The Japanese American Internment
How Wartime Internment Affected the Japanese
American Community
Name: Sophie Berger Student number: 10440208
Email: sophie.berger@student.uva.nl
Institution: University of Amsterdam
Faculty of Humanities
Master Thesis
Thesis Supervisor: Professor R. Janssens Date: 17 October 2014
1
Contents
Introduction ... 2
Chapter 1. Being Japanese-American in pre-war United States ... 13
1.1 Introduction to Japanese immigration to the US ... 13
1.2 Public sentiment, prejudice and discrimination ... 14
1.3 The Japanese-American experience ... 17
1.3.1 Issei ... 18
1.3.2 Nisei ... 20
1.3.3 Kibei ... 22
1.4. Conclusion ... 23
2.1 Public reactions and government actions following Pearl Harbor ... 24
2.2 Japanese American reactions to evacuation ... 28
2.2.1 Japanese American Citizen League ... 29
2.2.2. Organized and individual resistance to evacuation. ... 32
2.3 Attitudes in Internment Camps: Friction within the community ... 33
2.3.1 Conditions in the camps ... 33
2.3.1 Americanization/Japanization ... 35
2.3.2 Japanese American Citizen League in the camps ... 36
2.3.3 Geographical tension ... 37
2.3.4 Loyalty Questionnaire ... 38
2.3.5. Segregating the camps: the loyal camps ... 41
2.3.6. Segregating the camps: Tule Lake... 44
2.4. Closing of the camps ... 48
2.5. Conclusion ... 49
Chapter 3. Postwar attitudes and the reintegration of Japanese Americans ... 51
3.1. Postwar attitudes of the American public ... 51
3.1.1. Geographical difference in reception of Japanese Americans ... 53
3.2. Experience of living in postwar America ... 55
3.3 Sense of Belonging... 58
3.4 JACL efforts in postwar years ... 59
3.5 Conclusion ... 61
Conclusion ... 62
2
Introduction
Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941, mass hysteria broke out on the West Coast. Many Americans living there accused Japanese Americans of
conspiring with the Japanese enemy by helping them with another attack on American soil. Although these suspicions were highly irrational and unfounded, anti-Japanese sentiment grew within American society during this period. President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 granting the military to establish “military exclusion zones” from which people of Japanese ancestry were banned, for fear of their disloyalty towards the United States. The original policy of the exclusion zones evolved in the months that followed the evacuation, or rather relocation, of approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast.1 Two-thirds of these relocated people were second generation Japanese Americans, or Nisei, thus holding official American citizenship.
Several camps were hastily set up in remote areas east of the West Coast, some of them serving as temporary relocation centers, others as detention centers where many Japanese Americans were to remain until the end of the war. Although life in these camps is by no means comparable with other concentration- or detention centers that were set up around the world during World War Two, these camps did serve as temporary prisons where the internees were housed in rows of barracks in camp fields surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, while their loyalty was being questioned. Some Japanese Americans were given the opportunity to leave the camps, either to work in the labor force, to serve in the US army or to study. The majority of internees however, spent years in the camps until they were closed at the end of the war. After the war, this minority group had to reestablish itself in American society. How they did this, varied between the two generations, who both found different ways to cope with their new situation.
War hysteria in society after a foreign attack is not uncommon, but why was the loyalty of this particular minority group called into question much more than that of Italian- or German Americans? This has much to do with public opinion held at that time and the historical perception of Asians in the United States. It is worthwhile to analyze where this
1 Numbers of Japanese American evacuees vary between 110.000 and 120.000, depending on the source. For
this work I will work with the estimate of 120.000, consistent to numbers used in WRA’s official report
3 perception came from and how the Japanese Americans reacted to this before, during and after the war.How did the Americans determine whether someone was loyal to the United States or not? And how did public opinion and anti-Japanese sentiment shape the actual sense of loyalty held by the Japanese Americans? Being treated like an enemy in your own country and by the government might lead to a detachment from your country, but how did the
Japanese internees react to this situation? And how did they deal with their position in society after the war was over? But most importantly, in what ways did American society enable or disable the Japanese Americans to integrate in society?
The key element in my research is the use, meaning and value of the term loyalty. The American government and many of its citizens feared and distrusted the entire group of Japanese American living on the West Coast. Many felt that being of Japanese ancestry meant being loyal to Japan. The internment camps served a dual purpose: getting rid of the supposed threat this minority group posed, and giving this group a chance to prove their loyalty towards the United States.
In this work I will focus on the problematic use of the word loyalty and will argue that the Unites States government employed a term for its wartime policy that could never be proved and was therefore never valid. The United States government used the term loyalty to base its entire evacuation and internment policy on, while loyalty could neither be measured nor proven, putting the Japanese Americans in an impossible position, during and after World War Two. Since no one could ever truly prove its loyalty, Japanese Americans had virtually no way to put accusations, assumptions and prejudice behind them and show the American public they too, were and felt American, which caused their problematic position in
America’s West Coast society.
While many scholars have analyzed the Japanese American internment and the many aspects surrounding the topic, no scholars so far have addressed the problematic use of the word loyalty in the government’s wartime internment policy and its implications for the Japanese American community. A recent Dutch study has addressed the use of the word loyalty quite extensively in a report Identification with the Netherlands written by the WRR (Scientific Council for Government Policy). This report argues that the process of
identification is much more dynamic and flexible that commonly understood. The WRR recognizes that people can identify themselves through three different ways and defines these forms as: functional, normative and emotional identification. The first is related to how people identify themselves according to their function in an organization or community, the second is based on identification according to normative lines; such as laws, tradition and
4 politics. The last one is of most importance for my work since it is closely related to the sense of loyalty someone feels for a country, his or hers sense of belonging and pride for a country. The report states that it is possible to have an emotional bonding with more than one country; the country or origin and the country of residence. This means it is possible to be loyal to multiple countries, without causing problems for the bonding with the country of residence. Moreover, the report states that integration can be more successful when people are allowed to be emotionally connected to their country of origin, since this makes them more open to bond with the country of residence. This report emphasizes the fact that it is not possible, nor desirable, to demand people to choose with which country their loyalty lies, since dual loyalty is thinkable too and does not have to pose any problems.2
This is a completely different way to look at loyalty compared to how Americans dealt with the term during World War Two, since the consensus in global politics, culture and even scholarship had always been that in order to successfully integrate in society, one could only have one loyalty and had to disregard their emotional bonding to any other country. This report sheds new light on how we can look at loyalty and identification and shows the great differences with the classic approach that was also used by the Unites States government in the last century.
