Racism: The Question Of Japanese Internment During World War Two Essay, Research Paper
Britton Calvert
Ethnic Am.
2 pm
Racism: The Question of Japanese Internment During World War Two
During World War Two approximately one hundred and ten thousand Japanese,
citizens and aliens, were evacuated, interned and either relocated or imprisoned in
desolate camps on the basis of their loyalty to the United States. This was justified as a
military necessity because the Japanese were thought to be a threat to the security of the
west coast of the United States. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, age-old stereotypes
that had their origin in the pioneer age of the old west were reactivated and turned against
the Japanese as they had been used against the Chinese in years previous. These
exclusionist attitudes have their origin back when the white prospectors had to compete
with American Indians, Mexicans and later the Chinese in order to find good land to
mine. All people, especially non-whites, were considered a threat to a miner who was
trying to stake a claim in the west. Then later on, when industry and the railroads made
their way out west; many minorities, mostly Chinese, were discriminated against by
white workers as a threat to white employment. Later on, we will see what this had to do
with the Japanese exclusion during World War II.
The stereotypes that labeled the Japanese as ?enemies? and ?saboteurs? were
vastly blown out of proportion by the media at the time. The media is directly responsible
for creating the ?yellow peril? and engendering war hysteria by way of so many biased
articles. Publications that were owned by William Hearst such as the San Francisco
Examiner and other Newspapers all over the west coast like The Los Angeles times and
many others painted pictures of the Japanese as disloyal enemies still faithful to the
Japanese emperor, who were just waiting for the chance to take out important military
installations and blow up key areas of the west coast infrastructure. People who had never
even set foot in Japan and may or may not have even known the Japanese language were
considered to be traitors! In addition to almost all west coast newspapers, many television
and film companies, especially Hearst?s film companies, made films depicting the
Japanese army sweeping through the west coast of the U.S. and devastating the military.
Many of these films were produced before W.W.II even started. This is because the
Japanese were considered a threat back when they badly defeated Russia in 1905. We can
see evidence of Japan?s seeming military threat as far back as the late 1800?s but this is
no excuse to demonize Japanese Americans.
Not long after the Pearl Harbor incident, the F.B I. started doing spot raids on
Japanese homes and businesses looking for ?contraband?. This could be anything from
high-tech cameras used for photography to shotgun shells found in a Japanese owned
sporting goods store. Anyone found with items seen as a threat to military safety, or just
items connecting them with Japan, such as Japanese katanas, the typical Japanese sword,
or some Japanese scrolls, flags, anything; was immediately detained and taken to the
camps. This was justified at the time as a ?military necessity?, a euphemism for racist
prejudice, and was carried out in the name of national security. The unfortunate thing
about these raids were that they increased the prejudice and war hysteria that was going
on at the time and elicited a reaction by the white majority that was even more hostile to
the Japanese. Not long after the spot raids started, legislation was put in to effect that
would gradually restrict the rights of the west coast Japanese until they were finally
forced to leave the coast and be interned in the deserted wastelands of the western desert.
Many people consider the internment of the Japanese as a disheartening and
undemocratic thing for the U.S. government to do, but they don?t consider what
implications this action has for our democratic system. Martial law was never declared on
the west coast yet the military had control over anyone they chose if that person was
within a certain zone along the coast called the Western Defense Command. Also, The
interned Japanese who were citizens of America were deprived of their rights without due
process of law. Both of these acts are violations of the constitution yet were upheld as a
?military necessity? by the supreme court as well as supported by most west coast whites
at the time. There were other ?minor? actions that deprived the Japanese of their rights
such as: the mandatory registration of all Japanese, curfews, frozen bank accounts, and
the denial of U.S. entry by anyone of Japanese ancestry. In this essay, we will see that the
Japanese were interned not because of their threat to the United States but because of
their skin color and that the Constitution was circumvented in order to do this. Because of
this blatant disregard for the Constitution, a precedent has been set which could render it
useless to protect our civil rights in the future. We will also come to understand why
thousands of American citizens of Japanese descent were put in to prison camps yet the
other two groups of possible enemies, Germans and Italians, were practically left alone.
