Tag Archives: Japanese Latin Americans

Emil Guillermo: New Amok podcast, “Emil Amok’s Takeout,” on the kidnapping claims of the forgotten people of the Japanese Internment during WWII, Japanese from Latin America

You can call it “The Other Roundup.”
Art Shibayama will tell you exactly what it meant to him and why all Americans need to be ashamed.

Shibayama was just a 12-year-old boy in Lima,Peru. A Peruvian citizen.
His whole family was taken by the U.S. government and incarcerated in America.

If you don’t know about the Japanese Latin American part of the World War II internment story, you’re not alone.

When Executive Order 9066 cleared the way for the round-up of Japanese and Japanese Americans in the U.S. at the start of World War II, a different kind  of roundup was taking place in Latin America, especially Peru.

The U.S. government was taking Latin American citizens of Japanese descent, what the victims call kidnappings. Those taken were of all ages, and often, whole families were rounded-up. They were placed on U.S. ships and took a long boat ride to America.  They lived in camps like one set up in Crystal City, Texas.

Art Shibayama says they were kidnapped to provide the U.S. a supply of pawns to trade for U.S. GIs held by the Japanese.

His story on my podcast, “Emil Amok’s Takeout.”

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