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On December 7, 1941, the country of Japan bombed the United States military base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. As a result, the United States entered World War II against Japan, Germany and Italy. As a result of the war with Japan, many people in the U.S. did not trust people of Japanese ancestry. Even Japanese-Americans who were born in this country were mistakenly thought to be loyal to Japan. There was no proof that they were disloyal to America. However, the federal government and its military leaders decided that no one of Japanese ancestry could live on the west coast of the United States, while people of Italian and German ancestry could remain. On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which began this prohibition.
Over 120,000 people, including children and the elderly, were required to leave their homes in California and parts of Washington, Oregon and Arizona. Most people did not have time to store or sell their household goods at a fair price. Some people moved to other states, but the majority went to internment camps. They were only allowed to take few belongings with them, and many families lost virtually everything they owned except what they could carry. Internees spent many years in camp, behind barbed wire fences and with armed guards patrolling the camps. Entire families lived in cramped, one room quarters that were poorly constructed.
In 1980, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians was established by Congress. This commission reviewed the impact of Executive Order 9066 on Japanese-Americans and determined that they were the victims of discrimination by the Federal government.
On August 10, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. The Act was passed by Congress to provide a Presidential apology and symbolic payment of $20,000.00 to the internees, evacuees, and persons of Japanese ancestry who lost liberty or property because of discriminatory action by the Federal government during World War II. The Act also created the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund to help teach children and the public about the internment period.
The Office of Redress Administration (ORA) is dedicated to finding and providing redress to those persons of Japanese ancestry who qualify. ORA has paid over 80,000 people and continues to look for others.
In 1943, Ansel Adams (1902-1984), America's best-known photographer, documented the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California and the Japanese Americans interned there during World War II.
The Legacy of Japanese Internment
Noteworthy Asian Americans
Related Web Sites
The Japanese American Legacy Project from
Heart Mountain Relocation Camp from the
A Japanese American Memorial for All from
The Nikkei Page by
Heart Mountain Digital Preservation Project from
Japanese American Exhibit and Access Project by
Internment Experience, an On-Line Exhibit by
The Museum of the City of San Francisco by
WRA Camps in Arizona, 1942-1946 from the University of Arizona Library
Nikkei Heritage Online from
Conscience and the Constitution from
Children of the Camps by
Rabbit in the Moon from
Japanese American Internment Experience by
Internment of Japanese Americans by
by and J. E. Fallon
The 442nd Go for Broke by
Japanese-American Veterans' Association from
An Abridged History of The United States by
Hirasaki National Resource Center from
Civil Liberties Public Education Fund from
Japanese Relocation during World War II from the
Fort Missoula, Federal Detention Center from
Poston Arizona Gallery by
Manzanar Relocation Camp from
Manzanar Project by and D. Lockett
Our World, Manzanar by
Ansel Adams: Born Free and Equal by
Japanese Farmers in California by
History by
Mothers Who Think: Breaking the Silence with Rahna Reiko Rizzuto
Dorothea Lange from
from
Beyond Heart Mountain by
An Internment Experience from by
The Japanese American Network at
The Munson Report
In October and November of 1941, Special Representative of the State Department Curtis B. Munson, under Roosevelt's orders, carried out an intelligence gathering investigation on the loyalty of Japanese Americans. What follows are excerpts from that report. "1. The ISSEI -- First generation of Japanese. Entire cultural background Japanese. Probably loyal romantically to Japan. They must be considered, however, as other races. They have made this their home. They have brought up children here, their wealth accumulated by hard labor is here, and many would have become American citizens had they been allowed to do so. They are for the most part simple people. Their age group is largely 55 to 65, fairly old for a hard-working Japanese."
