An unfortunate Scar

On February 19, 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued executive order 9066 which ordered the U.S. Government to forcibly remove thousands of Japanese Americans from their homes on the Western Coast and place them in Japanese Internment Camps in California, Idaho, Arizona, and other various locations throughout the United States. The order was in response to the December 7th attack on Pearl Harbor which resulted in the US declaring war with Japan. Even after FBI director J. Edgar Hoover assured Roosevelt that "practically all" Japanese suspects were already in custody and that there was no threat to the U.S., Lt. John DeWitt, who was known to have a history of prejudice against non-Caucasian Americans still believed that "The Japanese race is an enemy race... and that while many second and third generation Japanese born on United States soil, possessed of United States citizenship, have become 'Americanized', the racial strains are undiluted." (The War)

          

Anti-Asian prejudice began in 1849 during the California Gold Rush when hundreds of thousands of Chinese travelled to the U.S. in hopes of becoming rich. During the initial development of San Francisco, Chinese labor was needed and welcome, but it wasn't long before the white men began to see the Chinese immigrants as competitors. This led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned the Chinese from entering the country. Still, there was a large need for cheap labor and six years after the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, Americans began to seek out workers from Japan to replace the Chinese and to help build railroads on the West Coast. (Kessler, pg. 53-66)

           

The Japanese immigrants arrived mostly in Hawaii or Seattle with very little money. Some worked on the railroads, some became farmers, and the rest lived in Japanese communities in West Coast Urban centers where they started small businesses or worked for other Japanese immigrants. Initially, the Japanese were welcomed and praised for their "great eagerness to learn", for being "quiet", and for being "well behaved." But like the Chinese who came before them, the white men began to see the successful Japanese farmers as competition and began another anti-Asian campaign. Even though Japanese immigrants only represented 2 percent of all immigrants in America, politicians called it "an invasion." (Kessler, pg. 53-66)

        

Throughout the early 1900's the prejudice worsened with newspaper articles referring to the Japanese as "the problem of the hour". The articles were followed by attempts at school segregation. There were also violent attacks on Japanese individuals, and vandalism of Japanese businesses. In 1905, the Asiatic Exclusion League was created in San Francisco in hopes of putting an end to Japanese immigration. The Japanese government protested the treatment of its people and was able to work out a compromise with Roosevelt that was labeled "The Gentleman's Agreement". In the agreement, the Japanese government agreed to limit emigration to the United States to the laborers who had already resided in the U.S. as well as their parents, children, and wives. (Burton, Ferrell, Lord)

            

In 1913, the Alien Land Law was passed in California prohibiting the ownership of agricultural land by "aliens ineligible for citizenship." In 1922, Congress passed the Cable Act which punished American women for marrying Asian men by taking away the woman's citizenship. And in 1924, Congress passed the National Origins Act, which was a bill to limit or restrict immigration from "undesirable" areas while encouraging immigration from "good" areas. The annual quota from Japan was 0. Even the wives of Japanese citizens already in America were no longer allowed to enter. (Kessler, pg. 53-66)

            

Meanwhile, the Japanese Government was busy creating an Empire in Asia. Between 1931 and 1941 they had occupied Manchuria, major coastal ports of China, and French Indochina. It wasn't long before they began threatening Thailand, Burma, and the Philippines. This led to the United States, Netherlands, and Great Britain cutting off 90% the materials used for war production in Japan (Pearl Harbor). According to the official Pearl Harbor website, "by December 1941 the Japanese Army had a force of 2,400,000 trained ground troops and 7,500 planes. The U.S. had a force of 1,500,000, 1,000,000 who were untrained, 1,157 planes, and 347 war ships." Knowing that the U.S. was unprepared and unsuspecting, and feeling that Pearl Harbor was their biggest threat, Japan moved forward with their surprise air attack on December 7, 1941 where 2,403 Americans lost their lives (Pearl Harbor). A foreign attack like nothing the United States had ever experienced.

            

Almost immediately after the attack, the U.S. Government began searching the homes of West Coast Japanese residents in search of firearms, radios, cameras, and anything else that looked suspicious, and they arrested thousands of men who they considered "dangerous" or "disloyal"; most of those arrested were community leaders, religious leaders, editors of Japanese-language newspapers, and educators. The bank accounts of all enemy aliens were frozen (Kessler, pg. 89-106) This was devastating to the Japanese communities who were now left without any financial assets and the guidance of their most important leaders.

