A Keenly Felt Hardship

How John Bowater can compare his experience living in a former Civilian Conservation Corps barracks with our forced incarceration behind barbed wire is beyond me (Saturday Letters, Jan. 30).

Bowater misses the point. The barracks on display at the Japanese American National Museum do not represent housing; they represent the entire concentration camp experience. We were forcibly evicted from our homes under short notice, forced to sell all our possessions at sacrifice prices, permitted to take with us only that which we could carry and deposited in the most remote spots in the United States under armed guard like criminals.

Granted, these camps cannot nor will not be compared to the Nazi death camps, but were nevertheless concentration camps as defined in our dictionaries. If the loss of almost every possession, substandard food, lack of adequate medical facilities, and forfeiture of our freedom and dignity does not constitute “hardship,” I suggest Bowater purchase a new dictionary.

JAMES H. URATA, San Bernardino