In the case of Japanese Americans living on the West Coast in the prewar and war years, this was indeed the general consensus. Americans wanted Japanese Americans to absorb American habits and lose their traditional Japanese manners and culture, for otherwise integration was not possible. The biggest problem however was, that how much the Japanese American, and especially the American-born Nisei, tried to behave as American as possible, their loyalty could never be measured. They could speak fluent English, play American sports, dress in American fashion and state that they felt only American and not Japanese, there was, and still is, no way to actually measure or prove how loyal someone is.
The American government tried in multiple ways, like with the Loyalty Questionnaire that was handed out during the internment, to determine someone’s loyalty, but could never be certain. This meant that how hard someone tried to prove him- or herself being loyal to the United States, it remained impossible to tell. This put the Japanese Americans in an
impossible position because there was no way to redeem themselves from their Japanese image. Many Americans, and especially the United States government could not look beyond their Japanese features and heritage and therefore felt that all Japanese Americans were loyal
2
WRR Report, Identificatie met Nederland (Den Haag and Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007), 11-19.
5 to Japan. It is this generalization and notion that one could hold only one loyalty, which put 120,000 Japanese Americans in the internment camps when the war broke out.
The Japanese American internment is a topic which received the attention it deserved in academic circles ranging from discussions on political, sociological, to cultural themes. The discussion on whether the internment was a valid and legitimate policy at the time was closed when the American government issued an official national apology to the Japanese community stating the internment was unlawful and based on racial war hysteria. It took until 1988 however, before President Ronald Reagan signed the apology and restoration policy to the individual victims of the incarceration.
The wrongfulness of the internment is thus not a topic of debate, however scholars have been discussing the internment by looking at the sociological impact the incarceration had on the different generations of Japanese Americans. A key aspect in this debate is how to look at identity and ethnicity, how those terms can be defined and whether or not these features are flexible and changeable. This discussion is highly relevant when studying the development of the Japanese American society in the years prior, during and after the war, for it can explain if, and how, self-identification of the Japanese Americans was changed by their internment experience. Important to note is that none of these scholars have addressed in their work the problematic use of the word loyalty in the wartime policies. Their work is crucial though for an understanding of how the Japanese Americans themselves dealt with their self-identification and sense of belonging.
For Japanese anthropologist Yasuko Takezawa there is a great difference between ethnicity and identity, whereby the latter can develop independently from the former. Many Americans living in the prewar years did not make a distinction between the two terms: being of Japanese ancestry, meant being Japanese, even if they were born and raised in the United States. This phenomenon caused the all-out evacuation of this ethnic group on the American mainland; for the group as a whole was distrusted by United States society.3 For the majority of Japanese American, and especially the American-born Nisei, this generalization was quite difficult. As Takezawa notes in her work, most Nisei identified themselves primarily as Americans, not as Japanese. “In school the Nisei developed their American identity to add to their Japanese ethnicity,”4 she states, confirming too, that these features are flexible and adaptable. Her work is based on Fredrik Barths’ (1969) theory that ethnicity is subjective,
3 With the exception of Japanese Americans living in Hawaii who were exempted from evacuation, since the
economy on Hawaii depended on this group as the their main labor force.
4
Yasuko I. Takezawa, Breaking the Silence: Redress and Japanese American Ethnicity (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1995), 194-6.
6 flexible and can be defined by members of the group themselves.5
Takezawa explores in her work how the different generations of Japanese Americans dealt with this ethnicity and how that related to their self-identification. Takezawa’s 1995 book Breaking the Silence is crucial for my work since it analyzes how the sense of ethnicity and identity has developed during the war years for the different generations of Japanese Americans. Takezawa’s research looks specifically at the transformation of ethnicity and identity after and during the Redress movement after the war, while I am more inclined to look at the immediate effects the wartime internment had on this development and sense of American identity. I will add to her research by also looking at the identification process and experience of the Issei, whereas Takezawa focusses mainly on the later generations, the Nisei and Sansei. Takezawa’s work is mainly based on the numerous interviews she held with Japanese Americans during her stay in Seattle in the 1990s to give an account of their experiences as a minority group in the United States during, but mostly, after the war. Anthropologist Alexander Leighton had a completely different approach to identify the Japanese American community during their internment and stayed in one of the
internment camps to conduct his research. For his work The Governing of Men (1945), Leighton studied the Japanese American internees who were held at Poston internment center and tried to analyze how this group behaved during their years in captivity.6 His approach was derived from the notion that analyzing a social group can best be done by putting yourself in the middle of their situation and studying their behavior. This method could determine, in his vision, who the Japanese were. Although his work received a lot of praise directly after it was published, later scholars have suggested that it is impossible to determine group identity by studying them in a unnatural environment as the internment camp was. Leighton’s study does give an interesting account on how an outsider looked at the behavior of an ethnic group and nicely illustrates how the general consensus was during this period concerning the use of the terms nationality and identity. His work is in line with other research written in the same time period, but highly contrasts with the report of the earlier mentioned WRR, which view I share. His work shows that even a respected scholar as
Alexander Leighton in that time, could only see these Japanese Americans as Japanese people and did not regard them as American citizens. This shows how widespread the idea was that people can only feel loyal to one country, Japan in this case, and therefore faced grave difficulty proving otherwise.
5
Takezawa, 13.
6
7 My research will deal primarily with internal and external factors that shaped the identity of the Japanese American community. In order to do this I will have to look at both their own experience that may have transformed their identity, as to look at the influence American society and the wartime situation had on their identification. How the Japanese Americans identified themselves was not something decided internally but was almost always influenced by their surroundings. American public opinion was a major factor that could shape and disturb the group’s identity. The perception Americans tended to have of the Japanese is extensively explained by American anthropologist Sheila Johnson. In her 1988 book The Japanese through American Eyes, Johnson traced the commonly held perceptions towards Japanese throughout the second half of the twentieth century. She explained how popular culture shaped, maintained, contradicted and altered the image and stereotypes held by many Americans prior to World War Two.7 Especially the wartime period and the years leading up to that are of high interest for my research and help me to establish an image of the environment in which the Japanese Americans resided.
Historian Studs Terkel similarly looked at United States public opinion during the war and documented and collected the oral histories and stories of the various average Americans during World War Two. In his book The Good War: an oral History of World War Two he showed the various reactions and experiences of Americans on his wartime situation.8 Some of these oral testimonies show how white Americans were quite pleased with the removal of the Japanese Americans.
To illustrate how the Nisei and Issei dealt with their self-identification, I will make use of several memoirs, written by those Nisei who have experienced the prewar and war years. These memoirs, which I will use repeatedly through my work, will not be used as a matter of proof, but rather as a tool to inject the personal experience and feelings of those people who lived the experience I will write about. The accounts of these former internees will shed light on how they experienced the difficulty in proving their loyalty and
commitment to the United States. It would feel wrong for me to talk about emotions and self-identification of others, which is why I let them speak through their memoirs.
