Democratizing the Enemy: The Japanese American Internment [Course Book ed.] 9781400837748

Table of contents :
Contents
Figures
Tables
Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction
Prologue. Beyond Civil Rights
One. Governors And Their Advisers, 1918–1942
Two. The Governed: Japanese Americans And Politics, 1880–1942
Three. Establishing The Structures Of Internment, From Limited To Mass Internment, 1942–1943
Four. The Liberal Democratic Way Of Management, 1942–1943
Five. “Why Awake A Sleeping Lion?” Governance During The Quiet Period, 1943–1944
Six. “Taking Away The Candy”: Relocation, The Twilight Of The Japanese Empire, And Japanese American Politics, 1944–1945
Seven. The Long Shadow Of Internment
Epilogue. Toward Human Rights
Notes
A Note on Sources
Acknowledgments
Index

Citation preview

DEMOCRATIZING THE ENEMY

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DEMOCRATIZING THE ENEMY TH E J APA NE SE A ME RIC AN INT ER NME NT

Brian Masaru Hayashi

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD

COPYRIGHT © 2004 BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PUBLISHED BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 41 WILLIAM STREET, PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY 08540 IN THE UNITED KINGDOM: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 6 OXFORD STREET, WOODSTOCK, OXFORDSHIRE OX20 1TW ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THIRD PRINTING, AND FIRST PAPERBACK PRINTING, 2008 PAPERBACK ISBN: 978-0-691-13823-7

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE CLOTH EDITION OF THIS BOOK AS FOLLOWS HAYASHI, BRIAN MASARU, 1955– DEMOCRATIZING THE ENEMY : THE JAPANESE AMERICAN INTERNMENT / BRIAN MASARU HAYASHI. P. CM. INCLUDES BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES AND INDEX. ISBN 0-691-00945-7 (ACID-FREE PAPER) 1. JAPANESE AMERICANS—EVACUATION AND RELOCATION, 1942–1945. I. TITLE. D769.8.A6H39 2004 940.53′089′56073—DC22

2003057956

BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE THIS BOOK HAS BEEN COMPOSED IN SABON PRINTED ON ACID-FREE PAPER. ∞ PRESS.PRINCETON.EDU PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4

¯ ta, For Yoshiro¯ and Yoshiko Hayashi, Yuko¯ and Brenda Keiko O and in memory of Kenny Tadao Hayashi and Sandra Eggers

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CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ix LIST OF TABLES xi PREFACE xiii ABBREVIATIONS xvii Introduction 1 PROLOGUE

Beyond Civil Rights 13 ONE

Governors and Their Advisers, 1918–1942 16 TWO

The Governed: Japanese Americans and Politics, 1880–1942 40 THREE

Establishing the Structures of Internment, from Limited to Mass Internment, 1942–1943 76 FOUR

The Liberal Democratic Way of Management, 1942–1943 107 FIVE

“Why Awake a Sleeping Lion?” Governance during the Quiet Period, 1943–1944 148 SIX

“Taking Away the Candy”: Relocation, the Twilight of the Japanese Empire, and Japanese American Politics, 1944–1945 180 SEVEN

The Long Shadow of Internment 207 EPILOGUE

Toward Human Rights 219 NOTES 223 A NOTE ON SOURCES 295 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 305 INDEX 309

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FIGURES

FIGURE 2.1. Percentage Distribution of Remittances, by State or Country. Source: Yokohama Sho¯kin Ginko¯ Rafu Bunten, “Furusato So¯kin Moshikomisho,” July 1938, Japanese American Historical Archives, San Francisco, California 61 FIGURE 2.2. Percentage Distribution of the Amount of Remittances, by Prefectures. Source: Yokohama Sho¯kin Ginko¯ Rafu Bunten, “Furusato So¯kin Moshikomisho,” July 1938, Japanese American Historical Archives, San Francisco, California 63

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TABLES

TABLE 2.1 Kibei in Hiroshima Prefecture, 1932 TABLE 2.2 Number of Remittances and Amounts, by State or Country TABLE 2.3 Amount and Number of Cases, by Prefectures (with amounts over ¥ 1,000), July 1932 TABLE 3.1. Education and Language Experience of Adults in Manzanar, Poston, Topaz, and all WRA camps, 1942 TABLE 4.1 Education and Language Experience of Manzanar and Poston Block Managers, 1942 TABLE 4.2 Education and Language Experience of Poston Temporary Council Members, 1942 TABLE 4.3 Education and Language Experience of Topaz Community Council Members, 1942–44 TABLE 4.4 Education and Language Experience of Manzanar Community Self-Government Members, 1942 TABLE 4.5 Education and Language Experience of Poston Women’s Club Members, 1943 TABLE 4.6 Education and Language Experience of Manzanar Mess Hall Union Members, 1942 TABLE 5.1 Education and Language Experience of Topaz Repatriates, 1943

47 60 62

105 109 112 113 115 118 121 155

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PREFACE

T

HE IDEA for this book took root more than a decade ago when as a graduate student I undertook a topic different from my doctoral dissertation and presented the findings at the “Views From Within” Conference at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1987. The conference focused on social scientists assigned to study Japanese Americans in the concentration camps during World War II. My own paper at this conference looked at Tamie Tsuchiyama, a University of California doctoral student, on assignment in Poston, Arizona, and Togo Tanaka, a journalist who studied the camp in Manzanar, California. As I ploughed through the papers they left behind at the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, California, I found that the two researchers observed a very different group of incarcerated Japanese Americans, especially when it came to issues of loyalty. These internees, as they saw it, did not assume a victory by the Allies or a postwar future in the United States, contrary to what many other authors had written on the subject. Curiosity about the two researchers’ understanding of the event and why contemporary authors missed these interpretations drove me to write this book. To uncover Japanese American views of removal and internment that were partially glimpsed in the writings of Tanaka and Tsuchiyama requires innovative approaches. In the first place, exploration of the international linkages between the governors’ decisions and the actions of the governed was essential. For the governors, decoding the “military necessity” justification for the decision to intern Japanese Americans necessitates more than a mere recounting of their mistakes in imagining enemy attacks and attributing it to “race” and “hysteria”: we must consider how a number of factors including the need for hostages, the harsh treatment of Japanese residents by other Allied governments, and the West Coast’s vulnerability to commando raids played into the decision. Similarly for the victims, their behavior involved far more than American citizens’ “accommodation” or “resistance” to a single national government. An explanation of their behavior would need to encompass the struggles of aliens and their dependents in anticipating the outcome of a war between two governments in which the possibility of no clear-cut winners and a prisoner-exchange relegating them to a postwar life in the Japanese empire, whether desired or not, existed. This new perspective makes their behavior more intelligible than do the images of the stoic Issei, the loyal Nisei, and the rebellious Kibei—images reminiscent of the stereotypic Noble Savage in American Indian studies, and of the indolent and faithful Sambo or the rebellious slave Nat Turner in African American studies. But it also

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broadens one’s view of the event’s impact: the history of the internment becomes more than a civil rights lesson; it is also a consideration of how the “rules of governance” extended far beyond the barbed wire fences to affect land, water, and political rights for minorities and uprooted people, both within and beyond the national borders of the United States.1 Adoption of a wider outlook, however, does not mean abandonment of a narrowly focused and detailed study of the subject. Surveying all sites of governance is impossible since there were nearly two dozen Department of Justice (DOJ) camps, fifteen Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA) Camps, two “reception centers,” ten War Relocation Authority (WRA) camps, and two “citizen isolation camps,” with over a hundred manuscript depositories nationwide, and a thousand books on the subject in the Library of Congress. Rather, an analysis of a singular facet of camp life becomes a necessity and a virtue. By focusing on the political nexuses among three major groups of people who made the camps—administrators, social scientists, and internees—the internee side of the equation becomes clear, especially when one highlights “average” camp political leaders, many of them bilingual persons born in Japan but educated in the United States, and some monolingual, Japan-born and— educated. Spotlighting these camp politicians rather than those belonging to the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) or the “progressives” allows us to see how the latter two factions came to dominate camp politics temporarily through a process known as Robert Michel’s “iron law of oligarchy” while the average camp leaders, the new “ethnic bourgeoisie,” played a longer, more crucial role of mediating relations between the governed and the governors, and of managing the cultural boundaries to extract goods and services for Japanese Americans. It also provides a window onto how administrators and social scientists did not treat internees as powerless but as participants, albeit unequal, in the process of governing and being governed.2 New definitions also are helpful in bridging the gap between the victims’ and the postwar authors’ understanding of why the event took place and how it impacted them. To grasp the painfulness of the process, the terms “removal” and “internment” rather than “evacuation” and “relocation” are preferred since the latter imply an impending natural disaster from which citizens are saved. Instead of “internment camps,” “assembly centers,” and “relocation centers,” the sites of governance are named after their supervising federal government agency. Hence, the term “DOJ camps” refers to the Department of Justice “internment camps,” while “WCCA camps” are those often designated as “assembly centers” of the Wartime Civil Control and Administration, and “WRA camps” refer to that agency’s “relocation centers.” “Concentration camps” is a generic term that includes all such sites, a stance consistent with findings by Holo-

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caust scholars. They define such sites as “camps in which persons are imprisoned without regard to the accepted norms of arrest and detention.” “Concentration camps” is therefore an accurate term since Japanese Americans were forcibly removed and detained well beyond the “accepted norms,” but it is used less frequently here because some still mistakenly assume that it applies only to the Nazi death camps. Those placed in concentration camps are called “internees,” not “inmates,” since the original intent was based on suspected political loyalty, quite different from one based on violation of criminal law, as the latter implies. Other terminology relates to camp politics. “Elites” refers to a group of individuals who “hold key positions in the governing institutions of a community.” A “leader” is often an “elite” but is a person who “initiates interaction with greater frequency than others with members of another group, and who directs or controls others in pursuit of group goals. Leaders seek to “influence” others or change the probability of the outcome of a decision, by exercising “power”—the ability of persons, groups, and institutions to obtain compliance through a variety of means. The means by which a “leader” gains compliance may take the form of violence, coercion, persuasion, and / or acceptance of his or her authority; all are attempts at “changing the probability of a decision” by which internees choose to comply with the leader’s plan of action. Leaders’ attempts at using power are what I define as “politics,” and the normalization of those patterns of struggle for power results in the creation of a “political culture.” And finally, “loyalty” is the state of mind that “generates interest, partiality, an identification with the object of one’s loyalty rather than with its competitors.” Someone who is “disloyal” cannot necessarily be prosecuted for “treason” since the U.S. Constitution (Article III, Section 3, Clause 1) defines this crime as “levying war,” “adhering to the enemy,” and “giving aid and comfort,” all of which must be confirmed by the testimony of two witnesses or by self-confession.3 Despite these new approaches, certain caveats, particularly with regard to sources, are in order. This book makes no extensive use of camp newspapers and oral interviews, two very common types of sources that appear in previous studies of Japanese American internment, since several problems exist. The former often failed to report major events in camp life, whether deliberate or accidental, such as riots or the arrival of a new project director. In addition to self-censorship, WRA officials exercised considerable control over the camp newspapers’ contents. The Poston Chronicle, for example, could not hire its own Japanese-language editors without WRA headquarters approval, and the Manzanar Free Press was anything but free since its aim was not informational but political—the promotion of “a program of indoctrination in Americanism” so that “those who are pro-Japanese might be weakened in their sentiments and

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thus made more desirable residents in the United States.” Lack of clear authorship adds to the difficulty of determining how well-positioned the reporters were to observe and record events in the camps. Japanese-language newspapers outside of the camps have also not been exploited because they too were under semi-censorship imposed by federal government officials. Nor is there great reliance on oral interviews. Certainly, there is much of historical value to the eyewitness testimonies, but several problems plague this approach as well. Only a small handful of them record the words of the Japan-born internees. Far too few recorded interviews were carefully transcribed and their materials deposited and left for public inspection. In addition, many of the editors and interviewers fail to make the critical distinction between “episodic” and “semantic” memory. The former refers to a memory of personal experience; the latter is a memory of general knowledge. An individual with “semantic” memory, as is the case with many former internees, uses a schema or story pattern reshaping personal memory into a mold for faster recall and to secure a sense of self and an understanding of life in general, an essential distinction for determining the relative weight one can give the testimony. Nevertheless, a few from the Japanese American Project of the Oral History Program at California State University, Fullerton, appear in this study.4 Several minor details of interest deserve comment. Due to the private nature of some sources, special care was taken not to reveal much about personal disputes and individual failings, and medical records attached to Evacuee Case Files were completely ignored. In some instances, only initials of first and last names appear to protect privacy. As for the presentation of Japanese names, the normal English-language order of given names followed by surnames rather than the Japanese custom of the reverse order is followed here, since determining who is “American” and “Japanese” is problematic when it comes to Japanese Americans. And finally, capitalization in a number of source citations was dropped for the sake of uniformity. Despite these precautions, mistakes are possible, given the narrow scope of this study, the unusual breadth of sources, and the newness of interpretations presented and conclusions drawn. However, I alone bear the responsibility for them.

ABBREVIATIONS

BAE BIA BIAPAOIP BOR BSR CAD CFEP/UW CRIT CWRIC DOJ EHSP/UA

EHSRBSP/ASM FBI FBI/WRA

FDRL/HP FLBIS FMAD HSTL/IM JACL JAERR/UCB

JANM/LA JARCR/CU

Bureau of Agricultural Economics Bureau of Indian Affairs Record Group 75 Bureau of Indian Affairs, Phoenix Area Office, Irrigation Projects, 1935–61 Bureau of Reclamations Bureau of Sociological Research Civil Affairs Division Charles F. Ernst Papers, Manuscript and Archives, Allen Library, University of Washington, Seattle Colorado River Indian Tribes The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians Department of Justice Edward Holland Spicer Papers, MS 42 U.S. War Relocation Authority, Special Collections and Southwest Center, University of Arizona, Tucson Edward Holland Spicer and Rosamund B. Spicer Papers, Arizona State Museum, Tucson Federal Bureau of Investigation RG 65 Records of the FBI, World War II Headquarters Records on the WRA, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York Foreign Language Broadcast Intelligence Service Foreign Morale Analysis Division Harry S Truman Library, Independence, Missouri Japanese American Citizens League Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records, BANC MSS #67/14C, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (formerly known as Japanese Evacuation and Resettlement Study or JERS/UCB) Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, California Japanese American Relocation Center Records #3830, Rare and Manuscript Collections, Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

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JARP/UCLA

JJMP/AC

MAHYPA/VA NARA NARA I NARA II NARA/PRB NARA/PSB NARA/RMB OIA ONI OPMG OWI PAO SKPTC/CU

USWRACUP/ UW WAA WCCA WDC WDC/CAD

WHCAHF/ASU

WRA WRAHSCGF

A B B R E V I AT I O N S

Japanese American Research Project #2010, Special Collections, Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles John Jay McCloy Papers, War Department WD1, Special Collections, Robert A. Frost Library, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts Mrs. Aiko Hertzig-Yoshinaga Papers, Arlington, Virginia National Archives and Records Administration National Archives and Records Administration I, Washington, D.C. National Archives and Records Administration II, College Park, Maryland National Archives and Records Administration, Pacific Region Branch, Laguna Niguel, California National Archives and Records Administration, Pacific Sierra Region Branch, San Bruno, California National Archives and Records Administration, Rocky Mountain Branch, Denver, Colorado Office of Indian Affairs Office of Naval Intelligence Office of the Provost Marshal General Office of War Information Phoenix Area Office, Bureau of Indian Affairs Solon Kimball Papers, Special Collection, Milbank Memorial Library, Teachers’ College, Columbia University, New York, New York United States War Relocation Authority: Central Utah Project, Manuscript and University Archives, Allen Library, University of Washington, Seattle War Assets Administration Wartime Civil Control Administration Western Defense Command and Fourth Army Western Defense Command and Fourth Army, Wartime Civil Control Administration and Civil Affairs Division Wade Head Collection, FM MSS-117, Arizona Historical Foundation, Hayden Library, Arizona State University, Tempe War Relocation Authority War Relocation Authority Headquarters Subject-Classified General Files

DEMOCRATIZING THE ENEMY

INTRODUCTION

O

N FEBRUARY 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, initiating America’s wartime concentration camps. He granted to Secretary of War Henry Stimson and his military commanders the power to exclude persons regardless of citizenship and without formal hearings from designated areas in the interest of national security. Using that authority, General John DeWitt, the head of the Western Defense Command (WDC), removed approximately 110,000 West Coast Japanese Americans to fifteen temporary shelters, euphemistically called “assembly centers,” and two “reception centers” before transferring them further inland in late summer to ten “relocation centers,” ranging in size from over seven thousand to eighteen thousand persons. Thirty-one thousand were placed under the charge of John Collier’s Office of Indian Affairs in two camps in Arizona. Milton Eisenhower, Director of the War Relocation Authority (WRA), supervised the remaining seventy-nine thousand, incarcerating them in isolated locations in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. Here they were confined in camps where entry and exit of goods and personnel were controlled by Military Police units, and where they lived in tar-paper-covered, wooden barracks of approximately a hundred feet in length, with single rooms of only twenty by twenty-five feet. Each block within the camp was cramped with two rows of six or seven barracks housing 250 to 300 individuals, a de facto situation existing until the last camp was closed in March 1946. Inside the camps Euro-American administrators established their internal organizations to secure a peaceful confinement but also to encourage relocation. Since each camp had an administrative staff of less than a hundred persons, few of them fluent in Japanese, they appointed bilingual internee block managers to disseminate goods, services, and information while organizing elections of community council officials to legislate management policy even though project directors retained veto power over all matters. To facilitate relocation, Dillon Myer, Eisenhower’s successor, conducted in 1943 a Loyalty Registration, a mandatory questionnaire asking his charges to clarify which country they supported and the willingness of U.S. citizens among them to serve in the American armed forces. Disappointed with the results, Myer then sent social scientists to each camp as “community analysts,” adding to the University of California’s Evacuation and Resettlement Study’s own twelve Japanese American and three Euro-American observers in eight of the ten camps to press relocation. Despite these measures, Myer successfully ushered out only

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a handful of Japanese Americans because he was thwarted by internee reluctance and DeWitt’s conservative policy of continued exclusion based on “military necessity,” the latter overturned in December 1944 by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that made continued mass exclusion illegal. Most Japanese Americans at least outwardly accommodated the WRA. Though nearly two-thirds of them held U.S. citizenship rights, they cooperated rather than resisting removal from the West Coast and internment to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars lost in property and other assets. Occasionally, however, they openly resisted, as in mid-November 1942 when they ceased all labor during the Poston Strike, and a couple of weeks thereafter in a bloody demonstration called the Manzanar Riot. But for the most part, they endured four years of cramped living quarters, inadequate facilities, low wages, and a general lack of freedom and privacy. The majority—approximately five out of every six—pledged their allegiance to the United States or promised obedience to its laws over Japan’s when confronted with questions regarding which country the aliens would support and concerning the U.S. citizens’ willingness to serve in the American armed forces during the infamous Loyalty Registration of 1943. Once the WRA dropped mass detention in favor of individual internment in January 1945, Japanese Americans left the camps to resume their lives, and partially recovered their losses through the 1948 Evacuation Claims Act, a presidential apology in 1976, and another redress payment through the Civil Liberties Act in 1988. Despite general acceptance of the presentation above, writers on the internment differ over the causes and how its victims responded. Much of their disagreement is rooted in differing conceptions of the relationship over time between “race,” on one hand, and “culture” and political “loyalty,” on the other, and not about the relative weight of domestic and foreign factors for its causes and consequences. For many authors writing in the two decades after the camps closed, domestic factors, particularly “race,” was important for explaining why the internment took place and how that causal element shaped Japanese American responses. Since the United States seemed less vulnerable to invasion after 1942, many dismissed security issues in favor of domestic factors, particularly “race,” to explain why mass removal occurred. To these authors, “race” meant negative attitudes toward individuals based on physical features, amplified by economic interests but readily neutralized through education. Those attitudes, they believed, had nothing to do with “loyalty,” since patriotism emerged from “culture”—where and how one was raised and educated—which they associated with “nation.” Therefore, they found “military necessity” justification wanting because General John DeWitt’s claim in his Final Report (1943) that “the Japanese race is an enemy race,”

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whose “racial strain remains undiluted” was a prime example of that confusion of “race” with “culture” and “political loyalty.”1 Social scientists in particular dismissed “military necessity,” narrowing the debate over the camps to domestic causes and consequences in the decade after their closure. Using “race” as their main explanation, too, they channeled their analysis of the causes and the consequences toward identification of the culprits behind the decision, and cast Japanese American responses to it along the lines of other racial minorities of their time. Morton Grodzins, Americans Betrayed (1949), fingered West Coast pressure groups such as the Western Growers Protective Association and the Native Sons of the Golden West for constantly badgering public officials with views approximating “the doctrine of Nazism” until they caved in and influenced the army to reverse its own initial resistance to the idea. Jacobus tenBroek, Edward N. Barnhart, and Floyd W. Matson, Prejudice, War, and the Constitution (1954), disputed Grodzin’s conclusions and expanded the scope of blame to “the dark background of prejudice,” “the century-long history of anti-Orientalism on the West Coast of the United States,” whose “deadly legacy of suspicion and superstition” was “firmly embedded” in the “public consciousness.” Thus, no pressure groups were needed to convince DeWitt, they maintained, since the general himself harbored “blatant and unmistakable” racial prejudices. Studying Japanese American responses to internment, University of California demographer Dorothy Swaine Thomas applied a similar domestic-only framework in explaining why, in February 1943, two-thirds of all internees responded positively to questions of loyalty, and a sixth, negatively. She argued in The Salvage (1952) that the former relocated out of the camps quickly and were spared political disaffection because they were the “most highly assimilated segments” of the internee population—the ones who relocated “beyond the bounds of segregated ethno-centered communities” to take advantage of “wider opportunities” in the Midwest and East. Conversely, the sixth choosing Japan as their final destination were, as she and research assistant Richard Nishimoto claimed in The Spoilage (1946), individuals who experienced “spoilage” as a result of “evacuation and detention.” For Thomas, the Issei were disillusioned by racial discrimination in the economic and political spheres and when confronted by the shattering experience of removal and internment, had understandably refused allegiance to the United States. She asserted that the Nisei’s education in nonsegregated American schools where they were “indoctrinated in democratic principles” played a large role in determining the extent of their embitterment. Hence, Thomas argued that the shift from “loyal” to “disloyal” was the result of “the stress of racial discrimination, expulsion and detention” rather than any prewar political identification with Japan. Her conclusions fell in step with Alexander Leighton, The Governing of

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Men (1946) whose study of internee behavior during the Poston Strike of November 1942—the Rising Sun flags, the shouts of banzai, and cheering of the alleged victories by Imperial Japanese forces—were not indications of “real” patriotism toward Japan but rather embracing “an emblem of hope in a world that had fallen crashing about them.”2 Despite the emergence of a new generation of authors in the 1960s and 1970s, domestic factors still dominated explanations of why the camps were established. Skeptical of “military necessity” too, they came of age in a world in which federal government officials used similar phrases to rally public support for a widely perceived immoral war against a weaker military opponent in Vietnam. The “wartime hysteria” and failure of political leadership that these authors witnessed provided a persuasive explanation for why the World War II camps were built, and they cast accommodation or resistance as the two options Japanese Americans had, much like any other racial minority in America, or colonized Third World people under oppression. Thus they gravitated toward “race” explanations but saw, unlike the previous generation, it as more than mere attitudes but seemingly institutionalized “reality” underscored by the failure of the civil rights movement of their day to root it out. While they shared a similar view of “culture” as the previous generation, they interpreted “loyalty” broadly, placing protest acts under it, much like Jane Fonda’s visit to Hanoi, and her denunciation of the American bombing of that city and of the war against that country. Scholar-activist Roger Daniels, for example, fused Grodzins’s pressure group hypothesis with tenBroek’s idea of nationwide racial antipathy to account for the removal decision made by the Office of the Provost Marshal General, the War Department, and the Western Defense Command in San Francisco, California. He argued that these military officials, pressured by various lobbyists, and sharing in common the Yellow Peril racial stereotypes of the Japanese, succumbed to wartime hysteria in the face of mounting Allied losses in the early months of the war. Daniels blamed Allen Gullion and Karl Bendetsen of the Office of the Provost Marshal General for bending General John DeWitt of the Western Defense Command, and John McCloy and Henry Stimson of the War Department to their view. He also found fault with “the general racist character of American society” and with President Franklin Roosevelt’s caving into political expediency and his own concerns that “Japanese, alien and citizen, were dangerous to American security.” About two decades later, another civil rights activist-scholar Richard Drinnon, in Keeper of Concentration Camps (1987), concluded that “Western racism, nationalism, imperialism, and colonialism” formed the basis for the decision for removal and internment after he explored the “common matrix” of American Indian reservations and the concentration camps in the career of WRA Director and Bureau of Indian Affairs Direc-

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tor Dillon Myer. In Justice at War (1983), a study of the legal strategies of the internment cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, Peter Irons further fleshed out the critique of the decision by revealing how the decision makers were well aware that Japanese Americans posed no security threat.3 The same confinement to the domestic sphere characterized these authors’ view of Japanese American responses to internment. Although they added to our understanding by expanding the definitional boundaries of American “culture” and “loyalty,” they showed that many internees resisted camp policies by opposing patriotic work projects such as camouflage nets and “Food for Victory,” and that when coerced, these internees used slowdown tactics not unlike African American slaves of the previous century. They brought to the fore stories of previously unheralded internees risking arrest for refusal to register for Selective Service until their civil rights were restored, and others rioting to vent their rage over their unjust confinement. Just as the colonized of the Third World opposed colonizers and local elites, Japanese Americans, too, these authors claimed, dug in their heels against the WRA and JACL’s relocation program. Some authors swept seemingly “disloyal” and even “Japanese” ways under the new “loyalty” label, likening this behavior to the widespread draft resistance during the Vietnam War. For example, Gary Y. Okihiro dropped the “loyal-disloyal” dichotomy and portrayed people as drawing upon “a preexistent, underlying layer of resistance potential” or “an undercurrent of counter administration sentiment among the majority of the people” in their efforts to covertly or overtly resist camp management policy, the loyalty questionnaire, and military conscription, claiming that it was rooted in “the daily struggle for survival in a racist American West,” and that it was “continuous and purposeful.” Arthur Hansen took the definitional boundary a step further after observing “disloyal” behavior in Manzanar, such as the singing of the Japanese national anthem and the Imperial Navy marching song during a riot, and interpreted it as evidence of a Japanese American desire to create “Little Tokyos in the desert,” where their prewar culture of “group solidarity” and “the predominance of elements of Japanese culture” could survive.4 Only a small handful of this generation considered the wider, global context influencing decision makers and the victims. They were largely unsuccessful in persuading others to look beyond the national borders for additional causes and consequences of the event because they too often lacked sufficient proof. In Years of Infamy (1976), an exploration of internee resistance at Tule Lake, Michi Weglyn used some fragmentary evidence from the Secretary of War’s files to speculate that Japanese in the western hemisphere were taken as hostages to ensure humane treatment of American military personnel captured by the Imperial Japanese forces. Weglyn’s hostage thesis made sense of the discovery of over two-thousand

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Japanese immigrants from Latin America interned in the Department of Justice camps as part of the wider “hemispheric removals.” Instead of seeing this action as part of a possible western hemispheric defense agreement, she fell back on the “race” explanation for why federal government officials accepted the hostages. Taking the opposite tack, Page Smith, in Democracy on Trial (1995), and David Lowman, in Magic (2001), downplayed or denied “race” as a factor in the decision and instead claimed that strong ties between Japanese Americans and the Imperial Japanese government caused high military and political officials to mass intern all West Coast Japanese Americans before an invasion, however wrongly anticipated in hindsight. Smith never revealed his specific sources except to say that they came from the WRA documents and the Evacuation and Resettlement Study materials. Lowman utilized the Magic cables in which mention of Issei and Nisei involvement in intelligencegathering is apparent. But Lowman failed to make clear whether this handful of Japanese Americans had actually committed espionage, whether the decision makers actually read the cables, and why a handful of Japanese Americans engaged in espionage would merit mass rather than individual removal. Had these authors explored fully the implications of the hostage thesis for governors and the governed, or considered “military necessity” beyond the binational and “race” context, they might have seen how many participants understood their respective situations. Nevertheless, whether justifying or criticizing the decision, at least they set a new course for studying Japanese American internment beyond the domestic sphere, a direction in which studies on the Japanese internment in Canada have recently turned.5 Widening the scope of inquiry to include nondomestic factors promises fresh new insights on the Japanese American internment, as recent studies suggest. The “failure of political leadership” explanation, for example, appears less compelling when one looks at the new studies on how other countries dealt with their enemy alien problems. In contrast to the actions of politicians in other countries, President Franklin Roosevelt’s treatment of Japanese Americans seems relatively benign. Even though British officials declared the majority of resident enemy aliens “loyal” and refused to mass intern them, they still arrested twenty-six thousand Austrians, Germans, and Italians, many without trial, and allowed their guards to separate some families, steal their property, and were partly responsible for the death of hundreds who drowned at sea en route to Canada. National leaders of the Commonwealth countries of Australia, Canada, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and the Union of South Africa expanded their definition of “enemy aliens” to arrest and detain those with long-term residency or British citizenship, separated interned families, and even conscripted enemy alien labor. Other Allied leaders simply confiscated their property

INTRODUCTION

7

and expelled them from the country, as did Panama and Peru. Or they removed only those residing in the “security sensitive” regions, as did President Manuel Avila Camacho of Mexico and Getu´lio Vargas of Brazil. Still others tread upon the victims’ citizenship rights even when some among them were enemy aliens only in a technical sense, as did Joseph Stalin did with fifty thousand Koreans residing within sixteen kilometers of the Soviet-Manchurian border and another one-hundred-and-eighty thousand from the Maritime Provinces. Despite these revelations during their celebrations of the fiftieth anniversary of World War II, neither these leaders nor their governments have, like the Americans and Canadians, compensated the victims after the war. “Captivity is as old as war itself,” Jonathan Vance reminds us, and it also involves civilians who, though not prisoners of war in a strict sense, are nevertheless “prisoners in wartime.”6 Yet there are “domestic” reasons for another look at the Japanese American internment. In the early 1990s, the understanding of “race” changed substantially since the days of earlier studies. Today, “racial stereotypes” are now seen not as a set of fixed ideas traveling across time unchanged and awaiting reactivation during a crisis, but rather as a set of ideas constantly undergoing a formation and reformation through contestations and negotiations as the socioeconomic, political, and cultural interests underlying them change. Hence, the same nineteenth-century Yellow Peril racial idea, revived by wartime hysteria, and “causing” the concentration camps, seems outdated even if certain elements persist. Moreover, Holocaust specialists warn us against assuming a major causal link between “race” views and concentration camps since the origins of the Nazi version of them were multiple rather than singular, with the rise of the Nazi State figuring more importantly than anti-Semitism.7 And finally, the passage of time has created a favorable atmosphere for a reassessment of the subject. Prior to the announcement made by the federal government’s Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (1979–82) concerning its findings that racism, wartime hysteria, and the failure of political leadership caused the internment, many writers resisted contradicting the commission and shied away from depicting Japanese Americans as anything but loyal to the United States, fearing that they might undermine the commission’s drive for redress. Once the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 passed and individual redress payments began, however, a small but growing number of authors began exploring the political and cultural connections between Japanese Americans and the Japanese government. They were assisted by discovery of many previously unseen documents, particularly by a spate of individual internees who donated their papers to public and private institutions for access at places like the Japanese American Research Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Japanese American National Mu-

8

INTRODUCTION

seum. Adding to this new atmosphere, librarians at Cornell University, University of California, Berkeley, and Columbia University recently announced the discovery of materials left by camp social scientists at their respective institutions. The termination of the commission also allowed federal government officials to release to the growing mountain of previously unseen documents newly declassified documents. Taken together, the recent availability of documents from a variety of federal government agencies involved with the internment allows one to determine more accurately the probable course of events in the camps by comparing, for example, what WRA officials said to their critics in the WDC or the FBI, on the one hand, and to their supporters in the Office of War Information (OWI), on the other, and then further checking all information against that of the Special War Problems Division of the State Department and the social scientists, much like a surveyor triangulating where the plotted lines intersect.8 This book therefore reexamines the Japanese American internment in the light of these developments to capture the victims’ viewpoints but also to explain the complexity of its causes and consequences. Building upon past works on the causes, this book looks beyond the national borders to see how military security issues, real and imagined, shaped the decision for mass removal. The study explores how the internment affected domestic water rights and land development issues of minority and majority populations living adjacent to the sites of governance. But it also delves into how those “lessons learned” in educating Japanese Americans in democracy were carried abroad and applied to people residing beyond the national boundaries, a theme reflected in the book title. Hence, it does not limit the consequences to the event’s important implications for the civil rights of its victims or for all Americans. And finally, it links the victims’ accommodation, resistance, or avoidance responses to Japanese Americans’ varying assessment of the war’s progress on their possible postwar placement in the Japanese empire, behavior consistent with immigrants used to traversing the Pacific Ocean than racial minorities incapable of imagining a life outside of the United States. Although primarily focused on the years between 1942 and 1945, this study gives due weight to the pre-camp political practices and thought of the governed, on the one hand, and the thoughts and managerial practices of the governors, on the other. To accomplish this end, a close probing of a well-chosen few rather than a broad survey of all camps is desirable. The sheer volume of materials in the hundred-plus manuscript depositories nationwide and the existence of over two dozen camps administered by the Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA) and the WRA necessitate selecting a handful of sites for analysis. Three camps—Manzanar, Central Utah (Topaz), and Colorado River (Poston)—were chosen for a number of reasons. First, these camps

INTRODUCTION

9

exhibited a broad range of camp administrations, with Manzanar characterized by strict governance since it was located inside the Military Zone and had high management turnover, with Poston, loosely managed by liberals from the Office of Indian Affairs until the WRA transformed the camp in 1944 from an ethnic “colony” to the “ethnocidal” relocation center, and with Topaz fitting in between the other two. The three camps also provide a solid cross-section of the prewar Japanese American community since their combined population represents roughly a third of all internees by January 1, 1943 and hailed from the San Francisco Bay region (Topaz), the city of Los Angeles (Manzanar), and the rural regions of northern, central, and southern California (Poston). And finally, these camps offer an unusual abundance of primary sources due to the early presence of social scientists in Poston and Manzanar, the former housing an entire research team called the Bureau of Sociological Research from its inception in 1942 until fall 1943. In addition, many of the southern California Japanese’s prewar records are available, making Manzanar, Poston, and, to a lesser extent, Topaz, the logical choice of study.9 While consistent in exploring Japanese American connections with and beyond the domestic context, the findings here differ substantially from previous studies. The first chapter explores the prewar background of camp administrators, social scientists, federal government officials, and military officers administering Manzanar, Poston, and Topaz. It finds that the latter two groups conflated “race” with “culture” and thus equated “Japanese Americans” with “Japanese,” and presumed that their loyalties lay with Japan rather than the United States, leading these agents to favor mass removal. However, the camp administrators and social scientists, a mixture of different “liberals” for the most part, shared in common an understanding that “race” was not the same as “culture” and thus distinguished between “Japanese” and “Japanese Americans.” Since “loyalty” was believed to come from “culture,” and Japanese Americans, particularly the American-born group, were immersed in American culture, the administrators and social scientists confidently asserted that the people under their care were “loyal” to the United States rather than Japan. Their attitudes would later prove helpful in winning over many internees but would also bring upon them charges of mismanagement and “mollycoddling.” Chapter two looks at the internee political factions prior to the internment, and finds them not united but divided by prefecture, class, and other categories, including generation. With the Japanese government inculcating loyalty through a conflation of “race” with “loyalty,” Japanese Americans, including the American-born citizens, increasingly identified with Japan, not the United States, narrowed the conceptual gap between “race” and “culture,” and developed their own rules of governance at variance with JACL and progressive leaders’ ideas.

10

INTRODUCTION

Differing ideas of the rules of governance and classification resulted in both riotous and peaceful conditions in the camps as philosophies diverged and merged, depending on which faction of the governed and the governors gained the upper hand. Chapter three looks at the decision to mass remove and intern by high federal government officials and topranking military officers and finds how their conflicting rules of governance settled upon the common ground of “military necessity.” Under it, the governors established strict management rules over internees and found, much to their surprise, Japanese Americans largely cooperative with removal more than internment because they anticipated the worst. Chapter four tackles the first year of governance and how the liberal rules of management meshed well with the Japanese Americans’ own sense of governing themselves, but resulted in the Poston Strike and Manzanar Riot because an internee faction fingered those supporting Japan. The incidents in turn brought management changes, resulting in the Loyalty Registration to separate the proverbial goats from the sheep. Chapter five introduces the “quiet period,” a time when new rules of governance were accepted by both internees and the administrators. The former installed political moderates while the latter announced new, stricter rules to appease the American public, but also relaxed other regulations on camp life. Chapter six examines the period after the end of mass removal policy in December 1944 resulting in a reduction of camp rules but also increased administrative pressure for relocation. Internees reluctantly shifted their support toward the United States after these combined pressures merged with the obvious decline of the Japanese empire. The chaos created by mass removal and internment cast a long shadow over the domestic and international landscape in ways heretofore not considered, as the final chapter demonstrates. Those living in the immediate vicinity of the campsites, for the most part, were adversely affected since internment and relocation brought with them unresolved water rights and land development issues. For its victims, the episode meant an end to all things “Japanese” and the triumph of the “American,” both politically and culturally, while creating economic hardship for most in the years immediately following the end of the war. For administrators, mass removal and internment often meant new career opportunities to ply their new management skills abroad on “uprooted” people. Top-level federal government officials and military brass remained embarrassed by the event, and when later confronted with how history would cast their role in the decision for mass removal and internment, they forgot their own quiet confessions and misgivings, and took up a stubborn insistence on “military necessity.” But for social scientists the camps provided them with a chance to “do good” as well as use captive audiences to work out their “applied” anthropological methods in service of not only the victims

INTRODUCTION

11

they sought to help, but also of their academic fields and of the American Occupation of Japan. Two examples illustrate the sum of these themes. The prologue begins with W. Wade Head, Project Director of Poston, in the Philippines to illustrate the influence of that country on both the decision to remove and intern, as well as how to govern the Japanese. The epilogue ends with Toshio Yatsushiro, a Nisei social scientist whose experience of working in Thailand in the 1960s shows the unexpected ways in which and locations where the lessons of the removal and internment were applied. However, it is also important to explain what the findings do not indicate. They do not justify internment of Japanese Americans despite the obvious presence of Japanese nationalistic sentiments before and during the camps, since people cannot and should not be locked up on the basis of political sentiment but rather on the basis of acts committed. Nor does the presence of a small number of individuals willing to pass on information of military value to the Japanese government justify mass removal or internment. By the standards of the time, federal government officials distinguished strong political loyalty to an Axis Power from the potential for sabotage or espionage as a group, and detained only a small percentage of the latter; the same should have applied to Japanese Americans. On top of this, many Japanese Americans who supported Japan were not antagonistic toward the United States, and many who favored a Japanese “victory”—successful defense of the Empire and not the invasion of the United States—believed it would secure a discrimination-free postwar life for Japanese in the United States. The findings here also do not support the argument that the victims suffered little during World War II. Camp life had many oppressive aspects to it—the roll calls, the contraband searches, the spies, the poor living accommodations—and was without a doubt racially discriminatory especially when one compares the experience of Japanese Americans with that of the Italian and German Americans who were not mass interned. And finally, while not comparatively harsh, the study does not find that the United States government treated enemy aliens relatively well because of a “liberal” tradition. Rather, the American concentration camps did not become oppressive because of the need to ensure humane treatment of over twenty-one thousand American servicemen and fourteen thousand civilians in Japanese hands by 1942.10

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PROLOGUE BEYOND CIVIL RIGHTS

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OBODY KNOWS the trails and mountains better than me,” W. Wade Head wrote a friend in 1942, referring to his knowledge of the backcountry in comparison to that of other American expatriates in the Philippines. While an exaggeration, Head had acquired more knowledge of the Islands and its people than most of the eight thousand American expatriates in the Philippines serving the bayonet-imposed American government. He made it a point to listen and learn from locals, an attitude that set him apart from many Americans living there during his stay from 1932 to 1937. Head found offensive their luxurious lifestyle in the capital city Manila as colonial administrators and their disdain for Filipinos in the 1930s. He disapproved of the ostracism Americans marrying Filipinos faced, and grew impatient with American women whose only contact with locals was limited to domestic maids and servants. As the son of a country medical doctor in Oklahoma, he welcomed payment for medical services in the form of vegetables from poor farmers without cash, and disdained Americans who “put on airs” even though he hailed from a prestigious family and had a master’s degree from the University of Oklahoma. Anti-authoritarian to the core, Wade Head found the rules of governance, as practiced by Americans in the Philippines, much to his disliking and took refuge in his forays into the rural regions of the Islands where few Americans ventured.1 Wade Head’s superior knowledge of the Philippines and the people was also the result of his occupational position. He initially learned about the country through his work as a high school principal for a large government-funded agricultural school. Head not only taught agriculture but also assisted in establishing three barrios or villages, and in the process acquired knowledge of the rural districts. As director, he managed a hog farm built for local food self-sufficiency and developed a measure of proficiency in the local dialects, a skill he further refined after he resigned to become Assistant Personnel Manager in a lumbering and mining company. His listening to the locals and getting “their participation and interest by giving them responsibility and working with them rather than over them” won him friends and added to his knowledge of the rural sectors of the Islands.2 Head also became acquainted with the Japanese immigrants in that country as a by-product of his job. He got to know a number of Japanese in the Philippines during his forays into the rural regions. While the details

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are not clear, he probably met some of them in Davao Province on the island of Mindanao to the south where over 70 percent of the twentyfour thousand Japanese immigrants and their offspring living in the Philippines in 1941 resided, a legacy of their initial immigration as construction workers for the nearby Baguio Road. He may also have encountered some Japanese in Manila area where nearly 20 percent of the entire Japanese population in the Islands lived, working either in small shops or on farms in nearby Trinidad Valley. Head was also aware of the Japanese government bureaucrats and businessmen’s successful persuasion of Filipino politicians for continued Japanese immigration, contrary to American government officials’ wishes. The principal-turned-engineer knew about Filipino government officials developing close connections with Japanese businessmen from his friendship with President Manuel Quezon, and could sense the expatriate community’s growing uneasiness over the increasing Japanese presence as the day for the Islands’ independence drew near.3 Head’s encounter with the Japanese was pleasant because they contrasted sharply with the American expatriates. Instead of colonial governors, Japanese immigrants were farmers or fishermen. Of the 24,776 Japanese men, women, and children enumerated in 1938, most were engaged in farming, farm labor, or fishing, with only a small number of skilled workers (4.17%), and white collar workers (3.43%), and merchants (2.15%). Those employed in the usual service sector type occupations—religious, educational, professional—were even fewer. Students numbered only seven, and artists working in ceramics or metals tallied a mere sixty. Quite a few of them, Head probably noted, intermarried with local Filipinos.4 However, Americans in uniform did not share the former high school principal’s friendly respect for average Japanese immigrants. The Secretary of War and officials in his office feared some, but not all, Japanese immigrants in the Philippines since the United States governed the country through the Bureau of Insular Affairs. They conceded that the United States could not defend the Philippines against a Japanese attack and therefore reduced the number of military personnel deployed in the Philippines in the latter half of the 1930s and concentrated them instead around the capital city in accordance with the Army’s War Plan Orange Three. Conceding most of the Islands, some speculated Davao might become the next Manchukuo, a Japanese puppet state on the Asian continent, after witnessing the growing Japanese immigrant presence combined with large businesses whose purchase of nearly 372,000 acres of land was facilitated by some Filipino front companies. Major General Frank Parker, head of the Philippines Department, warned Washington in August 1934 that Japanese activities were up sharply, particularly around Mindanao. He noted

BEYOND CIVIL RIGHTS

15

Mitsui Bussan, a Japanese corporation working with hemp and copra in the Philippines, used Japanese reserve military officers to drive its trucks. “These officers usually remain in the Philippines for two or three months, and then go back to Japan after familiarizing themselves with different places in the Philippine Archipelago.” G-2, the intelligence arm of the Philippines Department drew up lists of potential saboteurs and spies among Axis country aliens in the Islands, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation sent a small number of Nisei to infiltrate and spy upon the Japanese community in the Philippines. But U.S. officials’ fears increased as Filipino troop morale sagged and the number of recruits declined after Imperial Japanese forces captured town after town along the Chinese coast in 1938. But fears turned to alarm when they discovered that a number of Filipino political leaders favored rapprochement with Japan and the abandonment of Island defense. Officials were disturbed by rumors of President Quezon negotiating a neutrality pact with Japan after his vacation visit there in the summer of 1938 and were galled by the overtly pro-Japanese stance taken by Benigno Ramos and others, including Jose Laurel, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and a Yale University graduate. They watched from the sidelines as some Filipino politicians received monetary donations from large Japanese business corporations in exchange for favorable stances toward increased Japanese immigration. Officers with past Philippines experience harboring these fears included John L. DeWitt, Allen Gullion, and Henry L. Stimson, the latter a former Governor General of the Philippines from March 1928 to February 1929, who would collide with Wade Head’s views a few years later a half a world away in a remote desert location with few mountains and no tree-lined trails.5

1 GOVERNORS AND THEIR ADVISERS, 1918–1942

T

HE PHILIPPINES shaped not only W. Wade Head’s wartime governing of Japanese Americans but also the experience of others as well. These governors—high federal government officials, topbrass in the military, social scientists, and camp administrators like Head—varied in their ideas of “race,” “culture,” and “loyalty” as a result of their respective experiences involving that island nation. For many military officials, island Japanese behavior confirmed the overlap between “race,” “culture,” and “loyalty,” while camp administrators drew the opposite conclusions. Federal government officials were often ambivalent, while social scientists were more insistent on the separation of these ideas, though the reasons why the latter thought so had little to do with the colonial experience in the Philippines and more with the history of the American Indians. Yet it would be wrong to assume that only foreign factors were important in shaping the governors’ views of the governed. Domestic land and water issues in the American West also shaped the way in which the governors treated their Japanese American charges. Those issues determined the locations for the sites of governance and shaped camp administrators’ and internees’ relationship with local residents. Plans for farmland development involving use of wartime Japanese American labor determined the campsites, mostly without local consultation. Agribusiness interests in water rights issues sometimes mixed with issues of “race,” creating a hostile reaction among locals toward Japanese Americans and camp administrators. Conversely, where agribusiness interests were largely absent, local receptivity was high because lowered expectations brought on by years of poverty combined with low perception of “race” as an important issue. Yet in other locations, local response was mixed as merchant and pastoral interests clashed over “race” in addition to the struggle over water rights. Poston, Arizona, was a prime example of how local residents’ negative reactions to Japanese Americans were influenced by agribusiness concerns. The Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) owned the land upon which Poston was established but disapproved of the importation by the Office of Indian Affairs (OIA) of American Indians from other tribes. They received the land as part of their exclusive reservation in 1864–65,

GOVERNORS AND THEIR ADVISERS

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when Indian Affairs Commissioner for the Arizona Territory, Charles D. Poston, secured the land from Congress for those Indians residing in the area and the surrounding tributaries, encompassing an estimated population of ten thousand. Although the OIA had visions of a 100,000-acre sanctuary for them, the Walapais and Yumas refused to move there, and only half of the Mojave Indians relocated to the area by 1940. Most of the Chemehuevis joined the Colorado River Indian Tribes in June 1938 only after the new Parker Dam flooded their land in Chemehuevi Valley, forcing them on relief and a lifestyle described as “a precarious living.” By 1940, the CRIT population was low—less than two thousand of them in all of the United States, and only about 1,350 lived on the reservation land, mostly in the northern portion.1 Having a small population on the land was problematic for the OIA. The Tribes’ occupation of the land did not entitle them legally to Colorado River water, either by prior usage or Reserved Rights. CRIT needed, according to the Office in 1934, to increase their consumption of Colorado River water before a court settlement between the states vying for water rights was made to ensure their own share. The Tribes could not depend on the Arizona state legislature since the State Water Commissioner denied receiving an application from the Tribes, as required by law for water appropriation, and the Arizona government refused to grant them voting rights in state elections, a disenfranchisement that lasted until 1948. Nor could CRIT members assume water rights under the Prior Appropriation Doctrine since to up water consumption meant that the Tribes had to increase their membership or lease out their land, neither option appealing to them. The latter option, however, interested the Chamber of Commerce of Northern Yuma County, Arizona, who had asked specifically for the right to such “improvement leases.”2 Other problems abounded. Even with willing “colonists” from overpopulated reservations such as Navaho and Hopi, the OIA still had to contend with a tribal council that would not allow non-CRIT members to settle in the Southern Reserve and reap the benefits of their work. They therefore pressured the Tribes to accept Navaho and Hopi Indians as full tribal members. The government bureaucrats also had to finance the “colonists” because many Navaho and Hopi found the tool and labor cost prohibitive and risky when the Indian Irrigation Service policy required them to dig their own irrigation ditches from the lateral canals to their individual plots of land. Hence, the OIA halted the colonizing plan and searched for outside Euro-American land developers willing to invest time and money to make the Southern Reserve bloom, a move that united local farmers against the government.3 Although less intense than Poston, Manzanar’s insertion into Owens Valley placed camp administrators in the middle of a bitter water and

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land development controversy with few local friends. The City of Los Angeles made the location famous by buying land and pumping out the underground water, for sale to its residents, sparking violent opposition from local farmers and ranchers, some of whom set off explosions on the aqueduct and wells in the mid-1920s. Before the end of the next decade, the city purchased about 90 percent of the water-bearing land in the valley and encouraged the formation of a group of local merchants to band together to overcome remaining farmer and rancher opposition. The city’s support organization, known as the Inyo-Mono Associates, was established by Father John Crowley, Ralph Merritt, and Robert Brown, former English teacher at Big Pine High School, to tout the valley’s fish and game in the Los Angeles Times.4 City officials added to local resentment through their handling of the Indian “squatters” problem. For them, many unemployed Paiute Tribe members created a problem by returning to farming in the valley after their work on cattle ranches dried up along with the business. Although these Paiutes farmed the land centuries before Euro-Americans invaded the region, city officials sought to remove them, numbering about nine hundred by 1930, by giving some of its unused land to the federal government to reduce city taxes and induce Indian Service officials to restrict the Paiutes to the reservation. The city further pulled the federal government into the region by agreeing, at the request of Indian Service officials in 1932, to bring in OIA Superintendent Roy Nash to hammer out a compromise that resulted in moving the Paiutes to a new Paiute-Shoshone reservation west of Bishop in 1937. Two years later, officials increased monetary donations to the Paiutes, making some local residents jealous. Then the city sought outside renters to ensure that the land remained clear of “squatters,” adding to local mistrust.5 Topaz illustrates the opposite relationship of land development and water rights at Poston and Manzanar. The offer of temporary federal government help, and the absence of agribusiness interests in the water rights struggle, coupled with lowered economic expectations and perceptions of “race,” set the stage for a positive local perception of Japanese Americans. Topaz was chosen for different reasons although water and land development in the decades prior to internment remained important. Unlike Poston, the site was located in the “most river-deprived region” of the United States in the central portion of Utah near the town of Delta. Situated in the Sevier Desert, where annual rainfall averages for this region was less than eight inches, the land once blossomed under Euro-American farmers who took the land from Native Americans and turned it into a major alfalfa growing region in the state by the mid-1920s. But the land wilted when rainfall averages fell below normal in the mid-1930s, and many farmers went bankrupt, forfeiting their land to the Millard County

GOVERNORS AND THEIR ADVISERS

19

government as payment for delinquent taxes. In some portions of the county, the land left nearly half of all employable workers on welfare by 1938, and almost 90 percent of all farmers mortgaged their land or surrendered it to confiscation during the two previous years.6 Although Millard County officials were concerned about tax delinquency, they were more anxious about how successful neighboring county governments were in attracting federal and state government support for water and land development. County officials knew that eastern Millard County farmers were rebounding in 1938, with average farm incomes rising from less than five hundred dollars a year to $1,250, and with 90 percent of the population paying taxes. But they also knew that their ground water table had not recovered and worried that it would decrease, since thirty-nine Indians from the Kanosh Reservation at the edge of the county had legal rights to 1 percent of the water flow from Corn Creek. In 1936, the county purchased tracts of Euro-American-owned land to secure the rights. County officials also knew that Emery County next door had submitted a report in 1941 on the feasibility of building a 38,000acre foot reservoir to enlarge the water supply to the region, with an estimated cost of three-quarter million dollars and backed by the Utah governor, State Engineer, and Department of the Interior. As late as 1941, Millard County knew that the Sevier Desert was not even considered for state or federal government funds when other counties, such as Cache, Carbon, Daggett, Duchesne, Morgan, Salt Lake, Sanpete, Summit, Uintah, Wasatch, and Weber, were all surveyed. Also, Moab, Utah, located at the head of the Colorado River where the headquarters of the National Park Service was situated, was already chosen for a twenty-thousandgallon water storage site to be funded by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Without federal government help, Millard County officials feared losing the water project chase, as expressed by a perceptive individual in the town of Holden: “This is our last chance, and I want to say that [the lake] should be serving a better purpose than it is at present.”7 Intellectual trends in the American academy also shaped administrative management policy of the camps as much as land and water issues. Social scientists advising the camp administration brought with them concepts detaching the assumed links among “race,” “culture,” and “loyalty.” In the two decades prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, anthropologists in particular had challenged the idea of racial-biologically inherent differences as the primary determinant of human behavior, especially as applied by the Nazis. They used Franz Boas’s work as their ideological weapon even though he was not always consistent in his attack on “race.” They applauded Otto Klineberg’s empirical debunking of “race” and Ruth Benedict’s declaration that it was a useless concept for social scientists. They joined other Boas students, particularly Alfred

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Kroeber, Robert Lowie, and Paul Radin of the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, who, with others, disconnected biological and cultural evolutions and ushered in a modern, liberal racial ideology making “race” unimportant for predicting human behavior. And finally, they successfully transmitted their views to Japanese American graduate students whose research work would include the internment of the West Coast Japanese.8 Anthropologists also reconfigured “loyalty” apart from “race” and “culture.” Some, such as Ruth Benedict, pointed to “spoilage” or disaffection, to deflect unwarranted public scrutiny from immigrants, particularly those from Axis nations. In discussing groups most likely to collaborate with the enemy, Benedict debunked public suspicions of Axis governments using their own citizens residing in the United States for espionage and sabotage activities. Instead, she pointed to the American-born generation as those most likely to collaborate with the enemy since disaffection among them was strong: Our enemies are not fools. The fifth column is not to be found primarily among “enemy” aliens; for one thing, they are too easily controlled; for another, they have not the same legal rights as citizens. Did you know that noncitizens were not admitted to the German-American Bund? . . . The naturalized and even the native born citizen has proven a more fertile field for the cultivation of espionage and sabotage than the alien.9

Morris Opler carried forward Benedict’s view of “political loyalty” into the camps. He was a son of a businessman, born in 1907 in Buffalo, New York, where he received his baccalaureate degree at the outbreak of the Great Depression. He studied under Ruth Benedict before receiving his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1933, then landed a position as assistant anthropologist in the Office of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., three years later. He returned to the West Coast, first to Reed College in Portland, Oregon, then as an assistant professor at Claremont College in southern California, when he was asked to become the principal social scientist at Manzanar. He immediately applied those insights to Japanese Americans upon arrival in April 1943.10 Sociologists, too, found “generation” rather than “race” crucial for understanding Japanese American “loyalty.” They arrived at this conclusion in the early decades of the twentieth century after using the “assimilation” concept to explain changes in observed behavior patterns. Robert Park, in Race and Culture (1950), argued that African Americans, Polish immigrants, and Asian Americans all shared the same “race relations cycle,” a process of change beginning with contact, then competition and conflict, moving to accommodation, and culminating in assimilation of the minority group into the majority, which, for Park, was “progressive

GOVERNORS AND THEIR ADVISERS

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and irreversible.” Since the cycle occurred over “generations,” he disputed the notion of perpetual racial inferiority put forth by Francis Galton and debunked Henry Pratt Fairchild’s claim of biological incompatibility of the nonwhite races. Park’s ideas were further disseminated by his friend William I. Thomas, who, together with Florian Zaniecki, pointed out how Polish immigrants and, by logical extension, any other immigrant group, lost their behavioral differences after the rise of the new generation of American-born children. With the generational concept, Thomas and Zaniecki could invoke sympathy for Polish and other immigrants and preach tolerance of the different and “bad” traits of immigrants since they would be superseded by the “good” of the American-born “generation.” Thomas and Park’s ideas were used by the former’s wife, Dorothy Thomas, when she undertook a study of Japanese Americans under internment for the University of California, based on pre-internment studies done by former Park students.11 By highlighting marginal people, sociologists introduced another conceptual tool for understanding Japanese Americans beyond “race.” Everett Stonequist, a professor of sociology at Skidmore College, hypothesized that twentieth-century migration produced a person who moves from one social group to another and remains “at the margin of each but a member of neither,” not a result of intermarriage of different “races.” Rather, the Skidmore sociologist argued that they appeared wherever “cultural transitions and cultural conflicts” exist, developing “a kind of dual personality,” which he labeled as “marginal man.” Such individuals operating between two cultures, he believed, experience anxiety that in turn produces “an inner mental conflict—a conflict of loyalties.” That tension, Stonequist asserted, was a result of cultural rather than “racial” mixing.12 Using new “race” and “culture” concepts, some American social scientists applied their newfound insights to “marginal people” such as Japanese immigrants. As early as the second decade of the twentieth century, political economists such as Harry Millis argued that the Japanese were capable of “assimilation” since their cultural patterns of behavior were becoming “mainstream,” demonstrating the unstable connection between “race” and “culture.” Others, such as a Stanford University team a decade and a half later, utilized the assimilation concept on the American-born Japanese, finding, as Reginald Bell did, that Japanese Americans shared similar intelligence quotient test results and similar occupational aspirations as other Euro-Americans of comparable age. Edward Strong, in The Second-Generation Japanese Problem (1934), claimed that Japanese Americans were similar to European immigrants in that they were so far along the path of assimilation that both the behavior patterns and the problems they faced had little to do with “race” and more a problem of “generation.”13

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The belief in rapid adoption of American patterns of behavior and the separation of “culture” from “race” was facilitated by the lack of scholarly writings on “Japanese culture.” Few social scientists were trained in the language, and only slightly more had a working knowledge of the culture. They had little to draw from when it came to contrasting “Japanese” with “American” culture, and so they could not accurately measure the cultural distance Japanese Americans allegedly traversed. Social scientists therefore relied on secondary sources produced by missionaries or former residents in Japan, and especially on John Embree, author of Suye Mura (1939), because he was a rare scholar who lived and worked in a rural village similar to the homelands of Japanese immigrants. Hence, unlike scholars interested in China, they found themselves handicapped by few solid studies, and they had even less influence on U.S. foreign policy toward Japan and its immigration.14 Yet other social scientists and government administrators found the assimilation concept unsuitable for inclusion in their assault on “race.” Office of Indian Affairs (OIA) Director John Collier sought American Indian adoption of a material culture of the “modern” world but not “American” values and practices since the OIA had a history of failure with assimilation. His office was created in 1824 by Secretary of War John C. Calhoun but was transferred to the Department of the Interior in 1849 with an aim toward “civilizing” its clientele, insisting on their adoption of Euro-American ways in landownership, farming techniques, and family values. In Collier’s view, assimilation was merely a fig leaf for underhanded tactics in defrauding American Indians of their land, as had happened under the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887, whereby their landholdings shrank from 113 million acres in 1887 to 47 million acres by 1932. By placing land titles in tribal councils and reaffirming native cultures, Collier, Indian Affairs officials, and social scientists halted the expropriation of Indian land, dignified their indigenous customs, and took up the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act as a realistic approach in the 1930s when so few could leave the reservations and obtain jobs in the wider American society.15 Indian Affairs linked their affirmation of indigenous Indian cultures to praiseworthy “loyalty” to America. Collier lauded Indians for their contribution of land, savings, and skills “in the service of their country.” “In numbers,” the director said, “it is believed, [they are] exceeding the per capita contributions of any racial group, including the whites, [and] Indians are enlisting in the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard and the Army.” Collier estimated that approximately one in ten Native Americans between the ages twenty-one and thirty-five was already serving in the armed forces in 1942, heavily in the areas of signal intelligence and reconnaissance, and attributed this success to cultural heritage. “As

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scouts, runners, in signal work and in other fields,” the Collier boasted, “the modern Indian has demonstrated special aptitudes which are being rapidly recognized and utilized by their commanders.” American Indians, Collier pointed out, spoke in their own tribal dialect and thus could send or receive radio messages for the American military without worry of enemy interception. Those at home bought U.S. defense or war bonds and Treasury stamps and bonds, totaling $750,000. Eskimos sewed mukluks, cold weather parkas, for U.S. soldiers, and, the director claimed, even those who were bitterly opposed to the American government had joined it in the war against the Axis nations: The California Indians, at odds with the Federal Government since 1850, have patched up their differences and will support the United States in its war against the Axis. The Mission Federation, with 3,000 members from 30 reservations, telegraphed President Roosevelt and Governor Olson a message of loyalty and readiness to serve our great nation.16

The Office of Indian Affairs did more than offer praises. They sent some of their personnel to become top-level camp administrators and social scientists. Solon Kimball, one of Manzanar’s interim project directors after Roy Nash and predecessor to Ralph Merritt, came from the Indian Bureau. Born in 1909 as one of three children to Charles A. Kimball and Matie Toothaker of Manhattan, Kansas, the social scientist-turned-administrator received his baccalaureate degree from Kansas State University in 1930 before obtaining his masters and doctorate degrees from Harvard University in 1933 and 1936, respectively. He initially spent 1932 to 1933 doing anthropological research in Ireland, culminating in a book with Conrad Arensberg, Family & Community in Ireland (1940). He served as Section head for the Office of Indian Affairs at Window Rock, Arizona, from 1936 until 1942, studying and working with Navahos before his assignment to Manzanar.17 Collier and the OIA also created positions in the internment camps. They believed those sites offered a unique opportunity to research and test their understanding of Japanese culture for the war effort against Japan. The director pushed through his proposal to establish a Bureau of Sociological Research at the Colorado Reception Center in Poston, Arizona, for the expressed purpose of sharpening the U.S. Navy’s comprehension of Japanese psychology in preparation for the anticipated American occupation of Japan. As he said in his speech to Japanese Americans in November 1942, Poston was to become a colony in which democracy would be taught and experienced but also a place where social scientists could learn more about Japanese culture. Collier believed Poston’s Bureau of Sociological Research could serve a number of important functions. He believed it could primarily advise camp administrators on how best to

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govern the Japanese while at the same time provide training for Japanese Americans to serve in the Navy occupation forces in Japan and the Pacific Islands where Japanese populations were concentrated. To carry out this project, Collier selected Alexander Leighton, a psychiatrist from Johns Hopkins University hospital and Navy psychiatrist who was assigned to Pensacola, Florida, to work with fighter pilots in training. Collier then persuaded Rear Admiral Ross T. McIntire, Navy Surgeon General and personal physician to President Roosevelt, to sponsor the project. McIntire, in turn, reassigned Leighton to Poston, Arizona, based on an agreement forged with the Society for Applied Anthropology, the Department of the Interior, and the U.S. Navy.18 John Collier’s choice of Alexander Leighton and the research design of the bureau reflected the assumptions of many cultural anthropologists during World War II. Leighton was very highly educated, having earned undergraduate degrees from Princeton and Cambridge universities, and a medical doctor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University. He had work experience in the field of psychiatry, particularly with Native Americans. Leighton’s work with Navahos and Eskimos combined modern psychiatry with a healthy respect for indigenous cultures of Native Americans, and signaled an elevation of “culture” at the expense of “race,” a feature of Collier’s cultural pluralism. Moreover, Leighton’s design of the bureau fit with the Collier’s idea of applied anthropology in the service of directing racial minorities toward a significant role in the war effort. Hence, Collier had Leighton assigned as his adviser to the OIA by July 1941, and in June 1942 had him begin his camp study with a position in the hospital staff, directing his section to better service the physical and emotional needs of the internees. He worked out an arrangement with the University of Chicago to hold classes to train Poston bureau researchers, in which they could receive college course credits and become Navy officers for the planned American occupation of Japan.19 Joining Leighton’s Bureau of Sociological Research were other EuroAmericans with backgrounds in cultural anthropology. Edward H. and Rosamund B. Spicer quickly joined Leighton in Poston. Edward Spicer came from a progressive family background. His father, a Quaker, was an ultraliberal and raised his son in Arden, Delaware, a single-tax community based on the ideas of Henry George, whose outlook the elder Spicer passed on to his son. Edward joined a club called “The Radicals,” a name adopted because of the members’ espousal of socialism over capitalism. He was educated at the University of Chicago and worked with A. R. Radcliffe-Browne and Robert Redfield, but he was persuaded by John Provinse to join the WRA. He wound up in Poston rather than Washington, D.C., since it was near the site of his own research work in Mexico, which had been terminated due to security reasons.20

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Leighton’s bureau was not the only group studying the internees. The University of California authorized its own research unit to the concentration camps with Dorothy Swaine Thomas as its head. Thomas’s project, unlike Leighton’s, conceived of the internees as wartime refugees whose behavior patterns provide clues for managing the thousands of displaced refugees anticipated following the war. Thomas was a professor of rural sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, where, together with her sociologist husband, W. I. Thomas, she took an interest in racial minorities. They participated in the Carnegie Corporation-funded study of African Americans, headed by Gunnar Myrdal, and visited the concentration camps. Consistent with her liberal outlook, she recruited Japanese Americans from her own university, who were later confined mostly at Tule Lake, Poston, and Gila River.21 WRA Director Dillon Myer also appropriated the liberal ideas of the social scientists. As had many intellectuals, the director from the Midwest conceptually separated “race” from “loyalty” when it came to Japanese Americans. Myer was dismissive of the notion that “race” determined “loyalty,” saying, “These scientists will tell you that physical characteristics of race are inherited—we all know that, of course—but the idea that loyalty to Japanese institutions is somehow carried in the bloodstream is pure bunk.” Dillon argued New Englanders had no inherent advantage over the Nisei in American loyalty. In talking of his conception of “loyalty,” Myer told people that claims to American patriotism were the same for all: It means that in the struggle to become a good citizen the child born of an old New England family, and the Nisei youngster born in a relocation center, start out even. The New England child may get later advantages, but at the outset they both have the same notion of Americanism—exactly none at all. It is a creed they learn by practice in action.

