could manage until they got better jobs. We came from the Salinas Valley where the farm lands still prosper. One part of our family still managed to get their farms back and strawberries/tree nuts were always in abundance. My Bachan rarely spoke of it but there was a documentary about it, can’t remember the name at the moment. She spoke about the heat and how it curdled the milk she had for my uncle who was a baby at the time. ‘Shoganai’ is what she’d say, it means to make the best of a situation that is beyond your control. Mochi is an unbaked dessert and during new years it’s made and eaten to symbolize good fortune. The apricots were boiled in the rice to make a sticky porridge texture. I really enjoyed your video, thanks for being informed and respectful of the information you share.
About the apricot rice dish, yeah I thought it was something like that, rather than just plopped on top. 😄
@@Philosophicalpaperti I’m sure if they couldn’t warm it up, they ate it like that or at least cut it up or something.
Such a shameful chapter of our history. My father was a chaplain at the Topaz camp, and I remember him saying that, as far as he was concerned, the only good thing about the camp was that, during he was there, the commissary had good access to fresh eggs, which were a definite rarity out west during most of the war. Great episode.
I think you forget it was a world war, and German Americans and Italian Americans were interned as well. As a matter of fact, of the 31000 people interned, 11500 were German American.
As a kid I got the very cool experience to meet a man that was in one of the camps through work he did with my grandfather who was a POW in Japanese/Chinese based camps in WW2.
And I appreciate that you can showcase these delicate topics as well as you do.
My part of the world was cleared of Japanese people in WWII. What you haven't mentioned is that when they were removed, they had their property removed from them. Houses, cars, fishing boats businesses, household goods that were left in the houses they were forced to leave. If they couldn't carry it they couldn't take it. Their goods were sold at auction. Large numbers never came back here to live. A friend whose father was one of the deportees said he never, ever spoke of it and she believed he was deeply humiliated.
Here, the families were forced into the animal barns at the fairground while waiting to be transported. Each family had a stall, and they used blankets to achieve some sort of privacy. There was one water faucet per building. I read of some local dignitary being walked throught the barns and commenting on how "these people" were dirty and no better than animals. Today there is a memorial garden and a large explanatory plaque at that site. What used to be called "Japan town" has little to mark its history.
THANK YOU very much for making this! I remember in a previous video when you asked if the audience wanted you to make this one; I replied that yes, this sort of video is a must, we can not shy away from knowing more fully about this part of our country's history. There were loads of people that agreed and wanted you to cover this topic, but there were also A LOT of comments from people that felt very strongly against diving deeper into this subject. I was concerned that it might result in you having to shy away from making this one. I AM SO VERY HAPPY THAT YOU CREATED THIS CONTENT!!! I think this video was fascinating, not only for the recipe covered but especially for getting to see bits from your interview and the information provided by a first hand experiencer of the camps and the food memories they had. I adore your channel, I respect all the effort you put into gathering true history, and I am grateful for you taking the time to share your passion with all of us. THANK YOU!!!
Wild to hear about Topaz. You can still go out to the site. The foundations are all there plus some small artifacts like bottles and cutlery (you are asked to leave them there). It is surreal being there, knowing about what it was for…but also keeping in mind that it is in Delta, Utah…the absolute very edge of the desert. There is no shade out there and it gets incredibly hot out there. Those poor folks were baking to death out there. And if they got it in them to escape or get free, the walk across the desert would absolutely culminate in being found by a local Utahan who would have been more than happy to turn them in. Absolutely awful situation.
How could they even contemplate escape when they could never find a community in which to blend and disappear? Would have to have been sheer desperation! Insidiously planned camp locations.😢
Thank you, Max. I have a friend whose family was interned during WWII. They were the only Japanese in our town.
On a side note, the last time I was visiting family in Louisiana, I made a spaghetti dinner. While shopping at the Winn Dixie, I found the pasta I needed -- only it was called "long macaroni!"
I can't thank you enough for making this video. Many of my relatives were sent to internment camps and they never really told much to us younger generations, but at least I can understand a bit of what they went through by watching this...and also discover that "weenie royale" is the name of one of my favorite childhood dishes! (It's really good I swear!)
My mother-in-law grew up just outside the internment camp in Central Utah. Topaz. She lived in Salina. It was known for its severe winters. This Florida girl lived in Utah for 18 years. I can't even imagine having to live through those winters. And the summers were as hot and dry as the winters were cold and snowy. We drove past it several times in the mid 1980's. There was still barbed wire around parts of it. There was a single plaque hoisted up on a piece of wood and there was a cemetery. Of course, it was government owned, so no one could enter the grounds. There was really nothing there but what looked like several rotting barns. The ground was clay, so I can imagine how hard it was to farm. (I tried in my own yard. Not easy.) Thank you for this glimpse. Never again.
