Let's all Go to the Fair! Also internment.

I'm late in posting this, but it has been whirling around in my mind for a while. I went to the Puyallup Fair back in September (thanks, Dizzle for hooking me up with the tickets!). The Puyallup Fair, also known as the Western Washington State Fair, is a super fun fair, and I think it's the biggest in Washington. I could totally be making that up, but I can't find anything on the site that refutes that, so it must be true. I have great memories of the fair. I held a boy's hand there once. Also he let me hold his Harley Davidson bandanna while he went on the roller coaster. That's romance, my friends. And no, that wasn't last year, smarty pantses, it was when I was a young hoodlum. That was also the time my friend almost got kicked out of the fair for whapping one of those people in a big animal costume on the back of the head. Turns out they have little body guards that follow them around. Who knew? I think the dude was hanging back in hopes of entrapping teenagers in the act of fake animal abuse. Because you know at least one teenage boy would try something. Helloooo.

But enough reminiscing. Every year when I go to the fair, that is what I do. I remenisce. Also I ponder how you spell the word reminisce. You think you know, but try typing it in a blog. The other thing I ponder when I go to the fair, ever since I first discovered the existence of such a thing, is Japanese internment camps. I remember I was in my 9th grade Pacific Northwest History class, and in one of the sections, we talked about how the Puyallup Fair grounds were used to house Japanese-Americans during World War II. To which I said, "Wait, WHAT??? No one told me that. That's never in the movies."

I find it interesting that the fact that we had actual internment camps for US Citizens who had committed no crimes in the US is so seldom mentioned. It's mentioned so little that I couldn't remember any of the details I most likely learned at one point, and I had to go to my trusty Internet source. I love (and by love I mean hate) that they called the fairgrounds Camp Harmony during it's internment years. According to this trusted source, the Japanese Americans who settled on Bainbridge Island were given six days to register, sell or rent their homes and farms, pack, and surrender to travel under armed guard to California, where they would spend the next four years. I don't know about you, but I would be cranky. From everything I have read or heard, the Japanese Americans were cooperative, and were treated fairly respectfully. But they were still prisoners. For doing nothing. They lost years out of their lives, I'm sure many of them lost property and businesses and life experiences and all sorts of things. And yet, somehow, most of them have gone on to live their lives quietly, and continued to embrace the country that showed so little faith in them.