Myer, however, insisted that “loyalty” was connected to “culture” because it is cultivated and nurtured only in a supportive environment: We believe that loyalty grows only when it is given a chance to grow, and it doesn’t flourish in an atmosphere of suspicion, discrimination, and denial of opportunity to practice that loyalty.22

Hence, the former Department of Agriculture bureaucrat, unlike his counterpart at the OIA, retained the link between “culture” and “loyalty,” thereby leaving himself unusually receptive to assimilationist ideas. Concern for rights of the less fortunate was a criterion in Myer’s selection of project directors. Roy Nash, the second center manager of Manzanar, was probably chosen because of his civil rights commitment. He believed in actively working on behalf of racial minorities, a logical

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outgrowth of his many experiences. After working on security issues in Brazil and having had contact with Filipinos and Japanese, and with Native Americans in Alaska for several years while he worked in the Department of the Interior, Nash emerged from a distinguished career as a board official for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and an activist for civil rights of minorities, and thus understood laws as requiring an occasional “stretching” or challenging to reform society. Roy Nash carried out his convictions in 1915, when he went undercover as a forestry expert to investigate arson incidents against African Americans in Cherokee County, Georgia. As a result of his efforts, the NAACP successfully halted deliberate attempts by certain Euro-Americans to drive out African Americans from the county to capture the labor market. Early the following year, Nash became the Secretary-Treasurer of the NAACP, a position he retained until he joined the army in 1917, serving as the first Euro-American officer in charge of an all–African American artillery unit. Nash’s service here and in a variety of organizations pushing for minority rights legitimized him in the eyes of the WRA.23 The former NAACP board member brought the same liberal attitudes to his work with his American Indians. He happened upon this work when a neighbor mentioned to him an opening in the Office of Indian Affairs. He was hired and became superintendent of the Sacramento Indian Agency, which had a large jurisdiction and a miniscule budget. Nash fought for better compensation, more jobs, and other benefits for American Indians in his jurisdiction comprising forty-three counties and nearly half of the twenty-five thousand California Indians. Nash remained a staunch liberal during his career, though he believed in using a blood percentage test to weed out Euro-Americans pretending to be California Indians, lampooning them as “Economic Indians.” He required applicants to be at least one-quarter Indian ancestry for admittance into the Indian school and in 1935 hired American Indians to occupy forty of forty-four positions in the Sacramento Indian Agency. Yet Nash was, as many WRA personnel were, an integrationist, fighting for the American Indian right to have their children attend local white schools.24 Others, such as Topaz Project Director Charles Ernst, were probably chosen for their extensive experience in social welfare work and political connections rather than their application of social sciences principles. After graduating from Harvard University in 1909, with future U.S. Attorney General Francis B. Biddle, he began his career at the prestigious South End House in Boston before moving on to the War Community Service in the New England Fuel Administration, the Department of Necessities of Life in Boston, and the National Recreation League. He went to Seattle to work for the Hood Rubber Company in 1924, but in 1931 he returned to

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social welfare working for the city’s Unemployment Relief Organization. Ernst also developed important political connections in the state of Washington through his management of the Self-Help and cooperative functions of the commissaries for the Department of Public Welfare for the State of Washington from 1935 to 1937 and was appointed by Governor Clarence Martin as head of the Department of Social Security for the state of Washington from 1937 to 1940. After being booted out by the incoming administration in 1940, he left for Washington, D.C., to work for the American Public Welfare Association while also serving the American National Red Cross in 1941, and coordinating welfare work in the eleven western states with the federal government’s national defense program through Paul V. McNutt, before joining the WRA the following year.25 Ernst’s management of welfare recipients was another factor in his selection as project director of Topaz. His managerial style, called “decentralized administration,” assumed that democracies treat welfare recipients as equals during hard times whereas primitive societies practice infanticide and fascist societies practice dictatorial social welfare. Therefore, Ernst frequently held discussions with welfare recipients regardless of political party affiliation or agenda, presenting both sides of an issue and encouraging citizen participation in social welfare even if “pressure groups” and “programmers” grabbed positions of power. Although accused by both parties of being “red”—he was a Republican but a liberal in the Progressive tradition—Ernst believed self-reliance was the answer for a healthy democracy, a view that fit well with many in the WRA: It is not for business to supplant private initiative in industry or in community life. Rather, government’s job is to get itself out of the relief job by doing what it can to strengthen the family group and permit the family to absorb its own kin. In the last analysis, government can only help people who help themselves.26

Still others were selected for their philosophical compatibility. Luther Hoffman, the project director who succeeded Charles Ernst at Topaz, joined Dillon Myer’s staff despite his connections with the Office of Indian Affairs. Like Myers, Hoffman was from the Midwest, hailing from Danville, Michigan, where he was born in 1898. He received his college degree from the University of Arizona, in 1933. Although Hoffman was an Indian Service agent in Kayenta, Arizona, in April 1935, he joined Myers in the Soil Conservation Service of the Department of Agriculture before moving to the Navajo Reservation at Window Rock, Arizona, where he became district supervisor in May 1939, then assistant superintendent of Window Rock Reservation in June 1942. Three months later, Hoffman rejoined Myers when he worked on establishing the Gila River Relocation Center in Arizona, serving as Chief of Community Manage-

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ment up to December 1942 then deputy project director until he was reassigned to Washington, D.C., where he became assistant chief of the Relocation Division. He made numerous field trips, inspecting conditions at various camps before being reassigned once again, this time to Topaz, Utah, in 1944.27 Mid-level administrators, however, were chosen by project directors for their ability to carry out special tasks. Russell Bankson’s work experience in the newspaper business made him a logical choice for Topaz Project Reports Officer. He seemed almost destined to be a commercial freelance writer, having written novels on the American West, where he was born in 1889 in Idaho and where his squatter parents conflicted with lumber companies over the land. Bankson grew up in eastern Washington, where he attended and graduated from Washington State College and became the city editor for the Spokane Daily Chronicle from 1924 to 1927, after which he did freelance writing on the Grand Coulee Dam in the northeastern corner of the state of Washington near the Canadian border and reported on other events of regional significance. Bankson was a prolific writer: between 1932 and 1941, he sold about three hundred short stories, novelettes, serials to pulps, with a sprinkling of sales to top magazines; and he had five Western books published—Riders of the Breaks (1931); Bitter Grass (1933), Riders of the Badlands (1934), which was distributed worldwide, and The Klondike Nugget (1935). While working for the War Relocation Authority as the Reports Officer at Topaz, he wrote manuals for the armed forces, and continued for several years after the war, writing for the navy.28 Bankson was not chosen for his predisposition to view Japanese Americans sympathetically. He was insensitive toward Chinese Americans, describing railroad workers among them as “yellow wheelbarrow legions working on the railroads,” but he favored the Japanese in general by characterizing them as “polite” and “always wanting to repay any good deed received.” Bankson failed to see the connection between Japanese Americans and his expressed sympathy for the townspeople, mainly EuroAmericans, forced to relocate during the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam—a “relocation” of some three thousand people out of ten towns along the banks of the Columbia River—without so much as a “beg your pardon” or “by your leave.” He wrote with passion about the townspeople of Kettle Falls, Meyers Falls, and Marcus, lionizing them in a manner that he would not do for the Japanese: Perhaps no more amazing example of this courageous spirit of “never say die” could be found than that of the three towns of Kettle Falls, Meyers Falls and Marcus. For here is an amazing tale of frustrated ambition, of grim struggle for existence, and of hope that in its real life enactment rivals somewhat that glamorous old Egyptian legend of the phoenix bird, which at regu-

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lar intervals was consumed in the flames of a self-generated fire, to arise from the ashes of that fire in a youthful, vigorous and beautiful reincarnation of its own image.29

Unlike Nash or Bankson, lower-level administrators were not chosen at all for their liberal attitudes or special talents. Most likely, they were pulled from the regional labor market pool where their attitudes reflected many locals’ unwillingness to distinguish “race” and “culture” from “loyalty.” At Manzanar, most of the thirty-one whose backgrounds are known were in their mid-to-late forties, married, and differed little from their bosses in that regard. Moreover, they were not any more tied to the U.S. Army than their superiors, since only a quarter of them (23%) had served in the armed forces of the United States. Their annual salaries with a median of $2,540 made them more likely to adopt the attitude of maintaining their jobs rather than trying to alleviate suffering, as opposed to how many of their bosses had defined their positions. Moreover, nearly all of them had no college education, which would have exposed them to “race” as Franz Boas and his disciples taught. But more than salaries and education, their roots in these local communities made them feel distant with federal government officials and policies. Two out of five claimed California as their place of birth, with the states west of the Mississippi River and east of the Sierra Nevadas holding the remainder. Over two-thirds of them (68 percent, however, listed California as their home address. With such strong ties to local residents, administrative employees absorbed largely negative attitudes toward Japanese Americans, failing to distinguish them from those in Japan. Anna T. Kelley, first-aid station attendant at Manzanar, recalled her reaction and that of her peers’ to Manzanar internees: “The damn Japs. Why do we have to have them here?” Henry W. Smith, fiscal officer for Poston, was even more antagonistic toward the very people he was hired to service. Born and raised in Texas, Smith came to Poston because of his strong local connections. He resided in nearby Parker rather than Poston and was not hired for his education since it “seems not to have been too full,” an apt expression for the fact that he hadn’t graduated high school even though he took some courses at Texas A&M College and studied engineering for a year. After working as a manager of a trading post and various construction companies, Smith landed a job doing the payroll, earning an annual salary of $3,800 but also the ire of many Poston Japanese for his deliberate delay of their paychecks. He once called them “monkeys” and maintained a “hostile attitude” until he was forced to resign in 1943. His nastiness contributed to the tension between lower administrators on the one side, and the top-level administrators of the OIA, the WRA, and social scientist advisors on the other, with each side accusing the other of being “mollycoddlers” and “prison-labor bosses.”30

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American public opinion of the enemy on the eve of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, however, was more antagonistic toward Germans rather than Japanese. They imagined Axis espionage and sabotage activities taking place on the American continent so that nearly half of them believed a Fifth Column operation was underway in their respective communities, according to a June 1940 Gallup poll. Their fear of Axis operations in the United States first began with alarmist writers such as Sinclair Lewis, whose novel It Can’t Happen Here (1936) warned Americans of the possible danger fascism posed, and placed fifth on a bestseller list for that year. They were reminded in the late 1930s by the Black Tom Island and the Canadian Car and Foundry Company at Kingsland, New Jersey, of the danger of German arson and attacks on bridges, canals, defense plants, and shipping facilities in the United States and Canada during World War I. Worse, Americans in the West realized that they too were not immune, after revelations that Franz Bopp, German Consul in San Francisco, directed the smuggling of German reserve officers past the British blockade and was connected with the sabotage of gunpowder in Tacoma destined for Russia.31 Cutbacks in budgets added to the worries of federal government agency officials charged with preventing fifth columnist activities. The sense of urgency was fueled by the memory of the World War I industrial strikes in Canada, police strikes in London, British Army and Navy mutinies, and incidents of letter bombs and mass deportation of aliens under U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. But it was also exacerbated by the knowledge that the British MI5 personnel had dropped from eight hundred in 1913 to thirteen by 1930, and that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police ranks dwindled from 1,680 in 1920 to 963 barely seven years later, making large quantities of intelligence data for the Allies harder to come by. The FBI also had its General Intelligence Division curtailed after being censured heavily for its antiradical suppression program. With these personnel cutbacks, federal government officials relied on intelligence data from the British and Canadians at a time when the quantity if not quality was likely to decline, making them vulnerable to disinformation by British intelligence “black propaganda” preying on their fears. Instead of exposing them, Roosevelt and his cabinet officers used those fifth columnist fears to beat down their isolationist critics. J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, too, exploited the spy trials to promote a positive image of their domestic surveillance activities and their jurisdictional boundaries.32 But the assumed linkage of “culture” and “loyalty” lay at the root of all their fears. With some thirty-five million immigrants and their American-born offspring, many of German origin, federal government officials confronted their own attitudes toward the relationship between loyalty and German culture and, by logical extension, Japanese culture. Would

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the German, Japanese, and Italian immigrants engage in questionable activities in support of the Axis countries? Some were generous, believing retention of homeland culture did not heighten the risk of disloyalty, while others disagreed and sought to keep tabs on the ethnics in the United States.33 Political activities by German aliens and U.S. citizens brought into question their loyalty in the eyes of federal government officials. Some joined the German-American Bund, an organization recruiting mostly German nationals and naturalized American citizens. The Bund’s eightpoint program raised eyebrows because it included a call for “a socially just, white, Gentile-ruled United States” in “all positions of importance in government, national defense, and educational institutions,” condemnation of Jews and communists, and isolationism as the government’s foreign policy. The Bund’s leader, Fritz Kuhn heightened skepticism after his February 1939 “Pro-American” rally at Madison Square Garden, where he declared before a thirty-foot portrait of George Washington that Hitler was Germany’s equivalent of the First President. But others, such as those in Friends of New Germany, set off alarms when a naturalized American citizen member, Ignatz Griebl, was caught in 1936 and tried two years later for spying on the United States while serving in the U.S. Army medical reserve.34 Suspicions of Italian Americans’ loyalty to the United States also persisted, though fear of a military threat from Italy seemed remote. By 1940, Italian Americans in Los Angeles felt the pull of Benito Mussolini’s propaganda. They successfully pushed for high school Italian language courses, college credits for them, and an Italian literature class at the University of Southern California. Their language textbooks were pro-Fascist in the late 1930s and a number of them joined the Italian armed forces in the war against Ethiopia. In Los Angeles, many others sent donated money and scrap copper metal to Italy in 1935. Some in the North Beach section of San Francisco allegedly wore the uniform of Balilla, the Italian Fascist youth club, and proudly displayed pictures of Benito Mussolini everywhere. Only after Italy joined the Axis Alliance in 1939 and the Smith Act passed in 1940 did Italians start to apply in large numbers for U.S. citizenship and held well-attended citizenship classes; even though Italian American newspapers, some 80 percent of the 120 Italian-language vernaculars, were still pro-Fascist, and openly embraced Italian war victories as their own.35 Despite public fears, FBI officials initially adopted a benign treatment of Japanese aliens. As early as 1916, the FBI, known then as the Bureau of Investigation, tried to recruit Japanese Americans to spy on their coethnics and conduct covert assassinations against Mexican independence leaders. When General John Pershing and his Punitive Expedition was

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sent across the border without Mexican officials’ permission to capture or kill Pancho Villa for his raids across the border, bureau agents enlisted the help of four Japanese immigrants living in the southwest to track Pancho Villa and assassinate him with poison. The Japanese immigrants were recruited by the bureau because they were able to travel freely throughout Mexico, and these four attempted to poison the Mexican independence leader but failed. Thereafter, one of them was offered a job spying on the Japanese immigrant community in southern California.36 Once J. Edgar Hoover took over in 1924, however, bureau officials assumed Japanese immigrant leaders’ loyalty was suspect. They shifted their outlook in part because the declining budgetary allowances forced them to find a method, however crude, for identifying potential agents. Instead of interagency cooperation, the FBI instead chose to automate its investigative techniques and launched a new, systematic screening of civil servants and industrial workers. The bureau had a fingerprint collection of ten million and used an IBM tabulating machine to do the work, effecting a security screening system more stringent than that of Great Britain. Then Hoover convinced President Roosevelt to restrict domestic intelligence operations by the navy to ports, and the army to end its domestic intelligence in an agreement hammered out in 1939. The director soon got his budget increased several fold, and expanded the number of field agents from 898 in 1940 to 4,886 by 1945, all the while stoking the fifth columnist fears in the mass media with well-timed news releases. The bureau compiled its list of potential saboteurs and espionage agents among ethnic community leadership, reflecting its unwillingness to separate culture from political loyalty. Hence, it closely scrutinized Buddhist and Shinto¯ priests, Japanese theater troupe leaders, and sports organizational leaders and placed them all on their list of suspects. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, the FBI swiftly moved to arrest those on its lists.37 Unlike the FBI, the U.S. Navy gradually came around to seeing culture, not race, as the determinant of loyalty. Initially, however, many of them believed race the more significant factor. As early as World War I, the navy viewed with alarm the Japanese presence in Latin America largely because of perceived American vulnerability in the event enemy agents were to sabotage the Panama Canal. It scrutinized Japanese ship movements in the region, and when in 1915 a Japanese war vessel, the ninethousand-ton Asama Maru ran aground at Puerto San Bartolome in Baja, California, some three-hundred miles south of San Diego, the navy panicked, surmising a secret Japanese base was under construction. But in the decade preceding their Pearl Harbor fiasco, the Navy began distinguishing race from loyalty. The office personnel of the Fourteenth Naval District in Hawaii recruited Nisei to spy on Japanese Americans and assist in counterintelligence work in 1941. The Thirteenth Naval District in the

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Seattle area focused its attention on Clarence Arai, JACL leader and lawyer from Seattle, but ignored the Bainbridge Islanders, whom they would later remove. The Eleventh Naval District, based in San Diego with branch offices in Los Angeles and San Pedro, spied on the local Japanese, kept an extensive file system, accruing by 1940 some five thousand cards on potentially dangerous Japanese, and shadowed various Japanese organizations and their membership, noting anyone speaking favorably of Japan. Moreover, from 1937 the district canvassed all Japanese fishing boats in its jurisdiction in conjunction with the Coast Guard, producing copious notes on exact specifications and descriptions, along with photographs of every ship, the owners, and operators but paying far less attention to other Japanese in the region.38 Japanese language training further distanced the Navy idea of race from loyalty. The brass began sending their officers to the American Embassy in Tokyo on a rotational basis for language training in the mid-1920s, but they also gained sea training and familiarity with the navy’s listening posts in Guam, the Philippines, and Shanghai, established in the latter half of the 1920s. Their program appeared successful, as their agents broke into the Imperial Japanese Railway branch office in New York City and stole the diplomatic codes for the Red Machine and Purple Machine, yielding spy operations in the Panama Canal by passengers on Japanese merchant marine ships. But once the office expanded its language training, and based it domestically, it became partially dependent on Japanese Americans instructors. By September 1940, there were about a half dozen Japanese-language instructors at the University of California teaching extension courses to twenty-two Caucasian navy officers. These numbers increased so that by mid-June 1942, when the Navy Intelligence Language School moved to Boulder, Colorado, it had 150 instructors teaching Japanese, Chinese, and Russian to over six hundred students.39 Naval intelligence added the generation concept to the widening gap between race and loyalty. Kenneth Ringle typified this outlook on Japanese Americans. He spent three years studying the Japanese language as a naval language student attached to the American Embassy in Tokyo, from 1928 to 1931 and worked in 1936 as an Assistant District Intelligence Officer at the Fourteenth Naval District office in Hawaii. Ringle did another tour of duty in the same capacity for the Eleventh Naval District in Los Angeles in July 1940 and applied the generational concept to Japanese Americans. He found it useful to correlate adherence to Japanese “culture” with the number of years most recently spent in Japan to determine loyalty, and concluded that those of the Japan-born generation were “passively loyal” to the United States because they had resided in the United States since at least 1924, and had been subjected to the Americanizing influence of their own American-born children, three-quarters of

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whom, he estimated, were loyal to the United States. “It should likewise be recognized that American influences,” Ringle proclaimed, “have affected these issei, consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, constantly since that time.” The problem people, he therefore surmised, were the eight- to nine thousand “Kibei,” whom he defined as American-born Japanese who spent a minimum of three years in Japan between ages thirteen and twenty. He labeled them “dangerous” and thought some were planted by the Japanese government: It is my belief that this group—the kibei—includes those persons most dangerous to the peace and security of the United States. It seems logical to assume that any child of Japanese parents, who was returned to Japan at an early age, grew up there, studied in Japanese schools, possibly did military service in the Japanese army or navy, and then as an adult returned to the United States, is at heart a loyal citizen of Japan, and . . . may very probably have been deliberately planted by the Japanese government.40

In contrast to the navy, War Department officials suspected all Japanese Americans. They continued to equate race with culture, and presumed loyalty was a logical outgrowth of the latter for several reasons. In the first place, the War Department, particularly the U.S. Army, lacked necessary intelligence data on Imperial Japanese espionage operations in the United States due to an agreement hammered out in 1939 entrusting domestic surveillance to the FBI and ONI. The War Department found Hoover especially uncooperative after he accused its Military Intelligence Division of using its own informant system within war industrial plants in violation of the agreement. It thought ONI’s information possibly unreliable after the 1941 Tachibana spy case revealed how little the foremost experts knew about Japanese intelligence operations in North America. Furthermore, officials in both the War and Justice departments had little confidence in the reliability of civilian investigator Curtis Munson, whose assertions of Japanese American loyalty lacked authority.41 Moreover, the personal experiences of key figures played important roles in the War Department’s continued equation of race with loyalty. John J. McCloy, Assistant Secretary of War under Henry L. Stimson, distrusted the legal route in dealing with national security. A graduate of Harvard Law School in 1921 and full partner of the prestigious firm Cravath, deGersdorff, Swaine, and Wood, he became disillusioned by the difficulties he encountered in prosecuting those responsible for the sabotage of World War I American munitions factories in the Black Tom case. His case involved German espionage and sabotage of U.S. and Canadian war industries and after a decade of fruitless pursuit, he was willing to break the law to prevent similar occurrences. In fall 1940, McCloy and

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Robert Patterson, Undersecretary of War, suggested the formation of an extra-legal “suicide squad” within the FBI to engage in “wire-tapping, stealing evidence, break-ins, unlimited search [and] seizures, dictaphone usage, etc.,” prompting Attorney General Robert Jackson to write McCloy a blistering letter.42 General John L. DeWitt, another key figure, may have raised departmental fears of fighting the Japanese on U.S. soil based on personal experience. At first glance, his background does not suggest a tendency toward alarmist thinking. His father, a Princeton University graduate and former Civil War infantry captain, served as medical officer during the army’s successful removal of the Ute Indians, while his brothers were also generals and his younger brother served “with distinction” during World War I. Although a success in his own right—DeWitt claimed a master’s degree from Princeton and was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, French Legion of Honor—he learned the value of keeping the battlefront away from American shores after he served as the Chief of Staff of the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I, and as a technical expert with the State Department’s negotiation team at the Geneva Arms Limitation Conference thereafter. He combined that strategic approach with a fear of the Japanese when, after winning a promotion to the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1920, he worked on army defense plans for registration of all enemy aliens and selective internment of those deemed a security risk on Oahu, Hawaii in 1923. His two tours of duty in the Philippines, one in 1899 and the other after the Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5, may have reinforced his misgivings, but DeWitt’s concern about the Japanese probably hardened after he made additional visits to the Philippines, once in 1910 and on a fourth tour of duty in 1935–37, when Japanese immigration to the Islands had reached its peak and war in China brought Japanese ship movements past the Islands.43 Karl R. Bendetsen made his own contribution to departmental sensitivity over its West Coast vulnerability. His experience prior to the war involved wartime mobilization, coastal defenses, and how legally to deal with enemy aliens. His interest in the former two began early when he illegally joined (he was under age) the Washington State National Guard at age fourteen, in the 248th Coast Artillery Battalion, in the state where he was born and raised. After graduating from Stanford University in 1929, and its law school in 1932, he moved to Aberdeen, Washington, to practice law but took greater interest in national security issues after participating in field artillery exercises as a reserve officer, when he learned firsthand the inadequacy of Pacific Coast defenses. He joined others in Washington, D.C., successfully lobbying Congress to revive the draft in 1940 and then was ordered to active duty at Fort Lewis, Washington. He joined the general staff of the Ninth Service Command before moving on

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to the Military Affairs Section of the Judge Advocate General’s office, where he worked in the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-1, on the reinstitution of the Military Police and the Provost Marshal General, and how to deal with enemy aliens from Germany and Japan since they were not signatories of the Geneva Convention. As Special Representative of the Secretary of War, Bendetsen consulted Admiral Kimmel and General Short on preparations for dealing with enemy aliens in Hawaii, and on his return to Washington, D.C., discovered that he had escaped the Pearl Harbor attack by a mere two days.44 And finally, the War Department’s own language training program failed to take root early enough to undermine the conflation of “race” with “loyalty.” General DeWitt planned a Japanese-language training program for his intelligence section in 1941 but the War Department removed it to Colorado before it could influence army officers’ outlook on Japanese Americans. The general appointed John Weckerling as Chief of the Intelligence Branch of the Western Defense Command and Fourth Army and commandant of the Fourth Army Intelligence School because of his language training in Tokyo and his service as an assistant military attache in 1934. DeWitt backed the proposal to base the school in Presidio and utilize American-born Japanese in the San Francisco area, with a scheduled opening for November 1, 1941. Before the end of that month, they had some sixty students and eight instructors meeting in an obsolete airplane hangar at Crissy Field in the Presidio. But DeWitt insisted that the Military Intelligence Language School relocate out of his prohibited Military Zone to a location twenty miles from Minneapolis, Minnesota in late spring 1942.45 When it came to Japanese Americans, Army officers too, assumed that culture determined loyalty. They believed that all individuals educated in Japan who returned to the United States were suspect and should be interned at the outbreak of war. A Colonel Cross argued that many of those American-born citizens, or Kibei, were recruited by Japanese agents when they were ages thirteen to twenty and had a minimum of three years of indoctrination: [W]e must assume that any American citizen of Japanese—or if the test is carried to its logical conclusion, any enemy—ancestry must be suspect as potentially dangerous to the internal peace and security of the country if he falls within the category outline. It is my considered opinion that such persons must be considered guilty until proven innocent beyond a reasonable doubt. . . . Furthermore, the parents or guardians who sent him back to Japan must have done so for a reason. What is that reason? They must have wished him to grow up to be at heart a Japanese subject. Are not they then equally suspect?46

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Influential federal government officials, however, were less united in how enemy aliens and their American-born offspring should be treated than were the army and navy. Top administrators within the State Department, for example, distrusted enemy aliens in general but opposed mass internment. After war broke out in September 1939, Adolph Berle, Assistant Secretary of the State Department, asserted loyalty stemmed from “100% Americanism,” and thus favored limited control over enemy aliens and their American-born offspring. They sought registration of all citizens of Axis nations, limits on their political activities, and increased surveillance of those deemed security risks. The Foreign Nationalities Branch within the Coordinator of Information (later known as Office of Strategic Service) section, however, called for equal treatment as American citizens, based on interviews of exiled European political leaders and members of American ethnic organizations. Branch head DeWitt Clinton Poole thought ethnicity could play a large role in propaganda warfare against the Axis Powers and admonished against strict controls over them, arguing that they provide a good counterexample to Axis claims of a divided America.47 Justice Department officials, however, were more unified in their outlook. Headed by U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle, department officials in general opposed plans for mass internment of enemy aliens, preferring instead selective, individual arrests. To that end, the Justice Department established in 1939 the Special Defense Unit with Lawrence M. C. Smith in charge. Their unit gathered intelligence reports and prepared plans to screen and intern some of those enemy aliens. Biddle then placed Edward Ennis in charge of the Alien Enemy program to work with Smith in establishing enemy alien internment camps. This attitude, which Biddle hoped would characterize the Department’s dealings should war break out, was one of fairness, “what ever [the enemy alien’s] racial or national origin.”48 Presidential advisory committees created by Roosevelt also agreed with the Justice Department’s approach to handling Japanese Americans. Project M, a group of social scientists headed by cultural anthropologist Dr. Henry Field of Chicago, advised the president on the political impact of the anticipated migration of millions of displaced people that was expected to follow the end of World War II. Field also reported on Japanese Americans in Hawaii, Canada, the United States, and northern Mexico and found that they posed no threat to national security. Project researchers also delivered to federal government officials the addresses of all Japanese in the United States and Mexico, in addition to the total number of Japan-educated among them. “This order has the highest priority and should be considered TOP SECRET,” Field recalled the president telling him, after receiving assurances that the Director of the Bureau of the Cen-

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sus would cooperate in providing confidential information from 1930 and 1940 U.S. censuses. Within 150 hours of the presidential order, Field completed the list of names and addresses that were then distributed to governors, military commanders, and the FBI a couple of days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. While census officials would later deny that they violated their own confidentiality rules, Project researchers took pride in their accomplishment made possible by the Census Bureau’s obvious collaboration. Field claimed that the Project’s work allowed the FBI to round up quickly suspected Japanese Americans, “reducing the possibilities of nation-wide sabotage.” In 1945 John Carter testified, “This survey was a success,” but hastened to add, “its value was partly negated by ill-considered Army decisions after Pearl Harbor.”49 Despite Project’s M’s advice, President Roosevelt was closer to the army’s position when it came to governing Japanese Americans that. He distrusted them in general but planned to intern at the outbreak of war only those whose loyalty was suspect. As early as 1936, Roosevelt told the chief of naval operations that he wanted all Japanese Americans contacting any Japanese ship docked in Hawaii removed from Oahu to another island if war broke out. At the suggestion of G. J. Rowcliff, of the Judge Advocate General’s office, Roosevelt apparently considered abrogating the 1911 Commercial Treaty with Japan to remove its legal protection against internment. The president also wanted to conscript and move the loyal civilian populations based on war labor needs, as was done in both Allied and Axis Power countries. Roosevelt had federal government officials planning the internment of enemy aliens, as evident by his request of Corps Area Commanders to submit budget and personnel estimates for interning enemy aliens in their respective regions by early 1941. But his plans were leaked to the press in fall 1941, and the New York Times ran an article on it, complete with photographs of one of the camps, Camp Upton in the state of New York. President Roosevelt had similar ideas for removal of Japanese Americans on Oahu to other islands of lesser importance in the Hawaiian archipelago.50 Presidential plans for selective internment of Japanese Americans to deter Japanese agents from espionage and sabotage were clearly a mistake. Most agents operating on behalf of the Axis Powers were not Japanese, and the known few who spied on Japan’s behalf were almost all Euro-Americans, not Japanese Americans. By early February 1941, there were very few cases of Japanese espionage, as compared with those of Germans and Italians. The U.S. Army found few cases of its military personnel involved in the sale of military secrets to Japan. The U.S. Army Corps arrested for subversion only 369 military personnel in its nine districts and the Panama Canal Zone. Of these, 220 were labeled “Nazi,” while only two cases were listed as Japanese. The same was true for the

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civilian personnel figures as well. Of the 254 cases, 121 were labeled “Nazi,” ninety as “unknown,” but only one as “Japanese.” Most of these individuals were inept Euro-Americans, such as Harry Thompson, arrested in 1936 for selling data on West Coast naval vessels, their movements, personnel, and equipment to Toshio Miyazaki, a naval intelligence officer posing as an English student at Stanford University. John Semer Farnsworth, nicknamed “Dodo”—a reference to his apparent lack of intellectual acumen—was another former serviceman selling codebooks, documents, photos, signal books, blueprints, maps, models, notes, instruments, and other items of possible worth to the Japanese intelligence officers for $20,000.51 However misguided, Roosevelt’s fears were not without merit. A handful of Japanese Americans were involved in gathering intelligence for Japan. In June 1941, Toraichi Kono, former valet for famed Hollywood actor Charles Chaplin, was arrested with Imperial Japanese Navy Lieutenant Commander Itaru Tachibana, a language student at the University of Pennsylvania. Tachibana, who hired six informants to gather information on American naval ship movements, aircraft output, and other wartime production information useful to the Japanese military. Although both men were released rather than prosecuted, on grounds of “high policy,” other Japanese Americans may also have cooperated with the Japanese Consulate in collecting information on American war capabilities and movements of military personnel and equipment. “We have already established contacts with absolutely reliable Japanese in the San Pedro and San Diego area,” Kenji Nakauchi boasted to the Foreign Minister in Tokyo, adding, “who will keep a close watch on all shipments of airplanes and other war materials, and report the amounts and destinations of such shipments.”52 As both Japan and the United States increased their respective intelligence gathering in preparation for war, the question regarding Japanese Americans as a potential threat loomed ever larger. Who was correct? Were social scientists accurate in their assessment of Japanese Americans as no threat either for espionage or sabotage, based on their conceptual separation of “race” on the one hand, from “culture” and “loyalty” on the other? Were military officials correct in saying there was no reliable method of determining “loyalty” to prevent espionage and sabotage at a time when their counterintelligence and coastal defense preparations were woefully inadequate? Or was the correct perspective held by those federal and state government officials who took a guardedly optimistic view of Japanese American loyalty?

2 THE GOVERNED: JAPANESE AMERICANS AND POLITICS, 1880–1942

A

LTHOUGH SOME in federal government and military circles liberalized their understanding of “race,” “culture,” and “loyalty,” many California Japanese headed in the opposite direction. To be sure, many of their leaders, the Japanese Association officials, the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), and the small handful of Nisei social scientists also made the distinction, but quite a few of their peers opposed this conceptual gap even though they stood to benefit from it, setting the stage of conflict once they were interned. Instead, the latter followed popular trends in Japan toward fusing “race” with “culture” and “political loyalty” as they built their intra-ethnic political organizations and infused them with democratic practices in the two decades prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. As a testament to how extensive democracy was, their community politics was often contentious and their image of ethnic solidarity or factional disputes along generational lines was more apparent than real. They were also divided by class, immigration status, occupation, prefectural origins, regionalism, and gender, fissures readily apparent in their struggle with one another for political control over the right to speak for and determine the direction of the California Japanese community. The racial formation process they experienced, combined with their varying political practices and intra-ethnic divisions, set the stage for conflict once they were incarcerated in wartime concentration camps.1 Imperial Japanese governmental elites adopted a position closest to the social scientists’ view of race, culture, and loyalty, a stance consistent with their high status accorded to them within the Japanese American community. Having the most contact with the central government in Tokyo, they were part of the “Imperial Democracy” of Japan, a form of government that was essentially undemocratic since the emperor held veto power over all legislative measures, the majority of the populace was disenfranchised, and the appointed government bureaucrats were Japan’s elite university graduates. Although early consulate officials such as Charles W. Brooks, the first honorary consulate in San Francisco, California in 1870, wrote sympathetically of Japanese immigrants, staff members of the offices in Los Angeles and Seattle scorned their working-class counterparts, castigating them for abandoning “Japanese” ways for “Chinese” gambling,

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prostitution, and blaming them for exacerbating U.S.-Japan relations. But after their Imperial Japanese Foreign Ministry superiors terminated labor immigration with the Gentlemen’s Agreement in 1907, the consulate officials propagated the idea that all “Japanese,” as defined by blood and cultural ties (language, citizenship), owed their “loyalty” to the central government, and so consulate personnel suppressed the Japanese American labor union and communist leaders’ “disloyal” smuggling of Communist International literature on ships from San Francisco to Japan in the 1930s. The consulate hired Edwin N. Atherton and Associates to investigate persons on their “Name List of Dangerous Characters” in spring 1938 and, on at least two separate occasions, secretly paid five hundred dollars to a staff member of the Martin Dies Committee, for information. To influence the American-born Japanese, consulate officials subsidized Japanese-language schools in the United States and recruited them for training at a special school in Tokyo to serve the central government’s propaganda aims as expressed in the Do¯mei, the official Japanese news agency. Yet these officials were willing to bend “race” by allowing the second-generation Japanese to renounce Japanese citizenship, and allow exigencies to reshape “loyalty” to partially finance the JACL, a political body committed to permanent settlement and American patriotism. “As this body was regarded as being pro-American,” a former Japanese Embassy official admitted, “any support given by the Japanese Government would be for extremely ulterior motives.”2 A handful of Japanese Americans shared much in common with the consulate’s outlook. Establishing the “Greater Japanese Association,” these leaders followed the lead of the Consul-General Sutemi Chinda of San Francisco in 1891 as he presided over the association and promoted a positive image of Japan among Euro-Americans. They reorganized themselves as the Japanese Association of America after the 1907 Gentlemen’s Agreement with the purpose of assisting the Consulate in handling the required certificate of residency for Japanese immigrants traveling to and from Japan, transactions that enriched their local chapters’ coffers. They drove out radicals in their midst, as in the case of the Berkeley, California chapter in 1909, where they limited their leadership core to a small minority of intellectuals, students, and professionals. And finally, association leaders followed the consulate’s policy of discouraging dual citizenship, sending in 1915 a petition to the Imperial Diet requesting an amendment in the Japanese Nationality Law to allow parents of American-born Japanese to renounce their children’s Japanese citizenship conferred at birth, a measure they succeeded in obtaining nine years later.3 The association leaders’ stance is not surprising in view of their elite socioeconomic status within the immigrant community. Besides having close connections with the consulate, leaders of the Japanese Association

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of America individually amassed considerable wealth and power. Former president Kinji Ushijima, also known as George Shima the Potato King, had a net worth of $15 million when he died in 1926, and his association council in 1908 had thirteen businessmen, a doctor, a minister, a wellknown wealthy farmer named Kinzo¯ Watanabe. Eight of the seventeen seats on his council were reserved for those who gave a hundred dollars or more upon entry into this exclusive group and thirty-six dollars annually thereafter, a substantial sum of money beyond the means of average Japanese immigrants. In addition, the San Francisco Japanese Association reserved seats on its executive board for the three large Japanese corporations in the city, including Yokohama Species Bank, Mitsui Bussan, and To¯yo¯ Kisen Kaisha, positions that were appointed, not elected.4 The Japanese Association’s top-down approach to immigrant politics was further reinforced by the weight of political tradition. Prior to immigration, most Japanese Americans had not experienced much democracy, since in their home villages, voting privileges belonged to a few household heads. Seating in village mass meetings was done according to status with the lowest status members sitting in the back and expected to remain silent. Women were relegated solely to a support status and participated only in the local women’s association. Whenever elections were held, men of affluence served on the village council, with generally the weakest among them serving as village chief. Council members held executive, legislative, and judicial powers since their decisions were often based on unwritten laws and customs. And finally, the village political system used at the turn of the twentieth century had two different classes of eligible voters. At the time, suffrage was limited to males, age twenty-five years or older, who paid an annual tax of two yen or more, and who had lived in that geographic area for at least two years. This meant that only about a tenth of Japan’s total population were qualified to vote, and even among those who qualified, the ones who paid large amounts in taxes became the only ones allowed to serve in upper-level political offices. Membership within the village council was a long six years while the term for mayors and vice-mayors lasted four years. Worse, the situation for average Japanese voters was deteriorating since an increasing population pushed upward land prices, which, coupled with declining prices for rice, meant they had to work harder to grow more crops to maintain their incomes, further reducing their chances for office even though new laws favoring them rather than landlords were introduced in the 1930s.5 Although Impererial Japanese governmental elites were undemocratic, “average” Japanese Americans had experience with democracy. Many of the early Japanese immigrants who kept abreast with developments in their homeland villages could not help noticing the trend toward wider political participation in village politics in the late 1920s. They read

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about individuals other than large landowners joining village council membership, especially after 1926 when universal manhood suffrage was extended to local government elections. They knew of many small landowners and part-tenant farmers becoming village council members, allowing tenant farmers to form Agricultural Land Committees to investigate rent hikes, as well as introducing new Imperial Japanese laws designed to halt the upward spiral of agricultural land prices. While no land reform was in sight, at least California Japanese could take heart in new Imperial Japanese legislation in the 1930s favoring tenant farmers and argue for a similar widening of political participation on their side of the Pacific Rim.6 Perhaps with these democratic trends in mind, Japanese Association leaders established their own political rules of governance. San Francisco Japanese Association officials propagated a myth of a Japanese people and a generational classification system to persuade other Japanese immigrants to fall in line with their policies as well as to augment their declining organizational income, a problem that the 1924 National Origins Act created when it cut off Japanese immigration to the United States. They portrayed Japanese immigrants as sharing a unique heritage in common with others of Japanese citizenship, and their association as the “official” conveyor of that tradition by virtue of its close connection with the Japanese government. Since racial discrimination hurt permanent settlers the most, these leaders formulated the idea of the Japanese in California being united together by the common concern for cessation of racial discrimination. In addition, many of the early newspapers catered to students majoring in the social sciences and humanities with a liberal political outlook. Kyu¯taro¯ Abiko, the publisher of the Nichibei Shimbun, emphasized the commonly shared political outlook on various political issues and problems of the day, including racial discrimination—an outlook as reflected in his usage of the term do¯ho¯ or “brethren” or “comrade” to express their commonality. Despite his wide influence in northern California and parts of the interior United States through social connections and ownership of the most widely subscribed Japanese-language daily in the region, Abiko, a successful former labor contractor, increasingly adopted the term ho¯jin, literally “people of the country,” in the early 1920s to refer to the Japan-born, emphasizing citizenship rather than a commonly shared political outlook. His son Yasuo, an active JACL member, continued to highlight the Japanese immigrants’ common geographic and political boundaries as he sought to disseminate Abiko’s ideas of permanent settlement among the American-born Japanese throughout the Japanese community in northern California. With both generations, however, the Abiko newspaper did not propagate the generational concept. In 1912, they used the term shijo or “children” rather than nisei or “second genera-

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tion.” His choice of terminology reflected not only respectability but also reveals how association leaders such as Abiko understood the Americanborn children as not necessarily characterized by generation, birth order, or citizenship. Their lack of a sense of generational continuity is striking because even in 1912, a knowledgeable newspaper owner such as Abiko had his own American-born children and could have easily foreseen the rise of an American-born generation among his readership within a few short years. He knew that the number of married Japanese women constituted nearly two-thirds of all Japanese women in the continental United States in 1910, although the numbers were still small but increasing. Moreover, he was aware that the number of American-born children had already reached about half that of the adult female population and constituted over 6 percent of the total Japanese population in the continental United States in 1910. For Abiko, the “reality” of a rising generation was an unarticulated concept evident in his own home.7 But in the 1920s, Abiko and other association leaders used the generational concept to reinforce their permanent settlement ideas. In 1925 Miya Sannomiya, Abiko’s hand-picked editor, initiated the English-language section of his Nichibei, and reinforced the idea of permanent settlement of Japanese Americans by using the term “second generation,” a term that Tenyo¯ Yazaki and others in the Southern California Youth Association popularized to create an American-born identity apart from the young Japanese immigrants who joined their group in the early 1920s. But unlike Yazaki, the newspaper used the term nisei or “second generation” in a manner so broad as to include anyone with a Japanese surname and face with minimal physical contact with Japan. Hence, as late as the early 1930s, cultural elites such as Yamato Ichihashi defined the “second generation” to include three subgroups of Japanese Americans: those born and educated solely in the continental United States or Hawaii, those born in the United States or Hawaii but educated in Japan, and those born in Japan, but educated in the United States or Hawaii. By “secondgeneration Japanese,” Ichihashi meant, First, American-born children of Japanese parentage, comprising the two categories, those who have continuously remained in this country except for short temporary visits abroad, and those who had been sent to Japan in their early childhood for the purpose of education but later returned to this country; and second[,] Japanese who, though born in Japan, were brought here by their parents in their early childhood and educated in American schools; and finally Japanese boys and girls born in Japan but called by their parents after having had a certain amount of education in Japan but before having reached their maturity.8

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Why Abiko propagated this concept and why it had taken root is attributable to several factors. In the early 1920s, Abiko believed strongly in the idea of permanent residency in the United States and had established with his own money “colonies” of permanent settlers in Livingston and Cortez, California, to prove his point. In the following decade, however, Abiko was under economic pressure to advocate permanent settlement and generational continuity after his newspaper faced a severe financial crisis and a crippling strike in the 1931. Abiko turned to the Zellerbach Paper Company and the latter demanded an “American” face to the reading public. His economic dependency on Euro-Americans and desire for permanent settlement made Abiko what sociologist Charles Tilly would later characterize as the “colonizing” type of immigrant.9 Once the permanent settler image was established, Abiko and Japanese Association officials then shifted toward the generational concept. They propagated it in part because of its familiarity to Japanese immigrants, particularly to those of the former warrior or nobility classes but also to peasant farmers, because the Japanese national government diffused the idea through the educational system after passage of the Civil Code in 1898. They knew that through the law, central government officials sought to refashion average Japanese farming families to conform with the former warrior class’s family pattern of passing on the family name and inheritance from the father to the eldest son—even though most Japanese families had no family names until 1871; frequently changed them; defined “generational continuity” as having one’s own offspring to survive high taxes, poverty, natural disasters, and disease; and often divided family farm property equally among siblings. But the Japanese Association officials also pushed the concept to placate concerns that the growth of the Filipino population, coupled with a decline of the Japanese farming population, meant the former would “take over” the pioneers’ land, which had been won through hard struggle assisted by association officials.10 The American-born group’s continued presence in Japan compounded the problem of a declining Japanese farming population. Precisely how many were in Japan is unknown, but the number was significantly large. Of the 186,850 Nisei counted by the Japanese Consulate under its United States and Hawaii jurisdiction in 1935, nearly a fifth, or close to forty thousand, had spent some time in Japan, most of them as teenagers. Although some stayed for only a short period of time, thirteen- to fourteen thousand of these Nisei never returned to the West Coast. A little more than half of the twenty-four thousand or so Nisei who returned to the continental United States (12,338) spent approximately eight to nine years there. Seven years later, the Western Defense Command’s Research

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Branch estimated a similar number of Kibei, placing the figure at twentyfour thousand in the United States with another seven thousand still in Japan, after hiring a staff of twenty full-time researchers to check ship manifests and other available records. In any given year in the 1930s, therefore, thousands of American-born Japanese resided in Japan, with many of them concentrated in specific regions. In the Fukuoka prefecture alone, there were 1,878 Nisei in 1931, while in the following year in the Hiroshima prefecture they tallied 11,317. Even with war approaching in 1941, their numbers on returning ships actually declined.11 The American-born Japanese in their ancestral land varied individually but roughly fell into three categories. A handful of them were those who spent their summers in Japan visiting relatives or studying Japanese language and culture, embarking on trips known as “Japan Study Tours.” More of them, however, spent a few years in Japanese colleges and universities, and a small number of them extended their stay. In any given year from 1930 to 1941, they numbered a thousand, though in 1938, the Nisei Survey Committee at Keisen Girls’ School found approximately fifteen hundred Nisei, mostly from California, studying in the Kanto¯ area. The majority, however, were sent by their parents along with remittances because the cost of living was lower and child supervision better in Japan than in the United States. As a Seattle Japanese observed, It is practically impossible to raise children properly in the [labor] camps among so many single men. Inasmuch as an American dollar becomes nearly two Japanese y[e]n, by a difference in exchange, it is cheaper to send children back to Japan than it is to send them to the town or city schools, away from their parents.12

Nisei, too, were quick to grasp the advantages of remaining in Japan. By the end of the 1920s, so many chose to stay that the Foreign Ministry’s Commercial Division conducted a survey of them in twelve prefectures and found nearly three-quarters of the Nisei from the continental United States in Hiroshima, and 90 percent of those from Hawaii preferred Japan over returning home. Some related stories of returning to California with several tens of thousands of yen but only to find jobs such as migrant farm labor where, despite their educational background, they worked ten hours a day for only five-hundred dollars a year. Adventurous types, some two thousand of them in the late 1930s, took advantage of low fares to make an additional visit to Manchuria, a site of Imperial Japan’s most recent conquest. Others, no doubt were flattered with the special role that as officials in the Institute for the Education of Overseas Japanese cast for them, dubiously described by Imperial Diet member Masashi Sato¯ as a “third column of emigrants” (see table 2.1).13

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TABLE 2.1. Kibei in Hiroshima Prefecture, 1932 (in %) Hawaii Kibei

Mainland U.S. Kibei

Male

50.32 (2,563)

46.93 (2,883)

Female

48.56 (2,473)

52.11 (3,201)

Unknown

1.12 (57)

0.96 (59)

Before 1909

17.49 (891)

1.86 (114)

1910–19

46.87 (2,387)

48.03 (2,951)

1920–29

33.87 (1,725)

49.36 (3,032)

After 1930

1.77 (90)

0.75 (46)

Inside the city

60.97 (3,105)

35.00 (2,150)

Outside the city

39.03 (1,988)

65.00 (3,993)

With

88.38 (4,501)

85.70 (5,264)

Without

11.62 (592)

14.30 (879)

Sex

Year of Birth

Residency

Family/Relatives

Note: Figures in parentheses are base Ns for the adjacent percentages. For Hawaii Kibei, total N = 5,093. For Mainland U.S. Kibei, total N = 6,143. Source: Toshio Morishige, Hiroshima-ken Taizai Bei-Fu Shusseisha Meibo¯, (Hiroshima, Japan: Hiroshima-ken Kaigai Kyo¯kai, 1932), 34–241.

But many of them left impressed with Japan’s economic aid to Manchuria, and some openly defended Japan’s imperialist policy on the Asian continent. They found reassuring, as Tomoki Uchida best expressed it, the freedom from racial stigma and the ability of Nisei to be able to blend in culturally in Japan: If we say from a legal standpoint, as for us, we are American-born, and have American citizenship, so we are Americans. Moreover, we have Japanese parents, and some of us have Japanese citizenship too, so we are Japanese. There isn’t one other person in America who would say “There is an American” [after] seeing us. However, wherever [we] go since coming to Japan, they recognize [us]. “He certainly is a Japanese” [after] seeing us. As for us, no matter how many times [we are identified as] Americans, we have Japanese

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faces, hair, and distinctive features. Rather than [being] said [to be] born in a foreign country, we are not at all different when you compare [us] with Japanese born in the main islands.

Uchida further recommended that Nisei study Japanese language and culture in Japan so as to reflect that culture: While it is possible they [the second generation] were raised by parents born and raised in Japan, I think that the feeling that comes from receiving an education in Japan will disappear, and from the third generation onward, they will gradually grow distant from things Japanese. For this reason, today’s Nisei must come to Japan once to receive an education. I think if these Nisei don’t receive a Japanese education, then such children, third or fourth or fifth generation, will become ghost-like human beings, not knowing Japan but having Japanese physical bodies. Therefore, for Japan’s sake, for America’s sake, we must promote having the Nisei come to receive teaching in Japan.14

Japanese Association officials launched the “Kibei Encouragement Movement” to solve the farm inheritance problem. They initiated the program in conjunction with Japan-born farmers to encourage the tens of thousands of Japanese Americans from the American continent and Hawaii who were residing in Japan to return to California, especially the five thousand Nisei males living in rural villages. They declared these individuals as “Kibei” or “those who returned to America,” an expression of hope for the return of thousands of others in Japan. The Japanese Association of San Francisco spearheaded the movement in February 1930 after officials held a conference with representatives from some thirty organizations and presented them with the “Proposal to Encourage the U.S. Citizens to Cross (Back).” By 1935, their movement had become nationwide joined by newspapers, prefectural associations, overseas cooperative societies, and other organizations in Japan, with the Foreign Ministry as the exception because central government officials viewed the movement as “much ado about nothing.” Movement advocates surveyed the number of American-born Japanese in the country and provided those individuals with a paid passage to California and free information on employment opportunities for them.15 Another means of attracting Kibei was to create a compelling myth of their central role among immigrants. By the 1920s, many association leaders and their agricultural entrepreneurial associates developed a new view of Japanese Americans, one that fused civic and ethnic versions of Japanese nationalism with their own campaign to persuade others to settle permanently. These elites first recast themselves as “pioneers” in the “development” of the Japanese “people” throughout the world by the latter

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half of the 1920s. Former Los Angeles chapter association secretary Shiro¯ Fujioka and writer Yo¯ichi To¯ga lauded Japan-born entrepreneurs’ success in “developing” California agriculture despite racial discrimination and stiff competition from Euro-Americans and Chinese Americans, and interpreted Japanese Americans’ accomplishment as a reflection of “superior” cultural traits and proof of their linkage with the Japanese empire. Vernacular news editors and reporters chimed in with Fujioka and To¯ga by identifying the nation “Japan” and its citizenry as sharing in common not only nationality and, to a lesser extent, culture, but also a mythic blood lineage, as expressed in their oft-used term, yamato minzoku, or “Japanese people.” When referring to Japanese Americans, northern California members of the Japanese American Fourth Estate highlighted their common nationality in the first half of the 1920s by employing the term ho¯jin, or “fellow countrymen.” But beginning in the latter half of the decade, and heavily during the 1930s, they increasingly returned to the terms do¯ho¯ (“comrade” or “brethren”) and yamato minzoku rather than ho¯jin, suggesting a commonly shared political outlook with other do¯ho¯ and a mythic blood linkage of commoners with the Imperial Family as members of the yamato minzoku. They used yamato minzoku after the 1931 Manchurian Incident, as indicated by San Francisco’s prestigious Nichibei Shimbun, probably a reflection of a combination of national pride, negative reaction to the Chinese boycott of Japanese stores in San Francisco following the 1931 Manchurian invasion, and fear generated by the perceived threat of the rise of Filipinos in California agriculture. By employing these terms and urging the American-born Japanese to “return,” writers were inviting those U.S. citizens in Japan to accept an elite version of “their” people’s history and help “save” the great development of the Japanese in California.16 The association also initiated a number of rituals pertaining to the Japanese government to give credence to their “development” project. Since Japanese Americans were “pioneers” in the “development” of Japan’s overseas influence throughout the world, association leaders used ceremonies to solidify their symbolic ties with the Japanese government as represented by the Imperial Japanese Navy. They therefore arranged community-wide welcome parties for Imperial Navy personnel once that branch made regular visits to San Francisco and Los Angeles after World War I. Their support for the Japanese military forces was not new, since as early as 1875, the San Francisco Japanese welcomed the Imperial Navy ship Tsukuba, and during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 got some forty thousand Japanese throughout the state of California to donate over a hundred thousand dollars for the war effort. By June 1927, they organized the welcome committee for the visit of two historic ships from the Russo-Japanese War, the Asama Maru and Iwate Maru, scheduled to visit

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San Francisco Bay in July 31 en route from Yokosuka, Japan, to Hawaii and Los Angeles, with 180 cadets and 1,250 noncommissioned officers and men on board. The association also organized monetary support for the Imperial Japanese military once fighting broke out in 1937. They arranged for the collection of monetary donations, totaling close to seventyfive thousand dollars after a week, and honored the fallen Japanese soldiers of this conflict. In July 1938, association leaders celebrated the first anniversary of the outbreak of war at a gathering at the Scottish Rite Hall, where some fifteen hundred Japanese attended.17 But association leaders employed public rituals to anchor themselves as part of a fictitious tradition of U.S.-Japan amity. The San Francisco group initiated a new festival on March 8, 1936 at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco to commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of Commodore Perry’s forced entry into Japan. They feˆted Perry, and commemorated the first crossing of the Pacific Ocean by Japan’s diplomatic mission in 1860 on Japan’s first steam-powered vessel, the Kanrin Maru, by visiting the Columa American-Japanese Joint Cemetery, where some sailors of the Kanrin Maru lay buried. Some five-hundred association members marched through the city to the Golden Gate Hall, where the mayor of San Francisco, Angelo Rossi, addressed the crowd. Their counterparts in Los Angeles took control of the “pioneer” celebrations by holding testimonial dinners honoring immigrant Japanese “pioneers” with forty years or more experience living in the United States. Some, such as the Federation of Southern California (Issei) Women took up a collection, and in 1937 dedicated their own twenty-foot tall “pioneer” monument, a “towering granite shaft” in Evergreen Cemetery in Los Angeles.18 “Pioneer” images notwithstanding, association leaders adopted interethnic cooperation as the best means to secure their interests. Japanese Association officials in northern California in particular were quite willing to work across ethnic and racial lines to advance their own agenda, as suggested by their response to the 1936 repeal of the Cable Act, a law stripping a woman of U.S. citizenship if she married an alien. As early as 1904, Japanese Protestant women activists joined forces with EuroAmerican counterparts in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union to establish the Ellen Stark Ford Home for Japanese and Korean women and children in need of immediate housing. In 1931, the League of Women Voters and other reform organizations successfully lobbied Congress to amend the Cable Act. When the law was repealed in 1936, many of the Japanese Association leadership saw the opportunity for developing political linkages with others. “As for the results [of the repeal],” an association official observed, “it was a situation where it went toward granting all rights as American citizens to Japanese living in America, (to) the Koreans, and to the Chinese, about five hundred persons.”19

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Northern California association leaders’ willingness to work across ethnic lines to secure their socioeconomic status and interests in California reflected the adopted strategy of their constituency. Many supporters of the association were art curio shop owners and flower growers who secured their livelihood in similar occupations as Euro-Americans, in contrast to their co-ethnic counterparts in the south, and they survived in one of the most virulently anti-Japanese regions in the state of California through cooperative competition and inter-ethnic amity. Japanese art goods merchants, for example, competed with Chinese art curio shop owners in San Francisco, but established prices and planned parades together and, in one instance at least, collected donations for earthquake victims in Taiwan. With Euro-Americans, they joined the Liberty Bond drive during World War I even though the export-import restrictions imposed directly as a result of the war substantially hurt their business. By 1942, they prospered to the tune of over $3 million a year in annual sales by using this inter-ethnic cooperative approach, amply testified to by the presence of thirty-nine Japanese art goods shops on Grant Avenue in Chinatown. One of them, T. Iwate and Company, reported a net profit of $10,278.54 for the tax year 1939. Flower growers, too, chose inter-ethnic cooperation even though they feared the Italians and thought little of their Chinese competitors. They carved out a niche by conceding to the Italians the field varieties retail market while concentrating on growing and selling 70 percent of the long-stemmed chrysanthemum, 80 percent of the carnations, and 60 percent of the roses. Moreover, these flower growers took advantage of retailers’ preference for purchases of a wide variety of flowers in a single location by housing their wares with Italians and Chinese under the same roof that later became known as the California Flower Market. They kept in close communication with the Japanese Association—they shared the same office building with the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and the Japanese Association—and followed their practice of calling their children, “Nisei” and “Americans.” Their aim of “successful” permanent settlement in Abiko’s mode was captured well in their quotation of the Japanese adage that living long enough in a location makes the heart grow fond of it: “If you live [here long enough], then it [becomes] like [living in] the capital [city].”20 Unlike their northern California brethren, the Japanese Association officials in southern California struggled against a lack of commitment to permanent settlement and inter-ethnic cooperation. Association members began their Los Angeles chapter in 1906 with a strong resolve to “battling to the bitter end” to protect their interests and join in support of their northern California brethren when it came to battling against racially discriminatory legislation and threats against permanent settlement. They may have cooled in their enthusiasm after the Japanese Consulate office

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was established in the City of Angels in 1915 and when a higher, intermediary organization, the Central Japanese Association, pulled away some of their association’s leaders and influence. Yet the southern California members still urged conformity to Euro-American ways and customs, racial amity, and permanent settlement. But by the early 1920s, however, they became ambivalent about the latter, with some considering relocation to Baja or Sonora, Mexico, to escape racial discrimination, while others strengthened their identification with Japan. Former Los Angeles chapter president Sei Fujii portrayed Japanese Americans in his own newspaper, Kashu¯ Mainichi, as tied to Japan by a commonly shared political outlook through the usage of the terms do¯ho¯ and nihonjin do¯ho¯ (“Japanese brethren”). His English-language section editor was already employing the generational terminology, Issei and Nisei by late fall 1931, and four years later labeled members of the second-generation who were matriculating into Waseda University as “American citizens of Japanese ancestry.” Former Los Angeles chapter founder Toyosaku Komai, owner of the largest Japanese-language vernacular, the Rafu Shimpo¯, called the Japan-born individuals, as had Fujii, do¯ho¯ during the years immediately following the end of World War I, but switched to nihonjin and ho¯jin after 1924 until the Manchurian “Incident” of 1931. Even though his editors returned to the do¯ho¯ designation as Japan pressed further in its invasion of China proper, they rarely used the term “American” to identify Japan-born individuals, favoring instead the label “Japanese” even when paired with a referential other from Japan, and were slow to use the generational term Nisei in the English-language section.21 The reason why the Los Angeles chapter members did not pursue interethnic cooperation and permanent settlement as ardently as their northern counterparts lies in the types of members they had in their ranks. While most members were nominal, chapter leaders could not ignore the fact that the majority of Japanese in Los Angeles were not in direct competition with Euro-Americans but rather were heavily concentrated in small agricultural business operations at the “fringes” of the southern California economy, and were more distant from Euro-Americans in occupational similarity than the San Francisco Bay area Japanese. They realized that most of these immigrants experienced little in the way of inter-ethnic cooperation when it came to economic livelihood, and demonstrated lukewarm sentiments for permanent settlement—if landownership was an accurate measure of such sentiments. Japanese flower-growers in this region, for example, were largely renters not owners, and sought cooperative ties with other co-ethnics, both in business and in their personal lives, rather than with Euro-Americans and others.22 Different political practices, too, suggest that the lower commitment of southern California Japanese to permanent settlement and inter-ethnic

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53

cooperation. The Los Angeles association leaders’ inability to guide their charges toward permanent settlement forced them to institute democratic political practices not found in northern California. In the first place, the chapter leaders inherited a legacy of democratic practices from some of their own peers, such as Gennota Tawa, who formed a Japanese sugar beet growers association that was very democratic—they regularly rotated members of the board of directors every two years, held regular elections and meetings, and had a constitution clearly specifying membership requirements. Members themselves reformed the election procedures of the chapter to further widen participation. While they struggled with low voter turnouts in some elections, the association held some “hotly contested” ones between 1915 and 1921, as a result of making all thirtyone council members seats elected, and the cabinet positions of chair, vicechair, and treasurer elected by the council. Council members themselves made these changes to prevent a singularly forceful individual from dominating the entire organization. Instead of experiencing unanimity, the chapter was divided between those from the Hiroshima Prefecture and those allying with the Wakayama Prefecture clique.23 Yet the rituals and other symbolic acts that the association leaders adopted or oversaw were similar in content and aim as their northern counterparts. By the mid-1920s, the Los Angeles chapter officials were alert to their organization’s declining financial resources after the 1924 National Origins Act cut off Japanese immigration and the need for the association’s certificate of residency. They therefore positioned themselves at the head of a number of events celebrating the Japanese State, in an attempt to rekindle interest in the association and replenish its coffers. They initiated tencho¯setsu, or the Emperor’s birthday, and laid out lavish welcome parties when members of the Imperial Family made visits to Los Angeles in 1926, 1931, and 1934. Chapter officers raised funds to defray their costs and organized a lantern march in Little Tokyo and a dinnerdance at the Biltmore Hotel in the honor of Japanese athletes participating in the 1932 Olympics held in the City. Association officials turned the Imperial Japanese Navy’s regular call on the Los Angeles Harbor facilities into a public ritual, with themselves at the forefront, to welcome the Imperial Navy training cadets and their officers. They, rather than the Central Japanese Association officers, took the lead in organizing the collection of donations of money, talismans, and imonbukuro¯ or “comfort packages” (personal care packages), for frontline soldiers in Japan’s war against China. By mid-August 1937, association chapter leaders and Chamber of Commerce officials collected ¥255,360 ($63,900) and oversaw the donation drives of other chapters, including those by the Pasadena and San Gabriel Valley, which sent donations earmarked for military aircraft—a contribution that prompted the Foreign Ministry and admirals Mitsuhiro

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Yonai and Isoroku Yamamoto to praise the “patriots” of southern California. In the same year, their office colleagues from the Chamber of Commerce produced pamphlets entitled, Japan’s Position in the Shanghai and North China Hostilities.24 JACL leaders took a different stance toward the war in China, though they shared a similarly high socioeconomic status with their counterparts in the Japanese Association. Some of them established chapters of the American Loyalty League in the early 1920s but were not tied to an umbrella organization until a meeting in San Francisco in 1929 when they created the JACL. They solicited the financial help of the Japanese Consulate, the Japanese Association, and the support of the Chinese American Citizens League, and made rapid progress in recruiting new members. Within five years, they claimed over twenty chapters and ten thousand members out of some thirty-five thousand enfranchised American-born Japanese, and, by 1940, fifty chapters—but over half were in northern California and barely more than a dozen were in southern California. Their leadership was unmistakably professional. San Francisco chapter President Saburo¯ Kido was a University of Hastings Law School graduate, while Vice President Henry Takahashi was a University of California optometry graduate who practiced in the city. The Los Angeles chapter officers, too, were largely American-born, white-collar, urban professionals rather than the “average” Nisei. They were more educated than the typical Nisei whose college graduate ranks comprised less than 8 percent of the American-born Japanese population. They were twice as likely, as a group, to be college-educated as the average Nisei, and they were also married. The leadership group, as a whole, was the elite of the secondgeneration Japanese and was, in the words of an observer, “a perpetual committee excluding the average man.”25 League leaders shared with the Japanese Association a concern for the struggle against racial discrimination on the local and national level. The two organizations coordinated efforts to combat racial discrimination. They countered violent acts against Japanese Americans in the Salt River Valley, not far from where Poston would later stand. The Japanese in the valley were dominant in the cantaloupe market, sparking some six hundred Euro-American farmers in 1934 to parade through Phoenix in 150 cars, protesting Japanese control over the crop. The Arizona Japanese Association and the Japanese Consulate persuaded the Mitsubishi Company, a large contract buyer of southwestern cotton from Texas to Arizona, to intervene when local authorities failed to stop a handful of unidentified individuals who bombed Japanese homes, flooded their farms, and fired shots at them. Moreover, the association, through the consulate, threatened termination of federal government money for Boulder Dam and Colorado River water projects, important sources of water for the

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55

state. Both organizations also worked together to repeal the Cable Act (described earlier in this chapter). They succeeded in pushing through the Nye-Lea bill in 1935, granting U.S. citizenship to aliens who served the United States armed forces during World War I, enfranchising some five hundred Asians in the process. Their joint venture obviously pleased association officers who praised the JACL’s service as a “touchstone” in the defense of Japanese Americans.26 The JACL and the Japanese Association parted company over the former’s increasingly hostile view of Japan-educated U.S. citizens, or Kibei. Before the term Kibei was used widely, the organization had subchapters with Kibei membership. But in 1929 the league’s organ published a story of a Kibei allegedly involved in an armed robbery, entitled, “The Holdup Man.” The JACL author told the story of “a native-born young man, raised in Japan, [who] came back to California alone,” failed in business, had no friends, was alone, fell into the “wrong” crowd, and finally committed armed robbery. This person was caught and taken to court, becoming the very first case of a second-generation person committing armed robbery and thus Japanese Americans’ “splendid record has been marred,” the author observed. The author’s concern, however, reflected less the Kibei “reality”—one of only eight such cases by 1927—and more the interest of league members in setting apart their own core values from those of the undesirable U.S. citizens of Japanese heritage.27 Japanese American social scientists added to the tension that many JACL leaders felt toward the Japan-educated among them. Prior to internment, they were a small but well-educated and highly influential group competing with Kibei for Japan-born leaders’ approval. They separated themselves from Japan and its unpopular war in China by embracing cultural anthropologists’ distinction between “race” and “culture,” arguing that Japanese Americans were connected to Japan only by the former and not the latter. They distinguished themselves from Japanese immigrants by adopting the idea of “generation,” claiming that a large cultural divide existed between themselves and their parents. They placed Kibei under quarantine by applying the Marginal Man concept to reposition the latter at the fringe and themselves at the center of the ethnic community.28 But social scientists were patricians among plebeians, as Richard Nishimoto’s life illustrates. Born in Tokyo in 1904 and raised in Japan, Nishimoto in 1921 was a yobiyose, or one who was “called over” from Japan to join his parents, in San Francisco, after leaving behind his wealthy, doting grandfather and his connections to Japan’s aristocracy, which he made at the dormitories affiliated with Keio¯ and Rikkyo¯ universities. He entered San Francisco’s Lowell High School but then went on to Stanford University, where he was forced to work his way through because his

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father, a Waseda University graduate and newspaperman, gave him no funds. Young Richard picked up the shovel, a first for his “tender hands” since he was contemptuous of “coolie” labor. “It was horrifying,” Nishimoto recalled, “that now I was to act as a ‘coolie’; I, who was born with silver spoons in my mouth.” After working in the fields less than four months, Richard became manager of the store and the labor force after begging for relief from this “low-down” work. He studied carefully the various habits of the farm laborers—Filipino, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and others—to find ways to maximize their productivity. “Higher efficiency was maintained [by] creating rivalry among them,” Nishimoto discovered, a tactic he would later use in the WRA camps.29 Nishimoto’s wealthy background shaped his approach to the study of Japanese Americans. He was acutely sensitive to racial discrimination: he graduated in 1929 from Stanford University with a master’s degree but, unlike his classmates, was not recruited by companies, and so he became a gardener in Gardena, California. Hence, Nishimoto saw himself as a champion for the discriminated-against Japanese Americans. “You know,” he confessed to Alexander Leighton, “I have a tendency to do propaganda instead of science when it comes to the Japanese people in America.” He embraced the way in which Louis Adamic portrayed Jews, believing it applicable to the American-born Japanese, who were very much like the “self-conscious Jew.” He also found Everett Stonequist’s concept presented in The Marginal Man (1937) especially appropriate for explaining why American-born high school and college-age Japanese students were so brazenly anti-American in the concentration camps.30 Tamie Tsuchiyama, too, was an elite intellectual. She descended from a family of politicians, one of them prominent in Japan; her father was a newspaper editor and her mother, a competent rice farmer of samurai lineage. Tamie lost her Japanese citizenship when her mother revoked it, but still received some education in Japan as well as at the University of Hawaii and the University of California, Los Angeles, before graduating Phi Beta Kappa from University of California, Berkeley, in 1938. Three years later, she passed her doctoral examinations in cultural anthropology at the same university, and attained competency in reading German, Spanish, Italian, and Chinese, and spoke several Polynesian dialects, as well as English and Japanese. Tamie further distinguished herself from other Nisei by claiming to own property in the Society Islands of French Polynesia, was engaged to a Euro-American graduate student specializing in linguistics, and was a member of the American Civil Liberties Union.31 Manzanar researchers Cho¯ei Kondo and Togo Tanaka, too, shared a similarly privileged background. Kondo hailed from the Iyo region, now the present-day Ehime Prefecture, but grew up in Hokkaido, retaining with pride the warrior-class family name for four or five generations. He

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graduated from Aoyama University then enrolled at Iowa State University, where he earned a Master of Arts degree in Historical Economics before becoming the general secretary of the Southern California Central Japanese Association in 1919. Tanaka was born into the family of an aristocrat-scholar immigrant in 1916. He pursued a career in journalism, serving as associate editor for the Kashu¯ Mainichi in 1934 before graduating Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Los Angeles. He then became the English-language editor and personnel manager of sixty employees for the Rafu Shimpo¯. Tanaka became manager of the Nisei Bureau in September 1938, an employment organization for Americanborn Japanese, and in late 1941, was vice-president and a stockholder of a wholesale produce company allegedly worth several hundreds of thousands of dollars. He had accumulated sufficient property so that while in a WRA camp, he had a $3,000 mortgage, made average monthly payments of $42.50, and owned a piano.32 Only a couple of internee social scientists came from “average” backgrounds. Robert Seido¯ Hashima received much of his education in Japan though he hailed from Hawthorne, California. He accompanied his parents in October 1932 to their hometown in Kamikitagata, Hiroshima, Japan, and stayed there, graduating in 1938 from Tadanami High School, then headed for the Teacher Training School, where he studied until his return to southern California in January 1940. He initially attended San Luis Obispo Junior College while working as a farm laborer in Arroyo Grande and teaching judo. Thereafter, Hashima worked as a hotel clerk while attending Los Angeles City College before being “evacuated” to Santa Anita WCCA camp in April 1942.33 “Progressive” opponents of the Japanese Association and the JACL also contrasted sharply with the average Japanese Californian. Despite their small following—numbering only a hundred total among three chapters in Oakland, Los Angeles, and San Francisco—the Young Democrats ideologically differed from other Japanese Americans by vociferously attacking the JACL and Japan Association and taking up controversial political causes, foreign and domestic. They touted the labor unions, the New Deal, and the Democratic Party at local, state, and federal government levels, and promoted legislative bills protecting the rights of all racial minorities, not just the Japanese. In defiance of the Japanese government and the Japanese Association, these American-born Japanese leftists joined the pickets organized by Chinese Americans against the shipment of scrap metal and war supplies to Japan from the San Francisco waterfront in 1938.34 The Young Democrats and other second-generation Japanese leftists opposed the JACL’s and the Japan Association’s policies for a number of reasons. Although they shared with their opponents a similar outlook on

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permanent settlement and classification of Japanese Americans as “Americans of Japanese parentage,” they believed in resistance to rather than accommodation of race and class relations in California, as did Ken Akazuki, one of the founders of the Oakland chapter of the Young Democrats. Others found greater comfort in sharing a similar antifascist political outlook rather than blind acceptance of Japan’s foreign policy, as had the league and the association. Ernest Iiyama, for example, grew up in Oakland, was the son of a retail grocer, and had taken electrical engineering courses at the University of California, Berkeley, for two years, from August 1932 to May 1934, after receiving an education in Japan from April 1923 to March 1931. He took offense to Japan’s invasion of the Asian continent and after serving as organizer and former president of the Nisei Democratic Club of Oakland and charter member of the JACL, he defected to the “intellectual group,” labeled as “reds,” “radicals,” and “dangerous” thinkers. On domestic issues, Iiyama and his group opposed the JACL’s compromising attitude toward racism. “If there ever arises a demand for a change in the social structure or a cry against the conditions of the Oriental minorities in America,” social scientist Tamotsu Shibutani observed of the group Iiyama belonged to, “it is a safe bet that the most vociferous objections will come from this faction.”35 And finally, the Young Democrats were inheritors of a radical tradition existing among the Japanese students in the San Francisco Bay region. As early as 1890, the Japanese students of the Bay Area established the Friends of Labor, a branch of the American Federation of Labor, and seven years later established another chapter in Tokyo after they returned from their studies in California. They also founded the Society for the Study of Socialism, a group known in Japan as the Social Democratic Party, and served as a safe haven for well-known radicals from Japan such as Sen Katayama and Shu¯sui Ko¯toku. The group formed the Social Revolutionary Party and, by 1907, gained notoriety among Japanese immigrants for publishing a letter to Mutsuhito, (Meiji) Emperor of Japan, sentencing him to death for the poverty of Japanese peasants. Their legacy of radicalism was so deeply embedded that as late as 1939 the Japanese Consulate hired private investigators to monitor the American labor movement activities and prevent the spread of their ideology to Japan, and to investigate the Communist International in San Francisco, which the Foreign Ministry believed responsible for smuggling agents into Japan.36 But many immigrants differed sharply from their “progressive,” governmental, and entrepreneurial elites over issues of permanency. They saw themselves as working residents in the United States whose extended family connections and eventual retirement lay not in the eastern but the western half of the Pacific Rim. In hope of returning to Japan with lots of

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money earned abroad, working-class immigrants readily moved to manual labor positions in different geographic locations as long as rewards outweighed the costs. Some were no doubt initially attracted by the lessthan-honest rosy portrayal of wealth easily made in America. Two students published a pamphlet entitled, Kitare Nihonjin [Come, Japanese] in 1887, depicting easy upward mobility by merely picking up “gold, silver, and gems” scattered on the streets. Most immigrants, however, were attracted to the certainty of higher wages in the United States. In 1902, for example, they knew that a carpenter in Japan made about twothirds of a yen for a day’s work, in contrast to a railroad laborer in America who made a dollar a day, or roughly two yen. But as wages and laboring conditions changed, they changed jobs frequently enough, moving to different locations to attain more money, working the lower end of the occupational spectrum as farm laborers, nonfarm laborers, and domestic workers before departing the United States. Many of the immigrants arriving more than a decade after the 1907 Gentlemen’s Agreement in particular showed little commitment to permanent residency. Eighty-five percent of the Japanese who departed the United States by 1941 had entered the country relatively late, between 1921 and 1930. These workers spent little time becoming acquainted with the host culture, lived in relatively inexpensive collective housing, worked hard as exploited laborers, and assiduously saved their money to remit or carry home. Their behavior and circular pattern of movement, from the homeland to the host country or countries, with the aim of returning to Japan, made them what one sociologist labeled as “circular” migrants.37 The amount of money these immigrants sent back to Japan suggests close regional homeland connections. Japanese immigrants in California, particularly those from the Kagoshima Prefecture, remitted considerable amounts back to Japan. In 1909, Japanese in California far exceeded all other immigrant groups in money sent home, except those labeled as “German-Russian.” With a mean per capita of over $150, they tripled what the Armenians sent, and quadrupled the figure that the Italians reached, the two immigrant groups closest to the Japanese in amounts remitted for that year. By Japanese standards, too, they became an important source of revenue, remitting the equivalent of nearly half the mean per capita income and over four times their nonagriculturally derived income for farmers in the main Japanese islands in 1908. By 1915, California and Hawaii Japanese had combined to remit roughly ¥30 million, or $9 million, over the three previous decades, a sum representing a fifth of Japan’s total revenues not derived from trade for that year. In July 1938, those in Los Angeles and the southwest, where the bulk of the Japanese population for the continental United States resided, sent thousands of dollars, which, if calculated annually, tallied as much as a half million

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TABLE 2.2. Number of Remittances and Amounts, by State or Country Number of Remittances

Place

Amount (U.S. $)

Amount (Japanese ¥)

Median (U.S. $)

Median (Japanese ¥)

10

364.50

1,252.85

18.75

64.43

States Arizona California

875

34,167.00

117,367.00

15.00

51.72

Texas

1

25.00

85.91

25.00

85.91

Mexico

18

1,357.50

4,651.62

18.00

60.34

Unknown

11

236.94

815.47

14.60

50.17

915

36,150.94

124,172.85

91.35

312.57

Total

Source: Yokohama Sho¯kin Ginko¯ Rafu Bunten (Yokohama Specie Bank, Los Angeles Branch), “Furusato So¯kin Moshikomisho,” July 1938, Japanese American Historical Archives, San Francisco, California.

dollars in some ten-thousand transactions, with each between fourteen and twenty-five dollars, or between fifty to sixty-four yen (see table 2.2). About two-thirds of them were earmarked for families in their respective villages, and of those outside of the city of Los Angeles, single male immigrants in particular wired lots of money back (see figure 2.1 and table 2.2). In San Francisco, they transmitted so much money through banks such as the Yokohama Species Bank that a quarter of this branch office’s profits came from charges on remittances.38 Remittances of immigrants from the Kagoshima Prefecture show how many Japanese Americans valued their connections with home. Rather than embrace Abiko’s vision of permanent settlement in the United States (see table 2.3), they were well known for sacrificing upward economic mobility in the United States to help their friends and relatives in Kagoshima. Hence, they remitted or carried money back to Japan at rates higher than other California Japanese, even though their population was about a seventh of that from Hiroshima and a sixth of that from Wakayama prefectures (see figure 2.2). In 1913 Japanese Americans from Kagoshima sent home about a half million yen, a figure greater than the prefecture’s educational budget of ¥350,000 for that year. It is no surprise, therefore, that they were also generous in other activities related to their homeland, such as welcoming the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1909, although they numbered only several hundred strong.39 Average California Japanese immigrants and their offspring also differed with governmental elites over political practices. In particular, prefectural associations were quite democratic in their decision-making practices. To be sure, wealthy traders dominated such groups as the San

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Mexico 1.97%

61

Unknown 1.20%

Texas 0.11%

Arizona 1.09%

California 95.63%

Figure 2.1. Percentage Distribution of Remittances, by State or Country. Source: Yokohama Sho¯kin Ginko¯ Rafu Bunten, “Furusato So¯kin Moshikomisho,” July 1938, Japanese American Historical Archives, San Francisco, California.

Francisco Hiroshima Prefectural Association but this was not the case in most other parts of California. The Los Angeles Hiroshima Prefectural Association, established in 1907, was the largest, most dominant of all such groups and was governed initially by a Buddhist missionary. Rather than immigration certificates, the Los Angeles chapter emphasized social welfare, banking, and savings functions—essential services for workingclass Japanese immigrants—and enacted measures to ensure wide participation by people who hailed from the prefecture. They regularly held discussions and elections, had strict by-laws with limited tenure, and paid no salaries to board members, all this despite the presence of the Hiroshima Prefectural Governors on the board of the Hiroshima Prefectural Overseas Cooperative Society.40 For many others, homeland politics further distanced them from the Japanese Association and the JACL. Rather than focusing on cooperative ties with central government officials or on permanent settlement, Okinawan immigrants instead identified closely with their regional homeland government or with radical, antigovernment movements, as did members of the Southern California Branch of the Okinawa Overseas Association

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TABLE 2.3. Amount and Number of Cases, by Prefectures (with amounts over ¥ 1,000), July 1932 Prefecture

Amount (Japanese ¥)

Amount (U.S. $)

Number of cases

Median (Japanese ¥)

9

100.00

Aichi

1,090.07

316.27

Ehime

1,604.08

466.28

9

100.00

Fukui

1,473.62

427.31

11

51.72

Fukuoka

6,928.52

2,012.75

52

50.00

Fukushima

3,359.66

973.73

32

50.86

Gifu

1,891.13

549.80

7

51.63

Hiroshima

13,464.61

3,918.45

90

51.54

Kagoshima

11,107.00

3,211.15

84

80.46

Kanagawa

4,114.89

1,193.11

24

75.77

Kumamoto

3,033.65

880.15

30

68.84

Mie

11,846.78

3,432.72

36

101.72

Oita

5,065.00

1,478.12

1

5,065.00

Okayama

5,411.47

1,570.25

22

69.01

Osaka

2,435.22

717.19

26

45.00

Shiga

2,908.78

846.58

24

85.00

Shizuoka

4,768.85

1,433.02

31

50.00

Tokyo

9,518.76

2,742.35

100

34.30

Tottori

3,657.98

1,064.78

39

68.96

Wakayama

16,787.01

4,906.25

97

102.91

Yamaguchi

2,982.68

905.25

37

51.63

Yamanashi Total

1,443.19 114,893.00

418.74

24

50.00

33,464.25

785

6,404.35

Source: Yokohama Sho¯kin Ginko¯ Rafu Bunten, “Furusato So¯kin Moshikomisho,” July 1938, Japanese American Historical Archives, San Francisco, California.

and the Okinawa Prefectural Association of North America. The latter were students opposing the alleged cabal of the warrior-class families in the capital Shuri, the central Japanese government’s appointee Governor Kogoro¯ Narahara (1892–1908), and the efforts of the Kagoshima merchants to dominate their islands. They initially fled to San Francisco but moved to Los Angeles after the Great Earthquake of 1906 and established

J A PA N E S E A M E R I C A N S A N D P O L I T I C S

Others 11%

63

Fukuoka 6% Fukushima 3%

Yamaguchi 3% Hiroshima 12%

Wakayama 15% Kagoshima 10% Tottori 3% Kanagawa 4% Tokyo 8% Kumamoto 3% Shizuoka 4% Mie 10% Shiga 3%

Okayama 5%

Figure 2.2. Percentage Distribution of the Amount of Remittances, by Prefecture. Note: The figures are rounded off to the nearest whole number. Source: Yokohama Sho¯kin Ginko¯ Rafu Bunten, “Furusato So¯kin Moshikomisho,” July 1938, Japanese American Historical Archives, San Francisco, California.

the Friends’ Club, an uptown organization labeled “high collar” by working-class Okinawans. They also organized the New Dawn Society in 1921, inspired by the Russian Revolution of 1917, and flocked to the debates by Ko¯suke Uema, Noboru Jahana, and Kyu¯zo Toyama, a former labor contractor in Hawaii. Club members welcomed “Yada” and “Takahashi” (aliases), two Communist Party members from New York City, and they applauded Jun Matayoshi’s and others’ call for the decapitation of General Giichi Tanaka, the new prime minister of Japan. They held picnics at Elysian Park in association with a large numbers of non-Japanese, particularly African Americans and Mexican Americans, because they imagined themselves as separate from those in Okinawa: We must consider the fact that our position is different from that of people living in Japan, even if we are just as Japanese as they are. . . . In particular, we have many Nisei—American citizens—among us. Their position is different from that of the Issei, and the difference is all the greater if we compare it to that of people back home. People overseas should not be lumped together with people in the old country.41

Most Okinawans, however, identified with their regional government by joining the competing Okinawa Overseas Association. Established in

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1924, these Los Angeles farmers joined the organization because they ¯ ta, a leader from the rural sectors of the islands where followed Kamado O most were small farmers rather than members of the warrior class (1.2%), hailing mostly from the Kokuto District (45.1%) or the Chu¯to District (45.4%). They left to work in the coal mines at Las Esperancas in Coahu¯ ta to Los Angeles, where they ila, northern Mexico, but followed O formed in 1906 the Comrades Society in the downtown working-class section of the city after being snubbed as “uncouth” by the uptown ¯ ta organized the Okinawa Overseas AssociaFriends’ Club. They and O tion in close consultation with the headquarters, and took a keen interest in homeland issues, as evident in their views aired in the vernacular Ryu¯ku¯ Shimpo¯ in Okinawa.42 The two competing Okinawan organizations clashed over a number of issues. In 1927 the students demonstrated against Japanese militaristic ventures in China, engaged in labor union organizing activities, and interfered with the Overseas Association’s donation drive for an Emigrant Center in Okinawa, a clearinghouse for information and a lodging for emigrants and returnees. Their conflict deepened when Los Angeles and Long Beach police officers arrested some of the students for attending a Communist Party meeting in Long Beach, California, on January 15, 1932—an incident that embarrassed fellow Okinawans in the Overseas Association. Their dispute ended only after four of the five Okinawans arrested were deported to the Soviet Union, where Stalin promptly executed them as spies.43 Other Japanese immigrants strayed equally far from Japanese Associaton leader Abiko’s chosen path. The Wakayama Prefecture Japanese of Los Angeles, for example, initially appeared to support Abiko’s vision of permanent settlement and amicable U.S.-Japan relations. Most were married by 1931, and of the sixty-eight immigrant bachelors, fifty-three of them had wives in Japan. Many were also highly skilled workers, with almost 40 percent of them from a white-collar or skilled background, and the remaining 60 percent having had some factory-work experience prior to immigration. Most were educated—841 of 1,006 had some schooling, mostly grammar school level—and high levels of literacy were apparent in the community, as indicated by the relatively high number of Japaneselanguage periodicals and literature available on Terminal Island. Although their younger children identified themselves as “Japanese,” their older American-born offspring embraced the label “American.”44 Yet few of them upheld Abiko’s ideals. Only a handful (14%) owned property among the 327 homes in East San Pedro (Fish Harbor), since the cannery companies controlled most (85%) of the cramped housing— living spaces of only twenty-seven by forty-five feet on the average. The Japanese Fisherman’s Association favored confrontation rather than ac-

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65

commodation by the late 1920s, successfully pressuring the cannery companies into increasingly better contracts while providing Japanese women with jobs at the canneries. At least a third of them intended to return to Japan, with another fifth undecided whether to settle permanently or not. Instead of displaying the obvious signs of assimilation, the reverse appeared to be true—the Japanese language was so widely used on the island that Euro-American children, too, were known to speak the language. The Wakayamans ignored the Japanese Association, showing little support for it by 1930 and, in some instances, harbored illegal immigrants who considered possession of a passport a sign of cowardice.45 Some of these Wakayama Prefecture immigrants and their offspring departed substantially from the ideal of upholding amicable U.S.-Japan relations. At the turn of the twentieth century, Wakayama Prefecture pioneers on the Island rattled federal government officials by acquiring War Department navigation maps of the Los Angeles Harbor, and passing them on to the Japanese government. After local fishing grounds became depleted, they purchased boats with 150- to 500-horsepower engines, enabling their fleets to stay out for weeks while fishing the waters near the Panama Canal Zone and, on occasion, the immigrants engaged in actions sure to alert U.S. counterintelligence. “When I was in Panama, I took a lot of pictures for no special reason,” Minejiro¯ Shibata recalled, an act he came later to regret.46 Many immigrant Japanese organizations other than prefectural associations challenged the Japanese Association and the JACL following Japan’s invasion of China in July 1937. These organizations, divided along gender lines, assisted the Japanese central government’s policy of aggression on the Asian mainland. For women, their support often went to medical or welfare-oriented contributions. The Fujin Renmei, or Women’s League, collected forty thousand dollars for an airplane contribution to the Japanese Red Cross Hospital upon the 2,600th anniversary of the mythic founding of the Imperial family lineage in 1940. The Aikoku Fujinkai, or Patriotic Women’s Society, also sent its monetary and material support directly to the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy Department’s respective war relief sections, but occasionally moved them through the Osaka Steamship Line, Japanese banks, or the Wakayama Prefectural Association. They began as a group after Gongoro¯ Nakamura of the Central Japanese Association’s application received approval to establish a branch in Los Angeles, conditional upon the Japanese Consul’s wife serving as president and her husband as advisor to the group. The chapter further subdivided individual members according to contributions, from the lowest “supporting members” and “regular members” to the higher “special members” and “special supporting members” to boost donations. Other branches were established in Bakersfield, Oak-

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land, San Francisco, and San Pedro, California, and met with success, as judged by the large numbers listed in the last group, which reported 439 members in 1939. The women collected care packages for Japanese soldiers, and monetary contributions estimated at over ten thousand dollars, a sum that U.S. Army intelligence officers interpreted as “closely connected in interests and activities with Japan and with [the] forwarding of her [Japan’s] ideas.”47 Various male organizations that militantly backed Japan and its imperialist policy proved the greatest challenge in the late 1930s. The Heimushakai, or the Veterans’ Association, was established on August 21, 1937, in San Francisco and in less than four years claimed to have ten thousand members in over sixty branches throughout the United States, mostly in central California. The organization was composed primarily of individuals who were not veterans but those who escaped service in the Japanese military, a mandatory obligation for all males, age twenty to thirty-two years. They automatically conferred membership on “real” veterans but, as was the case with the Sacramento branch, also to sympathizers such as two Punjabi brothers, Kar and Fada Lyn, for their support of Japan. They stated their purpose as “to encourage the proudest Japanese spirit which has ever existed” among “the first and second generation Japanese and whoever is a descendant of the Japanese race,” because the war in China required awakening “the Japanese national spirit in each and every one who has the blood of the Japanese race in him.” Yet the veterans moved beyond cultural and racial pride to overt financial support of the Japanese military. They formed a support organization with branch committees “in each district” to collect money for airplanes, with thirty dollars per unit to be paid within six months starting October 1, 1937. Their total collection remitted to Japan reached an estimated nine hundred ¯ yama to christhousand yen, prompting former American Consul Ujiro¯ O ten the airplane “Patriotic 272” in their honor on May 30, 1938, at Haneda Airport, and resulting in the distribution of six thousand photos of the plane to donors in America. They also contributed the largest washstand at Yasukuni Shrine, the site for enshrinement of the spirits of Imperial Japanese soldiers and the Imperial Family.48 Only the coming of World War II forced the Veterans’ Association to disband by late summer 1940. The organization changed its name to Aiyu¯kai, or “Loving Friends Society,” on August 20, 1940, at the suggestion of the Japanese Consul in San Francisco, but their purpose remained unchanged. “Although we changed the title of the organization, please know that the purpose and spirit in the future intentions will remain the same,” they boldly declared. But as tensions between the United States and Japan mounted, the presence of American-born members among them created an embarrassment forcing them to disband on August 30, 1941:

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67

Therefore, we, the Nisei young people who participate in the contribution movement for the Empire, will cause various problems and suspicion among the white people, even under the name of Aiyu Kai. Even a slight interference between Japan and American will make trouble for the compatriots. . . . After serious conferences, our contributions will terminate in March, much against our will. When the situation in America changes and at some opportune time, we will start again.49

Religious groups with roots in Japan, however, did not embrace the state or folk version of Japanese nationalism popular among their secular counterparts. Buddhist adherents, for example, flocked to the temples managed by the Buddhist clergy ever since their beginnings, when missionaries Eryu Honda and Ejun Miyamoto arrived in San Francisco in 1898 to start a Young Men’s Buddhist Association. They followed Shuye Sonoda and Kakuryo Nishijima, teachers of the non-Japanese in San Francisco, whom the Nishi Hongwanji headquarters of the Jo¯do¯ Shinshu¯ sect had sent for missionary work. More continued to join them until, by 1914, they had twenty-five temples or branch operations, with their sect accounting for 75 to 90 percent of all Japanese American Buddhists. In spite of its “foreign” religious image, many of their clergy in particular strongly supported the American government. They understood the Pure Land Buddhist teachings to emphasize the universalistic aspects of the faith and, therefore, were quite willing from the beginning to embrace non-Japanese believers. Their sects traditionally conflicted with the national Japanese government, and the Japanese Consulate’s initial opposition to their missionary work served only to alienate them further from the state version of Japanese nationalism. And finally, their temples benefited from California’s higher wages, which their adherents earned and donated, so that often both the clergy and followers were supporters rather than detractors of the U.S. government. Hence, upon the San Francisco Buddhist Church’s thirtieth anniversary, the San Francisco Buddhist clergyman Saki Hosokawa declared in a sermon entitled, “America’s Ideals and Buddhism,” As for the fact that all the brethren living in America[should] understand and try to attain the ideal of the nation and the people that guarantee our whole life—clothing, foods and housing—and so truly are grateful to, and have loyalty toward the State.50

Their American-born followers echoed similar sentiments but added a qualifier. George Muramoto of the San Francisco Young Men’s Buddhist Association declared that the American-born Japanese’s challenge was to maintain political loyalty to the United States but cultural loyalty to Japan. In his speech entitled, “Our Challenge,” the young San Francisco Buddhist called upon his contemporaries to confront the particular chal-

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lenge of the rising tensions in U.S.-Japan relations over the Japanese invasion of China. “It is obvious in facing the future, meeting and solving the problems that are bound to arise intelligently and successfully,” Muramoto said, “that it is absolutely imperative and essential we bear in mind that we are American citizens of Japanese Ancestry.” The young Buddhist justified Japan’s position in China—“We must vigorously explain and interpret the actual conditions and facts that are connected with the Manchurian question”—but urged unquestioned loyalty to the United States and personal loyalty to one’s parents: As American citizens, our first duty lies in our loyalty to the United States. Together with our loyalty to America, we must always remember that our parents were Japanese; we must not forget the true identity of ourselves. That as paradoxical as it may seem will be the foundation of our contributions to the United States as Japanese American citizens.51

Other, smaller religious sects of Japan made little headway among the California Japanese. The Seicho¯-no-Ie sect, a group claiming to combine the best teachings of various major world religions did not send a missionary to scout possibilities in the United States until 1938. The Konko¯kyo¯ sect fared better, their missionaries arriving by the late 1920s and by the early 1930s. They gained some adherents among the working-class Japanese, because the economic decline of Japanese American agriculture in the 1920s, coupled with the Depression in the 1930s, made those in rural districts open to this healing sect. They had Association of True Way branch offices in Honolulu, Seattle, and Los Angeles, with the latter founded in 1930. In San Francisco, monthly gatherings averaged as high as four hundred people seeking healing through the magical rice paper. During the 1930s, these Konko¯kyo¯ groups also participated in the sending of “comfort bags” to Japan, but their presence in the broader political scene was barely noticed.52 Political alignment of the California Japanese community, however, was heavily impacted by the Roosevelt administration’s unilateral abrogation of the Commercial Treaty with Japan in 1939. Those without U.S. citizenship lost their last line of defense against racial discrimination as the commercial treaty guaranteed legal protection for merchants and their families. Entrepreneurs dependent on trade between the United States and Japan were hurt by boycotts of Japanese goods and became liable to confiscation of their legal status as “aliens ineligible for U.S. citizenship.” As Richard Nishimoto recalled in 1942, The Issei, for at least two years before evacuation, were worried about international affairs and the relations between Japan and the United States. They

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69

could clearly see war developing and were very much worried about their own status and what it would be.53

San Francisco Japanese Association officials took precautions for war during the crisis. As a leading immigrant organization, they declared “we Japanese brethren who are residents on the American continent have determined to live permanently here during this crisis, will help each other out to make progress toward assimilation into American society.” One of them promised the FBI a report on potential saboteurs among Japanese Americans and thereafter maintained frequent contacts with the FBI agents despite the absence of danger: If there were any case of sabotage or spy[ing] I would have reported without any hesitancy. I have been asked time and again that if there is any such case that I know of and every time I answered that I am happy to say that we . . . don’t have any such case and our people are not such type to cause injury to the United States.

