Yayosu comments

The Japanese government should eliminate the consumption tax exemption for foreign visitors. Japan doesn't need to give away money in order to attract tourists.

The most decorated regiment in WWII was the 442nd Infantry Regiment, comprised of Japanese/American soldiers.

Clearly then, no racism was at play. It would not have been difficult for the US army to withhold commendations.

That's a wildly irrational and broad generalization to say no racism was at play. It is fair to say there was less racism within the narrow US population segment of the Army as it generally recognizes military achievement over race. Also, most of the decorations were based on objective criteria, i.e. Purple Hearts for being wounded in action, so there was little room for bias due to race.

However, racism was clearly at play for subjectively decided honors. This is why the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest US military decoration, was awarded to only one Japanese American by the end of WW2. And it took more than 50 years after the end of WW2 to review the records and upgrade 20 of the originally awarded medals to the Congressional Medal of Honor, in the year 2000.

I was just pointing out that the facts do not support the original post suggesting that the internment decision was based on citizenship, not race. If race was did not factor into to equation, then there should have been 100,000 people of German heritage, and less than 10,000 people of Japanese heritage, incarcerated.

My point not that the US is racist, but that racial hysteria resulted in the unconstitutional internment of US citizens (80 years ago). And we need to remain vigilant even today especially in the current political climate. Another point to make is the US is a great country because it passionately debates, openly acknowledges, and learns from its mistakes. I have no doubt that the lessons of the internment camps contributed to President Bush courageously speaking out against the harassment of Arabs and Muslims in US within a week after the 9/11 attack.

Were they not interred because they were Japanese? That had nothing to do with race, only nationality. Were the Germans interred because of their race, too? Is someone just falling back on the old race card?

The internment was overwhelmingly racially biased against people of Japanese ancestry, not their nationality, but people of German ancestry were not incarcerated based on their race.

Two thirds of the 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry who were incarcerated were US citizens born in the US. This was 40% of the total population with Japanese heritage in the US at the time. There were over 6 million people of full-blooded German ancestry, including over 1 million born in Germany, in the US in 1940. The vast majority of the 10,000 people of German ancestry (0.2% of the total) who were incarcerated were German citizens.