2-1-Q

Greta Jennison

11 September 2025

2 Comments:

• Japanese Americans were forced from their homes and farms. Before they were actually fully removed, they were told they must continue to tend to their crops and if they failed to abide they would be treated as “wartime saboteurs”. Once they were forcefully removed from their farms the government took their crops and all belongings to aid the war effort.
• I also thought the panel(s) that talked about the Santa Anita horse track, which is where many of them, including George and his family, were taken to. Families were stored in the old horse stalls, an unbelievably inhumane, dehumanizing, and humiliating act by the government, and many children including George began their schooling there which had a huge impact on their childhood development, even if they didn’t really understand what was going on. 

1 Extension:

Santa Anita horse stalls

200 showers for 18,000 people

Families forced to live in horse stalls (7 ppl split between 2 stalls)

Fully treated like prisoners (concentration camp) 

1 roll of toilet paper for 4 people for 2 weeks

Stream of sewage running through camp

Called “relocation camps”

A man laid his neck on the track to kill himself

Men were held separately 

1 Question:

Where were other families taken, any worse than horse stalls? 

Were the American people around aware of the cruelty? 

Did any Americans try to exonerate them or help them escape?