The same officer affirmed that Japanese Americans would remain lawabiding residents: When Admiral Nomura became the ambassador to the United States and arrived in San Francisco in 1940, he said that no matter how critical the relation of America and Japan will become in the future the mission of the Japanese American is clear and definite, that is they must be loyal and good, law[-]abiding citizens of the United States. His statement was taken by Japanese Americans as their watchword although we do not know whether [the] Ambassador said it in good faith or not, at any rate, we were pure enough to take it and keep it in absolute faith.54

The JACL followed the Japanese Association’s lead in repositioning itself with regard to the two nations. Rather than defend Japan before the American public, league officers actively promoted Americanization and loyalty to the United States. Their new patriotic position initially drew harsh criticism from progressives, who characterized JACL leaders as “flag-waving hypocrites” in contrast to the latter’s own leader’s consistent opposition to fascism. By 1940, however, the league won over Do¯ho¯ subscribers to its side after its organ, the Pacific Citizen, warned in May 1941 of impending war.55 By fall 1940, various entrepreneurial and commercial elites, too, prepared contingency plans in the event of war or embargo. Yokohama Species Bank officials in San Francisco planned to burn their secret codebooks, move their records of the most recent transactions to a secure vault in Brooklyn, New York, and ship all other records with at least two employees to the branch office in Rio de Janeiro. Officials further ar-

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ranged to keep additional funds on hand in anticipation of a bank run. They wrote Tokyo suggesting a buildup of reserve capital for this possibility but also with an eye toward meeting a California state law requiring a minimum of 18 percent of total dollar deposits kept on hand. They considered ways of stalling deposit withdrawals, because over three-quarters of their deposits were held by Japanese immigrants, but in the end decided on appeals to depositors’ “self-discipline.”56 The Japanese on Terminal Island were also prepared psychologically for war. They anticipated forced relocation from the island by 1940 because they knew that the U.S. Navy intended to use the island. Three days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Shin Sekai reported the Navy’s planned expansion on Terminal Island would condemn the canneries and the fishing village: If accepted, it would mean wholesale removal of Japanese community there. Sentiment of Japanese fishermen as well as Nisei at the harbor, who reportedly have been an issue in the entire action, indicated a welcome response to the development. . . . As a national defense measure, we support it heartily. And if it results in an end to all this unfair publicity and false charges against the Japanese fishermen, all the better, was the summary of Nisei sentiment.

Progressives, too, anticipated war and harsh treatment of Japanese Americans. Some aired their views in the Ryu¯ku¯ Journal, a popular magazine for leftists, where they defined Italy and Germany as fascist, and Allied conduct as nonracial. Shinsei Kouchi, for example, accurately surmised that the 1939 abrogation of the 1911 Commercial Treaty meant war was imminent, and his August 20, 1940 essay proved prophetic: It is not difficult to imagine that American Japanese, like the Germans some years ago, will find that what they have built up over the years will be completely uprooted overnight. . . . If our oppression up until now has been a matter of discriminatory treatment in peacetime conditions, in a war we will be treated as enemy aliens not only by the government, but by the society as a whole. We must awaken to the life and death nature of the issue before us, as Japanese in America, regardless of whether Japan or the United States might win.57

But not all were quick to anticipate the coming conflict. Many Buddhists failed to foresee the coming crisis and its accompanying negative impact. When they realized that a crisis was looming, northern California Buddhists announced only three days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor their loyalty pledge to the United States, a public statement that probably gave them little credence before the American public. Toshiko Hatamiya of Marysville, declared,

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Be it resolved that, with firm reliance and faith in our Lord Buddha we the members of the Northern California District of California Young Buddhists’ League do hereby pledge ourselves as one united people for the defense of our country, the United States of America, and to the preservation of all its democratic ideals and institutions.58

Pledges notwithstanding, Japanese Americans were quickly betrayed by events following the outbreak of war. Within three weeks, a handful of individuals were murdered in Los Angeles, Stockton, and Imperial Valley, California, and one in Chicago, Illinois, and reports from other cities of similar assaults against Japanese Americans. Their business establishments were vandalized and their homes fired upon by unknown assailants. Salinas Valley farmers with leases gave them up as farm laborers refused to work for Japanese Americans, and shippers, fearing possible boycotts of California Japanese-grown products, began reducing or eliminating their ties with Japanese Americans. Others were simply terminated from employment even though they were employees of the City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, or the California State Personnel Board. Japanese Americans saw further restrictions placed upon their lives as they surrendered short-wave radios, firearms, and explosives to governmental authorities on December 29, 1941, and were placed under a fiftymile travel restriction on January 1, 1942, and enemy aliens were not allowed to sue the federal government for any action taken against them, since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld federal government officials’ actions under the Trading-with-the-Enemy Act passed by Congress during World War I. Moreover, Japanese Americans had to register again as enemy aliens, a requirement made after the outbreak of war. Only the relaxation of the freeze on enemy alien assets, popularly credited to Mrs. Roosevelt’s intervention, made life bearable for many Japanese Americans.59 The domestic violence sparked by the outbreak of war also unleashed a barrage of loyalty statements by Japanese Americans. The professionals, commercial elites, the “progressive” labor union leaders, and activists and students all fell in line. Saburo¯ Kido, president of the Japanese American Citizens’ League, sent a telegram to President Franklin Roosevelt immediately upon learning of the Pearl Harbor attack, declaring, “[I]n this solemn hour we pledge our fullest cooperation to you, Mr. President, and to our country . . . now that Japan has instituted this attack upon our land, we are ready and prepared to expend every effort to repel this invasion together with our fellow Americans.” The Japanese Students’ Club at the University of California, Berkeley, announced with equal vigor their own pledge to the United States government: We, the students of the University who are American citizens of Japanese ancestry, were completely stunned, hardly able to realize that there is actually

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a war between the United States and Japan. Our loyalty lies with this country and our duties are clear. . . . This challenge to us to confirm our loyalty to the United States and an opportunity to prove ourselves worthy of being Americans. We stand ready to do our part in the defense of our democracy and its ideals.60

Buddhists also publicly denounced the bombing, changed the name of their organization to “The Buddhist Churches of America,” purchased war bonds, volunteered for Red Cross service, and strongly pledged their loyalty to the United States: The suddenness of the unwarranted and inhumane attack upon these United States of America leave us, the Buddhists in America, with but one decision: the condemnation of the attack. . . . The loyalty to the United States which we have pledged at all times must now be placed into instant action for the defense of the United States of America. . . . Our prayers are with President Franklin Roosevelt.61

Admittedly, however, many Buddhists privately resigned themselves to FBI arrests of some of their priests for certain prewar activities construed as support for Japan. “The Buddhists in general seemed to realize,” Shibutani noted, “that many of the activities they had engaged in the past would no longer be acceptable and took their fate without much complaint . . . for they had expected such things to happen since the outbreak of war.”62 Others chose not resignation but condemnation of the U.S. government for the war. The Shin Sekai editors in northern California openly blamed the United States for the outbreak of war between Japan and the United States. After warning their readership that the United States was the instigator, just days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the newspaper reported the day after that the “ABCD” or the Allied countries composed of America, Britain, China, and Holland (Dutch) were encircling Japan by cutting off supply lines to natural resources from Indonesia and other parts of the world to the south of Japan. The editor angrily denounced the United States, saying, “Who really obstructed the peace of the Pacific? . . . (It was) the disgraceful conduct of the ABCD expanding in the southern direction.” Editors in southern California were divided, with some, like those of the Rafu Shimpo¯ adopting a policy of “waving the American flag,” while others, like the editors of the Sangyo¯ Nippo¯ and Kashu¯ Mainichi (also known as KaMai for short) gave their support of Japan through subtle, careful wording. “When we play down Japanese victories and play up American victories, the Sangyo and Kamai do exactly the opposite,” the Rafu Shimpo¯ English-language editor, Togo Tanaka, lamented as he watched subscribers flock to the KaMai.63

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73

When newspapers were silent in the early months of 1942, many Japanese Americans understood Japan, not America, as winning the war. They read American newspapers skeptically, finding not a triumphant nation but one reeling under the blows inflicted by Imperial Japanese military forces, signaling an early negotiated peace leaving the Japanese Empire intact and a future home for themselves. Takeo Tada, a Kibei secretary for the Southern California Japanese Chamber of Commerce, observed their interpretation of the news: If the news report says that Japanese have sunk United States warships, they speak of it as if it were a fact; they don’t question it at all. When the news report say American warships have sunk Japanese warships, then they question it, say it’s just some more propaganda.

In addition, Japanese American supporters of Japan spread rumors of American defeats, Japanese victories, impending internment in the face of a Japanese invasion of the American mainland, and warnings against support of the United States. Allegedly basing their rumors on broadcasts by the news agencies in Tokyo, they confidently declared the death of MacArthur, the imminent invasion of California, and their harsh removal to the interior—with “only one suitcase per family”—awaited by all since April 15, when Alaska had been bombed. Kando Ikeda, the Hokubei Hyo¯ron editor, openly predicted that the Japanese Navy would sail into San Francisco Bay soon while others told stories of Nisei in the United States Army being confined to their barracks for three weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, discharged, or given the dirtiest assignments possible. Still others took advantage of the information gap to warn American-born Japanese adults against the “uncivilized” act of openly supporting their country of birth. When an Oakland Nisei female “radical” accused her own father of harboring “pro-Axis sentiments,” they condemned her for displaying a lack of “reverence” for her own, accused her of acting “rash,” and made her into a paradigm for what was “wrong” with some Nisei. As one woman said, “If the Nisei were truly Japanese, we (Issei) would not have to worry about them deserting us in time of need, but they are not Japanese; they are uncivilized.”64 Those Nisei who backed the Allies also questioned the JACL’s conception of “loyalty.” They found the league’s insistence on all Japanese Americans accepting its brand of “loyalty” unrealistic. As a twenty-threeyear-old Nisei pacifist commented wryly, This matter of loyalty and disloyalty strikes an odd chord in my funny bone. If the Japanese and the Nisei are composed of human beings then this matter of loyalty to the nation is going to be found expressed in all manners and degrees. That would include those who would be nice, juicy saboteurs to

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those who are mouth-twitching superpatriots. I certainly am not convinced of Mike Masaoka’s 100% Americanism. . . . Are there not Caucasians among us who are willingly owing their allegiances not to the U.S[.], but to, say to China, Great Britain, France, even in spite of U.S. citizenship? . . . Are there not Issei and Nisei who are following the democratic ideal more ardently than those among us who boast of ancestry back to a bump-on-thehead when they slipped off from some moss-covered New England rock?65

Questions of “loyalty,” notwithstanding, the JACL and their Progressive critics found enough common ground to merge and become the new governors of Japanese Americans. The northern California Americanborn elites in the San Francisco JACL chapter advocated a patriotic agenda, calling for cooperation with Japanese Americans’ arch enemy, the William Hearst paper establishment in its “Give a bomber to Uncle Sam” donation drive in January 1942. They also initiated an Americanization course for Japanese immigrants and assisted in their registration as required by the federal government in early 1942. In the following month, the northern California chapters undertook a Kibei Survey to supply “certain bits of information” to federal government authorities regarding their ages, years spent in Japan, dual citizenship, and military service, but succeeded only in triggering “a flood of protests” and accusations of certain JACL members as “squealers” to the FBI and ONI. Labor union activist and Communist Party member Karl Yoneda sent letters to all Japanese Associations, prefectural associations, churches and Kibei groups on December 10, 1941, calling for support for the U.S. war effort, enlistment in the Civilian Defense Corps, the purchasing of U.S. war bonds, contributions to the Red Cross, and for Do¯ho¯ readers to follow Mike Masaoka of the JACL as the leader of the Japanese American community. Isamu Noguchi and the Nisei Writers and Artists Mobilization for Democracy wanted their group to be “useful to our American homeland during and after her struggle against the Axis” by educating the American public on “a clear and accurate picture of the American citizen of Japanese extraction,” and the Nisei on the “democratic principles, the issues involved in the war, and their duties as American citizens.”66 JACL and Progressive elites in southern California, too, joined forces to institute a coercive loyalty program called the Anti-Axis Committee. In the City of Angels, the Committee brought together Shu¯ji Fujii, editor of the Los Angeles Do¯ho¯, a progressive newspaper, and Fred Tayama, successful restaurant owner and JACL leader. The latter, as president, published pamphlets in Japanese and English announcing the JACL’s search for individuals who “in words or by deeds connive with or defend the enemy.” Committee members welcomed into their fold Tokutaro¯ Nishimura Slocum who openly declared his alleged connection with the Ameri-

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can counterintelligence officers, and claimed success in finding spies. Slocum boasted that “Central Japanese Association is a nefarious, spying organization, and I am proud to say to you here that, on December 7 [1941] night, I went over the top again, leading my buddies of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Naval Intelligence to arrest the Central Japanese Association leaders, everyone from that lecherous Gongoro¯ Nakamura down.” Togo Tanaka, another committee member, broadcasted on radio station KMTR immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor that all suspicious individuals “must be . . . reported to the F.B.I., Naval Intelligence, Sheriff’s Office, and local police.”67 The emergence of this new political faction and its attendant dangers had not gone unnoticed. Tamotsu Shibutani, a University of Chicago graduate student living in the San Francisco Bay region, correctly predicted the problems that this new faction would bring once Japanese Americans were interned in concentration camps. With so many leaders incarcerated, Shibutani warned of coming “witch hunts for ‘stool pigeons’ ”: When the F.B.I. raids were numerous and prominent Japanese were being arrested in large numbers, many people who had saved money and consequently could live without working were suspected of working for the government. Judging from the attitude of the people toward these alleged “squealers,” it would seem that the camp, with its inefficient policing, would be a dangerous place for such suspects. People in the state of mind such as that of many of the evacuees may be hasty in their actions, and unless definite precautions are taken, regrettable things may occur.

Shibutani’s words proved accurate as new rules of governance, sparked by the outbreak of war, led Japanese Americans to police and conduct surveillance against their fellow internees, resulting in “regrettable things.”68

3 ESTABLISHING THE STRUCTURES OF INTERNMENT, FROM LIMITED TO MASS INTERNMENT, 1942–1943

D

ESPITE MANY Japanese American elites’ sincere support for the American government, high-ranking federal government officials and military brass removed and interned all West Coast Japanese, basing their decision on several factors. Their considerations involved both strategic military, diplomatic, and political elements, a complex web reflected in the assigning of the removal task to the War Department, and internment to the Justice Department and the WRA. Their decision and implementation took place in stages, begninning with the impounding of assets, then individual removal and internment, voluntary relocation, and, finally, coerced, mass removal and internment. As they scrambled to make policies and establish structures, they did not anticipate many of the consequences this program would have, not only for its victims, but also for those living in close proximity and a half a world away from the camps.1 The first steps against Japanese Americans came before the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor. Federal government officials had initially planned for internment of specific individuals, curtailment of freedom of speech, and freezing of financial assets, after war was declared. President Roosevelt, however, ordered the latter measure earlier, so as to deter potential espionage and sabotage activities and to strongly register the United States’ displeasure with Japanese military forces moving into southeast Asia. He announced on July 25, 1941, an oil embargo but added the halt of transactions involving Axis assets in the United States ostensibly to also forestall a Nazi counterfeit scheme. Roosevelt’s policy brought confusion to Japanese American businesses since it halted their business operations too. Masao Hirata later recalled, “I was worried and was wondering what was going on. The banks wouldn’t let me withdraw the money I had saved.”2 After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, FBI agents next carried out the internment of enemy aliens. Field agents immediately sealed off the border with Mexico by arresting all Japanese males in El Paso, Texas, and, within the first four months of war, they picked up 2,599 suspects and made additional arrests based on their assessment of the suspects’ beliefs and sympathies. The arrests continued until the total reached 14,738 enemy aliens by 1943. They paroled 4,113 after conducting hearings and in-

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terned only 3,771. U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle claimed that those arrested comprised less than a half percent of nearly a million enemy aliens. FBI agents apprehended sixty more Germans than Japanese and used questionable standards in selecting the over five thousand Japanese whom they whisked away to camps at Fort Stanton, New Mexico; Fort Missoula, Montana; Fort Lincoln, South Dakota; Tuna Canyon in Los Angeles County, and Sharp Park, near San Francisco—all within the first sixty hours of the war. They picked up Japanese Americans believed to pose the greatest risks—those who held leadership positions within organizations that had ties to the homeland, owned property there, and traveled frequently between the two countries. Hence, Lawrence M. C. Smith, head of the Special Defense Unit, who had his own shorter list of the potentially dangerous, sharply criticized J. Edgar Hoover’s actions for emphasizing “loyalty” rather than security threat, detaining too many harmless individuals.3 But federal government officials and military authorities obviously discriminated against Japanese Americans. They arrested a disproportionate number of Japanese Americans relative to their total population in the United States, even though FBI agents interned more Germans—about eleven thousand—and a roughly equal number of Italians together with a handful of Bulgarians, Hungarians, and Rumanians from December 7, 1941, to June 1, 1943. Hoover’s underlings made Japanese Americans the largest enemy alien group in the Justice Department camps, second to Germans by a mere 334, and more than double the number of Italians, Hungarians, Bulgarians, and Rumanians combined. Even though more Germans were interned and more Japanese were paroled by the FBI, a Western Defense Command officer admitted that Japanese Americans were initially interned on far slimmer evidence than German Americans. On top of this, hearing board members, too, denied Japanese Americans parole at higher rates, percentage-wise, than all others except the eleven Hungarians, an inflated figure, as the director admitted, because of “the policy of the Department of paroling interned Japanese to Relocation Camps.” Western Defense Command officers were lax in applying fivemile travel restrictions on German Jews and Italians, as opposed to Japanese Americans, and on October 19, 1942, they removed some 52,000 California Italians without U.S. citizenship from the status of “enemy alien,” because as President Franklin Roosevelt said, they were not a security threat but “a bunch of opera singers.”4 Japanese American anxieties of being arrested were compounded by other actions taken by federal government officials. Their communications with the Japanese government was cut off after war broke out, and was channeled through the officially designated diplomatic intermediary, the Spanish Consulate, with whom Japanese Americans had no previous

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dealings. Their vernaculars were effectively censored, as Japanese-language newspaper staffers took their cues from the Do¯ho¯, the only newspaper permitted to continue publishing during the first few weeks of the war because its editors were among the few Japanese Americans applauding the FBI sweeps and calling on Japanese Americans to turn in the “disloyal” among them. They were intimidated by federal agents shutting down the major Japanese-language newspapers, Rafu Shimpo¯ and Kashu¯ Mainichi for a few weeks and threatening the staff of the Utah Nippo¯, a major Japanese-language newspaper in the Rocky Mountain region, with permanent closure if they failed to comply with the governmental policy of “self-censorship” of news and of printing pro-American editorials. Moreover, the presence of so many Americans in military dress whose purpose was to occupy key positions throughout California, rather than protect Japanese Americans, frightened poet Masao Fukawa into describing the post-Pearl Harbor scene around him as “enemy territory.” Without police protection, a twenty-three-year-old Nisei from San Francisco told University of Chicago graduate student Tamotsu Shibutani that he predicted Nisei would be “beaten up and lynched right and left” throughout California. Kiyoaki Murata recalled a foreman in San Leandro, California, solemnly predicting internment of all Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. “Some people said we would be put into a camp and an airplane would be crashed on us to kill us,” Tsuguo Nagasawa feared. Others, no doubt, recalled the quiet warning the Japanese government gave to Japanese American leaders in California regarding possible treatment by Americans if war broke out. Others, no doubt, recalled the quiet warning the Japanese government gave to California Japanese leaders regarding their probable future, an expectation heightened by the harsh treatment of Japanese immigrants in Southeast Asia received at the hands of the Allies.5 Yet it took a unique convergence of events and thoughts before the Roosevelt administration followed individual arrests with mass internment. Federal government officials and military commanders placed strong emphasis on “military necessity,” a phrase justifying removal of all West Coast Japanese in 1942. They used the term broadly, incorporating military planning involving western hemispheric defense and boosting civilian morale for the war effort. Secretary of War Henry Stimson, for example, wrote General John DeWitt of the “urgent military necessity” for laborers needed to pick long-staple Arizona cotton, raw material necessary for the production of parachutes. Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy broadened it to encompass public sentiment, including racial antagonism. When asked about the removal decision ten months later, McCloy admitted that

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public sentiment was a determining factor in the planning for modern war. Military necessity is a combination of civilian and military factors. Of course, the War Department and the generals are cognizant of the public sentiment.

For General John DeWitt, WDC, the phrase “military necessity” was probably a means to stimulate greater civilian war effort, something he saw as lacking after the San Francisco Bay area residents’ lackluster response to his blackout order. His successors, too, employed the phrase to justify their continued exclusion of Japanese from the West Coast after 1942. General Delos C. Emmons, the man who opposed mass removal of the Japanese from Hawaii, announced within two weeks of his appointment as DeWitt’s successor in 1943, the “military necessity” of keeping Japanese Americans away from the West Coast, as did Major General H. C. Pratt in May, 1945, even though he readily admitted the likelihood of a Japanese attack was remote.6 Although they included racial prejudice under “military necessity,” top military brass evidenced less of those sentiments in private. Despite General DeWitt’s 1943 pronouncement, “A Jap’s a Jap,” he distinguished between “loyal” and “disloyal” Japanese Americans, an idea consistent with his Western cavalry family tradition of recognizing “good injuns” from “bad” ones. The general did not see all Asians as enemies, since he treated Korean Americans as allies. Colonel Karl Bendetsen, though antagonistic toward Japanese, was initially more hostile toward German Americans because he refused to drop the enemy alien status for German Jews, and rigidly retained enemy alien restrictions despite the protests of the Jewish Club. The colonel made a crude distinction between “loyal” Japanese Americans—the U.S. citizen-only Nisei—and those with “high potential” as a national security risk—Issei, Kibei, and dual citizens. But in front of the public, the colonel cast doubts on the Nisei, too, when he asked the audience at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco to imagine a role reversal to grasp his rationale for carrying out the removal a month earlier: Now, if you and I had settled in Japan, raised our families there and if our children and grandchildren were raised there, . . . in the main, and irrespective of our inner emotions, you and I would be law abiding. But when the final test of loyalty came, if United States forces were engaged in launching an attack on Japan, I believe it is extremely doubtful whether we could withstand the ties of race and the affinity for the land of our forebears, and stand with the Japanese against United States forces.7

A “military necessity” existed, though not one to justify mass removal. Command head and War Department officials were both acutely aware of their vulnerability to enemy attack from the west. They knew that the

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successful Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor dealt a deadly blow to their overall defense strategy, a plan that positioned the bulk of the U.S. Army’s land forces on the East Coast for rapid mobilization to overseas assignment in Europe and left most of the navy’s ships in the Pacific Ocean to fend off Japanese attacks. They calculated that the United States could not successfully wage a war with Japan in the western Pacific while simultaneously fighting a combined German-Italian invasion of South America and the Caribbean islands if the British Navy could not effectively control the North Atlantic Ocean. Military strategists knew that the collapse of the air defense barrier protecting the West Coast in December 1941 meant that nearly half of all American military aircraft production and almost all of the country’s heavy bomber output, produced by eight plants in the Los Angeles area and Seattle, were exposed. War Department and Command officers feared that the navy shipyards and ship terminals at Puget Sound, Portland, San Francisco Bay, Los Angeles, and San Diego, and the California oil industry were tempting targets for the enemy, given their value to the United States and the light defense erected to protect them. Despite the War Department’s designation of their area as a “theater of operation” rather than a rear area on December 11, the WDC still faced critical shortages of supplies, equipment, and combat-ready personnel. Although he had eleven of twelve infantry regiments up to full strength for harbor defense before December 7, the commander found that two-thirds of his anti-aircraft artillery units were suffering from equipment shortages. He had serious questions about his own undermanned air force that lacked bombs and ammunition in sufficient quantity to launch preemptive attacks against invading Japanese carrier forces. The Second and Fourth Air Forces in the WDC sector in November 1941 had only a hundred bombers and 140 fighter planes, respectively, and were primarily training, not combat, units. Even though the Fourth Air Force took over defense of the whole West Coast and was expanded to 461 fighter planes and 219 bombers, it still lacked trained pilots and navigators. Projections showed that it could not successfully intercept a possible Japanese carrier force sailing in for attack behind a storm or fog front within seven hundred to 1,100 miles offshore because the Fourth Air Force had only a tenth of the estimated bomber strength needed (162 army and 180 navy planes) to do the task. Even with the aid of radar, the general probably could not defend against such an attack since radar coverage and ground observation units of the southern approaches from Baja, California, were incomplete and he lacked sufficiently trained operators. DeWitt’s air defense problems were so bad that Army air force officers admitted in April 1942 that even a light enemy force attacking the two big bomber plants in Los Angeles would probably succeed, a charitable assessment given the blistering criticism a top British radar defense

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expert leveled at the Western Defense Command after his inspection tour in January 1942. In addition, DeWitt was stuck with a “calculated risk” policy that took away the most seasoned troops, leaving him to defend the West Coast against a possible commando attack with troops generally conceded to be older in age and of limited service. Only his countermeasures against possible fifth columnist action, completed by August 1941, combined with the realization before the end of December that the bulk of the Imperial Japanese forces were deployed in western and equatorial regions of the Pacific Ocean gave him some measure of hope.8 The army’s handling of the Japanese in the Philippines, however, gave the WDC little encouragement for fair treatment of Japanese Americans. On the first day of war, General Douglas MacArthur reported to the War Department that he had interned 40 percent of all enemy aliens in Manila and another 10 percent of those in the rural regions, based on information received from Nisei informants of the FBI who were sent to infiltrate the Japanese immigrant community. His soldiers sent those deemed a risk to Bilibid Prison and ordered all other Japanese to remain confined to their homes. He violated the agreement between the State Department and the Japanese Foreign Ministry to honor the Geneva Convention by forcing Japanese internees to dig trenches for air raid shelters. The general then urged the State Department to use Japanese Americans as a “lever under the threat of reciprocal retaliatory measures to force decent treatment for [American] interned men and women” since American civilians in the Philippines were subjected to “abuse and special humiliation” by Imperial Japanese soldiers to “discredit the white races.” In other instances, MacArthur simply allowed mistreatment of Japanese immigrants, as in Davao, where five Japanese, after being interned, were shot by Filipino policemen in retaliation for the Imperial Japanese naval bombardment of the town. The general may have tolerated this because some Japanese immigrants landed with the Imperial Japanese forces after Davao was taken on December 20, 1941. MacArthur’s actions and attitudes toward local Japanese may have influenced John DeWitt since the latter had done three tours of duty in the Philippines and was probably aware of the intelligence reports predicting beforehand that some Japanese immigrants would assist the Imperial Japanese forces in the capture of the Islands.9 Other factors made General DeWitt equally nervous, especially the lack of reliable intelligence information. The general and his staff had insufficient intelligence on Japanese radio intercepts taking place within his defense perimeters. He initially relied on the FBI for information on signal intercepts of the Japanese Navy forces operating in the eastern Pacific Ocean, because the Bureau had monitoring stations from the Prohibition era, but he found them uncooperative. He, along with the navy, turned to the Federal Communications Commission in 1942 to monitor all radio

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broadcasts and inform him of those with military value. But the general often received inaccurate information, and a year later, with other top navy and army officers, he complained of faulty information from the commission, wasting some sixty thousand dollars each time the army put troops on false alert. The commander lacked knowledge of suspected individuals because the FBI refused to share that data too. DeWitt found the Office of Naval Intelligence willing to cooperate but probably wondered how many more agents they missed after naval counterintelligence operatives caught Itaru Tachibana and his Hollywood Issei assistant. And finally, the commander received erroneous information from toplevel officials inside the War Department. He was advised by General George Marshall of a possible gas attack on the West Coast during May 16–18, 1942, and prepared 350,000 gas masks and clothing ready in anticipation of such an attack near the end of May, an assessment both Army and Navy intelligence concurred. Army engineers camouflaged aircraft factories and military installations; the Command’s troop strength increased to 172,000 officers and enlisted men, of which 121,000 were ground combat forces. Navy, marines, and the coast guard had an additional seventy-five thousand men, and on May 27, 1942, DeWitt and Command went on special alert, expecting a coordinated Axis attack in the East with one in the West.10 Other segments of the federal government also had a hand in the decision to remove Japanese Americans from the West Coast. As part of their role as the leader in the western hemispheric defense, federal government officials were under pressure to undertake harsh measures against Japanese Americans. They were embarrassed when, after U.S. Ambassador Edwin Wilson agreed with Panama’s Foreign Minister Octavio Fabrega on October 21, 1941, to intern Panama’s Japanese population, Panamanian officials asked why no action had been taken in the United States, even though the United States had entered the war five days earlier. U.S. officials were caught in a bind with Peruvian government officials, too, who by December 5 had already drafted their Proclaimed List of Certain Blocked Nationals, and included among them Japanese marked for deportation to the United States. They took criticism from Mexican officials in early February 1942 when they heard from Raleigh Gibson, First Secretary of the American Embassy in Mexico City, regarding Mexican observations of the United States’ slowness in dealing with Japanese Americans when they had already removed their own Japanese residents numbering less than a thousand from the Baja peninsula. They winced with embarrassment when the Canadian Commander at the end of December 1941 recommended removing Canada’s own Japanese populace from the West Coast, a suggestion that became public policy on January 14, 1942.11

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For some federal government officials and military brass, taking hostages may have added the proverbial feather tipping the scales in favor of removal and internment. After General Douglas MacArthur escaped the Japanese takeover of the Philippines in mid-March 1942, he claimed that American civilians suffered harm and humiliation at the hands of the Japanese military as they were rounded up and interned. The defeated general called for retaliation against Japanese Americans, saying that “the Japanese only understand force.” Stimson took up the idea with State Department head Cordell Hull, admonishing him to “present the threat of reprisals against the many Japanese nationals now enjoying negligible restrictions in the United States.” After some consultation, the State Department released a statement in early February 1942 containing the threat: If assurances cannot be given by the Japanese government that these principles will be applied in the treatment of American nationals, not only on Japanese occupied territory in the Philippines but throughout Japan and Japanese[-]occupied territories, it may be necessary for this government to reconsider its policy of according to Japanese nationals on its territory the most liberal treatment consistent with the national safety.12

Secretary of War Stimson and others believed hostage taking was reasonable to ensure safety of one’s own civilians in enemy hands during war. The Public Affairs Division of the State Department announced just ten days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor that there were fourteen thousand American civilians in the Philippines and an additional twenty-one thousand American servicemen. In addition, some fifteen thousand Americans were in Japan, and another seven thousand were in China, with a couple thousand more scattered in southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, leaving Japan with over thirty-eight thousand Americans by the end of 1942.13 Japanese government officials’ treatment of American civilians under their control left federal government officials surprised. Prior to removal and internment, Japanese in general treated American civilians well, except for those in the Philippines, because they intended for the camps to be as self-sufficient as possible. According to J. T. Clarke, the Japanese reportedly allowed civilians to take, with certain exceptions, material possessions with them, including household goods and, in one instance, personal servants: It is evidently the intention of the Japanese that each internment camp be as self-sufficient as possible, with the internees themselves supplying much of the necessary equipment. Thus in each of the three areas reported upon the internees have been allowed to take with them a considerable quantity

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of personal possessions and household goods, although there has been no indication that a similar privilege will be granted them upon their release from camp.

American civilians “evacuated” out of Shanghai were obviously allowed to bring in washing machines, beds, and other personal property: It has been suggested that prospective internees group themselves together to cooperate in bringing to the camp such articles as flatirons and washing equipment which may be shared by several people. Furthermore, the internment orders issued at Shanghai included an invitation to donate to the camps such furnishings as refrigerators, pianos, radios and bicycles, while provision was apparently made at Canton for internees to take with them their Chinese personal servants.

Individuals with bank accounts with American banks in Japan, too, were accorded fair treatment. All bank savings account holders of National City Bank, the sole American bank in Japan with branches in Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe, Osaka, and cities in China and the Philippines, received reimbursements for their money confiscated on December 8, 1941.14 U.S. officials, however, worried about American civilians suffering cruel treatment by Japanese in the Philippines, unlike those on the Asian continent. Part of their concern stemmed from their anticipation of harsh treatment of American civilians in retaliation for American and Filipino abuse of Japanese immigrants in the Philippines. They knew considerable property was stolen from the Japanese, and, on two separate occasions, Americans and Filipino soldiers slaughtered dozens of unarmed Japanese civilians already interned in camps. State Department officials and others inside the Washington beltway remained fearful because Japan was not a signatory to the Geneva Convention, and many radio broadcasts by captured American civilians testifying to their humane treatment in Japanese camps only underscored the fact that so many of these were highly trained, well-educated, and politically connected individuals. Officials knew that some of the civilian prisoners’ friends and family members had already badgered State Department officials about expediting prisoner exchanges to win their release. Their outlook turned to alarm when the Special Division of the State Department reported that the Japanese government had established its own “assembly centers” due to “military considerations” after the WDC began removing West Coast Japanese.15 Fears notwithstanding, federal government officials opened a floodgate of proposals after they announced the removal of all Japanese Americans from the West Coast on February 19, 1942. Euro-American businessmen and farmers made numerous offers, many of them crassly self-serving, to have them reside locally. Julius W. Becker, of Becker Merchantile Com-

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pany in Springerville, Arizona, put it succinctly when he proposed that the army use the four empty Civilian Conservation Corps camps nearby: None of us want[s] to be selfish, during this war period, but just the same, we can’t help but feel that there are a great many centers in the U.S. that are booming with defense activity and some of the people in this part of the country need work badly. For others, it would be a means to dispose of garden vegetables locally.16

Yet a handful of altruistic individuals proposed allowing Japanese Americans to live permanently in their neighborhoods. Mrs. Jacob C. Auernheimer wrote General DeWitt directly arguing for a permanent, postwar home for Japanese Americans in her own community in Reedley. We do not feel the attitude of “let the government take care of the Japanese” either Christian or patriotic. [M]ost of them are our fellow citizens and should be treated as such by Christians. If each community would help, the government would not have such a hard problem of caring for them.17

More than a few citizens left Japanese Americans with at least some hope for life in postwar America. A small but vocal group of people from various backgrounds protested the injustice of mass removal, signaling to Japanese Americans that they had reliable friends. Some were academics, professors from local colleges, who wrote letters of protest to the FBI and other federal government agencies, or attempted to create work projects for Japanese Americans to secure some form of employment for their postwar future. Others, often wealthy individuals who employed Japanese Americans as domestic servants, filed complaints against internment, and a few even upbraided guards at the “assembly centers” for leaving the Japanese in such a “cruel and inhuman” condition. Christians from Quaker, Brethren, Unitarian, and liberal Protestant denominations and Catholic organizations sought to get as many Japanese Americans out of the camps as possible, beginning with students. African American civil rights activists, too, spoke out, warning of the dangerous precedent mass removal and internment held for African Americans despite some African Americans, including the president of the Salinas, California chapter, supporting removal to take over the lucrative Japanese-dominated sectors of the California agricultural economy. Some defenders of Japanese Americans testified at the Tolan Committee Hearings in February and March 1942, clearly opposing or at least questioning the wisdom of removal. Still others, such as the mayor of Berkeley and the mayor of Tacoma, too, spoke against removal, and Joseph Carson, head of the Oregon American Legion, called for equal rights for Japanese Americans.18 Despite the mixed signals Japanese Americans received from different sources, a number of them did not wait for the federal government. Imme-

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diately after war broke out, some of them anticipated persecution based on nationality and race, and simply crossed the border into Baja, Mexico, where they hoped to escape. A number of them—their precise numbers are unclear—left after DeWitt announced on March 2 that he would exclude all Japanese, both alien and U.S. citizen, from Military Zone Number One, an area covering the western half of the states of Washington, Oregon, and California, and the southern portion of Arizona. Perhaps about five thousand of them moved in March. Of these, over two-thirds moved to Colorado or Utah, but the remainder simply moved to other locations within Washington, Oregon, and California, not anticipating mass removal and internment of the entire West Coast. As Chika Sugino noted, wealthier Japanese Americans mistakenly assumed that the failed British “evacuation” made an American one unlikely. Occasionally, individuals such as Hi Korematsu, a graduate of Cornell University, suggested moving a large group of Issei farmers well beyond the proscribed military areas. But more, however, chose instead to hedge their bets by selling their higher-priced property along the coast to purchase lower-priced property outside of Military Zone Number One at about half or less the coastal land value. They failed to escape internment when WDC officers saw the majority remaining.19 Once the decision for mass removal was made, however, most Japanese Americans accepted their fate for a variety of reasons. For many, their resignation to mass removal was an anticipated outcome of war, best captured in the oft-quoted phrase, shikata ga nai or “it can’t be helped.” Eddie Sakamoto from Los Angeles said, “This is war, and we can’t do anything, you know.” Quite a few viewed the camps—both “assembly centers” and “relocation centers”—as places of refuge from the anti-Japanese violence they saw around them. They were aware of the drive-by shootings, knife stabbings, and murder of a handful of California Japanese by Filipinos and others, a pattern of violence they feared would only escalate as the war increasingly turned against Americans and their allies. A small number of them hoped that by cooperating, they might expedite a rapid return of their own fathers and loved ones arrested by the FBI. Yoshiko Uchida aptly expressed this hope when she recalled, “We decided, finally, to go to the government camp where we would be with friends and presumably safe from violence. We also hoped my father’s release might be facilitated if he could join us under government custody.” But cooperation with mass removal and internment gave some a sense of honor, having moral worth bestowed upon them as “prisoners of war.” George Yamaguchi observed, after talking to a number of Issei, “Some of the Isseis that I have known thought it an honor to be taken a prisoner of war. At least some thought that was the least they could . . . do for their efforts to help out the old country.” One individual best summarizes

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the many reasons why so many Japanese Americans chose to cooperate with removal and internment, embracing the idea of protection from hakujin, or “whites,” and their culture: I will go where the government says. There will be the safest. Supposing you are on the outside and supposing . . . some white person decides to harm you? What do you do? . . . So far the hakujin have treated us fairly well, but you cannot tell what will happen later on. When the war in the Pacific really begins, thousands of American boys will be killed. There will be thousands of people who will blame the death of their relatives on the Japanese people. If we are out in the East alone, they can come over and burn our houses down and we could do nothing. The government can watch things like that if we are all together like we will be in camp, but the government does not have enough men to watch us if we spread all over the country. Hakujin are still barbarians at heart. They have not had the advantage of an old and mellow tradition to train them. Their country is still young and many of them are cultured only skin deep. If you scratch them a little, you will find that they are savages. No, I will go to the camp like the government says.20

Unaware of how Japanese Americans would respond, two island communities with small Japanese populations served as test cases. Residents of Terminal Island, California, and Bainbridge Island, Washington, were the first to feel the brunt, as were those in Hawaii who were interned on Sand Island. The California group of over five hundred fishermen and their families lost much in the way of possessions, with boat owners losing their large investment in their vessels and equipment when they were evicted within forty-eight hours. The nearly three-hundred-odd Washington group were mostly engaged in farming or at the lumber sawmill, with a handful in the flower business and greenhouse work, and a single female was an indentured servant. Although none held dual citizenship with Japan, and a handful had Canadian citizenship, they were all cleared out so that the navy could set up a radio station on the island and were sent to Manzanar before being transferred to Minidoka by February 1943.21 “Success” with the two island communities allowed federal government officials to move rapidly with removal of all West Coast Japanese. They selected internment camps, some for a short term, projected for a maximum of two months, and others for a long term, meaning the duration of the war. Since the WDC was charged with the responsibility for removal, the top brass created the Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA) and charged them with handling the short-term camps, euphemistically called “assembly centers.” DeWitt left nearly all of the planning and implementation of Executive Order 9066 in the hands of Colonel Karl Bendetsen, who later recalled, “The whole program was carried out under my direction. I not only had a hand in it, I selected them (camp

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sites).” Those officers under Bendetsen chose locations on the basis of size, availability of resources, and expediency, with very little thought to their potential political impact on its internees. They found places to immediately house large numbers of Japanese Americans, where there were electrical and water resources already available, geographic proximity to the homes of West Coast Japanese Americans, and large enough spaces for recreational and other related activities. Hence, the army selected large fairgrounds or racetracks for twelve of the sixteen camps. Bendetsen’s staff made a contract with the Los Angeles Turf Club to turn the Santa Anita racetrack into the largest of all “assembly centers,” holding close to twenty thousand internees from the surrounding Los Angeles county environs. In the San Francisco Bay region, Presidio staffers selected the Tanforan Race Track, owned by a company with the same name to lodge another ten thousand from the local area. When the Army Corps of Engineers failed to complete the facilities in Poston on time, DeWitt’s staff selected an additional site in Salinas, California, the former fairgrounds facilities for the Salinas Assembly Center. They rented rodeo grounds and contracted the Dale Brothers and Doudell Construction Company to build the camp in two weeks to house between a thousand and thirteen hundred internees from Santa Cruz and Monterey counties.22 But in the army’s haste to build the camps, it picked sites that entangled officials in regional land and water disputes, as Poston, the largest of all concentration camps, illustrates. DeWitt’s staff took particular interest in the Southern Reserve of the Colorado River Indian Tribes’ reservation because the land could house a large number of Japanese Americans with its water rights to the Colorado River. DeWitt had the Army Corps of Engineers move ahead with the building of the camp after John Collier volunteered the land, but DeWitt failed to realize they were placing Japanese Americans right in the middle of a dispute between the Office of Indian Affairs, on the one hand, and the tribe on the other. The Army Command delighted office bureaucrats with its plan because it meant reviving the office’s plan to secure water rights for the tribe by increasing usage from the river while at the same time getting Japanese American help on land development for Hopi Reservation “colonists” scheduled to occupy the area after the war. As Ralph Gelvin admitted of the earlier plans, Then the thing fell through. There wasn’t enough appropriation made. It [petered] out until this Japanese relocation came along. The possibility became a reality again.23

When the camp was built, however, the army Engineer Corps fueled the smoldering fire between the Office and the Colorado River Indian Tribes. The engineers assumed that the office had already hammered out an agreement with the Tribal Council, and army trucks rumbled on to the

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land at the very moment when negotiations for use of the land was underway. Without securing permission first, the army engineers pressed forward and built three separate camps, called “Units” I, II, and III, to house ten thousand, five thousand, and five thousand internees respectively. The Tribal Council members were furious with the office, but decided to wait until after the war to sue Collier’s group. As an observer noted, The attitude of the Indians on the local reservation at first was extremely antagonistic toward the Japanese. It took the form, however, of antagonism toward the Caucasians for permitting the Japanese to come on to the reservation at least as much as toward the Japanese themselves. There was anxiety that the land taken up would never be returned, even though it had not been planned that the newly developed land would go to the Parker Indians.24

The opposite reaction took place among local residents when Topaz was selected as a site for the WRA camp. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineer won their support in part because these officers were careful to minimize the negative impact the camp would have on the water supply from the Sevier Bridge Reservoir by foregoing a site near Harding to the northwest for poorer land at Topaz. They took the land with its high alkaline soil and poor drainage and promised development by Japanese Americans before its return after the war to Millard County. As E. R. Fryer said, If the Central Utah Reception Center as herein proposed is approved and the 10,000 acres of land developed for irrigation, it would be possible and would be in line with good land use to resettle non-Japanese farmers now farming “submarginal” land in the Delta area, on the project after the Japanese evacuees leave the project after the close of the war.

They secured the locals’ approval, 70 percent of them farmer owners and another 15 percent tenant farmers, nearly all of them at the low-income level, by promising they were to be the prime recipients of the improved land.25 Owens Valley, California, unlike Topaz, Utah, proved a hostile environment for a camp. Farmers and ranchers opposed to the Los Angeles City’s water drainage of the valley and local merchants, who encouraged tourism, objected to the city’s arrangement with the army to incarcerate Japanese Americans on the land. They harshly criticized the plan, pointing out how without bringing in additional revenue to the region, federal government officials and a Japanese American presence would only further tax local governmental services. Worse, some suspected Manzanar was simply another smoke screen for the city’s attempt to steal yet more land from locals. Billy Chalfant, old-time pioneer newspaperman who fought the city for forty years, said,

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You say the Japs are supposed to leave right after the war. Will they really? Doesn’t the government hope a lot of them will stay here permanently and make another Imperial Valley out of Owens? You hear a lot of people here say some pretty nasty things about Los Angeles. Do you blame us? We’re not sensitive—just suspicious.26

But city water officials too, harbored similar misgivings. They were anxious over increased water quality-control problems with greater federal government presence in the valley, and were fearful of the federal government’s acquisition of more valley land than the requested eight thousand acres. As Van Norman said, Therefore, I think it very important that this information be supplied them, for if other areas are not available by the time this processing station is functioning there is danger of additional areas being taken in the Owens Valley up to the extent of 50,000 acres, extending clear up the Valley beyond Laws to about the Mono County line. So if the Indian Service will vigorously follow this up and make sites available, we feel that additional encroachment on our property can be avoided.27

Only a handful welcomed Manzanar. By early July 1942, merchants disputed the city employees’ constant haranguing against Japanese Americans, and sent a resolution protesting the local newspaper’s opposition against them as unrepresentative of the local sentiment. “We don’t share the editorial view of our local papers that American citizens of Japanese ancestry are unwelcome in our communities,” the merchants declared. Others, such as Douglas Joseph, a leading grower in Inyo County, predicted that locals would inherit any land improvements. He said, “If they’re going to develop the land and leave it when they go back home— they are going to be taken back, aren’t they?—and if they do a lot of public works projects, the Valley is going to profit.”28 The compromise effected by the concerned parties involved proved satisfactory to no one except DeWitt. The army received permission to develop Manzanar as a temporary site to house some ten thousand internees but only until they could be removed to another location within a twomonth period, while the lease of the land, set at several thousands of dollars annually, however, would continue. The City of Los Angeles would make a net profit of only three thousand dollars, a minimal amount infuriating H. Van Norman to the point where he had his employees create trouble for DeWitt by submitting petitions for tighter security on the Japanese and more prohibitions against their town visits.29 Despite success in negotiating campsites, DeWitt lost when it came to construction. The WDC entrusted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with the hiring of construction companies to build the camps meeting U.S.

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Army standards and additional WCCA specifications that DeWitt had made in anticipation of a two-month internment. The general ordered the facilities in the standard Theater of Operation (T/O) style but modified for family occupancy: Barracks are to be T/O type construction modified to include partitions for family groups, asphaltic roofing weighing more than 45 lbs. Per square, interior lining where warranted by climatic conditions, concrete or wooden floors, and electrical service to include one drop outlet in each apartment, with circuit capacity to permit future installation of one convenience outlet in each apartment.

Women were suppose to have individually controlled hot water, partitions in the toilets, and showers were suppose to have a “reasonable degree of privacy.” In addition, other facilities were to include a minimum 150-bed hospital per ten-thousand-person camp or a 250-bed hospital for a camp of twenty thousand. “Schools, commissaries, recreation centers, utilities, and other facilities . . . necessary for the comfort of the people,” the officer in charge noted in his orders, “will be provided.”30 Despite orders, the engineers constructed poor-quality WCCA camps. At Tanforan, for example, the army engineers failed to ensure that barracks had double flooring and, as result, garter snakes crawled up from the ground through the cracks in some housing units. At Poston, they hired the Del Webb Construction Company—one of the largest construction companies in the Arizona-Nevada region today—but the company did not install the double floors and their craftsmanship fell so far below standard that DeWitt and his staff personally ordered a number of barracks redone, touching off a heated dispute between himself and the Army Corps of Engineers. The engineers simply ignored DeWitt, who was “extremely anxious” about hospital construction and other conditions because he feared that inadequate facilities would lead to disaffection among loyal Japanese Americans. The engineers obeyed his order to have Poston Units II and III refitted.31 Army engineers also failed to complete construction of the Military Police facilities. At the Santa Anita WCCA camp, these shortcomings became apparent to those assigned to guard the twenty thousand incarcerated. The engineers had built four watchtowers instead of the requested eight, and did not connect electrically all of the five-thousand-watt searchlights, leaving the police with an inadequate number of operating lights for night coverage. They badly positioned some of the searchlights—“not satisfactory,” as one guard put it, since the view from the watchtower was “almost entirely obstructed” by a grove of trees. The engineers erected a barbed-wire fence that had open spots, in some instances so low that a person could jump through them, while at other places, there was no

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fence at all. They did such a poor job that a lieutenant colonel in charge reported, “The fence as it is at present is entirely inadequate.”32 Perhaps to offset the sloppy work by army engineers, WCCA officers under DeWitt established a tight system of control over the camps. They created two organizations to handle police matters in the “assembly” or reception “centers.” The military police was assigned to control entry and exit from outside of the camp areas proper, and their duties included patrolling the perimeter but not the living quarters of the camp area itself, unless invited in by the camp director or in case of “extreme disorder,” such as a fire or riot. To minimize intrusion and internee escape, the Military Police set up their checkpoints at specified gates and required all to pass through with permits. Most Military Police were trained to halt, arrest, and turn over violators to the proper authority, but DeWitt changed their orders to shoot violators and permitted a local Military Police commander to order two machine gun emplacements installed at the top of the grandstands at Santa Anita. Furthermore, they were given an adequate number of guards, with each camp receiving a battalion of Military Police and five Military Police escort guard companies. The police were also adequately armed, with each escort guard company having in its possession fifty-four carbines, eight submachine guns, forty shotguns, and thirty-six pistols. Moreover, after Japanese Americans were moved to the “relocation centers,” the Military Police were still assigned to patrolling the perimeters of the centers’ project area but were also given the task of patrolling the area immediately adjacent to the center area from sunset to sunrise to “guard against attempts by evacuees to leave the center without permission.”33 To control the area where the internees resided, however, the WCCA head Colonel Karl Bendetsen and his staff set up the Interior Police. At first, he and other high federal government officials were unsure who would handle security inside the camps themselves. They considered using officers from the California Highway Patrol but dropped the idea since it violated California state law. They also rejected the idea of using local law officers because too many, as was the case in Owens Valley, were clearly anti-Japanese and thus liable to provoke rather than prevent a riot. Tom Clark, attorney for the Justice Department, pushed for civilian guards responsible to the camp director since most cases requiring Interior Police assistance involved misdemeanor types of crime. The officials assigned to each camp a police chief, an assistant police chief, two sergeants, a clerk, and one police officer per four hundred “evacuees” on a twenty-four-hour basis with a supplement of Japanese officers. They hired most of these interior policemen from the local populace and paid them about $175 a month without job security. The WCCA paid police chiefs, such as Kenneth Horton of Manzanar, three hundred dollars a month. They gave as

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part of their job security checks of parcels transiting from the post offices into the camps, a task only they, not the Military Police, could execute.34 In addition, the WCCA also established the Interior Security Branch, comprising some 170 individuals. Fourteen of these were assigned to the main headquarters of the WCCA, while the rest were assigned to the assembly and reception centers, with Santa Anita having the largest contingency. Those positioned in the headquarters were competent in the Japanese language, such as Dr. Frank Yee, Chester H. Kim, and Kingsley Lyu. Part of their task was to monitor the activities of the internees while inside the WCCA camps but they translated and analyzed a large quantity of Japanese-language newspapers, organizational records, bank records, ship records, and Immigration and Naturalization Service records to determine Japanese Americans posing the highest security risks—those with property or liquid assets in Japan, ties to questionable organizations, or a history of making numerous visits to Japan. Their sources came from various federal government agencies, but they received help from cooperative individuals such as Buddhist priest Reverend Julius A. Goldwater, who lent them some two hundred pounds of materials.35 More than the police, the center managers determined the quality of life inside the WCCA camps. They were selected to direct each of the fifteen “assembly centers” and two “reception centers,” with some coming from the Work Projects Administration, as was the case with Clayton Triggs, director of Manzanar, and H. Russell Amory of Santa Anita. Most were not as liberal as WRA project directors or social scientists in their attitudes toward Japanese Americans, but they were relatively lenient in their treatment of the internees because they believed that Japanese Americans could be won over or becuase they feared adverse, reciprocal treatment of American civilians in Japanese hands. Frank Davis, Tanforan Assembly Center manager, thought that the “fundamental loyalty” of any Japanese lay with “the Empire of Japan” but believed that with subtle, kind treatment and limited authority they could be won over to the United States. Most managers, however, believed that Japanese Americans should be dealt with fairly but sternly, giving them little autonomy within the WCCA camps. Peter Cooper, a supervisor in the Mess and Lodging section of Tanforan best expressed this harsh view: There can be no equal distribution of management in Assembly Centers or Relocation Centers. Either the Caucasian personnel will govern or the Japanese will. . . . Given an inch of consideration, a Japanese will soon take a yard of authority.36

Red Cross officials confirmed WCCA camp management was strict rather than lenient. Invited by Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy, Norman Davis and his survey team studied the living conditions of about

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sixty-three thousand “evacuees” at Manzanar, Poston, Santa Anita, Tanforan, and other camps in the second half of July 1942. “The appearance of assembly center residents is generally clean, attractive, and good humored,” the team reported, but they noted tight restrictions on visitation rights and freedom of speech. They found censorship imposed on all newspapers though first-class mail was not always checked, as well as prohibitions from speaking the Japanese language, swearing in public, singing Japanese martial tunes, and engaging in discussion of topics involving domestic (national, local, state) politics and “the present war with Japan”—the last restriction was lifted in August 1942 after Bendetsen defined it as a First Amendment violation. Officials also required the presence of one or more Caucasians at meetings and cooperation with Interior Police investigations by providing “all such information in their possession without reserve” to officers, even if the officers entered internee living quarters without a search warrant. They discovered that work was mandatory though internees were paid wages ranging from eight dollars to sixteen dollars a month. And finally, they noted roll calls twice a day, in the morning and night, were taken to ensure confinement. These restrictions, the Red Cross reported, all combined to underscore the message that Japanese Americans were reasonably well-treated enemy aliens but not American citizens.37 Many Japanese Americans conformed to the narrow political “space” imposed on them, as the Tanforan WCCA camp leaders illustrate. Initially, they resisted, pressing for wider political participation beyond Henry Takahashi (chairperson), Tad Fujita, Akio Moriwaki, and Michio Nakajima, the center managers appointed by JACL leaders as representatives on the temporary community council in May 1942. The internees succeeded in persuading the new center manager Frank Davis to include the former Young Democrats, and proceeded to broaden participation further through retracting the U.S. citizenship requirement and lowering the minimum age requirement to eighteen years for council candidacy. They also screened out undesirable leaders with “a strongly worded” loyalty oath aimed to “forestall any pro-fascist from becoming elected.” Once in control, however, the new advisory council composed of K. Tsukamoto, Tad Fujita, Fred Koba, Albert Kosakura, Rev. Masaru Kumata, and Rev. Taro¯ Goto¯ reversed their position and embraced the WRA limitation of U.S. citizenship for office-holding, a move supporters such as Victor Abe applauded: Limiting candidates to . . . citizens was proper thinking in case of the councilmen. . . . As far as leaders are concerned, we must have the ostensible front, freedom of mind, freedom of thought; act as good loyal citizens under the circumstances.

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Abe then called on Japan-born internees to “understand the Nisei desire to remain loyal to the United States and preserve constitutional rights,” a stance requiring Nisei leadership and Issei acquiescence: All energies and efforts should be put into demonstrating our loyalty. How can we prove loyalty to the American public? We can prove this loyalty by showing that the Nisei act and think of their own free will. If we do not show on our parts that we can act on our own volition it would be only half successful. Nisei must be the ostensible leaders. The Issei must be contented with Nisei representation.38

By “Nisei” leaders, however, Abe and others meant the American-born socioeconomic elites. Many of them were professional elites with little understanding of how average Japanese Americans lived prior to internment. Fred Hoshiyama noted how all candidates for precinct 1 seats in the Tanforan Congress were white-collar types. “Every single one of those nominated in precinct No.1 are,” Hoshiyama noted, “holding ‘so[-]called white-collar jobs’ and not one is there who works in the road gang or other maintenance job[s] with unskilled classification.” In precinct 4, nearly all candidates were college graduates, and in precinct 3, the fourteen candidates vying for eight slots were all doctors, school teachers, managers, or social services personnel in the pre-internment, with none hailing from the unskilled category.39 Abe’s and others’ hopes came true for most elected council positions in mid-June 1942. “Nisei leaders” took the top positions of all precincts except number 5 by wooing over crucial Issei votes for the victory, as was the case in Precincts 3 and 4, where their Issei votes proved the crucial margin for victory. In Precinct 1, Toby Ogawa, an art curio shop manager from San Francisco and a liberal, won by defeating two other candidates, one a patent attorney from San Bernardino County. He campaigned on the promise of more Japanese food and freedom to resident alien and American-born internees in an election with a high voter turnout of over 80 percent. Left-leaning leaders won Precinct 2 from the JACL after a hotly contested campaign. Ernest Iiyama, an Oakland County clerk, defeated Henry Takahashi in his own precinct by patching together a coalition of various factions within the precinct. The Young Democrat supporters of Iiyama won by sending out different messages to two generational groups. To the American-born voters, they stressed Takahashi’s weakness, emphasizing Iiyama’s belief in equality, democracy, selfless service in office, and willingness to speak out boldly. He’s a better guy than Takahashi, right? O.K. Iiyama not only believes and stands for democracy,equality of rights, but practices it. He has had plenty of experience in politics and government and is very outspoken in his beliefs.

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He will give the people more opportunity to be heard via weekly precinct meetings,moreover he’s not out for himself.

To the Japanese-speaking electorate, Iiyama backers stressed his bicultural understanding and his work experiences with Euro-Americans: Iiyama is a conscientious boy who was reared in Japan, a kibei [so] he can speak both English and Japanese with equal facility. By virtue of his training in Japan he understands your feelings and can[,] if elected[,] bring those to the attention of the administration much better than can a nisei. He has had a great deal of experience in politics and government. . . . He is able to speak to the staff without any hesit[a]ncy since he has had much contact with caucasians, in[]fact he was working as a civil servant.

Iiyama also won over the bachelors and Japanese-educated U.S. citizens living in barrack 14. Despite these individuals’ sympathetic leanings toward Japan, they voted in favor Iiyama, perhaps at the persuasion of Karl Ichiro¯ Akiya, a Kibei communist, formerly employed with Sumitomo Bank and a resident of the barrack.40 Victory in council elections did not mean enthusiastic support for these leaders despite their appeals. In the first place, the newly elected understood the limitations under which they could govern. Toby Ogawa, winner of precinct 1, confessed that self-government was limited in scope and power: The Legislative Congress will definitely be limited in their power and their ability to do anything much for the camp since all the decisions are made by the Center Manager. However, we are given the right and the privilege to start and practice ‘self-government’ even to a limited degree. Many of us are not familiar or practiced enough in the democratic processes and this is our chance to show those who think we can’t do it that we can and also it will be a good educational experience for [the] majority of the nisei. In addition, it will start a pattern for the others to follow and for our future life in relocation areas.41

Worse, internees of both generations showed little enthusiasm for selfgovernment, as evident in the congressmen’s election the following month. Few took part in the political process even though the editors of the camp newspaper, Tanforan Totalizer hailed the councilmen’s elections as a significant step toward “concrete reaffirmation of the whole principle of democratic franchise,” because Issei were allegedly given their first opportunity to participate in an election on equal footing with citizens. Such alacrity was evident at the pre-election rally and parade chaired by Charles Kikuchi for congressional candidates, held on June 27, an event from which some of the councilmen and the center manager, who was suppose to install the councilmen at the rally, were conspicuously absent.

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Only about fifty people attended, about a third of those attending a farewell party held in a different location for a watch repair and jeweler couple leaving for Manzanar. “It [the farewell party] attracted more people,” the observer lamented, “than the election which was supposed to be the most important affair for the whole camp.”42 The Japan-born internees in particular showed little interest in Tanforan self-government. They were inclined to remain quiet because of their fear of FBI arrest, as Fred Hoshiyama observed: To date issei have not been given any chance to express any of their opinions. Many were scared since there had been rumors that FBI were still operating in camp. They were told that Nisei were working for the FBI and squealing so to speak, although ‘squealing’ would be a bad term to use, and there really isn’t anything to squeal about. However, the issei knew that many of their friends were taken to Montana, and elsewheres.43

In addition, many Issei probably found alienating the camp constitution and the leaders’ strong support for the United States government. They found a constitution adopted on July 13, 1942, boldly state in Article I, Section 2, “that the purpose of the Tanforan Assembly shall be to promote in every way the interest of the United States Government and to coordinate that interest with the welfare and well-being of the residents therein.” They witnessed the passage of a Second Front petition with 103 residents’ signatures in the first week of August 1942, even though the WCCA ordered the end of self-government and its community councils on August 3, 1942.44 Poston internee leaders also complied with administrative reduction of their political freedom. Camp administrators depoliticized the block managers system and reduced self-government to a whimper during the WCCA camp period by appointing popular individuals and carefully circumscribing their political influence. John Evans, the self-proclaimed city manager of Unit I, admitted, The Block Managers are appointed, and not elected by the people, appointed, naturally, by me. We have made a real effort to find in the blocks the Block Managers the people really wanted. I stick to this method; and if in the blocks the people wish to make changes, I shall accept their recommendations.

Evans then made block managers into civil servants carrying out a fivefold task of dispensing material goods, maintaining block grounds, distributing mail and other communications, participating in the block council “to act as a channel of complaint,” and dispensing information of a general nature needed for departure from the “relocation centers.” He justified the limitation on administrative functions on the grounds it would aid the U.S. war effort. “The Block Manager,” Evans said, “will

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issue property in a reasonable and economic fashion, and instill in the residents of his block with a sense of economy as part of their contribution to the total war effort.” But he also thought a block manager should “enter upon his duties in a status approximating that of Civil Service and will divorce himself henceforth from any political activity, other than casting his own individual ballot for candidates to other offices.” Hence, Evans’s block managers were assisted by a custodian, a clerk, and, in some blocks, a carpenter, a gardener or two, a janitor, and a night watchman.45 Administrators also depoliticized women’s organizations. After some internee females established girls clubs in blocks 6 and 11 by early June 1942, camp administrators soon became involved in the Poston Women’s Club. Nell Findley, a New Englander who taught the Japanese in Hawaii, became the club’s advisor. Alice Cheney, a missionary of twenty-six years in Japan, became its unofficial leader while serving the camp’s Internal Security section. The two tried to steer the club toward practical issues of governance as in urging block managers to use quads (a unit of four blocks) rather than blocks as their organizational unit so as to avoid male dominance. Findley declared in 1942 that the club should be a “medium of information” and a “recreational outlet,” not a political advocacy group, based on her experience with Hawaii Nisei. Cheney urged the women toward “keeping homes clean and men folk dressed” and “improving the environment so that Poston may be a more livable community.” But Findley and Cheney encountered significant opposition from Block 19 women, who understood the aim of the club to be the service arm of self-government. Led by Chika Sugino, the club secretary, they launched into Poston politics first by organizing into blocks to parallel the men’s organization, thereby allowing women to serve as “a nucleus of block morale builders, and preservers of disciplinary force, for orientation and dissemination of right attitudes.”46 As a result of depoliticization, political power was concentrated in the hands of a small but heterogeneous group. The early “volunteers” of Poston were seemingly homogeneous, gaining the confidence of the both the camp administrators and the Military Police as a group by maintaining with the administrators “a very close harmonious relationship” and disarming the MPs so that soldiers joked about not needing their tommy guns. They quickly went their separate ways with Tep Ishimaru, former optometrist, and a number of lawyers gaining control of the campwide political organization called the Temporary Community Council and access to the Civic Planning Board in Unit I. The latter was chaired by Elmer Yamamoto, assisted by Roy Yoshida, Kosaku Tamura, and a number of Japan-born representatives, and the board drafted a constitution abolishing the terms “Nisei” and “Issei” to make “no distinction between citizens and non-citizens in the matter of holding office.” Some

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of the entrepreneurial elites, such as Fred Ota and his wife, Shig Nakashima, and John Maeda, formed the Community Enterprises section, a set of stores designed to supply products such as soap and other necessities not provided by the WRA. A third group, led by Rev. Masatane Mitani and Mitsuo Sanbonmatsu, attacked the Enterprises, charging them with price gouging while they, the merchants, justified their formation of a cooperative movement. Mitani and Sanbonmatsu also pushed for enfranchisement of all, regardless of citizenship, and “a very complicated government” that had a two-chamber council, one with a municipal council composed of one councilperson elected directly by the quad and the other, block councils, composed of male heads of families from each barrack in the block. Their proposal, known as the Mitani Plan, was an elitist, “indirect election of the governing body.”47 Not all WCCA camp-internee leaders were elitist and amenable to tight restrictions. Although incarcerated only from late April to the end of June, internees in the Salinas WCCA camp quickly took advantage of Center Manager E.A. Rose’s liberal “self-government” approach. They gathered in a camp-wide congress after receiving their appointment as council member, representing about seven barracks each, and created the Advisory Board by electing five members to it, all of them from the Salinas area and associated with the Buddhist Church. As in other camps, the board members were, except for one, the professional and entrepreneurial elites of the Salinas Japanese community rather than the fishermen of Monterey Bay. The board was led by Dr. Harry Kita, a Nisei dentist from Salinas, assisted by another Nisei dentist, Dr. Frank Harayuki Ito¯, and by John Urabe, a Hawaii Nisei farmer from Watsonville, and Chikara David Iwamoto, a twenty-nine-year-old grocery clerk from Salinas. The board and the council pushed for and got Rose’s support for family rather than individual dining by using colored tags designating tables and kitchens. They took charge of the mandatory roll calls to be taken once in the morning and once in the evening every day, which some of them ignored and as they made unescorted visits to the towns nearby, annoying local enforcement officers and the FBI. With Rose’s blessing, they held sumo tournaments, drawing a third to a half of the camp population in attendance. The eighteen-member council received support from the center manager, who credited the council with successful management of the camp. “The council, at all times,” Rose gushed, “has cooperated to the fullest extent with the management of this center and has been a great help in all matters concerning the operation problems of this center.” Their attainment of the Manager’s backing of their “self-government” prompted R. L. Nicholson, a critic, to complain that Japanese Americans, not the center managers, were running the centers.48

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Still other internees resisted the tight restrictions on their political freedom, as illustrated by events at the Manzanar Reception Center. Initially, they were accepted by the majority as appointees of WCCA administrators’ “self-government.” They were hardly representative of the camp population since they were an odd combination of political leftists and JACL members claiming to be “volunteers” though they arrived in a car caravan on March 21, 1942 with a Military Police jeep escort. They appeared democratic by their encouragement of junior and senior councils on Terminal Island and Bainbridge Island, on the founding of the Information Center to communicate the administration’s policy to the Japanese-speaking population, the formation of the Block Leaders’ Council, and the creation of a constitutional committee to draft the camp constitution. Yet they quickly abandoned any pretense when their council became more Japan-born than American-born, and when their ranks swelled to twenty-five despite rules lowering the minimum age requirement and requiring council members to be “loyal in spirit and deed to the United States Government.” To head off their loss of control, they established the Manzanar’s Charter Commission to set the foundation for a “permanent” political structure in their favor. Led by chairperson Ko¯ji Ariyoshi, Commission members Togo Tanaka, Mrs. Miya (Sannomiya) Kikuchi, Joe Masaoka, Fred Tayama, George Kurata, Paul Kusuda, and Rev. Shingo Nagatomi, all Project Director Roy Nash appointees, redefined “block leaders” as “block managers” to reduce responsibilities to administrative duties while transferring legislative power to the Community Council, composed of U.S. citizens only. They proposed a new constitution or charter by October 1942 devoid of initiative, referendum, or recall, casting them in the eyes of many evacuees as autocratic, not democratic.49 Early dominance by the “volunteers” sparked a multitude of challengers. They labeled the “governors” as “stooges,” “lap dogs,” or “messenger boys” for the camp administration and formed their own political organizations, ranging from the women’s council in Block 5 to the camp-wide Kitchen Worker’s union. They formed so many new organizations by early summer that the Block Leaders’ Council called a halt to this “organizing for the sake of organization.” Some, such as the “Blood Brothers, Southern California Justice Group” sent out posters and letters threatening supporters of the charter and warnings against inu or “spies.” The Brothers attacked the elites’ plans for the camouflage net factory, consumer enterprises, schools, and community co-op, severely criticizing them as an attempt to impoverish internees. They condemned the work furlough program for exploiting Japanese Americans as “economic serfs”:

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The white man reduced us all to poverty, destroying fifty years of work built up by the blood and sweat of our elders; they told us to get out of California because we weren’t needed; now they want to use us again—as economic serfs.

