Nisei: The Quiet Americans

This is a 1969 book on the subject, and it is also one of the absolute best and most complete of all the books on the subject despite its age.

'No immigrant group encountered higher walls of prejudice and discrimination than did the Japanese-the denial on racist grounds of the right to naturalization, the denial in the areas where they largely lived of the right to own land or enter certain professions, and eventually complete exclusion.'

(Note that this excludes blacks because they did not immigrant voluntarily.)

The book starts out with the ancient history of Japan, including the mythological origins and the factual origins. It also discusses the the earliest people of Japan, the Ainu. Although the Japanese mythos tries to make Japan look like it's been there almost forever, the earliest reliable records date only back to about the third century C.E., whereas Egyptian and Chinese records go back for thousands of years.

St. Francis Xavier arrived in Japan in 1549 and noted that 'The Japanese have a high opinion of themselves because they think that no other nation can compare with them as regards weapons and valor, and so they look down on all foreigners.'

This is the type of think that, over 400 years later, helped lead to Japan's loss in the second world war.

The first formal relationship between the U.S. and Japan dates back to March 31, 1854 with the Treaty of Kanagawa. Although historically Dewey's ships get the most attention, there were actually other American ships that arrived there before him.

The first Japanese to America were not the immigrants themselves, but those who accidentally arrived either via shipwreck or very early exploring vessels. Japanese ships voaged to Mexico in 1610 and 1613.

The book then goes into the history of the first regular immigrants from Japan that came to Hawaii and the United States. The main idea that most of them had was to remain here long enough to make a good bit of money, and then to return to Japan. The book goes into how many Japanese came here, what type of work they did, and where they did it.

The book then goes into the story of California and its 'problems' with the Chinese, and how those ended up morphing into the 'problems' with the Japanese. Pressure began at least as far back as 1887 when there was a grand sum total of around 400 Japanese in the entire state.

A few years later members of a shoemaker's union forced a white man to dismiss the Japanese who were working for him. Things just got worse from there on. The book says that the basis of all of this was both racial and economic, racial since the Japanese were not white, and economic since they proved that they could be successful farmers even on land that no white farmers wanted.

One thing I did not know was that 'As late as 1950 there were more than 500 federal, state and local laws and ordinances aimed directly or indirectly against resident Japanese.'

The later immigrants became the focus of two political powers; Roosevelt, who needed the support of the Western (anti-Japanese) states, and Japan itself, who would use the anti-Japanese laws as part of their own propaganda.

The book then discusses the anti-alien land laws that were passed, going back to 1913. Interestingly enough, the Japanese never controlled more than 1.6 percent of the available land in California.

The first Heart attack on the Japanese dates back to 1905 with a cartoon showing a Japanese soldier casting a long shadow over the Pacific Ocean and California. The book also describes early anti-Japanese literature and movies. The book then moves on to talk about the Nisei, and how they differed from the Issei.

There's a section on labor unions and their disagreements with Issei and Nisei. The next thing the book goes into is the founding of the JACL. From that it moves on to the attack on Pearl Harbor and what happened shortly thereafter to many Japanese business, religious and cultural leaders. The book says there were three reasons for how fast the Justice Department moved in arresting Japanese and Japanese Americans. First was the concern for national safety. Second was that they were afraid of how the American public would react to the persons of Japanese ancestry, and third was basically to distract Americans from considering how badly the U.S. was surprised at Pearl Harbor to thinking how wonderfully organized they were in picking up so many Japanese so quickly.

There was a plan for removing Japanese in California even before the one that eventually led to the interment camps. It was an Army plan, geared for use in San Francisco, in which entire blocks of Japanese would be cleared at bayonet point by troops, rousting people in the middle of the night and taking them to concentration camps.

One difference in hate targets was due to the leaders of the countries being familiar. Hitler and Mussolini were both very familiar to the American public and so they were easy to target as objects of hatred. Tojo and Hirohito were not familiar, though, and it was easier to target Japanese in general for hatred.

The Japanese were also physically different from whites, so it was easy to separate them mentally and segregate them physically (just as blacks had been segregated for hundreds of years.)