Next to anthropological and sociological research, many scholars have studied the subject of internment from a social political point of view. Key topic in these studies is the political motivations behind Roosevelt’s decisions and several scholars have questioned
7 Sheila K. Johnson, The Japanese Through American Eyes (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), cover
page.
8
Studs Terkel, The Good War: an Oral History of World War Two (United Kingdom: Hamish Hamilton Publishers, 1985).
8 whether and how, these extreme measures of evacuation and internment could have been avoided. Historian Greg Robinson for example, has written an extensive account of the role of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in signing the executive order that legitimized the resettlement of more than a hundred thousand Japanese American citizens, and blames Roosevelt for having had a “bad moral compass,” on this issue.9
Robinson’s study mainly focuses on the political side of the internment and specifically investigated Roosevelt’s influence in this but it also makes clear how public opinion and war hysteria influenced the policies made at the time.
Professor Ruud Janssens similarly looked at the role of the United States government in handling the war with Japan and why the government took the radical decision to relocate and hold so many people of Japanese ancestry. He concluded herein that the government was forced to take such extreme action to calm the war hysteria and satisfy the American public.10 Although I am particularly interested in the personal rather than the political stories and background of the Japanese American internment, these studies are very relevant for my research since they show how public opinion and war time panic can influence government policy but they also discuss how the anti-Japanese sentiment was shaped and where that was coming from.
In order to understand and illustrate how the wartime internment shaped or changed the identity of the internees, I will look at the extensive research that has been done on the internment itself by several scholars. Most scholars who have written about the internment have done this with a political-activist approach; these are scholars who have deemed it important to write about the injustice that was done to this minority group, as a means of making sure something similar as this will never happen again. These include scholars like Roger Daniels, Allen Bosworth, Richard Drinnon and Edwin Spicer (ea.) who have been studying and writing about the internment, its causes and effects to inform the world of the wrongfulness that was experienced by the internees. These scholars, varying from historians to social scientists, have written this work on behave of the Japanese American victims of mass incarceration. I will draw from their work the historical details and events. Some Japanese American scholars, such as Harry Kitano, have been writing about the internment from a similar interest. His account is highly interesting since he, as a Nisei, was a victim of the government’s internment policy and stayed in an internment camp until it closed in 1945.
9 Greg Robinson, By Order of the President. FDR and the internment of Japanese Americans (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2001) introduction.
10
Rudolf Janssens, What Future for Japan: US Wartime Planning for the Postwar Era 1942-1945 (Amsterdam-Atlanta, GA: Rodopi Press, 1995), conclusion.
9 However, his work can be biased by his own experience and interpretation. Nonetheless this work provides extensive information on the events that occurred during and after the war. My main goal in this research is to analyze if and how the internment changed Japanese Americans’ perspective of the United States and their own position herein. This minority group lived in a period of American history in which they endured multiple negative situations, in which the internment stands out, which makes it highlyinteresting and
intriguing how they dealt with situation, both practically as emotionally. But above all, I want to analyze how American society, and especially Americans living on the West Coast,
blocked the integration process of the Japanese Americans. Despite the dire wish of many Japanese Americans to assimilate, it was in the hands of the American society to accept them in their community. Integration is a two-way process in which efforts have to be made by two parties. Essential in this process is the way Americans thought about the term loyalty and how they used and tried to measure it at that time. Many Americans expected the Japanese American population to show and prove their loyalty towards the United States, but no matter what these Japanese Americans did to show it, for many Americans “a Jap was a Jap,” as Commanding General of the Western Defense Command John deWitt said when justifying the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans, and this minority group could never really prove they were loyal to the United States.11 And even if they could, it is highly questionable that the Americans would ever allow them to show it. The most problematic issue in this loyalty question is that even if loyalty could never be proven, it was used in a way that suggested it was possible.
In this paper I will look at the effects of the wartime internment on public opinion in the United States toward the Japanese American community. In order to support my
statement I will therefore have to analyze how the American public acted towards the Japanese Americans, as well as how this minority group reacted to this, both practically as emotionally. The Japanese Americans reaction will not give an all-encompassing response, for the generational differences will have to be taken in consideration, which makes it impossible to generalize their experience. For this work I will therefore look at the situation and experience of each of the generations. Furthermore, to discover a change in perspective, I have to look at multiple time periods in order to establish how and why a development took place. This work is therefore structured in chronological order, starting with the prewar period and the early lives of Japanese immigrants and their children, followed by the war
11
WRA. Personal justice denied: report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilian. http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/personal_justice_denied/ (accessed: January 22, 2014).
10 period which will be described most extensively, and ends with the postwar period which describes the effects and ultimate change in perception caused by the internment.
The first chapter will thus give an overview of the societal conditions along
America’s West Coast in which the Japanese immigrants lived prior to the war. I will discuss what influenced and shaped the stereotypes of Japanese held by the American public before World War Two broke out. Next to the image produced by popular culture as Johnson described, I will briefly look at historical immigration policy, the socio-economic situation of Japanese Americans prior to the war and how public opinion hereof was formed. Moreover I will analyze how both the Japanese Americans and the West Coast society felt about loyalty and how to show that. In this chapter I will consult opinion polls and personal accounts of Americans living on the West Coast during this prewar period to see how they perceived people of Japanese ancestry in general, and in the United States in particular.
This widespread and often negative perception on Japanese Americans might have had a substantial influence on the Japanese Americans living in the United States as well. Important therefore is to analyze how “American” the Japanese Americans felt themselves. This is obviously not a question that can bring a general answer, but it would be interesting to see the various perspectives and experiences these people held on their living situation in the United States, just before the war. I need to look at the different Japanese American
generations. First generation Japanese Americans, or Issei, might have had a difference experience living in the West Coast than their children or the second generation, Nisei. How much did public opinion shape the experience of people of Japanese origin? And how
“American” did they feel themselves? An analysis of scholarly work and memoirs will provide answers to the chapter’s question: What was the general perception American society had on Japanese immigrants before World War Two and how did this influence the lives of Japanese American immigrants along the West Coast?
The second chapter will focus on the United States government’s decision to evacuate and intern the entire Japanese American community and the immediate implications this had on the minority group. Many elements will be explored, starting with the socio-political climate in the United States directly after the 1941 Pearl Harbor bombings, which included a higher degree of discrimination and a growth of anti-Japanese sentiment among the public. To get a sense of the effects and implications of the Japanese bombing, I will extensively sketch the reaction of the United States government and the army, local politicians, lobby groups, American citizens living on the West Coast, and off course the Japanese American community itself. I will analyse if and how the government’s decisions and public sentiment
11 changed the perspectives of the Japanese Americans and how the United States government dealt with the term loyalty in their policy-making.