Their charges were so persuasive that Manzanar leaders delayed constitutional ratification, conceding more “educational work” was needed for its passage.50 Even more so than Manzanar internees, those at Santa Anita proved resistant to WCCA control, as measured by the number of conflicts that took place. Internee crowds numbering in the hundreds or even thousands confronted camp personnel between mid-June to early August 1942 over labor conditions, mess hall conditions, contraband searches, and informants. They created a similar political structure with a mayor, Tom Sashihara, a seven-member council from seven districts, a forty-nine-representative bicameral house, an unofficial council adviser (Stanford University Professor Yamato Ichihashi), a police force of 280 Japanese Americans, and six mess halls (named orange, blue, red, green white, and yellow) for this 420-acre camp. Internees had the same political privileges and restrictions as those at other WCCA camps: Japan-born internees were able to vote, but their freedom of speech was muzzled so that they were not allowed discussions on international topics, national or state or local politics, or the “present war with Japan.” In meetings, they could not speak in the Japanese language and the presence of at least one Caucasian was required.51 Nor was a unified, oppressive camp administration responsible for the heightened tensions at Santa Anita, as exemplified by the intra-administration conflict in the Dish Cloth Incident. A Euro-American staff member in charge of Yellow (number 6) Mess Hall touched off the dispute by firing two dishwashers who refused to clean dishes by banging them against wooden blocks to dislodge leftover food. Although internee cooks volunteered to clean the dishes, the washers threatened them and locked the kitchen door. Then thirty-five waitresses went on strike, claiming they were forced to clean the mess hall tablecloths with the same dish clothes used to wipe clean the dishes. The Interior Police intervened on behalf of the Euro-American personnel and threatened to fire three head waitresses, arguing that its intervention was justified on grounds of a potential riot. H. Russell Amory, center manager, and his staff, however, sought removal of the Interior Police, fearing their presence would only trigger a riot. When I. K. Evans accused the Interior Police of spying on the administration, Ray Ashworth, Chief of the Interior Security, said his personnel were only “attempting to be helpful in getting such situations corrected.” Only after tempers cooled, the staff, the internees, and the Interior Security came to resolve the dispute.52

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Instead, labor conflicts were largely responsible for the tension in the early months of Santa Anita. Entrepeneurial elites Kay Sugahara and others from Los Angeles took up foremen positions within the camouflage net project, a program designed to utilize internee labor to manufacture army equipment, and they conflicted with leftist labor organizers Jo¯taro¯ Ban, Ko¯ji Ariyoshi, and Shu¯ji Matsui over poor pay and hazardous working conditions. The latter organized some 1,200 workers, many of them from Hawaii, in a sit-down strike on June 16, demanding pay increases, since their wages were far below the forty-one dollars a month that the lowest-paid soldier made, as well as a four-hour workday, sanitary masks, exclusion of women from the workplace, and special priority lunch seating, as well as the removal of Kay Sugahara and others from the foremen posts for coercing increased production rates. Although strikers received special lunch privileges, Ban and Matsui were hospitalized from wounds inflicted by Sugahara supporters, and their movement was placed under close FBI scrutiny for slowing wartime production.53 Other additional factors influenced Santa Anita internees to resist WCCA control. Regional differences probably contributed to their willingness to engage the administration, since internees from southern California and Hawaii were less accustomed than other Japanese to having to show deferential behavior toward Euro-Americans. The latter group of internees was particularly vociferous in its demands, a form of “strategic” behavior partially attributable to its environment in Hawaii, where Japanese were the majority of the population. Many among the former group, though finding their own internment justified since they sided with Japan, egged on American-born internees toward resistance, believing such behavior was important to make Euro-Americans respect them. Kiyoshi Okamoto, for example, exhorted all Nisei to stand up for their civil rights by supporting Dr. K. Takahashi and Ernest Wakayama in their legal suit in August 1942 against General John DeWitt’s West Coast removal order. Others, no doubt, found the number of FBI arrests in Santa Anita inordinately high—the FBI made only one arrest in Salinas in two months, while it whisked away eleven individuals from Santa Anita in the month of June alone. This made many internees ready to strike against specific individuals thought to be informants.54 These divergent strands contributed to the Santa Anita Riot of August 4, 1942. Between one hundred fifty to three hundred women and children gathered at the administrative office to file complaints against the Interior Security police force’s contraband search of their barracks, claiming the police confiscated items not deemed contraband and, in some cases, outright stole personal jewelry. Another group moved against alleged halfKorean informant Harry Kawaguchi, whom they beat at the Self-Government House. Some four thousand more gathered at the gate near the

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Green Mess Hall for a showdown with the Military Police while another three thousand surrounded the Interior Police Headquarters, demanding the release of four conspirators charged with smuggling whiskey into the camp. They were forced off the street by nightfall after Military Police with bayonets and armored personnel carriers, took over the camp.55 As a result of the summer tensions, other federal government agencies pressured WRA Director Dillon Myer and his staff to institute tighter rules of governance. J. Edgar Hoover pressed Myer to adopt new security measures at the fifteen WCCA and two WRA “reception centers” in August 1942 to suppress Japan sympathizers and “troublemakers” such as Shu¯ji Fujii, Ko¯ji Ariyoshi, and other leftists. Colonel Karl Bendetsen of the War Department renewed his call for the segregation of “loyal” from “disloyal” Japanese Americans since he believed that the riot was the result of a handful of malcontents exploiting poor living conditions and security personnel’s misbehavior to rally others to their cause. He recommended the release of “loyal” Japanese Americans and internment of “disloyal” individuals at Poston Unit III—the “Devil’s Island” of all camps. State Department officials frowned upon Myer’s relocation program since their decision in April 1942 to apply the Geneva Convention of 1929 “as far as possible, to civilian enemy aliens interned in the United States,” meant that the WRA should not coerce Japanese citizens to work in war-related industries, a stance consistent with Japanese law forbidding its citizens during wartime to aid or abet in any way “beneficial” to that enemy’s military, lest they be subject to arrest, trial, and imprisonment for two years. They disapproved of some WRA staffers making some work in the camps appear compulsory when three months later the State Department hammered out another agreement not to coerce Japanese civilians to non-war-related work, leaving the WRA the only option of defining Japanese Americans as not under internment.56 Some WRA officials also urged harsher restrictions on Japanese Americans. Although the first WRA director, Milton Eisenhower, favored “the greatest possible latitude in forming and administering the democratic institutions,” many of his subordinates questioned his policy. John Provinse, the WRA chief of Community Management, for example, wanted few changes because he favored the British colonial administration model when discussing internee governmental structure, believing that paternalism was “desirable.” Others on site such as John Evans of Poston did not distinguish internees from the enemy in uniform and vociferously opposed “self-government.” Evans and two other administrators at Poston openly opposed the Authority’s takeover of most of the camps and Dillon Myer’s plan to push relocation of Japanese Americans, claiming the latter ran counter to “the wishes of all the rest of officialdom.” “I’m against it, like everyone else from California,” Evans admitted candidly and pointed

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to the discriminatory treatment of African Americans as the best way to govern Japanese Americans: [T]he negroes haven’t been kept in their place. The attitude of the South, where they’re understood, is that all the negro is good for is to be a servant, and that’s about right.

Evans claimed his experience of managing African American construction workers in the East made him realize that “the only way to handle them was to beat one up about once a week.” “Not a week went by,” a listener noted Evans as saying, “without his having to take a two by four to one of them.”57 Others feared greater political autonomy would only result in the dominance of the Japan-born internees’ political and cultural outlook, making governance more difficult and negating the teaching of democracy. They saw that Japan-born adults and their dependents, whose median age in 1942 was eighteen years, constituted the majority of the camp population, while the American-born adults were a distinct minority. They knew that most adult internees had received their education in Japan. In some camps, such as Manzanar and Topaz, barely more than a third of the adults had been educated exclusively in the United States. Nearly a fifth of the adults in all WRA camps had ten or more years of Japanese education, and two-thirds to three-quarters had at least visited Japan (see table 3.1). Thus camp administrators counted on a distinct adult minority to help them govern the camps.58 Japanese government monitoring of camp conditions brought additional fears to some WRA officials. They took an immediate interest in the plight of Japanese Americans and pledged general assistance after the war. A day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Premier Hideki To¯jo¯ called on Japanese Americans to bear their suffering in dignity, as befitting of Japanese subjects, in his radio broadcasts to imperial subjects abroad. Other Japanese government officials also made radio broadcasts beamed to North America, and included a promise of a general rescue of Japanese nationals abroad and at least some compensation for businessmen in the form of contracts and land in the Japanese Empire. Japanese diplomats, too, reiterated the policy line of cooperation and postwar assistance. Two former Japanese ambassadors to the United States, Admiral Kichisaburo¯ Nomura and Saburo¯ Kurusu, traveling from Rio de Janeiro, to Japan on board the Gripsholm, sent a general message for all Japanese Americans interned in WCCA and DOJ camps. The two high-ranking diplomats urged “good behavior,” calling on them to uphold their dignity as Japanese subjects. Nomura and Kurusu further promised, “[W]e are watching you with ever increasing s[y]mpathy and

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105

TABLE 3.1. Education and Language Experience of Adults in Manzanar, Poston, Topaz, and all WRA camps, 1942 Manzanar Poston N

Topaz

WRA

7,179

12,086

6,345

76,156

None

36%

44%

37%

41%

10 or more yrs.

18%

14%

24%

18%

In United States

43%

47%

43%

44%

In Japan

55%

50%

55%

53%

Completed 4 yrs. of high school or more 45%

44%

52%

46%

Education Schooling in Japan

Received highest education

Language experience Completely bilingual

31%

27%

33%

34%

Some knowledge of a second language

35%

38%

42%

34%

Never been to Japan

24%

36%

27%

29%

Once or more

76%

64%

73%

71%

Number of times in Japan

Source: Individual Record, WRA Form No. 26 revised, Box 336, JAERR/UCB. Note: The data from the IBM file cards was transferred onto personal computer-readable materials and made available at NARA I. I have consulted the JANM/LA version.

understand[ing] and will be always thinking of you and your interests irrespective of our geographical distances.”59 Myer and the WRA were conscious of Japanese government officials’ perception of their management of the camps. In a 1944 speech at a luncheon meeting of Los Angeles Town Hall, Myer explained the WRA’s obligation to treat Japanese Americans in accordance with the Geneva Convention. Shortly after the outbreak, the director told his audience that the United States and Japan reached a mutual agreement regarding civilian nationals detained temporarily or long-term in government camps. He stated the agreement was to extend the same treatment to these civilians that applied to military prisoners-of-war. The actions that the WRA took in the camps, therefore, was influenced by international considerations as well. As Myer stated,

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Whether we like it or not, our handling of racial minority problems is not strictly a domestic issue. The actions we take and the attitudes we express will have and are having repercussions all around the globe. In our program, for example, we have had to keep constantly in mind the fact that we are dealing with Japanese nationals, in part, and that our treatment of these people might well affect the reciprocal treatment accorded to American soldiers and civilians in the hands of the Japanese.60

But many within the WRA favored granting greater Japanese American autonomy in the governing of the camps. Solon Kimball, an anthropologist brought into the WRA from the Office of Indian Affairs, became head of the section overseeing internee governments. His policy urged that “the widest latitude be granted Japanese residents for the development of selfgovernment.” Robert Laffler, regional attorney for the WRA, proposed inclusion of the Japan-born internees because of the American-born internees’ respect for, and vociferous urging of, their elders’ inclusion beyond “mere committee appointments,” the latter’s control over the American-born internees, and the fact that “it will be easier to secure their cooperation in exercise of this control if they are allowed to exercise it openly” lest “the problem of maintaining morale at the centers will be seriously interfered with.” Poston Project Director W. Wade Head was especially concerned about ignoring “the judgment and leadership of the older people” who “had been prevented from becoming citizens,” requiring camp administrators to “accept responsibility for the way they were and deal with them for what they were,” which, for him, meant being “tolerant and inquisitive about anti–local administration moves, inclined to see the humanside and feel sympathy with people who wanted to get rid of their pent up resentments by kicking the administration.”61 And finally, the U.S. Navy added its support for greater Japanese American autonomy in the camps. Admiral Ross McIntire, surgeon general of the navy and personal physician to President Franklin Roosevelt, assigned psychiatrist Alexander Leighton to the Poston camp with orders to find the best way to get the Japanese to govern themselves. The “liberal democratic way of management,” as McIntire put it, was an important means for freeing up soldiers otherwise needed to guard the occupied Japanese: [W]hen it comes to administering retaken territory, the more efficient and self-regulating that administration makes the community[,] the fewer guards and soldiers will be needed and therefore the more men free for front line action.62

McIntire’s approach won out once West Coast Japanese Americans were transferred to WRA camps, but it resulted in more, not less, conflicts between the governors and the governed.

4 THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC WAY OF MANAGEMENT, 1942–1943

S

ELF-GOVERNMENT,” federal government officials believed, was the key to governing the interned Japanese population. But officials differed in their meanings of self-governance for the interned Japanese and in their purposes. High military officers including General John DeWitt grudgingly admitted that some form of “self-government” was necessary to keep Japanese Americans in line. As one WCCA official who remained anonymous explained, the army would grant the Japanese some form of “democratic” government: The Japs are going to have a regular city government—a council, judges, juries, their own police, lawyers, doctors, and all the rest of it. As soon as we pick the leaders—after all, we can’t trust them to do that themselves, for they’d probably elect the wrong type of men—we’ll put the system in effect without delay. Sure, we’d have to do it right away; we promised ‘em democratic self-government.1

Others in the federal government saw “self-government” as an opportunity to “guide” internees toward democracy. John Collier, director of the Office of Indian Affairs pointed to W. Wade Head as an example of someone whose office policy was to work with Native Americans so that “they do the deciding; they do the acting; they govern themselves.” Solon Kimball of the WRA section overseeing internee governments echoed similar sentiments in asking that “the widest latitude be granted Japanese residents for the development of self-government,” though he labeled it “community government” since internee legislation was subject to the project director’s veto power.2 Yet self-government ran into legal snags. As early as April 27, 1942, WRA officials became aware of the problem involving legal autonomy granted to internees. The director was informed by the Solicitor’s Office that the WRA could give Japanese Americans only limited, delegated authority and administrators quickly looked at the town of Norris, Tennessee, and Boulder City, Nevada, for precedence. After getting expert advice from University of Illinois Professor Charles Kneier on municipal governments, Authority officials concluded they were in a quandary. They could not use state laws to create governmental units within the WRA camps because this granted elected internees “complete control over city govern-

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ment.” Nor could they establish self-government as a federal government entity since all town officials—mayor, council members, police officers, and others—would be legally delegated the authority by the veto-wielding project director, making it a euphemism, a situation WRA officials wanted to avoid.3 To maintain control while having democracy, WRA officials limited political participation to American-born internees. Under Milton Eisenhower’s leadership, Authority bureaucrats restricted voting and officeholding on temporary community councils with executive and judicial committees to U.S. citizens only, under Administrative Instruction Number Thirty-Four. Although he thought the camps were of “doubtful constitutionality,” the solicitor still justified the rule because “it would be unwise to establish communities in which there was a likelihood that governing Council[s] would be controlled by aliens,” a condition in which “control might pass to those who were not in sympathy with the objectives of the Authority or with the objectives of the war effort.” They reaffirmed this rule after the August 1942 meeting of project directors in San Francisco, and established a general policy granting internees control over daily activities and short-range policy-making but retaining the veto power over all decisions. Hence, they conferred upon the assistant project director veto authority, making Euro-American unit administrators in Poston—Len Nelson for Unit I, James Crawford for Unit II, and Moris Burge for Unit III—and not the community councils, equal to the project director. In addition, the WRA also appointed Euro-Americans to important positions such as local camp project attorney, legal advisor to internee governments on all legislative measures, and division chiefs handling important services ranging from food acquisition, garbage disposal, hospitals, and recreational organizations. Dillon Myer and his staff did not, however, assign personnel to spy on the internees.4 As the first group appointed to assist administrators, the block managers raised expectations that Japanese citizens could participate in camp politics. Most managers were Japan-born or at least Japan-educated since their bilingual skills proved essential to expedite goods and services when internees flooded into the camps. In spring 1942, two-thirds of the block managers at Manzanar were Japan-born internees. There was also a strong “Japanese” presence among Poston Unit I block managers, even though by fall 1942 most were American-born and hailed from southern California (Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties, and Imperial Valley) and, to a lesser extent (five out of thirty-four) from central California. Four out of fourteen managers with known backgrounds were Kibei or yobiyose, with most having had several years of education in Japan

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TABLE 4.1. Education and Language Experience of Manzanar and Poston Block Managers, 1942 Manzanar N

Poston Group 1

Poston Group 2

56

31

8

None

31%

48%

50%

10 or more yrs.

36%

23%

0%

In United States

47%

65%

50%

In Japan

48%

32%

50%

55%

61%

50%

Completely bilingual

62%

71%

38%

Some knowledge of a second language

21%

26%

62%

Never been to Japan

21%

32%

50%

Once or more

79%

68%

50%

Education Schooling in Japan

Received highest education

Completed 4 yrs. of high school or more Language experience

Number of times in Japan

Sources: Block Leaders Council Minutes, 13 September 1942, Folder 7, Box 15, EHSP/ UA; Richard Nishimoto, “Autobiographies of the Block Managers,” Folder **J 6.15A, JAERR/UCB, reel #238; Block Managers Profiles, October-November 1942, Folder 7–2, Box 7; Block Leadership Breakdown Study, 1942–43, Folder 66, Box 7, JARCR/CU; Block Leaders Council Minutes 13 September 1942, Folder 7, Box 15, EHSP/UA.

(see table 4.1). About two-thirds of the first group of block managers were “completely bilingual” in English and Japanese and had been to Japan, while most assistant block managers were Japan-born. Despite this, they were picked by Assistant Project Director John Evans while at Manzanar. “Japanese” block managers were selected, he said, because they were deemed “loyal.” “At present we have made no restrictions upon the qualities of the candidates,” an individual confessed, “except that he be over twenty-one years of age and that he be loyal in spirit and in deed to the United States Government.” Topaz managers, too, were personally selected by Project Director Charles Ernst with a similar loyalty criteria.

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They were chosen because of their “background, willingness, ability to handle the job as we think it should be done.” Rev. Taro¯ Goto¯, a bilingual Methodist minister, reflected the extreme lengths to which some block managers were willing to cooperate. At the first community meeting, Goto¯ dedicated Topaz in his invocation speech “to the glory of God and the uplifting of His Kingdom” and later declared it the ultimate expression of good for Japanese Americans: Topaz is more than just an engineering marvel. It is more than just an isolated settlement for evacuees. It is the sum total of dreams, deep thinking, courage, and faith—it is a living personality. Topaz is born of the great Mother America.5

Despite the enthusiastic loyalty of some, the block managers were not given decision-making and policy formation powers. At Topaz, they were told by the assistant project director that their duties involved only functions immediate to their respective blocks, such as distribution of the bedding, cots, cleaning supplies, and lumber, reporting on equipment, and maintenance of the general “cleanliness.” The managers were also directed to keep track of receipts, make block directories, and handle the incoming and outgoing mail from the canteen. A manager was, in James Hughes’s words, a “paid resident assistant to the Assistant Director.” At Poston and Manzanar, they were also given a similar role, and the Poston block managers classified their duties into five main types: dispensing material goods (soap, tools, blankets, equipment); maintenance of block grounds; distribution of correspondence; initiation or participation in block council (“to act as a channel of complaint”); and dispensing information (surveys, posting of the Press Bulletin, other information). But they overlapped with the community council’s investigative role into these services resulting in both groups declaring the other subordinate to themselves. Manzanar block managers, too, conflicted with the previously organized Information Service Bureau over duplication of services.6 Yet the formation of block councils signaled some sort of political role for the block managers. They varied in organizational form, even though all focused on “block welfare, block problems, block morale, and block matters of all kinds.” Some heads of council were elected, while other councils had both the block manager and the councilman serving as cochairpersons or the block manager alone as the chairperson. The number of representatives on the block councils also varied. Most had two representatives per barrack, usually an Issei and a Nisei, attend with the Kitchen Chef and the Block Manager. But other block councils had a singular representative from a given barrack regardless of generation. Regardless of how many representatives they sent, block council members were not elected but chosen after reaching a consensus among barrack

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residents. As Joe Nakai, of Block 27, Poston Unit I, observed, “These [block] council members were selected through the vine method—that is, no formal meeting was held [within] each barrack, but each talked over the possibilities of the most capable member of that barrack [among] themselves, and a mutual agreement was arrived at.”7 Temporary community council members, not the block councils, were appointed to jumpstart self-government. They were selected for their political skills in Euro-American style parliamentary procedures for meetings, constitutional development, and, by word or deed, political loyalty to the United States, rather than for their bilingual capabilities. The members of this council in Poston Unit I were all American-born internees roughly thirty years in age, about half of them enrolled in John Powells Great Books seminar. The group was well educated—about a third of them were university, college, or junior college graduates, and the rest were high school graduates, with only one having a grammar-schoollevel of education (see table 4.2). Two-thirds of them claimed to be bilingual and had visited Japan at least once, though not for schooling. The majority were from urban as opposed to rural areas and were “whitecollar” professionals, led by Chairperson Dr. T. G. Ishimaru, Vice-Chair Hidemi Ogawa, and Secretary Mary Tachibana. The chairman came from a well-off family from San Francisco, graduated from the University of California, and was a practicing optometrist. Ogawa was a University of California graduate and a successful farmer from Los Angeles. Tachibana was from an affluent Los Angeles family and married into a shizoku or samurai lineage family, and was a highly successful farmer from Oceanside, California. Hence, Poston council members were, as the project attorney testified, “an unusual group of educated, Americanized young men.”8 Ushered in by the temporary councils, the Community Council system was designed to be the “permanent” organ of camp democracy. The community councils were to enact legislative measures, carry out executive functions, and to decide on law-and-order issues through internee-staffed judicial commissions rather than merely draft constitutions and frame the political structure. Furthermore, council seats were unpaid “honorary positions” independent of camp administrators. “The block manager’s job is like a paid civil service job,” Theodore Haas explained once, “and the reason they chose representatives from each block to the Council was they thought a person who is appointed by the administration might not be as independent as one who does not have to be directly in contact with the administration.” Since the councils comprised elected, not appointed officials, they were in the Authority’s eyes the ultimate expression of internee democracy in the camps.9

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TABLE 4.2. Education and Language Experience of Poston Temporary Council Members, 1942 1942 N

27

Education Schooling in Japan None

67%

10 or more yrs.

19%

Received highest education In United States

93%

In Japan

7%

Completed 4 yrs. of high school or more

81%

Language experience Completely bilingual

63%

Some knowledge of a second language

37%

Number of times in Japan Never been to Japan

37%

Once or more

63%

Source: [Richard Nishimoto], “Result of Election Temporary Community Council,” Folder J 6.15g, 21 July 1942, JAERR/UCB, reel #239.

Despite their democratic intent, WRA officials placed the reins of the council in the hands of only U.S. citizens. They divided internee-elected governing bodies along generational lines to facilitate smoother functioning. Solon Kimball, head of community government, favored this division after he consulted Robert Redfield, a cultural anthropologist from the University of Chicago, who advised him to keep the two generations separate by placing the immigrant leaders in advisory board positions only. Even though Kimball sought additional counsel from Isamu Noguchi, a famous sculptor, and Rev. Masatane Mitani of Poston before forming a Civic Planning Board, he and other federal government officials were already convinced that the two generations clashed and required political segregation, a belief many internees found untrue especially after “evacuation” closed rather than widened any perceived generation gap.10

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113

TABLE 4.3. Education and Language Experience of Topaz Community Council Members, 1942–44 1944 1944 Group 1 Group 2

1942

1943

30

29

31

23

None

66%

33%

29%

17%

10 or more yrs.

17%

50%

39%

60%

In United States

90%

41%

42%

17%

In Japan

10%

55%

55%

61%

Completed 4 yrs. of high school or more 73%

76%

55%

48%

N Education Schooling in Japan

Received highest education

Language experience Completely bilingual

50%

55%

48%

70%

Some knowledge of a second language

37%

38%

36%

17%

Never been to Japan

40%

31%

23%

17%

Once or more

60%

69%

67%

83%

Number of times in Japan

Source: WRA, “Community Government,” 12 October 1942, Folder H 1.50, JAERR/UCB, reel #114.

Hence the first Community Council of Topaz mirrored the privileging of U.S. citizenship and those predisposed to the idea of generation conflict (see table 4.3). All thirty were U.S. citizens, 90 percent of whom attained their highest level of education in the United States, and the remainder claiming ten years or more of education in Japan. As in Poston, the Topaz council members were more educated than the average internee, but less competent in the Japanese language—half declared themselves as bilingual—and 40 percent of them claimed to have never been to Japan. There were political liberals and conservatives among them, and they differed substantially from the average Japanese American whom they were chosen to represent, regardless of their position of the left or right end of the political spectrum. Ernest Iiyama, for example, was older and more educated than most Nisei, having been born in 1912 having completed

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two years of college education at the University of California in Berkeley as an electrical engineering major by 1942, and having received an education in Japan from 1923 to 1931. Dr. George Ochikubo, too, surpassed his peers. He was born and raised in Oakland, California, where he attended elementary school and technical school before moving on to the University of California from 1928 to 1931. He became a dentist and worked for another Japanese American dentist in Oakland, married a Eurasian daughter of a doctor, trained with the Reserved Officers’ Training Corps in his hometown, and was a Republican in a sea of Nisei Democrats (see table 3.1).11 Not all camps had elite American-born community councils. At Manzanar, the Community Council never took root because the early “volunteers” who helped set up the camp lost out to the block managers. The former, through the Manzanar Citizens’ Federation created the camp’s political structure by writing the charter, had access to upper-level camp administrators, and initiated support for the American war effort. They dominated the Executive Council, a six-person body of representatives drawn from the block managers. In July 1942, Ted Akahoshi, former executive secretary of the Wholesale Japanese Produce Commission Merchants Association, and a graduate of Stanford University, headed the Executive Council. It included Tomomasa Yamasaki, formerly the assistant English editor of the Japan-California Daily News and a known leftist; Fred Ogura of Signal Oil Company; Henry Nakamura, owner and operator of I & I Produce at the Sixth Street Wholesale Market; H. K. Ogura, owner and operator of H. K. Ogura and Company and president of the Produce Commission Merchants Association; and Henry Tsurutani, a Los Angeles attorney and former chairman of the Southern District Council of the JACL (see table 4.4).12 Federation members’ political outlooks also differed from their constituency. They were unabashed supporters of the Allied war cause and belonged to the JACL, with conservatives Togo Tanaka, Joe Grant Masaoka, and Hiro Neeno, being prominent among them. But the Federation’s membership also included Kiyoshi Higashi, Terminal Island leader, as well as well-known progressives and leftist leaders Ko¯ji Ariyoshi, James Oda, and Karl Yoneda. At their first meeting on July 28, 1942, they discussed topics such as “participating in the war effort” and “preparing evacuees for post-war conditions,” and in subsequent meetings, the development of the charter. They sent to President Franklin Roosevelt in early August, as many of their critics feared, a petition with 218 signatures, requesting utilization of “the manpower of Americans of Japanese ancestry, now in evacuation camps, for front line duty in the United States Armed Forces.” Furthermore, they asked the president in a second

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115

TABLE 4.4. Education and Language Experience of Manzanar Community Self-Government Members, 1942 1942 N

15

Education Schooling in Japan None

43%

10 or more yrs.

19%

Received highest education In U.S.

57%

In Japan

10%

Completed 4 yrs. of high school or more

62%

Language experience Completely bilingual

48%

Some knowledge of a second language

24%

Number of times in Japan Never been to Japan

47%

Once or more

53%

Source: The Manzanar Commission on Self-Government, 7 October 1942, Folder O 2.90, JAERR/UCB, reel #154.

letter for Japanese American employment outside of WRA camps to harvest “food for freedom.”13 However, federation members failed to convince the majority of their political agenda. Initially, they appeared successful when Project Director Roy Nash appointed some of them to the Charter Commission in September, an opportunity they used to relegate the role of the Block Managers’ Assembly’s to a mere caretaker of federal government property. They found that blocks 21 and had 22 had adopted motions against the charter while other blocks simply ignored the election or postponed it indefinitely. At the November 30 meeting to finalize the charter’s wording, they saw only thirty-three of the seventy representatives present. Only Mr. T. Tanaka of Block 36 spoke in favor of the charter, and the assembly unanimously voted against it, declaring themselves as “internees, prisoners of war.” As one asked rhetorically,

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Why don’t the Nisei who think they are Americans get out of camp? They are the disturbing element. . . . We certainly don’t need self-government.

Their failure to secure ratification of the charter left undefined the jurisdiction of the Block Managers’ Assembly and undetermined the Judicial Commission in handling disputes, making Manzanar politics especially heated.14 Most formal political bodies of the Japan-born internees supported rather than thwarted the community councils despite their differences. In Poston Unit I, the Issei Advisory Board formed at the Project Attorney’s insistence after various individuals failed to convince John Provinse and Charles Kneier of the inadvisability of Administrative Instruction Number Thirty-Four. The board declared in their 1943 constitution they would serve “the welfare, the safety of the general society,” and to “support the set order.” In Poston Unit II, the Issei Informal Representative Council worked well with the Nisei Pre-Temporary Council, particularly with Dr. Harry Kita, chairperson of the Pre-Temporary Council, and John Maeno, the executive secretary. The immigrant leadership did not contest the nearly two-to-one ratio to the American-born leaders and willingly conceded control over the charter, religion, water and irrigation committees while retaining a three-to-two edge on the Petitions and Interpreters; they shared equal representation on the Entertainment and Landscaping committees. These Japan-born internees meshed so well with their younger counterparts that the latter declared they were “100%” behind the alien’s inclusion into the block manager system and the Community Council, and one leader called for a halt to distinguishing people along generational lines: There should be no line of demarcation between the Isseis and Niseis since we are all living under the same conditions in this camp and that we were all thrown here against our wishes. We are eating in the same dining halls, sharing the same living quarters and working to make this place a happier place to live in, in spite of the various obstacles placed in our path. It is therefore my belief that no distinctions should be made in regards to representation in the council.15

Women’s participation in Poston’s camp politics also assisted in realizing the goal self-government, even if unsolicited. Women’s Club members, especially those from Block 19 saw their role as providing the service arm of self-government, and thus Chika Sugino, the club secretary, reorganized the group by blocks rather than quads so that they could serve as “a nucleus of block morale builders, and preservers of disciplinary force, for orientation and dissemination of right attitudes.” The women pressed hard for resolution of immediate community needs, which, from late June

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1942 to mid-May 1943, meant immediate personal and family issues, such as those pertaining to food and children, followed by health issues, with resettlement and internment ranking at the bottom of the list of their concerns, as indicated by the types of issues their guest speakers addressed. In its first six months of existence, the club heard about fortyfive lectures, of which twenty-four were on health-related topics while the other twenty-one dealt with some mundane aspect of Poston life. They petitioned the Poston Administration for a number of material benefits including recreation halls and linoleum floors for their barracks, and publicly criticized the morality of at least one Euro-American teacher for setting a bad example for their children. On some issues, such as expanding the milk supply, the women pressed so hard that Cheney accused them of being “un-Japanese” for complaining, and some Euro-American camp administrators labeled the women “agitators” and “meddlers.” As Chika Sugino, a key leader in the club, recalled after relocation, she had “a propensity for getting into a fight for the rights of [her] people.”16 But the Poston women also joined the political structure of the camp. A number of women served full or temporary terms as Issei Advisory Board members, councilwomen, block managers, or assistant block managers. Chika Sugino was on the Issei Advisory Board and served temporarily as manager of Block 11. Nellie Yano was an assistant block manager, as was Fusaye Endo¯. Mrs. F. Murakami filled in for her husband councilman. Utako Watanabe was block manager, and Mabel Hibi was councilwoman of Block 329 during its first year. Four women served as councilwomen for Block 317, a move some men in the block lauded as “a good idea”17 (See table 4.5.) Mary Tachibana, councilwoman for Block 43, illustrates how some women became part of the political structure. Tachibana was a Buddhist Nisei in her early thirties, mother of four children, and married to a man of samurai lineage. She was a very successful farmer from Oceanside, California, amassing a considerable amount of farmland and personal equipment, including a Kodak motion picture camera valued at $175. She and her husband established a Japanese-language school in her town and were active participants in the Parents-Teachers Association and the kendo¯ club. The councilwoman was fluent in English and Japanese, and after arriving in Poston, worked with the Red Cross and her own block’s women’s association, before seeking the post of councilwoman. “Active and aggressive,” said one Euro-American member, but more likely Tachibana simply had outstanding leadership skills, which helped her become secretary of the first Community Council of Poston.18 The formal political structure was undermined by the Cooperative Movement rather than women in politics. Led by the prewar cultural elites, this movement surfaced at the summer’s end when it questioned

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TABLE 4.5. Education and Language Experience of Poston Women’s Club Members, 1943 1943 N

40

Education Schooling in Japan None

13%

10 or more yrs.

45%

Received highest education In U.S.

18%

In Japan

80%

Completed 4 yrs. of high school or more

40%

Language experience Completely bilingual

40%

Some knowledge of a second language

18%

Number of times in Japan Never been to Japan Once or more

3% 97%

Source: Women’s Club Meetings, 1942, Folder 20, Box 8, JARCR/CU.

the legitimacy of the entrenched internee leadership for failing to provide low-cost personal hygiene and comfort items such as soap bars at the designated camp stores. These stores, which were managed by friends and associates of the Council, were the only place where internees could shop. Purchasing from outside sources, as in placing mail orders through Sears and Roebuck, meant equally high prices and possible Military Police confiscation of the ordered goods; also an unavailability of checks and money orders from banks too distant from the camps made mail order purchases nearly impossible.19 At Poston, this problem was compounded by a lack of trust in store management. Rather than elect internees to handle the problem of supplies, Ned Campbell appointed H. A. Mathiesen of the Community Enterprises in May, 1942, to establish a store with the power to purchase items not provided by the WRA. Campbell and Mathiesen then arranged

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for wholesale houses to supply their wares in the Poston Canteen, and Mathiesen latter appointed a Board of Trustees that included Fred Ota, general manager, Shigeru Nakashima, store manager, Bill Kasuga, finance officer, Stanley Tsuchiya, personnel officer, and Rev. Masatane Mitani, education officer. The Canteen managers, all having previous experience, were accused of individual profiteering by the public. “There is a misunderstanding among some people,” Nakashima observed, “that the employees in the store are being paid. However, they are all voluntary up to now and have not received any money.” Worse, the canteen management, as revealed at a meeting in Block 37 Recreation Hall in midJune 1942, distrusted “democratic control,” believing that those with experience should “run the whole affair,” a view that hearers interpreted as “ruling class attitude[;] they being in power to control did not wish to yield their authority.”20 After enjoying some success, the Cooperative Movement ultimately failed in Poston. Led by Rev. Masatane Mitani, it attracted only a handful of young Nisei to its cooperative study group in early summer 1942, but they gained ground after Head brought in co-op speakers from the Rochdale Institute of New York and the University of Chicago to give the movement credibility and to explain the advantages of the system. Over two-thirds of the adults—3,826 of 5,800—in Unit I voted in the movement’s election, while only four of thirty-six blocks in Unit I—blocks 5, 6, 11, 12—failed to produce candidates for the Cooperative Congress. While elite leaders and residents of Block 19 were among its staunchest supporters, the movement had its stronghold in Unit II, where it won over three-quarters of the population, many of whom were the least able to afford high prices. It drew its weakest support—barely over half of the adult population, 1,305 of 2,500—in Unit III, where the wealthier internees resided. The movement collapsed, however when Poston Attorney Theodore Haas ruled co-ops illegal entities in October 1942.21 Anti-elitism in canteen operations also caused many to rally behind the Cooperative Movement at Topaz. Rev. Taro¯ Goto¯ and Hiroshi Korematsu, a graduate of the College of Agriculture, Cornell University, organized meetings beginning September 24 to study the feasibility of cooperatives, then convened the first Cooperative Congress on October 7, 1942, with twenty-seven of thirty-three blocks sending two representatives each. They formulated a charter reflecting a strongly egalitarian approach to their election policies, encouraging voting by all members, age sixteen years or older, under the slogan, “If you’re old enough to work, you’re old enough to vote.” The leadership pushed American-born internees to take up positions of influence on the board and welcomed young women elected on an equal basis.22

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At Manzanar, the Mess Hall Workers’ Union played a central role in political mobilization and articulation of internee discontent with highpriced consumer goods. Most residents opposed the Cooperative Enterprise stores, and one individual tried to set fire to the store in Block 21 on November 26, 1942. Many found the Cooperative Movement equally unattractive because some administrators quickly corrupted it, using it to arrange for their own maid service. In contrast, the union was popular, especially in blocks 5, 12, and 35, partly because it was the largest single “employer” in the camp. The union’s mess hall managers were influential from the beginning, and were included in block council meetings despite their status as nonelected officials. Probably because the managers were mostly Japanese-speaking males, as was true in the other camps, they commanded considerable respect to the point that the Issei-Kibei coalition in Block 35 earned from cultural anthropologist Edward Spicer the label “despotic.” Nevertheless, the managers and the union gave political articulation to felt economic needs of the general populace and mobilized young internee participation in camp elections. In Block 22, the union got young people at their general meeting to discuss the Citizens’ Federation, utilization of absentee ballots, preparation for the future, study of postwar occupations, keeping “self-respect,” Cooperative Enterprise, and “discouragement of gang[st]erism and hood[lum]ism” rather than the usual sports and social activities. In Block 3, they persuaded Americanborn internees to call for a lower voting age limit for wider participation in the decision-making process and got a 100 percent voter turnout in Block 12 during the summer elections.23 The Manzanar Mess Hall Workers’ Union proved particularly adept in rallying the general interned populace to its cause, too. As early as May 1942, the kitchen workers requested permission to organize their own group, but administrators refused to grant approval, favoring instead, as they did in October 1942, the development of the Work Corps and the Fair Practices Committee to handle all work-related disputes. The union, however, ignored the administration and followed Harry Uyeno, a Japaneducated vegetable produce manager from Hawaii. Under his leadership, the union attracted between eight- and nine-hundred followers, and were connected to Japan in ways the established camp leadership was not (see table 4.6). Eighty-six percent of the 306 with known backgrounds had been to Japan, and an almost equally high percentage had attained their highest level of education in Japan, with nearly a quarter of them ten years or longer in that country. Only twenty-nine percent of them had completed four years or more of high school education in either country. They called for reforms relevant to those with lesser economic means, and joined Uyeno in his strident demand for an investigation into sugar shortage at

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TABLE 4.6. Education and Language Experience of Manzanar Mess Hall Union Members, 1942 1942 N

306

Education Schooling in Japan None

18%

10 or more yrs.

23%

Received highest education In U.S.

20%

In Japan

80%

Completed 4 yrs. of high school or more

29%

Language experience Completely bilingual

32%

Some knowledge of a second language

48%

Number of times in Japan Never been to Japan

14%

Once or more

86%

Source: Manzanar Mess Hall Union, “Manzanaru Mesuho-ru, Zenju¯gyo¯in Kumiai,” 1942, Harry Uyeno Papers, Stanford University, Stanford, California.

Manzanar, a situation he and his followers believed was created by camp administrators siphoning off supplies for the black market.24 Yet disenchantment with economic policies established by the formal leadership alone is insufficient for explaining the swelling political movement in 1942. For many internees, backing Japan rather than America “made sense” given their prewar social status and postwar economic concerns, an outlook probably characterizing the majority at Manzanar, Poston, and Topaz. Japan-born internees at Poston Unit I were those with less education and social standing than their camp leaders. Sixty-nine percent of four hundred interviewed between August and November 1942 claimed to be “ignorant of the situation [between the United States and Japan] and sympathetic toward Japan,” while only five percent asserted that they “understand the nature of the present situation of U.S. & Japan and [are] still definitely pro-Japan.” Close to a quarter begged ignorance or neutrality and none declared him- or herself among “those people who

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understand [the] nature and present situation of both [the] United States and Japan and [are] still sympathetic to the United States.” Most supporters of Japan and the Axis Powers were, as a Bureau of Social Research observer noted, “ill[-]educated, who themselves know hardly anything of Japan,” while the “well[-]educated” withdrew from politics. Topaz Japanese held similar political sentiments. Robert Iki, a block manager, admitted “90% of [the] Issei are pro-Japan, but 90% are not anti-American.” Most “average” Manzanar Japanese in the fall of 1942, backed Japan rather than the United States, as Tomomasa Yamazaki, manager of Block 11, observed: [D]eep down in the heart of every issei is the desire that Japan be victorious in this war. They follow avidly and agree with all the militarist propaganda about such matters as ‘Asia for the Asiatics’,‘Japan’s manifest destiny in the Orient.’ They have cheered the Japanese victories over the British, American, and Dutch in Malaya, Burma, the Philippines and the East Indies. Some of them are still keeping this sentiment to themselves,while more vocal members of the issei group are openly predicting and hoping for a Japanese victory.25

Many Japanese Americans chose to support Japan out of belief in the Japanese government’s offer of protection. With the U.S. government’s treatment of all Japanese as enemy aliens regardless of citizenship, internees embraced Japanese government officials’ promises of postwar reparations and relocation. They passed along these hopes in the form of quotations from alleged radio broadcasts. Poston anthropologist Tamie Tsuchiyama found internees quoting an alleged radio broadcast by Premier Hideki To¯jo¯ the day after the Pearl Harbor attack, extending sympathy for their plight and promising them postwar compensation: I am very sorry for you but this had to take place as you may well realize. I expect you will have to go through many hardships but please endure the ordeal even if you have to sustain yourselves on wild roots and leaves. We will see to it that you will be amply compensated at the end of the war.Please do not concern yourselves with the post-war period.26

Manzanar Japanese circulated among themselves similar radio reports of Japanese governmental protection after the war. U.S. and Japanese citizens alike welcomed these alleged reports because of the promised economic opportunities available for all of them. As one of them told community analyst Morris Opler, My father says that the Japanese government has already put up a large sum of money for Japanese returning from abroad which they can use in any way they want to. This came over the radio. . . . My father says that if Japan wins there will be big opportunities for young Japanese in conquered countries.27

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Many also forecast tangible benefits by embracing a “prisoner of war” status. With it, they could extract material privileges from the U.S. government since the American government was more likely to make concessions once reminded that the Japanese government had many times more prisoners captive and would retaliate should American officials abuse Japanese Americans. As prisoners, they called on the Spanish Consulate to convey their grievances against American officials to the Japanese government, reminding their captors that Japan would retaliate against the American military and civilian prisoners under its control. Genji Yamaguchi, a Japan-born gardener and Manzanar Block 13 manager echoed this belief: The true facts are that we are all prisoners of war. . . . We do not have to depend upon the United States government for our well-being. We are dependent only upon the Imperial Government of Japan. If conditions are not as they should be, in our opinion, then it is our duty to contact the Spanish Ambassador and demand an investigation. If we are mistreated, Japan will avenge us after he has won a glorious victory.28

In addition to the possible postwar benefits, many internees conceived of the progress of the war, and the postwar future in a way that made rooting for Japan logical. A handful of those intending to reside in the United States after the war hoped for a Japanese victory, which in their view, would secure a better future: if Japan is “not strong in relation to th[e] U.S., the U.S. can go on treating Japanese as she has in the past.” But others, including American-born internees, forecast a tripolar world composed of a European bloc, an Anglo-American bloc, and an East Asian block led by Japan. One told Manzanar Community Analyst Morris Opler that his postwar plans assumed a stalemate or Japanese victory, one that left Australia vulnerable enough to Japanese government pressure to lift its restrictive immigration laws to allow him to move there after the war. After this war there will be three great blocks of nations, the American block, the European block and the Far Eastern block. The English and Americans cannot keep the Far Eastern Block from forming and existing. You haven’t got the soldiers to police that many people and keep them in check.29

Another saw the current progress of the war as too high a cost for the United States to continue: The cost is too much. Pretty soon the United States will wonder what she is fighting for. She will get tired of fighting for the East Indies which the Dutch are waiting to take over again. All those places have been claimed by the Dutch, the French or someone else. America has nothing to gain from it.

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Furthermore, the Manzanar internee reasoned that the logistics of fighting a war with Japan would force the United States to pursue a peace treaty since it lacked superior numbers necessary for victory: It is the rule in war that if you carry the fight to the enemy’s territory you have to have twice the manpower and materials that he does. Japan can raise 5,000,000 men to defend the homeland, at least. That means that 10,000,000 men have to be transported into this area by the United Nations. I don’t believe it will be done. I think some kind of peace will be patched up.

And finally, he calculated that the United States could not impose unconditional surrender terms on Japan even if victorious since such an action would only drive the Japanese into the communist fold: The United Nations will gain little from a total defeat of Japan. A combined defeat for Japan will mean only one thing—a communist Japan and a communist Japan will be harder to control than the present government.30

Moreover, many internees thought that remaining in the United States after the war would be fraught with danger. They predicted the war with Japan would only deepen American hatred toward the Japanese and, by logical extension, themselves once American forces paid a steep price in blood for attacking the interior portions of the Japanese global defense perimeter. They foresaw a postwar depression following demobilization that, when combined with another upturn in racial discrimination, meant that Japanese Americans would sink in a status comparable to African Americans in the South. As one individual said, There is going to be a big depression here after the war. I wouldn’t mind that; I’ve seen hard times before. But when you have race discrimination on top of that it’s too much. I’ve been in the South, I’ve seen how the white people there treat the Negroes. You can’t tell me that race problems are being solved in this country. That’s just the way the Japanese in this country are going to be treated after the war.31

A small minority, however, assumed a defeated Japan would benefit all, including Japanese Americans. They asserted that all Axis Alliance countries were fascist and thus a threat to democratic countries and their citizens. Unlike most interned Japanese Americans, they looked forward to an ultimate victory of the Allies over Japan rather than a stalemate. As one Manzanar resident stated, The United States will win, whatever the setbacks at the hands of the Axis to date. The Japanese concept of a new order is totalitarian slavery at best. The Japanese theories of race are as repugnant as the Nazi ideology. The Japanese have no democracy, no freedom.32

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Others unsuccessfully promoted American loyalty. They chose camouflage net production as their means to demonstrate loyalty to the Allied war effort. At Poston, these individuals attracted private companies to set up the net factories with the latest in rigging equipment, and anticipated employing nearly a thousand U.S. citizens, making it the largest garnish net factory in the United States. “The net garnishing project gives the people of Poston,” a proponent declared, “a chance to contribute directly to the war effort of this country.” Yet these supporters knew that many residents opposed the project despite its promotion at the Poston County Fair on October 17 and 18. They anticipated a shortage of laborers even though they estimated it would increase Poston’s overall monthly income by a third, even with individual wages set at a minimum of sixty cents an hour or twenty-four dollars per forty-hour work week. They witnessed Unit I Japanese turn it down by a five-hundred vote margin on January 20, 1943, with nearly 60 percent of the 7,153 eligible votes cast in the shadow of the completed factory building. After a week of some administrative arm-twisting, they saw residents barely pass the measure. As a Japan-born resident who voted in favor of the factory stated, “Despite . . . self rule, the government is going to find some measure to put the camouflage issue through.” Even after the factory was operating—it lasted less than four months—workers appeared less patriotic and more eager to reap the economic rewards of the work. As one worker admitted, most of his colleagues were “very money mad.”33 Failure, however, did not deter a handful of progressives from suppressing backers of Japan. Some spied on their neighbors, passing on information to camp administrators to help better gauge community sentiments. A handful of them were employed by federal government agencies—the FBI, the Office of Naval Intelligence, Military Intelligence Division—to monitor internee political sentiments, but most were probably individuals who occasionally reported, without pay, to the FBI, resulting in the arrest and removal of certain internees from the three camps. At Poston, informants were responsible for five Japanese Americans suddenly taken away by FBI agents in June 1942, and another three more in mid-September. Their actions as such, earned them the pejorative label inu, which, according to Poston Community Analyst Edward Spicer literally meant “dog” but also “informer.” Publicly condemned, these individuals stood among internees as immoral people, willing to cause family separations for the sake of money or power. Worse, the ones reporting to the FBI were disdained by some camp officials since their activities only placed the administration under internee countersurveillance. Moreover, informers complicated governance of the camps by stirring up unrest among internees—as was the case after FBI agents visited without prior approval by the project directors. As Wade Head noted,

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They would come in here and pick up a few people. People were afraid— they knew that many had been picked up before who were innocent and they were standing around wondering who would be next.

Informants so intimidated camp residents that they profoundly shaped political conversation. As a Topaz resident aptly put it, the administration has no “must” rules but Japanese Americans must understand “the necessity of keeping within the limits” and take care not to “do or say anything which would be considered objectionable by the FBI.”34 Informant activities escalated into a conflict with the Blood Brothers. The former began investigating the latter when the anonymous Brothers plastered posters in twenty-one Manzanar mess halls decrying camouflage net making: “Japanese brothers who are fighting on the battlefield will be disappointed in you.” Their conflict deepened after some Citizens’ Federation members informed on individuals who, at a meeting of six-hundred Kibei in early August, criticized the WRA’s administrative order prohibiting Kibei from relocation. K. A., T. S., J. O., F. T., and K. Y. added fuel to the tension by requesting that Project Director Roy Nash take action against the Brothers and their (the Federation’s) critics, prompting the Brothers to send death threats against alleged informants, including all seventeen Commission members: F. C., Dr. J. G., J. I., Rev. J.A.K., Mrs. M.(S.)K., C. K., J. M., C. M., Rev. S. N., F. O., T. T., W. W., F. Y., S. O., R. T., K. H., and T. I. They were warned in Japanese and in English that their actions were harmful to fellow Japanese and constituted an overly emotional reaction instead of calm resignation to American mistreatment, comparable to a fish flapping around on a cutting board rather than accepting its fate. “Let them cook us or fry us,” they were advised by the Brothers.35 Changes in WRA leave clearance policy brought added tensions to camp politics. Many residents perceived the new leave policy, granting clearance to stay outside indefinitely after October 1, 1942, as removing the last excuse for internees loyal to America to remain in the camps. They knew that many loyalists were encouraged by administrative officials in Topaz to apply early, calculating that a month was needed to obtain clearance with proper forms so that they could depart with their clearance in hand. Most heard that already a large number of Japanese Americans from Poston, numbering over eight-hundred, had taken advantage of leave clearances from September to November 1942 to work as seasonal laborers, picking sugar beets or other crops, not only to supplement their personal income but also to help with war food production in Nebraska, Colorado, Idaho, and other states in the American West. Hence, those supporting Japan found the continued presence of the few American loyalists suspicious. Genji Yamaguchi, manager of Block 13, accused them of spying on Japanese Americans and told them to leave:

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You Nisei who are loyal to the United States of America have no business coming here in the first place, except maybe to spy on us and report to the F.B.I. You should get out of here and do so right away. This camp is only for those of us who are prisoners of war.36

Entry of hundreds of DOJ camp parolees further inflamed camp politics. Most in Poston Unit I arrived between mid-August and early September 1942. Those who returned from Fort Missoula, Montana, brought back with them tales of insufficient medical care, meals deficient in meat and vegetables, sickness, and death. They related tales of physical beatings by officials and Korean American interpreters, claims corroborated by Captain Antonio Martin, Spanish Consulate, and Willard Kelley, Chief of the Border Patrol. Parolees were never specifically banned from political activity, and in Poston, the Project Attorney ruled them eligible for Issei Advisory Board membership. Most of the parolees understood the Prisoner of War Division officials’ preference that they not be perceived as “pro-Japanese” or as “troublemakers” in the camps, lest they be arrested and taken away from their families and friends. Some, however, explored the acceptable limits of political activity by asking for written copies of regulations concerning their political activity and then sent them off to the Spanish Consul in San Francisco for clarification. But for a handful of others, taking revenge on those responsible for their suffering took priority once they arrived at the WRA camps.37 Parolees’ search for informants turned the political culture of the WRA camps into a game of surveillance and countersurveillance. To identify and punish inu, parolees kept track of suspicious individuals, narrowing their list of suspects by interviewing others to determine which pre-camp geographic locations were swept by FBI agents and matching them with community leaders not picked up by the FBI. They placed those suspects under observation, carefully tracking mail correspondence and foot traffic in and out of the administration buildings. Despite this effort, they were unable to identify the most active informants for the FBI since none of the twenty-four names on Hoover’s 1945 list appeared on the “blacklists” internees marked for inu beatings, but they did discover those who occasionally turned in reports to the FBI. They quickly determined that some members of the Anti-Axis Committee of the Los Angeles chapter of the JACL were informants, as was T. S. who bragged of leading FBI and Naval Intelligence agents to the Japanese Association headquarters, which resulted, in his own words, in the parolees having been “jailed and sent to Montana” in the first place. Parolees searching for other informants such as T. A., chairperson of the Executive Council and former president of the Japanese Produce Dealers Association of Los Angeles, found them more circumspect in contact with federal government officials. Neverthe-

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less, Joe Kurihara, a Nisei leader opposed to the Manzanar Commission, the Citizens Federation, and the inu, added them to the blacklist, which included staff members of the Manzanar Free Press and leftists such as K. Y. and J. O. Searchers in Poston and Manzanar also added K. A., J. M., H. F., M. M., S. K., T. I., H. O., H. T., T. G., L. K. Sr. and his wife V. K., L. T., and K. N. to their lists marking these individuals for punishment. With the exception of V. K., none on the list was a woman or child.38 Spy hunters at Poston and Manzanar used violence to achieve their ends. In many cases, they first provided advanced warnings to offer the alleged informant a chance to reform. They posted notices in the latrines, warning in general terms against informing on other internees. At Manzanar, they put up leaflets with titles such as, “A Spy Who Betrays Japanese People.” When these measures failed, vigilantes then sent anonymous warning letters to specific individuals. In other instances, they delivered verbal warnings in person, as was the case in Manzanar when Ben Kishi and Sam Tateishi confronted K. Y., accused him of informing the FBI on the Kibei meeting of August 1942, and warned that he, F. T., T. S., J. M., and T. T. would be “dumped.” At Poston, three Issei bachelors carved “walking canes” from mesquite wood in public, and their sticks’ obvious lack of proper balance for walking prompted some to label them inukoroshi or “(sticks) to kill informants.” Vigilante groups formed in certain blocks at Poston, some allegedly took part of the Goh Club, or Japanese chess club. On September 10, they assaulted Saburo¯ Kido, JACL leader from Unit II, and two days later attacked K. N. of Unit I. They targeted H. Y., and F. S. on October 17 and 18, and two weeks thereafter, they hit L. K. Sr. over the head with a lead pipe, hospitalizing him for several days. Assailants sent L. K. a note after the attack, warning him of yet another: Dear Dog, Hello Sto[o]ge: You didn’t have enough so we will be back November 13. Hope you will be ready. Signed Poston Residence [sic].39

To save alleged and genuine informants from harm, administrators expedited their departure from the camps. To head off beatings, camp administrators turned to sympathetic women and other Japan-born collaborators to identify marked individuals, then dispatched them through seasonal leave clearance procedures or transfers to other “relocation centers” before the attack. Unit II Administrator James Crawford discovered the “K” family’s daughter was an outspoken American patriot and in danger, and so he transferred her family to Topaz after she landed a job in Salt Lake City. He also sent away T. S., his “criminologist,” an internee who successfully investigated S. K.’s first beating. Unit I administrators dispatched to seasonal leave their own “criminologist” and informant, F. S. after he was assaulted. They kept out on seasonal leave L. K. who was “punished” once, and kept an eye out for K. N. Administrators moved a family out of Unit

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I to Unit III to clear them from danger. Those involved in moving out were those on the spy list circulating through camp, and all had actively aided the FBI after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Project Director Ralph Merritt assisted “M(S)K” in her departure from Manzanar on October 15, 1942, under the auspices of the YWCA, though her high status within federal government agency circles as “one of the government’s greatest aids at the Manzanar camp” probably helped speed up her WDC exit approval.40 Public tolerance of the physical assaults further isolated the alleged spies. Most internees supported inu beatings, as Ed Ouchi observed, “All the people felt that the men who got beat had it coming to them.” Alexander Leighton, too, noted the same, saying, “There exists among almost all Japanese, young and old, a great fear of the FBI and a vindictive witch-hunting attitude toward anyone of their own number suspected of being an informer.” Even those adversely affected by the inu beatings, such as Dr. K. K., brother of W. K. who was assaulted, recognized bitterly the popular sentiments running against informants, as he admitted to Leighton: [Dr. K. K.] said the worst of it is that most people are in favor of them; or at least if not approving the beatings, think that the victims only got what was coming to [. . . ] them for their activities as informers before Poston.41

Public backing of the hunting and assaults was so widespread that only a small minority vocally criticized inu beatings, and only one, Block 45 where researcher Richard Nishimoto resided, publicly declared that it would match vigilante violence with its own: [O]ur block would not tolerate any gang who might try to [i]ntimidate any person in our block. That our block is organized to protect any resident. That our block will meet violence with violence.42

The JACL National Convention representatives’ official statement also hastened the coming conflict. Some fifty JACL representatives from the WRA camps and others in mid-November 1942 held an eight-day emergency conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, to formulate a petition requesting that the federal government suppress Japan-backers inside the camps and induct loyal Japanese Americans into the armed forces of the United States. They appeared before federal government officials as spokespersons and representatives for all interned Japanese Americans, even though the majority of internees disapproved. After the conference ended, internee reactions generally ran antagonistic so that at one camp, Mike Masaoka, public relations officer, was burned in effigy. Internees at Poston and Topaz were less hostile, but at Manzanar, they were incensed with the request for Nisei in the U.S. armed forces since it violated the unspoken rule of tolerance of all political perspectives and reflected an upper-class, shizoku view of political loyalty.43

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A massive strike at Poston broke out after the JACL representatives returned to Poston, as loyalty issues merged with inu beatings. Lasting from November 14th to the 24th, thousands of internees from only Unit I struck, but this impacted Units II and III. Residents of Unit I organized round-the-clock barricades around the police station where Isamu Uchida was held, vowing to stop the FBI from taking him away as they made clear their support for Japan. At the barricades they erected cardboard flags with their respective block numbers printed in a circle not only to signal the location of their block barricade for participants but also to give viewers from a distance the impression of a Rising Sun flag. Their phonographs blared the marching song of the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Japanese Patriotic Marching Song. Young men faced the rising sun to the east and greeted its morning appearance with shouts of “Dai Nippon Teikoku Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!” (The Great Imperial Japan Forever). Others unfurled sewn flags of the Imperial Family and the Rising Sun while still others made replica flags with their respective block numbers. Someone converted a Red Cross sign into a swastika while another displayed an American soldier hung in effigy for all to see. Strikers made speeches denouncing Tsuyoshi Inukai, former prime minister of Japan, and his “weak-kneed” policies of arms reduction and diplomatic accommodation with the United States and Great Britain in the early 1930s.44 For internees, the strike carried multiple meanings. For family and friends of the persons involved, it was a personal dispute between K. N. and his brother-in-law George Fujii over family property in Imperial Valley, which intensified further after the former divorced the latter’s sister, and culminated in spy charges against K. N. and the arrest of Fujii with Isamu Uchida. For a handful of the mess hall crew, the strike was an opportunity to call attention to bad treatment in the Camp. For most Unit I residents, however, it was a protest against informers, as Rev. Masatane Mitani saw it, not because they believed in the innocence of those spied on but because they approved of the motive behind the inu beatings: He [Uchida] became a hero now because the people are weighing the motives back of the assault. . . . [R]ightly or wrongly the motive is to avenge public suffering. The motive of the crime is just as important as the crime itself.45

While most sympathized with informant beating, Poston internees differed over the degree of, and rationale for supporting the strike. Block 28 residents, numbering 237 a month prior to the strike, were among the staunchest Unit I supporters. They were not particularly active politically as a group beforehand, as evident by their apathy toward the elections of the Issei Advisory Board and the Co-operative Congress, in which less than half of them voted. More than other blocks, however, these residents felt keenly the injustice of FBI arrests of block members. By February 14,

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1943, they had at least five family heads interned in DOJ camps; and prior to this, had three visits by FBI agents in a two-month period, from September and October 1942, which resulted in one arrest, a rumor of a second, and a questioning of a third individual. Block 28 residents took it seriously because care and consolation of family members left behind in the aftermath of the FBI arrests fell squarely on their shoulders. Dr. Nagisa Mizushima told Community Analyst Edward Spicer about the importance of block welfare support system: Suppose you have to leave your children and your wife or both behind? Who’s going to take care of them? Suppose you have to leave some of your property behind. Who’s going to take care of that? You have to think of what your block people think because that’s what your future welfare depends on.46

Others less visible in their support also saw the protest against FBI interference as the strike’s central issue. Block 17 residents did not experience a single arrest but knew the negative side of camp life—delays in receiving their monthly allowance payment, forcing families to live four months on a month’s pay, the shortages of soap, warm clothing, and stoves for winter heating. They too joined the strike with an awareness, as Block Manager Frank Shigemi expressed it, of the spy problem. “There will be no internal peace so long as they’re people such as the ‘stooges’ in this camp,” the block manager said. The participants in the strike, he noted were simply insisting on one condition. “All that the people ask,” Shigemi said, “is that Mr. Uchida and Mr. Fujii be released or if not to have their trial right here in camp.”47 Those distant from the strike, however, had different views of it, often colored by socioeconomic factors, as the reaction of residents in Unit III illustrates. The residents of Block 326, a few miles down the road from Unit I, thought that the main cause of the strike was “maladministration.” Their block manager believed that informant beatings were only the trigger to the strike and that the root cause lay with the bad handling of Japanese removal and internment. While sympathetic, the manager and the residents of Block 326 sought to keep on the sidelines, preferring the “saner” times prior to the strike. Among them were many of the unit’s department heads, who were perceived as so central to the unit’s politics that the Spanish Consul General spoke at only their mess hall when he addressed Unit III. They held a disproportionate share of the unit’s decision-making power regarding the strike, in that three of the twelve members on Special Committee resided in the block. They were also the propertied elites of Unit III. They organized their own voluntary fire division, organized a system of rescue work and fire prevention because “one of the greatest dangers in this camp is fire,” not the lack of soap, or tardiness in allowance payment as was the case for those without property. As a

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group, they were permanent settlers in America, evident by the presence of third-generation children, a rarity among Poston internees. Block 326 and the neighboring Block 325 once put up two-hundred dollars for a New Year’s party, which amounted to a dollar a head for every person age sixteen years or older. As Richard Nishimoto remarked, “326 is rich, [and] probably can afford it.”48 Residents of Block 317, however, were the opposite of their wealthy neighbors, and had a very different take on the strike. Block 317 was a poor man’s block and known as Poston’s “slum” because of the half-inch gaping holes in their barracks, which testified eloquently to their lack of financial resources to make repairs. To bring in money, some of them operated gambling dens and derived a large part of their income from these all-night entertainment centers. Their children’s behavior, too, offended many, as indicated when Block Manager Robert Hiratsuka called for partitions in the mess hall because he feared his own children would mimic the lower-class eating habits and behavior of some members of his own block: If this isn’t done we, especially our children, have a fair chance of becoming foulest eaters of all time.We have some here now, very bad ones—dirty and awful. And, as long as their parents don’t give a hand and make no effort to correct or teach them, it’s mighty discouraging to try and teach your own kids—because all they have to do is look at the next table and see some kids go about their business of eating like so many you-know-whats.49

Like others of lesser means, Block 317 residents pushed for Unit III participation in the strike. They backed the YMA, a spontaneous oppositional movement harshly critical of the national JACL Convention at Salt Lake City for requesting Nisei eligibility for the draft and whose initials’ meaning remain unknown. Residents refused to pick cotton for the American war effort even though they stood much to gain. When the strike took place in Unit I, residents along with others in Unit III held a large meeting to discuss the issue, only to see Council Chairperson Harvey Iwata, the Community Council, and the Issei Advisor Board suppress the “wildcat” YMA movement. They saw their neighbor M. Fujisawa and other “radicals” stopped from pushing Unit III to strike—an aim that the “angry, bloodthirsty mob,” as the block manager characterized it, appeared bent on achieving at the meeting. They too thought that the problem of informants was central to the strike, a sentiment felt acutely, as evident by their using their own mess hall to host Itaro¯ Nagai’s talk on the DOJ camp internees just days before the strike.50 Similar tensions existed in Unit II, where participation in the strike was barely averted. Those in formal positions of power, led by the council and John Maeno, shunned association with the strike; but others embraced

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it, initiating the Cottonwood Bowl Movement to push Unit II to participate. The latter rallied residents to the Cottonwood Bowl by ringing the mess hall bells after the strike situation stalemated around November 19. Those in attendance joined the “wildcat” leaders in their resolution supporting the strike under the mistaken notion Unit III had already joined. In response, the formal leadership held their own meeting on November 21 to refute the Cottonwood Bowl Movement leaders’ claims that Unit I leaders had requested Unit II to join. The Cottonwood Bowl Movement leaders countered, bringing in Unit I strike leader Itaro¯ Nagai who privately urged Unit II participation, prompting four block representatives to resign immediately, and others to threaten to do likewise in protest against Unit II’s Council. John Maeno then unilaterally created a new congress out of block managers, the Community Council, the Issei Advisory Board, and the Fair Practices Committee, then issued a statement of neutrality, held a plebiscite, and announced that the majority of Unit II residents backed his position. Maeno’s “democratic” handling of the Unit II position on the strike was facilitated by the ominous presence of Poston’s Internal Security Police headquarters, situated in Unit II, and the rapid end of the strike itself.51 For camp administrators, however, the strike was an opportunity to extract concessions from the internees. Project Director W. Wade Head used the strike as a political ploy to extract guarantees to bring an end to the inu beatings and undermine the internee political leaders who seized power during the strike. Head knew that the FBI had dropped their case against Uchida and Fujii, and he informed his upper-level administrators of this development by late morning of November 19. The director also knew, as did some of his staff, the Yuma County sheriff had also dismissed the case against Uchida. Project Attorney Theodore Haas announced at a staff meeting that the entire affair could be handled internally without the FBI, Yuma County, or any other governmental agency, and that Uchida’s bail procedures should follow the “regular” pattern. Bureau director Alexander Leighton offered a sensible solution to the crisis—release of Uchida to the Poston community and his trial at a later date. But as the social scientist noted, “Head says that this strike gives an opportunity to put [the] administration in a strong position.” Vernon Kennedy, employment director, agreed with Leighton’s assessment of the political, not labor dimension of the strike. “The strike was political and not industrial,” Kennedy admitted.52 Head’s gamble paid off. As part of the agreement, the project director returned Uchida to Poston, a relatively minor concession, but did not consent to the internee negotiators’ demand that the FBI seek the permission for a suspect’s removal from the internee Public Relations Committee, a group formed along pre-Removal regional lines to ensure accurate

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discussion of the suspected individuals’ reputations before arrest. Head demanded four conditions to which internee negotiators consented: (1) a trial inside of Poston for Isamu Uchida, Tom Masuda, and K. Tamura under procedures prescribed by Head; (2) a reemployment program drawn up by Vernon Kennedy to end all strikes and work stoppages; (3) all residents to sign affidavits guaranteeing law and order and an end to inu beatings; and (4) a city planning board elected by the people to work with the administration in tending to the community. Head gained most of what he sought while barely averting a bloody confrontation, which the MPs were eager to initiate.53 Unlike residents in Poston, those in Manzanar engaged in a bloody confrontation over the informant problem. They gathered by the thousands after a near-fatal attack on Fred Tayama and the detention of Joe Kurihara, Genji Yamaguchi, and Harry Uyeno on December 6 at the camp’s jail. They were appeased by the release of the former two but disturbed that the latter was still in custody because the victim claimed to recognize Uyeno’s eyes behind the ski masks of his assailants. Two to four thousand of them gathered in front of the police station to hear Kurihara name the seven inu responsible—K. A., J. M., J. O., T. S., F. T., T. T., and K. Y. Another crowd rushed to the hospital where Tayama was recuperating to finish him off. The protesters in front of the jail sang the Japanese national anthem, Kimigayo, and the Imperial Japanese Navy marching song, while allegedly Kurihara incited the crowd further, shouting, “We are going to kill all ‘informers,’ tonight, tomorrow night, etc. until we get them all. You can shoot us or starve us, but we won[’]t do anything but kill informers.” As soldiers guarding the police station shouted taunts, “Remember Pearl Harbor,” the crowd drew closer, only to be fired upon, first with tear gas, followed by three or four shotgun blasts, resulting in the death of James Ito¯ and the wounding of another eighteen individuals, two of whom sustained critical injuries, and one of whom died several days later.54 Beyond producing casualties, the riot played a pivotal role in the removal of the extreme ends of the political spectrum. On one end were the hardened pro-Americanists who left immediately preceding, during, and after the riot. Those blacklisted inu fled, using the cover of darkness to slip away to safety. K. A., K. Y., and J. O. signed up with the U.S. Army and left the camp just prior to the riot. T. T. escaped unharmed from his apartment as the crowd came for him by disguising himself as part of the mob until he reached Ralph Smeltzer’s car, where he hid on the floorboard as the Brethren missionary smuggled him out of the camp. Others snuck into the administration building in a “semi-hysterical” state and pleaded with administrators for police escort protection. Some simply remained in the administration building until Merritt made arrangements for them,

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numbering approximately one hundred and sixty, to reside in a Civilian Conservation Corps camp in nearby Death Valley. The “loyal” group finally relocated elsewhere in the United States but not before embarrassing Merritt by voicing their complaints about their accommodations at Death Valley, acting like “quarrelsome, crabby, fault-finding tourists.”55 Those on the opposite spectrum, too, were removed from the camp, though in a very different manner. Most of these individuals were arrested by FBI agents immediately after the riot and placed in special detention. Ted Ichiji Akahoshi, So¯kichi Harry Hashimoto, Raymond Hiroshi Hirai, Tamotsu Kono, Joseph Kurihara, Tokuji Kurosumi, Tom Tadao Nakagawa, Ko¯zo¯ Fred Ogura, K. Suzukawa, Shigetoshi Tateishi, Harry Uyeno, Ernest Kinzo¯ Wakayama, Genji George Yamaguchi, Keiji Arataka, and two others were taken away by bureau agents to a Civilian Conservation Corps camp, then to Moab, Utah, where the sixteen evacuees and an equal number of soldiers remained temporarily before the camp was turned over to the Carson Indian Agency in Steward, Nevada. They were moved yet again to Dalton Wells, courtesy of the Grazing Service, and met with Ned Campbell, who brought them supplies. From here, four Japanese citizens were shipped off to the Department of Justice for incarceration while the remaining U.S. citizens went to Leupp, Arizona, after the special detention camp opened in April 1943. The prisoners were joined by Kameki Aramaki, Yoshinobu Hanaoka, Shikazo Harada, Oritaro¯ Kobayashi, Kiichi Kawahira, Kazuo Kojima, and Zenshiro¯ Tachibana, of Poston. More joined as some project directors took advantage of the camp’s existence to remove individuals they defined as problematic, until Dillon Myer halted the practice by requiring hearings before incarceration at the camp and by allowing the Military Police to declare martial law at Manzanar, which meant not only censorship and curfews but also that the FBI and G-2 could no longer enter the camp under the delimitation agreement.56 In addition removing “troublemakers,” the strike and riot resulted in some important changes in camp political life. Internees in Manzanar and Poston dealt with inu through establishing extra-judicial bodies to judge those accused of informing. During the strike, Poston internees held trials in which accusers marshaled evidence against alleged informers, and rendered verdicts. The “juries” in Unit I heard accusations against T. M. of Imperial Valley, California, a man whom Tamie Tsuchiyama of the Bureau of Sociological Research described during the strike as “the most likely candidate for the next beating.” The “court” found T. M. not guilty but only after weighing charges that he threatened individuals with FBI arrests, and that he asked people to sign an open letter to the Japanese government stating all Imperial Valley Japanese Americans had “severed their allegiance to Japan.” In Unit II, another “court” heard charges

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against S. K., a Legal Division secretary whose family members so incensed other residents of Block 207 that the block manager formally requested their transfer to another block, citing personal conflicts but admitting she and her family violated a basic unspoken rule of the block— she was too “openly pro-American.”57 After the strike, however, Japanese Americans terminated informal courts and established formal legal structures to deal with the problem. At Poston internee leaders, as part of their agreement with the administration, established an “Honor Court,” a legal body charged with the responsibility of reviewing allegations against any individual. The Committee of Twelve won Project Director Head’s approval for forming of the court, and they carefully screened potential court members for their prewar background reputations. But because some wanted to review individuals accused of being inu, Project Attorney Theodore Haas strongly objected, arguing that the court had “no legal basis under the W.R.A. Administrative Instructions” and had the “potential for great harm.” They lost Head’s support after he and Haas realized that many “loyal” Nisei would be subjected to harsh review: The Honor Court was to have a Star Chamber procedure and also to have the right to pass on eligibility for all councilmen and all board members. There was no appeal from its verdict. Many loyal Nisei of high character were on the list of the persons to be tried.58

At Manzanar, Japanese Americans tried a similar legal structure to deal with the problem of informants. Not much is known except that after the riot, internee leaders called this “court” the Manzanar Peace Committee. While its function was to serve in a similar capacity as the Honor Court in Poston, these committee members did not seriously contemplate charges against alleged informants. They were perceived as inadequately investigating charges against suspected inu, and their reputation for being “soft” on informers became so widespread that internees in Poston accused committee members of laxity, a charge those members felt compelled to answer. In the end, this “court” system also fell into disuse.59 Reparations rather than informers became the new bone of contention following the strike and riot. At Poston Unit I, internee leadership, represented by the Community Council and its affiliated Issei Advisory Board, clashed with the Central Executive Committee over internees’ relationship with Japan—the commitee being a political body established on November 28 just days after the strike ended. The committee, together with the Labor Relations Board, and the Honor Court, were formed to serve the project director in an advisory and ad hoc capacity after the seventytwo delegates of the City Planning Board selected four Issei and four Nisei out of the Community Council and the Issei Advisory Board, respectively.

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The committee, however, quickly fell into disfavor with Community Management Director John Powell, Labor Division head Vernon Kennedy, and Project Attorney Theodore Haas, the latter labeling committee members as “undesirable community leaders.” The committee then created a furor by proposing on December 17, 1942, to ask the Japanese government through the Spanish Consul to extract from the American government war reparations totaling $200 million. Their action was rejected immediately by the Community Council and was followed by some harsh accusations from Issei Advisory Board members. The committee members were accused by Kenji Kawabe, the secretary for the board, of violating “the total will of the people” by “arbitrarily” asking the Japanese government for a postwar Issei relief fund. The committee was pounced on by others, such as University of California researcher Richard Nishimoto, who argued that the proposal made little sense when the general populace in Japan was laboring under wartime conditions. In January 1943, the committee folded after a required two-thirds majority vote of the Community Council, and the Issei Advisory Board went against them but only to merge with the Labor Relations Board to form the Executive Board under chairperson M. Kawashima and Vice-Chairperson Itaro¯ Nagai.60 Expectations of reparations from Japan were not unfounded. Japanese government officials stepped up their campaign to appeal for Japanese American loyalty through radio messages beamed to North America, some of which appeared in the Japanese vernacular newspaper, Rocky Shimpo¯, or heard surreptitiously, albeit in fragments, by internees with radios. On December 7, 1942, Radio Tokyo announced the establishment of a committee to look after Japanese Americans postwar affairs. As the announcer made clear, Japan had not forgotten Japanese Americans but was already planning for their relief: The Central Society for Overseas Residents (some time ago) organized a committee for plans for Japanese in enemy countries. At the meeting held on Dec. (7) it was decided that in view of the anxiety of the Japanese overseas suitable steps would be taken. We cannot watch them silently.

Admiral Kichisaburo¯ Nomura, former Ambassador to the United States, reaffirmed his resolve to help Japanese Americans and other Japanese abroad after the war, reassured them of present help in ameliorating camp conditions, and reminded them to conduct themselves according to briefings given them prior to the outbreak of war.61 Federal government officials and military brass, too, sought to woo internee loyalty. Dillon Myer realized that Japanese internees had a public image problem after the strike, the riot, and three consecutive incidents at Tule Lake, one requiring a strong image of American patriotism to counter the one of disloyalty. Therefore they opted for segregation, be-

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lieving that separation of the “sheep” from the “goats” would assure the American public, private industry, and the U.S. military of the loyalty and trustworthiness of Japanese Americans. Myer and his subordinates found that army commanders of the Eastern and Southern Command areas wanted assurances of loyalty before granting Japanese permission to reside in their respective jurisdictions, something city and state government officials also sought. Myer and his subordinates in Washington, D.C., realized the Indefinite Leave Clearance program was not emptying out the camps as rapidly as they had hoped and faced the additional burden of housing for “loyals” away from the majority of the interned community after the strike and riot. To solve these problems, the WRA director went with a loyalty questionnaire, backed by clearance from major intelligence agencies, and agreed to adding two questions to address the issue of loyalty. Known as Question Numbers 27 and 28, they inquired about respondents’ willingness to serve in the United States armed forces and to swear allegiance to the United States and forswear any allegiance to Japan and its Emperor. Reflecting his goal of releasing hundreds if not thousands of Japanese Americans for relocation, Myer appropriately labeled the questionnaire, “Application for Leave Clearance,” even though the form ostensibly was aimed at determining the willingness of some twenty-one thousand Nisei males to serve in the armed forces of the United States.62 The War Department, however, had other reasons for pushing Loyalty Registration. As had the Office of Naval Intelligence, Military Intelligence Division, and the Office of the Provost Marshal, the War Department opposed Dillon Myer’s Indefinite Leave Clearance because of the director’s generous release of Japanese Americans without “some sort of loyalty investigation,” as one officer complained. Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy disapproved of Myer’s rapid, early release of Japanese Americans, favoring instead retention of them in camps until social science research projects were completed. As McCloy wrote a friend in early fall 1942, [W]e would be missing a very big opportunity if we failed to study the Japanese in these camps at some length before they are dispersed. . . . These people, gathered as they now are in these communities, afford a means of sampling their opinion and studying their customs and habits in a way that [has never before been possible]. We could find out what they are thinking about and we might very well influence their thinking in the right directions before they are again distributed into communities.

