# 6 Japanise American Sorrow

Michael Kenji Shinoda is the Japanese American Sansei. This is his song 'Kenji' (2005) from "The Rising Tied" by Fort Minor.



The Image: Japanese American family with bags packed for stay in an internment camp, 1942-1945.

            Since Japanese immigrants came to America, they had high ambitions, drawing inspiration from the Meiji Restoration (Modernization of Japan) of success in life. According to Ichioka (1988), “Japanese immigrants’ history is also labor history” (p. 2). They entered the urban service trades and agricultural railroad, mining, lumber, and fishing industries. When Japanese warplanes pounded Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans were forced to be interned by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents. The Second World War in the Pacific was the significant turning point that both Japan and the United States had historical mistakes. I learned from my experience in living in the United States that the internment of Japanese Americans was based largely in racism. They had been the subject of racist laws and rhetoric since the early 20th century. Racial discrimination has always correlated in problematic ways. This dynamic becomes even more complicated when they are intersected with war. The history of Japanese immigrants consisted in some major conflicts, and it indicated that racial discrimination. Japanese immigrants worked as hard laborers in the United States; however, they were struggling against anti-Japanese laws, racism, and internment during the Second World War in the Pacific, and it was indubitably historical mistakes.

            The early histories of Japanese immigrants were a history of a racial minority struggling to survive in the United States. In the words of Ichioka (1988), “Past studies of Japanese immigration have concentrated heavily on the anti-Japanese exclusion movement from 1900 to 1924, focusing on the excluders rather than the excluded, on the anti-Japanese racists rather than the Japanese immigrants” (p. 1). In 1900 to 1924, Japanese immigrants had faced racism pondenderously by the society of America.  In 1870, “Congress extended the right of naturalization that was being neither white nor black, Japanese immigrants, along with other Asian immigrants, were classified as aliens ineligible to citizenship, without the right of naturalization” (Spickard, 2009). Japanese immigrant’s history is labor history, during the rapid expansion of industrial capitalism after the Civil War in America. And non-English-speaking immigrants filled the ranks of the unskilled labor. In the western United States, Japanese immigrants were engaged the urban service trades and agricultural railroad, mining, lumber, and fishing industries. The life of hardship, struggle, and sacrifice of Japanese immigrants’ laborers under this contracting system represents the dark side of Japanese immigrant history and the untold Japanese side of western labor history (Ichioka, 1988).

            Japanese immigrants were harassed based on denial of citizenship. American-born offspring of Japanese immigrants were citizens by birth, known as Nisei. In the hysteria of the Second World War, a few members of Congress sought to strip the Nisei of their American citizenship and send them back to Japan. Japanese were denied the right to own land or buy homes (The 1920 Alien Land Law). An editorial published in a San Francisco newspaper claimed that Japanese were an inferior race; the Board of Education should not allow Japanese children to attend the public school because they were ineligible to citizenship. The first reference to segregating Japanese school children appears in the San Francisco in 1906. However, after receiving the protest, the president of the board ruled it had no right to compel Japanese to attend a school set apart for Chinese because there was not separate school for the Japanese. Hosokawa pointed out in his book, Nisei,” But in an apparent contradiction, the president went on to say that to exclude Japanese children from public schools was an unjustifiable and unwarranted insult to the Japanese race”(Hosokawa, 1969). This is unconstitutional attitude of the school board, and racism. After that, Japanese children moved to Oriental school. In 1907, this exclusion order was withdrawn by President Theodore Roosevelt. However, in the exchange conditions, Japanese immigrants were not able to come to the U.S mainland via Hawaii. In 1924, finally the Immigration Act prohibited the Asian immigration completely (Ichioka, 1988).

            “War came to America on Sunday, December 7, 1941, when Japanese warplanes pounded Pearl Harbor” (Spickard, 2009, p.101). Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents called to Japanese American that “enemy aliens”, and they arrested about 5,000 Japanese American. After that, Japanese Americas were forced to relocate internment camps located in California, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Arkansas by military force. About 112,000 Japanese Americans (including 70,000 American citizens) sold their personal possessions and properties for low prices. The internment happened after the attack of the American Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Japan killed 2,043 Americans during the surprise attack and destroyed American warships and aircraft. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 in February 1942 (Hosokawa, 1969).