            

The Government reaction also added to wartime hysteria and paranoia by justifying the racial tensions that had existed prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Normal household items of Japanese-American citizens suddenly became under suspicion as evidence of espionage. For example, when Masuo Yasui, a "wealthy, prominent Japanese merchant and farmer" was arrested in Hood River, Oregon on December 12,  his neighbors reasoned that they were justified in not trusting him completely. In the book Stubborn Twig, the author Lauren Kessler writes that

            "The award he had received in 1935 from the Japanese Industrial Society

            honoring his business and agricultural achievements, the award  the Hood

            River News called 'a well-earned recognition,' became, in the minds of

            some, a military award ... The Montgomery Ward console in his living room

            became a shortwave radio used to transmit coded messages ... to Japan ...

            Japanese Submarines in the Pacific." (pg. 92)

The military's lack of preparation and disorganization opened up the door to a new kind of discrimination where it was possible for Americans to imagine that their Japanese-American neighbors were helping Japan with their attacks on America.

            

When Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 was passed, General DeWitt originally wanted to relocate Japanese, German, and Italian immigrants, but politicians agreed to only relocate Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Americans (The War). How to orchestrate the relocation was still under debate. Some Japanese were able to voluntarily relocate themselves to Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and further East. But most of them, left with frozen bank accounts, had no other choice but to wait for Government orders to sell their property and possessions, pack "only what can be carried by the family or individual", and report to their ill-equipped and over-crowded designated relocation center. From there, each family would be re-assigned to one of ten internment camps.

            

The internment camps were usually located in remote, desert areas, which for many Washington and Oregon Japanese-Americans, was especially hard to adapt to. Each family was  assigned either a sixteen-by twenty foot  room for smaller families or a twenty-by twenty-foot room for larger families in barracks that were surrounded by 10-foot-high barbed wire fences (Kessler, 189-205). Behind the barbed wire however, the internees kept their spirits high despite their horrible living conditions. They organized newspapers, baseball leagues, schools, fire departments, and community gardens (which contributed to better food and health). They opened shops and held dances. The mothers taught flower arranging and held Japanese tea ceremonies. Knowing that they would be living among one another for "who knows how long", they tried to make the best of their situation.

            

Finally, in the summer of 1944, the government began interviewing internees and  released a few of those who they certified to be "loyal Americans". But with it being an election year, politicians warned Roosevelt that the release of internees would be dangerous for his re-election, and they kept the releases to a minimum (The War). But after the election in January of 1945, the remaining internees were free to go. Some of them were able to return to their homes, some had to wait until they could evacuate their white renters (who usually destroyed their homes and property), and others had to start over with nothing.

            

Government officials justified the treatment of Japanese-Americans and internment camps out of "military necessity" and wartime hysteria. While it may be true that the internment camps would have never existed without the attack at Pearl Harbor being the catalyst, it also seems quite evident that there was a long standing history of racism towards the Japanese people in America well before the war. The Gentlemen's Agreement and Cable Act, were just a couple examples of government supported exclusion towards the Japanese. Americans had felt threatened and discriminatory towards Japanese-Americans for nearly forty years prior to the attack, partly due to their success as businessmen and farmers in what they considered to be their country. If there had been a more accepting and inclusionary relationship with Japanese-Americans before the war, Roosevelt may have felt more compelled to listen to the FBI rather than General DeWitt. As we learned, even of the timing of their release from the internment camps were politically motivated. While short-lived and often overlooked, the treatment of Japanese-Americans in the early 1900's was another very unfortunate scar in our country's quest for equality.         

           

Works Cited

"Pearl Harbor Oahu History - Tours Site, Bookings, Reservation." Pearl Harbor Tours. Pearl Harbor Visitor Center, n.d. Web. 30 July 2017.

Burton, J., M. Farrell, F. Lord, and R. Lord. "A Brief History of Japanese American Relocation During World War II." National Park Service. National Park Service, 16 Apr. 2017. Web. 30 July 2017.

Ewers, Justin. "Why FDR Did What He Did." U.S. News and World Report144.14 (2008): 34-35. Web. 30 July 2017.

Kessler, Lauren. Stubborn twig: Three Generations In The Life Of A Japanese American Family. Corvallis: Oregon State U Presss, 2008. Print.

"THE WAR. At Home." The War. PBS, Sept. 2007. Web. 30 July 2017.

Walker, Alan. "A Slap’s a Slap: General John L. DeWitt and Four Little Words." National Archives and Records Administration. National Archives and Records Administration, 22 Nov. 2013. Web. 30 July 2017.