In addition, War Department officials wanted to placate representatives of G-2, Office of Naval Intelligence, the FBI, the Office of the Provost Marshal General, the WRA, and the War Manpower Commission by hammering out an acceptable relocation clearance plan, in several meet-

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ings from December 1942 to January 1943. Its clearance committee, known as the Japanese-American Joint Board, classified Japanese Americans into “white” (approved), “brown” (need for further checking), or “black” (no clearance) based on intelligence reports. But War Department officials also pushed segregation to drive a wedge between the Nisei and Issei, believing loyalty followed citizenship and thus Japanese Americans would favor Japan over the United States. As Captain Stanley Arnold admitted, The framers of the policy were aiming a wedge between American-born citizens and their foreign[-]born alien parents. This theory was based upon the assumption that the most logical division in sentiment and loyalty would be between alien and citizen, and accordingly a direct invitation was issued to the citizens to demonstrate their loyalty by participating in the war effort.63

Yet War Department officials also believed most internees should be released from the WRA camps through segregation. They saw the benefits of constructing an image of them as “Americans” through loyalty registration and segregation because those measures offered the best means for resolving unexpected problems encountered in managing their part of the WRA camps. War Department officials feared greater negative publicity for the army if the Military Police were called in to quell riots and if blood was shed: there would possibly be retaliation against American military and civilian prisoners in Japanese custody. To department officials, the proposal would bring peace to the WRA camps by isolating and concentrating “disloyals” and malcontents in one camp while at the same time protecting the “loyals” from bodily harm. Prior to the strike, McCloy paid scant attention to Bendetsen’s repeated calls for such a program, but once McCloy heard General Delos Emmons advocating the use of Japanese American soldiers, and received assurances from the navy on the loyalty of the majority of Japanese Americans, he then voiced approval of Tep Ishimaru’s plea for segregation following the Poston strike. McCloy then formulated plans in conjunction with the WRA for an allNisei combat team, composed of some forty-five hundred soldiers, three thousand of which were to be mainlanders, in addition to segregation. His staff also concluded that a Japanese American combat team was necessary for both international propaganda purposes—to show the fight was not a “race” war—and to help loyal Japanese Americans relocate outside. By “tying them up to this barbed wire project,” McCloy said of keeping Japanese Americans interned, “. . . we are only spoiling a good portion of our citizenry.” The Assistant Secretary of War had another purpose in mind—to slow down Myer’s quick release of Japanese Americans—by using DeWitt’s Intelligence Bureau files with their “derogatory” information on individual Japanese Americans.64

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Largely for propaganda purposes, War Department officials initiated the formation of a Japanese American combat team. By mid-July 1942, high-ranking officers within the army already requested information on the potential for inducting Japanese Americans either as individuals scattered throughout various units or as concentrated in a single, highly visible unit. Before the Assistant Secretary of War fielded a similar suggestion from the 1942 JACL National Convention, he received estimates from Calvert Dedrick, the chief of the Statistical Section at the Presidio, alerting him to the potential of inducting ten thousand Nisei soldiers with an anticipated real figure of ninety-two hundred. Pleased with the estimates, McCloy predicted they would make good soldiers because they have “a Mikado philosophy[,] only exposed to American chewing gum and moving pictures.” But he saw the propaganda value of Japanese Americans in uniform as paramount. “The propaganda value of the use of Japanese troops would,” the Assistant Secretary of War declared, “. . . be of great value throughout the Far East.” Secretary of War Henry Stimson, therefore, planned on a segregated combat unit for public relations purposes rather than disperse Japanese Americans into “regular” units, as he had with American Indians.65 WDC officers and the Office of the Provost Marshal General, however, had other ideas about the Loyalty Registration Program. Provost Allen Gullion was hostile, dismissing it as the work of “a Navy psychologist” (Alexander Leighton). General John DeWitt thought it could prompt the public to ask the embarrassing question, “Why, if Japanese Americans are loyal enough to serve in the army, wouldn’t they also be loyal enough to live on the West Coast?” The general feared people would also criticize the army for the millions of dollars spent on the camps, and call for hearing boards to determine loyalty and release as a less expensive measure. Bendetsen was concerned that the program would simply expose the removal as a major mistake. After admitting it was a discriminatory act, the colonel answered “no” to the possibility of allowing Japanese Americans deemed “loyal” by the program board to return to the West Coast: No I certainly don’t. Not if you don’t want to confess . . . to confess an original mistake of terrifically horrible proportions. That’s what in my judgment this plan is pointing toward.

Other Command officers such as Ray Ashworth and Calvert Dedrick also voiced their criticisms of the Loyalty Registration, especially the reliability of answers received from the questionnaire. To compensate for anticipated WRA “softness” in granting leave clearances, Command officers decided to tighten their demands at the Japanese-American Joint Board level, requiring completed questionnaires, three reference letters from

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“whites,” passport information, and the understanding that any applicant with a history of membership in a Japanese organization with its headquarters in Japan would be denied clearance.66 On the other hand, WDC opposition to the Loyalty Registration was not based solely on racial considerations, nor was it an attempt to cover up their mistake. They also feared the program might not be able to sift out certain types of Japanese Americans detrimental to the war effort. DeWitt, in fact, supported the War Department’s idea of having Nisei serve in the U.S. armed forces—calling the proposal “practicable”—if they were placed in labor battalions and kept under surveillance. The Kibei, DeWitt believed, were a dangerous, corrupting element to Japanese American loyalty: he had heard reports that the Japan-educated thought they would become minor officials in the losing country regardless of the victor—if the United States won, they would serve in the military occupation of Japan; if Japan was victorious, they would serve as that nation’s representatives in the United States. Outraged by their attitude, the general gave permission to an ONI officer to survey 1,500 Japanese Americans at the Puyallup Assembly Center to identify Kibei and to separate them from Nisei. He then urged the necessity for early action in the segregation of the presumptively good Japanese from the essentially bad Japanese. To leave them together much longer is bound to atrophy what loyalty some of the Japanese (number unknown) may have had to this country, and perhaps to make them perpetually pro-Japanese.67

Bendetsen, too, backed the idea of pulling “loyal” Japanese Americans out of the camps for employment and army service. He believed Japanese Americans should work in areas outside of the military zone: I think that certainly you should not pen up your assets[;] the Colonel said when “you’ve got manpower, you don’t have to work them in California. You can work them in Utah or Illinois and you’ve got lots of agriculture, you’ve got lots of manufacture and you’ve got lots of transportation. They are working on the Great Northern Railroad now in Western Defense Command and nobody objects to that. General DeWitt authorized it.

Moreover, the colonel agreed with McCloy’s idea of creating a highly visible Japanese American combat team for public relations purposes: I see no objection to raising a combat team. I’ve always been much for it. I’m strong for it because I think it would be a ten-strike on the international relations side. As far [as] a contribution to the winning of the war is concerned, I don’t think it amounts to a hill of beans either way and I’m sure nobody else does.68

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Agreement with the general direction that the War Department wanted to take, however, did not mean the army officers in the Presidio would use similar methods. Bendetsen and others believed loyalty determination based on intelligence-data gathering methods was superior to individual interviews and a registration of all Japanese Americans. The latter, they thought, was not feasible, and it was unreliable in weeding out the “disloyal.” Officers estimated it would take at least a year for sixty-six agents working on one case per day to handle the anticipated 22,000 cases and feared that skilled liars could pass as “loyals” during interviews. Instead, Command officers wanted to interview only several hundred individuals known for their participation in Japanese nationalistic activities in the 1930s and to extract from them information for identifying other potential spies and saboteurs. By combining usage of a lie detector machine with intelligence data from the FBI and ONI, these army officers felt confident they could ferret out the “disloyal” and potentially dangerous, a group they thought would number at most ten thousand, most of them Kibei. Their own intelligence bureau produced some twelve-thousand cards on various suspected individuals but tagged only eight-thousand of them as “definitely pro-Japanese.” Given these relatively low figures, WDC officers thought internment at Poston Units II and III with a total capacity of ten thousand would suffice.69 Federal government officials, however, predicted fewer “disloyals” than did the WDC. They took a number of measures to ensure the highest possible affirmative answers and minimize negative ones to the loyalty questions. WRA Acting Director E. M. Rowalt sent a message to Topaz’s project director, Charles Ernst, clarifying the intent of Administrative Instruction No.22 (revised). He declared all males and females, ages seventeen years or older, regardless of citizenship, were required to register (except in cases of those who had requested repatriation), even though War Department officials understood registration as voluntary, not compulsory. The acting director told Ernst that the reason for making registration compulsory was “to speed up our clearance procedure” from clearing “a few dozen per day to hundreds per day.” The results, Rowalt optimistically predicted, would be the creation of a large pool of workers for companies with “war contracts” once internees were cleared by a special board certifying them “as eligible for work in war plants.”70 Camp administrators initially took the opposite tact and used noncoercive measures to ensure a high number of “loyals” and a low number of “disloyals.” At Topaz, administrators immediately informed the camp population of the program on January 28, and scheduled pre-registration meetings with Council Chairperson Tsune Baba and the project director. When they discovered that the pre-registration meetings simply hardened opposition, camp administrators and backers printed a special edition of the Topaz

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Times explaining the program in English and Japanese, and distributed copies for each apartment. Furthermore, Project Director Ernst issued a statement on registration, emphasizing its connection with termination of the camps by declaring it “the beginning of the depopulation of the centers.” Even with awkward questions such as no. 28, Ernst assured internees that they could write in “anything they so desired which appealed to their personal feeling about allegiance to the United States.” Topaz staff personnel delayed registration twice by several days to allow ample time for a maximum number of affirmative answers. They began registration with Block 5, where the most outspoken on behalf of America resided and continued until all male U.S. citizens were registered by February 27, 1943.71 War Department and WRA officials undertook Loyalty Registration jointly to secure a high completion rate. Both distributed two basic questionnaire forms for internees to complete, one for the estimated twentyone thousand male citizens of draft age and another for nearly fifty-seven thousand other residents above the age of sixteen years, excluding the 3,396 who had filed for repatriation or expatriation prior to February. The War Department dispatched ten army recruiting teams, each with an officer and three sergeants, one of whom was Japanese American, to answer questions after their arrival at the WRA camps between February 6 and February 8, 1943, and encourage registration, which was scheduled two days thereafter. In question no. 27 (DSS Form 304-A) the War Department inquired about the male respondent’s willingness to serve in combat “wherever ordered” while the WRA asked the same question of Nisei females for Army Nurse Corps or Women’s Army Corps (WAC). In question no. 28, both the department and the WRA aimed at political loyalty, asking respondents to swear “unqualified allegiance to the United States of America” while at the same time forsaking “any form [of] allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government, power[,] or organization.” Four days after registration began, WRA officials revised question no. 28 for aliens (WRA Form 126-Rev.), asking them merely to swear obedience to “the laws of the United States” and promise not to obstruct “the war effort of the United States.” By the end of registration, U.S. Army recruiters and WRA officials successfully persuaded over 95 percent of all eligible persons to register.72 Despite high registration rates, however, the War Department and WRA officials failed to secure a large pool of loyal laborers for war industries and the armed forces. Most American-born males were probably ambivalent about voluntarily enlisting in the armed forces of the United States, and most Japanese Americans would not work in the American war industry let alone forswear allegiance to the Japanese government. Yet they were not prone to violate American laws, engage in espionage or sabotage, nor maliciously disrupt the Allied war effort. Faced with these questions, many

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of them probably provided the answers that camp administrators sought. To question no. 27, over three-quarters of the twenty-one thousand males eligible for the draft answered affirmative while barely more than of a fifth qualified their answers, replied negative, or refused to answer at all. However, few were willing to step forward for military service despite the large number of interned males confirming their willingness to serve “wherever ordered” in the armed forces of the United States. In all ten WRA camps, only 1,208 volunteered, less than 6 percent of the total number of American-born males, a figure considerably lower than that found among Nisei males in Hawaii, where a third of them volunteered immediately. At Poston, 3,321 males were among the 12,344 who registered, and even though about two-thirds of them—2,118—marked “yes” to Question No. 27, few volunteered. Only eighty-seven American-born males from Unit I, seventy-one from Unit II, and seventy-five from Unit III—or about 7 percent of the total qualified males—volunteered for military service. For females, too, volunteerism was obviously weak. Of the 3,168 who registered, a little more than half refused to serve “wherever ordered,” even though only 4 percent refused to swear unqualified allegiance to the United States. As Gene Sugioka, former Disney artist at Poston pointed out, Nisei, “especially those that own property,” wanted to join the army but “they don’t dare say a thing.” At Topaz, all of the nearly fifteen hundred males with U.S. citizenship registered, but initially only fifty-six volunteered, after which the number climbed to 112 by March 10, 1943, barely more than 7 percent of the total eligible population. Women were more responsive to volunteering, as judged by their response to Lt. Margaret Dean’s appeal to them to join the WAC, with some two hundred women expressing interest in signing up, though rumors of them serving as prostitutes for the army later undermined recruiting. At Manzanar, Nisei male and females were less responsive to the call to arms, with barely more than 5 percent of the total American-born male populations joining the ranks of volunteers before the end of March 1943.73 A similar discrepancy between their words and behavior appeared on the question of political loyalty. To question no. 28, the overwhelming majority—83 percent—of the adult population in the ten WRA camps answered affirmatively, and only a 12 percent minority (9,388) replied negatively, and an even smaller number—3,491, or less than 5 percent of the total—refused to answer. Topaz internees followed the broader trends in the ten WRA camps, as did Poston, internees with only 513 male citizens (15%) and 130 female citizens (4%) answering negatively. At Manzanar, however, fewer gave “loyal” answers. Although 97 percent of the alien population answered “yes” to the revised question no. 28, for those requesting to re-register, only about half of the U.S. citizens pledged loyalty to the United States.74

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Reasons why individuals answered “no” to the loyalty question were varied and complex. For some, answering negative was a rational choice reflecting their unwillingness to sever their ties with Japan and family members living there. Bureau researcher Richard Nishimoto said that the majority of Issei in Poston were, on the political spectrum, “one-third of the way” from being “pro-Japan” to identifying themselves as “proUSA,” with few aligning with the latter. Manzanar Community Analyst Morris Opler talked with two Kibei boys and found that they couldn’t voluntarily turn their backs on the Emperor because it meant they couldn’t return to their villages in Japan and it would negatively impact their relatives living there. “If our relatives ever found out that we did this, even if they found out after the war,” one of the boys explained to Opler, “they could not hold up their heads in their villages.”75 For others, socioeconomic or sociodemographic differences may also have influenced their negative answers. Those without property and assets in California were more likely to answer negative to the loyalty question while whose seeking to protect their “investment” or stake in the United States did the opposite. These economic differences were evident in the contrasting answers given by residents of certain blocks in Poston units II and III. Residents of Unit II frequently answered “no” at a rate higher than that of Unit III, which comprised the “upper crust” of Poston: all five of the blocks with the highest number registering “no” were from Unit II, while the fewest negative answers came from Unit III. The former’s less well-off status was admitted by a resident who confessed, “We are the lowest type of damn Jap in the whole country.” But not all the economically disadvantaged responded negatively to question no. 28, as Block 54 illustrates. These residents were known to administrators collectively as a troublesome block because some of “the worst elements,” the “beachcombers and lower class fishing people” from Orange and Imperial counties resided there. Despite their lower socioeconomic status, less than ten of them answered “no” on question no. 28. Even Block 329, a group of Issei bachelors often working as seasonal laborers rather than at white-collar jobs, was counted among the blocks with the least number of “no” answers to the loyalty Question.76 Many, however, responded negatively to maintain their social networks on an even keel. Their sensitivity to peer pressure rather than politics or economics, according to Manzanar Community Analyst Morris Opler, who interviewed 125 cases and kept meticulous notes, was the key factor. Quite a large number of these claimed “influence” as the reason for initially answering “no,” as an American-born mother testified. She cited that the lack of privacy, peer pressure, and fear brought on by “a big crowd around and people telling you what to do” prompted her to answer “no.” Others joined their friends and family in protest . “I answered ‘no’

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because of resentment and because of how they treated us,” a young male interviewee told Opler, a sentiment widespread in his block. Poston Block 211 residents may have answered “no” in protest to FBI oppression since they stood helplessly by as FBI agents suddenly appeared in two cars, accompanied by the Military Police in two jeeps to arrest seven individuals, among them Zentaro¯ Tachibana, the “reputed head of the anti-adm[inistration] group” of Unit II, and his father-in-law, together with two other relatives charged with “resisting arresting and participating in the November strike.” In response to these arrests, Block 211 residents registered the highest number of “no” answers in Poston.77 Why so many answered “yes” to question no. 28 also requires explanation. Although many analysts stress internees’ abiding loyalty to the United States as paramount, other factors also caused the majority to choose the United States over Japan. Manzanar Project Director Ralph Merritt used a number of tricks to lower the number of “disloyals” and increase the “loyals” by getting the Block Managers’ Assembly to back Registration “100%” with a resolution passed unanimously after Lt. Tracy Bogard presented its aims to the assembly. When the initial question no. 28 appeared problematic for the Issei, the project director immediately pressed for permission to re-register Japanese citizens with the revised question, and offered incentives to switch to “yes.” Merritt gave “certain privileges” in the form of a rehearing for fathers or any other interned family member if affected individuals would change their answers from “no” to “yes,” while warning those who ask for repatriation, or expatriation, of legal problems ahead. He was successful—out of a total of 3,497 aliens in Manzanar, 3,267 signed up for revised question no. 28, with answers more to his liking. By the end of April 1943, the Manzanar project director boasted that his camp was one of the best among the WRA camps: [W]hereas Manzanar had been a problem child up to now, it is totally different now, in that the percentage of loyalty is the highest with a percentage of 97.54. . . . Manzanar is doing better today than any of the other centers.78

But intimidation also played an important factor in the majority’s decision to answer in favor of the United States. At Topaz, the project director discouraged a formal council vote against registration by pointing out that such group action falls within the scope of the Espionage Act and emphasized his point by reading the act aloud. Deputy Project Director James Hughes threatened those who failed to register with enforcement of the Espionage Act, and other administrators intimated severe penalties for resistance. “Those individuals who interfere with the rights of the residents to register,” Hughes warned, “will come under the espionage act,” and he further stated to American-born males that “he could not emphasize too strongly the seriousness of anybody who failed to register.”

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His words were backed up by the uninvited presence of three FBI agents who came to observe registration firsthand, sparking rumors among internees of some sixty FBI agents in the camp. Their threats were so clearly understood that a block manager blurted out, “There is a ten thousand dollar fine and 20 years in jail if a person does not register for obstructionist purposes. That is the army.”79 Extralegal forms of coercion were also used to elicit positive responses on the loyalty question. At Manzanar, FBI agents interviewed M.S.K. to elicit information to help them better target specific Kibei for arrest since some of those individuals lent a hand in encouraging Registration resistance. At Topaz, coercion played a large enough role to attract the attention of both the State Department, the Spanish Consul, and the Imperial Japanese Government. Some unnamed officials at Topaz started off by enlisting the aid of “a couple of husky fellows” who marched around the registration room, bellowing out to intimidate people, “Where are those enlistment blanks?” FBI officials added additional pressure by sending a smaller number of field agents into Topaz to summon eleven Kibei and interrogating them regarding their loyalty to Japan; the agents spoke in English, which many of the Kibei barely understood. When the eleven finally answered “yes” out of frustration, FBI agents whisked them out of Topaz and incarcerated them at the Special Detention Center at Moab, Utah. Camp officials made coercion so integral to registration that To¯suke Taniguchi and Yahei Naruto requested in December 1943 that the Spanish Consul Francisco de Amat deliver a message to the Japanese government clarifying their affirmative answers as coerced. “As for the majority of us,” they claimed, “no matter what we thought, we were inevitably forced to pledge loyalty to the United States,” a conclusion the State Department also reached in general about the WRA methods.80 Coercion during registration not only embarrassed Japanese Americans before Japanese government officials but altered the rules of governance. Prior to February 1943, interned Japanese Americans expressed their political opinions with relatively little constraint. During Loyalty Registration, however, they found themselves muzzled by administrators, federal government officials, and military officers, who suppressed their freedom of speech to advance relocation and voluntarism for military service. Hence, after registration, many of them abandoned formal leadership positions and turned inward, shielding their “private transcript” from administrative and social scientists’ view while outwardly conforming to the new image of the “loyal” Japanese American. Their compartmentalization of political discussion, together with the removal through relocation of some individuals who might have conflicted with the majority, resulted in a “quiet” period, a lull before the coming of a second political storm.81

5 “WHY AWAKE A SLEEPING LION?” GOVERNANCE DURING THE QUIET PERIOD, 1943–1944

T

HE AFTERMATH of the Loyalty Registration crisis left both camp administrators and internees seeking tranquil camp life. Top-level military brass, WRA officials, and social scientists modified the rules of governance between the spring of 1943 and the summer of 1944 to accomplish this end, but Japanese Americans also assisted their captors by placing moderates into formal positions of power while retreating to the private sphere to monitor closely the progress of the war and plan for a postwar future. Both groups claimed credit for the peace, with the internees crediting their concessions gained to a victorious Japanese military. The former claimed the tranquility stemmed from the strike, the riot, and the registration crisis’s “pressure release” of internee frustrations over removal losses and camp inconveniences. As Myer later recalled, “There was turmoil at Manzanar for some time, but the incident [riot] cleared the air and opened the way for communication between staff and evacuees.”1 Dillon Myer’s rosy assessment of the strike, riot, and registration crisis’s impact hid from public view the intense pressure he faced to pacify the camps. A month after the riot, Myer and the WRA faced accusations of inept administration by the United States Senate Committee on Military Affairs, headed by Monrad Wallgren of Washington and Rufus Holman of Oregon. From May to July 1943, Myer was again grilled, this time by Texas Congressman Martin Dies’s House Committee on Un-American Activities, to answer questions about the large number of negative responses to the loyalty questions and low numbers of volunteers for the army. Myer, the WRA, and Poston Project Director W. Wade Head, in particular, successfully defended themselves from Harold Townshend, former Poston employee who brought charges of Japanese American disloyalty and mismanagement. Myer had Head cross-examine Townshend to uncover the latter’s “irregular” behavior during the strike, including a violation of the no-firearms rule and exhibiting “a Jap’s a Jap” attitude. After the hearings, Myer then purged staff ranks of “racist” employees to prevent further public embarrassment and setbacks to relocation.2 Myer also brought in new project directors to tighten his reins over the internees. Except for Manzanar, he pushed out previous directors from

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other federal government agencies and replaced them with personnel from his headquarters. The Director assigned Luther Hoffman, a relocation officer, to Topaz in March 1944, replacing Charles Ernst. Myer eagerly removed W. Wade Head, Poston’s project director, by severing ties with the Office of Indian Affairs in January 1944, and transferred in Duncan Mills of Daytona Beach, Florida, because of his outstanding service in the Interstate Commerce Commission, Resettlement Administration, Soil Conservation, and Federal Public Housing Authority. The director favored Mills because he was a loyal bureaucrat who ignored advice by Moris Burge to “let the evacuees run the camp” or else face “strong evacuee antagonisms and resentment against the Administration.” Myer also liked Hoffman because he served as a loyal staff member under Myer in Soil Conservation, then as the assistant chief of the Relocation Division inside the WRA headquarters from 1942 to 1944.3 In addition to personnel changes, the WRA instituted new measures for controlling “troublemakers.” To prevent an army takeover of all camps, Myer allowed FBI Special Agent Myron Gurnea to visit all ten camps in January 1943 to make recommendations for the prevention of “outbreaks, riots, or other disturbances” since neither the WRA nor the FBI had sufficient personnel for the task. The director, according to Hoover, was ready for “a system of informant coverage.” Yet Myer did not appoint a Chief of Internal Security section in his headquarters, assign inspectors, nor reorganize each camp’s police organization to have in each camp a Chief of Internal Security, three assistant chiefs (all “Caucasians”), and six “undercover evacuees” paid from “a confidential fund.” Instead, he went with JACL informants, as had the FBI, ONI, and the Military Police, and secretly gave project directors the limited, discretionary power to remove troublemakers. “The confidential instruction,” Kimball recalled, “placed complete responsibility on Project Directors for handling cases of individuals contributing to lawlessness and disorder,” especially the “aggravated and incorrigible troublemakers.” According to the FBI, Myer also added, “The evacuee’s right to criticize must be protected, and it is only when his anti-social behavior is aggravated that this procedure should be used.” By mid-summer 1943, Myer had established an informant coverage system within a number of WRA camps. In Poston, the director accomplished this easily with the help of W. Wade Head, Len Nelson, E.L. Miller, and a bureau official admitted that the office had “quite a number of Japanese” informants on site. Myer’s system was also assisted by the Office of Naval Intelligence, Eleventh District office in San Diego, which had its personnel and informants in Gila and Poston to observe Japanese Americans by spring 1943.4 Yet the informant system operated with little or no WRA input. Ignoring WRA security procedures, special agents of the FBI routinely entered the

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WRA camps after the registration crisis. At Manzanar and Topaz, Hoover’s agents entered Manzanar and Topaz uninvited and without prior permission from Merrit or Ernst. His agents rarely met the project directors even though they regularly conducted interviews with informants inside the camps. Hoover had twenty-four informants by time he worked out an agreement on security matters with the WRA following the Manzanar Riot. These twenty-four routinely supplied the bureau with information and one, the president of the JACL chapter in Davis County, Utah, kept close watch over the entire organization when he attended the national conferences. Informants operated in Topaz, too, where the community council was requested to supply a forwarding address of an individual suddenly arrested and removed without family and friends’ knowledge. Their calloused disobedience of WRA security regulations resulted in arousing the anger of project directors, especially FBI critic Merritt of Manzanar who learned of the agents’ presence in his camp only after the arrested victim’s children came to his office asking “Where is papa?”5 Lack of mutual respect and cooperation between the two heads of the federal government agencies kept the informant system operations on edge. Myer turned a deaf ear to Hoover’s complaints that the WRA was “a shameful mess” because it is “still blind to ‘security’ and seems bent only on being ‘nice’ and ‘kind’ to elements that are definitely anti-American or racketeers at heart.” Myer contradicted the bureau’s prediction that relocation would result in a pool of “agitators and troublemakers of the gangster type” on the outside, prone to recruitment as Axis agents, and told Hoover in September 1942 that he wanted nearly all Japanese Americans out of the camps. The Authority director refused to specify the precise legal boundaries of WRA camps, a necessity for FBI agents prosecuting internees caught outside the WRA project confines. Hoover, on his part, slowed approval for the WRA’s Indefinite Leave Clearance program, and harassed women seeking jobs on the outside with room searches. The boss also halted a WRA group relocation project of five to six families (as the spearhead of a larger group of about thirty-eight families) to Presidio, Texas, on the Rio Grande River simply because it was isolated, making it “almost impossible to observe the activities of Japanese” in an area having “strategic importance to the war effort.” And finally, Hoover rejected candidates for the five-person Board of Appeals for Leave Clearance because he thought naı¨ve the WRA selection based on a “reasonably liberal attitude toward civil liberty questions” and “free of racial prejudice,” and judged one, James Wolfe, Chief Justice of the Utah Supreme Court, a communist.6 With little cooperation from the FBI forthcoming, the WRA created the Special Segregation Center to supplement its informant coverage system. The center was established after the Manzanar riot as a temporary, sepa-

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rate detention facility for “troublemaking” U.S. citizens, while Japanese citizens were shipped to DOJ camps. Leupp, Arizona, a former Indian boarding school, housed none from Poston and Amache but kept in confinement those deemed as troublemakers and loyal to Japan from Manzanar, Heart Mountain, Gila, Tule Lake, Central Utah, and Jerome. The center readily took in individuals without a proper hearing, prompting Myer to caution against its easy use and Lewis Sigler to label it “unAmerican” and liken its placement procedures to “gestapo methods.” “I don’t like the idea,” Sigler declared, “of individuals being sent to Leupp without being told why they are being sent.” The center’s own director Paul Robertson, too, disapproved of the “pro-Japan” criteria for placement in his center and thought the eleven Kibei from Topaz sent to his facility during the registration crisis did not belong. Although closed on December 2, 1943, it served its purpose of pacifying the camps by keeping “troublemakers” locked up.7 Increased internal security measures within WRA camps did not mean, however, greater Military Police presence in the camps. War Department officials put into operation a “calculated risk” policy in 1943, reducing Military Police personnel in the West in favor of the East, where a greater need existed for ground forces and prisoners-of-war escorts. General Brehoon Sommervell urged the War Department to break its official promise of a battalion and five escort guard companies per WRA camp by asserting confidence in the Military Police’s ability to control any given situation: “If there is any risk in this proposed procedure it is believed that in view of the urgent need for military manpower such risks should be assumed in the knowledge that even if a disturbance occurred at a center which is not immediately crushed, the ultimate result could not have a material effect on the outcome of the war.” By September 1944, the Military Police presence at Topaz and Minidoka remained the same— fifteen enlisted men and one line officer—while those guarding the perimeter at Poston, Manzanar, and Gila were substantially reduced, with the former two shrinking from sixty-four enlisted men to only thirty each on orders of the War Department. At Manzanar, they were so scarce the block managers counted only eight Military Police guards on duty in the center and none conducting baggage and mail searches. The soldiers’ absence was especially noted by single Euro-American female teachers who longed for the guards’ companionship.8 The James Wakasa incident further limited the hand of the Military Police in dealing with internees. The police’s image was badly tarnished after Private Gerald Philpott shot and killed sixty-three-year-old James Wakasa on April 11, 1943, for allegedly climbing through the fence at Topaz. This claim was protested by massive internee demonstrations at the funeral service, a camp-wide strike, and rock-throwing incidents at

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police guard towers numbers five and ten. By the time Philpott was courtmartialed, Military Police units were reassigned and issued orders for better behavior toward internees. By mid-1943, Western Defense Command Military Police were ordered by Bendetsen to ask for the identity of Japanese Americans traveling on a train inside the Command’s jurisdiction “in a tactful and discreet manner.”9 The War Department also replaced the recalcitrant General John DeWitt with General Delos Emmons, to bring peace to the camps. The General Staff blamed the Wakasa incident on DeWitt’s weapons discharge policy but waited for an opportune moment before transferring him to the Army-Navy War College. They appointed General Delos Emmons on September 1, 1943, a man known for favoring only a limited “evacuation” of fifteen thousand in Hawaii but who sent to Jerome and Topaz barely a thousand Hawaiian Japanese, mostly welfare cases or individuals “lacking in money, personal essentials such as clothing and beddings.” They also knew he would fall in line with department policy, as evident when he announced publicly a continuation of exclusion of the Japanese from the West Coast due to “military necessity” and “internal security,” claiming that espionage, not sabotage, was the greatest danger Japanese Americans posed: I think the danger of plant sabotage has been overemphasized at the expense of espionage. The danger of sabotage has been greatly reduced by reason of barbwire fence, plant guards, etc., and by the fact that most Japanese will be under constant surveillance by other races. Espionage, however, is still serious because knowledge of fleet and ship movements would be of real interest to the Japanese. Because of our proximity to the Mexican border, it would be easy to get this information to Japan.

The War Department found Emmons cooperative in quietly reducing the geographic boundaries of the military exclusion zone, and working with Assistant Secretary McCloy to end mass exclusion in favor of individual exclusion after Command lawyers warned the department in May 1944 against continuing with the tenuous legal basis for this practice.10 Additional War Department concessions on segregation and repatriation policies may have contributed to camp peace. The department cooperated with the WRA despite the latter’s selection of a civilian director and of Tule Lake over Poston Units II and III for the Segregation Center. To expedite the transfer of segregants, they recalled Bendetsen from London in August 1943 to coordinate train and bus schedules. They allowed Bendetsen and McCloy to issue orders for guards to “display a courteous but impersonal attitude toward evacuees” even while they conducted a “physical check” of all Japanese Americans in transit. “Arrogance on the part of military personnel,” Bendetsen warned, “would not be tolerated.”

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McCloy conveyed a similar message in his order to Western Defense Command officers: The escort guards should not shoot them if they try to escape, nor should the soldiers have any responsibility to apprehend them. None of these people are prisoners and it is only important to see that none of them get[s] loose in the Western Defense Command.11

Despite the Command’s careful handling of the transfer, segregation and repatriation or expatriation did little to reduce tensions in the camps. In the first place, repatriation was not intended for the removal of all “troublemakers” but was a negotiated agreement with the Japanese government over specific individuals numbering far less than those who registered “no” on the loyalty question. Thus State Department officials shipped to Japan only a handful of immigrant Japanese leaders along with the Japanese diplomatic corps in 1943 and 1944. They encountered logistical difficulties and negotiation snags over the exchange list, especially since the initial list of three thousand repatriates requested by Japan contained the names of many leftist opposition leaders who faced death or imprisonment upon return. State officials knew that the Japanese government sought individuals familiar with American industries, and War Department handlers feared Hawaii Japanese repatriates might reveal information on the new Navy defensive installations at Pearl Harbor after their internment at Sand Island. Moreover, they may have suspected that Japanese Foreign Ministry officials were aiming to neutralize Japanese-language proficient collaborators and JACL leaders such as Mike Masaoka. Hence, they told Japanese government officials that a third to half of those surveyed on the initial list in May 1942 expressed no desire to return to Japan, and rejected three on the list because their return was “inimical to the interests of the United States.” While State Department bureaucrats were probably aware that some returning Japanese would appear in propaganda radio broadcasts, they saw the risk as a small price to pay to extract as many of the six thousand to nine thousand American civilians in Japanese hands whose strong political connections within and outside of the federal government caused some concern.12 Moreover, the segregation and transfer program did not operate as smoothly as anticipated. Not all scheduled individuals were taken to Tule Lake Segregation Center. By the end of March 1944, they failed to transfer 1,711 individuals, and while most of these were in the Arkansas camps, 265 of them were in Poston, and another 169 in Topaz and Manzanar. Secondly, the individuals they shipped to Tule Lake were not the enemy aliens, dual citizens, and ardently pro-Japan Kibei but those whom the WRA Chief of Relocation saw as showing “allegiance to or substantial sympathy for Japanese militaristic aims,” not “those whose interest in or

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feeling for Japan is primarily of nostalgia or cultural character.” Camp administrators therefore screened applicants through a review board before departure beginning July 15, 1943. At Manzanar, Director Ralph Merritt was particularly harsh, threatening to strip away leave clearance privileges and have the Alien Property Custodian confiscate the property of those unwilling to change their “no” to “yes” on the loyalty question. He required them to attend relocation counseling sessions with the Family Welfare Counseling Staff, which many dubbed as “hearings.” When the stick failed, Merritt threw them the carrot, tempting them with special visitation privileges for those whose fathers were in DOJ camps. He was successful, since 93 percent of the alien population accepted the revised loyalty question, permitting Merritt to boast, that Manzanar, his “problem child” camp, was “doing better today than any of the other centers” since its “percentage of loyalty is the highest.”13 Those who transferred to Tule Lake demonstrated little cultural affinity or apparent loyalty to Japan. At Topaz, the 1,447 scheduled for departure to Tule Lake, were not families with extensive experience of living in Japan. Over two-thirds of the group had never been to Japan, and for those who had, the average length of stay was barely more than a year. When departure time came and their numbers declined to 531 repatriates, their composition remained unaffected. Of the thirty-eight whose background is known, few demonstrated greater cultural attachment to Japan compared with other internees. Most of the repatriates were those whose high education in the United States, coupled with an average level of fluency in English and Japanese, made them hardly more capable than other internees of adjusting to Japan (see table 5.1). About 90 percent of them had no schooling in Japan even though a similar percentage of them had four years or more of high school education. Only a third of them claimed proficiency in two languages, though two-thirds said they had competency in a second language. And nearly two-thirds of them had never been to Japan, a percentage more than double that for the wider Topaz adult population.14 Worse, the transfer to Tule Lake simply took away many internees who appeared to be economic rather than political refugees. The group originally scheduled to leave Manzanar numbered 508, but with 131 withdrawing, only 377 actually departed. But this group of several hundred internees were not the enemy aliens and dual citizens whom federal government officials anticipated. Most of the 508 were males (61%) rather than females (39%), as expected, but more were U.S. citizens (56%) than Japanese citizens (44%), with dual citizens comprising less than a fifth. Kibei were less than a tenth of the group. They were not highly educated since the majority (59%) of the 148 Issei males had only a grammarschool level of education in Japan, and only three among them finished a

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TABLE 5.1. Education and Language Experience of Topaz Repatriates, 1943 1943 N

38

Education Schooling in Japan None

89%

10 or more yrs.

0%

Received highest education In U.S.

95%

In Japan

5%

Completed 4 yrs. of high school or more

87%

Language experience Completely bilingual

32%

Some knowledge of a second language

63%

Number of times in Japan Never been to Japan

61%

Once or more

39%

Source: Charles F. Ernst, (List/ Case Files of Repatriates) 16 March 1943, WRA Community Analysis Section, Folder 3, Box 13, EHSP/UA; Repatriation–BSR View, 1943, Folder 27, Box 10 JARCR/CU.

four-year college. For Issei females, about two-thirds (66%) of the sixtyeight whose educational background is known had only a grammarschool level of education, and only two attended college and none graduated. In fact, a quarter (26%) of the expatriates and repatriates were from Terminal Island (blocks 9 and 10), a region known for their wanderlust and relative poverty, especially after their removal. Called the “Japanese Okies,” these individuals had few financial resources to tide them over while waiting for the construction of WCCA and WRA camps, and thus arrived early at Manzanar because removal from Terminal Island forced them to seek temporary housing in cellars, churches, and Japanese-language schools in Los Angeles. Others hailed from regions hit hard by the timing of removal, particularly those from San Fernando (blocks 14 and 15) and the Florin District near Sacramento (blocks 27 and 31), all of whom experienced “evacuation” just prior to harvest time, denying them

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the economic benefits of their labor. Those whose prior occupations made them vulnerable, such as gardeners, fishermen, agricultural laborers, and retail clerks of small shops from Boyle Heights (blocks 25, 26, and 32), joined the repatriate-expatriate group. Their average annual income for the family head was approximately $1,500 to $1,600, reflecting a modest level of income characterizing those headed to Japan. A fifth of the group were from families whose heads were interned in DOJ camps, making them particularly vulnerable economically. And finally, most were young families trying to stay together. Of the 2,242 Manzanar transferees on the list, only 796 individuals, or hardly more than a third, gave negative answers to Loyalty Question no. 28 before hearing boards following registration. Many were simply young family members of the 176 families following their parents to Tule Lake Segregation Center, as evident by the fact that nearly two-fifths of all transferees were age twenty years or younger. Hence, for every “real” negative answer to the loyalty question, four were simply accompanying their parents. The categories “Personalfamilial” and “economic uncertainty,” rather than “ideological” and “cultural-national,” described what drove people to repatriation, Community Analyst Morris Opler observed.15 More than their counterparts from Manzanar, Poston repatriates and expatriates shared a concern for their postwar economic livelihood that dictated their decision to accept the transfer. Their ranks increased over time, rising from 332 on February 1, 1944, to 857 by the next month, despite the efforts of the Family Welfare Counseling Staff to keep these numbers down. They demonstrated no special cultural affinity for Japan since “no one, staying or going, was aware of any clear difference between goers and stayers,” according to John Powell. They were probably not embittered by the FBI sweeps since two-thirds of them were from Unit III, where the FBI was conspicuously absent during and after the strike. Instead, many of them assumed a broadening of discrimination against Japanese Americans eastward across the United States as the war became protracted, making permanent relocation unlikely. They also understood the Japanese government’s intention to make them an integral part of the nation’s administrative control of the Japanese empire containing half the world’s population. But most internees did not apply for repatriation or expatriation because they were aware of the slim chances of acquiring passage on the exchange ships, a point Spanish Consulate Francisco de Amat made clear to them, and because some Poston Community Council members discouraged individuals from applying, fearing their estimates of 21,000 applicants would only trigger greater discrimination against Japanese Americans in general. Nevertheless, these several hundred internees and others less well off in Unit III found the anticipated offer of $300, or a thousand yen, a tempting inducement to sign on.16

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More than repatriation, relocation of some of the pro-USA individuals brought peace to the camps. In a few instances, they simply left on their own volition. Isamu Noguchi, the famous sculptor, left Poston in disgust after seeing residents reject his ideas for their future. He watched them ignore his teaching of blue-collar trade skills for jobs in a sector notoriously known for vehemently anti-Japanese labor unionism, reject his censure of Japanese American misbehavior, and oppose his call to organize political groups to fight against the fascists. He finally gave up on working with the Nisei because he concluded he never liked them nor understood them, and he insulted them saying, “They haven’t got anything cultural either from America or Japan. They have just the least desirable traits of the two peoples.” Noguchi then used his connections to set up his own San Francisco art studio in the prohibited Military Zone One and left Poston, turning his back on the very people he so passionately identified with a year earlier.17 Most U.S. supporters, however, were pulled out of the camps and into military service because of their patriotic or anti-fascist convictions, and a fear of inu hunters. Many joined the U.S. Army since the War Department made voluntary service as army translators an option, and the navy made Japanese-language teaching on the outside possible. They saw the U.S. Army offer a hundred translator jobs to physically fit and linguistically competent Japan-born men and women, ages twenty to forty, with beginning wages at $2,800 per year. Those with previous work experience as translators, journalists, writers, typesetters, and Japanese-style artists and illustrators were encouraged to apply, and, as an added incentive, the army also promised them eligibility for American citizenship. Karl Yoneda left Manzanar to join the army just before the riot occurred, and was sent to Camp Savage, Minnesota, before being shipped to India and on to Burma with his field translation team captain and fellow Manzanar Citizens’ Federation leader Ko¯ji Ariyoshi. The latter was sent on to the Yenan province, China, where he linked up with Mao Zedong’s forces to observe and adopt the psychological warfare tactics used by the Chinese Eighth Route Army and the Japanese People’s Emancipation League against the Imperial Japanese forces.18 Federal government and military officials encouraged Japanese Americans to join the American armed forces, including those born or educated in Japan. WRA and War Department officials alike anticipated thousands of Japanese Americans volunteering from the WRA camps, with Myer predicting volunteers to number more than six thousand. Once they realized internee opposition was deeper than expected, they scaled back their expectations to 3,600 volunteers, only to see a third of their new estimates actually step forward. Topaz sent fifty-eight who formed the organization “Volunteers of Topaz” and hailed from well-to-do backgrounds. Several

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among them had master’s degrees, and when the totals reached 314, at least forty-nine had some college education. As writer Toshio Mori observed, “Professional men, writers, administrative assistants, keen business heads, technical experts, artists, teachers, expert translators, ministers, specialists in various fields, and men of common ranks were among those enlisting.” Female volunteers also reflected the higher educational bias evident among males. The Women’s Army Corps recruiting team captain confided in Merritt that the Manzanar women who took the aptitude test were “such an exceptional group” that over half of them were potential candidates for Officers’ Training School.19 The United States Army Map Service attracted a more specialized group than the regular army ranks. The Map Service, as had other federal government agencies such as the Anti-Trust Division, sought data on possible war industries in Japan to be bombed, as early as 1942, and turned to General DeWitt and the interned population for advisors. They advertised for a number of Japan-educated internees, offering a hundred of them annual wages beginning at $2,800 and American citizenship. They looked over records of internees and contacted prospective candidates directly, and made offers to those having the personal knowledge necessary to read and translate the Chinese characters of a given location. The service then set them to work on maps for the army’s bombing crews. They stationed some twenty of them in Cleveland, Ohio, promising the aliens that they would not be forced to return to Japan after the war even if Congress decided to deport all Japanese Americans. W. A. Johnson acknowledged the risk involved in hiring Japanese citizens for the task but argued that “the possible dangers in their employment is out-weighed by military necessity.” Hence, they recruited K. N. after his beating at Poston, and he became, along with other Japanese American informants and translators, so valued that Secretary of War Henry Stimson opposed a U.S. senator’s proposal for the internment of all Japanese Americans throughout the nation and Hawaii. Stinson argued that “the War Department has no source from which to draw competent men except United States citizens of Japanese descent.”20 Other federal government agencies and branches of military service also extracted Japanese-language proficient internees. The OWI and the U.S. Navy also pulled out a number of Japanese language-competent political figures, including Togo Tanaka. Fred Tayama went to teach Japanese language in Boulder, Colorado, where the navy operated a Japaneselanguage training course in conjunction with the University of Colorado. Miya (Sannomiya) Kikuchi, left Manzanar with her husband and headed for Chicago and then New York City, where she taught Japanese to Navy officers attending Columbia University. The Office of Strategic Service drew up a list of fifty candidates, among them Fred Nitta of Poston, for

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consideration, and hired a number of them for work behind enemy lines and in radio propaganda against Japan. The Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service, too, siphoned off a number of individuals from Manzanar and Topaz. The broadcast service took an interest in Japanese Americans with U.S. citizenship who were able to monitor and translate radio broadcasts emanating from Japan, and promised candidates, if hired, an attractive salary and exemption from the WRA camps while they worked in Portland, Oregon. Thomas Ozomoto, former Columbia Broadcasting System employee with degrees from American and Japanese universities, was recruited, as was John Sonoda from Manzanar.21 In addition, WRA headquarters cooperated with private organizations, such as the National Japanese Student Relocation Council, to encourage others to leave the camps. Formed in March 1942, the council estimated that some 2,300 college students were headed for internment. It worked hard and within a half year it sent 152 students to colleges and universities with approval from the War Department. These numbers climbed to 402, and all but two students went to colleges in the Rocky Mountain and Midwest regions. When the council closed its office in 1946, it had assisted 3,613 students in enrolling in 680 colleges and universities.22 New policies also helped to usher in an era of relative tranquility. WRA officials halted the American war industries inside the camps, scrapped John Powell’s plan to turn Poston into a training program for national war defense, and left dormant the troublesome camouflage net factory work in Manzanar and Poston. Instead, it encouraged those in Poston and elsewhere seeking war industries employment to leave the camps for locations outside, such as the ordnance depot in Tooele, Utah, near the southern tip of the Great Salt Lake. The WRA also streamlined supervision of camp politics by placing all community councils and block managers under the Community Management Division at the headquarters in Washington, D.C., but modified administrative instruction no. 34 on April 19, 1943, to permit Japanese citizens to hold political office within the camps, thereby easing tensions, particularly at Manzanar.23 Federal government officials and camp administrators interested in reshaping the Japanese American public image promoted camp peace and relocation. To expedite the latter, they re-dressed Nisei into recognizably “American” cultural clothing to match the public’s assumption of the causal link between citizenship, cultural upbringing, and exclusive political loyalty to the American government. They restocked the Issei wardrobe with a “passively loyal” American image to allay public fears of their Japanese citizenship and attendant loyalty to the Imperial throne. But they turned the Kibei into a villain to receive blame for the strike, riot, and the registration crisis. OWI officials launched their propaganda campaign to prepare the way for relocation as early as late spring 1942. Milton Eisen-

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hower, then WRA director, worked with the OWI to create a movie entitled, “Japanese Relocation,” in which he and others communicated the essential propaganda points: Japanese Americans are not “responsible for the behavior of Japan,” they “are Americans brought up and trained in the American way,” and they “believe in the American creed of decency and tolerance.” When Myer took over, the film project was shelved for a year but finally approved and released to the public as part of the WRA and the OWI’s publicity campaign. The OWI and the WRA engaged in other activities to advance their “loyal” image of Japanese Americans. In spring 1943 the OWI, led by Philleo Nash, persuaded the producers of the “Superman” comic strip, which appeared in 230 newspapers with some twenty-five million readers—to insert “loyal” Japanese Americans as assisting the Man of Steel in foiling a saboteur plot hatched in the WRA camps.24 The WRA also helped foster the “loyal” Nisei image. Under pressure from the House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings, Authority officials took the offensive, asserting that the Nisei were “loyal” and deserving of acceptance into American society based on their stellar performance on the field of combat, while the Issei had turned their backs on Japan and its militaristic aims. To portray them as “Japs,” Myer claimed, was comparable to the racist Nazis. To press his point home, Myer sponsored on October 7, 1944, an NBC radio program, “They Call Me Joe.” His program was beamed to four hundred stations, reaching four-to-five million American soldiers around the world. One script, approved by Myer, told a story of a Nisei soldier in Italy, with flashback episodes of his parents and grandparents in Japan and the United States; but the story absolved Issei of any connections with the Japanese military. “In an absorbing and dramatic fashion,” the WRA public relations writer claimed, “the broadcast portrays the manner in which the earliest Japanese emigre´s severed ties with Japan and Japanese militarism and embraced American ideals.” Since Manzanar was particularly tainted in the public mind, Myer and Project Director Ralph Merritt worked on revamping the residents’ image by redefining “loyalty” to mean “law-abiding,” and “a satisfactory loyal American” as one who “obeys the laws of this country” without forfeiting “all his other feeling, etc. for Japan.” They also assisted Ansel Adams in producing an exhibition of Manzanar at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, using sixty-one photographs of twenty “loyal American citizens who are anxious to get back into the stream of life and contribute to our [Allied] victory.”25 Social scientists also redesigned internees as “loyal” Americans. They denied there being any substance to internees political expressions of support for Japan, and replaced it with a sentimental or symbolic interpretation. Bureau of Sociological Research worker Edward Spicer argued

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for granting some measure of autonomy to, and tolerance of, the Japanborn internees’ “nostalgic” attachment to Japan as the means to prevent a widening of an anti-administration faction led by the few pro-Axis supporters. “Giving this some expression,” the anthropologist argued, “will reduce the field of influence of pro-Axis individuals” since force only intensifies anti-administration sentiments. Alexander Leighton, too, urged a sympathetic understanding of striking Japanese strikers at Poston, emphasizing the symbolic interpretation of the strike. The bureau head admitted that some “element of spitefully sticking out the tongue at the Administration” and some “genuine nationalism” existed, but he claimed that Poston Japanese’s identification with Japan was more apparent than real. Leighton interpreted the raising of the Rising Sun flag and the shouting of “Banzai” as “an emblem of hope in a world that had fallen crashing about them.” But their propaganda came at a price, as John Powell, head of the Community Service Division, admitted. “We have consistently tried to deny that our residents are Japanese,” Powell confessed, “or to cover that fact with an effusive enamel of baseball, movies, jazz music, and patriotic cliche´s.” This charade offended “the proudest and most sensitive,” who then chose expatriation because they had to make “the unreal choice” between their cultural heritage and citizenship, a predicament “the forces of discrimination” sought.26 Others inside the American military and federal government agencies took aim at the image of the Japan-educated internees. They juxtaposed the allegedly “disloyal” Kibei with the “loyal” Nisei and “passively loyal” Issei. WDC officers immediately saw the strike, riot, and other incidents in the WRA camps as the machinations of the Kibei: [T]he militantly pro-Axis group sometimes referred to very loosely as the Kibei . . . are trying to use whatever means they can to completely alienate any other Japanese elements and also, by threats and force and violence, to intimidate them when they appear to be going along with the Administration.27

Federal government officials also affixed blame on the Kibei for the strike, riot, and the Loyalty Registration crisis. When asked who were the “troublemakers” in the camps, Myer explained before reporters that a small, vociferous and violent minority was responsible, internees whose cultural distance was furthest from America and closest to Japan—the Kibei. When announcing the removal of some 1,500 “troublemakers” from the ten WRA camps to the Tule Lake Segregation Center on December 3, 1943, Myer declared this group, the Kibei, “bad:” They were the most maladjusted group of Japanese in this country. They speak English atrociously. The girls [Nisei women] didn’t like to dance with them—they were social outcasts.28

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Japanese American social scientists provided the intellectual basis for the WRA’s castigation of the Kibei. James Sakoda, researcher at Tule Lake and Minidoka, propagated the negative image of the Kibei as early as 1942 by asserting there were five types of “Nisei“—“extreme conservative,” “rowdy,” “elite socialite,” “progressive,” or “radical liberal”—but only one type of Issei—“conservative”—and one type of Kibei—“maladjusted.” The Kibei, Sakoda declared, were “hot-blooded” and had a higher potential for sabotage than the Issei; and because the former exhibited such “aggressive behavior,” they were prone to “possible rash action.” Carl Kondo, research assistant to Morris Opler at Manzanar, was more condescending as he applied the Marginal Man concept to those who answered “no” on the Loyalty Registration. He cited as an example a young man who answered “no” at registration and was thus “morose and uncooperative,” but once he decided to change his answer to “yes,” he became “more normal and cooperative” and “his mental health improved” such that he became “more cheerful.” Richard Nishimoto of Poston blamed Kibei for the attack on L. K., citing as evidence the assailants’ manner of punching as “Japanese.”29 Informants and high-profile internee leaders added their voice to the growing chorus against the Japan-educated internees. In blaming them for the riot, Kiyoharu Anzai, chairperson of Manzanar, pointed to the Issei bachelors as economic malcontents misled by the Kibei. “We think of the bachelors as defeated people,” the chairperson stated flatly. “They have never been able to take care of themselves, or to think ahead and they are easily [mis]led,” he claimed. H. F., FBI informant at Manzanar was more specific, accusing the “dirty Kibei,” of lacking scruples and causing the riot. “The Kibeis are stopping at nothing,” H. F. warned, “they are mean and ruthless.” Another informant pointed an accusing finger at the Kibei while excusing the Issei for the riot. “Kibei are the worst element,” the “mayor” of the pro-America faction declared, “much more so than older Issei, who have some bitterness over non-citizenship, but are not pro-Axis.”30 But others refused to accept the negative image of the Kibei. At Topaz, internees equated the “Kibei” with the Japan-born internees because, in the absence of a strike or riot, they were not under pressure to create a scapegoat. “There are no real Kibei,” Yei Hikoyeda, Community Activities section member explained, “as they are now Issei. It is a barrier created by themselves.” Others at Manzanar simply lashed back at the negative image Myer created because some of them were trying to relocate. A critic of the director expressed his outrage at being blamed: “Kibei are distrusted and blamed for many wrong-doings because they were indoctrinated in Japan.” So state the newspapers. But why distrust only the

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Kibei? What about English, French, German, and Italian children who are Americans but were educated in Europe? Weren’t they indoctrinated too? They look like foreigners just as much as the Kibei.31

WRA officials employed some rhetorical devices to reassure the American public that “Kibei” and other “disloyal” Japanese Americans were not relocating. In the first place, they proscribed politically tainted terminology used in reference to the strike and riot. Myer specifically banned usage of the term “pro-Axis” since the WRA was “getting off the defensive and going on the offensive” in its publicity campaign on behalf of relocation. While retaining the “Issei, Nisei, and Kibei” categories of the social scientists, the director and his camp administrators modified these terms to reduce the number of “disloyal” Japanese Americans in the American public’s mind. They stressed how “American” the Issei became after decades of living in the United States and cut the number of Kibei by mandating a new definition of the latter. “The working definition now in use here,” Topaz community analyst Weston LaBarre stated, “would classify as Kibei any American-born individual of Japanese ancestry who has resided in Japan for three years or more (whether consecutive or not) since January 1, 1935.” They found that some eight-to-nine thousand Japanese Americans belonged to this category, whose priority for relocation was last behind “Nisei” and “Issei.” The section workers claimed that 27 percent of the total Nisei internee population went to Japan for three or more years of schooling, which made them culturally “marginal men” in their assessment. They further subdivided these blacklisted internees into four different types of “Kibei.” They placed at one end of the political spectrum those who returned to the United States in 1940 as “loyal,” and at the other end, those who returned in 1930 as “disloyal,” on the assumption that the latter were influenced by the formative years they spent under Japanese “militaristic indoctrination.” Officials admitted that problems existed with their classification, in that a number of Nisei who had never been to Japan were labeled as “Kibei” simply because of their involvement in inu beatings. But most important, according to Myer, was the tenuous assumption that political “loyalty” was causally linked to “culture”: [T]he degree of Americanization is by no means directly correlated with loyalty. They are rather distinct qualities,a fact which comes out most clearly in connection with this first type of Kibei, many of whom retain Japanese speech and cultural characteristics. No formula can be used to discover loyalty. On the other hand we can come close to a formula for determining degree of Americanization.32

Despite their negative image, moderate Kibei political leaders took control over the camps to bring peace. Often serving as block managers, they

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and, to a lesser extent, mess hall leaders took over the elected offices previously held by some of the pro-USA factional leaders. Block managers gained greater political clout within the camps because of the devaluation of the Council and relocation of many of its pro-USA faction. They took advantage of internees placing greater importance upon the block as a basic unit of social life, a trend arising in part as a form of protection of one’s family members against the hazards of relocation and FBI informants. By spring 1943, block managers wrested the decision-making power over use of the recreation halls away from the Community Activities Division headed by John Powell and challenged the council’s power over them. The following year, Poston units II and III managers took the unit administrators’ position from council members so that only the Unit I administrator was a former council member. They had, by this time, captured so many council seats that they comprised a quarter of the Unit I Council. And finally, the managers successfully fended off the council’s attempt to curb their power by limiting their term of office to only six months.33 At Manzanar, the block managers retained control, though they moderated their stance. After the riot, they were made up of mostly Kibei, who had spent four to seven years of their early life in Japan and had fathers in farming or fishing, with only a handful in white-collar professions. In addition, six females joined the new crop of block managers taking over the Block Managers’ Assembly. They were largely cooperative with Project Director Ralph Merritt; they encouraged permanent resettlement outside of the camps, and discouraged resistance in contrast to their more wealthy and educated counterparts prior to the riot. “The help which the Block Managers and their assistants have given,” Merritt admitted, “in the general process of leave clearance hearings and segregation has been invaluable.” Moreover, the director also believed that their influence was substantial in “preserving order and curbing unwise demonstrations or actions.” As for why assembly members were so cooperative, the project director asserted that the new leaders were those who believed their future lay with the United States rather than Japan. “It has been increasingly on the side of those who look forward to a future in America,” he observed, “and against the defeatists who feel that there is no future for those of Japanese ancestry in this country.”34 The outlook of Kiyoharu Anzai, for example, reflected the rising proAmerica moderate faction in Manzanar. Unlike his peers, he was a highly educated, bilingual individual, holding college degrees from Waseda University in Tokyo, the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s degree from the University of Southern California. Although a staunch supporter of the United States, Anzai urged gentle treatment of internees since so many of them were “very contrary[-]minded” and had to be dealt with like a “frisky trout”—reel them in slowly. He became chairman of

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the Assembly on March 12, 1943, but when Anzai chaired the town hall meetings he deferred to Merritt and the Euro-American staff. He described the relationship between the director and Manzanar’s Japanese residents, saying Merritt is “a father to us and we are his children.” In Anzai’s presence, Merritt spoke to the assembly very much as if he were the father.35 Anzai’s moderation was supported by internee vigilantism. Established and led by Richard Izuno, secretary of the Town Hall and a black-belt instructor, a group of fifteen black-belt judo¯ instructors and some two hundred followers took it upon themselves to organize against the riot, using whistles and gongs to summon their own forces, which were armed with bats and sticks to prevent inu beatings. They became known as the “Peace Committee” and were sanctioned by the camp administration to augment the forty-strong Manzanar police force to “encourage” cooperation with camp administrators.36 In addition, Topaz Community Council members willingly accepted the limitations imposed upon their political offices. They acquiesced to their circumscribed role as the “sole channel” for the voice of the project director to “the people” so that they dominated much of the Community Council meetings. From July to December 1943, Chairperson Muneno Saiki of Block 30, Masuji Fujii, vice-chairperson and office manager from Block 7, Matsuzo¯ Kurokawa of Block 16, and Toshio Yoshida of Block 8 monopolized most of the time in the meetings devoted to discussing solutions to problems. The remainder of the council said little, and a couple of them had nonexcused absences from about a third of their meetings. A reason for this relative silence may have been the changing composition of their members: while language proficiency remained roughly the same in 1942 as in early 1944, their level of educational experience in the United States dropped off dramatically from a high of 90 percent in 1943 to a low of 17 percent by late 1944 (see table 4.3).37 The chairperson’s attitude toward the administration mirrored the council’s acceptance of the imposed limitations. To secure harmony, Saiki urged cooperation in his farewell speech as chairperson in December 1943, since it was essential for peace: For after serving for some 15 months as Councilman, I have arrived at the conclusion that so far as the welfare of Topaz is concerned, cooperation equals pro-residents plus pro-Administration. This equation is simple, almost axiomatic. For should either the Administration or the residents antagonize each other there can be no cooperation. The peace and harmony depend on the cooperation given one to each by the two groups.

But Saiki was also mindful of the price exacted for their cooperation: Limited, we know, are the powers of the Council; Limited also is the scope of influence of the Council. Limited also [is] the course of action we may take.

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In other words, our hands are bound by many knots due to the limitations imposed in this unnatural situation. We should be conscious and understand this. Therefore, with this in mind we should work within this scope. Unless this is distinctly understood the work of the Council will never progress.38

Saiki’s willingness to cooperate with the administration was influenced by the FBI presence in Topaz in the month prior to his farewell address. On November 15, 1943, George Ochikubo, Community Council member, was summoned for an “interview” with FBI agent Ralph O’Connell, who accused him of encouraging council members to stop workers from going to the Tule Lake Segregation Center to harvest potatoes. Ochikubo opposed sending scabs to undercut the workers striking at Tule Lake, allegedly saying, “Let the crops rot”—according to O’Connell’s informant on the council. Ochikubo denied the accusations and the minutes confirmed his innocence, but other council members resigned in protest over the unidentified spy. As one officeholder said, “The Administration knows all the discussion that we have here, and the residents blame the Nisei.” The council and its chairperson, Saiki, therefore, were circumspect, aware of the FBI spying on the council.39 Exercising caution, moderately pro-USA leaders also dominated Poston politics during the “quiet” period. After the strike, they gained concessions from W. Wade Head, among them positions in the Unit Administrator office. Previously, Len Nelson, James Crawford, and Moris Burge filled these positions, but after the strike, internees were elected to serve as a liaison between the project director and the council. Seiichi Nomura replaced Nelson and was careful not to demonstrate publicly his ardor for the United States while in office. “Anybody who waves the American flag,” Richard Nishimoto commented with respect to the Unit Administrator, “will be booted out.” Chester Sumida, who took over for Nomura in November 1943, continued with political moderation, and a year later earned Moris Burge’s backhanded compliment, “At least I can say that he is very effective in the negative way. We don’t have troubles.” In Unit III, however, Unit Administrator Gerald Wumino was also supportive of the United States; he was unpopular and “dictatorial,” but he retained power by keeping his political views in check, and, as his critics would admit, he got the job done.40 Moderates won internee favor by reorganizing the camp political structure better to reflect the popular sentiments. Although the Honor Court and the Labor Relations Board were created along with the Central Executive Board, the former two quickly lost significance in the eyes of most internees. The court was designed to hear inu charges but never took root, since it was difficult to determine who could preside as judge over other people’s reputations. The Labor Board quickly lost credibility in the eyes of many because it simply persecuted highly visible participants of the

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strike under Vernon Kennedy’s guidance. The Central Executive Board, however, took on significance as its twelve members, six from each generation, served one-year terms, advising the project director. In Units II and III, the board did virtually nothing in that they only provided “several persons jobs which would pay them the WRA monthly wages.” But in Unit I, the board helped impose political moderation on internee government, with the first board maintaining a rough balance of moderate supporters of both the United States and Japan. Nisei representatives Smoot Katow, Hidemi Ogawa, and Tep Ishimaru, as well as Issei representatives Aijiro¯ Takahashi and Seiichi Nomura, backed the United States. Masaru Kawashima and James Yahiro were known moderate supporters of Japan among the Nisei representatives, while Rev. Masatane Mitani, Minoru Okamoto, and another member were well known for their strong backing of Japan. T. Matsumoto and another Issei representative held views not widely known. Despite this division, however, the members agreed that their basic aim was, as expressed in one of their meetings, to prevent another strike from occurring.41 Despite their inclinations toward Japan, this faction of the board kept much of Unit I internee politics quiet until fall 1944. James Yahiro, Minoru Okamoto, and a Mr. Nakamura, dubbed the “City Hall gang” members by researcher Richard Nishimoto, were individuals temperate in their support of Japan and kept in check ardent Japanese nationalists. Although Nishimoto characterized them as intemperate, Okamoto and Nakamura were, as Smoot Katow observed, “pretty tough” negotiators with administrators but not harmful since they were “well-informed about the world situation, politically and economically,” and “logical” in their reasoning. Moreover, Katow said, I found them to act more pro-American than any of the other Isseis. They are realistic according to my understanding of their actions and thinking. Those 2, having lived under the democratic system for 30 years, find it hard to act otherwise. I’ve heard Mr. Okamoto remark that the Kibeis were too radical for him.

Katow’s comment proved true eighteen months later when the two individuals threw their support behind John Collier’s plan to continue having Poston Japanese farm the Colorado River Indian Tribes’ Southern Reserve land after the war, an indication of their acceptance of permanent settlement in the United States.42 Political organizations for youth groups, too, contributed to the political moderation of the formal leadership within Poston. While some wanted “a pressure group” working on behalf of the Central Executive Committee of Unit I, most in the seinen kai or “youth group” of Units II and III chose entertainment and focusing “solely in the direction of help-

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ing the Nisei understand the Issei and Japanese culture.” The youth movement spread to Unit I, where youths belonging to at least four different blocks organized their own seinen kai with the same cultural emphasis on creating a better understanding between the Issei and the “pure” Nisei, or those who had never been to Japan. Leaders were often Americanborn, fluent in the Japanese language, but with Kibei and Nisei sharing leadership roles in their governance. Only in Block 44 did the two groups part company, but only to form separate basketball teams. Combined with the departure of some Nisei leaders, these youth helped turn the lingua franca of Poston from English to Japanese so that test scores measuring pupils’ English-language abilities slipped as much as four grade levels, and adult English-language classes were taught in Japanese.43 Religion also influenced internees away from engaging in camp politics. As a result of material losses sustained during removal and internment, many reassessed their lives before internment when their focus of attention was upon the rapid savings of liquid assets for a triumphal return to Japan or upon the acquisition of material possessions for a comfortable life in California. For many of them, they turned to religion as a means to cope with boredom in the camps and their material losses. At Poston, a Catholic priest, Father Hugh Lavery, observed Japanese Americans become more religious-minded, because “on the outside the parents were too busy trying to make a living and they didn’t have much time for religion, but in the Relocation Centers the spiritual side is greatly affecting the people to be more religious.” Many of them debated the merits and demerits of the removal and internment’s impact on their lives and found benefits in their spiritual reawakening. Kimiko Takeda admitted removal and internment badly hurt Japanese Americans since it came at a time when they were growing stronger in the business world. She saw a silver lining even though they lost everything and money continued to drain. While “Occidental persons” are preoccupied with the accumulation of material possessions and its perceived attendant enjoyment, “Oriental people,” Takeda claimed, took pleasure in life despite the lack of material wealth, a lesson internment brought. When Japanese Americans worked on the outside, they forgot temporarily who they were in their mad rush to accumulate wealth, and thus forgot the simple joys of Japanese poetry, water-color paintings, tea ceremonies, and cultivation of the “Japanese spirit,” practices associated with the suppressed Shinto¯ faith. “As for one thing which we gained from entering into the camps,” Takeda summed up, “. . . our self-worth was tested anew here and so for that reason we learned our self-worth.”44 Reawakened spirituality made Protestantism popular but also propped up the rules of governance for the “quiet” period. The Poston Protestant churches started off with eight Japan-born ministers, three U.S.-born min-

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isters, and a lay membership running between 1,700 to 1,800 at various services, and another 750 children attending Daily Vacation Bible School during the summer. Nearly all their sermons, Bible lessons, and activities revolved around a vibrant spiritual life, leaving aside commentaries about the removal, internment, and reparations. Occasionally, they heard individual speakers oppose the war effort, or the mainline Protestant denominational leaders talk of integrating Japanese Americans. They witnessed world-famous missionary E. Stanley Jones sidestep the injustice of the camps to proclaim, “The Japanese Americans are not a problem . . . they are possibilities.” They heard the Methodist Superintendent Frank Smith’s sermons at Topaz and other camps convey a similar message without the sharp prophetic critique of the whole event. They listened to Los Angeles City Baptist Missionary Society Ralph Mayberry carefully couch his criticism of the removal and internment in the form of jokes. Herbert Nicholson, a Quaker missionary, became cautious in his talks both inside and outside of the WRA camps after several FBI interrogation sessions. Their American-born leaders, too, such as American Baptist minister Paul Nagano, John Miyabe, and Sophie Shizume, spoke out against the Poston strike. At Topaz, too, Protestants witnessed their leaders engage in selfcensorship when it came to discussions of the camps.45 Buddhists too, abandoned the camp political arena. Part of the reason why they reinforced rather than challenged the stricter rules of governance had to do with the small number of leaders and lack of support available in the camps in the initial stages. Their leadership was heavily decimated in the first year of removal and internment, after FBI agents arrested their priests and interned them in DOJ camps. Poston lay leadership too, remained intimidated until they realized after their celebration of Obon, or the Festival of the Dead, in August 1942 that camp administrators were not going to persecute them for openly practicing their faith. Manzanar laity met an encouraging Project Director Ralph Merritt who, though a Christian, held “deep respect” for Buddha’s teachings. But lay members were further hampered by the lack of support outside of the camps that their Christian counterparts had in denominational offices and staff. Instead, they relied heavily on a single individual, Rev. Julius Goldwater, to look after the property of three temples and transport badly needed ojuzu, or prayer beads, as well as literature and other materials to the camps, even as they reestablished their own headquarters for the North American Buddhist Missions in Topaz. The headquarters in the Utah camp had only five priests, and had to resort to holding joint services of four-to-five hundred members from different Buddhist sects.46 Moderate political adherence to the United States added to the Buddhist willingness to accommodate camp politicians. At Manzanar, probably a number of lay members clung to the idea that “loyalty” was owed

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to the adopted country and the country of birth of their children since forty percent of all Buddhists there belonged to the Zenshu¯ sect, a religious faith that attracted the old warrior class in Japan and shizoku in California. Moreover, the Buddhist clergy in all three camps were antagonistic or apathetic toward camp politics. Unlike his Protestant counterpart Masatane Mitani, Rev. Gyo¯sei Nagafuji opposed participation in the Poston strike, labeling it as “the scandalous incident.” Rev. S. Nagatomi of Manzanar urged his followers to remain neutral in discussions about the progress of the war. “We are inclined to think [are] our opinions and thoughts are always right,” Nagatomi lectured, but “when it is seen in the absolute and eternal eyes of Buddha, the things we think is true may often be otherwise.” “Therefore, at this time,” the priest continued, “I would like to caution the Buddhist followers against indulging in unprofitable and unnecessary discussions on the conduct of the present war.” Nagatomi’s sermon underscored what an astute observer said about Buddhist priests being more conservative than Christian clergymen.47 Internal conflicts further diverted their attention away from politics. Buddhist adherents clashed with their own clergy over the latter’s advocacy of a Unified Buddhist Church for both generations and a Buddhist Brotherhood for the American-born. They watched with apprehension as priests from the Jo¯do¯ Shinshu¯ sect combined services with the Zenshu¯ and Nichirenshu¯ sects. Many of the former sect found particularly disturbing the change of the nenbutsu, or Buddhist recitation of “Namu Amida Butsu” (“Homage to the Amida Buddha”), to “Namu Sakyamuni Butsu” (“Homage to Sakyamuni Buddha”), a chant acceptable to the latter sect. Lay members resisted acceptance of the new version defended by Nagafuji and other priests, while American-born Japanese criticized Rev. Julius Goldwater’s Buddhist Brotherhood: How do you expect the Busseis to adopt a new system just over night? Universal Buddhism may be good, but just putting parts of each sect into one, I can’t find any security in that type of religion. . . . I can[’]t have any faith in [that] type of religion. . . . Let’s keep our nenbutsu to “Namu Amida Butsu.”

The clergy continued to push the Universal Buddhist Church, as evident as late as July 1944 when the Mission, renamed as the Buddhist Churches of America, held a nationwide conference to redraft their constitution to formalize their unification. But, as one American-born follower correctly predicted, the Universal Buddhist Church was ahead of its time: The Buddhist Temple in Poston is the cocktail of three sources. . . how do you expect to get something specific. There may be a development of a new Nisei Shin Shu, but that won’t occur until the next generation.48

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The relative absence of generational tensions contributed to camp peace as much as religion. In September 1943 Poston internees did not experience generational conflicts predicted by social scientists; instead they demonstrated amity, not a struggle for leadership and power. In Public Opinion Research Center polls, both generations showed a remarkable willingness to share equally in the decision-making process for a proposed agricultural project. Over three-quarters of the Nisei respondents, when queried about whether the Issei or Nisei should have greater influence, answered equal influence, while only 15 percent favored greater Nisei input. To a lesser extent, Issei respondents offered similar answers, with 56 percent favoring equal influence, and 36 percent desirous of greater Issei than Nisei input. The center’s findings reflected what many of both generations already knew—there was considerable trust on the part of the Nisei toward Issei leadership.49 Resignation and apathy, too, made for “quiet” camp politics. Many found formal elections unappealing since those favoring the United States gained control over much of the political structure of Unit III as a result of the administration’s ban on those who answered “no” to the loyalty question. They saw the post-registration council members and blocks cooperate with WRA policy of paid labor cutbacks in fall 1943, with only Block 307 favoring the position “strike if cut down” among the sixteen blocks. Their conservatism discouraged wide participation in council meetings and spread to council elections in spring 1943 to the extent that candidates actively campaigned for their opponents’ election. They witnessed politicians making signs with crayons, calling on people to vote for the other candidate, as K. Fujinaka of Block 326 did for K. Harada, former councilman for the block. “Neither one wants to be stuck in the council room,” an observer noted, “so they’re doing their best to get the other one elected.”50 Perhaps more than any other factor, interest in the progress of the Pacific war diverted internee attention away from camp politics. The majority of internees in the three camps probably believed that their future, for better or for worse, lay with Japan, and thus an early cessation of the conflict leaving substantial portions of the Japanese empire intact where they would reside was the best possible outcome. They revealed as much to Solon Kimball, who stated the course of war was “the single most important influence” on internee plans for the future. “All past actions by the Authority, the army, and other agencies of the government have been interpreted by them against the background of what is happening and what is likely to happen in the war,” Kimball noted. Moreover, Japanese Americans, he admitted, hoped for such a negotiated settlement to the war to secure their own postwar future:

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The majority anticipate and hope for a negotiated peace, while only a scattered few admit of the possibility of defeat for Japan. The thinking has been that treatment of all Japanese, and particularly Japanese aliens, is directly related to the outcome of the war. The aliens and probably a good many citizens believe that a strong Japan has caused this government to follow a moderate policy in the evacuation and subsequent events. They believe that if Japan is defeated then there is no force, moral or otherwise, that will protect their interests. There will be a future for them neither in Japan nor in this country.51

Kimball’s observations were confirmed by Nisei social scientists. The Public Opinion Research Center of Poston, established by a handful of workers from the Bureau of Sociological Research, found that most (69%) of the four-hundred Issei they interviewed in 1943 were moderately pro-Japan, a small faction (5%) were ardently pro-Japan, and the remaining quarter were “neutral,” while none claimed to support the Allies. They also found that an overwhelming majority in Poston Unit I opposed relocation, with only 9 percent of the 305 Issei interviewed (who represented about 10 percent of the Poston first-generation) supported relocation and asserted that Japanese Americans’ postwar future lay with the United States. Over two-thirds disputed this positive view, the researchers discovered, believing a postwar future in the United States would be bleak, and three-quarters declared their opposition to relocation. Worse, a number of interviewees thought the wording of the Survey offensive since it assumed an Allied victory in the war. Despite their awareness of the importance Japan played in opposition to relocation, the three American-born researchers published their findings in the Public Opinion Quarterly and deliberately overlooked the homeland factor, an omission their mentor Edward Spicer noted sympathetically. Their deletion perhaps confused WRA officials in Washington, who were puzzled by the internees’ unwillingness to relocate. As Solon Kimball put it, It was, in fact, [a considerable] shock for many WRA officials to learn that in spite of desirable economic opportunities, good public acceptance, continued relaxation of security measures by the army and navy that many, if not most, of the evacuees preferred the institutional life of a relocation center to the unknown security of living in an American community. The enigma of people choosing the security behind barbed wire and around guards to the freedom of normal society was not easily [understood].52

Topaz internees’ outlook on relocation was also shaped by war developments. The majority of Topaz internees opposed Myer’s proposal in 1943 for an all-internee conference in Chicago to discuss the best means to implement relocation throughout the United States. In January of the

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following year, block managers found about half of the 1,150 families still opposed the plan, with only nine blocks voting in favor, three neutral, and thirty-four against. Council Chair Mas Narahara dismissed the defeat as the result of “a lack of factual information.” The camp populace approved of sending two representatives, however, only after Narahara and the council modified the proposal to allow internees to discuss the conference with the representatives before they went, and permitted cancellation of their attendance if less than half of all WRA camps failed to send their own representatives. As a result, twenty-three blocks voted for the new proposal with qualifications while only eleven voted against it.53 For most Japanese Americans, remaining inside the camps rather than relocating was a logical choice. They anticipated, as did many in American society, that at the end of the war demobilization and increased economic competition for jobs in a depressed American economy would make life equally if not more difficult for those headed to Japan. One mother protested to Morris Opler’s disparaging remarks on life in Japan for the American-born Japanese, countering that they too have a place there: Do you think it is fair to discourage these Nisei? I have heard you say, and I have heard Mr. Merritt say, that the Nisei are not wanted or liked in Japan. It is plain that they aren’t wanted in this country either. All this does is to make them feel that they have no place to which to go. This just isn’t so. When I went to Japan I was treated with perfect respect. At least nobody could tell by looking at me that I didn’t belong there.

In contrast, the woman foresaw the day when relocated Nisei would face pogroms: But even if it won’t be easy for the Nisei in Japan, do you think that it is ever going to be any different in this country? . . . I think there is going to be more prejudice against Japanese in this country than less. I feel sorry for those poor Nisei who are relocating. Sometime there is going to be an uprising against them and they will all be killed.54

Radio broadcasts from Japan gave plausibility to the woman’s perception of contrasting postwar conditions for Japanese Americans. Tokyo radio programs were beamed toward North American and were secretly heard, or summaries of them were distributed, especially if relevant to internees. Some programs included stories about a handful of Japanese Americans who returned to Japan on exchange ships such as Michio Ito¯, or about a famous theater and dance figure from Los Angeles, a former San Francisco Japanese who became a member of the Greater East Asia People’s Council, and a repatriated Japanese Association president. They also beamed toward North America the Central Overseas Japanese Asso-

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ciation’s prayer session for the “safety of the Japanese residents in enemy nations” at Yasukuni Shrine, Japan’s sacred war memorial, in early June 1944.55 Other reasons for remaining in the camps involved relative perceptions of comfort. For those who worked as migrant laborers, or at other similar, low-paying jobs, the camps proved a not uncomfortable safe haven for the duration of the war. “There was also a large group which had greater security and more comforts than it had ever known before and were not anxious to relinquish them,” as Kimball correctly observed. Roy Takeno found the same to be true in Manzanar, where the elderly in particular saw the camp as a good place to live. At Topaz, Edward Spicer found a similar sentiment expressed by a widow he interviewed: This is heaven! When I was outside, I had to work hard all day. Now I get up in the morning, tidy my room for a bit, eat breakfast & the other meals at the messhall, & for the rest of the day I can attend Knitting or Sewing Classes, or go visiting. This is a good life!

