Nisei Linguists

This 2006 book is about how the Nisei were used in World War II as translators. It goes into the internment (briefly), the planning behind the decision to set up language schools (some of the Nisei could not even really speak Japanese, they were already so Americanized), and the various language schools that were used.

It then goes into how and where the Nisei were used and how important they job was, particularly in interviewing prisoners-of-war and, perhaps even more so, in translating captured documents and translating Japanese radio communication. In many cases the information they got held the American forces prepare for Japanese attacks and, without a doubt, save many American lives.

The book is over 500 pages long so it contains probably the single more complete examination of this topic that I have ever seen.

Before the U.S. military could use any Nisei as translators, there were some questions that needed to be answered.

The people of Japanese ancestry felt proud when their sons went off to fight on behalf of the U.S.

The JACL was the strongest organization behind the push to get people to understand that the Japanese Americans were loyal to this country.

There was some question before the war, mainly on the part of people already prejudiced, as to which side the Nisei would fight for.

In books on the subject, Kibei are usually regarded as the most questionable group of the persons of Japanese ancestry, since they had been educated, at last for part of their time, in Japan. Yet this quote shows that such a thing did not necessarily endear them to Japan.

Map.

The Nisei were shocked at the attack on Pearl Harbor, and realized that it would make their own lives much more difficult.

It was this type of prejudice that played a big part in the growing anti-Japanese movement on the mainland. There was no sabotage, no direction of planes towards Pearl Harbor, no blocking trucks, none of that.

Irresponsible journalism aided greatly to the pressure on the West Coast for the government to do something about the Japanese in their midst.

The situation in Hawaii and the VVV.

More about Hawaii.

The persons of Japanese ancestry were rounded up and put into internment camps, while others in Hawaii were barred from being involved with the war effort.

Nisei everywhere were barred from serving.

Things did finally change, though.

Lack of cultural understanding and thinking things through before doing something resulted in trouble with a questionnaire which, itself, led to some trouble in the camps and eventually the use of Tule Lake as a segregation facility.

Within the camps there was some trouble, and sometimes violence, against those who wanted to volunteer to fight for the U.S.

The government worked to change the perception of how people regarded the Nisei.

Unfortunately, not everyone in the government felt the same way.

There's a great deal in the book about the actual training of the Nisei. Sometimes rather humorous incidents did happen.

A close watch was kept on the Nisei at the training centers.

There was concern over how white commanders would react to Nisei working right with them.

Once the Nisei translators/interpreters were on the front lines, the field commanders found out just how good they were and their concern about having Japanese with them diminished.

One of the mistakes the Japanese military made was to allow their soldiers to keep diaries. Those, along with loads of captured documents, greatly helped the U.S. military to figure out how to fight the Japanese army, and what to expect from them. It was the Nisei in their midst that made such things possible.

One of the many examples cited about how the Nisei helped the military.

The success on Saipan created more work for the Nisei with the capture of fifty tons of documents that needed translating.

Japanese prisoners were taken, but never in huge numbers. A lot of this was do to the better-dead-than-captured philosophy of the Japanese military. They had not prepared their soldiers for being captured, and this led many of them to talk freely once they did give up.

Their work helped change the policy towards those in the internment camps, even if FDR didn't seem to care about the ones there.

Not many Nisei women were involved.

Planning for the invasion of Japan.

The Hood River incident.

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Japanese-American Internment Camps index page
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