"The Issei, or first generation, is considerably weakened in their loyalty to Japan by the fact that they have chosen to make this their home and have brought up their children here. They expect to die here. They are quite fearful of being put in a concentration camp. Many would take out American citizenship if allowed to do so. The haste of this report does not allow us to go into this more fully. The Issei have to break with their religion, their god and Emperor, their family, their ancestors and their after-life in order to be loyal to the United States. They are also still legally Japanese. Yet they do break, and send their boys off to the Army with pride and tears. They are good neighbors. They are old men fifty-five to sixty-five, for the most part simple and dignified. Roughly they were Japanese lower middle class, about analogous to the pilgrim fathers." "2. The NISEI -- Second generation who have received their whole education in the United States and usually, in spite of discrimination against them and a certain amount of insults accumulated through the years from irresponsible elements, show a pathetic eagerness to be Americans. They are in constant conflict with the orthodox, well disciplined family life of their elders. Age group -- 1 to 30 years."
"There are still Japanese in the United States who will tie dynamite around their waist and make a human bomb out of themselves. We grant this, but today they are few. Many things indicate that very many joints in the Japanese set-up show age, and many elements are not what they used to be. The weakest from a Japanese standpoint are the Nisei. They are universally estimated from 90 to 98 percent loyal to the United States if the Japanese-educated element of the Kibei is excluded. The Nisei are pathetically eager to show this loyalty. They are not Japanese in culture. They are foreigners to Japan. Though American citizens they are not accepted by Americans, largely because they look differently and can be easily recognized. The Japanese American Citizens League should be encouraged, the while an eye is kept open, to see that Tokyo does not get its finger in this pie -- which it has in a few cases attempted to do. The loyal Nisei hardly knows where to turn. Some gesture of protection or wholehearted acceptance of this group would go a long way to swinging them away from any last romantic hankering after old Japan. They are not oriental or mysterious, they are very American and are of a proud, self-respecting race suffering from a little inferiority complex and a lack of contact with the white boys they went to school with. They are eager for this contact and to work alongside them." "3. The KIBEI -- This is an important division of the NISEI. This is the term used by the Japanese to signify those American born Japanese who received part or all of their education in Japan. In any consideration of the KIBEI they should be again divided into two classes, i.e. those who received their education in Japan from childhood to about 17 years of age and those who received their early formative education in the United States and returned to Japan for four or five years Japanese education. The Kibei are considered the most dangerous element and closer to the Issei with special reference to those who received their early education in Japan. It must be noted, however, that many of those who visited Japan subsequent to their early American education come back with added loyalty to the United States. In fact it is a saying that all a Nisei needs is a trip to Japan to make a loyal American out of him. The American educated Japanese is a boor in Japan and treated as a foreigner..." "4. The SANSEI -- The Third generation of Japanese is a baby and may be disregarded for the purpose of our survey." "...the Hawaiian Japanese does not suffer from the same inferiority complex or feel the same mistrust of the whites that he does on the mainland. While it is seldom on the mainland that you find even a college-educated Japanese-American citizen who talks to you wholly openly until you have gained his confidence, this is far from the case in Hawaii. Many young Japanese there are fully as open and frank and at ease with a white as white boys are. In a word, Hawaii is more of a melting pot because there are more brown skins to melt -- Japanese, Hawaiian, Chinese and Filipino. It is interesting to note that there has been absolutely no bad feeling between the Japanese and the Chinese in the islands due to the Japanese-Chinese war. Why should they be any worse toward us?"
"Due to the preponderance of Japanese in the population of the Islands, a much greater proportion of Japanese have been called to the draft than on the mainland. As on the mainland they are inclined to enlist before being drafted. The Army is extremely high in its praise of them as recruits... They are beginning to feel that they are going to get a square deal and some of them are really almost pathetically exuberant." "The story was all the same. There is no Japanese `problem' on the Coast. There will be no armed uprising of Japanese. There will undoubtedly be some sabotage financed by Japan and executed largely by imported agents... In each Naval District there are about 250 to 300 suspects under surveillance. It is easy to get on the suspect list, merely a speech in favor of Japan at some banquet being sufficient to land one there. The Intelligence Services are generous with the title of suspect and are taking no chances. Privately, they believe that only 50 or 60 in each district can be classed as really dangerous. The Japanese are hampered as saboteurs because of their easily recognized physical appearance. It will be hard for them to get near anything to blow up if it is guarded. There is far more danger from Communists and people of the Bridges type on the Coast than there is from Japanese. The Japanese here is almost exclusively a farmer, a fisherman or a small businessman. He has no entree to plants or intricate machinery."