The next part of this chapter will focus on the internment itself and how life in the camps was experienced by its internees. In order to understand the great ordeal and
difficulties the internees endured, I will give an extensive overview of the conditions in the camps and the tensions that developed between the internees themselves, which ultimately led to a split within the community. A large focus is directed at the fact that the internees were, quite unexpectedly, turning against each other instead of collectively directing their anger to the United States government and camp authorities. This chapter will answer the question: How did the different Japanese American generations react to their internment and what ways did their attitude towards the United States change? Extensive attention will be given to the issue of the Loyalty Questionnaire and how that illustrates both the United States government’s take on loyalty and the difficulty or impossibility in measuring loyalty. I will again use the scholarly research to describe the wartime period, in and outside the camps, and will illuminate the emotions and perceptions of the internees by using several memoirs. For the concluding chapter I will look at the development of the Japanese American identity after the war, and if and how this was changed for the different generations by their internment experience. It is difficult, if not impossible to test “how American” someone feels or is, and memoirs will not help me to determine this. Instead I will look at the actions and reactions of the former internees after the war, to analyze their determination to be(come) American. Research done by scholar Allen Austin on the postwar effects on this minority group will be a major help for this analysis.12 I will look at the efforts of the different
generations to assimilate and integrate in American society and will determine based on these features if the incentives to become Americanized have declined, increased or remained the same. I will hereby look at the results of the loyalty questionnaire, the enrolment in the Nisei army unit, and the wartime and postwar efforts in education, jobs and social patterns and changes. Equally important is to see how public opinion shifted in the postwar period and how this influenced the integration process of the Japanese Americans. Again I will deal with the loyalty issue and the difficulties the use of this term brought for both the American population as the Japanese Americans themselves. Political and legal changes that took place after World War Two will also be taken into account, since they have had major implications for the status of the Japanese American community in United States society. These changes
12
Allen Austin “Eastward Pioneers: Japanese American Resettlement during World War II and the Contested Meaning of Exile and Incarceration” In: Journal of American Ethnic History (2007): 79.
12 and developments will be crucial in determining in what ways American society let this group integrate and feel accepted in society after the war. In this concluding chapter I will try to answer the question: Were the incentives for the Japanese Americans to integrate in United States society altered after the internment and in what way did the postwar attitudes of
13
Chapter 1. Being Japanese-American in pre-war United States
To establish whether the internment affected the way American society responded to Japanese Americans, it is necessary to see how this minority experienced their lives in the years leading up the war and in which ways this was effected by the American public. Long before the United States entered the war with Japan in 1941, Japanese
Americans encountered problems living on the West Coast. Prejudice and stereotypes shaped the way American society perceived this group and acted towards them. Government policies might have made life for the first generation immigrants, the Issei, even more difficult. During the pre-war years Japanese immigration was restricted, naturalization and ownership of land denied. This generation had therefore great difficulties integrating in society,
moreover because they often spoke little English and behaved in traditional Japanese ways. For their Nisei children, who were legal American citizens, these problems did not exist and integration seemed much easier. This generation however, was caught between two cultures; that of their Japanese parents and that of their home country. Self-identification problems occurred often; especially when discrimination and anti-Japanese sentiment began to
influence their lives. In this chapter I will analyse the pre-war United States environment and will focus on the question: What was the general perception American society had on
Japanese immigrants before World War Two and how did this influence the lives of Japanese American immigrants along the West Coast?
1.1 Introduction to Japanese immigration to the US
Since the 1860s Japanese immigrants have been crossing the Pacific to settle on America’s West Coast. Ever since their arrival these immigrants faced grave difficulty integrating in American society, mainly due to strong anti-Asian prejudice and discrimination. The earlier mass arrival of Chinese workers that entered the US during the gold rush in 1848 had spurred anti-Asian sentiment along the West Coast but especially in California. Fear of Orientals, job competition and the wide-held notion that the United States was a “white man’s country,” united a large group of Americans in anti-Oriental movements.13 Throughout the decades leading up to World War Two, more and more restrictions were set up to halt the arrival of more Asian immigrants. The Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1908 was one of the first measures taken. According to this agreement between the Japanese government and the United States,
13
14 Japan would not send any more emigrants to the United States and in return the American government agreed to allow family reunification for those Japanese immigrants already residing in the United States.14 Japanese immigration stopped completely when the
Immigration Act of 1924 was enacted. This law restricted immigration for Eastern Europeans by setting up quotas, but banned the arrival of Asians altogether by adding a provision called the Asian Exclusion Act.15 This provision in combination with the 1790s Naturalization Act, laid the foundation for a rocky soil on which these Japanese immigrants needed to plant their seeds for full integration. The Naturalization Act restricted non-whites to be naturalized, regardless of the duration of their stay. Additionally, the California Alien Land Law of 1913 prohibited non-white aliens to own land. The latter was especially directed at Japanese immigrants who were mainly active as farmers.16 Many Issei however, found ways to go around this by buying land in the name of their Nisei, American-born children. The
Japanese’s agrarian success was the main concern for other American farmers that led to this Land Law, but overall anti-Japanese sentiment in California was the key drive for enacting these restricting policies.
1.2 Public sentiment, prejudice and discrimination
The first generation Japanese immigrants, the Issei, were born in Japan, emigrated to the United States to build up better lives for themselves or their families and a lot of them succeeded in this. Although public hostility towards them was always in some way apparent, great differences can be seen between urban and rural areas, between cities and even states. A large group of Japanese immigrants settled in Hawaii, an American territory, where they were needed as farm workers. The situation in Hawaii will not be discussed here; primarily
because these Japanese immigrants did not face exclusion and evacuation during World War Two- unlike their fellow countrymen on the American mainland. California held by far the biggest Japanese population, western cities in Washington, Oregon and later Arizona held a far lesser degree of Japanese immigrants, making these areas less hostile and discriminatory than it tended to be in California.17 Japanese immigrants living in big American cities were also more prone to face discrimination for there they tended to live in big Japanese
communities where assimilation to American ways was less vital than it was in rural areas
14 Janssens, 32.
15 Edward H. Spicer, Asael T. Hansen, Katherine Luomala, Marvin K. Opler, Impounded People (Tuscan: The
University of Arizona Press,1969),48.
16
15 where the Japanese immigrants were scattered throughout the area which forced them to integrate and assimilate.18 Generally speaking, a family living in rural parts of Washington faced less hostilities than families living in Los Angeles, California. However Japanese Americans living on the West Coast could never totally escape some degree of
discrimination.