During the early decades of the twentieth century, Japan was the most powerful
country in all of Asia. They had won a war with Russia, had never been invaded by a
foreign power, and during W.W.II, had invaded China, India and numerous smaller
countries as well as the U.S. controlled Philippines. This gave them the idea that they
were unstoppable. It also worried many Americans as well as the U.S. military. This fear
came to a head during and after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Many Americans were
outraged at the bombing and called for some kind of action against the Japanese. The
media, and groups such as the American Legion, some politicians, and numerous labor
groups who wanted the Japanese out of the work force echoed this call to action.
The idea of public outcry for Japanese internment is kind of misleading.
Doubtless, many, many people could have cared less if the west coast Japanese were
interned, but the idea of the ?yellow peril? was pushed by the media, and some politicians
to such an extreme that most average whites were completely misled as to what the actual
Japanese threat might be. ?Yellow peril? is the term given by the media to demonize East
Asians and cause them to be prejudiced against by the public. They were said to be dirty,
disloyal traitors who were made sexually inappropriate advances toward white women.
The term was also used to refer to the military threat of the Japanese for invasion of the
west coast. Numerous F.B.I. and military reports state how insignificant the Japanese
threat of invasion was to the west coast (a hit and run attack at best) and that there was no
proof of ?fifth column?, Japanese or other foreign Americans that would sabotage west
coast military installations, activities going on. In one report, Naval Intelligence officer
Kenneth D. Ringle reported in 1941 ?that better than 90% of the Nisei and 75% of the
original immigrants were completely loyal to the United States?(Daniels 25) But the
proof that there was no sabotage going on was turned in to a double bind for the
Japanese. Some people proposed that because there was no sabotage going on, the
Japanese were waiting for the perfect chance to strike at the very last moment in order to
devastate the west coast before the Japanese invasion came rolling in. On February 6,
1942, the mayor of Los Angeles had this to say:
Right here in our own city are those who may spring to action at an appointed
time in accordance with a prearranged plan wherein each of our little Japanese
friends will know his part in the event of any possible attempt invasion or air raid? We cannot run the risk of another Pearl Harbor (Daniels 45).
The mayor, Fletcher Bowron was in accordance with Governor Olson of
California who said ?It is known that there are Japanese residents of California who?
?. have shown indications of preparations for fifth column activities? (Daniels 42).
These remarks by people in positions of authority and respect along with the media
worried the already nervous populations of California as well as other western states in to
what we can call a ?state of war hysteria? that was detrimental to the safety of the
Japanese because of the rising instances of vigilantism. The violence that was now being
enacted on random Japanese and Japanese looking Asians actually created a need for
their internment as a precaution taken to ensure their personal safety from white attacks.
But this was not a reason for their internment. They were interned because of the white
population?s fears of them not because of their fears of the white population.
To understand why the Japanese were interned and not the Germans or Italians,
we have to look at the history of the west coast. Back in the mid 1800?s, Mexicans
governed California, as it was a part of Mexico. But with the influx of miners and other
settlers, the white population grew and became powerful until the Mexicans were
eventually driven out of California in a war called the Bear Flag Rebellion. In 1846, a
republic was set under the Bear Flag. Driving this rebellion was the anti-foreign
sentiment that had its origins in the genocide and/or ghettoization i.e. Reservations, of
most Native American groups that the white settlers encountered as they moved west.
The Chinese, who came as migrant laborers, were populating California soon after the
rebellion and most of the xenophobic sentiment that was reserved for Mexicans and
Native Americans was later applied to them. This prejudice, vehemently held by white
labor organizations, culminated in the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, various anti-Oriental
land laws, the 1908 Gentleman?s Agreement, the 1924 Oriental Exclusion Act, and
various other local and state exclusion practices. As we can see, ?The Japanese
immigrants were handicapped because the white settlers in California were notoriously
hostile to Orientals? (Myer 10). Racism against Asian Americans plays a significant role
in the internment of the Japanese during World War Two.
As we all know, mass media is a controlling force in the thought of Americans.
We look to it for our news and usually don?t even question the truth or validity of the
issues that are presented. The internment of the Japanese is a prime example of how the
media wrongly controls and shapes public opinion whether it?s because someone behind
the scenes wanted the Japanese out or most of the publications were run by ignorant
racists. It?s probably a mixture of the two but that is not the problem. The problem is that
through manipulation of public thought by propagandist articles, books, speeches and
films, a whole nation of immigrants were deprived of their civil rights. The propaganda
being talked about here is not just the propaganda of W.W.II, but of fifty years before.
