Weasel Words

Weasel Words…that’s what my wordsmith husband calls euphemisms. He became a US citizen in 2011. In the citizenship test, they ask “What is the Rule of Law?” The answer is, “Everyone is equal under law.”  Or put another way, no one is above the law.

Well, in law, words matter and that’s where euphemisms come in. 

And the weasel words/euphemisms I’m talking about are the ones the government and the news media of the 1940s employed to turn the public against Americans of Japanese ancestry and their immigrant parents or grandparents.

Terms like immigrant became “enemy alien.”
Citizens were “non-aliens.”
Forced exclusion was called “evacuation” or “relocation.”
Incarceration or imprisonment called “housing.” 

Which comes to the controversy over the use of the word “internment” rather than “concentration” to describe these camps where US citizens of Japanese ancestry were held. This is a legalese kind of euphemism.

First of all, the term “concentration camp” was the original term used by FDR and his cabinet to describe the ten War Relocation Authority (WRA) sites where Americans of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated in mass during WWII.

Two, the term “internment” is the legal detention and imprisonment of foreign nationals at time of war. As it is a legal process, those interned must face charges and be given a hearing. 

The term “concentration camp” according to the American Heritage Dictionary means: "A camp where persons are confined, usually without hearings and typically under harsh conditions, often as a result of their membership in a group the government has identified as suspect."

Because Japanese who were US citizens were never charged or given a hearing, and confined merely for being identified as part of a targeted group, the camps used to incarcerate them were by definition “concentration” camps.

“Internment” was used to describe the legal imprisonment of non-U.S. citizens, aka as Issei*, in Department of Justice camps. These camps were where the  Issei, who were the first to be rounded up along with individually charged German and Italian immigrants, were held. Ironically, these camps were protected by the Geneva Conventions, whereas the concentration camps for the US-citizen Nissei* were not. 

The process of creating the “Other” often starts with words, and while Freedom of Speech is important, it’s when speech turns into government policy that targets or benefits a specific group rather than all individuals equally, it can slowly erode confidence in the rule of law.

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*Issei were immigrants from Japan. Unlike Europeans, immigrants from Japan and China  were not allowed to be naturalized, thus were prohibited from owning land or voting.

*Nissei were second generation born in the US and thus were US citizens according to the 14th Amendment. They were supposed to have all the rights and privileges of citizenship.

The terms Issei and Nissei do not exist in Japan. They were invented in the US to distinguish the difference in status among Japanese individuals within American society. 

A majority of the those incarcerated in the concentration camps were US citizens. One third were children 17 years and younger.

For more detail on the controversy over “internment/concentration” camp, Barbara Takei, a long time scholar on Tule Lake, recommended this link.