"In case we have not made it apparent, the aim of this report is that all Japanese Nationals in the continental United States and property owned and operated by them within the country be immediately placed under absolute Federal control. The aim of this will be to squeeze control from the hands of the Japanese Nationals into the hands of the loyal Nisei who are American citizens... It is the aim that the Nisei should police themselves, and as a result police their parents." Michi Weglyn, Years of Infamy, Morrow Quill Paperbacks, New York, 1976, p. 33-53.
"The Japanese American Creed by Mike Masaoka of the Japanese American Citizens League, As Read Before the United States Senate and Printed in the Congressional Record, 9 May 1941"; Fujita Family Collection, Balch Institute Archives
Evacuation: Executive Order 9066
By December 1941 over 126,000 individuals of Japanese ancestry resided on the United States mainland. Many lived along the West Coast. Approximately seventy percent were Nisei, the first American-born generation. Their parents, Issei or immigrating generation, left Japan for a better life but encountered many obstacles in the United States. Intense discrimination from nativists limited employment opportunities and successfully prevented the Issei from becoming U.S. citizens. In 1922, the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Ozawa v. United States upheld legislation that declared the Issei "aliens ineligible to citizenship." Emigration from Japan ended with the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act that established quotas for every national group and barred the entrance of aliens ineligible to citizenship.
On 19 February 1942, in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, enabling the U.S. Army to forcibly remove any and all persons from areas of strategic importance. Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt, head of the Western Defense Command, ordered Japanese Americans to be evacuated from coastal areas in Washington, Oregon, California, and Arizona.
The Army oversaw the evacuation of Japanese-Americans to temporary assembly centers such as those at Tanforan and Santa Anita race tracks in California. From there, the civilian-managed War Relocation Authority, created on 18 March 1942, transferred evacuees to permanent internment camps in more remote locations throughout the nation's interior. Eventually, ten camps were established: Gila River, Arizona; Granada (Amache), Colorado; Heart Mountain, Wyoming; Jerome (Denson), Arkansas; Manzanar, California; Minidoka, Idaho; Poston (Colorado River), Arizona; Rohwer, Arkansas; Topaz, Utah; and Tule Lake, California.
ORGANIZATIONS
Smithsonian Institution Asian Pacific American Program
http://www.apa.si.edu/
The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program provides vision, leadership and support for all Asian Pacific American (APA) activities at the Smithsonian while at the same time, serving as liaison to APA communities.
Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation
http://www.aiisf.org
Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation is a non-profit organization whose primary goals are to lead the effort to preserve, restore and interpret Angel Island Immigration Station, a National Historic Landmark, as the Pacific gateway for U.S. immigration; and to promote educational activities that further the understanding of Pacific Rim immigration in American history.
Japanese American Citizens League
http://www.jacl.org/
The Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) is a membership organization whose mission is to secure and maintain the human and civil rights of Americans of Japanese ancestry and others victimized by injustice. The JACL has 112 chapters nationwide and eight regional districts with over 24,000 members found in twenty-three states. In addition to its national headquarters in San Francisco, the JACL has five regional offices (Los Angeles, Fresno, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago), as well as an office in Washington D.C. and an organizational newspaper, the Pacific Citizen, distributed nationally from its office in Los Angeles. In addition to legislative efforts, the organization offers educational scholarships, and has developed a curriculum and resource guide that has been adopted by the California school system and is available for purchase.