In her book The Japanese through American Eyes, Sheila Johnson looked at how perceptions and stereotypes of Japanese were shaped and transformed in American popular culture. In her analysis Johnson selected articles, magazines, movies and books that dealt with Japanese characters, culture and history, which she analysed to discover general depictions and perceptions these authors held on this immigrant group in certain historical periods, starting just before World War Two until the late 1980s. These depictions, Johnson states, give an insight into public opinion held throughout the years.19 She found that the Japanese were often depicted as either aggressive, modest, quiet, sneaky, or excessively loyal to their emperor. Johnson’s overall conclusion is quite remarkably, that the depictions and stereotypes used in popular culture- which often coincides with general public opinion- are directly influenced by the specific political, cultural or economic status of Japan in relation to the United States. When Japan is involved in an aggressive war, or perceived as a threat to the Unites States for their economic success, the depictions and stereotypes used by the American public to describe the Japanese tend to be negative, and vice versa. In Johnson’s words: “Good relations between the two countries at the governmental and the business levels generally contribute to favorable popular images, while states of war, trade embargoes, or other international tensions promote unflattering popular images.”20
Her conclusion is remarkable because she sees prejudice and stereotyping not as something static, but rather as flexible and adaptable to certain situations. We do have to take into account however, that the negative attitude towards Japanese Americans was growing over the years, independently from the political and economic situation of Japan. The war therefore heightened and not started the negative sentiment towards Japanese Americans.
But why then was the American reaction toward German- and Italian Americans, ancestors from countries that were similarly aggressive and enemies in the eyes of the United States, less hostile and did these people not face evacuation? A possible answer is that these groups, as Spicer notes, were “less racially visible,” and could therefore hide their ancestry
18 Mary Matsuda Gruenewald, Looking like the Enemy: My Story of Imprisonment in Japanese American
Internment Camps (Troutdale, Oregon: Newsage Press, 210), 22.
19
Johnson, 6-12.
20
16 better and avoid open discrimination.21 Other factors that contributed to the less hostile attitudes these German and Italian-immigrants faced will be explored in chapter two of this work. Historian Roger Daniels therefore concluded that the anti-Japanese sentiment in California has much deeper roots than wars and economy alone and suggested that this anti- Orient sentiment derived from earlier hostilities towards the Chinese immigrants who arrived in California in massive numbers during the gold rush. The Japanese who came years later were irrevocably linked to the Chinese-Americans and prejudice, hatred and fear increased only more when relations between Japan and the United States became tenser.22
This public fear was maintained by the press that as early as 1907 had started with vague reports and false accusations of the Japanese and the Japanese-American community, spurring anti-Japanese sentiment and negatively influencing the position of the Japanese community in the West Coast. Talk of “The Yellow Peril,” which had become a term directly linked to the Japanese, increased in the United States and was easily picked up by the press. Direct cause for this fear was the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5 in which the Japanese proved strong and defeated the Russians. This was the first major war where a non-Western country won a war against an European power. A second cause that shaped the public fear was a bestselling novel by Homer Lea called The Valor of Ignorance, which told the story of the Japanese military powers taking over American territories as Alaska, Hawaii and even mainland California.23 These military actions by the Japanese, real and imagined, spurred the idea of Japanese as evil and aggressive people and were picked up by the press. The
California-based Hearst Press in particular started printing prejudiced, false reports on Japanese-Americans, hereby stirring anti-Japanese sentiment on America’s West Coast. Reports ranged from (false) warnings that Japanese immigrants were in fact Japanese soldiers waiting to attack the United States, to stories of Japanese beating up girls, both turned out the be untrue.24 Next to the press, local politics contributed to spreading erroneous, alarming information about the Japanese in the United States. In an attempt to pass a 1920s bill to sharpen restrictions on Japanese landownership, Governor Stephens propagated that the Japanese immigrants had an enormously high birth-rate which would endanger the white Californian community. Although these statistics again were incorrect, it is very well imaginable that these rumors and anti-Japanese propaganda have influenced American’s
21 Spicer, 27.
22 Daniels, The Politics of Prejudice¸106. 23
Janssens, 30.
24
17 negative attitude towards this minority group.25
Anti-Japanese sentiment in California, thus always there to some extent, increased heavily in the early years of World War Two, before Pearl Harbor, when Japan showed its aggressive and powerful warfare tactics in their battles in the Far East. This fear of Japanese was mostly visible in the exclusion of Japanese in shops, restaurants, public places and even in schools. This fear was often passed on to young children. One American recalls that even at the age of four he was told to fear the Japanese; another American recalls that at the age of sixteen, “we were dreadfully frightened of the Japanese. For years we were told of the yellow hordes. […] Even before Pearl Harbor we were scared of them.26
These and many other first-hand reports show how the American public, especially on the West Coast was indoctrinated with the idea that Asians and in particular the Japanese, were people to be scared of and to avoid. Public hostilities in early 1941 became that fierce, that several groups, such as
Christian churches and a group of Californian University presidents were established to alter and slow down the anti-Japanese sentiment and protect this minority group, with little success however.27 This was the environment in which newly arrived Japanese immigrants tried to settle in peace in the early twentieth century, facing discrimination, exclusion, denial of rights and severe prejudice, based on no rational grounds or justified fears.
1.3 The Japanese-American experience
The Japanese came to the United States either for economic reasons, for religious reasons or as political refugees. The first group made the move to the United States primarily to work hard, earn as much money as they could, and eventually return to Japan. Many Japanese of this generation, the Issei, therefore made little effort to fully integrate in American society, learn the language and adopt American ways. The longer they stayed however, and had Nisei children, the more they assimilated.28 The second and third group of Japanese that
immigrated to the United States for religious or political reasons came with the aim to stay. These groups consisted of Christian Japanese wanting to live in a Christian country and those who were banned from Japan for opposing the glorification of the Emperor.29
The reasons for moving are of crucial importance when dealing with the question of loyalty these immigrants felt for Japan and the United States.
25 Ibid., 89
26 Terkel, 27 &36.
27 Page Smith, Democracy on Trial The Japanese American Evacuation and Relocation in World War II (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 13.
28
Ibid., 53-55.
29
18 The previously described hostilities and political restrictions the Japanese-Americans faced deeply influenced their experience living in the United States. Each generation reacted differently to their American environment, and experiences between Issei and their Nisei children varied greatly. Since the Issei were ineligible for naturalization, and thus citizenship, they tried to cling more to the culture of the only official citizenship they had: the Japanese. Most Nisei tried hard to assimilate in American society, often facing difficulties with their dual heritage. Although no generalizations can be made, I will try in this second half of the chapter to describe the experiences of these Japanese-Americans, based on memoirs written by them, of their stay and loyalty towards either Japan or the United States.