Ever since the Japanese badly defeated Russia at the turn of the twentieth century, the
American public was:
Conditioned not only to the probability of a Pacific war with Japan-that was after all a geopolitical fact of twentieth-century civilization-but also to the proposition that this war would involve an invasion of the continental United States in which Japanese residents and secret agents would provide the spearhead of the attack (Daniels 2, 31).
The idea of west coast invasion was absorbed by Americans en masse through the
medium of popular movies and books. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor a symbolic
bomb was dropped on the American people. The press got involved in the propaganda
campaign and started running headlines such as ?JAP BOAT FLASHES MESSAGES
ASHORE, ENEMY PLANES SIGHTED OVER CALIFORNIA COAST, TWO
JAPANESE WITH MAPS AND ALIEN LITERATURE SIEZED, JAP AND CAMERA
HELD IN BAY CITY, JAPANESE HERE SENT VITAL DATA TO TOKYO,
CHINESE ARE ABLE TO SPOT JAP, and JAPS PLAN COAST ATTACK IN APRIL
WARNS CHIEF OF KOREAN SPY BAND? (Daniels 2, 33-34). Another headline
describing a poll given to Californians reads ?By a 14 to 1 ratio, southern Californians?
?favored deportation of all Japanese from the United Sates??(Conrat 90) Headlines
like these are obviously completely false and only served the purpose of creating a ?state
of war hysteria? This is where the media comes in on directly controlling the population.
By creating a ?state of war hysteria? the media metaphorically created a nervous herd of
cattle that was easily stampeded. In this case, the stampede was the internment of the
Japanese and their subsequent relocation to areas outside the Western Defense Command.
?War hysteria? has a detrimental effect on populations because it renders them confused
and easily influenced. That is why the Japanese could be interned without an immediate
back lash by the normal rational population. This can be seen in the Supreme Court
statements about the internment issue being a necessity ?at the time? but this will be
addressed later. The media issue is one that is vastly important because of its detrimental
effect on civilian populations.
The internment of the Japanese was started soon after the bombing of Pearl
Harbor. On February 19, 1942, president Theodore Roosevelt signed executive order
9066, which is usually viewed as the official order causing the internment of the
Japanese, but in actually is only responsible for giving military commanders the right to
establish military areas that they had the right to exclude or evacuate from anyone they
wished. This is when the Western Defense Command was actually set up. To get an idea
of the size of the W.D.C. imagine a line splitting California, Oregon and Washington in
half; the western half of those states would be the W.D.C. and would eventually be
devoid of anyone of Japanese descent. Southern Arizona was also included in the W.D.C.
Now the internment didn?t happen all at once. It happened in a series of proclamations,
each taking more rights of the Japanese away once it was put in to action. ?Proclamation
three was the first which directly violated the rights of most Japanese Americans?
(Daniels 53). It called for an 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. curfew for every person of Japanese descent
in the W.D.C. During the day they were restricted to their place of employment or not
more than five miles of their residence.
It was Civilian Exclusion Order no.5 that forced all Japanese people in most parts
of the Western Defense Command to leave their homes and go to government buildings
where they were transported to relocation centers. An issue must be cleared up here
though. Not all Japanese people were interned for the duration of the war. Most of them
were relocated to places in the interior of the country although they did spend a long time
in the relocation camps. The Japanese who were considered subversives those who did
not answer yes to the loyalty questions and those who were illegal aliens were all kept for
the duration of the war. The loyalty questions were administered to all people with the
potential for relocation and were: 1.?Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the
United States on combat duty wherever ordered?? 2.?Will you swear unqualified
allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from
any and all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or
obedience to the Japanese Emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or
organization?? (Spicer 143) Those who answered no to either question were interned for
the duration of the war and after their forced evacuation to relocation camps, many
Japanese Americans did answer ?no?.
Why did all Japanese Americans inside the W.D.C. get interned and not the
Italians or Germans? Only a few of these two groups who were considered subversive or
enemy aliens were interned. Most of them however were not interned. There was a lot of
controversy over this in the military but the reason is fairly simple. If the military was to
intern all alien Italians and Germans they would have had to intern Joe DiMaggio?s
father. Now Joe DiMaggio was one of the biggest most popular sports figures at the tine
and to intern his father would have created a back lash that was not felt after the
internment of the Japanese. Quite simply, the military could ?get away? with interning
the Japanese in America, not the Italians. As for the Germans, the military thought that
with Germans you can tell who is bad or disloyal just by observing them; something that