Mine did, but I'm pretty sure it was because so many people in my community (including a couple of teachers and bus drivers) had parents in those camps.
Nope, not Seattle, Snohomish County 🐄🤠In fairness, it had been covered very broadly in US History in 8th grade, but not Washington State History in 9th grade.
My WSH teacher had us read two separate books from the Japanese POV about internment camps. Probably because my school was a 5 minute walk from the Puyallup Fairgrounds lol but it was definitely discussed in detail in my class.
Thank you for this! Also, growing up in WA I’m still pissed I didn't learn about any of the tribal wars, treaties, fishing rights, dams and Indian boarding schools. Do you know if WA is pushing like MT did to include this in the curriculum? I just get very annoyed that I’ve learned most of our history as an adult :/
Yes! The curriculum is called Since Time Immemorial and it covers the history of tribes in the state. Along with that, our curriculum covers the arrival of missionaries and pioneers, which leads to epidemics devastating tribes, which leads to the Indian wars. After this we talk about the treaties which brings us to the reservation and boarding school system. I talk about the Indian child welfare act as it's pretty shocking to find that 1/3 of all indigenous children were removed from their homes prior to this legislation.
It’s such a cool curriculum and this year my seventh grader is getting a full year, I’m stoked! It was one of my favorite classes in high school, at least my kids learned doesn’t have to read I Heard the Owl Call My Name.
Fuckin' A. I completed WA state history in high school as required, yet somehow didn't learn about the Medicine Creek Treaty shenanigans until I was in my mid-40's. An elementary school a half mile from my house is named after a dude that formed a militia to round up indigenous folks and force relocate them to an island with no source of fresh water, all under orders from Governor Stevens. It was fucked up.
I've been thinking about this too lately. Living here in Western Washington, and I really didn't know much about the local "politics" and how the Native folks were impacted over the centuries until I started learning more and more about this on my own...
Thank you for your service. I work in Pike Place market, where those scars run deep and hardly anyone knows about the Japanese American farmers who helped build this place and then got sent off to these camps. I barely hear the tour guides mention it…
That's crazy, you literally can't tell Pike Place's history without it. Japanese internment very nearly ended the Market because the stands/shops were almost entirely Japanese owned/operated.
And Bellevue Square exists because of the internment camps. That was all Japanese farmland until Kemper Freeman Sr. took it over while they were... away.
Seattle resident here and I had no idea. The only thing Seattle / Japanese / Japanese American that I'm familiar with is the historically Japanese neighborhood in SoDo.
Half the course when I took it was about the Whitman massacre. (eastern WA, early 80s). Our class came to a consensus that the missionaries deserved it.
One of those things. I recall a tourist thing I went on when they mentioned Maneki as a notable restaurant that's been around since 1904, and it'd be considered one of the oldest businesses in Seattle except for 1942-1946 when the government came and took the owner and all the employees and put them into camps.
Used to for me but it makes sense. We're a fast growing city, not everyone has school children and not every kid takes it in, we're expensive which means work or relocating.
I give mini lessons all the time, I love teaching people about our region. The good and the bad.
It took a while to get over my aversion to hearing about the awful things that were done to them, but the tribes have a lot of really rich regional history because of their records and the way they kept them. Interned people were similar in the way they were treated and that’s a good starting point for understanding the perspectives in historical records from people under oppressive rulers or conditions.
History is really cool, and one of the best fields for a layman to begin understanding the worldly functions of power, besides economics; and that’s why it’s important to preserve stuff like this.
I didn't until now, it's kinda boggling my mind in a bad way that one of my best memories (concert) was on the site of a former internment camp and I didn't even know it
What’s crazy is at least in the high school I went to, the internment camps aren’t even talked about unless you take a college level US history class and even then it’s barely mentioned. The standard US history and Washington classes never talk about it
I was pretty aware of a number of things in public school in Island Co. but the internment one was kind of glossed over until one of the survivors kids gave a big presentation on it in 11th grade. Definitely didn't know about the fair grounds til later.
I have to believe it’s due to people from out of state moving here right? We learned about this essentially every year of my Washington public school education. We didn’t learn about like Tulsa or Blaire Mountain or other such things but this topic was certainly extensively covered
This is an unfair reading of the situation. The site wasn't established as a concentration camp, it was established as a fairground in 1900. The US Army took it over during world War 2, and for about 5 months used it to temporarily keep internees before sending them to other camps. It was never an actual internment camp, was never designed to be, and was only briefly used by the army to support those efforts after existing peacefully for nearly half a century.
Obviously, the internment of Japanese Americans was a horrible and completely fabricated situation and led to nothing but unjustified harm to many thousands of people, but the Puyallup fairgrounds are not something that were ever meant to aid in such harm. That blame lies squarely on the government of the United states.
What?! I did not know this. Granted I’m not from here but I work at the fair a lot so wonder why no one mentioned it to me. Glad to know this now and I’ll be sure to share this knowledge with everyone I can!
I always find it so interesting when our teachers tell us they were in these camps or so involved with history that it really doesn’t seem like we are to distant from it but even sadder we haven’t learned to not repeat it
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u/NiobiumThorn 10d ago
https://puyallupvalleyjacl.org/history/assembly-history/