National Japanese American Memorial Foundation
http://www.njamf.org
Construction of the National Japanese American Memorial on Federal land was authorized by statute (PL 102-502) and signed into law by President George Bush on October 24, 1992. Initially intended to commemorate Japanese American War veterans, the purpose has been extended to honor the patriotism of all Japanese Americans During World War II. The project for the Memorial was initiated in 1988 by the "Go For Broke" National Veterans Association Foundation. With the expanded scope of the project, the Foundation has been renamed as the National Japanese American Memorial Foundation.
National Japanese American Historical Society
http://www.njahs.org/
The National Japanese American Historical Society (NJAHS), founded in 1980 in San Francisco, is a non-profit membership supported organization dedicated to the preservation, promotion, and dissemination of materials relating to the history and culture of Japanese Americans.
MUSEUMS AND ARCHIVES
Japanese American Documentary Collection, National Museum of American History
http://americanhistory.si.edu/archives/d9305.htm
The collections of the American History Archives Center complement the Museum's artifacts and are used for scholarly research, exhibitions, journalism, documentary productions, school programs, and other research and educational activities.
Asian American Studies Center, UCLA
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/aasc/index.html
Since its founding in 1969, the UCLA Asian American Studies Center has documented, analyzed, and forecasted the contemporary, historical, and future experiences and concerns of people of Asian and Pacific Islander heritage in the United States through an array of scholarly, policy-oriented, applied, and creative forms of inquiry. It fulfills this mission through sponsored research projects; the development of affiliated research institutes; support for individual faculty members; collaborative research and creative projects with campus and community organizations, museums, and leaders; publications and other media; archival and data-collection activities; and the training of new scholars, policy analysts, and creative artists.
Bishop Museum
http://www.bishopmuseum.org/
Bishop Museum is the premier natural and cultural history institution in the Pacific and is recognized throughout the world for its cultural collections, research projects, consulting services and public educational programs. It also has one of the largest natural history specimen collections in the world. As the largest museum in the state, Bishop Museum hosts over 500,000 visitors each year who experience over 2,000 years of history and cultural heritage, from early Polynesian migration and settlement to space exploration.
Japanese American Digital Archive
http://www.oac.cdlib.org:80/dynaweb/virtual/jarda/@Generic__CollectionView;cs=default;ts=default
A core component of the California Digital Library, the Online Archive of California (OAC) is a digital information resource that facilitates and provides access to materials such as manuscripts, photographs, and works of art held in libraries, museums, archives, and other institutions across California.
Japanese American National Museum
http://www.janm.org
The mission of the Japanese American National Museum is to make known the Japanese American experience as an integral part of our nation's heritage in order to improve understanding and appreciation for America's ethnic and cultural diversity.
Manabi and Sumi Hirasaki National Resource Center
http://www.janm.org/nrc/index.html
The mission of the Hirasaki National Resource Center at the Japanese American National Museum is to provide access to the Museum's diverse collections related to Japanese Americans. The National Resource Center develops a collection of secondary materials that document the Japanese American experience. Access is provided not only to this reference collection, but also to the Museum's collections (primary materials) and to the institutional archives. Because education is a life-long pursuit, the Hirasaki National Resource Center is committed to providing service to all ages and skill levels.
National Archives and Records Administration
http://www.nara.gov/
NARA makes available to the public the historically valuable records of the three branches of federal government: executive (including the President), legislative, and judicial. National Archives holdings include textual; audiovisual; cartographic and architectural; and electronic records. Records pertaining to the War Relocation Authority can be found in Record Group 210.