            The camps, there were large, empty spaces by high wire fences. “Long rows of tar-paper barracks were broken at intervals by winds wept street- dusty in dry weather” (Spickard, 2009). Also, there were vast pools of mud in the winter raining. Daily functions were performed in central mess halls, showers, and latrines. Outside the blocks of barracks, beyond the fences and guard towers lay only the desert. The camps were located in the desert; the average summer temperatures were over 100 degree and winter was falling to minus 30 degree in some of the camps. People did not supply milk for babies, and no enough medication. Some of them died in the camps due to inadequate medical care, the emotional stress, and were killed by military guards. In internment camps, Japanese American lived like prisoners. Many children also lived in camps. People founded school for children, and voluntary teachers taught children; some camps paid for teachers (Spickard, 2009). (Reference:The Photo 1).

            In 1944, they finally got out of the camps, but they did not return to their homes because different families lived in there. Most of them returned to the West Coast. They began to start new lives. They lost their lands and homes. When they returned, they tried to regain what they had lost. They moved on from what had happened. Spickard (2009) has noted, “Many of those who went east during and after the war never came back to the West Coast” (P.151). Japanese population grew tenfold in Denver, New York, and Chicago because many of them could not get back in the West Coast which they lost. Nevertheless, the Congress paid for some of that property. They gave the Japanese- Americans 10 percent reduction they had lost. Eventually, Japanese Americans received the letter of apology for Japanese ancestry from the Congress in October 1, 1993.

       The excluded of Japanese ancestry suffered damages such as material, education, and intangible values. It was for these fundamental violations of the basic civil liberties and constitutional rights of these individuals of Japanese ancestry, the Congress apologies on behalf of the nation.  By fifty years after the Second World War, Americans of Japanese ancestry finally began to live a normal life without racial prejudice, to get jobs, and obtain money loans (Hosokawa, 1969).

            During the Second World War, Japan, German, and Italy were all hostile countries. Most German- Americans and Italian Americans spent the war free and not under any special scrutiny. However, Japanese Americans were interned in the number of people. Japanese American Internment was the unconstitutionality, and unquestionable an illegal state as I mentioned the letter of apology for Japanese ancestry from the Congress in 1993. As a result, it was based on anti-Japanese sentiment caused by racial prejudice. It was the truth; there were injustice, merciless and huge mistake. Today, all forms of discrimination against movement of the elimination of racial discrimination have a long history in the United States, but still full eradication. It is a situation that cannot be extermination. After all, people are neither wise nor intelligent enough to be eliminated from the world of racism because everyone has different feeling.

         
       I searched a theme of my blog, History of Japanese Immigrant to America, and I found the words: Japanese American internment camp, 1942-1945. As a result, I choose to answer the questions: Who came up with the idea? What factors contributed to its growth today? And is society taking this issue seriously? Why or why not?

          During World War II, Japanese Americas were forced to relocate internment camps located in California, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Arkansas by military force. About 112,000 Japanese Americans (including 70,000 American citizens) sold their personal possessions and properties for low prices. The internment happened after the attack of "the American Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Japan killed 2,043 Americans during the surprise attack and destroyed American warships and aircraft” (Korematsu v. United States (1944). President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 in February 1942. In internment camps Japanese American lived like prisoners and many of them were died.

Eventually in 1988, the “Congress apologized to Japanese Americans for their confinement. That year it passed a law giving $ 20,000 to each confine who was still alive” (Korematsu v. United States (1944).

         The court decision contributed to American`s constitution that “the Court's decision would be a ‘loaded weapon ready for the hand of any authority’ that decided to imprison an entire race of Americans in the future” (Korematsu v. United States (1944). Worldwide historical mistaken racial discrimination evens never allow to society. 

The Image: Pre-school students at Poston II Relocation Center, 1942-1945.

Courtesy of: Japanese American Archival Collection. MSS-94. California State University Sacrament Library. Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives.

       In the picture above, children were forced to live in internment camps. This mistaken event was never repeated. Most tragic event of racial discrimination was the Holocaust. “The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi …. The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were ‘racially superior’ and that the Jews, deemed ‘inferior,’ were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community" (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum).