Motoki emphasized the availability of high-quality, free entertainment as another reason for remaining in the camps: The center life is an easy life and we have every kind of entertainment. . . . We have movies twice a week and sometimes we have Japanese stage shows. The other day, Miss Kan[uma], a famous Japanese dancer, put up a nice show free of charge. . . . Some weeks we have entertainment every night except Sundays and every show in the center is free of charge. . . . When people get used to this easy life, nobody wants to go out.56

As with relocation, internee views of reparations also reflected a convergence of their binational consciousness. The Japan-born residents pressed the Japanese government for reparations payment from the American government to assist them in reestablishing themselves in postwar America. They called for “indemnity, old age pension, and return privileges,” according to Manzanar Town Hall Secretary Frank Yasuda. The Poston Unit III Community Council, made up of mostly first-generation leaders, demanded from the American government five hundred dollars per person for every year of internment. As the chairperson said, [S]ince we have been put in a place like this by the government and now it is their policy to resettle us, it is appropriate for the government to pay $500 a year per person in camp, we set the basis for $500. Since the government policy is to resettle evacuees, we believe it not unreasonable. This resolution is to be drawn up by the City Council next Thursday.

The Unit I Central Executive Committee also presented a $200 million reparations proposal in December 1942 to Japanese government officials,

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whom they expected to extract the money from the American government as part of the peace treaty. Average internees, too, expressed their own ideas of reparation through rumors, talking about payments of twenty thousand yen to every internee from the Emperor of Japan or warm welcomes for returning Japanese Americans: [I]f you go back[,] Japan would welcome you and say glad you came back and I am sorry for causing the trouble over there and etc. and bring you into the office and give you money and [a] good job. . . . You see[,] when the government called the national[s] from Singapore, Java[,] and around there[,] they g[a]ve them money and [a] job. The only place they haven’t called is America[,] so after the war if you go back. . . . There would be plenty of jobs because Japan would control 1/2 of the world population and would need [an] educated person to take care [of] the people of India, Java[,] and etc.57

Radio broadcasts from Japan fueled hopes for assistance from Tokyo after the war. During the conflict, various governmental, military, and civilian officials conveyed a message of concern and a promise of help in broadcasts beamed to North America. On the day of the Pearl Harbor attack, the Central Japanese Society announced to all in the western half of the United States the development of plans for the postwar welfare of Japanese in enemy countries. The following day, the Imperial Army urged the Japanese of North America to remain calm and “bear the suffering of the birth of a new world order.” The day after the riot, the Central Society for Overseas Residents informed listeners of its plans for assistance to overseas Japanese in enemy countries. After reports by the Spanish Consul regarding camp conditions reached Tokyo, radio broadcasters mentioned with greater frequency the growing financial support for internees and possible repatriation for all, as Foreign Minister Masayuki Tani discussed on February 3. On February 9, 1943, Admiral Kichisaburo¯ Nomura addressed the Japanese in North America, acknowledging the great economic losses they had incurred as a result of removal and internment contrary to his own erroneous prediction that the U.S. Constitution would protect Japanese aliens and U.S. citizens alike: Contrary to this expectation, prominent persons were subjected to tragic internment soon after the war. Japanese residents of the western coast were compulsorily herded into the interior wasteland, and their personal effects and assets were confiscated or sold for practically nothing. In short, they were obliged to move without a single belonging.

The ambassador encouraged the Japanese in North America to follow instructions given to them prior to the outbreak of war, especially the one about dignified conduct:

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He added that Japanese residents abroad must have undergone untold hardships and trying ordeals living in enemy countries, but they should strive to maintain Japanese prestige as Japan without the least doubt, will emerge victorious.

For his parting words, Nomura assured them the Japanese government was negotiating with the American government for better treatment, and preparing a comprehensive plan for their postwar future. The City of Tokyo, too, promised its assistance with a collection drive to show gratitude for Japanese American relief contributions to Tokyo after the Great Kanto¯ Earthquake of 1923; the city also believed that Japanese Americans were “paying for the victory of their native country while facing various hardships and difficulties.” To that end, Tokyo pledged financial support of ¥150,000.58 Internees interpreted the Imperial Japanese government’s promises in light of the progress of the war. Many of them saw Japan winning in the early stages, as they crtically compared news received from American newspapers, Japanese-language newspapers in the United States, and what they could gather from the Japanese-language broadcasts from Tokyo. The moderate council at Poston, for example, harshly dismissed the Denver-based Japanese vernacular Rocky Shimpo¯ as “anti-Japanese,” and many Japanese citizens rejected the “biased American news thrust upon them.” In contrast, they gave high marks to the Japaneselanguage radio broadcasts in the early phase of the Pacific War, and thus saw hope for their reparations. Many of them speculated on the possibility that the Soviet Union would withdraw from the war, allowing Germany to concentrate its full force in Western Europe, which in turn would place pressure on the United States to make peace with Japan. Others hoped for a Republican victory in the November 1944 U.S. presidential elections, believing that Thomas Dewey, rather than Franklin Roosevelt, would seek a compromise peace with Japan, leaving significant parts of the empire still intact. They poked fun at the death of Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, saying, “The war was too much for him,” “He must have worried too much about the recent losses of the United States Navy in the Pacific,” and “He must have received some very bad news from the Pacific in the last few days. He must have flopped dead seeing this report.”59 War news discussion groups using Tokyo radio broadcasts were popular in the camps. They probably existed in Topaz and in Manzanar. At least one such group, centering around Ichitaro¯ Mutsutsuyu of Manzanar, declared in fall 1944 that the Japanese forces were primed for the final showdown with the American forces in Japanese home waters. At Poston, internees held open meetings for their discussions. These meetings with

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Rev. Masatane Mitani, at which he gave commentaries favoring the Imperial forces, were so popular that internees were unwilling to hear of American victories. At the Mitani meetings, when John Powell wanted to play Japanese-language versions of the OWI’s broadcasts praising American victories, block managers quickly rejected his plan. Block 16’s manager raised his hands high above his head and waving them in an imaginary South Sea dancer style, crowing, “‘Oh, oh, oh, oh” to poke fun at Powell’s plan. Block 30’s manager was more blunt, saying, “If they try that in my block, my residents will break the records into pieces.” Block 44 Manager predicted a similar scenario with his neighbors yelling, “Cut it out,” “Damn lies,” and “Bust the damn thing.” Block 28’s manager best summed up the consensus saying, “They would be asking for trouble. Why awake a sleeping lion?”60 Internees had other reasons to hope for assistance from Japan beyond what they heard in radio broadcasts. The Upper House of the Imperial Diet passed a resolution to help Japanese living abroad in enemy territory. Takechiyo Matsuda presented the “Proposal for the Resolution concerning the Japanese at the Hand of the Enemy” on February 27, 1943, before the Imperial Diet’s Eighty-First Session. Matsuda made an appeal for help, arguing that Japanese in the hands of Allied Powers were in danger, and some even tortured. Matsuda cited their loyalty to Japan in the face of terrible suffering at the hands of Americans: [N]o one can avoid feeling his blood boil with righteous indignation at or shedding tears over the situation of these fellows, who have made [a] continuous contribution to our nation, which cannot be forgotten, by laying the basis for the expansion of the Yamato race with tremendous effect on our trade and industry, and by sending a large amount of donations to the homeland when it went through hardships including natural disasters, and who now are irrationally persecuted, forced to bear an unbearable situation, yet still able to be courteous and loyal to the homeland, most sincerely wishing a victory for Japan.

Matsuda highlighted their grievous economic losses and precarious position under internment: Our 100,000 fellows on the North Pacific Coast, suddenly ordered to relocate from the communities they had established by the sweat of the brow to the desert of Arizona or the Rocky Mountains, now have to drive their old bones hard to open the wasteland. Their property, the amount of which is supposed to come up to some billion dollars, has been nearly confiscated; . . . . They were, in one day, expelled from [the] status they had established with some decades’ effort; and now they are driven around in the desert like dogs, depressed at no hope in view, and might be lynched at any time.

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Moreover, Matsuda called on the Japanese nation to repay its large debt owed to Japanese Americans: Their contribution to our nation, if [we] exclude everything but their remittances, amounts to as much as six billion yen. They sent donations of some million yen and millions of commodities to us at the Manchurian Incident and the commencement of the present Sino-Japanese War, they immediately gave us help after the Kanto¯ Earthquake of 1923 and the typhoon disasters in the Kansai district, and so forth. There are literally an uncountable number of instances of their sincerity and loyalty to our homeland. The toilet facilities at Yasukuni Shrine are, as you may know, made by the sincerest contribution of our brothers overseas.61

Receipt of Japanese Red Cross “comfort” goods through the Spanish Consulate confirmed Matsuda’s promise of Japan’s coming postwar assistance. The Japanese Red Cross sent goods to all ten WRA camps as a result of Matsuda’s appeal, and the Topaz internees’ share was not insignificant. By February 7, 1944, they received 360 bags of soy sauce, 12 barrels of miso or soybean paste, and expected another 14 kegs of the same paste, 250 barrels more of soy sauce, plus 46 green tea cases, a case of musical instruments, a case of books, and 2 cases of drugs and medicines. The Community Council quickly interpreted the “comfort” as a reminder that the Japanese government had not forgotten them. They appointed T. Watanabe and K. Nakajima to head the Spanish Joint Committee and the Council’s Food Committee as representatives of Japanese citizens of Topaz and selected February 20 as the day for the ceremony acknowledging receipt of the goods. Block representatives and managers, together with Watanabe and Nakajima, attended the ceremony, after which the items were distributed to the blocks. Approximately a thousand attended the ceremony and probably saw it as “a symbol of the peace to come,” interpreting it as confirmation of the July 1943 Imperial Diet’s “message of hope” through the Spanish Consul officials.62 In keeping with their support of Japan, many engaged in a different labeling process than the rulers. Instead of demonizing of the Kibei, internees fell upon on class differences for their classification system. In Poston Unit III, some pointed an accusing finger at the Santa Anita group whose lower socioeconomic status was equated with all that was “bad.” They smeared Santa Anita WCCA internees by making that camp name synonymous with “bad eggs” or the “wrong crowd” to the point that a minor mistake committed was a “Santa Anita.” But most, like the firstgeneration Poston Unit I internees, inverted the “Nisei” classification, defining it as an entity not worthy of praise. Bureau of Sociological Researcher worker Chika Sugino earned what she believed was a derogatory label, “Nisei,” because of her enthusiastic support for the United States

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among Japan-born women. “She said that she was ashamed of being thought a Nisei,” Richard Nishimoto noted in his journal. Akira Togawa, too, found himself labeled a “Nisei” for his middle-of-the-road stance on a number of issues, and “confirmed” that label after condemning the strike as a lot of “nonsense,” even though he participated in the barricades. Other Japan-born internees wanted to exclude “Nisei” from reception of the Japanese Red Cross items that arrived in February 1944, arguing that the goods were specifically for Japanese nationals. Some, as Richard Nishimoto observed, were harsh: Some others who are more extreme argue that they [the goods] were sent by the Emperor of Japan. Therefore, they must be treated with the most reverence; they should be distributed to the Issei, who then should offer them on the Kamidana (a shelf for the family gods) for a certain length of time. These men are strenuously objecting to the idea of letting the Nisei enjoy the benefit of the gifts,because they are the enemies of Japan.63

The Japan-born internee’s characterization of “Nisei” as “enemies of Japan” contained more than mere disappointment. While the individual articulating these sentiments was disdainful of American-born Japanese siding with the United States, he was in a certain sense prophetic in a manner unforeseen by those interned. He correctly foresaw that Japanese American males with U.S. citizenship had at least five options available to them after Secretary of War Henry Stimson announced their eligibility for military conscription on January 20, 1944. The Japanese citizen knew they could obey the law by joining the ranks of the U.S. military forces when called upon, or depart earlier by volunteering. Or they could resist the order and remain in the camps, taking the high moral ground of insisting on the restoration of civil rights prior to conscription. He was well aware that some Nisei males might choose to expatriate or repatriate with their parents, as a number were beginning to sign up for these options in the camps. Or they might risk sitting out the war in the camps, using legal means to stall conscription while hoping for a peace treaty between the United States and Japan soon after the coming November elections when a new president might pursue peace. But the person did not anticipate a final option of the Nisei choosing to relocate outside, taking up employment with a possible draft deferment, and then moving his parents out of the camps before demobilization and economic depression following the end of the war. Nevertheless, the individual was correct in saying that the draft would make the American-born the “enemies of Japan” as their compliance meant a small but growing number of Japan-born would leave the camps and work on the outside, contributing to the eventual demise of the Japanese empire upon which pinned their hopes.64

6 “TAKING AWAY THE CANDY”: RELOCATION, THE TWILIGHT OF THE JAPANESE EMPIRE, AND JAPANESE AMERICAN POLITICS, 1944–1945

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AKING AMERICAN-born internees “enemies of Japan” was precisely the intent of federal government officials and military brass. But they had different reasons in mind. When War Department officials announced on January 20, 1944, that interned American citizens were to be conscripted for military service, they aimed to discredit Japanese propaganda claims of a racial war in the Pacific by demonstrating that all Americans, regardless of “race,” were serving in the armed forces. John McCloy, Assistant Secretary of War, kept two Japanese American units intact for public relations purposes, dispersed the remainder into nonsegregated units, and expended considerable time and effort to present the best possible image before the world. McCloy personally inspected the 442nd Regimental Combat Team’s insignia, turned down the initial design of an exploding bomb when it appeared to him that the yellow rays extending out of the center were too reminiscent of the Imperial Rising Sun imagery, and ordered instead a freedom torch with red, white, and blue colors in the background. The secretary also opposed forming more segregated Nisei units, called for their equal treatment, and encouraged the enlistment of American-born females into the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) to underscore further the point that they too joined the fight against the Axis Powers.1 For federal government officials, the conscription announcement heralded the beginning of the end of their work. Camp administrators worked in conjunction with Washington, D.C.-based WRA officials to create among internees as positive an image of military conscription as possible by establishing a series of public rituals to validate service in the American military forces. Although volunteers for service appeared as early as 1942, administrators depended upon local boards to handle Selective Service rather than establish their own inside the camps, out of fear of antagonizing the people in their three camps. For the same reason, they did not formally hold send-off parties for those joining the U.S. armed forces.2 Instead, government officials enacted other measures that proved more effective than public rituals. The FBI used arrests based on questionable evidence to intimidate Japanese Americans into compliance with con-

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scription. In late winter/early spring 1944, they targeted Poston for a number of arrests. Bureau agents investigated handbills by “The Voice of the Nisei” posted in Unit I toilets, calling for resistance to the draft. On February 19 they arrested George Fujii solely on the basis that he was seen making copies of handbills and was known to personally oppose the draft, because, as one observer commented, “they were anxious to put a stop to the rapidly growing agitation against the draft.” When draft resistance broke out in March 1944, Hoover’s men rounded up the first two groups of Poston draft evaders and periodically swept in, arresting small numbers of draft resisters throughout the year 1944.3 Camp administrators took a different tack in dealing with draft resistance. They held send-off parties for family and friends of the conscripted American-born internees even though similar events for volunteers in the previous year generated little enthusiasm and poor attendance. At Topaz in 1943 they broke through at the Christmas Day interfaith vesper service for family, relatives, and friends of the volunteers and appointed personnel, and afterward held banquets in honor of those Nisei who passed their physical examinations for Selective Service. Similar banquets were held at the Spring Festival in May 1944 for 128 conscripted men. At Poston, too, a banquet was held in the late summer of 1944, at which some three thousand attended to see off twenty-three men. Administrators also brought in Japanese American soldiers, such as Ben Kuroki, famous tail gunner in the air corps, to convince the American-born males to join. They also permitted Private Thomas Higa, a Kibei from Hawaii, to speak in Japanese to thousands at Poston, hoping to convince them that the conscripts would not become mere “cannon fodder” for the U.S. military nor would be racially discriminated against. “I have never met with any racial discrimination,” Higa claimed, “among the soldiers in the battlefield. We were always treated quite fairly and decently by all the Caucasian officers and soldiers.”4 After the draft announcement some Japanese Americans called for its support. The Topaz Community Council passed a resolution endorsing the draft, stating “we accept the duty an[d] privilege of service in the armed forces of our country.” Former strike chairperson Itaro¯ Nagai urged American-born males to volunteer for the United States military forces and fight for America. Nagai believed that the Japanese government would respect, not resent them for volunteering to fight for the land of their birth. Other Japan-born internees chimed in agreement, wishing more would show some “backbone” in following through on their citizenship obligations. But others blamed the immigrants rather than the U.S. citizens for failing to join the fight. A politician from Unit II castigated Unit I immigrants for their failure to back their own sons in joining the U.S. military forces. As Richard Nishimoto paraphrased

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him, the politician urged that they too throw their weight behind the United States: You are the parent of a Nisei soldier. You must have the same convictions and beliefs with the Nisei for the United States. You must be ready to serve this country with [y]our lives. You must have 100 percent loyalty to this country. You don’t deserve to be in this country. You should alter your mistaken belief right away.5

But many resisted Nagai and others’ appeal for support. When Private Thomas Higa gave his pitch to Japanese-speaking parents at Poston, they politely listened to his talk but were obviously unmoved by his appeal. Japan-born and -educated internees turned out by the thousands to hear Higa—two thousand at Unit I; a thousand at Unit II; and 1,500 at Unit III—but failed to warm to his talk. As one observer noted, They were . . . very critical and cold. They failed to respond when applauses or laughter were in order. At many places, therefore, Higa’s statement fell flat.

Many remained unresponsive despite the obvious benefits dangled in front of them in exchange for their backing. Poston leaders opposed the idea of creating an organization of parents of the draftees when Shinpei Tanaka of Gila visited Unit III in March 1944 seeking such members. Several key leaders in Unit III disassociated themselves from Tanaka and the proposed organization, fearing administrators might further request a statement condemning Japanese atrocities such as the Bataan Death March of 1942 when hundreds of Americans and thousands of Filipino prisoners-of-war died en route to internment: The Administration would not hesitate to utilize the organization to promote the morale among the Nisei for the draft. It might ask the organization to issue a statement condemning the Japanese atrocities if another Bataan incident were announced.

When Setsuichiro¯ Masukane heard Tanaka suggest the availability of shortterm and long-term leaves for parents to go “anywhere, anytime, [and for] any purpose” because their sons were serving in the army, he and others found backers of the proposal “selfish, thinking of their own advantages only, while other Japanese were not getting any such privileges.”6 Some took other paths than submission to the conscription law. Initially, a number of them sought a delay to conscription. In February 1944, Poston Women’s Club President Yae Kawahara wrote directly to Dillon Myer, seeking a postponement of it, arguing conscription would remove necessary family help for immigrant relocation, thereby turning them into “permanent wards of the government.” While not explicitly requesting a

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stay, Poston Nisei also acted immediately to complicate the conscription process by asking President Roosevelt for “the restoration of full rights as citizens of the United States,” by which, they meant the end of all forms of discrimination in the military and war industries hiring, the lifting of restrictions on their travel, the abolishment of internment, and payment of reparations made for losses from the whole episode. The following month, the Topaz women sent a letter, with 1,141 signatures attached, to top federal government officials—President and Mrs. Roosevelt, Dillon Myer, Harold Ickes, Harlan Stone, Henry Stimson, and Francis Biddle— requesting restoration of civil rights immediately before implementation of the draft. “We humbly request that Civil Rights be restored to our children now,” the women politely asked, “then can we courageously send forth our sons to fulfill their responsibility to their country without any fear whatsoever of their own and for their families’ future security.”7 Some Japanese Americans favored using the “prisoner-of-war” status rather than stalling. At first, so many believed that the American-born males were entitled to exemption from military service under this legal status that WRA officials felt compelled to counter this “persistent rumor.” “A rumor is rife,” Richard Nishimoto noted, “that the Nisei in the relocation centers cannot be drafted because of the International Law pertaining to Prisoners of War.” Their misunderstanding was partly the result of the immigrant Japanese leadership’s consultation with the Spanish Consul, who assured them that their American-born offspring were not required to obey the conscription law. In a formal meeting with San Francisco-based Spanish Vice-Consul Antonio Martin, Topaz Japanese were told that the service of American-born males in the United States armed forces was optional: In regard to Nisei being taken into the Armed Forces, the chairman of the Spanish Consul Committee reported back to the Council that Japanese Americans could volunteer [for] the U.S. Army if they desired, according to the Spanish Consul’s explanation, but have the privilege of refusing such service without any obligation involved.8

Expatriation became another possible avenue of escape. Once a number of American-born men filed for it after the draft announcement, camp administrators warned internees they would be drafted regardless of expatriation requests. James Crawford, former Unit II Administrator and then-current Relocation Officer in Washington, D.C., declared expatriation offered no protection against the draft. He quoted a letter from the State Selective Service Headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, stating that “applications for expatriation filed by Japanese Americans . . . shall be disregarded by Selective Service and such registrants shall be inducted if physically qualified and not otherwise deferred.” Crawford proved con-

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vincing enough, and many gave up the idea saying, “Why should we go to Tule Lake [Segregation Center], if we can’t get away from the draft?”9 Many other internees turned to seasonal agricultural labor in spring 1944 when expatriation proved a dead end to their problems. By volunteering for agricultural labor, they assumed exemption from conscription was likely, especially if they were accompanied by their immigrant parents. “They are discussing among themselves,” Richard Nishimoto reported, “of going outside on farm labor in groups as soon as seasonal contracts come in.” Japan-born internees adopted a similar strategy for their sons to escape conscription by doing the farm labor they refused to do only two years before. “In general, they have agreed,” Nishimoto claimed, “to send their sons of draftable age out on the agricultural seasonal labor.” One individual told his son to return to seasonal labor “in the hope that he might be deferred [from conscription].” Others took a more cynical view of the draft and its relationship to agricultural labor, speculating that federal government officials really wanted Americanborn internees in agricultural work rather than in another combat unit— an opinion shared by Mas Kawashima, former chairman of Poston’s Executive Board and ardent supporter of the United States. To him, conscription was one more WRA trick to get them out of the camps: There is a conjecture, which is generally believed rather strongly among the Issei political leaders, that the WRA had pushed the War Department to adopt the Nisei draft. The WRA had found that they could not relocate the Japanese out of relocation centers in [an] ordinary manner[.] The WRA used the “trump” card.10

By July 1944, the conscription debate narrowed to the limited options of reporting for military duty or taking the legal route. Japanese Americans could refuse to take their physical examination for military service and be jailed, as had fifteen of the fifty-one young men in the three units. Or they could, along with twenty-two others, apply for expatriation. While they were exempt from the draft, they faced the additional possibility of a delay on their cases pending the outcome of the new legislation bill before Congress stripping all American-born internees of U.S. citizenship. And finally, they could file a writ of habeas corpus against the commanding general of the Army Command after being sworn into the army, on the assumption that the general would postpone the hearing indefinitely, or go to court; they would then base their defense on the denial of civil rights much in the same manner as the Heart Mountain draft resisters.11 Conscription became a community-wide issue in July when some backed its legal challenge. Those involved in the suits appealed to camp residents for financial assistance since their lawyer, A. L. Wirin, charged a hundred dollars per individual. The defendants urged people to donate

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money to their cause, arguing that if enough of them filed, American politicians and the public would have to listen, benefiting all Japanese Americans: We are fighting for all the Japanese. . . . We would rather go to jail and forget about everything. But that would not be good for others. We should leave in the record that the Japanese in every relocation center protested the reinstitution of Nisei draft while detained in the centers. We know we don’t have any chance of winning our case,but that’s not the point. If we file enough cases from all over, the court might decide to listen to our pleas in the end.

They also received the endorsement of a small number of Japan-born residents for their donation drive, especially Itaro¯ Nagai, the former strike chairperson. “This would bring out the injustice,” Nagai opined, “of drafting the Nisei from these ‘detention’ camp[s].” The Block 42 manager also supported the drive and believed many others would join.12 But others opposed the legal campaign. Many of them, according to Richard Nishimoto, refused to donate because they believed that U.S. male citizens were legally obligated to serve in the armed forces, a perception born of their own experience with the Japanese conscription. Many others were immigrants without draft-aged children, making them apathetic rather than resistant to the issue. Still others, such as Minoru Okamoto, Nishimoto’s nemesis, opposed any form service on behalf of the United States. “There are two kinds of people here—Japanese and nonJapanese (although physically Japanese),” Okamoto explained, and “it would be difficult to raise money for this purpose.” American-born draftees also opposed the drive. As one put it, “What’s the use of winning the case after you get killed in Italy?”13 But refusal to serve until civil rights were restored was never widely supported by the majority. In spring 1944, many American-born internees in the three camps rejected it even though their options were narrowing. The few who argued they should demand restoration of civil rights before accepting conscription became known as members of the “Civil Rights First” movement. They failed to convince the majority in Topaz, according to Hiro Katayama, assistant to community analyst Oscar Hoffman, who estimated by informal polls taken, that nearly 90 percent of the Nisei representatives to the Topaz Citizens’ Committee opposed conscription but refused to endorse the public statement by the Heart Mountain draft resisters calling for the restoration of Nisei civil rights as a precondition to obedience to the Selective Service.14 At Manzanar, however, draft resistance was widespread, but it quickly fizzled. Draft resistance was initially very popular among Nisei after the announcement of the reinstitution of the draft, as evident in block meetings held on February 25 and 26 to discuss it. At one of the block meetings

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that Community Analyst Morris Opler attended, residents took a firm stand in “demanding” certain conditions be met before compliance with conscription was promised. Those conditions, according to Opler, included benefits for soldiers and their family members, desegregation of the American military, withdrawal of military-like aspects of the WRA camps (Military Police guards, watchtowers, barbed wires), return of all internees from DOJ camps, naturalization rights for all Japanese citizens, and protection against discrimination on the outside. Most rejected Community Analyst Morris Opler’s advice to use “tact” and “diplomacy” and adopt a gradual approach of extracting “little by little” their rights over time, characterizing it as “the Caucasian point of view.” “It is necessary to make a stand somewhere,” one internee told the analyst, since “too many of the Japanese have been too submissive.” But when the Nisei representatives took the issue up with Ralph Merritt the next day, the project attorney chilled their ardor by pulling out the code book and reading aloud the relevant sections on the legal penalties and fines for conspiracy, draft evasion, and seditious acts, emphasizing that their actions could earn them a maximum forty-seven-year imprisonment term. The representatives suddenly switched from “demands” to “requests” and left the matter to Merritt to convey their message to Washington, D.C. “Mr. M. will do something for us,” a representative meekly declared, leading Opler to conclude that the Merritt’s meeting had the desired effect—draft resistance came to a halt.15 In Poston, opposition to the draft ran strong, though the “Civil Rights First” movement never won the majority. The movement gained a following partly because George Fujii, a popular strike figure, spearheaded it. Unknown members of the movement distributed handbills in the latrines of Unit I, demanding seven preconditions before acceptance of the draft. “The Voice of the Nisei,” as they called themselves, demanded the following: one, apologies from General DeWitt for his “A Jap’s a Jap” statement, and from others such as California Governor Earl Warren, Los Angeles City Mayor Fletcher Bowron, and the American Legion of California; two, all military, economic, and political rights, freedom, and privileges not be denied; three, no barbed wires and removal of the Military Police guards; four, removal of anti-Japanese signs in California and the rest of the United States; five, end of job discrimination against Japanese Americans; six, the availability of promotion possibilities for all Japanese American soldiers in the army, the air corps, and the marines; and seven, nonsegregated combat units for Japanese Americans to join. Their movement attracted few members until George Fujii was arrested by FBI agents bent on thwarting draft resistance at Poston. Thereafter, many came to assist with Fujii’s defense, especially former strike chairperson Itaro¯ Nagai, who collected donations from the Unit I blocks, which,

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on the average (median), gave about sixty-one dollars per block while Nagai’s own block, George Fujii’s former and current blocks, and two others donated over one hundred dollars each. Nagai anticipated some nine hundred dollars more from Units II and III to more than amply post Fujii’s bail.16 Yet the majority of American-born internees rallied behind the Committee for the Restoration of the Civil Rights of United States Citizens of Japanese Ancestry rather than the Voice movement. This committee, started by the Bureau of Sociological Research staff worker Chika Sugino and Terminal Island leader Kiyoshi Shigekawa, protested the racial discrimination that Nisei faced in the military service but refused to take actions considered seditious. Their position was “We are joining the army, therefore give us our rights.” They successfully persuaded the Voice of the Nisei group to tone down their rhetoric and won the backing of the Poston Community Council, a group committed to preventing another strike.17 Others simply backed both groups. Block 43 residents, composed largely of Orange County Japanese, split over holding sending-off parties in honor of several of their own headed for induction at Fort Douglas, Utah. Many opposed the idea of honoring inductees given their own status as “enemy aliens,” arguing that Japanese in camps could not “conscientiously partake” in them since such celebrations were “illogical.” The block residents therefore decided in lieu of a sending-off party, they would give senbetsu, or a farewell gift, of five dollars per inductee; but they also honored draft resisters headed for imprisonment in Yuma, Arizona, and gave them the same gift. “Thus, Block 43 has been giving senbetsu of five dollars,” Nishimoto observed, “to each of the Nisei inductees and [to] the Nisei draft dodgers equally.”18 Resistance to conscription lessened in the late summer of 1944 as a result of events outside the camps. Many draftees thought the imminent collapse of Germany and the end of the war in Europe would occur by the time they completed their training for the U.S. armed forces. Moreover, many assumed that the War Department would not send Nisei soldiers to the Pacific Theater since the danger of mistaken identity for Imperial Japanese soldiers was too great. All this, they reasoned, would considerably reduce their risk of death should they comply with the draft, freeing them from the concern of dying on the battlefield and leaving their parents alone to fend for themselves.19 Adding to the slowdown of draft resistance was the increasing popularity of the legal approach among the parents of the inductees. Many of the Japan-born internees privately favored the legal defense route as the only reasonable option available in fall 1944. In Poston, immigrants utilized legal counseling available to them but the topics they discussed at counsel-

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ing sessions involved taxes or various other subjects listed as “miscellaneous.” This was the situation in October 1943 when 378 out of 740 total cases involved were labeled “miscellaneous” and an additional fifty-three were deemed as “tax-related,” and only ten were “selective service.” But by late November, parents and their offspring bringing in Selective Service problems for legal counseling jumped to 60 out of 839 cases in January 1944, and, after holding steady at this mark for a while, suddenly doubled to 125 out of 697 total cases in June 1944, followed by another high mark in July with 109 out of a total 527 cases. Their obvious concern over Selective Service, as reflected in how often they utilized legal consultation, did not wane until after April 1945.20 Yet a reduction of draft resistance was not the result of apathy. Rather, it was a sense of despair among many immigrants over becoming parents of the “enemies of Japan” as a result of conscription, a mood further deepened by the disturbing news of heavy casualties among American-born soldiers. As worried parents, relatives, and friends, they realized the accuracy of some who predicted that the volunteers would become “cannon fodder” for the American military. Poston City Manager Minoru Okamoto warned internees that their chances were high for active duty overseas. The manager claimed the soldiers were being trained as replacements for the 442nd Regimental Combat Battalion and another regiment headed for France, requiring more Japanese American soldiers. He pointed out this meant accelerated training sessions, faster deployment, and higher casualty rates. “These kids now being called,” Okamoto said, “have a greater chance of becoming cannon fodder,” a somber prediction that the reports filtering into the three camps made plausible. “Because of the rapid rate of these notices coming in,” Nishimoto noted, “one Nisei wondered if the regiment had been annihilated in France.” Manzanar internees best expressed the despair many immigrants must have felt when reading in the Rocky Shimpo¯ about a mother who, after seeing her five sons off to the U.S. Army, became despondent and committed suicide in Minidoka: “First our homes are taken away from us, next our sons are taken, and then they probably will deport us. This country is uncivilized.”21 Just as conscription changed the rules of camp governance so did the new relocation policy. Military brass, federal government officials, and camp administrators in the first half of 1944 anticipated termination of the camps and relocation of Japanese Americans back to the West Coast. Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy had suggested to General DeWitt in 1943 to allow for certain types of Japanese Americans to return to the West Coast, particularly those serving in the U.S. Army or those who had served during World War I, their families, and the few of “mixed racial” background. By the first half of 1944, high-ranking military officers were already aware of McCloy’s wishes and were advised by their own lawyers

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that the Army’s mass exclusion order would not pass its legal test in the U.S. Supreme Court. In August, General Charles H. Bonesteel, successor to Delos Emmons as head of the Western Defense Command, feared that the Shiramizu and Ochikubo cases before the federal court might unleash “a flood of applications and [that] a very large number of suits [were] probable in the near future.” Under pressure from several lawsuits filed against him by internees, the general and Secretary of War Henry Stimson redefined “military necessity” to help stave off large numbers of Japanese American returning to the West Coast, which, he believed, would result in “riots and bloodshed,” inviting a possible Japanese retaliation against American[s] prisoners under their control: If the return of Japanese American[s] should be accompanied by considerable violence, without doubt, strong pressure would be exerted to re-exclude them. It is apparent, therefore, that the army is definitely interested; first, because the question of military security; second, because of the necessity for the maintenance of peace, and third, because of the possible repercussions of unfortunate occurrences. If any considerable number of Japanese American citizens should be killed it is quite probable that ten times as many American prisoners in Japan might be executed by the Japanese.

With American POWs in mind, General Henry C. Pratt, the new head of the Western Defense Command, issued a proclamation on December 17, 1944, terminating exclusion of all Japanese Americans based on ancestry, effective January 2, 1945, but retained the power to exclude individual Japanese Americans from the West Coast.22 Federal government officials, too, forsaw the end of mass exclusion from the West Coast and internment but assumed a different post-relocation scenario. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes called for termination in June 1944, just three months after he took the WRA under his departmental wings. The U.S. Solicitor General Charles Fahy stood resolutely opposed to mass exclusion by August 1944 after meeting with General Bonesteel regarding the matter and did not forecast massive civil disobedience on the scale envisioned by the general. Dillon Myer long advocated ending the WRA camps, and after the War Department ended mass exclusion, he announced on December 18, 1944, termination within six months, the impending closure of at least one WRA camp, and the consolidation by redistribution of internee population to cut Authority expenses. Myer stated, The WRA will not push any one out of [the] centers.But it does not promise that they will remain in the same center. As time goes on it may become necessary to consolidate two centers into one, or to transfer the residents of one center into other centers.23

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Although mass exclusion ended, WRA officials still fought with the Western Defense Command over which individuals deserved continued exclusion. Some eighty thousands individuals remained in the WRA camps, leaving open the question of how many among them would be further detained. Myer thought he prevailed when an individual exclusion list of not more than 5,000 names was promised at a meeting in November 1944 in Washington, D.C., by General William Wilbur, Assistant Chief of Staff to General Bonesteel, then later to General H. C. Pratt. But to his chagrin, Myer discovered that the Command submitted a list of nearly 10,000 names, calling into question many when the WRA and the Japanese American Joint Board had already cleared. Worse, the Command in Myer’s eyes was “arbitrary and categorical in the extreme” in its selection of individuals for exclusion and would cause many Japanese Americans simply to wait for clearance before planning their move out, delaying relocation. The WRA director finally got the Command to cut its numbers by using “white” (no security threat), “brown” (possible security threat), and “black” (security threat) categories, with most classified as “white.” He agreed to the “black” classification for those unable to leave the WRA camps because their records contained “derogatory information,” which by December 1944 numbered only 4,963, of which 3,066 were already contained at the Tule Lake Segregation Center. Myer and the project directors knew that the new list meant the number of blacklisted individuals in Topaz numbered only 127; Poston, 183; and Manzanar, 428. They were confident that nearly all Japanese Americans could leave the WRA camps and return to the West Coast even though the list remained in effect until September 4, 1945.24 The decreasing number of internees meant reductions in WRA personnel and a hardening of their relocation policy. Numerous appointed personnel, many of them liberal, left the camps by late summer/early fall 1944. Their departure was particularly noticeable at Poston since so many of them were never replaced. Some, such as Leave Officer Allan Cushman, Chief Medical Officer A. Pressman, former Unit II Administrator James Crawford, and Deputy Project Director Moris Burge moved on to govern Jewish refugees at Fort Ontario. Their absence, together with those who departed from camps, moved Edward Spicer in the WRA headquarters to opine that the liberals “became disaffected, lost interest, withdrew or became antagonistic,” while Myer collected a band of practical younger men willing to stand behind him in the battle for relocation. But the new staffs were more apt to use coercive methods to achieve what they defined as worthy ends. Hence, remaining personnel such as John Provinse suggested in December 1944 to remove the hard-core pro-Japan advocates, believing that the WRA should follow the pattern the USSR used in dealing with Nazi prisoners: they got rid of the hard-core Nazis first and then

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successfully converted the others from Nazism. Ralph Merritt offered a simpler approach—just threaten or fire recalcitrant Japanese Americans who fail to relocate.25 To expedite relocation, camp administrators adopted a number of new measures. Since some of them saw family relocation as the key, they allocated greater time and effort into the Family Welfare Counseling staff and had camp newspapers devote more space to relocation information in both English and Japanese. Manzanar camp administrators made such counseling mandatory, sparking many internees to label those sessions with Lucy Adams as “hearings.” They also gave Kiyoharu Anzai a free hand in establishing an ostensibly neutral “discussion group” on relocation, but the real intent was to encourage this politically sensitive program—the invited speaker list contained individuals who “successfully” relocated outside. Moreover, Ralph Merritt and his staff pledged themselves to persuade at least one family a month to leave Manzanar. At Poston, Project Director Duncan Mills was more heavy-handed in his approach. He had his administrative staff exert pressure on internees in units II and III to clear out by sending them notices on the special trains that he wanted them to use for their departure. At Topaz, Project Director Luther Hoffman pressured residents to relocate outside by early fall 1945 after a third of them failed to move out by spring as promised: The fact that we had practically no one that refused to voluntarily come in to the Leave Office and process their own departure date and destination was a source of considerable satisfaction to us all. Pressures were exerted but they were of the type that apparently left no hesitation as to what needed to be done but still gave an opportunity for them to make determination themselves within the allotted time limits.26

As a final step, the WRA closed off certain camps and handed control of the facilities to other federal government agencies as a subtle form of pressure on remaining Japanese Americans. On June 30, 1944, Authority officials boarded up Jerome “Relocation Center” in Arkansas and redistributed its remaining population to the other camps. Although the original closing date for units II and III was October 1, Authority officials accelerated the process so that by the end of July, they warned internees of the impending arrival of an estimated sixty to eighty Hopi Indians from Flagstaff, Arizona to blocks 201 and 202 to farm in the Southern Reserve. On September 1, 1945, they let in eighteen Hopi Indian families into Unit II after C. H. Gensler and others of the Office of Indian Affairs arranged for loans of three thousand dollars each and the establishment of a community store, operated by one of their own, the Taylor Tahbo family, who were perhaps the wealthiest of the group with three horses, thirteen cattle, and 175 sheep.27

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Despite WRA plans, most Japanese Americans in the three camps intended to stay rather than relocating outside. The Poston Community Council polled its own residents in late spring 1944 and found that threequarters of them opposed relocation and preferred to reside in the camp for the duration of the war. The remainder, according to the council poll, said they would relocate sometime during the year. Topaz residents, too, expressed similar intentions, wherein a third of all Japanese citizens by mid-1943 refused to relocate, and a small number of them wanted to become an economic burden to the American war effort by remaining in the camps and consuming WRA goods and services. Six months later, the majority of Topaz internees still seemed intent on staying inside the camp for the duration of the war. Hence, most residents were sad rather than glad, listening in “hushed silence” rather than in celebration of the U.S. Army’s announcement of the lifting of mass exclusion.28 Antipathy toward relocation did not diminish over time. At the end of January 1945, nearly two-thirds of the 9,438 Topaz internees were still in camp despite losing an estimated twenty-five dollars a month in payment for the average person. At Poston, the majority of residents found relocation “neither popular nor unpopular,” but internee leaders avoided participation “in meetings that present[ed] relocation favorably.” They saw finding employment as problematic, particularly for the immigrant generation. So many of them were independent farmers or small shopkeepers in the prewar period that relocation outside made little economic sense if agricultural labor—a step downward on the economic mobility scale—was the only work available. In addition, they faced the real possibility of confronting racial discrimination alone, and struggled with fears over facing a new and unfamiliar environment.29 Yet fear of loss of reparations from the Japanese government influenced many others to remain in the camps. Topaz Japanese, as the project director admitted, stayed put under the influence of the Japanese-language radio broadcasts and a small, organized opposition maintained by “proJapanese elements.” Poston Japanese, too, remained inside because they feared forfeiture of their anticipated reparations payment—a possibility implied by the radio broadcasts. Many families, according to community analyst David French, told relocation counselors their health or economic problems required continued residence in Poston, but in fact they were simply waiting for clarification on the anticipated reparations payment from the Japanese government: Many families that could relocate if they wished are expecting to wait until the war with Japan is over, or nearly over, before making any plans. The belief that Japan may win is waning, but a number believe that there will be a negotiated peace to include provisions for internees. There have been ru-

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mors from time to time that persons, particularly Japanese citizens, who relocate will disqualify themselves [from] receiving an indemnity or other benefits which they would otherwise receive. These ideas are changing, but such families still feel that they can neither make plans, nor be completely frank with WRA workers as to why they are making no plans.30

Only a distinct minority welcomed Secretary of War Henry Stimson’s announcement of the end of mass exclusion and internment. At Poston, these individuals were “mostly Nisei, esp[ecially in their] early twenties” or “high school age,” Richard Nishimoto observed. But some of the ones most interested in relocation were the older, wealthier Nisei and Issei, the “real property owners,” who, as Nishimoto observed, “seem[ed] to be characterized by the capability of leaving the centers and of living comfortably without worries on the outside.” These wanted relocation expedited because they faced legal assaults against their property on the outside, in addition to the vandalism and theft that all too often occurred when Japanese Americans stored their property for the duration of internment. Their legal problems began at Manzanar, where Customs Service agents entered the camp on December 20, 1943, under the guise of clarifying tax forms but in reality seeking information about Japanese citizens who violated the ownership laws (Sections 60, 325, 808 and 835 of Title 46 United States Code [Navigation Laws] and section 1619 of Title 19, United States Code). Those under investigation were leaders of an “owning corporation” who put 49 percent of its assets into the purchase of a fishing boat and put the other 51 percent in the name of their own children who held U.S. citizenship. Their approach to get around this anti-alien law was to create fictitious corporations, and the Customs Service agents charged them with illegal funding.31 Other legal battles involved Japanese American farmland. At Poston, several residents were faced with prosecution under the Anti-Alien Land Law by local city or county attorney generals who, although pretending to gather information for tax purposes only, were actually intending to try escheat cases. Several individuals from Fresno, Los Angeles, Orange, Sacramento, and San Joaquin counties were charged with violation of the Anti-Alien Land Law, and many feared all land-owning Japanese would face escheat litigation by the State of California. Worse, many had insufficient cash as a result of internment, and found they could not offer their land as security for loans. They watched helplessly as the District Attorney of Monterey County took the Ikeda couple in Block 15 to court and charged them with purchasing a seventy-five acre tract of land in 1928, deeding the land in their infant daughter’s name, and then selling it in 1939 to Hanazono, a U.S. citizen.32

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To counter the assault, land-owning Japanese in Poston banded together and developed a legal strategy to defend their property. Since the WRA was not much help, landowners raised their own defense funds and rallied behind the well-known Nitta family of Block 21, whose escheat case filed by the District Attorney of Orange County stood a chance of making it to the State Supreme Court. Their tentative plan called for raising ten thousand dollars in the nine WRA camps, with a fifth of the total coming from Poston. They agreed to send representatives to Manzanar and Gila to solicit the assistance from other landowners there. They were “very successful” in Itaro¯ Nagai’s eyes, since units II and III alone collected three thousand dollars to finance test cases contesting the constitutionality of escheat actions for violation of the Alien Land Act. They also successfully staved off the attacks until 1952 when a sympathetic State Supreme Court ruled against the major underpinnings of the Anti-Alien Land Law.33 Landowners’ eagerness to relocate notwithstanding, the majority in the camps saw the mid-December 1944 announcement as a threat to their tenure in the camps. Many in Poston were older, Japan-born people who struggled to make ends meet prior to removal and internment, and relocation before reparation payment simply compounded their problems. They anticipated a return to long work-hours and low-wage jobs with high rent and food costs, coupled with negligible medical care in the face of increasing, not decreasing, racial discrimination. As Richard Nishimoto put it, this was an economically challenged group: In this group are found most of the older men who were not economically endowed before evacuation. They are usually without any appreciable amount of savings or property. They are [neither] skilled [nor] trained in any trade or profession. Families with many of them children, especially small children, are usually found in this group.34

For the less fortunate, the war’s progress deterred many of them from relocating outside before the end of the war. Large numbers of Japanese Americans paid particular attention to news and information from Japanese-language radio broadcasts better to assess chances for reparations from the Japanese government. Internees gathered behind closed doors or in small groups of two or three individuals, whispering the latest information and disinformation on the war. Despite the obvious setbacks for the Japanese military, many internees hoped for a peace settlement in 1944, either through a series of Japanese victories or a Republican victory in the 1944 national elections. But a string of Japanese victories necessary for a negotiated peace settlement to the war seemed illusory by spring 1944, because many knew the war was going badly for Japan as Allied

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forces advanced steadily toward Japan. By early summer, those who had hoped for some form of Japanese victory were crestfallen as reports came in describing the invasion and capture of Saipan and Tinian by American forces, who turned the latter into an air base for heavy bombers targeting the main islands of Japan. Internees discussing the war declined in numbers noticeably during the first three quarters of 1944 as prospects for a favorable peace settlement diminished. For many, the last remaining hope was for an American withdrawal from the Pacific War after Germany surrendered. “What I am really hoping for,” a Japan-born internee told Nishimoto, “is for the chance that the United States gets weary of the war and decides to quit. The American people might get tired of the war after Germany is knocked out. That is our only hope.”35 Ardent Japanese nationalists pressed their claims vigorously as the fortunes of war turned against Japan. They saw diminishing hopes and flagging support for Japan during and after the invasion of Saipan and Tinian, and the collapse of the To¯jo¯ Cabinet. At Topaz, they saw many of their neighbors abandoning the homeland, and so they circulated anonymously printed handbills against “non-Japanese,” “traitors,” and relocation: [T]hose Japanese who relocate under the pretext of educating their children and for the sake of economic recovery will help the enemy in industry, directly and indirectly; helping to solve the manpower problem in other ways will also serve as an aid to [the] enemy. This war is carried on by the nation and race as a unit; therefore, furnishing the enemy with armed power and war supplies means that you are killing yourselves. With excuses involving personal and domestic circumstances, education of the children, and economic recovery, those who are taking this anti-racial action are traitors to the prosperity of their own race. Those who do not cooperate with the [Japanese] national policy are non-Japanese; and those who are aiding the enemy are traitors.36

At Poston, the faithful claimed Japanese victories in the western Pacific, alleging defeat of American forces at Formosa (present-day Taiwan) and the Palau Islands in October, both of which were false. They declared, as one thirty-five-year-old man did, that the Japanese war strategy was to draw the American navy into its home waters for one final, crushing blow to force Americans to sign a peace treaty.37 But probably many more internees had anticipated Japan’s defeat by late summer 1944. An unknown number of internees already predicted defeat for Japan as well as deteriorating conditions both inside and outside of the WRA camps for Japanese Americans. They foresaw the day of expulsion from the camps and the country. One Japan-born internee forecast the following conditions:

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When Japan weakens, the American would treat us in the worse manner here. . . . I am sure the WRA would reduce the foodstuffs supplied to these centers. We would be forced to eat rotten things. . . . We would not have the strong Japan any more to rely on; Japan can no longer protect us as before. The WRA, then might close these centers and tell us to move out of here without any assistance.38

Anxiety over anticipated mistreatment outside the camps reflected the uneasiness many Japanese Americans felt toward a postwar future in the United States rather than twoard the Japanese empire. One Japan-born Poston internee called for the establishment of a half-million-dollar federally funded Evacuee Reconstruction Finance Corporation, governed by an executive board of five Euro-Americans and five internees—three Japan-born and two American-born members—to provide job placement, housing, and financial assistance to those headed for agriculture or businesses on the outside. The internee also called for the formation of an Evacuee Group Insurance Rehabilitation Corporation in which ten families would ban together to purchase or lease three hundred acres of land for group and individual cultivation with the expressed aim for group members to “become future land owners.”39 Others sought retention of the campgrounds for their postwar alternative to relocation. As early as January 1944, Poston City Manager Minoru Okamoto quietly dropped his stance favoring the relocation of internees to the Japanese empire after the war, adopting instead John Collier’s colonization scheme for the Southern Reserve section. Okamoto urged refusal of any proposal that Dillon Myer might bring to Poston. “M. Okamoto, the City Manager, told me,” Richard Nishimoto revealed, “that he is supporting Wade Head, even to the idea of sending the delegates to the Chicago conference . . . to assist Head in his colonization proposal.” “If we developed a large-scale farm here,” Nishimoto recorded Okamoto as saying, “the Japanese will be able to remain here in case they cannot find any place to go at the end of the war.” Others followed Okamoto’s plan because the placement of the WRA under the Department of the Interior signaled the revival of the Japanese Bureau idea that Collier had long advocated and what Project Attorney Theodore Haas believed was underway in 1944. While the city manager was shoring up his declining control over the Unit I Community Council after an attack by Richard Nishimoto, Itaro¯ Nagai, Aijiro¯ Takahashi, and Moris Burge, he was also part of an “underground movement” of bilingual Japan-born internees who secretly worked with camp administrators to defuse relocation resistance. “The key members of this ‘underground,’ ” community analyst David French noted, “are a small group who are in agreement with fundamental WRA policies on the future of the Japanese in America.”

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Included among them were Richard Nishimoto and Minoru Okamoto, and others who held administrative or council positions and who worked with camp administrators to control or influence block managers and councilmen, refute unfavorable rumors, and disseminate information favorable to relocation.40 Most, however, wanted reparation payments to subsidize their relocation plans, as expressed in the All-Center Conference. Thirty representatives from all camps except Manzanar and Tule Lake accepted the invitation of Masaru Narahara, the Topaz council chairperson, to gather at the WRA-approved gathering on February 16 to 22, 1945, at Salt Lake City, Utah, where they were hosted by the large Topaz delegation, who made up a fifth of all representatives, and by all three English-language secretaries, including U.S. Supreme Court litigant Mitsuye Endo¯. Although threequarters of the official delegates were born in Japan, they were deeply divided over where assistance for relocation would come. Some were “reactionaries,” as labeled by researcher Richard Nishimoto, because they staunchly maintained reliance on the Japanese government for reparations and resistance to camp closure policy. The “liberals,” as Nishimoto saw them, favored accommodation with the WRA to gain concessions from the American government for relocation outside. The two groups engaged in “a long, quarrelsome debate” over the inclusion of the Spanish Consulate until “the cool heads won out” and the conference representatives decided against requesting reparation from the Japanese government. They fought over the wording of their twenty-one “demands” or “requests” to the American government. The “reactionaries” insisted on demanding, among other things, greater financial assistance for those relocating, retention of services for those unable or unwilling to relocate, return of property or status prior to removal, and reparations for losses incurred during removal and detention, while the “liberals” favored requesting the same through the WRA. The “liberals” triumphed in part because Narahara openly declared at the fifth session on February 21 that their gathering was “in the spirit of cooperation with the policy of the WRA,” but also because they deliberately deceived their opponents in the translation of Japanese-language “demands” into English, removing the embarrassing or unduly harsh parts to make their statement more palatable to the president, Congress, WRA officials, and the press, as Katow himself admitted: Some of the requests which they asked to be embodied in the resolution were foolhardy and irrational. . . . We could not stop them from embodying those crazy requests in the Japanese original. But when our committee worked overnight in translating them into English, we deleted all the objectionable points without the knowledge of the other members of the conference. People

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on the outside will think we are crazy if we included those things in the English version. Those Issei don’t know that we changed the content in the translation.41

Despite their differences, the two factions agreed upon requesting a Japanese American representative present at the anticipated peace treaty negotiations between the United States and Japan. Individuals from both factions reasoned that Japanese Americans had an important stake in the final outcome of the peace treaty signed between the two countries. Any treaty signed, they believed, would ultimately include some form of reparations payment for their losses. As Katow reported, Everybody agreed that a representative ought to be sent to the peace conference. The representative should present to the conference the matter of losses and damages incurred by the evacuees as the result of evacuation. There is no question that matters vitally concerning us will be discussed at the peace conference, and it will be valuable for us to have someone representing our interests.42

The topic of reparation payments was not novel for the delegates, especially the “liberals.” Prior to the conference the Topaz representatives had initially brought up the topic with Project Director Charles Ernst, who urged them not to press the issue, causing many of the Japan-born internees to link reparation payments with relocation to gain WRA assistance. In spring 1944, many of the “strong-minded and intelligent Issei,” as community analyst Edward Spicer observed, were already forming an “Issei political movement” to argue that the U.S. government caused the economic losses, and thus had “a moral obligation to make those losses good at some time.” They appeared determined to stay in the camps to make the U.S. government pay for their losses. Those in Poston and Topaz in particular were uniting to circumvent the WRA, as Edward Spicer observed: One of the most interesting major trends that I see around the centers at present is the development of an Issei leadership which is determined to try to do something, working outside of WRA channels, in regard to restitution for the evacuation and guarantees of security for the Japanese minority after the war.43

WRA officials, however, were not opposed to reparations or suing federal government and military officers. Instead, many in the headquarters and in the projects thought that the possibility of redress during wartime was practically nil, given the historical precedence of the Civil War. Solon Kimball told Minidoka internees to press their claims after the war when a reparations law stood a better chance of passage. But the WRA made “on numerous occasions” verbal promises of support for group legisla-

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tion for compensation of Japanese American losses, and members of the Legal Division of the Authority itself, with Dillon Myer’s advice, helped draft the legislative piece that later became known as the 1948 Evacuation Claims Act. Others, such as Topaz Project Director Luther Hoffman assisted Shizuko Shiramizu, George Ochikubo, and Masaru Baba in preparing their test of the legality of the “evacuation.” Poston administrators, too, quietly supported five U.S. citizens—Mary Duco, Yoshio Ekimoto, Kiyoshi Shigekawa, Tadayuki Todah, and Elmer Yamamoto—in their suit against Charles Bonesteel, the Commanding General of the Western Defense Command at the U.S. District Court of Southern California, claiming wrongful removal and internment.44 Despite WRA help on reparations, many internees remained critical of the WRA and the conference. Some of the conference representatives blamed Myer’s stubborn insistence on a 1945 deadline for camp closures as the main reason why the Conference produced only resolutions. They thought Myer’s promise to visit the camps to deliver in person his response to their twenty-one “recommendations” was an empty gesture in the light of his cuts in camp employment and closure of schools. One delegate accused him of directly of arm-twisting them to relocate: Somehow or other I get the impression that this really looks to us like a matter in which you are our big brother,who really has our interests at heart, but who is taking our candy away from us, because it isn’t good for us. But in order to change our way of thinking, what you are doing isn’t right. Your approach of taking away the candy is bad.45

Not all condemned Myer for the conference’s meager accomplishments. Some reproached themselves for creating the relocation problem by staying in camps intended only for loyal, permanent residents of the United States, as indicated during the Loyalty Registration. The WRA, they therefore reasoned, had the right to close the nine camps before the end of the war, and resistance to this policy, was unreasonable as Nobuo Matsubara, a secretary for the conference, aptly put it: The whole trouble began when we answered “yes-yes” to questions 27 and 28. The mistakes have been made by ourselves. Not the W.R.A. How can we say now that we don’t want to leave the center, because we don’t wish to remain in the United States after the war? Why [didn’t] we declare so when we [were] called on to decide?46

Topaz residents, however, were divided in assessing blame for the conference’s failure. Some led by a Mr. Sasaki verbally attacked Narahara and his plan even before the conference convened, demanding that the council recognize their presence in Topaz with a resolution calling for residents to be separated into two groups, those in favor and those op-

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posed to relocation. He urged loyalty to Japan, claiming that the Japanese government issued a written order that its citizens not help with the American war effort by leaving the centers. Sasaki and his group rejected all possibilities of cooperating with the Committee of Seven, whose function was to assist relocation. But others, such as the Community Council, praised the representatives for trying to dissuade the WRA from closing the center and supported their accommodation of the WRA to gain muchneeded financial assistance for relocation. Their backing of Narahara and the conference was contrary to the majority in Topaz but consistent with their past siding with the United States during the war, sponsorship of memorial services for Nisei soldiers killed in action, funding of the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Supreme Court test cases, and encouragement of draft resistance through legal means.47 Poston internees were also divided over the accomplishments of the conference. Community Council members’ reactions were “mild and sympathetic” after their representatives reported to them in person, and the Unit I administrator characterized the conference dialogue with representatives of other centers as “meaningful and significant.” But other internees found their representatives’ actions wanting. The block manager for the Orange County Japanese, scheduled for repatriation, inquired about the Conference resolutions and discovered after talking with representative Smoot Katow that the WRA was adamant about the scheduled departure of all Japanese Americans from the camps regardless of final destination. “That means the Conference was of no value to us,” the block manager concluded. Many Japan-educated U.S. citizens were cynical, and one said, “They spent our money and got nothing out of it. Maybe they drank whiskey with it.” Another was more sanguine, however, predicting accurately that the conference was the last gasp of any opposition to the WRA: It’s the same pattern every time with these Issei. Something happen[s] and they oppose. They hold a conference and pass a resolution opposing everything. After a while, they will forget what they have said. I’ll bet this will be the end [of] opposition to the closing of the center. The Issei don’t have the spirit to go on with it to the end.48

Perhaps the most common reaction to the conference was to accept the inevitability of relocation and individually plan for it. After City Manager Minoru Okamoto declared the war over in early 1945, and relocation under the WRA as the best option available, individual planning for relocation began in earnest, and acquisition of reparations became a fading hope. Internees were no longer thinking in terms of working together as a group for a united political end. Instead, they turned individualistic, making the focus of their actions their own families, as one person aptly expressed the new outlook:

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I am not interested in this sort of protest movement. . . . I am leaving the center about this May. I have to look about for myself and my family before I worry about others.49

The shift toward individualism was reflected in the demise of the coop at Topaz. As late as 1944, the Consumer Cooperative Board of Trustees was composed of individuals committed to the vision of making the institution profitable for all members rather than a small group of owners. Chaired by Sasahito Yamate, and assisted by Vice-Chairperson Yoshisa Kanzaki, Treasurer Hiroshi Shinosaki, and Secretary Kazuma Yoshida, the board made sure the profits were returned to the interned community. With the end of mass exclusion, however, the management, led by former Director Toby Ogawa and backed by two-thirds of the Board of Directors of the Community Enterprise, unilaterally halted rebate payments to the Topaz interned community against the explicit legal recommendation of the WRA. They justified their actions on grounds that in early 1945 the Co-op was operating for profits rather than community dividends, announced their intentions to use up the remaining sixty to seventy thousand dollars on the books, and callously dismissed the Block Managers’ Committee proposal to establish a trading post so that residents lacking money necessary for cash transaction could sell or exchange goods with others in Topaz. Critics of the managers struck back, gaining a majority of seats—at least forty-two—in the Cooperative Congress, as they were “motivated by a real desire and a determination to have the Co-op operate in the interest of the people rather than in the interest of any ‘inside group.’ ” They resisted the former chairperson’s installation of two congressmen and got the council to summon a meeting in mid-April. They then fired the board for its lack of compliance, an acrimonious ending that contrasted sharply with the Manzanar store’s quiet dissolution by fall 1945.50 More than the demise of the co-ops, international events signaled the impending termination of WRA camp life. While internees ignored the surrender of Germany in May 1945—Topaz block managers scarcely mentioned the event in their meeting minutes—they could not ignore the loss of the Spanish Consulate as their official intermediary. In April 1945, interned Japanese citizens had no official intermediary to serve as their Protecting Power in dealings with the federal government because the Spanish Consulate relinquished the responsibility after the Japanese government’s failure to punish Imperial Army soldiers for the takeover and slaughter of their consulate officials in the Philippine Islands that year.51 Additional events signaled the war’s end. Internees were shocked to learn of the August 6 atomic bombing of Hiroshima city. At Poston, they were aware by April 1945 that the main island of Japan was being

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bombed but did not comprehend its relationship to hastening a Japanese surrender. A number of Nisei, particularly those working for the appointed personnel, however, knew that deployment of the atomic bomb would expedite Japan’s surrender and accelerate relocation once they heard the announcement on August 7. But many others, particularly the Japan-born internees, anticipated the opposite effect. Akira Togawa, Poston internee, was aware that the bomb reduced every living thing in “four square miles to ashes” and called it “a truly terrifying thing” that was “inhumanly speaking worse than using poison gas” but thought it only indirectly related to Japan’s surrender. Others believed the attack on the city was the result of “a new gas bomb” that would cause the Japanese military to retaliate with gas attacks of their own, making relocation to the West Coast even more difficult. As a former resident of Imperial Valley predicted, If they are going to use poison gas Japan will lose. Probably Japan will make a few gas attacks first on the West Coast. That will make things worse for us.

Others immediately contacted appointed personnel to ascertain ways of finding out about the welfare of their family and friends in Hiroshima City. Some saw the handwriting on the wall—the bombing pointed to the coming defeat of Japan before the WRA camps closed. As David French told Project Director Duncan Mills, “Almost no evacuee believed, prior to the announcement of the first atomic bombing, that the war would end before the center closes.”52 More than the atomic bombing, the Soviet Union’s entry into the war against Japan sent tremors among internees that an unfavorable end to the war was imminent. Many internees realized that after the Red Army attacked the Imperial Japanese forces in Manchuria on August 8, the Japanese empire was quickly crumbling, leaving them with little hope for a negotiated peace treaty. “A spirit of sadness overcame much of the Issei population,” French observed, as “hopes of victory or a reasonably favorable peace settlement” severely diminished with the Soviet Union’s declaration of war on Japan. The only positive sign they saw in this downturn of events, as a Japan-educated U.S. citizen told French, was that it brought “a good chance” for Japan to reform its society.53 Japan’s unconditional surrender on August 14, 1945, psychologically paralyzed the internees and left them temporarily confused. Their initial reaction was disbelief that the Japanese government would accept such surrender terms, a fact noted by the August 19 radio broadcast to the Japanese in North America. “Very few Issei,” French noted, “have believed that Japan would surrender unconditionally,” and even many Nisei believed the Potsdam Declaration of unconditional surrender would be

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“relaxed.” When the terms were not, some U.S. citizens felt it necessary to act sad when they saw Issei sitting in the mess halls eating very little because they were in a state of shock. “While they adjusted to the possibility of surrender,” French commented, “it seemed incredible that the surrender would be unconditional.” Others struck out angrily, claiming Japan had not really surrendered or that the military might still carry on the fight. Another individual, from Los Angeles, expressed his disappointment strongly, saying, “What good is the emperor if Japan surrenders unconditionally? He ought to be beheaded.” Most internees feared that WRA officials would seize the opportunity to close the camp in fourteen days in accordance with the Work Corps agreement. “In response to these rumors and as a general reaction to the ending of the war,” French observed, “the rapid formulation of relocation plans began in many families.” Some thought the fighting might continue longer, but most expected the worst—deportation in retaliation for Japan’s initiation of war—even if they believed all American-born renunciants would receive special consideration from the Justice Department.54 Despite the negative predictions, the Japanese American postwar future turned into something less than expected. No Japanese American was invited as an observer to the peace negotiations as the All-Center Conference representatives had hoped. After Japan’s formal surrender on September 2, 1945, WRA officials did not close the camps within two weeks as many predicted but instead kept Topaz open until October 31, Manzanar and Poston Unit I until December 1, 1945, and Tule Lake Segregation Center until March 20, 1946. Government bureaucrats deported only 4,724 Japanese Americans, far less than the tens of thousands of Japanese citizens that some had predicted. Nor did Euro-Americans extract revenge upon them for the war set off by Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor. Admittedly, there were instances of Japanese Americans being harassed, shot at, and discriminated against in housing, employment, and services. Yet, they were surprised to find instead of constant persecution, a decline in the legal discrimination against them, a trend that culminated in the overturning of the Anti-Alien Land Law, the acquisition of the right to naturalization in 1952, and the end of their racially discriminatory status as “aliens ineligible for citizenship.” The former internees probably found it ironic that the Department of Justice assigned FBI agents to protect them against violence during their return to California, including one of their camp neighbors, Sumio Hirahara of Salinas Valley, in June 1945.55 Although their predictions about their postwar life outside proved incorrect, Japanese Americans were not completely wrong in believing that they had become “enemies of Japan.” Military officers used images of Japanese Americans for propaganda purposes. The Office of Strategic Service took the image of assimilated Japanese Americans for their propa-

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ganda campaign to break Japanese military and civilian morale. The service’s field officers Sergeant Ko¯ji Ariyoshi, formerly of Manzanar, and John Emmerson joined in 1944 the famed Dixie Mission to Yenan, China to observe Mao Zedong and the techniques of the Japanese People’s Education League in getting Japanese soldiers to surrender by sneaking up to their army barracks and shouting propaganda that the league found effective in inducing defections. They discovered how Japanese Americans could serve as examples of how Americans do not kill all Japanese; how articles from the Pacific Citizen could aid in the re-education of Japanese prisoners-of-war in China; and how photo exhibits on Japanese Americans in the United States and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team would help propagate the image of Japanese thriving under the American system. They also recommended use of Japanese American organizational names in radio broadcasts to Japan to enhance credibility. “We could use issei and nisei organizations. . . . We can profitably use statements made by these organizations, [to] publicize their activities and show graphically that the Japanese at home are not slaves or were not killed,” Ariyoshi claimed. Others thought that a Japanese American presence might lessen resistance to an anticipated American invasion of the main islands of Japan. Jun Modaye suggested that the Japanese People’s Emancipation League be a part of the landing force but also suggested the inclusion of Japanese Americans. A group of ten psychological warfare workers agreed with Modaye and recommended Japanese American participation to lower resistance.56 Others drew upon an understanding of Japanese American thinking or camp behavior-patterns, instead of using images held by the American public, to plan the occupation of Japan. While army intelligence tried to learn about Japanese viewpoints by interviewing at least seventeen American-born Japanese during the war to contribute to the compilation of a Who’s Who in Japan, a necessary tool for identifying potential postwar leaders, the Foreign Morale Analysis Division played a much larger role in the planning of the occupation, using lessons learned from the camp experience to help set the course. Led by Alexander Leighton, the division was formed in spring 1944 to determine the “national character” of the Japanese as a means for breaking military and civilian morale and induce surrender. By early 1945, they had ten analysts, two translators, and three secretaries, over a third of them coming from the Poston Bureau of Sociological Research, to conduct research and convey their findings and recommendations to the State Department, the Office of War Information, the War Department, the Office of Strategic Service, the navy, the army Military Intelligence Service, and a British liaison unit. Leighton and his staff found similarities among governing the Japanese at Gila River, Poston, the Pacific islands, and Japan, and recommended the WRA camps

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as places where military government officers could gain valuable personal experience. These camps, researcher George Lodge noted, provided ideas about food requisitioning, the viability of cooperative enterprises for rapid distribution of basic necessities, the prevention of the rise of a black market, and the encouragement of economic stability and “democratic influence” inherent in camp operations. Moreover, the planners of the occupation saw the community analysis section as essential to the occupation’s smooth governance and prevention of trouble. The value of community analysis is believed to have been well demonstrated in the WRA experience. There are repeated instances wherein the rise of unrest or organized resistance has been anticipated through the efforts of the analysts and preventive steps taken. There is unquestioned evidence, according to some administrators, that such a program has paid for itself many times over in helping to forestall the possibility of strikes and bloodshed. Of equal importance, however, have been the less spectacular contributions of day-to-day collaboration between administrators and a strange and sensitive population. Accordingly, it seems apparent that Military Government could profit from a similar program.57

In addition, the Analysis Division trained military government officers for the occupation with insights gained from the internment experience. Morris Opler taught from his experiences at Manzanar, as evident in his lecture on July 13, 1945, entitled, “Suggestions for Administration Growing Out of The War Relocation Authority Center Experiences.” The division undertook training military government officers in the East Coast, then shipped them to San Francisco for additional instruction before assigning them to Japan; as part of their training at the Civil Affairs Staging Area, the officers visited a Japanese internment camp in northern California. At Harvard University in July 1945, and at other academic institutions, the division trainers used “reports on War Relocation Center experiences,” particularly those on Japanese psychology, internal administration, and food riots in Manzanar, to provide the cadets with “a new perspective” on how best to govern the Japanese.58 The Joint Chiefs of Staff also found the internment experience applicable for their execution of the land reform program in Japan. At the Civil Affairs Staging Area in Monterey, California, staff officers led by Colonel William Hartman, formerly of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, drew up “JCS 1380/15,” a directive for implementing land redistribution to “make a Capitalist out of every Japanese farmer.” They considered the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee plan, which included ideas by Japanese agronomist Hiroshi Nasu and by Wolf Ladejinsky, but quickly encountered lukewarm support at best from Japanese government officials and an outright rejection of their proposal for a ban on absentee

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landlordism, twelve-acre limit for landlords, with permissible payments in rice for the distributed farmland by Japan’s Agriculture and Forestry Ministry and the landowners. George McColm, Chief of Agriculture in the Joint Army-Navy Chief of Staff group, assured Hartman that the plan would succeed, based on his experience at Topaz as an associate agronomist from September 1942 to August 1944. McColm told Hartman that the way to overcome landowner opposition was to organize committees in which landowners were the numerical minority. The owners would then, McColm confidently declared, eventually buckle under the consensus for land reform, a trick he learned from dealing with Topaz Japanese farmers initially resistant to his methods of increasing crop yields. By May 1945, he drafted a land reform plan that incorporated his Topaz experience. “I was very confident that land reform would be successful in Japan,” McColm later recalled, “because of my work experience with native-born Japanese farmers at the War Relocation Center in Utah.” Three months later, McColm’s plan, or a similar one drafted by an unknown individual, was hand-delivered to Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, before his arrival in Tokyo, and it sat in a vault until Robert Fearey pulled it out and gave it to Wolf Ladejinsky and others to modify and implement. His plan became a “spectacular” achievement of the American occupation, as one expert noted, turning farmers into supporters of the central government and disproving the claim that interned Japanese Americans had become “enemies of Japan.”59

7 THE LONG SHADOW OF INTERNMENT

T

HE MASS removal and internment of West Coast Japanese Americans from 1942 to 1945 cast a long shadow over a wide range of people and geographic expanse. Not only were people living as far away as Japan affected by the experience, but the camps’ governors, the governed, and local residents living within the vicinity were also impacted. How different governors were marked by it varied considerably, some powerfully while others seemingly unaffected. The governed were adversely affected, materially for the most part, but also politically and culturally. And finally, those residing within the immediate vicinity of the camps, too, were often hurt by water and land development issues tied to the sites, though some individuals profited from the experience. The Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) illustrate how local residents were often hurt by internment. Although they acquired eleven new wells, a fourteen-mile main canal, several lateral canals, adobe and wooden buildings, and three thousand acres of cultivated land, CRIT was also charged for buildings, materials, and land improvements that the tribes were supposed to inherit without fees and they received little of the income due them from the land rental hammered out between the Department of the Interior and the WRA. Rather, they watched helplessly as the WRA deducted fifty-six thousand dollars off their modest seventy-five thousand dollars rental bill for land improvements and saw the same agency sell off the $12 million assets to others. Worse, the development plans for the Southern Reserve sputtered after the wartime colonization program failed. Although the CRIT had nearly a hundred “colonists” farming 2,213 acres by 1950, they had to accelerate land development and water usage by contracting S. W. Barton to lease more than sixty thousand acres over a six-year period. But their plans went awry when Barton’s bank loan didn’t materialize, and other developers were scared off because the U.S. Supreme Court took up in 1956 the Arizona v. California case involving the CRIT’s water rights to the Colorado River. Two years later, only forty-four colonists remained, the water rights and land development issues that brought them to Poston stayed unresolved, and the desert never blossomed as originally envisioned.1 Likewise, eastern Millard County residents did not profit from Topaz. Officials of other federal government agencies, the State of Utah, and private individuals all took advantage of the sale of Topaz’s $3.3 million assets, purchasing staff and “evacuee” barracks assessed equally at about

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two hundred dollars each. Others in neighboring counties purchased portions of the nearly twenty-one thousand feet of barbed wire fences assessed in “fair condition” after only three years of use. Delta farmers lost their bid for the camp’s entire water system equipment to the town of Farmington, New Mexico, which purchased it at a forty percent discount. They could not even buy the seven electrical generators because these were donated to Utah State College in Logan, which refused to cooperate with the WRA in relocating Japanese American students. Worse, the farmers discovered that the WRA transferred nearly twenty thousand shares of stocks purchased from the Abraham, Delta, and Deseret companies to the Department of the Interior rather than sell it, along with the land, to them. They feared, not without reason, that federal government officials intended to use the stocks for speculation rather than sell the stocks with the land to locals, severing the tie between land and water rights in a state with the least amount of water resources.2 But in Owens Valley some locals profited from internment. Business operators, particularly those with lumberyards, hardware, and grocery stores, made large profits from the steady clientele from Manzanar during the war years, when regional tourism declined due to gasoline rationing. Other businessmen took advantage of building sales and moveable assets after the war, often paying as little as 12 percent of the assessed value, as they did on the “evacuee barracks.” Many knowingly took advantage of War Assets Administration officials’ self-imposed limitation on sales of all marketable assets in small units and deliberately underbid for the buildings so that the administration netted a mere $462,000 of the over $4 million in appraised value. They took many of the usable buildings such as the auditorium and the appointed personnel barracks, and forced the administration to demolish the remaining for sale as scrap materials by September 30, 1946. The degree to which they benefited and profited from Manzanar echoed in a local newspaper praising Ralph Merritt for redistributing its fire equipment, hospital supplies, housing, steam plant, plants and shrubbery, some of which were still in use decades after the war ended: As we wave goodbye to Manzanar Relocation Center, it’s well to know that Owens Valley and its citizens have benefited so handsomely in the overall picture. Mr. Merritt should take a bow.3

While some local residents used the internment’s shadow to their advantage, most former camp administrators simply moved out from under it. Many of them, especially those from the OIA, were seemingly unaffected by the event as they faded from the public eye. Former Manzanar project director Roy Nash, for example, left the WRA for the Bureau of Economic Warfare near the end of September 1942, and disappeared.