Transcript of the Constitution: http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/constitution/conmain.html
Library of Congress
http://www.loc.gov
The Library of Congress, established in 1800 serves as the research arm of Congress and is recognized as the national library of the United States. Its collections comprise the world's most comprehensive record of human creativity and knowledge. Open to those above high school age without charge or special permission, it is the world's largest library and a great resource to scholars and researchers.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs (P&P) Online Catalog:
http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html
Wing Luke Asian Museum
http://www.wingluke.org/
A pan-Asian Pacific American Museum devoted to the collection, preservation and display of Asian Pacific American culture, history and art, the museums programs are inspired and created by the combined efforts of museum professionals and grassroots community members. The Wing Luke Asian Museum is a multidisciplinary cultural center that presents arts and heritage exhibitions, public programs, school tours, publications, and films, and maintains a permanent collection and research center.
Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project
http://www.densho.org/
The Densho Project is a non-profit educational organization that preserves historical first-person accounts, photographs and documents in a digital archive. Digitally videotaped oral history interviews include personal experiences of immigration, family life, mass incarceration of Japanese Americans by their government during World War II, efforts to obtain redress for the denial of civil rights, and many other topics. This resource links past and present by providing primary and secondary source material on Japanese American experiences, as part of American history. The Densho Project works to educate future generations, collaborating with teachers and students in communities nationwide, preserving history, and inspiring people to act with respect, compassion and fairness.
CIVIL LIBERTIES AND REDRESS
U.S. Department of Justice Civil Liberties Division
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ora/main.html
The Office of Redress Administration (ORA) was established to identify, locate and pay these individuals. ORA officially closed on February 5, 1999. This serves as an informational site regarding the final statistics of ORA and the settlement of the Japanese American lawsuit, Mochizuki v. United States.
ASIAN AMERICAN RESOURCES
Go For Broke Educational Foundation
a division of the 100th/442nd/MIS WWII Memorial Foundation
http://www.goforbroke.org/
Incorporated in 1989, the 100th/442nd/MIS WWII Memorial Foundation was established by Japanese American World War II veterans to build the Go For Broke Monument as an eternal tribute to the heroics of the segregated Japanese American units. The Monument, located in Downtown Los Angeles at Temple Avenue and Alameda, was unveiled in June 1999 and presented as a gift to the City of Los Angeles. With the Go For Broke Monument built, the Foundation is establishing itself with a new vision and mission as the Go For Broke Educational Foundation. The Foundations educational programs expose students and teachers to the involvement of Japanese American soldiers in World War II, the Japanese American internment and the civil liberties issues raised by these events. To date, the Foundation has set up several programs including: teacher training workshops, Hanashi Oral History Program, and several media projects.
Asian American Curriculum Project
http://www.asianamericanbooks.com/whoarewe.htm
The mission of the Asian American Curriculum Project is to educate the public about the great diversity of the Asian American experience by distributing books that foster cultural awareness and to educate Asian Americans about their own heritage. AACP believes that the knowledge which comes from the use of appropriate materials can accomplish these goals. The books and other materials are for all age groups, all levels of education and all Asian ethnic groups; including and not limited to Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Hmong, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Samoan, Tongan, Thai, & Vietnamese Americans and Hawaiians. Materials include literature, folk tales, posters, magazine, tapes on language and music, games, activities, teachers guides, dictionaries, bilingual materials and reference books on history, social issues and education.
Heyday Books
http://www.heydaybooks.com/home.html
Heyday Books is dedicated to producing high-quality, accessible books about California. Founded in 1974 by Malcolm Margolin, Heyday has maintained a highly-respected list of titles covering California history and culture, natural history, literature, poetry, regional guides, and California Native American life for over 25 years.
Michael Yamashita, Inc.
http://www.michaelyamashita.com/gallery.asp
Yamashita began taking pictures in 1971 while on a self-styled "roots" trip to Japan. What began as a pastime led to a career combining his two passionsphotography and travel. He has been a regular contributor to the National Geographic since 1979 and has worked in such diverse locations as Somalia and Sudan, England and Ireland, New Guinea and New Jersey. Although he has traveled to six continents, Asia is his special area of concentration. He has lived in Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong and Japan, and shoots for a variety of Asian publications. Fluent in Japanese, he has covered Japan from Hokkaido to Kyushu.
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