Walmart Accused of Commercializing Incarceration of Japanese Americans

Best selling author Jamie Ford is calling out Walmart for the sale of wall art depicting the incarceration of Japanese Americans.

The historical photos show happy go lucky prisoners enjoying life behind barbed wire. They were photos taken by government photographers hired to put a positive spin on a blight in U.S. history.

Hey @Walmart why are you selling posters of the Japanese Internment? Described as “The perfect Wall Art for any home, bedroom, playroom, classroom, dorm room or office workspace.” https://t.co/uKwLdugQMl pic.twitter.com/0rAQ0F5HjU

— Jamie Ford (@JamieFord) November 11, 2017

It’s unclear when the posters went on sale, but Ford’s tweet has attracted some negative attention for the retail giant right before the big holiday shopping season.

Three comments all left today were highly critical of Walmart’s sale of the items.

“The commercialization of these photos is ignorant, insensitive and just wrong,: wrote 066. “There’s also the privacy of the women, the compounding of the trauma to them and their families (how would you like to have homes and businesses, schools, neighbors and friends taken from you because your of a certain NATIONALITY AND to be put in “camps” for the duration of WW2,). Not to mention the profiting off a wartime tragedy which is basically the commodification of someone else’s suffering.”

“It is highly inappropriate to use images of people who were in an American Concentration Camp, the Internment Camps at Tule Lake. Such a horrible time in our history is not wall art. Please remove this image and the other image of the Internment Camps. Please respect the people whose lives were torn apart unjustly,” said commenter Maura.

Juno wrote “These people were imprisoned for no reason except their cultural heritage. This is not appropriate as decorative living room art!”

AsAmNews has reached out to Walmart for comment and will update this story if and when a spokesperson replies.

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