1.3.1 Issei
More than other immigrant groups, the Issei generally held on to their Japanese roots very strongly, partly because of their enormous pride in being Japanese and partly because their unsecure legal status in the United States made them consider moving back to their mother country. Many Issei felt very connected to their home country where their families still lived, but it did not necessarily mean that they would support Japan when a war broke out. This was however, the fear of many Americans, who mistakenly took their loyalty to Japan for a disloyalty to the United States.
One returning element in the Japanese-American memoirs is the typically traditional Japanese core that almost all Issei had. The traditional Japanese culture was brought with them to the United States and often implemented in their new homes, mainly to be seen in Japanese food, the importance to join clubs (typical for more immigrant groups), their modest and shy public behaviour, and the most controversial feature: their devotion and loyalty to the Japanese emperor, and in second place to the parents.30 Monica Sone, a Nisei woman who grew up in Seattle, tells in her memoir Nisei Daughter how this tradition manifested itself in her youth and that of her brother by their Issei parents. She recalls traditional Japanese festivities such as “Tenchosetsu,” which was the celebration of the Emperor’s birthday. On this day, she writes: “There, to our humble eyes, the photograph of Emperor Hirohito himself was revealed. Only once a year was the Emperor’s likeness unveiled to the public. It was a sacred moment.”31
Sone also admits that she did not understand half of what was going on, but for her Issei parents and the Issei community, these were important moments that reinforced their Japaneseness.
30
Smith, 68.
31
19 One crucial reason for the Issei to strongly hold on to their Japanese culture was the pride they felt in being Japanese; a sentiment universally held under Japanese citizens, something that was imposed on them by their culture. This pride had not much to do with nationalism or loyalty in a war-like sense, as stated by Spicer et al., but rather has to do with being proud of your ancestry.32 Yoshiko Uchida, a Nisei woman, describes her Issei parents similarly in the memoir Desert Exile she wrote in 1982 documenting her family’s experience in the United States before and during World War Two. She writes: “He [Papa] was Japanese and proud of his land and his heritage. Although both my parents loved America, they always held at the core of their being an abiding love for their native land.”33
Further on she says:
My parent’s Japaneseness was never nationalistic in nature. They held the Imperial family in affectionate and respectful regard, as did all Japanese of their generation. But their first loyalty was always to their Christian God, not the Emperor of Japan. And their loyalty and devotion to their adopted country was vigorous and strong. My father cherished copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution of the United States, and on national holidays he hung with great pride an enormous American flag on our front porch, even though at the time, this country declared the first generation Japanese immigrants to be “aliens ineligible for citizenship.34
This dual sense of loyalty and pride towards both Japan and the United States might have been highly confusing for many Americans who during the tense relation between both countries, misinterpreted the sense of Japanese pride most Issei held, for the loyalty towards their Emperor; America’s enemy. The loyalty they did feel for the United States is almost surprisingly; as Uchida’s account illustrates, even though they lived in a country that denied their right for citizenship, the Issei still felt themselves loyal citizens.
This Japanese pride also manifested itself in the large group of Issei urging their Nisei children to attend Japanese language school after their regular, American classes. These schools were typically very traditional and taught not only the Japanese language, but also martial arts and traditional Japanese culture and manners.35 The fact that these schools did little to truly “Japanize” the Nisei children I will discuss later, important in this context is that the Issei community on America’s West Coast tried strongly to hold on to their Japanese ancestry, traditions, culture and pride. This might very well be the reason that the Japanese were targeted and questioned on their true loyalty much more than the German- or Italian-American community, people from countries who were in much the same way enemies of the
32 Spicer,198.
33 Yoshiko Uchida, Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese-American Family (Seattle and London:
University of Washington Press, 82),22.
34
Ibid., 36.
35
20 United States and seemingly aggressive nations, even in the years before 1939, an element I will expand upon in the next chapter.
Another important explanation of the Issei’s strong ties to their Japanese culture is the previously named consideration for many Issei to eventually return to Japan. As mentioned earlier, Japanese immigrants entered the United States for different reasons; some came to stay and others came only for a few years of hard work. In the 1920s and 1930s when many Issei immigrants had settled their businesses and formed families, the wish of returning to Japan became less prominent nevertheless, their legal status did not improve but became unstable over the years with more restrictions on citizenship and landownership. These Issei only had legal status in Japan and many therefore kept in mind the forced or voluntary move back to their country of origin. Increasing discrimination and hostilities the
Japanese-Americans faced in the West Coast spurred this idea of eventually leaving the United States.36 As Spicer beautifully worded in his work Impounded People: “It was a practical interest which nourished the fading sentimental interest.”37
It is therefore understandable that many Issei did not work that hard to assimilate in American society and kept their Japanese culture alive.
1.3.2 Nisei
For the American-born Nisei, it was a totally different situation in which they tried their very best to adopt to American ways, often rejected their parent’s Japaneseness, manners and their forced Japanese education, and in most ways felt much more American than Japanese. These differences between the first- and second generation immigrants, is an often seen
phenomenon. Historian Marcus L. Hansen has seen this pattern in multiple immigrant groups, in which the second generation wants to disregard their heritage, while the third generation often wants to re-establish its cultural roots.38 While the Issei parents tried their best to slow down the Americanization of their children, this was ultimately inevitable. In terms of manners such as modesty and politeness most Nisei behaved in the ways of their traditional Japanese upbringing, but life outside the house in their American schools and environment influenced their ways. While most Nisei were sent to Japanese language schools, the success of these schools was often disappointing, as Page Smith notes in her work. The low number of Nisei who fluently spoke Japanese suggests that the attempt to Japanize the second