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Ex-Poston Project Attorney Theodore H. Haas continued encouraging minorities to relocate off the reservations and assimilate into mainstream American society, as evident in his 1949 speech to The Sixth National Congress of American Indians in Rapid City, South Dakota, as chief counsel for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. W. Wade Head, too, returned to the Indian Service, and continued upholding their economic rights as he shifted from working with the Papago Indians immediately after his tenure at Poston to other American Indians in Nespelem, Washington, to those in Oklahoma, to those in Phoenix, where he served as District Director of the Bureau.4 Former WRA officials, however, seemed more affected by their governing experiences than their OIA counterparts. Former Poston Assistant Project Director John Powell moved to the OWI but not before he changed his views of Japanese American loyalty, discarding his earlier, naı¨ve belief that Japanese Americans were all loyal to the United States and desired assimilation and relocation. “In relation to the war,” Powell admitted, “most of them are like rooters whose tickets placed them in the wrong bleachers. They are silent out of prudence and politeness, but like all old alumni their hearts respond to the sight of the old flag, the sound of the old music, and the belief in the invincibility of the old team.” His other WRA colleagues, however, were less reflective and more opportunistic as they used their experiences as stepping-stones for new career opportunities. Rather than return to his free-lance writing, former Topaz Reports Officer Russell Bankson left the WRA to take up writing manuals full-time for the United States Navy, a position he remained in until 1952. Ralph P. Merritt parlayed his WRA project directorship into a field directorship for the War Assets Administration. After he sold off the Manzanar buildings and materials from 1946 to 1949, Merritt was entrusted with the construction of Camp Haan, a military base further to the south, and then became general manager of the Metropolitan Transit Authority for the City of Los Angeles from 1952 to 1957, before serving as its executive from 1957 on. Former Topaz Project Director Charles Ernst joined the United Nations Rehabilitation and Relief Administration in 1946 to assist the United Nations in dealing with the immense problem of refugees worldwide as a result of World War II. Thereafter, he returned to Boston in 1952, to head up the South End House, where he initially began his career.5 But others took the governing skills learned in the camps and applied them to foreigners coming into the United States. A handful of these officials took charge in 1944 of the “Emergency Refugee Shelter” at Fort Ontario in Oswego, New York, for 982 Jewish refugees from eighteen different nations. Edward B. Marks, from the Community Management and Relocation Division, directed the camp while Spicer and others

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helped steer camp operations by using principles learned at Poston. “As I think back over the two weeks or so which you and Harold James spent steering the organization of the Council at Oswego,” Inez Mercer recalled, “I realize that you consciously and Harold, perhaps unconsciously, were following the techniques in Leighton’s book.”6 Some took the governing lessons to postwar Asia. Luther Hoffman, for example, joined the United Nations Rehabilitation and Relief Administration, an organization established in 1943 by President Franklin Roosevelt to aid “the victims of German and Japanese barbarism”—a move that Hoffman made after working unsuccessfully as the western states sales representative for his brother’s Hoffman Radio Corporation. He was in Changsha, China from January 1946 to March 1947 assisting refugees as the organization’s regional director, helping to furnish relief and rehabilitation to 28 million in the Hunan Province. Four years later, Hoffman headed for Asuncion, Paraguay, to assist in relocation of farmers from overcrowded lands. In the late 1950s, Hoffman and his WRA colleague E. R. Fryer were involved in projects backed by the United States government to help guide countries in the Middle East toward economic development—projects that required some form of relocation and resettlement. Hoffman worked as codirector with Fryer in the Egyptian-American Rural Improvement Service, a program designed to put up to ten million dollars in matching grants to the Egyptians’ $15.7 million for a “concentrated attack” on problems in rural life in two provinces by working “resettlement through education.” His success in applying WRA relocation skills abroad impressed the Foreign Service, who considered offering him a post in Tehran, Iran, to assist with rural economic development.7 Dillon Myer applied his camp knowledge at home and abroad. After the WRA, Myer did not return to the Department of Agriculture as he originally planned, nor did he accept the governorship of Puerto Rico, nor did he seize the opportunity to head up the Bureau of Indian Affairs, even though President Harry Truman had requested him. Instead, Myer headed up the Federal Public Housing Authority, where he believed he would face similar problems of securing housing outside the camps for Nisei soldiers and their families. As the former director said of his choice to direct the Housing Authority, “It happens to be the one that I would like to have—it has some of the same kind of challenges and the same kind of battles to fight that we had in WRA.” In late 1947, Myer left the Housing Authority to direct the Institute of Inter-American Affairs, a position in which his previous experience of crop planning with farmers, managing Japanese American “refugees,” and finding sanitary housing for those less economically fortunate could be applied to new challenges. Myer assisted rather than advised because, as he would later tell his audience, the aim was a “jointly planned, jointly financed, jointly directed,

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jointly administered, and jointly defended program.” When the former WRA director later took the top position of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, he was cognizant of the similarities and differences between it and his WRA work, admitting that the latter’s “pattern of administration and relocation” did not “fit exactly” the former.8 For the other governors, however, the camps’ impact on their careers was mixed, particularly for top military brass. General John DeWitt could not shake the shadow of internment. After the WDC, he became commandant of the Army and Navy Staff College in Washington in September 1943, then retired in 1947, but could not return to California two years later because public sentiment already ran against him, according to Lowell Pratt of Santa Barbara, California. “The wheel of fortune has certainly turned a full revolution,” DeWitt’s critic observed, “when the General now finds himself fearful of returning to California because of what might happen to his property.” Karl R. Bendetsen, however, saw his career blossom as a result of his role in the camps. The colonel became an important planner for the invasion of Normandy and chief liaison officer for General Omar Bradley in Europe because of his knowledge of train systems acquired from handling the Segregation Program. After working on demobilization from the European Theater of Operations in 1945, he joined the business world, taking advantage of the army style management’s popularity among businessmen before returning again to government service in 1948, assisting the Secretary of Defense in handling the Berlin Crisis and then, in 1950–52, serving as director general of United States Railroads.9 Yet past connections with the camps dogged former War Department personnel four decades after termination. Initially, former Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy had little to fear since he backed the first Japanese American reparations, calling the removal “most unfortunate, difficult and harsh” after observing it firsthand. He also offered his and his former boss Henry Stimson’s support for the 1948 redress bill. He lobbied the Cooper subcommittee on evacuation claims, in support of H.R. 3999, and lobbied the Senate, asserting that the “general picture” of internee cooperation and an impressive Nisei combat record made such legislation a “just obligation of the United States.” “It is so clear,” McCloy declared, “these people did suffer substantial property damage that the least we can do is make fair and reasonable provisions for the claims of these people.” Yet nearly four decades later, McCloy joined Karl Bendetsen in his testimony against the second reparations drive by fusing together “race,” “culture,” and “loyalty,” a stance generating considerable enmity. McCloy heatedly contended that the mass removal and internment was done “in the way of retribution for the attack that was made on Pearl Harbor.” Bendetsen, echoed a similar refrain, saying, “If a major attack

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had come and if there had been no evacuation, most Japanese residents along the Western Sea Frontier, whether U.S. or Japanese born, would have supported the invading forces, even though some would not have welcomed them.”10 Despite some War Department backsliding, Joint Chiefs of Staffs officers and others learned to separate “loyalty” and “culture” after the camps ended. As early as 1947, staff officers admitted that their search for fifth columnists and spies among Japanese Americans and other enemy aliens was misplaced. These officials had initially been alarmed by the example of German aliens and their offspring engaging in fifth columnist and espionage activities preceding the invasion and conquest of the European continent, but the officials later realized that members of established families rather than recent immigrants were more likely to engage in espionage in America. Captain Stanley Arnold of the Office of the Provost Marshal admitted soon after the war that their aim to drive a wedge between the Issei and Nisei was wrongheaded because they assumed “culture” determined “loyalty.” “What the policy makers did not know at the time and what was later conclusively proved,” Arnold sheepishly confessed, “is the fact that there was no corollary between citizenship and loyalty.”11 United States Congressmen, too, learned from the camps, as was reflected in their passage of the McCarran bill. Known as the Internal Security Act of 1950, they showed little reluctance in authorizing continued usage of the camps to concentrate the politically “disloyal.” Committee members of that august body inserted Title I requiring the Justice Department to register and keep tabs on all in the Communist party, bar such individuals from employment in defense industries. They also gave the U.S. Attorney General the power to “apprehend . . . and . . . detain each person as to whom there is reasonable ground to believe that such person probably will engage in, or probably will conspire with others to engage in, acts of espionage or sabotage” under Title II, also known as the Emergency Detention Act. Thus they permitted the U.S. Attorney General J. Howard McGrath to designate six potential campsites, one of which was Tule Lake, for incarceration use. Although President Truman vetoed it, saying, “In a free country, we punish men for the crimes they commit, but never for the opinions they have,” the Congress overrode him and made it the law. Yet Congress members demonstrated they learned something from the camps by deliberately removing presidential prerogative in mass internment and permitting only selective, individual internment powers to the attorney general. Moreover, they provided for a Detention Review Board, to which any detainee could immediately appeal and gain release. And most of all, Capitol Hill refused to continue its funding so that by 1957, Title II became a dead letter, ripe for repeal.12

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While security took on less importance for members of Congress, the same was not true for those involved in counterintelligence. In 1947, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, for example, saw vindication of his methods of domestic spying through informants and a card filing system and advocated their use over martial law and internment in the face of a possible threat by the Soviet Union. While not normally involved in such operations, the State Department, too, took on greater interest in domestic spying, as evident by their acquisition of the WRA individual internee case records after the Authority closed its office in 1946. They used the records in the Japanese Unit of their “Foreign Activity Correlation” Division created in 1947 to monitor activities of Japanese nationals nationwide. Headed by Elizabeth B. Smith, they also requested access to the extensive files on Japanese Americans generated by the FBI, the Office of Naval Intelligence, and the Research Bureau of the WDC. Seven years later, Smith secured the assistance of Paul Ishimoto, who translated a Rafu Shimpo¯ article listing members of the Washington, D.C., area Japanese American Association and the Hiroshima Prefectural Association.13 Domestic spying issues aside, most social scientists too, were seemingly unaffected by the camps. Former Topaz Community Analyst Weston LaBarre, a professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University, left no records, and Oscar Hoffman disappeared. Poston Community Analyst David French, lecturer in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, left no memoirs of his wartime experiences. Morris Opler, too, showed no visible signs of becoming affected by the camps as he moved from being a Manzanar Community Analyst to serving as Deputy Chief of the Foreign Morale Analysis Division in 1945 under Alexander Leighton. However, his contact with internees introduced him to Japanese culture, while the Division gave him his first exposure to the field of Asian studies; these two developments enhanced his career as he passed through faculty positions at Howard and Harvard universities before landing at Cornell University, where he directed the South Asia Program in 1948. He continued in that capacity until 1966 while serving as an editorial advisory board member for the Journal of Asian and African Studies. He was rumored to have privately encouraged the first redress movement.14 Others, however, left the camps with a heightened concern for civil rights. Edward Spicer, for example, always had some concern for minority rights as part of his Quaker heritage. However, he showed no interest in Japanese Americans prior to Poston, but afterward, felt compelled to serve in the WRA headquarters to further their cause through relocation. His zeal for Japanese Americans did not diminish after he became a professor in cultural anthropology at the University of Arizona. There he taught the Japanese American internment experience as part of his larger

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discussion of civil rights and minorities to his students, nearly all EuroAmericans, in his anthropology courses during the early 1960s.15 In addition, Spicer and Leighton made important contributions to applied anthropology, drawn from their camp experiences. Spicer founded the Society for Applied Anthropology, served as its vice-president in 1947, and continued enthusiastically to serve the organization; he was awarded the Bronislaw Malinowski Award in 1976. Spicer authored an anthology of essays in Applied Anthropology and placed two of his own essays on Poston Japanese Americans in the volume, showing that Japanese Americans provided an important textbook example of how methods developed in applied anthropology work with non-American Indians—a first for the field—and can assist in getting laborers to pick cotton or resettle in new albeit undesirable locations! Alexander Leighton further reshaped the field by demonstrating the value of studying the rulers as well as the ruled in The Governing of Men, something previously not done. His work caused applied anthropologists to look at the “assumptions, social organization, and behavior patterns of the administrative group,” and it also encouraged government officials to send anthropologists to Latin America under the auspices of the Institute of Inter-American Affairs.16 For Japanese Americans, however, the camp experience meant far more than contributions to an academic field. They were stripped of their farmland, businesses, jobs, material possessions, and wages and suffered excessive losses compared to American citizens in Asia, as Spanish Consular Captain Antonio Martin observed in 1943. “The American government failed miserably in this respect,” Martin solemnly noted, adding “due to the failure of the American Government to cope with the situation quick enough, the losses of the Japanese in this country were unnecessarily too high.” Japanese Americans received only some $37 million in compensation for their dispossession, though in the latter half of the 1940s, University of California professors conservatively estimated their income and property losses at $350 million and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco at $400 million. Four decades later, their losses were estimated at $1.2 to $3.1 billion (1983 dollars). Regardless of the exact figure, so many were impoverished by removal and internment that they wound up on the welfare rolls of various state and local governments after the war ended. Their losses included that of the wholesale produce market, since their vertical integration of it, and the service sector of the ethnic economy, was destroyed. Thousands of them swelled the welfare relief rolls, and in the Los Angeles County the number reached some four thousand in 1946, up from a paltry two dozen prior to the war. “Our things were all gone by the time we got back home,” Riichi Satow, former internee at Poston, testified. “Nothing was left . . . everything had been stolen.” Masao Hirata returned to Los Angeles from a DOJ camp in New Mexico

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and described the hardship he and his family faced in finding housing and living without their possessions: I experienced unspeakable hardships to support my family. . . . Unfortunately, the baggage we had sent didn’t arrive here for over a month. We had great difficulty without beds, cooking tools, and so on. We suffered a lot for that month. . . . How can I describe the hardships we experienced to begin living again after the war?17

The victims also learned to cut commercial and cultural ties to Japan. Prior to their removal and internment, their voluntary organizations had membership based on an allegedly common ethnic or national bond as their definitions of themselves shifted toward the merging of “race” with “culture” (including citizenship) and “loyalty” (for those who identified themselves as part of the Japanese empire) or toward detaching “race” from the two constructs to secure their position in America. After the camps, however, they dropped the label “Japanese” and prewar commercial organizations such as the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and the Japanese Association faded from the scene due to the disruption of binational trade and the loss of the ethnic economy. Protestant leadership also receded in political influence as the two major denominations, notably the Methodists and Presbyterians, brought an end to ethnic churches in favor of integration into Euro-American churches, which resulted in a huge drop in Japanese American membership from a high of about a quarter of their total ethnic population in 1942 to less than 6 percent two decades later. Only organizations linked by a common regional ancestry, such as prefectural associations, maintained substantial followings in the postwar period.18 Turning one’s back on all things “Japanese” was reflected in the Japanese Americans’ search for a political solution to their wartime losses. The JACL led this movement in its early stages without the help of the “progressives” and liberals of the camp period. They began with a wartime challenge of the constitutionality of the removal and internment, and lobbied for reparation payments after the war. After the decline of “Japanese” organizations, the JACL was the only political organization with a nation-wide system of chapters capable of lobbying on behalf of the American Japanese. Upon U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harlan Stone’s suggestion, Mike Masaoka and the league took charge as early as 1943 to raise funds to test in court the constitutionality of the army’s removal. After the war, Masaoka and the league pressed ahead by securing WRA officials’ promises to push “appropriate group legislation for compensation.” He enlisted Myer’s help since the former WRA director continued to support Japanese Americans in veterans’ housing projects; in 1948 Myer even lobbied University of California President Gordon Sproul to

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publish Morton Grodzins’s Americans Betrayed, over Dorothy Thomas’s objections. By 1948, Masaoka testified before the President’s Commission on Civil Rights on behalf of the House of Representatives’ bill number 2768 and lambasted the removal of Japanese Americans without evidence or trial, to places euphemistically called “relocation centers” for the mere crime of “being born Japanese.” Together with Myer, John McCloy, and others, Masaoka secured passage of the legislation on July 2, signed by President Harry Truman as the Evacuation Claims Act.19 The league joined “progressives” and liberals in securing a second reparations bill from the American government in 1988. The two groups spearheaded the campaign for the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, a culmination of a series of measures they undertook in the previous two decades prior to its passage. The league started the campaign to repeal Executive Order 9066, the original order for removal, and Title II, a 1952 act retaining camps such as Tule Lake Segregation Center on standby status. Together, they got both laws repealed in 1976 and 1971, respectively, but moved forward toward the goal of a second reparation payment by widening their base of political support through establishment of new ritualistic activities. For example, they conducted joint memorials at Poston with the CRIT and erected a monument to its internees in 1992. Through the Southland Asian American Organization, they initiated annual pilgrimages to Manzanar, beginning in the 1969 to clean the cemetery and dedicate the “Comfort Tower” memorial for the camp’s deceased, a sight those internees would not have welcomed since they, as a block manager testified then, found “no comfort or glory in dying here” and declared it “no place to have our remains buried.” They also reenacted the removal by holding annual “Day of Remembrance” meetings on February 19 throughout many cities on the West Coast in the late 1970s and 1980s to publicize the need for reparations. By the early 1980s, they had a number of their own on the research staff and one a member of the Commission for the Wartime Internment and Relocation of Civilians appointed by then-president Ronald Reagan to study the event and make recommendations to the U.S. Congress. When the commission presented its findings, the league summoned the necessary votes until the threat of impending suits, and the need to defuse tense U.S.-Japan relations moved a reluctant president to sign the bill into law.20 Both the league and the “progressives” made sure that the “Japanese” dimension of the wartime experience remained outside the public view. In 1984, the JACL pressured the United Television (UTB) television station, a Japanese-language television station in Los Angeles, California, to “delay indefinitely” the broadcast of the Nihon Ho¯so¯ Kyo¯kai (NHK) television series, Sanga Moyu (“Burning Rivers and Mountains”), scheduled for the first week of April. They halted the broadcasting of this series even though

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the title metaphorically conveyed, and the series’ content made clear, that Japanese Americans had no home country other than the United States. They feared that the presence of a single “disloyal” U.S. citizen in a Japanese military uniform in the television version and the novel, Toyoko Yamazaki’s Futatsu no Sokoku (“Two Ancestral Lands”) (Tokyo: Shincho¯, 1983) might adversely affect the pursuit of redress. In addition, the league and their progressive allies shunned public recognition of the reparations that the central government of Japan made in the quarter century after the end of the war. Although they knew that many turned to the Japanese government for relief along with the three million overseas Japanese returning after the empire collapsed, they ignored the achievement of those repatriates and expatriates who pressed Japanese politicians, bureaucrats, educators, and large corporation board members into compensation of all its citizens who returned from abroad. Hence, the league and the progressives said nothing about the Japanese Diet authorizing in 1957 payment to nearly three-quarters of a million who returned from former Japanese colonies and enemy countries, including those from the United States, of a total of ¥50 billion ($140 million) or about 4 percent of the government’s annual budget. And they remained silent about the two additional compensation payments of ¥50 billion in 1962 and another ¥192.5 billion five years later.21 Instead, these leaders placed a particular spin on the event that was fraught with problems. In the first place, they appropriated the analogy of the Holocaust but failed to overcome the attendant problems. In their rush to overturn “military necessity” in the public mind, they narrowed the cause of removal and internment to “race” comparable to the antiSemitism they believed created the Nazi death camps, a view that in recent years has not held up to close scrutiny. Moreover, in their rapid dismissal of security issues, real or imagined, as a mere fig leaf for racism, they left themselves vulnerable to new questions raised by the declassification of security agency documents decades later. By drawing too close a parallel with the Holocaust, they also fell into the trap of ignoring other victims of a similar plight, as had many in the Holocaust studies, and thus overlooked German and Italian aliens’ removal and internment without reparations. Moreover, they situated the story of removal and internment almost exclusively within a domestic context, narrowing Japanese American responses to their victimization largely in terms of accommodation or resistance, thereby demonstrating a lack of sophistication in grasping the global dimensions of the event, something the governors and the governed both understood.22 While they contributed to the deglobalizing of the internment story, Japanese American social scientists, nevertheless, carried forward some of those lessons to remote and far away locations. A few, such as Tom

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Sasaki borrowed Alexander Leighton’s “people-minded administrators” concept used in The Governing of Men to analyze Indian Affairs administrators on the Navaho reservation in Toadlena, New Mexico, where he taught in a community school for the Indian Service in 1943. He applied the concept again in Fruitland, New Mexico, where he did field work from 1948 to 1956 for his doctoral dissertation at Cornell University. George Yamaguchi used his Bureau of Sociological Research experience in analyzing “disorganized” communities in the Philippines. Others, such as Iwao Ishino, Yoshiharu Scott Matsumoto, and Tamie Tsuchiyama, followed Leighton through the Foreign Morale Analysis Division to Japan. Matsumoto joined the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey team and stayed in Japan before taking up a college professorship at the University of Hawaii. Ishino joined the U.S. Army and remained in Japan from 1946 to 1947, became a research analyst from 1949 to 1951, and after completing his doctorate at Harvard University in 1954, landed a position as a professor of anthropology at Michigan State University, where he continued to publish on Japanese villages and social problems, co-authoring with John W. Bennett, Paternalism in the Japanese Economy (1963). In December 1947 Tamie Tsuchiyama also went to Japan, where she joined former Bureau of Sociological Research assistant Iwao Ishino in the Public Opinion and Sociological Research Division. She left the following year to conduct a research project by the National Resources Section of the Government Division in the headquarters building in Tokyo of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers. As we shall see in the next section, only Toshio Yatsushiro took a different path, one demonstrating the long shadow of internment, which extended beyond Japan to the jungles of northeast Thailand, and reached from the immediate postwar years into the early 1960s.23

EPILOGUE TOWARD HUMAN RIGHTS

T

HERE IS absolutely nothing in all that Mr. X said . . . that reveals he is a confirmed communist,” Toshio Yatsushiro, a United States Operations Missions researcher, reported on October 28, 1966, after his interview with a twenty-six-year-old prisoner labeled a “communist terrorist” in northeast Thailand. “Indeed he does not even understand the communist doctrine,” Yatsushiro concluded. The researcher added, “At worst he must be judged as being a misguided individual and nothing more.” Instead of recommending internment, Yatsushiro declared the cadre’s commitment to the communist movement shallow and his Phu Thai ethnic minority group politically loyal to the Thai government although “socially and culturally they display a certain degree of affinity for their ‘cousins’ living on the other side of the Mekong River.” Nevertheless, he studied the “human response to conditions” that caused this individual to join the communist ranks, by peering into the “terrorist’s” mind, searching for the “underlying belief system” to make rational his seemingly “illogical behavior” of joining the communist insurgency movement, a lesson Yatsushiro credited to his work at Poston, Arizona.1 After concluding the interview with the young rebel and other prisoners, Yatsushiro recommended that the Thai central government officials change their policy of dealing with communist insurgency. When Yatsushiro first arrived in Thailand, he witnessed these officials pushing economic policies to stimulate high growth but at the expense of rural regions such as the northeast, where those living below the Thai poverty line made up nearly half the population despite low tenancy rates. Moreover, Yatsushiro saw central government officials practice discrimination against the Isan, or northeasterners, who were culturally and economically tied to Laotians living in the communist Pathet Lao-controlled region across the Mekong River. Worse, the Nisei anthropologist witnessed his own U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) spending roughly threequarters of its resources on counterinsurgency measures in a country where by 1968 the national army was already backed with nearly fifty thousand U.S. soldiers and air bomber bases. To counter this, Yatsushiro set up a study of five villages near the Laos border and examined them for three-and-a-half years, beginning in the latter half of 1963 under the U.S. Operations Mission and the Department of Community Development in the Thai Ministry of the Interior. After interviewing a third of all residents, he recommended greater economic assistance for these farmers

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even though they were minorities, and many of them identifying with the Lao culture to win their loyalty. “But it is of utmost importance that,” Yatsuhiro noted, “the official treat the villagers with respect and dignity and on a plane of equality, if [you] expect to gain the confidence and loyalty of the people.” Hence, they must, he insisted, grant the villagers “the largest possible measure of local self-determination” in areas of development and village security from “beginning to end.”2 Others, however, disputed Yatsushiro’s liberal approach. Some of his professional peers, including some from the University of California, Los Angeles, ignored Yatsushiro’s warning and joined USAID after a signed agreement in 1968 was reached for the social scientists to work on “development and counterinsurgency problems,” with the latter receiving the majority of attention. These social scientists expended considerable effort and financial resources surveying, organizing, and training local units of the Thai National Police force, and the Border Patrol, teaching them the counterinsurgency measures that the Thanom-Praphat regime sought. Even those involved in the decidedly less-funded economic and political “development” projects surveyed villagers to measure support for the communist movement in the region, intimidating the locals since responses to interview questions might be used to ferret out potential communist supporters. Worse, many field agents for the Central Intelligence Agency operated in the same Sakorn Nakorn region but called for draconian measures in dealing with the communists, conclusions they reached not from reading field reports by Yatsushiro. Albert Swing criticized Yatsushiro’s report on village organization and leadership in Thailand to the chief of the Research Division, arguing against the researcher’s call for “self-determination” and linking it with “village security.” Swing claimed that the Thai government and the U.S. Operations Mission would not consider this an option, revealing how far removed Yatsushiro was from his peers: [I]t is questionable whether they would acquiesce to the degree of self-determination which the paper implies as desirable. This could be construed as opting to join the Communists!3

Toshio Yatsushiro’s internment experience made him differ substantially from the Central Intelligence Agency operatives and many of his professional colleagues. In his call for self-determination, the Nisei anthropologist echoed recommendations in his earlier studies of Eskimos and Japanese Americans. As for the former, Yatsushiro found, after spending two summers in Alaska, that the Eskimos turned to “nativism” and experienced a “cultural revival” of traditional ways when under “stress” and lacked “self-determination.” While this turn to “nativism” was not inherently bad, the Hawaii-born Nisei believed that this “inward” movement was not necessary, especially once “self-government” was granted

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to the minority group—as was the case in Poston and Manzanar, the subject of his doctoral dissertation under former community analyst Morris Opler at Cornell University. Yatsushiro was sensitive to the issue of central governmental intrusion on the lives of minorities and wrote about it in part because his own life was drastically altered by the “evacuation.” For him, the forced removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast impacted him immensely not because he lost property, or suffered from his own family’s removal, but because coming from Hawaii, he was used to seeing upward economic mobility of Japanese Americans and Chinese Americans, only to find his normative expectations disrupted by removal and internment. The way to ameliorate the impact of central government intrusion was, as Yatsushiro probably reasoned, to have those same government officials grant the minority group a measure of “self-determination,” lest those same individuals resort to “nativism” and close themselves off to the mainstream society, whether in Japanese American concentration camps, Indian reservations in Alaska, or isolated villages in northeast Thailand.4 What Toshio Yatsushiro did not anticipate was his contribution in the direction of human rights. By clearly articulating his recommendations, the Nisei social scientist helped direct a quarter of a century later the long shadow of removal and internment in a positive direction, one in which the conflict in northeast Thailand was demilitarized and the farmers in northeast Thailand spared the horrors faced by their counterparts in Vietnam. His recommendations struck a responsive chord in Clement J. Zablocki, Wisconsin representative and chairperson of the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, at the Ninetieth Congress in 1967. Zablocki made sure that the recommendations were included in the official record of their hearings. Yatsushiro urged U.S. foreign policymakers to formulate a “nonmilitary program” to promote village security against the communist movement in Thailand. “The thinking concerning this problem,” the Hawaii-born Nisei concluded, “tends too easily to emphasize politico-military counter-measures, such as increasing the size of the police and military force, forming para-military defense units made up of local villagers, and even enlisting villagers for counter-espionage work.” Instead, Yatsushiro called for eliminating villagers’ “economic wants, ill-health, political instability (i.e., lawlessness), and all forms of discrimination and social injustice” in addition to granting “local self-determination,” “group cooperation,” “individual expression,” “pride in one’s community,” and “a lively sense of participation in, and consequent identification with, the affairs of the nation.” “The largest possible measure of local self-determination,” Yatsushiro believed, was the best way:

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The goals of village security can never be achieved in any meaningful sense until the village itself is organized politically in a manner that makes it a viable entity and an integral part of the nation. And in order to enlist the genuine loyalty of the people, the latter must be given the opportunity to gain a lively sense of identification with the Government and the nation at large. This can best be promoted by permitting the villagers to organize themselves politically so that their right and latent need relating to self-determination can be realized.5

Yatsushiro’s recommendation of implementing policies protecting human rights showed that he learned from social scientists, camp administrators, and fellow internees one of the few positive lessons from the wartime experience of democratizing the Japanese.

NOTES

PREFACE

1. Shirely Hune, “Rethinking Race: Paradigms and Policy Formation,” Amerasia Journal 21, nos. 1 and 2 (1995): 29–40. For a comparable study placing the majority of Mexican Americans in a category separate from accommodation and resistance, see David G. Gutie´rrez, “Migration, Emergent Ethnicity, and the ‘Third Space’: The Shifting Politics of Nationalism in Greater Mexico,” The Journal of American History 86, 2 (September 1999): 45, 67. For African American slaves, new studies show how they fit neither the paternalism model nor the exploited labor model. See Christopher Morris, “The Articulation of Two Worlds: The Master-Slave Relationship Reconsidered,” Journal of American History 85, no. 3 (December 1998): 982–1007. 2. Arnold Krammer, Undue Process: The Untold Story of America’s German Alien Internees (London: Rowman and Littlefield, Inc., 1997), ix; Howard Elcock, Political Leadership (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2001), 38–42; John Higham, ed., Ethnic Leadership in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 1, 2; Shuichi Nagata, “From Ethnic Bourgeoisie to Organic Intellectuals; Speculations on North American Native Leadership,” Anthropologica 29, no. 1 (1987): 62–63, 69–71. 3. Saul S. Friedman, ed., Holocaust Literature: A Handbook of Critical, Historical, and Literary Writings (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1993), 308; Adam Kuper and Jessica Kuper, eds., The Social Science Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 1996), 237–38; Hugo F. Reading, A Dictionary of the Social Sciences (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977), 118, 106; Duara Prasenjit, Culture, Power, and the State: Rural North China, 1900–1942 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), 4; Reading, A Dictionary of the Social Sciences, 158; Kuper and Kuper, eds., The Social Science Encyclopedia, 625–26; George P. Fletcher, Loyalty: An Essay on the Morality of Relationships (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 8, 48, 182. 4. Takeya Mizuno, “The Creation of the ‘Free’ Press in Japanese-American Camps: The War Relocation Authority’s Planning and Making of the Camp Newspaper Policy,” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 78, no. 3 (2001), 506–13; Lauren Kessler, “Fettered Freedoms: The Journalism of World War II Japanese Internment Camps,” Journalism History 15, no. 2 (summer/autumn 1988): 60–69; Richard Nishimoto, [Sociological Journal], 27 September [1943], Folder J 6.15j “Poston Chronicle,” reel #239, Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (hereafter cited as JAERR/UCB); D. S. Myer to Roy Nash, 16 September 1942, Folder 41.080 #2, Box 292, Central Files WRA HDS, Individual Reports, RG 210 Records of the WRA Headquarters Subject-Classified General Files (hereafter cited as WRAHSCGF), National Archives and Records Administration I, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as NARA I); Takeya Mizuno, “Self-Censorship by Coercion: The Federal Government and the California Japanese-language Newspapers from Pearl Harbor to Internment,” American Journalism 17, no. 3 (summer 2000), 31–

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NOTES TO INTRODUCTION

57. The same problem of censorship, to a lesser degree, appears in the African American press. See Patrick S. Washburn, A Question of Sedition: The Federal Government’s Investigation of the Black Press during World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 7–10, 207–8. For memory, see Robert E. McGlone, “Deciphering Memory: John Adams and the Authorship of the Declaration of Independence,” The Journal of American History 85, no. 2 (September 1998): 416–23, 412, 438. For an overview of the many oral history projects on the subject, see Arthur A. Hansen, “Oral History and the Japanese American Evacuation,” The Journal of American History 82, no. 2 (September 1995): 625–33. INTRODUCTION

1. John DeWitt, Final Report: Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast, 1942 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943), 34. For an overview of the causes behind the internment, see Gerald Stanley, “Justice Deferred: A FiftyYear Perspective on Japanese-Internment Historiography,” Southern California Quarterly 84, no. 2 (summer 1992): 181–206. Also useful are Hilary Conroy, with Sharlie Conroy Ushioda, “A Review of Scholarly Literature on the Internment of Japanese Americans during World War II: Toward a Quaker Perspective,” Quaker History: The Bulletin of Friends Historical Association 83, no. 1 (spring 1994): 48– 52; Raymond Okamura, “The Concentration Camp Experience from a Japanese American Perspective: A Bibliographical Essay and Review of Michi Weglyn’s Years of Infamy,” in Counterpoint: Perspective on Asian America, edited by Emma Gee et al. (Los Angeles: Asian American Studies Center, University of California, Los Angeles, 1976), 27–30; Esther B. Rhoads, “My Experience with the Wartime Relocation of Japanese, with a bibliographical essay by Howard H. Sugimoto,” in East Across the Pacific: Historical and Sociological Studies of Japanese Immigration and Assimilation, edited by Hilary Conroy and T. Scott Miyakawa (Santa Barbara: ABC Clio, 1972), 127–40; and Susan Maret, “The Desert Years: An Annotated Bibliography of Japanese-American Internment in Arizona and the United States during World War II,” Bulletin of Bibliography 53, no. 2 (June 1996): 71–108. 2. Morton Grodzins, Americans Betrayed: Politics and the Japanese Evacuation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949), 21, 54, 88, 161, 193; Jacobus tenBroek, Edward N. Barnhart, and Floyd W. Matson, Prejudice, War, and the Constitution: Causes and Consequences of the Evacuation of the Japanese Americans in World War II (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954), vi, 66–67, 207–8; Dorothy Swaine Thomas, The Salvage (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1952), 128; Dorothy S. Thomas and Richard Nishimoto, The Spoilage: Japanese-American Evacuation and Resettlement during World War II (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1946), 2, 363; Thomas, The Salvage, Preface; Alexander Leighton, The Governing of Men: General Principles and Recommendations Based on Experience at a Japanese Relocation Camp (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1945), 195. 3. Roger Daniels, Concentration Camps, USA: Japanese Americans and World War II (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1971), 36–38, 71–73; Richard Drinnon, Keeper of Concentration Camps: Dillon S. Myer and American Racism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), xxvii–xxviii, 268; Peter

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225

Irons, Justice at War: The Story of the Japanese American Internment Cases (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), ix, x. 4. Roger W. Axford, Too Long Been Silent: Japanese Americans Speak Out (Lincoln, Neb.: Media Publishing and Marketing, 1986); Daniels, Concentration Camps: USA; Roger Daniels, Concentration Camps: North America: Japanese in the United States and Canada During World War II (Malabar, Fl.: Robert E. Krieger, 1981); Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, ed., Inside an American Concentration Camp: Japanese American Resistance at Poston, Arizona (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995); Gary Y. Okihiro, “Japanese Resistance in America’s Concentration Camps: A Re-evaluation,” Amerasia Journal 3, no. 2 (1973): 32, no. 23, 25–26; Arthur A. Hansen and David A. Hacker, “The Manzanar Riot: An Ethnic Perspective,” Amerasia Journal 2, no. 2 (1974): 112–57. See also Arthur Hansen, “Cultural Politics in the Gila River Relocation Center, 1942–1943,” Arizona and the West 27 (1985): 327–62; Gary Y. Okihiro, “Tule Lake under Martial Law: A Study in Japanese Resistance,” Journal of Ethnic Studies 5, no. 3 (fall 1977): 71–85; Gary Y. Okihiro, “Religion and Resistance in America’s Concentration Camps,” Phylon 45 (1984): 220–33. 5. Michi Weglyn, Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps (New York: William Morrow, 1976; reprinted, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996), 54–66; Page Smith, Democracy on Trial: The Japanese American Evacuation and Relocation in World War II (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 87, 130, 447–48; David D. Lowman, Magic: The Untold Story of U.S. Intelligence and the Evacuation of Japanese Residents from the West Coast during World War II (Provo: Athena, 2001), 1, 4, 105; Patricia Roy et al., Mutual Hostages: Canadians and Japanese during the Second World War (Toronto: Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 54–55, 101. See John A. Hertzig, “Japanese Americans and MAGIC,” Amerasia Journal 11, no. 2 (1984): 47–65, for a good critique of Lowman, even though he wrote the essay before Magic was published. 6. David Cesarini, “An Alien Concept? The Continuity of Anti-Alienism in British Society before 1940,” and Lucio Sponza, “The British Government and the Internment of Italians,” The Internment of Aliens in Twentieth Century Britain, edited by David Cesarini and Tony Kushner (London: Frank Cass, 1993), 44–45, 126–27; Colin Holmes, “Enemy Aliens?” History Today 40 (September 1990); 25–31; Louise Burletson, “The State, Internment and Public Criticism in the Second World War,” 111–14, in Cesarini and Kushner, eds., The Internment of Aliens in Twentieth Century Britain; Cornelius P. Cotter, “Emergency Detention in Wartime: The British Experience,” Stanford Law Review 6 (March 1954): 244–56, 261, 263; Robert H. Keyserlingk, “Agents Within the Gates: The Search for Nazi Subversives in Canada During World War II,” Canadian Historical Review 66, no. 2 (1985): 211–38; N. F. Dreisziger, “7 December 1941: A Turning Point in Canadian Wartime Policy Toward Enemy Ethnic Groups?” Journal of Canadian Studies 32, no. 1 (1997): 93–111; Daniels, Concentration Camps: North America, 182–86; Kay Saunders and Helen Taylor, “The Enemy Within? The Process of Internment of Enemy Aliens in Queensland, 1939–45,” Australian Journal of Politics and History 34, no. 1 (1988): 16–27; Kay Saunders, “A Diffi-

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cult Reconciliation: Civil Liberties and Internment Policy in Australia during World War Two,” in Alien Justice: Wartime Internment in Australia and North America, edited by Kay Saunders and Roger Daniels (St. Lucia: University of Queensland, 2000), 116, 121; Martin R. Rupiah, “The History of the Establishment of Internment Camps and Refugee Settlements in Southern Rhodesia, 1938– 1952,” Zambesia: The Journal of the University of Zimbabwe 22, no. 2 (1995): 138–43; Lika C. Miyake, “Pawns of Prejudice: Japanese-Peruvian Internment during World War II” (senior essay, Political Science Department, Yale University, 1999), 8, 14; C. Harvey Gardiner, Pawns in a Triangle of Hate: The Peruvian Japanese and the United States (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981); Belgium, “General Conditions,” 13 December 1941, Folder Reports: 12/12–17/ 41, Box 147, Office of Strategic Services, Personal Secretary File, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y. (hereafter cited as FDRL/HP); United States of America, The Office of Censorship, Records no. LA 2238–42, in Folder 000.5 Subversive Activities, Box 1, Western Defense Command (hereafter cited as WDC), Wartime Civil Control Administration and Civil Affairs Division (hereafter cited as WDC/CAD), Central Correspondence, 1942–46, RG 338, NARA II; Shigeru Sugiyama, “Trilateral Relations between the United States, Mexico, and Japan and Shrimp Fisheries off the Mexican Northwest Coast in the late 1930s” (manuscript, 1999), 29; Jeffrey Lesser, “In Search of the Hyphen: Nikkei and the Struggle over Brazilian National Identity,” in New World, New Lives: Globalization and People of Japanese Descent in the Americas and from Latin America in Japan, edited by Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, Akemi Kikumura-Yano, James A. Hirabayashi (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), 46–47; James Lawrence Tigner, “Shindo¯ Remmei: Japanese Nationalism in Brazil,” Hispanic American Historical Review 41, no. 4 (November 1961): 515–32; Hidesuke Kimura, “Korean Minorities in Soviet Central Asia and Kazakhstan,” and Haruki Wada, “Koreans in the Soviet Far East, 1917–1937,” in Koreans in the Soviet Union, edited by Dae-Sook Suh (Honolulu: Center for Korean Studies University of Hawaii, 1987), 33, 30, 44–45, 50–51, 87–91. See also Michael Omi and Howard Winant 2d. ed., Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s (New York: Routledge, 1994), 55, 56, Jonathan F. Vance, Introduction to Encyclopedia of Prisoners of War and Internment, edited by Jonathan F. Vance (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2000), xi. 7. Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 4, 54–56, 74–76. For Holocaust studies, see Paul Miller, “Imagined Enemies, Real Victims: Bartov’s Transcendent Holocaust,” American Historical Review 103, no. 4 (October 1998): 1178–81; Vinay Lal, “Genocide, Barbaric Others, and the Violence of Categories: A Response to Omer Bartov,” American Historical Review 103, no. 4 (October 1998), 1187–1190; Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck, eds., The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 3–4. For greater discussion of how the Nazi Holocaust became exclusively a Jewish phenomenon, see Norman G. Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (London: Verso, 2000) and Tim Cole, Selling the Holocaust: From Auschwitz to Schindler. How History is Bought, Packaged, and Sold (New York: Routledge, 2000).

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227

8. The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982), 4–9, 148, 176–77; Leslie T. Hatamiya, Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and the Passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), 151–53, 192–94; Mitchell T. Maki, Harry H. L. Kitano, and S. Megan Berthold, Achieving the Impossible Dream: How Japanese Americans Obtained Redress (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 149–50. For new studies on Japanese Americans and political ties to Japan, see Eiichiro¯ Azuma, “At the Fringe of Two States: Race, Community, and History among Japanese Immigrants in the American West, 1885–1841” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles); Yuji Ichioka, “Japanese Immigrant Nationalism: The Issei and the Sino-Japanese War, 1937–1941,” California History 69, no. 3 (fall 1990): 260–75, and his “The Meaning of Loyalty: The Case of Kazumaro Buddy Uno,” Amerasia Journal 23, no. 3 (1997–98): 45–71; Teruko Imai Kumei, “‘Skeleton in the Closet’: The Japanese American Hokoku Seinendan and Their ‘Disloyal’ Activities at Tule Lake Segregation Center during World War II,” Japanese Journal of American Studies 7 (1996): 67–102; John J. Stephan, Hawaii under the Rising Sun: Japan’s Plan for Conquest after Pearl Harbor (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984); Brian Masaru Hayashi, ‘For the Sake of Our Japanese Brethren’: Assimilation, Nationalism, and Protestantism among the Japanese of Los Angeles, 1895–1942 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995); Bruce G. Trigger, The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660, vol. 1 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1976), 6. 9. Arnold Krammer, Undue Process: The Untold Story of America’s German Alien Internees (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997), ix; Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, “Re-Reading the Archives: Intersections of Ethnography, Biography, and Autobiography in Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement,” Peace and Change 23, no. 2 (April 1998): 178; Ruth Takahashi-Cates, “Comparative Administration and Management of Five War Relocation Authority Camps: America’s Incarceration of Persons of Japanese Descent during World War II,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1980), 226, 234, 45–46; Sandra C. Taylor, Jewel of the Desert: Japanese American Internment at Topaz (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. xvi–xviii; Franc¸ois Fonval, “Ethnocide and Acculturation,” in Minority Peoples in the Age of Nation-States, edited by Gerard Chaliand, translated by Tony Berrett (London: Pluto, 1989), 149; War Relocation Authority, The Evacuated People: A Quantitative Description (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946), 100, 102, 61–66; Weglyn, Years of Infamy, 176– 77. 10. Rogers M. Smith, “Beyond Tocqueville, Myrdal, and Hartz: The Multiple Traditions in America,” American Political Science Review 87, no. 3 (September 1993): 549–66; and Smith, “Beyond Tocqueville, Please!”American Political Science Review 89, no. 4 (December 1995), 987–95; P. Scott Corbett, Quiet Passages: The Exchange of Civilians between the United States and Japan during the Second World War (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1987), 83.

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PROLOGUE BEYOND CIVIL RIGHTS

1. A. C. Allison to W. Wade Head, 28 August 1942, Folder 1/2, Box 1, and The Arizona Republic, 28 January 1997, Folder FB Bio[graphy] Hea[d], Wad[e], no box designation, Wade Head Collection, FM MSS-117, Arizona Historical Foundation, Hayden Library, Arizona State University, Tempe (hereafter cited as WHCAHF/ASU); W. Wade Head, “Application for Federal Employment,” U.S. Civil Service Standard Form 57, November 1947, and W. Wade Head, “Passport State Department, United States of America,” 1932, copy courtesy of William Head, Jr., Gallup, N.M.; Stanley Karnow, In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines (New York: Random House, 1989), 206, 212–13; [Alexander Leighton], Summary of Social Relations Data, 2 August 1943, 1 and A. H. Leighton, Personality Study, 31 July 1943, 1–6, Folder 11–63, Box 30, (Restricted Access Materials), Japanese American Relocation Center Records #3830, Rare and Manuscript Collections, Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University, Ithaca (hereafter cited as JARCR/CU). 2. A. H. Leighton, Personality Study, 31 July 1943, 7, Folder 11–63, Box 30, (Restricted Access Materials), JARCR/CU; John Collier to Nell Findley, 21 April 1942, Folder 1/1: Correspondence Regarding Camp Administrative Organization, 1942–1943, and Head to Carl, 23 June 1942, Folder 1/2: Correspondence Regarding Camp Administrative Organization, 1942–1943, Box 1, WHCAHF/ ASU; Anon., “Federal Employment Record, 1932–1950,” ca. 1950, W. Wade Head Papers, copy courtesy of William Head, Jr., Gallup, N.M. 3. Grant Kohn Goodman, “Four Aspects of Philippine-Japanese Relations, 1930–1940,” (New Haven: Southeast Asia Studies, Yale University, 1967), 1–3, 39–40. 4. [Project “M”], Studies of Migration and Resettlement Report Series no. T67 Copy no. 1 of 40, 15 November 1944, Table II, Box 33 Field Report T-67, Field/Bowman Project M Papers, FDRL/HP. 5. Louis Morton, United States Army in World War II: The War in the Pacific: The Fall of the Philippines (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History United States Army, 1953), 61–62; D. Clayton James, The Years of MacArthur Vol. I: 1880–1941 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970), 472–75, 526–27, 535–36; Goodman, “Four Aspects of Philippine-Japanese Relations, 1930– 1940,” vii–vx, 20–28; Head to Carl, 23 June 1942, Folder 1/2: Correspondence Regarding Camp Administrative Organization, 1942–1943, Box 1, WHCAHF/ ASU; Wayne Kiyosaki, A Spy in Their Midst: The World War II Struggle of a Japanese-American Hero (Lanham, Md.: Madison Books, 1995), 53–55; Irons, Justice at War, 31; Elting E. Morison, Turmoil and Tradition: A Study of the Life and Times of Henry L. Stimson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960), 281, 283, 298. ONE GOVERNORS AND THEIR ADVISERS, 1918–1942

1. Phoenix Area Office (hereafter cited as PAO), Branch of Land Operations, A Program for the Utilization of the Colorado River Reservation, 15 November

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229

1940, 1–5, 8, Folder Colorado River Reservation, Box 75–94 0055, 2 of 3, RG 75, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (hereafter cited as BIA) (uncatalogued), PAO, [Indian] Irrigation [Service], National Archives and Records Administration, Pacific Region, Laguna Niguel, California (hereafter cited as NARA/ PRB); Ann Lansburgh Caylor, “Fed on Promises: The Indian and White Struggle for Reclamation on the Colorado River Indian Reservation” (Ph.D. diss., University of California Los Angeles, 1996), 14–23. 2. Commissioner to Miss Lource Sheffield, 13 August 1940, and Anon., Conference Regarding Colorado River Project Problems, ca. January 1940, 1–2, Folder 4.5.2.10 [2 of 2], Box 10, RG 75, U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, Phoenix Area Office, Irrigation Projects, 1935–1961 (hereafter cited as BIAPAOIP). G. W. Shute to C. H. Gensler, 12 June 1942; C. H. Gensler to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 26 December 1945; William Zimmerman, Jr., to C. H. Gensler, 17 September 1946, Folder (603) Colorado River Ind[ian]. Res[ervatio]n. Govt. Right to use Colo[rado]. R[iver]. Water under Colo. R. Compact 1931–1946, Box 75– 94 0055, 2 of 3, RG 75, BIA (uncatalogued), PAO, [Indian] Irrigation [Service], NARA/PRB; Glenn A. Phelps, “Mr. Gerry Goes to Arizona: Electoral Geography and Voting Rights in Navajo Country,” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 15, no. 2 (1991): 67; Caylor, “Fed on Promises,” 45. For a discussion on how the OIA favored the Prior Appropriations approach over the Reserved Rights approach, see Daniel McCool, Command of the Waters: Iron Triangles, Federal Water Development, and Indian Water (Berkeley: University of California, 1987), 112–19. 3. C. H. Gensler to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 23 August 1945 and C. H. Gensler to Mr. Beatty, 18 June 1945, Folder 4.5.2.10 [2 of 2], Box 10, RG 75, BIAPAOIP, NARA/PRB. 4. Norris Hundley, The Great Thirst: Californians and Water, 1770s–1990s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 163–65; John Walton, Western Times and Water Wars: State, Culture, and Rebellion in California (Berkeley: University of California, 1992), 214–15; Robert A. Sauder, The Lost Frontier: Water Diversion in the Growth and Destruction of Owens Valley Agriculture (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1994), 144–48; Garrett and Larson, Camp and Community, 22, 28. 5. Nancy Peterson Walter, “The Land Exchange Act of 1937: Creation of the Indian Reservations at Bishop, Big Pine, and Lone Pine, California, Through a Land Trade Between the United States of America and the City of Los Angeles,” (Ph.D. diss., anthropology, Union Graduate School, May 1986), 173, 212–17; Edward C. Johnson, Walker River Paiutes: A Tribal History (Schurz, Nev.: Walker River Paiute Tribe, 1975), 138. 6. Donald Worster, Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West (New York: Pantheon, 1985), 82; J. Howard Maughan, “Report on Rural Land Promotion Schemes in Utah,” October 1937, Folder Report on Rural Land Promotion Schemes in Utah, Box 4, Price River–State Agricultural Program to Meet Impacts of War, Utah State Representatives Miscellaneous Records, 1934–1942; Anon., “County Planning Inventory,” 1939, 1–3, Folder Millard County, Box 3, Land Utilization-Possible Development Projects, Utah State Representatives Miscellaneous Records, 1934–1942, RG 83 Records of the

230

NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE

Bureau of Agricultural Economics (hereafter cited as BAE), Utah State Office, National Archives and Records Administration, Rocky Mountain Branch, Denver, Colo. (hereafter cited as NARA/RMB). 7. [Kanosh Reservation, Paiute Agency], Water Supply Development (April 1936); A. L. Wathen to C.A. Engle, 3 April 1937, Folder 9213 - Kanosh Reservation 1935–1936–1937, Box 74, RG 75 BIAPAO, NARA/PRB; Anon., “County Planning Inventory,” 1939, 1–3, Folder Millard County, Box 3, Land UtilizationPossible Development Projects, Utah State Representatives Miscellaneous Records, 1934–1942, RG 83 Records of the BAE, Utah State Office; United States Department of the Interior, Memorandum for the Press, 9 March 1939, Folder 302.47 Utah Surveys and Investigations. Jan. 1938 Thr[o]u[gh] July 1940, Box 610, General Administrative and Project Records, 1919–1945, General Files, 1930–1945; Bureau of Reclamation (hereafter cited as BOR), Report on Emery County Project Investigations, Utah (Project Investigations Report No. 58, March 1941), 78, Folder 302.47 Utah Surveys and Investigations August 1940 through March 1941, Box 611: BOR General Correspondence File, 1930–1945 302.47; John C. Page to Edgar B. Brossard, 19 December 1941, Folder 302.47 Utah Surveys and Investigations April 1941 through December 1941, Box 611: BOR General Correspondence File, 1930–1945 302.47; [G.E. Demary] to John C. Page, 19 January 1942, Folder 302.47 Utah Surveys and Investigations January 1942 Thru July 1942, Box 611: BOR General Correspondence File, 1930–1945 302.47; F.M. Lyman, Jr., to Abe Murdock, 12 February 1938, Folder 302.47 Utah Surveys and Investigations. Jan.1938 Thru July 1940, Box 610 General Administrative and Project Records, 1919–1945, General Files, 1930–1945, RG 115 Records of the BOR, NARA/RMB. 8. Elazar Barkan, The Retreat of Scientific Racism: Changing Concepts of Race in Britain and the United States between the World Wars (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 4, 78–79, 279, 119, 127, 91–93; Peggy Pascoe, “Miscegenation Law, Court Cases, and Ideologies of ‘Race’ in Twentieth-Century America,” Journal of American History 83, no. 1 (June 1996): 52–55, 47–48; Matthew Frye Jacobsen, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 98–109; Julia E. Liss, “Diasporic Identities: The Science and Politics of Race in the Work of Franz Boas and W.E.B. Du Bois, 1894–1919,” Cultural Anthropology 13, no. 2 (May 1998): 127–29, 141; Vernon J. Williams, Jr., Rethinking Race: Franz Boas and His Contemporaries (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1996), 6, 10, 17. 9. Council for Democracy, Write Now, n.d., Bulletin no. 10, Folder 112.8 Council for Democracy, Box 112, Box 112; M. E. Opler to Mrs. Benedict, 3 February 1933 and Faye-Cooper Cole to Dr. Ruth Benedict, 5 July 1933, Folder 32.12 Opler, Morris Edward 1936–1940, Box 32 Correspondence to RFB, Ruth Fulton Benedict Papers, Library Annex, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; Judith Schachter Modell, Ruth Benedict: Patterns of a Life (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983), 179; George M. Foster, Applied Anthropology (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969), 203. 10. Contemporary Authors: New Revision Series, vol. 29, pp. 330–31; Modell, Ruth Benedict: Patterns of a Life, 179; Morris and Lu [Opler] to

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231

Rosamond B. Spicer-Sheward, 4 January 1987, Folder Starn, Orin, “Engineering Internment” and Rebuttals, Box 2, WRA, Edward H. Spicer and Rosamond B. Spicer Papers, Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson (hereafter cited as EHSRBSP/ASM). 11. Ewa Morawska, “The Sociology and Historiography of Immigration,” in Virginia Yans-McLaughlin, ed., Immigration Reconsidered: History, Sociology, and Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 189; Henry Yu, Thinking Orientals: Migration, Contact, and Exoticism in Modern America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 70, 102–4, 95; S. Frank Miyamoto, “Dorothy Swaine Thomas as Director of JERS: Some Personal Observations,” in Views From Within: The Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study, edited by Yuji Ichioka (Los Angeles: Resource Development and Publications, Asian American Studies Center, University of California, 1989), 36–38. 12. Everett V. Stonequist, The Marginal Man: A Study in Personality and Culture Conflict (New York: Russell and Russell, 1937; rev. eds. 1965, 1961), 3, 4, 67–69. 13. Harry A. Millis, The Japanese Problem in the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1915), 266–67; Edward K. Strong, Jr., and Reginald Bell, Vocational Attitudes of Second-Generation Japanese in the United States (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1933), 89–90, 112–13; Edward K. Strong, The Second-Generation Japanese Problem (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1934, reprinted New York: Arno Press, 1970) 1–3. 14. John Embree, Suye Mura: A Japanese Village (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939); Sandra C. Taylor, “The Ineffectual Voice: Japan Missionaries and American Foreign Policy, 1870–1941,” Pacific Historical Review 53, no. 1 (February 1984), 37–38. 15. E. A. Schwartz, “Red Atlantis Revisited: Community and Culture in the Writings of John Collier,” American Indian Quarterly 18, no. 4 (fall 1994): 507– 31; Theodore W. Taylor, The Bureau of Indian Affairs (Boulder: Westview, 1984), 34, 42; Lawrence C. Kelly, The Assault on Assimilation: John Collier and the Origins of Indian Policy Reform (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983), 148–50; Frederic E. Hoxie, A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880–1920 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1984), 242–44. 16. J[ohn] Collier, “The Indian—Past and Future Roles in National Defense,” radio interview #596, 24 October 1940, and #606: John Collier, “Indians in the War for Democracy,” 11 March 1942, Microfilm #103, reel 32, John Collier Papers, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. 17. Christine Nasse, ed., Contemporary Authors, vols. 3 21–24, 1st rev. (1977), 483. 18. Anon., “Notes on Mr. Collier’s Speech to the Teachers,” 11 November 1942, 2, Folder 13, Box 13, JARCR/CU. 19. Anon., “Psychological Personality Study,” Folder J 10.01, JAERR/UCB, reel #245. 20. James E. Officer, “Edward Holland Spicer, 1906–1983,” Biographical Memoirs, vol. 68 (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1995), 3–11, EHSRBSP/ASM.

232

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21. Yuji Ichioka, “JERS Revisited: Introduction,” in Views from Within: The Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study, edited by Yuji Ichioka (Los Angeles: Asian American Studies Center, University of California at Los Angeles, 1989), 4–8. and Miyamoto, “Dorothy Swaine Thomas as Director of JERS,” 36–42. 22. D[illon] S[.] M[yer], “Problems of Evacuee Resettlement in California,” 19 June 1945, speech delivered at Eagle Rock, Calif., Folder Director of the War Relocation Authority, Box 1; Dillon S. Myer, “Racism and Reason,” address at an interfaith meeting sponsored by the Pacific Coast Committee on American Principles and Fair Play, in Los Angeles, 2 October 1944, Folder D. S. Myer— WRA speeches (folder 2), Box 1; Verbatim Transcript, Press Conference, 14 May 1943, Room 822, Barr Bldg., Washington, D.C., 3–4:35 p.m. Reported by the Office for Emergency Management, Division of Central Administrative Services, Minutes and Reports Section,“ 15, Folder D.S. Myers—WRA Press Conf., May 14, 1943, Box 1, Papers of Dillon S. Myers, Harry S Truman Library, Independence, Mo. (hereafter cited as HSTL/IM). 23. Manzanar Free Press, English Section, 19 May 1942, Folder 3, Box 339, Japanese American Research Project, Special Collections, Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles (hereafter cited as JARP/UCLA); Charles Flint Kellogg, NAACP: A History of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967), 112–14, 192–93, 215, 249. 24. RBB, “Report of the Hoopa Indian Meeting Held at Hoopa Reservation, Jan. 14, 1935,” ca. 14 January 1935, Folder Lea, Hon. Clarence F. M.C., Box 2 Correspondence of Superintendent Nash, 1935–1940, California Sacramento Agency; Roy Nash to Claude C. Cornwall, 6 August 1935, Folder Chronological—August 1935 [no. 1], Roy Nash to Mrs. S. A. Sorahan, 21 August 1935, Folder Chronological—August, 1935 [no. 2], Box 14 Chronological, July 1935– October 1935, Letters Sent by Superintendent, 1923–45; Roy Nash to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 13 March 1939, Folder Letters to the Commissioner Jan. 1, 1939 to June 30, 1939, Box 6 Superintendent’s Letters to the Commissioner, 1924–1945, January 1, 1938 to June 30, 1940, Roy Nash to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 17 November 1937, Folder Letters to the Commissioner July 1, 1937 to December 31, 1937, Box 5, RG 75, BIA, National Archives and Records Administration, Pacific Sierra Branch, San Bruno, CA (hereafter cited as NARA/ PSB). 25. Centralia Chronicle, 1 November 1940, Folder 2–4: Clippings, Box 2; [Eva W. White] to C[harles] F[.] E[rnst], 7 July 1937, Folder 1–15: Correspondence, Incoming Wash. Children’s Home Sec-Wy; Minutes of Annual Meeting of the Ben Tidball Memorial Library Board,“ 7 February 1941, Folder 1–12: Correspondence, Incoming T, Box 1, Charles F. Ernst Papers, Manuscript and University Archives, Allen Library, University of Washington, Seattle (hereafter cited as CFEP/UW); Richard C. Berner, Seattle in the 20th Century: From Boom to Bust, vol. 2 (Seattle: Charles Press, 1992), 309, 318; Bruce D. Blumell, The Development of Public Assistance in the State of Washington during the Great Depression (New York: Garland, 1984), 76–77; Taylor, Jewel of the Desert, 100.

NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE

233

26. [Charles Ernst],“The Price of Progress,” n.d.; Charles F. Ernst, “We Demand . . .,” The Survey 73, no. 2 (Feb. 1937): 35–36; [Charles Ernst], “Notes on Mr. Ernst’s Talk at Staff Meeting of State Department of Public Welfare,” 3 September 1936, Folder 1–26 Speeches and Writings 1936, Box1; Folder 1–25: Speeches and Writing 1933–35, Box 1; [Charles Ernst], “The Job of the State Administrator,” State of Washington, Dept. of Social Security, Monograph no. 29, August 1938, Folder 1–29 Speeches and Writings 1938 (January–June), H. M. Cassidy to Charles F. Ernst, 30 May 1938, Folder 1–2: Correspondence, Incoming B, Box 1, CFEP/UW; Berner, Seattle 1921–1940, 2:304, 320, 370, 402; Bruce D. Blumell, The Development of Public Assistance in the State of Washington during the Great Depression, 223, 44, 52, 187, 421–23; Terry R. Willis, “Unemployed Citizens of Seattle, 1900–1933: Hulet Wells, Seattle Labor, and the Struggle for Economic Security,” (Ph.D. diss., Department of History, University of Washington, 1997), 255–59; Synopsis of Mr. Ernst’s Talk to “Land Use Group” 12 November 1940, Folder 1–33 Speeches and Writings 1940, Box 1; Charles F. Ernst, “Inter-Relationship of Community and Government Responsibility,” 20 November 1938, Folder 1–30 Speeches and Writings 1938 (July–December), Box 1, CFEP/UW. 27. [Dept. of the Interior Publication], July 1948, Folder News clippings & P.R. BLM, Box 1, Papers of Luther Hoffman, HSTL/IM; D. S. Myer to the Community Council and residents of the Central Utah Relocation Center, n.d., Luther Hoffman Correspondence from November 1944 to January 1945, Folder H 1.44, JAERR/UCB, reel #112. 28. Russell A. Bankson to New Editor, Christian Science Monitor [Boston], 7 May 1934; Russell A. Bankson to Lambert Wilson Associates, 19 April 1960; Russell A. Bankson to Mr. Lambert Wilson, 29 April 1960, Folder Outgoing Correspondence 1933–1966, Box 1, Russell Bankson Papers, AX 250 1–8p, Special Collections, Knight Library, University of Oregon, Eugene. 29. Russell A. Bankson, “Life Along Fading Frontiers: A Narrative of the Railroad Construction Days in the Great Northwest,” (January 1942), 111, Folder Life Along the Fading Frontiers Final Unabridged Version, Box 5; Russell A. Bankson, “Movie Fans in Every Country Admire Work of Nell Shipman,” Spokane Daily Chronicle, 31 January 1922, Folder Articles 1907–1952, Box 8; Russell A. Bankson, “Three Towns[:] What Will Happen to Marcus, Kettle Falls and Meyers Falls When the Columbia River Backs Up Behind the [Grand Coulee] Dam?—A Strange Triangle With a Fiction Story Plot” The Spokesman-Review, 11 December 1938, Folder Newspaper Articles 1907–39, Box 8; Russell A. Bankson [Spokane] to Robert C. Erisman [Editorial Director, Red Circle Magazine Inc., New York City], 10 July 1942, Folder Outgoing Correspondence 1933–1966, Box 1, Russell Bankson Papers, AX 250 1–8p, Special Collections, Knight Library, University of Oregon, Eugene. 30. Service Record Cards, 1945–1948, Folder Service Record Cards Manzanar/Lower Administrators-Manzanar, Box 918, RG 49 Bureau of Land Management/Subgroup: California, SF Regional Office Division of Land Planning, NARA/PSB); Arthur A. Hansen and David J. Bertagnoli, “An Interview with Anna T. Kelley,” 6 December 1973, in Japanese American World War II Evacuation Oral History Project, Part V: Guards and Townspeople, Volume 1, edited by

234

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Arthur A. Hansen and Nora M. Lesch (Munich: K.G. Saur, 1993), 31; R[osamund] B[.] S[picer], [Henry W. Smith], 16 September 1943; [Leighton], “Summary of Life Story,” n.d., 1–2; Paul L. Fickinger, Memorandum for Mrs. J. Atwood Maulding, 20 May 1943, Folder 12–2, Box 12, JARCR/CU; William C. Blanchard, “A Themal Analysis of Administration in a Cross-Cultural Situation: An Inquiry into the Relationship between Themes and Social Action,” (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1952), viii, 79–80, 118, 132–33; Leighton, The Governing of Men, 81–89. 31. Francis MacDonnell, Insidious Foes: The Axis Fifth Column and the American Home Front (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 31, 82–85, 15–16, 13–14. 32. Larry Hannant, “Inter-war Security Screening in Britain, the United States and Canada,” Intelligence and National Security 6, no. 4 (1991): 711; Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception: British Covert Operations in the United States, 1939–44 (Dulles, Virg.: Brassey’s, 1998), 15–17; MacDonnell, Insidious Foes, 179. 33. Hannant, “Inter-war Security Screening in Britain, the United States and Canada,” 717–21, 730; Lorraine M. Lees, “National Security and Ethnicity: Contrasting Views During World War II,” Diplomatic History 11, no. 2 (spring 1987): 118–25. 34. Leland V. Bell, In Hitler’s Shadow: The Anatomy of American Nazism (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat, 1973), 13, 15, 17, 77, 84; MacDonnell, Insidious Foes, 45, 51–52. 35. Gloria Ricci Lothrop, “A Shadow on the Land: The Impact of Fascism on Los Angeles Italians,” California History 75, no. 4 (winter 1996/1997): 340, 341, 346, 349–50; Stephen Fox, The Unknown Internment: An Oral History of the Relocation of Italian Americans during World War II (Boston: Twayne, 1990), 22–23, 28, 30, 33, 36. 36. Charles H. Harris III and Louis R. Sadler, The Border and the Revolution (Las Cruces, N.M.: Center for Latin American Studies / Joint Border Research Institute, New Mexico State University, 1988), chapter 1: “Termination with Extreme Prejudice: The United States Versus Pancho Villa,” 8–11, 13–15. 37. Hannant, “Inter-war Security Screening in Britain, the United States and Canada,” 711–35; Athan Theoharis and John Stuart Cox, The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), 7, 11, 154, 157, 179–86; Bob Kumamoto, “The Search for Spies: American Counterintelligence and the Japanese American Community, 1931– 1942,” Amerasia Journal 6, no. 2 (fall 1979): 61–67. 38. Donald H. Estes, “Asama Gunkan: The Reappraisal of a War Scare,” Journal of San Diego History vol. 24, no. 3 (summer 1978): 267–99; Lieutenant Commander C. H. Coggins, “Japanese Undercover Organization—14th Naval District, Folder Japanese Organizations-General; D. E. Cummings [Capt. USN, District Intel. Officer 13th Naval District], Japanese Monograph, 13 ND, Folder untitled, Box 1: Japanese Organizations and Intelligence in US, RG 38, Records of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Office of Naval Intelligence, Oriental Desk-Sabotage, Espionage & Counter Espionage Section (OP 16-B-7–0), 1936–46, NARA II; Chris Friday, Organizing Asian American Labor: The Pacific

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235

Coast Canned-Salmon Industry, 1870–1942 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), 159–61; Pedro A. Loureiro, ”Japanese Espionage and American Countermeasures in Pre–Pearl Harbor California,“ Journal of American-East Asian Relations 3, no. 3 (fall 1994): 200. 39. Ronald Lewin, The American Magic: Codes, Ciphers and the Defeat of Japan (New York: Penguin Books, 1983), 25–31; M[ilitary]. I[ntelligence]. S[ervice]. 25th Anniversary Reunion Committee, “Military Intelligence Service 25th Anniversary Reunion,” program pamphlet, 11 November 1966, 21, Folder 14, Box 297, Records of the Japanese American Citizens’ League, National Headquarters, JARP/UCLA. 40. Lt. Comdr. K. D. Ringle, “The Japanese Question in the United States[:] A Compilation of Memoranda,” 3–5, 13, 10, 29, 30, Folder Japanese in the United States; Corres & Rpts 1942, Box 5, Records of the Office of Facts and Figures, Alphabetical Subject File, 1939–1942, RG 208, Records of the Office of War Information (hereafter cited as OWI), Records of the Historian, Draft Historical Reports, 1941–1948, NARA II. 41. J. Edgar Hoover to Brigadier General Sherman Miles, 10 February 1941, Folder FBI-G2 Re: possible overlapping of work, Box 5, RG 107, Entry 99, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson (“Safe Files”), July 1940–September 1945, NARA II; Corbett, Quiet Passages, 29. 42. Kai Bird, The Chairman: John J. McCloy, The Making of the American Establishment, A Biography by Kai Bird (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 93–95; MacDonnell, Insidious Foes, 80. 43. [DeWitt?], [Autobiography of DeWitt], ca. 1937, Folder 201 DeWitt, J.L. (Off), Box 23 Central Correspondence, 1942–1946 201 J.L. DeWitt to W. H. Wilbur, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; Evelyn Peyton Gordon, “Gen. John DeWitt Comes from a Famous Family of American Fighting Men,” The Washington Daily News, 18 October 1943, Folder Justice Dept., 1940–45 De-Di Tom C. Clark, Box 2 Justice Department Correspondence Bu — Di, Papers of Tom Clark, HSTL/IM; Gary Y. Okihiro, Cane Fires: The Anti-Japanese Movement in Hawaii (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), 124; Irons, Justice at War, 25, 26. 44. Irons, Justice at War, 31; Who’s Who in America, vol. 1, 38th ed. (Chicago: Marquis Who’s Who Inc., 1974), 1974–75, 219; Jerry N. Hess, “Oral History Interview with Karl R. Bendetsen,” 1–7, 19–22, 31–39, (1975), HSTL/IM. 45. M.I.S. 25th Anniversary Reunion Committee, “Military Intelligence Service 25th Anniversary Reunion,” program pamphlet, 11 November 1966, Folder 14, Box 297, Records of the Japanese American Citizens’ League, National Headquarters, JARP/UCLA; Brigadier General John Weckerling, “Nisei Language Experts: Japanese Americans Play Vital Role in U.S. Intelligence Services in WWII,” in John Aiso and the M.I.S.: Japanese-American Soldiers in the Military Intelligence Service, World War II, edited by Tad Ichinokuchi and Daniel Aiso (Los Angeles: Military Intelligence Service Club of Southern California, 1988), 188– 89, 191. 46. E. F. Cross, to Commander K. D. Ringle, 27 May 1942, Subject: Factors making the Kibei a dangerous group, Folder D 2.01, JAERR/UCB, reel #019.

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47. Lees, “National Security and Ethnicity: Contrasting Views During World War II,” 114. 48. Irons, Justice at War, 14–15. 49. John Franklin Carter to Harry S Truman, 6 November 1945 and Addendum, “Brief Summary of the Principal Operations of This Unit (February 1941– November 1945), Folder Carter, John Franklin ”M“ Project W.H.C.F. Misc., Box 14, Intelligence Reports, Rose Conway File, Papers of Harry S Truman, HSTL/ IM; Henry Field, ”M“ Project for F.D.R.: Studies on Migration and Settlement (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Edwards Brothers, Inc., 1962), 1–2; Wayne Taylor to Henry Field, 22 November 1941; Henry Field, ”Japanese in the United States, 1941,“ 16 October 1963, 1–3, Folder Japanese in the United States, 1941, Box 44, Special Files, Memoranda [1941–1945], PSF, Field/Bowman Papers, FDRL/HP; Roger Daniels, ”The Bureau of the Census and the Relocation of Japanese Americans: A Note and Document,“ Amerasia Journal 9, no. 1 (1982): 101–5; Raymond Y. Okumura, ”The Myth of Census Confidentiality,“ Amerasia Journal 8, no. 2 (1981): 111–20. 50. Tony Hodges on Pearl Harbor, as cited in Los Angeles Times 6 February 1983, part 1, p. 15 and Pacific Citizen 18 February 1983, 1; Okihiro, Cane Fires, 258–60; Benjamin L. Alpers, “This Is the Army: Imagining a Democratic Military in World War II,” Journal of American History 85, no. 1 (June 1998): 161; John J. McCloy, “Diary,” 13 July 1942, Folder 79: III: 8 Sabotage, Box DY 4, John J. McCloy Papers, Special Collections, Robert A. Frost Library, Amherst College, Amherst, Mass. (hereafter cited as JJMP/AC); Daniels, Concentration Camps: North America Japanese in the United States and Canada During World War II, 72–73; Greg Robinson, By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), 43, 55–56. 51. Military Intelligence Division Evaluation Section, Monthly Case Recapitulation of Subversive Reports, January 1941, in Brig. Gen. Sherman Miles, Memorandum for the Chief of Staff, 11 February 1941, Folder FBI-G2 Re[:] possible over-lapping of work, Box 5, RG 107, Entry 99, Office of the Secretary of War, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson (“Safe Files”), July 1940–Sept. 1945, NARA II; Richard Deacon, Kempeitai: A History of the Japanese Secret Service (New York: Berkeley Books, 1983), 174–75. 52. MIS/WDGS, “The Japanese Intelligence System,” 4 September 1945, Folder untitled, Box 90, Studies on Cryptology, 1918–1977, RG 457 Records of the National Security Agency / Central Security Service, NARA II; Pedro A. Loueiro, “Japanese Espionage and American Countermeasures in Pre–Pearl Harbor California,” Journal of American-East Asian Relations 3, no. 3 (fall 1994): 198–203; and Loueiro, “The Imperial Japanese Navy and Espionage: The Itaru Tachibana Case,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 3, no. 1 (spring 1989): 105–21; Frank Knox to Rear Admiral Charles A. Blakely, ca. 27 June 1941, Folder Gems-Military, Coast Guard, Customs, Corps of Engineers, Formerly Classified Files, Commandant, San Diego, Box 125, cf. 64, NARA/PRB; [Kenji] Nakauchi to Tokyo Gaimudaijin, 9 May 1941, #067, as cited in Lowman, MAGIC, 147.

NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO

237

TWO THE GOVERNED: JAPANESE AMERICANS AND POLITICS, 1880–1942

1. Michael Weiner, “Discourses of Race, Nation[,] and Empire in Pre–1945 Japan,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 18, no. 3 (July 1995): 433–56; and his essay “ ‘Race,’ Ethnicity and the Ainu,” in Race, Resistance and the Ainu of Japan, edited by Richard Siddle (London: Routledge, 1996), 12–14. 2. Andrew Gordon, Labor and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 1–3, 7–10; Zaibei Nihonjinkai, Zaibei Nihonjinshi (Tokyo: Zaibei Nihonshi Iinkai, 1940), 627–31; Eiichiro¯ Azuma, “At the Fringe of Two Nation-States: Race, Community, and History Among Japanese Immigrants in the American West, 1885–1941” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2000), 15–18, 242–50; Karl G. Yoneda, Ganbatte: Sixty-Year Struggle of a Kibei Worker (Los Angeles: Asian American Studies Center, University of California, 1983), 90–91; K[iyonao] Okami to [R. E.] Hubbard, 7 May 1947; Okami to W. F. Chappell, 10 September 1947, Folder Communist Movements in U.S.-Document Re: Japanese Investigations; Okami to Walter F. Chappell, 19 May 1947; Okami to Hibbard, 19 May 1947; Okami to Hibbard 4 June 1947, Folder Memoranda exchanged between Mr. Chappell’s office and the chancery of the former Japanese Embassy–Folder 1 of 2, Box 84, RG 59 Records of the Special War Problems Division, State Department, NARA II. 3. Yu¯ji Ichioka, The Issei: The World of the First Generation Japanese Immigrants, 1885–1924 (New York: Free Press, 1988), 156–64; Hiroshi Yoneyama, “The Los Angeles Japanese Association and Japanese Nationalism,” (Association of Asian American Studies Conference, 1997), 1–3; Azuma, “At the Fringe of Two Nation-States,” 3–4, 18–23; Ichioka, The Issei, 204–6. 4. Alexander Yoshikazu Yamato, “Socioeconomic Change among Japanese Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area,” (Ph.D. diss., Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, 1986), 270–271. 5. Tadashi Fukutake, Japanese Rural Society, translated by R. P. Dore (London: Cornell University Press, 1972), 119–23, 132–33, 147, 158–59, 178; Hiroshima Ken, Hiroshima Kenshi Kindai Ichi (Hiroshima: Hiroshima Ken, 1980), ¯ wada, Hishi: Nihon no No¯chi Kaiku (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shim732–33; Keiki O bunsha, 1981), 33–37. ¯ wada, Hishi, 38–39. 6. Fukutake, Japanese Rural Society, 157–58; O 7. See Bruce Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual, and Classification (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 5–6, for a discussion of the usage of myth, ritual, and classification. Ichioka (The Issei) 21 indicates how newspapers were initially distributed to people of “like mind,” or “do¯ho¯.” See also his “Abiko Kyu¯taro¯,” in Beikoku Shoki no Nihongo Shimbun, edited by Norio Tamura and Shigehiko Shiramizu (Tokyo: Keiso¯ Shobo¯, 1986), 222–26 and Scott Kurashige, “Abiko, Yasuo (1910–1988),” in Japanese American History: An A-to-Z Reference from 1868 to the Present, edited by Bryan Niiya (New York: Facts on File, 1993), 97; Nichibei Shimbun 30 September 1912, JARP/UCLA. For the number of Japanese women and children, see Yamato Ichihashi, Japanese in the United States: A Critical Study of the Problems of the

238

NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO

Japanese Immigrants and Their Children (New York: Arno Press and The New York Times, 1969; originally published by Stanford University Press, 1932), 320. 8. Eriko Yamamoto, “Miya Sannomiya Kikuchi: A Pioneer Nisei Woman’s Life and Identity,” Amerasia Journal 23, no. 3 (winter 1997–98): 82; Shu¯rei Hirose, Yamanashi-ken Kaigai Iju¯shi (Ko¯fu: Tokyo Orinpikku Kyu¯do¯ Ho¯mon Kaigai Kenjin Kaigai Iinkai, 1965), 4; Ichihashi, Japanese in the United States, 319–20. 9. Seizo¯ Oka, “Biography of Kyu¯taro¯ Abiko (1, 3–17),” Hokubei Mainichi, 3 September 1980 to 29 October 1980. See also Ichioka, The Issei, 20–21, 59– 61, 174–75, 214–15, 217–18; Charles Tilly, “Transplanted Networks,” in Immigration Reconsidered: History, Sociology, and Politics, edited by Virginia YansMcLaughlin (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 88–92. 10. Hajime Tamaki, “Meiji Kenpo¯ Seitei no Kazoku,” Kazoku no Rekishi, 1 ¯ ishi, “Kinsei,” Kazoku no Rekishi, 1 (1973): 76– (1973): 230–46; Shinzaburo¯ O 96; Hiroshi Kashiwagi, Sho¯zo¯ no Naka no Kenryoku: Kindai Nihon no Gurafizumu wo Yomu (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1987), 154–60; Kunio Yanagida, “Ie Kandan,” Yanagida Kunio Zenshu¯, vol. 15 (Tokyo: Chikuma, 1998), 568–69. See also Yanagida, “Senzo no Hanashi,” Yanagida Kunio Zenshu¯, vol. 15 (Tokyo: Chikuma, 1998), 12–16, 24–30; Kunio Yanagida, ed., Japanese Manners and Customs in the Meiji Era, translated and adapted by Charles S. Terry (Tokyo: To¯yo¯ Bunko, 1957), 118; Akira Hayami, “The Myth of Primogeniture and Impartible Inheritance in Tokugawa Japan,” Journal of Family History 8, no. 1 (spring 1983): 9–13, 18–27; Eiichiro¯ Azuma, “Interethnic Conflict under Racial Subordination: Japanese Immigrants and Their Asian Neighbors in Walnut Grove, California, 1908–1941,” Amerasia Journal 20, no. 2 (1994): 39–43; Nichibei Shimbun, 1 January 1933, JARP/UCLA. 11. Robert Lee estimates Kibei in the continental United States at ten thousand, a figure matching the WRA’s count but which is probably too low. See his comments in Mary Kimoto Tomita, Dear Miye: Letters Home from Japan, 1939– 1946, edited by Robert Lee (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 18–19. For the Japanese Consulate estimates, see Teruko Kumei, “Senkyu¯hyakusanju¯nendai no Kibei Undo¯: Amerika Kokusekiho¯ tono Kankei ni Oite,” Iju¯ Kenkyu¯, 30 (March 1993): 152–53; Yu¯ji Ichioka, “Introduction,” in Yoneda, Ganbatte, xii. For a summary of the Command’s Research Branch study, see Research Branch, “Travel of Japanese to and from Japan, 1930–1941,” ca. 1944, Folder 291.2 Japanese, Statistical Studies (Travel), Box 31, RG 338, Records of the WDC, NARA II. See also WDC/CAD, Research Branch, “American Born Japanese Returning to U.S. through West Coast Ports by Age, and Duration of Absence: 1930 through 1941,” Folder Duration Absence 1930–1941 “With Whom Spent,” Box 31, RG 338, Records of the WDC, NARA II; WDC/CAD Research Branch, “Japanese Arrivals at West Coast Ports from Japan, by Port and Year: 1930 Through 1941,” 3 August 1944, Subfolder e: Japanese Arrivals, 1930 to 1941 West Coast Ports also at Ports of Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco, Folder 291.2 Japanese, Statistical Studies (Travel, Arrivals), Box 31, RG 338 WDC, NARA II, and ibid., WDC/CAD Statistical Section, “Japanese Arrivals at West Coast Ports in 1941 Compared to Average of Such Arrivals During Previous Five Years,” 17 June 1943, Subfolder e Tables: Comparison of Arrivals in 1941 to Average of the Previ-

NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO

239

ous 5 Years, Folder 291.2 Japanese, Statistical Studies (Travel, Arrivals), Box 31, RG 338, Records of the WDC, NARA II. The estimate used here is based on the total number of Nisei who never returned during 1937–1941. See WDC Research Branch, “Japanese departing from west coast ports for Japan who are not shown as subsequently returning from Japan through these ports: 1 July 1937–1941,” 30 June 1944, Folder 291.2 Japanese, Statistical Studies (Travel, departures), Box 31, RG 338 Records of the WDC, NARA II; Tsunegoro¯ Hirohata, Zaibei Fukuoka Kenjin to Jigyo¯ (Los Angeles: Zaibei Fukuoka-kenjin to Jigyo¯ Hensan Jimusho, 1936), 49; Toshio Morishige, Hiroshima-ken Taizai Bei-fu Shusseisha Meibo¯ (Hiroshima: Hiroshima-ken Kaigai Kyo¯kai, 1932), 337–38, Folder 6, Box 362, JARP/UCLA. 12. Yuji Ichioka, “Kengakudan: The Origin of Nisei Study Tours of Japan,” California History 73, no. 1 (spring 1994), 41–42; Eriko Yamamoto, “Miya Sannomiya Kikuchi: A Pioneer Nisei Woman’s Life and Identity,” Amerasia Journal 23, no. 3 (winter 1997–98): 80–81; Junichi Takeda, Zaibei Hiroshima Kenjinshi (Los Angeles: Zaibei Hiroshima Kenjinshi Hakko¯kai, 1929), 132; Nihon Beifu Kyo¯kai, Nihon Ryu¯gaku no Atarashiki Ho¯ho¯: Dai Nisei So¯sho Dai Kyu¯shu¯ (Tokyo: Runbini, 1938), 2; Nisei Survey Committee, Keisen Girls’ School, The Nisei: A Survey of Their Education, Vocational and Social Problems (Tokyo: Shuppan Insatsusha, 1939), 4–6, 14–15, 9, 23, no. 27, 37; John J. Stephan, “Hijacked by Utopia: American Nikkei in Manchuria,” Amerasia Journal 23, 3 (1997): 3; Anon., “Send Their Children Back to Japan,” n.d., Folder Duplicate Seattle documents Stanford Survey of Race Relations, Box 5, AX311 William Carlson Smith Papers, Special Collections, Knight Library, University of Oregon, Eugene. A similar pattern existed among Italian immigrants where the well-off Italians viewed themselves as permanent settlers and the working class embraced a diasporic notion. See Samuel L. Bailey, “The Adjustment of Italian Immigrants in Buenos Aires and New York, 1870–1914,” American Historical Review 88 (April 1983): 284–88; Herbert S. Klein, “The Integration of the Italian Immigrants into the United States and Argentina: A Comparative Analysis,” American Historical Review 88 (April 1983): 295–318. 13. Takeda, Zaibei Hiroshima Kenjinshi, 139; Kumei, “Senkyu¯hyakusanju¯nendai no Kibei Undo¯: Amerika Kokusekiho¯ tono Kanren ni oite,” 149–62; Hirohata, Zaibei Fukuoka Kenjin to Jigyo¯, 71; Azuma, “At the Fringe of Two States, 250. 14. Ikutaro¯ Aoyagi, Zaigai Ho¯jin Dai Nisei Mondai (Tokyo: Kyo¯eikai, 1940); Dai Isshu¯, 57–58, Box 369, JARP/UCLA. 15. Hirohata, Zaibei Fukuoka Kenjin to Jigyo¯, 69; Kumei, “Senkyu¯hyakusanju¯nendai no Kibei Undo¯: Amerika Kokusekiho¯ tono Kanren ni oite,” 149–62; Nihon Beifu Kyo¯kai, Nihon Ryu¯gaku no Atarashiki Ho¯ho¯: Dai Nisei So¯sho Dai Kyu¯shu¯ (Tokyo: Runbini, 1938), 54–55, Folder 2, Box 362, JARP/UCLA. 16. Kevin M. Doak, “What Is a Nation and Who Belongs? National Narratives and the Ethnic Imagination in Twentieth-Century Japan,” American Historical Review 102, no. 2 (April 1997): 294–99; Azuma, “At the Fringe of Two States,” 156–59, 164–70; Richard Siddle, Race, Resistance and the Ainu of Japan (London: Routledge, 1996), 13–14. While not comprehensive, I note here a small sample of newspaper editorials and articles that reflect the shift in terminology.