Another factor was a problem of age. The Issei were old, not assimilated, usually unable to speak English, and thus had no political leverage. The Nisei were still too young and inexperienced to be a political force, so the Japanese were a relatively easy target for politicians that wanted to push their own agendas. The attack on Pearl Harbor played right into the 'sneaky Jap' mentality that was already in place, and just helped those who had been pushing anti-Japanese propaganda for decades.

The book then talks about the fears on the West Coast that Japan might actually attack them, and the U.S. did not have a very strong military presence on the West Coast at that time. The argument is that people wondered which side the Japanese living there would take; Americans, or a Japanese invading force? No one, though, seemed to question the people of German and Italian origin, and which side they would take if Germany someone invaded the U.S. from the east.

Various people involved in the evacuation of the Japanese Americans are discussed, and the point raised that, even before the mass exodus was forced, the Army had realized that there wasn't really much danger at all of an actual Japanese invasion of the West Coast. (The Japanese were busy elsewhere; the great distance would have stretched any Japanese supply lines to the breaking point; and, if they had wanted to invade, why hadn't they actually invaded Hawaii which was a lot closer?)

The book says that the demands for the removal of the Japanese fell into four categories:

1. The danger of sabotage, espionage, and fifth-column activities.

2. Loyal Japanese could not be distinguished from disloyal ones.

3. It would not hurt the economy of the area.

4. It was a 'humanitarian' measure to keep families together and protect then from vigilante action.

Refutations to those points are given in the book. Then it goes into the evacuation process (the book has a number of good and not often seen photos).

The book then lists the requirements for the sites for internment camps.

1. It had to be on government-owned land.

2. It had to be large enough to accommodate 5,000 or more people.

3. It had to be located at a 'safe' enough distance from strategic installations.

4. It had to provide work opportunities.

The communities had to be able to be built quickly, cheaply, and with a minimum use of critical materials. The typical center had 36 or more 'blocks.' Each block had 2 sections, with each section made up of 12 barracks served by one mess hall and a central H-shaped sanitation building with men's and women's latrines, shower and laundry facilities, and a recreation hall.

Each barrack was 20 feet wide and 120 feet long, divided into six rooms. The exterior walls were wood sheathing with black tarpaper. Each room had a stove, one light bulb, cots and mattresses. The book then discusses the roles and powers of the project directors, the men who ran each camp. The administration area (white) was kept separate from the evacuee area (Japanese.)

The book then goes into the major problem of the questionnaire with its two questions, numbers 27 and 28, that caused massive confusion, bad feelings, and defiance. This all eventually led to classifying the evacuees as loyal or non-loyal based on their answers to those two questions, and the segregation of the two groups, with the non-loyal being moved to Tule Lake, and the loyal ones in Tule Lake being moved into other camps.

The focus of the evacuation became relocation, trying to get the Japanese Americans in the camps to move to other parts of the United States than the West Coast. (This is basically opposite of what was done with Native Americans. They were gathered up and put into specific areas; the Japanese Americans were gathered up with the idea of scattering them all over and not having them in big groups in specific areas any more.)

While all of this was going on the evacuees were still under verbal and written attacks from a variety of sources.

1. Politicians. Senator Chandler of Kentucky, Representative Powell of New Jersey, and Senator Robertson of Wyoming were three of the main ones, but the really big one was Earl Warren who later went on to be on the Supreme Court.

2. Pressure groups like the American Legion and the Native Songs of the Golden West.

3. The Press, particularly the Heart chain of newspapers.

Change came about from a couple of sources. For one thing, the Nisei that relocated from the camps became parts of other communities and, with some exceptions, of course, they got on quite well. Many students had gone from the camps to various colleges and did well there.

The second major factor was, of course, the Nisei that ended up becoming the 442nd/100th fighting unit, and the noble and very heroic record they ran up in Europe. Although they got less attention, the Nisei who served in the military as translators and interrogators also made a very valuable contribution to the war effort.

Eventually the camps were shut down, and the book covers the time after that and the movement for redress, which the book also covers.



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