36 Spicer, 199. 37 Ibid., 38 Takezawa, 203.
21 generation was not very effective.39 For many Nisei, growing up as a Japanese-American was quite challenging, for although official American citizens, they did face similar (albeit not legal) discrimination and hostile reactions as their Issei parents. Although all Nisei felt completely American, their looks and ways aroused suspicion, fear and prejudice by the American community which made life in the United States often hard. Yoshiko Uchida recalled in her memoir: “In spite of the complete blending of Japanese qualities and values into our lives, neither my sister nor I, as children, ever considered ourselves anything other than Americans. At school we saluted the American flag and learned to become good citizens.”40
She goes on telling that she refused to go to Japanese language school because that would accentuate our “differentness,” something we, Nisei, tried very hard to overcome in those days.41
These two conflicting cultures combined with their Asian looks made full assimilation in American society difficult, maybe more so than for other immigrant groups that came to America’s West Coast. The hostilities directed at them felt perhaps more painful than for their Issei parent, who in a more distinct way were Japanese, often did not speak English fluently, or without accent, and were not official naturalized United States citizens. Racism and exclusion before the World War Two was apparent in housing, public places and school activities. Yoshiko Uchida recalled facing this discrimination in her high school, shops and restaurants and explained why the wish to fit in and be American for many Nisei was so strong that they tried everything to be accepted. Uchida wrote:
Society caused us to feel ashamed of something that should have made us feel proud. Instead of directing anger at the society that excluded and diminished us, such was the climate of that times and so low our self-esteem that many of us Nisei tried to reject our Japaneseness and the Japanese way of our parents. We were sometimes ashamed of the Issei in their shabby clothes... their inability to speak English, their habits and the food they ate.42
This memory gives a clear example that Nisei felt and wanted to be accepted as American citizens, but that their ways and appearances often made this quite difficult. These Nisei were fully educated as American citizens, had the same rights and enjoyed living in the United States, despite the difficulties they faced as a negatively stereotyped minority group. Although most memoirs do not recall a miserable childhood in living in the United States, these actions and prejudices did impact their personalities and lives which makes it even more impressive how loyal and American they felt, regardless of how the environment 39 Smith,78. 40 Uchida,40. 41 Ibid., 42 Uchida, 41-42.
22 treated them. Another example of how these hostilities were experienced is given by Monica Sone when she recalls how she and her mother were rejected in their search for a house in Washington years before the war broke out:
She [the house owner] said dryly, “I’m sorry, but we don’t want Japs around here,” and closed the door. […] Mother took my hand... and after a while, she said quietly, “Ka-chan, We just have to bear it, just like all the other unpleasant facts of life. This is the first time for you, and I know how deeply it hurts; but when you get older, it won’t hurt quite as much. You’ll be stronger.” Trying to stop the flow of tears, I swallowed hard and blurted out, “But Mama, is it so terrible to be a Japanese?” […] All day I had been torn apart between feeling defiant and then apologetic about my Japanese blood.43
This account illustrates the anger felt towards discrimination, but the will and pride to be an American ultimately over won this anger, urging some of them even more to assimilate to American life and reject their Japanese background. During the war years and internment this deep rooted loyalty towards the United States felt by a majority of Nisei prevailed over much of the anger and resentment towards the US government’s decision of internment, resulting in the cooperation and compliance with the several war authorities. Overall the experiences described in these memoirs show how and why the Nisei’s sense of Americaness was formed, sometimes challenged, but ultimately overcome by their dire wish to be fully accepted in their home country as an fully integrated American citizen.
1.3.3 Kibei
For the final group, the Kibei, this sense of Americaness was much less prominent. The majority of the Kibei felt strong ties with Japan rather than with the United States. The Kibei were American-born Nisei who spent part off or all of their education in Japan to eventually return to the United States. Encouraging Nisei to be educated in Japan was an incentive by the Japanese government that aimed to get Japanese-Americans back to Japan to learn the Japanese ways and culture. Many Issei parents found herein a great opportunity to educate their children in the same traditional Japanese way they had enjoyed themselves and used it to halt the Americanization of their children.44 Whereas this Japanese education in the United States for Nisei children was not a big success as I have mentioned earlier, education in Japan was. These Kibei were during their education indoctrinated with the divinity of the Emperor and full loyalty towards him. Their manners were strict and formal, their Japanese language fluent. Many Kibei when returning to the United States resented the free and informal
43
Sone, 114-115.
44
23 character of their fellow Nisei, who were by their American environment and school far more Americanized in ways of clothing, behaviour and values. Resentment the other way around is probably more striking; some Nisei had admitted they did not like and understand the formal and excessive Japanese behavior the Kibei held towards them. During their time in Japan when Japan’s military strength increased heavily, some Kibei when back in the United States would brag about Japanese superiority and their military might, often to the dismay of their Nisei peers who were more inclined to stories of American superiority and strength.45 Other Kibei however, condemned their Issei parents for sending them away, depriving them of opportunities to speak English fluently and to assimilate in American society, which often made them outcasts in the eyes of their Nisei peers.46 This group might have struggled with its identity; but their environment did not make it any easier for them since their sense of belonging and loyalty was so mixed and never clear.
1.4. Conclusion
The Kibei were, as I will discuss in chapter two, therefore the most fiercely and aggressive opponents during the start of World War Two of the American government and the
internment. How these different groups acted and reacted towards each other and the
American government and society, I will discuss in great detail in the following chapter. For now it is important to note that all three groups of Japanese-Americans shared a different attitude towards the country they lived in. Although all felt American in most ways and no proof exists of any Japanese American ever been accused of conspiring with the Japanese government, they all had a different sense of belonging towards the United States. Since dual loyalty is possible, as I established in my introduction, it is likely that many Issei and some Kibei felt loyal to both Japan and the United States. This never means they were disloyal to the United States, but that they had a sense of belonging in both cultures and countries. Most crucial in this period however, is that the West Coast citizens, and especially those living in California, did not give the Japanese Americans any chance to show their loyalty towards the United States. For many people in California, anti-Japanese sentiment was so high that there was nothing the Japanese Americans could do to prove themselves to be good American citizens. Even before the war, this minority group was stuck by the assumption that loyalty could be measured in some way.
45
Sone, 127-9.
46
24
Chapter 2: Wartime Internment: Breaking up the Japanese American
Community
The Japanese American community living on America’s West Coast often faced hostilities and discrimination by their American environment and anti-Japanese sentiment reached an ultimate high after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. War hysteria broke out among the public which forced the United States government to take action. Lobby groups, the press and local statesmen on the West Coast pressured Congress to alleviate the potential threat and danger that was caused merely by the presence of Japanese Americans. This eventually led to Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 that made the evacuation and relocation of all Japanese Americans living on the West Coast possible. Two-thirds of the evacuees were American-born, second generation Japanese Americans (Nisei), but their citizenship did not prevent them from being relocated to the ten internment centers that were hastily set up by the government. How the different Japanese American generations dealt with this treatment varied drastically. Loyalties and attitudes towards the United States began to shift for many internees, resentment towards their government grew and the different ways of coping with the situation eventually led to a painful divide within the Japanese American community itself. This leads me to the question: How did the different Japanese American generations react to their internment? In what ways did their attitude towards the United States change and the other way around?