14:50 I remember reading Farewell to Manzanar in 8th grade or so and learning about the domestic problems that the Wakatsuki family would have because of the author’s father getting drunk off of his own homemade sake from the peach cans they were given. I don’t remember a ton from that book but that has always stuck out to me and i’m glad you included it :)
It always surprises me to learn how little most people know about the internment camps the US made during WWII because in my town they are EXTREMELY historically significant. The most well known examples here are that there is a huge concrete slab by a lake here that was the base for an internment camp for the Aleuts, and a local family who owned one of the few grocery stores in our town were interred. The family who owned the grocery store were so pivotal here that while in most areas on the west coast japanese-american families had their homes and belongings ransacked, here the whole town came together to keep that small store running until they could return and take back over, The grocery store closed down a few years ago in part due to covid but everyone who grew up with it misses it dearly and it's a vital part of our town's history
Thank you, Max. When the war was over, a family who had been in the camps moved to my father's neighborhood to start over. Like others, they'd been robbed of everything they'd owned, property and all. They deserved much, much better than they got- and the casual racism and misguided grudge from the war (they were - Americans - not Japanese, their son even serving in the US Army) they faced was awful to hear about. Glad to see even a bit of what they experienced being talked about.
I’m a Californian and I’d never heard of the Japanese internment camps until I was an adult. No one spoke of it. I’m so glad there’s more awareness and knowledge of what happened. A friend of mine took me to the corner where her mom and her family were picked up in Little Tokyo in Downtown Los Angeles. It is a dark part of our history that needs to be brought into the light.
One of the most shameful and sad cases of a people having their civil rights violated. This should never be allowed to happen again.
Civil rights only apply to citizens
@@andrewosborn1451if they don't apply to everyone then they're privileges, not rights
Camps are happening like this all over the world unfortunately.
@@corruptedpoison1
I fear these camps may return soon in America. I hope I am wrong.
@@secretgardenerDemocrats forced the last lock down, so unless they're planning another...
I live right by tanforan mall in California, which used to be tanforan race track, and was used as an internment camp during the war, it is really messed up to think that these poor people were expected to give up everything they built in America to be treated like prisoners, then get released and have to basically start your life from scratch again since your house and business were sold, the most messed up part is that they don’t even have a proper memorial to acknowledge it in the mall, they hid the truth away in a small display in the train station behind the mall
As a Japanese Canadian who’s family was interned in BC I’m happy to see anyone sharing the history (and Max does such a great job) and I get a sense of comfort hearing stories about the resiliency of JCs/JAs in the face of such adversity. What happened was an egregious crime and violation of human rights and we can’t forget about this because no one should face what they had to.
Thanks for this. I live by Little Tokyo in Los Angeles and know people who were in the camps, and many more whose parents were.
It was an extremely dark time for "the land of the free".
On the somewhat bright side, our church helped store the possessions of many internees for the years until they were released so they weren't totally lost.
Okay, but the mental image of the grandparents singing and making mochi actually made me tear up.
My mom grew up in a tiny town on Lake Superior. We knew there were 2 Internment Camps nearby. Now they are Neys Provincial Park and an empty beach called Angler's.
I worked at the town museum for a summer: I digitized thousands of photos negatives of Angler's. Many photos and newspaper clippings about the Japanese people imprisoned there.
A feature I remember is that the forest is super dense but the soil is sandy. That sand was chosen to prevent prisoners from tunneling out.
The camps were built for black & grey-ranked German officers, aka the worst of the top brass. Then the camps were repurposed for Japanese Canadians.
We must remember.
I told my mom about your earlier comment on Japanese farmers in the US home front video and she revealed that we actually had some history with that. My great grandfather was a farmer and had a Japanese supervisor during the war. He was going to be sent to the camps, but my great grandpa argued that he was absolutely vital to the farm and he couldn’t spare him. Fortunately he had enough sway in the community (and all of his sons had gone to fight, leaving him shorthanded) and the supervisor was allowed to stay even though his sons weren’t. Mom remembers that she and the other grandkids were all scared of him because of how strict he was.😂
Hi Max, I don't know what dish might fit, but pretty please continue on the topic of the Japanese-Americans during World War II by talking about the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which was a segregated US Army infantry regiment comprised of Nisei-soldiers recruited from the interment camps that fought in Italy and France with incredible gallantry and fierceness, so much so that even today, it is the single most decorated infantry regiment in American military history. 21 of it's members received the Medal of Honor and many many more reciveing other valor awards.
Their story is one of my favorite and I would love to see a video on them from a channel as excellent as yours.
Thanks for your fantastic work and have a great day.
Thank you for making this video. I appreciate that you don't shy away from telling these stories. It's so important we remember them, both to honor the suffering and resilience of the victims as well as to make sure we never allow something like this to happen again.
My family and I visited where Topaz used to be, it was a very emotional visit as a Japanese American family. Nothing left there but desert and foundations, but if you look close you can see where families made paths or had gardens. After the war, buildings not torn down were actually moved to Delta, and you can drive around and see them as homes and businesses and such. Thank you for the video
Thank you for doing your part to try to educate the ignorant that surround us. There’s a whole mess of people trying to make the world a worse place, dead set on repeating our past mistakes. So thank you for doing what you can to spread that spirit of humanity a little farther.
Thank you so much for highlighting a crucial part of my family’s history♥️ My grandparents were in the camps and it has largely shaped who I am today, generations later. It shows up in unbreakable pride in being Japanese, in the years of asking why Grandpa won’t talk about it but seeing the pain in his eyes, in the overflowing containers of food they send us home with whenever we visit. They can’t always be there for us emotionally due to the unresolved pain of their past but they will never let us know what it’s like to be hungry. It’s very important that these stories aren’t forgotten.