Memorial Day

[“Evacuees of Japanese ancestry attending Memorial Day services at Manzanar, California, a War Relocation authority center — Boy Scouts and American Legion members participating in the services appear in the foreground.” 1942. From the Library of Congress. Click for a larger view.]

It’s an extraordinary image: people participating in the forms of the culture that has consigned them to a concentration camp. It’s the perennial question of what it means to love a country that doesn’t love you back, and that blurs your imprisonment with the delicate word evacuees.

Nine Japanese immigrants went down with the US Maine in 1898. More than 800 Japanese immigrants and nisei served during World War I. An estimated 33,000 Japanese Americans served in World War II; approximately 800 died. More about their service here and here.