Why the Language We Use to Describe Japanese American Incarceration During World War II Matters

Participants on a bus tour at the 2014 community pilgrimage to Tule Lake Courtesy of Tamiko Nimura Out the front windows of our bus, we could see acres of sun-dried grasses during a hot and arid Northern California summer. On either side of the road stood barbed-wire fences, like the ones many of our family members spent years behind, surrounded by armed guards and guard towers, living in crowded tar-paper…