2.1 Public reactions and government actions following Pearl Harbor When in December 1941, Japan suddenly attacked the United States navy at Pearl Harbor, war hysteria broke out along America’s West Coast. The United States was now directly involved in the war against Japan and the West Coast was now considered most vulnerable for further attacks. Prior to the Pearl Harbor attack most Americans objected to American involvement in the war, but this attitude changed directly after Japan attacked Hawaii. Japan declared the war against the United States, which ultimately brought the United States in an all-out war with Japan’s allies Germany and Italy, who declared war to the United States too. The fear and panic, that broke out among Americans living on the coast, especially in
California, manifested itself in the negative and hostile attitudes towards people in the United States affiliated with any of these enemy nations.
25 leaders and those deemed to pose a threat to national security. This included people of
German- as well as Italian and Japanese ancestry. Out of an estimated number of 3,600 arrested, more than half were Japanese and were predominantly Issei.47
This massive roundup stirred up fear and anger towards these enemy- aliens and enemy-citizens, which was further increased by the press. The American government issued propaganda material in the form of posters and articles, warning the American public that these people with ties to those enemy countries America was fighting, could not be trusted. Newspapers printed these and other stories, scapegoating these groups by blaming them for the Pearl Harbor attack and for involving the United States in this war. These citizens all feared mass evacuation and insecurity and rumors made them feel extremely anxious.48 People of Japanese ancestry suffered the most, for the negative sentiment towards them that already existed was now confirmed and could only increase. German and Italian immigrants were targeted too, but public opinion towards them was far less hostile than towards the Japanese. The Japanese were directly blamed for the attack and years of suspicion and prediction that the Japanese would attack the United States now came true. Shops and public places put up signs and posters denying access for Japanese Americans at a far higher rate than in the years before the war. Newspapers started to spread false rumors of Japanese fishermen who collaborated with Japanese submarines through their shortwave radios, and accused Japanese farmers of marking airstrips in their strawberry fields to guide Japanese war planes. These and other similar stories, have never proven to be true, but the mere suspicion of such behavior made enough Americans fear and despise the Japanese American community. Rumors proved to me more powerful than facts and there was not much the Japanese could do about it, since everyone was accused of being unpatriotic in American newspapers.49
German- and Italian Americans had the great advantage of being white and not physically different from other Americans, which enabled them to hide their ancestry, while Japanese Americans could not hide their physical appearance that resembled that of the enemy. German Americans, furthermore, had been through a similar situation during World War I and therefore knew they had to lay low, renouncing their German roots, stop speaking German and act as “American” as possible.50
In order to avoid being targeted as the enemy themselves, a group of German Americans had started a negative propaganda campaign
47 Allen R. Bosworth, American Concentration Camps ( New York: WW Norton & Company Inc, 1967),46. 48 Spicer, 37.
49
Ibid.,39.
50
26 against the Japanese Americans, stirring up public hatred by publishing false and racist rumors on the Japanese residing in California.51 The spreading of yellow-peril pamphlets had started around 1907, as I have mentioned in chapter 1, but its tone and racist remarks
intensified when the Second World War broke out.
Italian- and German Americans gained some sympathy because of human-interest stories that appeared in local newspapers that pleaded for their innocence and difficult situation. Since German- and Italian Americans had gained a fair amount of influence in business, politics and social affairs, their leaders could increase public support for their German and Italian communities. Mayors of two West Coast cities, for example, were of Italian descent and were therefore able to position their Italian American community in a more favorable way.52 Most remarkable was the attention for famous baseball player Joe DiMaggio, whose parents were of Italian decent and were, along with other enemy aliens, evacuated from California. Their story encouraged many Americans to sympathize with their situation and those of other Italian- and German families who faced similar hardship. Pity and sympathy for these Italian and German Americans created a more favorable public opinion among America’s society.
Because the first generation Japanese Americans were denied naturalization, they never had had the opportunity to become influential figures in political, social or financial institutions, and therefore had no people to vouch for them and plead for their acceptance and sympathy.53 Opinion polls held throughout wartime years showed how public opinion on these ethnic groups differed substantially. The Public Opinion Quarterly held one of these polls and found that the majority of respondents thought of the Japanese as a people who always wanted war. Numbers increased as the war continued, but surprisingly when asked the same question about German Americans in another poll, negative numbers were dramatically lower and more Americans believed the Germans to be inherently good people.54 The big change between attitudes towards Japanese and German and Italian immigrants, was that it was Japan that had directly attacked United States territory. It was Japan that had declared war and the Japanese government who was responsible for the Pearl Harbor bombings. Despite the fact that the bombing occurred far from the United States mainland in Hawaii, many Americans felt this to be a direct attack on their country.
When the community leaders of German, Italian and Japanese Americans, were
51 Daniels, The Politics of Prejudice, 74. 52 Smith, 113.
53
Spicer, 38.
54
27 incarcerated directly after the December attack, the United States’ government had to decide what to do next. In the short term a few measures were taken: funds of all enemy aliens (people of either German, Italian or Japanese descent) were frozen, a curfew was set up that denied these enemy aliens and non-aliens (American-born) to be in certain places at certain times and prohibited them from traveling beyond set perimeters, and all foreign-language newspapers were closed.55 The latter measure made it difficult for some to fully understand what was going on around them and in the rest of the world, which caused a lot of
confusion.56
Government talks about evacuating all enemy aliens, had started directly after the attack, but finally reached a decision of February 19, 1942, when President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, granting the Secretary of War and other Army Commanders to establish military exclusion zones wherever they deemed it necessary.57 The order could only be deemed constitutional if there was a militarily necessity for it, and despite reports and advisers that found no evidence of Japanese American being disloyal, Roosevelt pushed through. EO 9066 granted people like General DeWitt, who had the role of protecting the West Coast, to do whatever necessary to protect the war effort. DeWitt, who held strong anti-Japanese feelings, had convinced Roosevelt that such action was needed and marked over eighty-six exclusion zones along the coast, predominantly in California, that prohibited access to all enemy aliens.58 Although not literally stated in the Order, these measures were mainly aimed at Japanese Americans and in a far lesser sense aimed at Italian- and German Americans. DeWitt felt that the presence of people of Japanese origin posed a nation security risk, and since he said that it was impossible to distinguish the loyal from the disloyal, he proposed to evacuate them all. Japanese Americans living in these militarized zones had to evacuate immediately, with only a few days’ notice, which often resulted in grave financial losses.59
For many Japanese Americans it soon became clear that their evacuation was based more on racial grounds than on the actual threat they posed to society. The large community of Japanese living in Hawaii did not face evacuation, because their absence would jeopardize the American economy (since they were indispensable for farm work), which proved to many that the “national security argument,” was just an excuse to validate evacuation for those on
55 Roger Daniels, Prisoners without trial: Japanese Americans in World War II
(New York: Hill and Wang, 1993),53.
56 Spicer,41. 57 Smith,127 58 Smith,111. 59 Uchida,57.