     Today, in the United States, racial prejudices still exist. The Ku Klux Klan still exists in American society. In addition, “During the period from 1924 to 1952, when the National Origins  Act was enforced and Japanese emigrants were excluded from the United States, the Japanese population in the New York City hovered between 2500 and 2900. After the outbreak of World War II all Japanese organizations were forced to cease operations, and during the war a number of their leaders and other Japanese were detained at Ellis Island” ( The Encyclopedia of New York 671).

Sources;

Teacher`s Lesson Plan 89 ( LaGuardia and Wagner Archives; www.laguardiawagnerarchive.lagcc.cuny.edu

Theacher`s Lesson Plan 89,Let Freedom Ring Japanese-American Internment: Suppressing Freedom in the Name of National Security.  LaGuardia Community College/CUNY LaGuardia and Wagner archives.

http://www1.cuny.edu/portal_ur/content/freedom_curriculum/PDFs/09-1697_Let_Freedom_Ring_Less4_HM3.pdf

Densho (2010) Japanese Americans. Seattle, Washington. The Japanese American Legacy Project. Retrieved from http://nikkeijin.densho.org/

 I recommend this cite due to easy to see and rich photographs of the internment camps.

Hosokawa, B. (1969). Nisei: The Quiet Americans BY BILL HOSOKAWA the Story of a people . New York, NY. William Morrow and Company, Inc.

Hosokawa addressed about a history of the second generation of Japanese Americans 1900 to 1960s. He vividly described the history of the Nisei, who were confronted with a racial minority struggling to survive throughout the Second World War in the United States.

Spickard, P.R. (2009). Japanese Americans: The Formation and Transformations of an Ethnic Group New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London. Rutgers University Press.

(Original work published 1996). Spickard expressed Japanese-American history overall, and he argued Internment camp as well.

Ichioka, Y. (1988). The Issei-The World of the First Generation Japanese Immigrants, 1885- 1924. New York, NY. The Free Press.

Yoji Ichioka was a senior researcher at the UCLA Asian American Studies Center and Adjunct Professor of History at UCLA. Ichioka described vividly about the Issei who is a first immigrant in the U.S. I touched by several Japanese American books, but he had a lot of prestige such as his description, sentences, and perspective.

Picture Credits

Grateful for copyright holders to use the following graphics (the five photographs on cite). These photographs are in order of up to down, photo 1, illustration 2, photo 3, photo 4, and photo 5.

“The Photo 1”: Pre-school students at Poston ll Relocation Center, 1942-1944 .Courtesy of Japanese Archival Collection. MSS-94. California State University Sacrament Library. Dept. Of Special Collections and University

“The Illustration 2”: Graph Illustrating Populations of Immigrants

Courtesy of CUNY LaGuardia Community College Library Media Source

“The Photo 3”: The Internment Camp in Arizona in 1942

Courtesy of University of Arizona Library

“The Photo 4”: Japanese American Family with bags packed for stay in an Internment Camp in 1942. Courtesy of CUNY LaGuardia Community College Library Media Source, Gale Opposing Viewpoints

“The Photo 5”: The Congress Apologies for Japanese Americans in 1993.

Courtesy of ThinkQuest

"Korematsu v. United States (1944)." Supreme Court Drama: Cases That Changed America. Daniel E. Brannen, Jr., Richard Clay Hanes, and Rebecca Valentine. Ed. Lawrence W. Baker. 2nd ed. Vol. 3: Equal Protection and Civil Rights (Part 1). Detroit: U*X*L, 2011. 652-657. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 11 July 2012.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; www.ushmm.org

CSUS Japanese American Archival Collection-Digital Archive; http://digital.lib.csus.edu/jaac/

LaGuardia and Wagner Archives; www.laguardiawagnerarchive.lagcc.cuny.edu

Theacher`s Lesson Plan 89,Let Freedom Ring Japanese-American Internment: Suppressing Freedom in the Name of National Security.  LaGuardia Community College/CUNY LaGuardia and Wagner archives.

The Encyclopedia of New York City Second Edition, Edited by Kenneth T. Jackson. Yele University Press.