Japanese Alien and Japanese-American Poets In U. S....

On February 19, 1942, Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued the infamous Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the internment of 110,000 Japanese Aliens and Japanese Americans in concentration camps because of the so-called military threat, they posed. In 1945, poet Lawson Fusao Inada wrote the following poem, titled Concentration Constellation, which refers to the various relocation camps that were used to contain these people: In this earthly configuration, We have, not points of light, but prominent barbs of dark†¦ Begin between the Golden States highest and lowest elevations and name that location Manzanar. Rattlesnake a line southward to the zone of Arizona, to the home if natives on the reservation, and call those†¦show more content†¦As Inada illustrates, government documents and written accounts are not the only way to study the issues surrounding the internment; poetry, being a traditional and cherished practice brought over from Japan and continued in the United States, serves to give a unique and informative perspective into the lives of the Japanese internees. Not only does the poetry written by Japanese aliens and American citizens of Japanese descent describe the living conditions in the relocation camps they were imprisoned in, but it also demonstrates the array of emotions these people felt, including the hope of one day being free, the anger at being imprisoned, and, most prominently, the sadness from being away from home and loved ones. Why was writing poetry so popular in the internment camps? Jori and Kay Nakano relate that short poems were ideal forms for the internees expression of their pent-up emotion, because of the scarcity of writing paper. The Nakanos also point out that short poems were a Japanese tradition of expression, and thus a form that the people of Japanese descent were comfortable with. Their poetry offered a means of escape and relief, a way to vent and reflect in the harsh environment they were trapped in. While commenting on his own experiences, Inada asserts that if it werent for the poem, the thoughts and feelings would have stayed submerged, unexpressed, gradually fading and dispersing in my consciousness, and that