240

NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO

See Nichibei Shimbun, 19 January 1919, 4 July 1927, 2 January 1933; Nichibei Jiji, 29 October 1931, Folder Nichibei Jiji and Shu¯kan Nichibei, 6 July 1929, Folder Shukan Nichibei, and Chu¯o Jiho¯, January 1931, Folder Chuo Jiho, Box 351, JARP/UCLA. Those distant from the Japanese Association, such as the editors and reporters of the Shin Sekai mixed their terms, using both do¯ho¯ and ho¯jin. See Shin Sekai, 1 June 1936, 18 August 1938, 2 November 1939; 17 August 1940, Microfilm Reading Room, JARP/UCLA. Southern California vernaculars, too, were not as consistent in their usage of terminology. Some, such as Sei Fujii, former Los Angeles Japanese Association president followed the pattern laid down by his northern counterparts but his larger rival, the Rafu Shimpo¯ often used the term do¯ho¯, nihonjin (Japanese), or even ho¯jin. 17. Zaibei Nihonjinkai, Zaibei Nihonjinshi (San Francisco: Zaibei Nihonjinkai, 1940), 726–28; Yo¯ichi To¯ga, Nichibei Kankei Zaibeikoku Nihonjin Hatten Shiyo¯ (Oakland: Beikoku Seisho Kyo¯kai Nihonjinbu, 1927), 112. Between 1896 and 1919, the yen was worth approximately 49.5 cents. See William W. Lockwood, The Economic Development of Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954; expanded ed. 1968), 257; Nichibei Shimbun, 23 June 1927; Shin Sekai, 30 July 1937 reported that the association had collected 2.5 million yen. Since a dollar equaled 34.1 cents in 1936, the total amount came to $73,313.78. For conversion of yen to dollar, see Lockwood, The Economic Development of Japan, 257. 18. Zaibei Nihonjinkai, Zaibei Nihonjinshi, 1116; Kashu¯ Mainichi, 1 September 1938 and 28 November 1937, English-language sections; Azuma, “At the Fringe of Two States,” 173. 19. Rumi Yasutake, “Transnational Women’s Activism: The Women’s Christian Temperance Union in Japan and Beyond, 1858–1926” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1998), 222–23; Zaibei Nihonjinkai, Zaibei Nihonjinshi, 1114. 20. Gary Kawaguchi, “Race, Ethnicity, Resistance and Competition: An Historical Analysis of Cooperation in the California Flower Market” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1995), 1–7; Alexander Yoshikazu Yamato, “Socioeconomic Change among Japanese Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1986), 204–5; So¯ko¯ Bijutsu Zakkasho¯ Do¯meikai, So¯ko¯ Bijutsu Zakkasho¯ Do¯meikai Yo¯ran (San Francisco: So¯ko¯ Bijutsu Zakkasho¯ Do¯meikai, 1936), 33, 42, 44, 24, Box 279, JARP/UCLA; Yamato, “Socioeconomic Change,” 318; Description of “Loss and Gain” Retail Stores, n.d., Folder 1939 Nendo¯, Financial Statement Fairu [File] Box 4, RG 131 Office of Alien Property Records, NARA/PSB; Kashu¯ Kaki Ichiba Kabushiki Kaisha, Nankashu¯ Nihonjin Kaengyo¯ Hattenshi (San Francisco: Kashu¯ Kaki Ichiba Kabushiki Kaisha, 1929), 26, 39, 63, 169–73, 178–79; Kawaguchi, “Race, Ethnicity, Resistance and Competition,” 72, 75–76, 58–61. 21. Ichioka, The Issei, 157; John Modell, The Economics and Politics of Racial Accommodation: The Japanese of Los Angeles, 1900–1942 (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1977), 79–89; Azuma, “At the Fringe of Two States,” chap. 3, pp. 143–44; Kashu¯ Mainichi, 7 November 1931, 8 November 1931, English section; 8 January 1935 English Section, Microfilm Reading Room, JARP/UCLA; Katie Kaoru Hayashi, A History of “The Rafu Shimpo¯”: Japanese and Their Newspaper

NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO

241

in Los Angeles (Osaka, Japan: Union Press, 1997), 40–41; Rafu Shimpo¯, 1 January 1916; 2 October 1931; 18 August 1938, 7 August 1931, Microfilm Reading Room, JARP/UCLA; David K. Yoo, “‘Read All About It’: Race, Generation and the Japanese American Press, 1925–41,” Amerasia Journal 19, no. 1 (1993): 74 and his Growing Up Nisei: Race, Generation, and Culture among Japanese Americans of California, 1924–49 (Urbana: University of Illinois, 2000), 77. 22. Modell, The Economics and Politics of Racial Accommodation, 26–27; Yamato, “Socioeconomic Change among Japanese Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area,” 204–5; Kawaguchi, “Race, Ethnicity, Resistance and Competition,” 78–82. 23. Nanka Rengo¯ Sato¯ Daikon Ko¯sakusha Kumiai, Kiroku, Taisho¯ Rokunen (Los Angeles: Nanka Rengo¯ Sato¯ Daikon Ko¯sakusha Kumiai, 1917), 64, Box 272, JARP/UCLA; Modell, The Economics and Politics of Racial Accommodation, 82; Hiroshi Yoneyama, “Rafu Nihonjinkai Yakuin Senkyo to Zairosuanzerusu Nihonjin Shakai no Henyo¯: Senkyu¯hyakuju¯gonen kara Senkyu¯hyakuniju¯ichi” (Ritsumeikan University, 2000), 6–7, 9–12, 15. 24. Hiroshi Yoneyama, “The Los Angeles Japanese Association and Japanese Nationalism (Association of Asian American Studies Conference, 1997), 3–5; Eriko Yamamoto, ”Cheers for Japanese Athletes: The 1932 Los Angeles Olympics and the Japanese American Community,“ Pacific Historical Review 69, no. 3 (August 2000): 406–8; Hayashi, For the Sake of Our Japanese Brethren, 132–37; Azuma, ”At the Fringe of Two States,“ 269–70; Katie Kaoru Hayashi, A History of the “Rafu Shimpo¯”: Japanese and Their Newspaper in Los Angeles (Osaka, Japan: Union Press, 1997), 107; Modell, The Economics and Politics of Racial Accommodation, 176; Bill Hosokawa, JACL in Quest of Justice: The History of the Japanese American Citizens League (New York: William Morrow, 1982), 98– 99. The Central Japanese Association demonstrated only lukewarm enthusiasm for the collection drives, as reflected in their relatively meager donations. Many smaller, less well-endowed organizations gave as much if not more than the Central Japanese Association to the Long-Term Savings and Soldiers’ Relief Fund. See Research Branch, CAD, ”Long-Term Patriotic Contributions and Soldiers’ Relief Funds by Various Japanese Organizations through the Central Japanese Associations in the U.S. (from August 1937 to April 1940),” n.d., 1–6, Folder 080 Japanese Organizations Central Japanese Association OR-2, Box 1, RG 338 WDC/ CAD Central Corr., 1942–46, NARA II. 25. Hosokawa, JACL in Quest of Justice, 25; Nikkei Shimin, 15 October 1929, Folder “The Nikkei Shimin,” Box 351, JARP/UCLA; Zaibei Nihonjinkai, Zaibei Nihonjinshi, 1112, 1113; Pacific Citizen, October 1940, Folder Pacific Citizen, Box 351, JARP/UCLA; Roger Daniels, Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States since 1850 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988), 179–82. The total includes the “Kibei Shimin” group, the only one of its kind in Los Angeles. See Rafu Shimpo¯, Rafu Nenkan (Tokyo: Rafu Shimpo¯sha, 1939), 69–70; Yamato, “Socioeconomic Change Among Japanese Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area,” 207; Lon Yuki Kurashige, Japanese American Celebration and Conflict: A History of Ethnic Identity and Festival in Los Angeles, 1934– 1990 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 29–33. The calculations for the percentage of American-born Japanese college students are based on data from

242

NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO

table 15 in Paul R. Spickard, Japanese Americans: The Formation and Transformations of an Ethnic Group (New York: Twayne, 1996), 174. 26. Masakazu Iwata, Planted in Good Soil: The History of the Issei in United States Agriculture, vol. 2 (New York: Peter Lang, 1992), pp. 671–716; Eric Walz, “The Issei Community in Maricopa County: Development and Persistence in the Valley of the Sun, 1900–1940,” The Journal of Arizona History 38, 1 (spring 1997): 1–22; Hosokawa, JACL in Quest of Justice, 58–59, 10–12, 22, 126; Zaibei Nihonjinkai, Zaibei Nihonjinshi, 1114; Jere Takahashi, Nisei/Sansei: Shifting Japanese American Identities and Politics (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997), 56–58. 27. Nikkei Shimin, 15 October 1929, Folder, “The Nikkei Shimin” Box 351, JARP/UCLA; Walter G. Beach, Oriental Crimes in California (Stanford: Stanford University, 1932), 458, table 45; Kurashige, Japanese American Celebration and Conflict, 60–63. 28. Yu, Thinking Orientals, 102–4 for generational categories, and 109–110, 122–23 for the Marginal Man concept. See also Henry Yu, “The ‘Oriental Problem’ in America, 1920–1960: Linking Identities of Chinese American and Japanese American Intellectuals,” in Claiming America: Constructing Chinese American Identities during the Exclusion Era, edited by K. Scott Wong and Sucheng Chan (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 196–99. 29. War Relocation Authority, “Application for Leave Clearance,” ca. July 1942, Folder 71.113 Nishimoto, Richard Shigeaki, Box 4149, RG 210 WRA, Washington Office Records, Evacuee Case Files, NARA I; Richard Nishimoto to Dr. A. H. Leighton, 24 October 1942, 1–4, 15, 17 and Richard S. Nishimoto to Dr. A. H. Leighton, 1 November 1942, 2, 3, 23, Folder 12–55, Box 12 (Restricted Access Materials), JARCR/CU. 30. A.H. Leighton, “Intrv u w RNishimoto” 28 November 1942, 13, Folder **J 6.15G “Personalities (Life Histories),” JAERR/UCB; Lane Hirabayashi, ed., Inside an American Concentration Camp: Japanese American Resistance at Poston, Arizona (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995), xxix–xxxi; Richard Nishimoto, Sociological Journal, 17 September 1944 and 3 September 1944, Folder J 6.15a “Attitudes,” JAERR/UCB, reel #238. 31. Rosamond B. Spicer, Diary, entries for 3, 7, 8 October 1942, Folder untitled, RBS-Notebook/Diary 9/23–10/15/1942, Box 3 of 3, AP 90–116, EHSRBSP/ ASM, War Relocation Records, etc.; War Relocation Authority Application for Leave Clearance 1 March 1943, Folder 71.113 Tsuchiyama Tamie, Box 6322, Evacuee Case Files, RG 210 WRA Office Records, NARA I; Lane Ryo¯ Hirabayashi, The Politics of Fieldwork: Research in an American Concentration Camp (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1999), 4, 13–21. 32. Cho¯ei Kondo, Kondo Cho¯ei Iko¯shu¯ (Los Angeles: Shizuko Kondo, 1970), 19–22, 52, 46, 50, 8; Honko¯ Matsumoto, Nankashu¯ Jimbutsu Taikan: Nankashu¯ no Maki (Los Angeles: Sho¯wa Jiho¯sha, 1928), 345; Shiro¯ Fujioka, Ayumi no Ato (Los Angeles: Ayumi no Ato Kanko¯ Ko¯enkai, 1957), 269; Iwao Tomimoto, Mumei Hakusho (Tokyo: Kokusai Heiwa Sangyo¯kai, 1954), 278; Kurashige, Japanese American Celebration and Conflict, 91–92; Hayashi, A History of the “Rafu Shimpo¯”, 82–83; David Yoo, “Togo Tanaka,” entry in Bryan Niiya, ed., Japanese American History: An A-to-Z Reference from 1868 to the Present (New

NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO

243

York: Facts on File, 1993), 325–26; Togo Tanaka to Mr. L. F. Sloan, 26 July 1943, Folder Tanaka, Togo 1001–1002, Box Manzanar 6016; Paul G. Robertson to Togo Tanaka, 3 May 1945, Folder Tanaka, Togo Fam. no. 3885 Chicago, IL, Evacuee Case Files, Box Manzanar 6016, RG 210, Entry 22, WRA, Washington Office Records, NARA I. 33. “Robert Seido Hashima,” Folder Hashima, Seido R. 1062, Box 899, RG 210, Entry 22, WRA, Washington Office Records, Evacuee Case Files, NARA I; G.S. Kushida, 10 June 1942, Folder Restricted Personality Studies—BSR, Box 12– 16, JARCR/CU. 34. Takahashi, Nisei/Sansei, 68–72; Tamotsu Shibutani, “The Initial Impact of the War on the Japanese Communities in the San Francisco Bay Region,” (University of California Berkeley, Departments of Agricultural Economics, Psychology, Social Institutions, 17 May 1942), 123, Folder 8, Box 47, Edward N. Barnhart Papers, JARP/UCLA; Judy Yung, Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 228– 29, 241–43; H. Mark Lai, “A Historical Survey of the Chinese Left in America,” in Counterpoint: Perspectives on Asian America, edited by Emma Gee (Los Angeles: Asian American Studies Center, University of California), 70–71; Zheng Mei, “Chinese Americans in San Francisco and New York City during the AntiJapanese War, 1937–1945” (M.A. thesis, Asian American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, 1990), 34–41. 35. Ernest S. Iiyama to Carey McWilliams, 9 March 1942, Folder 6, Box 7, Correspondence, Notes, Articles and Speeches, Personal Statements, Miscellaneous, Court Documents, Carey McWilliams Japanese War Relocation Collection, Special Collections, Honnold Library, Claremont College, Claremont, Calif.; Takahashi, Nisei/Sansei, 72–73; The Japanese-American Committee for Democracy, News Letter, February 1943, vol. 2, no. 1, February 1944, Folder 5: Newsletter Japanese American Committee, Box 10, Carey McWilliams Japanese War Relocation Collection, Special Collections, Honnold Library, Claremont College, Claremont, Calif.; Folder 71.113, Iiyama, Ernest Satoshi, RG 210, Entry 22, WRA, Washington Office Records, Evacuee Case Files, Box 1412, Folder 71.113 Iiyama, Ernest Satoshi, Folder Iiyama. Chizuko, NARA I; Shibutani, “The Initial Impact of the War on the Japanese Communities in the San Francisco Bay Region,” 44, 47. 36. Yu¯ji Ichioka, “Early Issei Socialists and the Japanese Community,” in Gee, ed., Counterpoint, 47–53; Fred Notehelfer, Ko¯toku Shu¯sui: Portrait of a Japanese Radical (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 116–32; K[iyonao]. Okami to Mr. [R. E.] Hibbard, 7 May 1947, Folder Communist Movements in U.S. - Document re[:] Japanese investigations, Box 84, RG 59 Records of the Special War Problems Division, State Department, “Report on the Communist Movement in the USA,” ca. 1939, Folder Japanese Embassy, Box 154 General Records of the Department of State, Records of the Special War Problems Division Subject Files, 1939–54, RG 59 Records of the War Problems Division Subject Files, 1939–54, NARA II. 37. Ichioka, The Issei, 11; Ron Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (New York: Penguin, 1989), 45; Tsurutani Higashi, America-bound: The Japanese and the Opening of the American West (Tokyo:

244

NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO

The Japan Times, 1977), 112–13; Masao Suzuki, “Success Story? Japanese Immigrant Economic Achievement and Return Migration, 1920–1930,” Journal of Economic History 55, no. 4 (December 1995): 892, 894–96; Charles Tilly, “Transplanted Networks,” in Yans-McLaughlin, ed., Immigration Reconsidered, 88–90. 38. U.S. Congress, Senate, Reports of the Immigration Commission, Immigrants in Industry, Japanese and Other Immigrant Races in the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain States (Washington, D.C.: 61st Congress, 2d Session, S. Doc. ¯ sato, Honpo¯ Shuyo¯ Keizei To¯kei 85, Part I, 1911), 740, table 66; Katsuma O (Tokyo: The Bank of Japan, 1966), 358; Kenji Kimura, “Senjiki Wagakuni Kaigai Imin no So¯kin, Mochigaerikin,” Nihon Keizaishi Ronshu¯, 3 (January 1984): 67– 68, 82; [San Francisco branch office, Yokohama Specie Bank], “Showa Ju¯ichinen Jo¯hanki Eigyo¯ Seiseki Ho¯koku So¯ko¯ Shiten,” 4 “Naiyaku,” Folder Letters on T.T. Remittances and Applications—1941, Box 3 Matters Prior to Bank’s Closing— 1941, Licenses, Remittances, Inter-Office Account, Accountant Department, Correspondence, etc., Japanese Bank Correspondence, 1935–1943, RG 131 Records of the Office of Alien Property, San Francisco Office, NARA/PSB. The data for the Los Angeles Japanese is based on remittances forms entitled, “Furusato So¯kin,” July 1–31, 1938, housed at the Japanese American Historical Society, San Francisco, Calif. 39. Yokohama Specie Bank, “Furusato So¯kin,” July 1–31, 1938, Japanese American Historical Society, San Francisco, Calif.; Edward K. Strong, Japanese in California: Based on a Ten Per Cent Survey of Japanese in California and Documentary Evidence from Many Sources (Stanford: Stanford University, 1933), 52, table 14; Nanka Kagoshima and Kenjinkaishi Henshu¯ Iinkai, Nankashu¯ Kagoshima Kenjinshi (Tokyo: Nanka Kagoshima Kenjinkai, 1976), 122–23. 40. Takeda, Zaibei Hiroshima Kenjinshi, vol. 15, Nikkei Imin Shiryo¯shu¯ Hokubei Hen Daiju¯ikkan (Nihon To¯sho Senta, 1994), 81–82, 108–9, 61, 44, 81–83, 91–94; 111–13; Morishige, Hiroshima-ken Taizai Bei-fu Shusseisha Meibo¯, 333– 36, Folder 6, Box 362, JARP/UCLA; Hiroshima Ken, Hiroshima Kenshi Kindai Ichi, 731–33. 41. Okinawa Ken, Okinawa Kenshi Dai Nanakan Imin (Tokyo: Gennando¯ Shoten, 1974), 95–98, 169; The Okinawa Club of America, History of the Okinawans in North America, translated by Ben Kobashigawa (Los Angeles: Asian American Studies Center, University of California, Los Angeles, and the Okinawa Club of America, 1988), 12, 37, 151. 42. The Okinawa Club of America, History of the Okinawans in North America, 20–23, 415–18; 424–25; Fujioka, Ayumi no Ato, 496; Okinawa Ken, Okinawa Kenshi Dai Nanakan Imin (Tokyo: Gennando Shoten, 1974), 66, 113–18. 43. Ben Kobashigawa, “The Okinawan Immigrant Left in the United States Before World War Two,” in Contacts between Cultures, edited by Bernard HungKay Luk, Eastern Asia: History and Social Sciences, vol. 4 (New York: Edwin Mellen, 1992), 56–59; The Okinawa Club of America, History of the Okinawans in North America, 38–39, 41, 47, 417; James Oda, Secret Embedded in Magic Cable: The Story of a 101 year old Japanese communist leader who served Japan, KGB and CIA (Northridge, Calif.: KNI, 1993), 28–32.

NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO

245

44. Kanichi Kawasaki, “The Japanese Community of East San Pedro, Terminal Island, California,” (M.A. thesis, University of Southern California, 1931), 72–73, 155a, 14, 21, 177, 99; Leonard Broom and Ruth Riemer, Removal and Return: The Socio-Economic Effects of the War on Japanese Americans (Berkeley: University of California, 1949), 158–63. 45. Kawasaki, “The Japanese Community of East San Pedro, Terminal Island, California,” 131, 23, 63, 162, 144; Kei Watanabe, “Meiji Shoki Wakayama Kenjin ni okeru Chiikisei” (senior thesis, Kyo¯to University, 2000), 2. 46. Kawasaki, “The Japanese Community of East San Pedro, Terminal Island, California,” 37, 60; Eileen Sunada Sarasohn, ed., The Issei: Portrait of a Pioneer, An Oral History (Palo Alto, Calif.: Pacific Books, 1983), 160. 47. Research Branch, CAD, “A Movement of Contribution of Patriotic Airplane to Japanese Red Cross Hospital with Budget of $40,000.00 in Commemoration of 2600th Year Anniversary of Japanese Empire by 60,000 Japanese Compatriots in Southern California,” 24 August 1944; Aikoku Fujinkai, 4 October 1944, 1, 2, Folder 080 Japanese Organizations Book OR-1, Box 2, RG 338 WDC/CAD, Central Corr., 1942–46, NARA II. 48. Research Branch, CAD, “Heimusha Kai,” n.d., 1–3; “Heimusha Kai Supplement,” n.d., 3; Ben Pavonne to Major Ray Ashworth, 28 January 1943; R. Yun, “Heimusha Kai, Leaving Meritorious Deeds to Our Societies, Finally Dissolved at Representatives’ Meeting August 30, 1941,” 2; “Aiyu Kai (Gardena Valley),” n.d.; Mary S. Kim, “The Heimusha Kai Contributions Amount to Well Over ¥750,000,” 12 October 1945, Folder 080 Japanese Organizations Heimusha Kai OR-3, Box 1, RG 338 WDC/CAD, Central Corr., 1942–46, NARA II; Research Branch, CAD, “Aikoki [sic] Kenno Kisei Domei Kai Foundation Meeting Held,” 22 February 1945; “Aikoki [sic] Kenno Kisei Domei Kai (Southern California),” March 1945; “Ceremony of Aikoku Kenno Kisei Domei Kai Plane Contribution to the Japanese Army,” 22 February 1945, Folder 080 Japanese Organizations Book OR-1, Box 2, RG 338 WDC/CAD, Central Corr., 1942–46, NARA II; Rafu Shimpo¯, 13 March 1941, JARP/UCLA microfilm; Yuji Ichioka, “Japanese Immigrant Nationalism: The Issei and Sino-Japanese War, 1937– 1941,” California History 69, no. 3 (fall 1990): 260–311. The sources for the branch came, for the most part, from Japanese-language vernaculars, particularly the New World Sun and the Rafu Shimpo¯. 49. Research Branch, CAD, “Aiyu Kai,” 24 July 1945, Folder 080 Japanese Organizations Book OR-1, Box 2, RG 338 WDC/CAD, Central Corr., 1942–46, NARA II. 50. Tetsuden Kashima, Buddhism in America: The Social Organization of an Ethnic Religious Institution (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1977), 13–17, 24– 25; James Edward Ketelaar, Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan: Buddhism and Its Persecution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 77–83; Tetsujiro¯ Kageyama, So¯ko¯ Bukkyo¯kai Kaikyo¯ Sanju¯nen Kinenshi, 52, Box 295, JARP/ UCLA. 51. League of YMBA of North America and North American Federation of YWBA Leagues, “BHRATI” vol. 2, no. 2 (July 1934), 7–8, Box 135, Institute of Buddhist Studies, Berkeley, California.

246

NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO

52. Seicho¯-no-Ie Headquarters, Seicho¯-no-Ie Yonju¯nenshi (Tokyo: Nihon Kyo¯bunsha, 1969), 382; Nobutaka Inoue, “The Dilemma of Japanese-American Society—A Case Study of Konkokyo in North America,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 2–3, no. 18 (1991): 135–41; Anon., “Japanese Organizations in the United States” (Presidio: SF: HQ 6th Army Staff Judge Advocate, CAD Research Branch, May 1946), 13–17, Folder 080 Japanese Organization in the United States (State Shinto), Box 4, RG 338 Records of the WDC, NARA II. 53. E[d] H[.] S[picer], “Personalities,” 13 October 1942, Folder 10.18, JAERR/UCB. 54. So¯ko¯ Nihonjinkai, “Ketsugi [Resolution],” ca. 18 August 1941, Folder Japanese American Relation Committee Japanese Ass’n of S.F.,“ Box 4, RG 131 Records of the Office of Alien Property, San Francisco Office, NARA/PSB; Anon. to [Hugo] Wolter, 2 May 1944, AP 90–116, Box 1, EHSRBSP/ASM. 55. Takahashi, Nisei/Sansei, 73; S.J. Oki to McWilliams, 19 October 1942, Folder 9, Box 7, Correspondence, Notes, Articles and Speeches, Personal Statements, Miscellaneous, Court Documents, Carey McWilliams Japanese War Relocation Collection, Special Collections, Honnold Library, Claremont College, Claremont, Calif.; Pacific Citizen, May 1941, September 1941, Folder Pacific Citizen, Box 351, JARP/UCLA. 56. Yokohama Specie Bank official to Hirai and Hirano, 28 October 1940, Folder Untitled Photoprint Company addressed to George Knox Company, Box 1, Record Group 131, Records of the Office of Alien Property, San Francisco Office, Japanese Bank Correspondence, 1935–1943; Manager, Yokohama Specie Bank, San Francisco to Manager, Yokohama Specie Bank, N.Y., 16 November 1940, translated by Ha Tai Kim plus original Japanese text, Folder Japanese American Relation Committee Japanese Ass’n of S.F., Box 4, Japanese Bank Correspondence, 1935–1943, NARA/PSB. 57. The Okinawa Club of America, History of the Okinawans in North America, 71, 79–80. 58. Shin Sekai 4 December 1941, JARP/UCLA. 59. Shibutani, “The Initial Impact of the War on the Japanese Communities in the San Francisco Bay Region,” 58–64, 85; tenBroek, Barnhart, and Matson, Prejudice, War and the Constitution), 72; Audrie Girdner and Anne Loftis, The Great Betrayal: The Evacuation of Japanese-Americans during World War II (London: Macmillan, 1969), 104. 60. Hosokawa, JACL in Quest of Justice, 130–31; Shibutani, “The Initial Impact of the War on the Japanese Communities in the San Francisco Bay Region,” 138. 61. Hayashi, ‘For the Sake of Our Japanese Brethren,’ 140. 62. Shibutani, “The Initial Impact of the War on the Japanese Communities in the San Francisco Bay Region,” 96. 63. Shin Sekai 4, 8 December 1941, JARP/UCLA; Hayashi, ‘For the Sake of Our Japanese Brethren’, 141. 64. Togo Tanaka, “Journal,” 12 January 1943, 4, Folder A 17.07, JAERR/ UCB, reel #011; Shibutani, “The Initial Impact of the War on the Japanese Communities in the San Francisco Bay Region,” 153, 84, 87, 89, 91; Taylor, Jewel of

NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE

247

the Desert, 50; Yoneda, Ganbatte, 83; Shibutani, “The Initial Impact of the War on the Japanese Communities in the San Francisco Bay Region,” 100. 65. Shibutani, “The Initial Impact of the War on the Japanese Communities in the San Francisco Bay Region,” 87. 66. Ibid., 125–28, 131; Girdner and Loftis, The Great Betrayal, 249–50; Robert J. Maeda, “Isamu Noguchi: 5–7-A, Poston, Arizona,” Amerasia Journal 20, no. 2 (1994): 63–65. 67. Hayashi, ‘For the Sake of Our Japanese Brethren,’ 140; Daniels, Concentration Camps: North America, 41; Togo Tanaka, “Journal,” 11 January 1942, 3, Folder A 17.07, JAERR/UCB, reel #011. 68. Shibutani, “Rumors in a Crisis Situation,” 116–19. THREE ESTABLISHING THE STRUCTURES OF INTERNMENT, FROM LIMITED TO MASS INTERNMENT, 1942–1943

1. For the best treatment of the causal factors for removal, see Roger Daniels, The Decision to Relocate the Japanese Americans (Malabar, Fl.: Krieger, 1975; 1990 ed.), 4–5, 28, and The Commission on Wartime Internment of Civilians, Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime relocation and Internment of Civilians (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982), 4–6. Both works emphasize racism, wartime hysteria, and the failure of political leadership as the primary factors leading to the “evacuation.” While they are essentially sound conclusions, all the above-mentioned works should be supplemented with Irons, Justice at War, 8–9, 14–18, 359–65, for a discussion of the inner workings of the federal government and how the “old boy” network played a crucial role in the failure of political leadership. Grodzins, Americans Betrayed, 361–72, shows the influence of various lobbyists on federal and state government officials. For the widespread dissemination of racial antagonism toward the Japanese in the American public, see tenBroek, Barnhart, and Matson, Prejudice, War and the Constitution, 206–8, 327–34, and in both the military and political leadership circles, Daniels, Concentration Camps: North America Japanese in the United States and Canada During World War II, 71–73. The commission, and all other writers, however, ignore the important international dimension to the decision with the exception of Weglyn, Years of Infamy, 54–56, 73–74, who highlights federal government officials’ need to intern Japanese Americans as hostages to ensure fair treatment of American civilian and military prisoners under Japanese control. Where I differ from the previously mentioned writers is in their seeming ignorance of the importance of the Philippines situation, the need for some sort of harsh action in the face of Canada’s and Mexico’s removal, of their Japanese population, and the perception of “military necessity,” however mistaken, that drove military and federal government officials to a decision many of them later regretted. 2. Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932– 1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 274–75; Akira Iriye, Power and Culture: The Japanese-American War, 1941–1945 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981), 28; Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story

248

NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE

of Pearl Harbor (New York: Penguin Books, 1981), 167; [Justice Department], “For Publication in Morning Papers of Friday, October 29, 1943, Folder Custodial Detention (100–2) Main File Section 189, Custodial Detention Japanese 1941 files, at Freedom of Information-Privacy Act Reading Room, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington, D.C.; Sarasohn, ed., The Issei, 170, 162; Irvine H. Anderson, The Standard Vacuum-Oil Company and the United States East Asian Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), 168, 175–76. 3. Christe C. Armendariz, “A Spy Among Us,” Password 42, no. 4 (winter 1997): 162–63; Department of Justice, [Announcement], 30 October 1943, Folder Custodial Detention (100–2) Main File Section 189; John Edgar Hoover, Memorandum for the Attorney General, 2 August 1943, Folder Custodial Detention (100–2) Main File Section 188, Custodial Detention Japanese 1941 files, at Freedom of Information-Privacy Act Reading Room, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington, D.C.; Anon., “Internment Centers: Sharp Park,” n.d., 4, Folder 254, Detention Camp, Box 27, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. See also Kumamoto, “The Search for Spies,” 47, 58–72. 4. Timothy J. Holian, The German-Americans and World War II: An Ethnic Experience (New York: Peter Lang, 1996), 3, 169–70; D. M. Ladd, Memorandum for the Director, 24 February 1943, Folder Custodial Detention (100–2) Main File Section 186; J. Edgar Hoover, “Memorandum for the Attorney General,” 1 June 1943; D. M. Ladd, Memorandum for the Director, 1 September 1943, Folder Custodial Detention (100–2) Main Files Section 187, Custodial Detention Japanese 1941 files, at Freedom of Information-Privacy Act Reading Room, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington, D.C.; Anon., The Program of Internment, Parole, and Release of Japanese Aliens, n.d., Folder 253.2 Parolees File, Box 26, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; Karl Bendetsen to Jewish Club of 1933 Inc., 27 March 1942, Folder 291.2 Jewish, Box 31, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; Gloria Ricci Lothrop, “The Untold Story: The Effect of the Second World War on California Italians,” Journal of the West 35, no. 1 (January 1996): 14; Rose D. Scherini, “Executive Order 9066 and Italian Americans: The San Francisco Story,” California History 70, no. 4 (winter 1991/1992): 367, 371; CWRIC, Personal Justice Denied, 287. 5. Takaya Mizuno, “Self-Censorship by Coercion: The Federal Government and the California Japanese-Language Newspapers from Pearl Harbor to Internment,” American Journalism 17, no. 3 (summer 2000): 31–57; James Oda, Heroic Struggles of Japanese Americans: Partisan Fighters From America’s Concentration Camps (North Hollywood: KNI, 1981), 3–4; Shibutani, “Rumors in a Crisis Situation,” 36; Masao Fukawa, “Do¯ran Nikki,” Popi Kushu¯, January 1945, Folder 2, Box 35, JARP/UCLA; Kiyoaki Murata, An Enemy among Friends (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1991), 59; Sarasohn, ed., The Issei, 175. 6. Henry Stimson to John DeWitt, telegram, 12 September 1942, Folder D2.046, JAERR/UCB, reel #020; [Morton Grodzins], Interview with McCloy, Assistant Secretary of War, 18 October 1942, Folder A 5.021, Box 1, Part 1 Evacuation and Assembly Centers, December 7, 1941—December 1942, Section 2 PreEvacuation Policies, Programs, and Studies, December 7, 1941—March 1942, JAERR/UCB; Lester L. Goodman to Col. Wm. Donovan, 12 February 1942, reel # 051, Washington Director’s Office Administrative Files, RG 226 Records of the Office of Strategic Services, 1941–1945, NARA II; Shibutani, “The Initial Impact

NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE

249

of the War on the Japanese Communities in the San Francisco Bay Region,” 58; Anon., “Address by Major General Pratt to Members of Review and Hearing Board,” 1 May 1945, Folder Pratt, H.C. (off.), Box 23, RG 338 Records of the WDC, NARA II. 7. Adjutant General to Commanding General, WDC, 25 April 1942 and Claude B. Washburne to Chief of Staff, WDC, 16 July 1943, Folder 291.2 Koreans, Box 7; Karl Bendetsen, “An Obligation Discharged: The Army Transfers to War Relocation Authority, a Civilian Organization, Japanese Evacuated From the Pacific Coast,” an address delivered to the Personnel of Wartime Civil Control Administration on November 3, 1942,” pamphlet 3, Folder B 1.07, JAERR/UCB, reel #012; Karl Bendetsen to Jewish Club of 1933 Inc., 27 March 1942 and Jewish Club to Bendetsen, telegram, 25 March 1942, Folder 291.2 Jewish, Box 31, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; Colonel Karl. R. Bendetsen, ”The Story of Pacific Coast Japanese Evacuation,“ an address delivered before the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco on May 20, 1942, Folder B 1.07, JAERR/UCB, reel #012. 8. Stetson Conn and Byron Fairchild, The United States Army in World War II: The Western Hemisphere: The Framework of Hemisphere Defense, vol. 12, part 1 (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1960), 3, 6, 8–9, 14; William A. Goss, “Air Defense of the Western Hemisphere,” in The Army Air Forces in World War II, vol. 1: Plans and Early Operations, edited by Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1948), 277; George Raynor Thompson et. al., The Signal Corps: The Test (December 1941 to July 1943), vol. 6, part 5 (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1964), 95–96; Stetson Conn, Rose, C. Engelman, and Byron Fairchild, The United States Army in World War II: The Western Hemisphere: Guarding the United States and its Outposts, vol. 12, part 2 (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1964), 81–88, 105–6, 75. 9. Corbett, Quiet Passages, 48–52; Morton, The United States Army in World War II: The War in the Pacific: The Fall of the Philippines, vol. 2, part 2, 113, 118–19; Robert E. Mayer, “A New Look at General DeWitt,” San Francisco Chronicle 7 May 1988, A-14. Such awareness of Japanese immigrant support for Imperial Japanese forces in the Philippines spread to public officials such as Los Angeles City Mayor Fletcher Bowron, who loudly proclaimed his distrust of Nisei loyalty to the United States because of what happened in the Philippines. See Daniels, Concentration Camps: USA: Japanese Americans and World War II, 61. 10. General DeWitt and Colonel Raymond, telephone conversation transcript, 14 January 1942; [Chester Nimitz, William Leahy, John DeWitt, et al.], Memorandum, 19 April 1943, Folder untitled, Box 1 United States Navy Records Relating to Cryptology, 1918-, RG 47 Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, NARA II; Conn, Engelman, and Fairchild, The United States Army in World War II: The Western Hemisphere: Guarding the United States and its Outposts, vol. 12, part 2, 88–91; MacDonnell, Insidious Foes, 141–42. 11. Lika Miyake, “Pawns of Prejudice: Japanese-Peruvian Internment During World War II” (senior thesis, Yale University, 1999), 8, 9; Foreign Relations of

250

NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE

the United States, 1941, vol. 6: The American Republics (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1963), 124–25; C. Harvey Gardiner, Pawns in a Triangle of Hate: The Peruvian Japanese and the United States (Seattle: University of Washington, 1981), 14–15; Conn and Fairchild, The United States Army in World War II: The Western Hemisphere: The Framework of Hemisphere Defense, vol. 12, part 1, 357, 341–43; Corbett, Quiet Passages, 33; Daniels, Concentration Camps: North America, 183–84. 12. Corbett, Quiet Passages, 47–49. 13. Ibid., 17, 83. 14. J. T. Clarke, “Treatment by Japanese authorities of the property of American civilian nationals interned in Japanese territory,” 11 June 1943 and Munore, Williams, and Clarke, “Treatment accorded American banks in Japan proper by Japanese Government,” Folder Property (American) Japan, Box 181 Subject Files, 1939–1954, General Records of the State Dept., Records of the Special War Problems Division, Subject Files, 1939–1954, NARA II. ¯ no, “Hapon: Firipin Nikkeijin no Nagai 15. State Department; Shun O Sengo,” (Tokyo: Daisan Shokan, 1991), 16, 17; Corbett, Quiet Passages, 51; B. R. Stauber to Ralph Merritt, 15 March 1945, Folder 36.236A Manzanar, Box 246, RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I. 16. Julius W. Becker to Senator Ernest J. McFarland, 24 February 1942, Folder 601 Land Acquisition, Box 92, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 17. Mrs. J. C. Auernheimer to Lt. Gen. J.L. DeWitt, 23 March 1942, Folder 601 Land Acquisition, Box 92, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 18. Hugh T. Fullerton to John Marchbank, 3 April 1942 and Mrs. L. D. Newman to FBI, SF office, 17 August 1942, Folder 323.3 - Tanforan Assembly Center, Box 59, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; Research Administrator [E. C. Auchter] to Dr. R. A. Millikin, 28 January 1943, Folder Aliens-1 (Japanese-Americans) 1942–44, Box 1, Records of the Office of the Director, RG 208, Records of the Office of War Information, NARA II; Sandra C. Taylor, “‘Fellow-Feelers With the Afflicted’: The Christian Churches and the Relocation of the Japanese during World War II,” in Japanese Americans: From Relocation to Redress, edited by Roger Daniels, Sandra C. Taylor, and Harry H.L. Kitano (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1986), 123–29; Gary Y. Okihiro, Storied Lives: Japanese American Students and World War II (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999), x–xiii; Reginald Kearney, “Afro-American Views of Japanese, 1900–1945,” (Ph.D. diss., Kent State University, 1991), 167–71; Robert Shaffer, “Cracks in the Consensus: Defending the Rights of Japanese Americans during World War II,” Radical History Review 72 (fall 1998): 84–120. 19. Belgium, General Conditions Report on the Current Situation in Baja California, 13 December 1941, Folder Reports: 12/12–17/41, Box 147, Office of Strategic Services, Personal Secretary File, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Papers, FDRL/ HP; CWRIC, Personal Justice Denied, 100–1, 103–4; Daniels, Concentration Camps: North America, 83–85; [WDC Headquarters], History of the Western Defense Command, vol. 1 (September 1945, reprinted in San Pedro, Calif., by Fort MacArthur Military Press, Fort MacArthur Museum Association, ca. 1999), 8; C[hika] T[.] S[ugino], 12 February 1943, 7a, Folder 56, Box 10 and Anon., “Staff Meeting,” 9 October 1942, Folder 14: Staff Meeting - Oct.1942- Topics

NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE

251

Include: Political Situation in Poston II, Agriculture, Report to Anthro. Society, Overall Problem, Box 2, JARCR/CU; Hi Korematsu, “Cooperative Farm Project for Alien Resettlement,” ca. April 1942, Box 1 Western Regional Office, Berkeley, California, WRA Records, 1942, RG 83 Records of the BAE, NARA/PSB. 20. John Tateishi, And Justice for All: An Oral History of the Japanese American Detention Camps (New York: Random House, 1984), 17; Shibutani, “Rumors in a Crisis Situation,” 93; Yoshiko Uchida, Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese American Family (Seattle: University of Washington, 1982), 58; G[eorge] Y[amaguchi], “Evacuation to Poston,” 8 February 1943, 4, 9, Folder 53, Box 10, JARCR/CU; Shibutani, “Rumors in a Crisis Situation,” 130. 21. Leonard Broom and Ruth Riemer, Removal and Return: The Socio-Economic Effects of the War on Japanese Americans (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949), 162–65; Lillian Takahashi Hoffecker, “A Village Disappeared,” American Heritage 52, no. 8 (December 2001): 64–71; K[ihachi] Hirakawa, “Autobiography,” n.d., 19, 33, 37, Folder 1–1, Box 1, Hirakawa, Kihachi Papers, Japanese-American Project, Manuscripts and University Archives, Allen Library, University of Washington; Zai Shiattoru Dai Nippon Teikoku Ryo¯jikan Kannai, “Dai Yonkai Kokusei Cho¯sahyo¯,” 1935, “Benburijito¯,” Folder 11: Census Reports—Japanese National Census, Fourth—Bainbridge Island 1935, Box 7, Japanese Association of North America, Acc.#1235–3, Box 7 (of 10), Manuscripts and University Archives, Allen Library, University of Washington, Seattle; C. S. Freeman to Arthur B. Langlie, 1 May 1941, Folder Fed Depts., Navy 1941–1944, Box 7, Record Group 2M-1–7Arthur B. Langlie, Subject Files, Fed. Depts., Justice-Fed. Depts., War, State of Washington Archives, Olympia; Major Moffit and Major Meek, Record no. 34, 15 February 1943 and James Y. Sakamoto to Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt, 23 March 1942, Folder 093—-Evacuation of Bainbridge Island, Box 15, RG 338, WDC, NARA II. 22. CWRIC, Personal Justice Denied, 105–6; J. L. DeWitt to John J. McCloy, 8 June 1942, Folder 600.4 vol. 4 (Construction), Box 91, RG 338, WDC, NARA II; [Jerry N. Hess], “Oral History Interview with Karl R. Bendetsen,” (1975), 78, HSTL/IM; Anon., “Release” 21 November 1942, no folder; Hugh T. Fullerton to John Marchbank, 3 April 1942, Folder 323.3—Tanforan Assembly Center, Box 59, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; Dale Brothers and Doudell Construction Company, [report], 26 May 1942 and Salinas Assembly Center, n.d., Folder 323.3 Salinas (C.A.D.), Box 58, RG 338, WDC, NARA II. 23. [AHL?], Interview with Head, Gelvin, and Henrietta Johnson, 30 June 1943, 16, Folder 11–62, Box 30, (Restricted Access Materials), JARCR/CU. 24. E[dward]H[.] S[picer], “Attitude of Local Indians” 18 October 1942, Folder J 10.10—#4 of 6, JAERR/UCB. 25. H.A. Vogel to Herbert G. Folken, 16 June 1942, Folder Utah, Box 1 Western Regional Office, Berkeley, California, War Relocation Records, 1942, RG 83 Records of the BAE, NARA/PSB; E. R. Fryer to Milton S. Eisenhower, 4 May 1942 and Phillip J. Webster, “Water Facilities Area Proposal for Lower Sevier River Area–Utah,” 10 July 1941, Folder 41.030, #1, Box 292, RG 210: Central Files WRA HDQS, Individual Reports, Records of the WRAHSCGF, files 41.030 to 41.060, NARA I.

252

NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE

26. Anon., “Reception Centers Manzanar,” n.d., 36, Folder 323.3, Box 56, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 27. H. Van Norman to S. B. Robinson, 6 March 1942, no folder/box, Water Executive Office Historical Records/Administrative and Executive Files, The Bancroft Group, Hyannis, Calif. 28. Resolution from citizens of Lone Pine, Cal. to DeWitt, 7 July 1942, 46, JAERR/UCB, reel #149; Anon., “Reception Centers Manzanar,” n.d., 34, Folder 323.3, Box 56, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 29. E. A. Porter, Memo to H. A. Van Norman, 12 March 1942, no folder/ box, Water Executive Office Historical Records/Administrative and Executive Files, The Bancroft Group, Hyannis, Calif.; R. B. Cozzens, Teletype Message no[.] 114, to Dillon S. Myer, 19 June 1942, Folder 41.080 #1, Box 292: Central Files WRA HDQS, Individual Reports, RG 210: Records of the WRAHSCGF, files 41.030 to 41.060, NARA I; Robert Brown to Roy Nash, 3 September 1942, JAERR/UCB, reel #149. 30. [DeWitt], Standards and Details-Construction of Japanese Evacuee Reception Centers (Corrected Copy), 8 June 1942, 1–6 and E.T. Adler to Division Engineer, 7 March 1942; Adler to Division Engineer, 24 March 1942, Folder 600.4, vol. III (Construction), Box 91, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 31. Joe G. Hester to Major Ray Ashworth, 6 July 1942, Folder 600.96-Guarding; Bendetsen to Colonel Evans, 25 April 1942 and J. J. M[cCloy], Memorandum for General Somervell, 9 June 1942; Milton S. Eisenhower to John J. McCloy, 6 June 1942, Folder 600.4, vol. III (Construction), Box 91, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 32. Ira K. Evans to Colonel Magill, 3 April 1942, Folder #350.093 Military Police Closed, Box 66; Hugh T. Fullerton to The Division Engineer, 13 August 1942; Heywood S. Dodd to Commanding General Headquarters SCS, 26 May 1942, Folder 323.3-Santa Anita Assembly Center, Box 58, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 33. William A. Boekel to Major Schumacher, 30 April 1942, Folder 600.96Guarding, Box 91; B.Y. Read, Memorandum to commanding generals, northwestern, northern Calif., southern Calif., southern land frontier sectors, WDC, and 9th Corps Area, 4 August 1942, Folder #350.093 Military Police Closed Box 66; William Boekel to Colonels Bendetsen, Hass, Evans, 11 May 1942, Folder #350.093 Military Police Closed, Box 66; Frank E. Meeks to Col. Washburne, 24 April 1942, Folder 323.3-Santa Anita Assembly Center, Box 58; Brehoon Somervell, Memorandum for Mr. McCloy, 25 February 1944, Folder 370.093 Military Police Vol. 2, Box 66; Robert H. Dunlop to Commanding Generals, 27 December 1943, Folder 370.93, Box 66; W. Barnett, “Policies Pertaining to Use of Military Police at War Relocation Centers,” circular no. 19, 17 September 1942, Folder #350.093 Military Police Closed, Box 66, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 34. Karl R. Bendetsen to Colonel Boekel, 22 April 1942; Capt. Truman R. Young to Lt. Col. William A. Boekel, 28 April 1942; Tom C. Clark, Memorandum for Colonel Evans, 31 March 1942; J. A. Strickland to J.F. Hughes, 23 June 1942; William A. Boekel to Colonel Bendetsen, 17 May 1942; Ray Ashworth, Memorandum to William Boekel, 30 April 1942, Folder 600.96-Guarding, Box 91, RG 338 WDC, NARA II.

NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE

253

35. Ray Ashworth to Colonel William Boekel, 27 October 1942, Folder 600.96-Guarding, Box 91; Ashworth to C. B. Washburne, 27 January 1943, Folder 384.4 Standing Operation Procedure BR CAD, Box 74; R.P. Bronson [Major, AGD, Asst. Adjutant General] to Goldwater, 23 September 1943, Folder 201 Goldwater, Julius A., Box 23; RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 36. R. L. Nicholson to Lt. Col. I. K. Evans, 28 March 1942, Folder 230.2, List of Accountable Officers, Box 26; Harry Black, Memorandum to Emil Sandquist, 10 November 1942, 50–53, Folder 319.1 Report of Assembly Center Managers, Box 26; William Boekel to Colonels Bendetsen, Evans, Hass, 30 May 1942, Folder 253.2 Parolees File, Box 26; [Bellews], “Consensus of Remarks of Center Managers on Evacuee Loyalty,” ca. 14 December 1942, Folder 319.1 Report of the Assembly Center Managers, Box 26; RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 37. H. R. Amory, Administrative Notices no. 13, 25, June 1942, Microfilm of the Records of the Assembly Centers of the WDC, reel #344; Karl R. Bendetsen to Colonel Ralph H. Tate, 1 August 1942, Folder 323.3-Santa Anita Assembly Center, Box 58; WDC, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff, CAD, WCCA, San Francisco, Calif., Report of the American Red Cross Survey of Assembly Centers in California, Oregon, and Washington August 1942, vol. 22, 1–3, 5, 75, 100–4, no folder, no box, Unclassified materials, bound volumes concerning the internment of Japanese-Americans, 1942–45; Morris Edward Opler, “A History of Internal Government at Manzanar [:] March 1942 to December 6, 1942,” 15 July 1944, 4, Folder O 3.02, JAERR/UCB, reel #154; R. L. Nicholson, “Application of Authorized Schedule of Monthly Earnings to Evacuees Assigned to Perform Work in Reception and Assembly Centers of the Wartime Civil Control Administration,” 14 March 1942; William R. Lawson, Health and Sanitation Information Bulletin no. 4, 9 May 1942, JAERR/UCB, reel #265; R. L. Nicholson to all reception and assembly center managers, 10 April 1942, Manzanar Assembly Center General Correspondence File, Box 40, reel #1000-R; E. A. Rose, Notice, 4 June 1942, Microfilm Copy of the Records of the Assembly Center, Box 02, 1942–45, RG 338 WDC, NARA II, reel #21-R to 34-R. 38. Fred Hoshiyama, “Tanforan Political Activities,” 16 June 1942, 1–4, Folder B 8.25, JAERR/UCB, reel #016; Michio Kunitani, Tanforan Politics, n.d., 2–4, Folder 8.29, JAERR/UCB , reel #016; Information Bulletin No. 24, 7 August 1942, Microfilm Copy of the Records of the Assembly Centers, 1942–45, RG 338 WDC, NARA II, reel #265; Anon., “Fifth Tanforan Town Hall Meeting,” 24 June 1942, 2–3, Folder B 7.01, Folder 1 of 3, JAERR/UCB, reel #016. 39. Hoshiyama, “Tanforan Political Activities,” 16 June 1942, 27–29, Folder B 8.25, JAERR/UCB, reel #016. 40. Fred Hoshiyama, “Tanforan Political Activities,” 16 June 1942, 12–17, Folder B 8.25, JAERR/UCB, reel #016; Michio Kunitani, Tanforan Politics, n.d., 10–11, 17, Folder 8.29, JAERR/UCB, reel #016; Charles Kikuchi, The Kikuchi Diary, edited by John Modell (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1973), 108, 110–12. Karl Akiya mentions nothing of his pivotal role in winning the Kibei to Iiyama’s side. See Karu Akiya Ichiro¯, Jiyu¯heno: Michi Taiheiyo¯ o Koete (Kyo¯to: Ko¯jisha, 1996). 41. Hoshiyama, “Tanforan Political Activities,” 16 June 1942, 30–32, Folder B 8.25, JAERR/UCB, reel #016.

254

NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE

42. Ibid., 32. 43. Charles Kikuchi, The Kikuchi Diary: Chronicle From an American Concentration Camp, The Tanforan Journals of Charles Kikuchi edited and with an introduction by John Modell (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1973), 65; Fred Hoshiyama, “Tanforan Political Activities,” 16 June 1942, 8, Folder B 8.25, JAERR/UCB, reel #016. The FBI made periodic visits to Tanforan, and in one instance at least, took away three individuals. See 28 May 1942, Microfilm Copy of the Records of the Assembly Centers, 1942–45, RG 338 WDC, NARA II, reel #625. 44. Tanforan Calendar, 12 September 1942, Folder 96.60.1, JANM/LA. 45. John G. Evans to Wade Head, Block Manager System Establishment Procedure, 18 June 1942, Folder J 1.63, JAERR/UCB , reel #194; Minutes, Block Managers[’] Meeting, 30 November 1942, Folder 12, Box 4, JARCR/CU; [E.H. Spicer], “Political Organization of Poston I,” 25–29 September 1942, 14–17, Folder J 3.23, JAERR/UCB , reel #220. 46. C(hika) S(ugino), “Poston Fujin Kai,” 15 July 1943, and 16 July 1943, Folder 20; E(lizabeth) C(olson), “Poston I Fujin Kai,” August 1943, Folder 21; Anon, “Poston Fujin Kai Block Representatives Meeting,” 15 April 1943, Folder 20; Quad F Haha No Kai, [Minutes], 18 June 1942, Folder 20; Anon., “Block 19 Women’s Club—Minutes and [Diary],” Folder 19; C(hika) S(ugino), “C.R. Orientation,” 2 July 1943, 1, Folder 20, Box 8, JARCR/CU. 47. J[ohn] F[ukushima], “Impressions of the First Japanese Arrivals in Poston,” 24 August 1942, Folder 53: Evacuation-Personal Accounts, Box 10, JAERR/UCB; [AHL?], Interview with Head, Gelvin, and Henrietta Johnson, 30 June 1943, 12, Folder 11–62, Box 30, (Restricted Access Materials), JARCR/CU; Franklyn S. Sugiyama, “History of Self-Government in Poston, Unit 1,” 10 February 1943, 3, Folder J 3.16; Elizabeth Colson, E. H. Spicer, A. H. Leighton, “A Brief History of Poston I, May 1943, 2, 4, Folder J 10.06, JAERR/UCB , reel #246; E. H. Spicer, ”Political Organization of Poston I,“ 25–29 September 1942, 6, 7, Folder J3.23, JAERR/UCB , reel #220. 48. E. A. Rose to R. L. Nicholson, 20 May 1942; Salinas Assembly Center, Meeting of the Board of Advisors, 21 May 1942; Salinas Assembly Center Council Meeting [minutes], 18 May 1942, Microfilm Copy of the Records of the Assembly Center, 1942–45, Box 02, RG 338 WDC, NARA II, reel #21-R, #23-R and #24-R; The Village Crier, 20 June 1942, Folder B 5.005, JAERR/UCB, reel #015; Salinas Assembly Center, Meeting of the Board of Advisors, 21 May 1942, Microfilm Copy of the Records of the Assembly Center, 1942–45, RG 338 WDC, WCCA and CAD, NARA II, reel #21-R; Lester S. Diehl to E. A. Rose, 22 April 1942; Bulletin #1—Administrative, 6 May 1942, Microfilm Copy of the Records of the Assembly Center, 1942–45, Box 2, reel #21-R; N.J.L. Pieper to Col. Karl Bendetsen, 15 May 1942, Folder 323.3 Salinas (CAD), Box 58, RG 338 WDC, WCCA and CAD, NARA II; E. A. Rose to R. L. Nicholson, 23 June 1942; R. L. Nicholson to Managers All Assembly Centers, 31 May 1942, Microfilm 21-R, Box 02, Microfilm Copy of the Records of the Assembly Center, 1942–45, RG 338 WDC, NARA II.

NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE

255

49. Yoneda, Ganbatte, 125–26; Opler, “A History of Internal Government at Manzanar,” 4–9, 11, 12, 19; Anon., “Reception Centers Manzanar,” n.d., 30, Folder 323.3, Box 56, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 50. Anon., “Reception Centers Manzanar,” n.d., 10, 14, 16–19; TakahashiCates, “Comparative Administration and Management of Five War Relocation Authority Camps,” 388–99; Anon., “Self Government at Manzanar,” 27 June 1942, Folder O 2.91, JAERR/UCB , reel #154; Takahashi-Cates, “Comparative Administration and Management of Five War Relocation Authority Camps,” 389, 398–99. 51. Ray Ashworth to William Boekel, Memorandum on “Disturbances at mess halls at Santa Anita Assembly Center,” 8 June 1942; Ashworth to Boekel, Summary Teletype, 25 June 1942; Ashworth to Boekel, 2 July 1942, Folder 370.61 Riots and Strikes, Box 66, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; Anthony L. Lehman, Birthright of Barbed Wire: The Santa Anita Assembly Center for the Japanese (Los Angeles: Westernlore, 1970), 61; Gordon H. Chang, Morning Glory, Evening Shadow: Yamato Ichihashi and His Interment Writings, 1942–1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 117; Constitution and By-Law Self-Government Assembly of the Santa Anita Assembly Center, ca. May 1942, Folder B 7.01, Folder 1 of 3, JAERR/UCB, reel #016; H. R. Amory, Administrative Bulletin No.13, 25 June 1942, Microfilm Copy of the Records of the Assembly Centers, 1942–45, RG 338 WDC, NARA II, reel #344. 52. Ray Ashworth to Lt. Col. W. A. Boekel, 26 June 1942, Microfilm Copy of the Records of the Assembly Center, 1942–45, RG 338 WDC, WCCA, NARA II, reel #353; Ray Ashworth to Lt. Col. W. A. Boekel , 8 June 1942, and 27 July 1942, Folder 370.61 Riots and Strikes, Box 66, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; Ray Ashworth to W. A. Boekel, 16 June 1942, Folder 600.96, Box 91; Ira K. Evans to Bendetsen, 28 July 1942; C. B. Brewster to Gene Wilbur, 28 July 1942, Folder 370.61 Riots and Strikes, Box 66, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 53. H. R. Amory to R. L. Nicholson, 23 June 1942, Microfilm Copy of the Records of the Assembly Center, 1942–45, reel #344, p. 2298; H. R. Amory to R. L. Nicholson, 23 June 1942, Microfilm Copy of the Records of the Assembly Center, 1942–45, RG 338 WDC, NARA II, reel #344; Anon. First Founder, 1 July 1942, Folder 370.61 Riots and Strikes, Box 66, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; Chang, Morning Glory, Evening Shadow, 114–15. Kay Sugahara claims he worked out an agreement with the camouflage net workers. See Howard Schonberger, Japanizu Konekushon, translated by Rinjiro¯ Sodei (Tokyo: Bungei Shunju¯, 1995), 114–15; F. H. Arrowood to Major Ray Ashworth, 19 June 1942, Microfilm Copy of the Records of the Assembly Center, 1942–45, RG 338 WDC, NARA II, reel #353; Lehman, Birthright of Barbed Wire, 20, 24, 42, 45, 47; W[illiam]A[.] B[oekel] to Weckerling, “Sit-down Strike at Santa Anita Assembly Center,” 17 June 1942; DeWitt to Earl Warren, 30 June 1942, Folder 370.61 Riots and Strikes, Box 66, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 54. Ray Ashworth to Col. Karl R. Bendetsen, 13 August 1942, Folder 253.91 Transfer of Evacuees vol. 1 (Closed), Box 26, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; Tamie Tsuchiyama, “Attitudes of Issei at Santa Anita,” Folder B 8.05, JAERR/UCB , reel #016; Kiyoshi Okamoto to All Nisei, 10 August 1942, Microfilm Copy of the Records of the Assembly Center, 1942–45, RG 338 WDC, NARA II, reel #345;

256

NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE

Gustavus Schneider, Personnel Report as of June 9, 1942, Microfilm Copy of the Records of the Assembly Centers, 1942–45, Box 2, RG 338 WDC, WCCA and CAD, NARA II, reel #21-R; Ray Ashworth to Lt. Col. W. A. Boekel, 22 June 1942 Reports—Internal Disturbance, Microfilm Copy of the Records of the Assembly Center, 1942–45, RG 338, WDC, NARA II, reel #353. 55. Ray Ashworth to Col. Bendetsen, 4 August 1942, Folder 323.3—Santa Anita Assembly Center, Box 58, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; J. Edgar Hoover, 12; J[ohn] N[.] F[ukushima], “The Riot at Santa Anita Assembly Center,” 3 September 1942, Folder J 10.10, #3 of 6, JAERR/UCB; Edmund D. Mason, “Internal Report Santa Anita Assembly Center, Arcadia, California: Riot of Evacuees, August 4, 1942,” LA office, FBI, File no. 100–14777, 10 August 1942, (for Aug.4– 8, 1942), 9, 11, Folder B 7.01, Folder 1 of 3, JAERR/UCB , reel # 016. 56. J. Edgar Hoover, “Summary of Information War Relocation Authority and Japanese Relocation Centers,” 2 August 1945, Folder 62–69030–710 Box 84, RG 65 Records of the FBI, World War II Headquarter Records on the WRA, NARA II; Bendetsen to McCloy, 7 December 1942, Folder 291.2 Japanese *Segregation Telephone Conversations, Box 6, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; Curtis H. Rosenberg, “International Law Concerning Accidents to War Prisoners Employed in Private Enterprises,” reprinted from American Journal of International Law (April 1942), Folder OWI Files-Alphabetical File Enemy File-war prisoners, 1942–43, Box 12 Office of War Information Alphabetical File (En), Papers of Philleo Nash, White House File, HSTL/IM; Takashi Ito and Takashi Momose, Jiten Sho¯wa Senzenki no Nihon: Seido to Jittai (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Ko¯bunkan, 1990), 76; Corbett, Quiet Passages, 50. 57. M. S. Eisenhower, “Memorandum for the Regional Director, Pacific Coast Region, and All Project Directors,” 5 June 1942, 1–3, Folder 66.010#1: Community Government (General) May 1942–July 1942, Box 400; John H. Provinse to Solon T. Kimball, 15 September 1943, Folder 66.010#3 January 1943–February 1944, Box 401, Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (General), RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I; E[lizabeth] C[olson], P[ersonal] J[ournal], 23 June 1943, Folder J 10.14, JAERR/UCB, reel #247. 58. War Relocation Authority, The Evacuated People: A Quantitative Description, vol. 3 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946), 90. 59. Hayashi, ‘For the Sake of Our Japanese Brethren,’ 142; Transcript of Shortwave Broadcast, 8 February 1942, 2100 GMT, Record no. M-1607, translated by H. Nanbara, Folder February 1–8-1942, Box 634, Transcripts of Monitored Foreign Broadcasts, 1941–1946, RG 262 FBIS, NARA II; F. de Amat, “To the Spokesman of the Japanese Detainees Tanforan Assembly Center, San Bruno, California,” 28 July 1942, Folder 201 DeWitt, J. L. (Off), Box 23 Central Correspondence, 1942–1946 201 J. L. DeWitt to W. H. Wilbur, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 60. Dillon S. Myer, “The Facts about The War Relocation Authority,” 21 January 1944, Folder D. S. Myer Speeches (folder 2), Box 1, Papers of Dillon S. Myer, HSTL/IM. 61. Solon T. Kimball, “Plan of Municipal Government for Japanese Colonists,” 25 April 1942, Folder 66.010#1: Community Government (General) May 1942–July 1942, Box 400; Solon T. Kimball to Project Directors at Colorado

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR

257

River, Manzanar, Gila River, Central Utah, Minidoka, Granada, Rohwer, and Jerome Relocation Centers, 24 August 1943, Folder 66.010#3, Box 400, Central Files WRA Headquarters, Community Government (General); Robert Leffler to Philip Glick, 9 November 1942, Folder 66.020 #1 June 1942, Box 413, RG 210, Records of the WRAHQSCGF, NARA I; A[lexander] H[.] L[eighton], Summary of Leading Sentiments, 2 August 1943, Folder 11–63, Box 30 (Restricted Access Materials), JARCR/CU. 62. Alexander Leighton, [Sociological Journal], 13 October 1942, 5, Folder J 10.10—#4 of 6, JAERR/UCB, reel #247. FOUR THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC WAY OF MANAGEMENT, 1942–1943

1. Anon., “Reception Centers Manzanar,” 30, Folder 323.3, Box 56, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 2. J[ohn] C[ollier], “Administration Building Attention: Mr. W. W. Head Report of Mr. Collier Commissioner of Indian Affairs Department of Interior,” n.d., Folder 139, Wade Head Corr., [1942–44], II-206, reel #14, II-160, John Collier Papers #146, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.; Solon T. Kimball, “Plan of Municipal Government for Japanese Colonists,” 25 April 1942, Folder 66.010#1: Community Government (General) May 1942–July 1942, Box 400; Solon T. Kimball to Project Directors at Colorado River, Manzanar, Gila River, Central Utah, Minidoka, Granada, Rohwer, and Jerome Relocation Centers, 24 August 1943, Folder 66.010#3, Box 400, Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (General), RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I. 3. [Solon Kimball], “The History of Community Government,” pp. 1, 2, Box 28, RG 28 Solon Kimball Papers, Special Collection, Milbank Memorial Library, Teachers’ College, Columbia University, N.Y. (hereafter cited as SKPTC/CU.) 4. [Kimball], “The History of Community Government,” 1, pp. 1–5, 11, 12, Box 28, RG 28, SKPTC/CU; W. Wade Head, Memorandum to Division Chiefs, 19 October 1942, Folder 5–36, Box 5, JARCR/CU; Ralph P. Merritt to D. S. Myer, 7 January 1943, Folder 66.011A#2 Manzanar, Box 401, Central Files, WRA Headquarters, Community Government (general); Ralph P. Merritt to D. S. Myer, 7 January 1943, Folder 66.011A#2 Manzanar, Box 401, Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (General), RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I. Roger Daniels in Asian America (235) says the council and block managers were comparable to Judenra¨t, the Nazi death camp leaders whose tasks included reporting on potentially resistant internees. Sandra Taylor in Jewel of the Desert (135) disagrees and the evidence here favors Taylor. While some administrators reported occasionally to the FBI, such actions were not typical nor system-wide, either for internees or for administrators. Even when camp administrators wanted to forge an agreement with the FBI, the bureau refused to cooperate. See [Alexander Leighton], “Interview with Head, Gelvin, and Henrietta Johnson,” 30 June 1943, 18, Folder 11–62, Box 30 (Restricted Access Materials), JARCR/CU.

258

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR

5. Block Leaders Council Minutes, 14 August 1942, Folder 66.011A Manzanar June 1942–December 1943, Box 402: Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (General), RG 210: Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I; BSR, September [1942] Block Managers, ca. April 1943, Folder 66, Box 7; BSR, Front Sheet, fall 1942, Folder 7–2, Box 7, JARCR/CU; Opler, “A History of Internal Government at Manzanar: March 1942 to December 6, 1942,” 31, 50; Block Managers[’] Meeting Minutes, 30 November 1942, Folder 12 Block Manager System-Meeting Minutes Poston I, 3 November 1942–16 March 1943 and 27 July 1943, Box 4; T.H. Haas, Notes on Community Government, 31 December 1943, 11, Folder 7, Box 6, JARCR/CU; Anon., “Self-Government at Manzanar,” Folder 66.011 Manzanar #1, Box 401: Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (General), RG 210: Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I; Minutes of the Block Managers’ Meetings, 17 January 1943, Folder H 1.51, reel#115; Anon., “Topaz Attitudes,” n.d., Folder H 9.00, reel#131; Daily Log, Reports Division, 11 September 1942, Folder H 1.82, JAERR/UCB, reel #117. 6. Minutes of the Block Managers’ Meeting First Block Managers, 19 September 1942 and 10 October 1942, Folder H 1.50 Block Managers’ minutes (1942), JAERR/UCB, reel #114; E. H. Spicer, “Political Organization of Poston I,” 25– 29 September 1942, 14–17, Folder J 3.23, JAERR/UCB, reel #220; Richard Brewer Rice, “The Manzanar Relocation Center,” (M.A. thesis, University of California, 1947), 39. 7. John G. Evans to Wade Head, “Block Manager System Establishment Procedure,” 18 June 1942, Folder J 1.63, reel #194; E. H. Spicer, “Political Organization of Poston I,” 25–29 September 1942, 12–13, Folder J 3.23, reel #220; “Community Council, Interview with Mr. Joe Nakai,” June 1943, Folder J 8.15**, JAERR/UCB, reel #244. 8. Haas, Notes on Community Government, 18, 19; Temporary Community Council of Poston, Unit I, “History of Self-Government in Poston,” 29 September 1942, Folder J 6.15g Personalities and life histories, political structure, JAERR/ UCB, reel #239; A[lexander] H[.] L[eighton], “Formulation,” 15 August 1943, Folder 12–22, Box 12, JARCR/CU; [Richard Nishimoto], “Hidemi Ogawa,” n.d., Folder J 6.15g “Personalities (Life Histories), JAERR/UCB, reel #239; [Elizabeth Colson], ”Evacuee Leaders in Club Work,“ 21 August 1945, Folder 21, Box 8, JARCR/CU; Haas, Notes on Community Government, 31 December 1943, 4, Folder 7, Box 6, JARCR/CU. 9. Block Managers’ Meeting Poston 3, 2 September 1942, Folder J 1.62, JAERR/UCB, reel #194. 10. Alexander Leighton, [Sociological Journal], 28 August 1942, 4, Folder J 10.10, number 2 of 6, JAERR/UCB, reel #246; Haas, Notes on Community Government, 31 December 1943, 21, Folder 17, Box 6, JARCR/CU. 11. WRA, “Community Government,” 12 October 1942, Folder H 1.50 Block Managers’ Minutes (1942), JAERR/UCB, reel #114; Individual Record, WRA Form no. 26 (1942), JAERR/UCB; Individual Record, Folder 71.113 Ernest Iiyama, Box 1412, RG 210 WRA, Washington Office Records, Evacuee Case Files, NARA I; [George Ochikubo], “Statement of United States Citizen of Japanese Ancestry,” Folder 71.113 Ochikubo, George Akira and “WRA Leave Clear-

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR

259

ance,” Folder 71.113 Ochikubo, Grace, Box 4312, RG 210 WRA, Washington Office Records, Evacuee Case Files, NARA I. 12. Morris E. Opler, “A History of Internal Government at Manzanar: March 1942 to December 6, 1942,” ca. 1943, 36–37, 40, Folder O 3.02, JAERR/UCB, reel #154; Yoneda, Ganbatte, 135; Anon., “Executive Council Elected by Block Leaders,” Project Report, 27 July 1942, Folder O 1.76, JAERR/UCB, reel #149. 13. Opler, “A History of Internal Government at Manzanar,” 50, 62; Yoneda, Ganbatte, 136–37. 14. Opler, “A History of Internal Government: March 1942 to December 6, 1942,” 73–74, 94, 103, 111–16; Edward J. Kirby, “Subversive Activities at War Relocation Centers,” 9 January 1943, Folder 3, Box 81, RG 65 FBI, World War II FBI Headquarters Files, NARA II; Monthly Report, November 1942 and December 1942, Folder O 2.90: Community Government Section, JAERR/UCB, reel #154; Haas, Notes on Community Government, 62; Togo Tanaka, “Documentary Report,” #87, 1 December 1942, Folder O 10.08, JAERR/UCB, reel #158; Opler, “A History of Internal Government: March 1942 to December 6, 1942,” 69–71, 74. 15. Haas, Notes on Community Government, 17; Issei Advisory Board, “Posutonshi Kenpo¯,” 27 March 1943, Folder 20, Box 6, JARCR/CU; Staff Meeting Research, October 2, 1942, Report by Katsuhiro Endo¯ on the political situation in Poston II, 3–10, Folder J 10.05, JAERR/UCB, reel #245. 16. Anon., “Block 19 Women’s Club—Minutes and [Diary],” Folder 19; C(hika) S(ugino), “C.R. Orientation,” 2 July 1943, 1, Folder 20, Box 8, JARCR/ CU; E(lizabeth) C(olson), “Poston I Fujin Kai,” August 1943, 6, 7, Folder 21, Box 8, JARCR/CU; Chika Sugino, “Home Industry Discussion Women’s Club,” 28 October 1943, Folder Untitled #5, Box 1; Y. Kawahara, Memo to PTA President Mr. Hayano, 19 January 1944, Folder No Title [#4], Box 1, and Sugino to Leighton, 2 November 1945, Folder Personality study w/note from AJL, Box 1, Chika Sugino Papers, Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, CA (hereafter cited as JANM/LA). 17. Block Manager, 1 October 1942, 11 and 18 January 1943, Folder 4–22 Block Manager’s Logs-Block #1; 1 October 1942, Folder 4–33 Block Manager’s Logs-Block 22, 13 October 1942, Folder 4–39, Box 4; Block Manager, 30 September 1942 and 14 November 1942, Folder 5–31; 29 October 1942, Folder 5–23, Box 5; [Elizabeth Colson], “Evacuee Leaders in Club Work,” 21 August 1945, Folder 21, Box 8, JARCR/CU. 18. War Relocation Authority Evacuee Property Report, 27 August 1943 and E. W. Schmitt to L. F. Sloan, 17 September 1943, Folder (71.113) Tachibana, Mary, Evacuee Case Files, Box 5607, RG 210 WRA, Washington Office Records, NARA I; Franklyn S. Sugiyama, “History of Self-Government in Poston, Unit I,” 10 February 1943, Folder J 3.16, JAERR/UCB, reel #219. 19. Anon., “Cooperative, C.E. and Industry,” 1, 6, Folder 8: Cooperatives Reports on Cooperative Community Enterprises and Industry, Box 8, JARCR/CU. 20. Ibid., 1; Cooperative Education Department, “Agenda,” 18 June 1942, Folder 10: Cooperatives: Meetings Minutes and Reports of Cooperative Education June–August 1942, notes on 4, 5, 6, 7 Cooperative Lectures, Cooperative Congress Meetings, Box 8; Anon., “Cooperative, C.E. and Industry,” 2, JARCR/CU.

260

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR

21. Anon., “Chronological Order of Events,” n.d., Folder 11: Cooperatives: observational notes by BSR, chronological order of events (re: coops) June 1942, remarks, opinions; “Number of Candidates from Each Block for Election of Temporary Delegates to the Co-op Congress,” 15 October 1942, Folder 12: Cooperative congress; Anon., Memoranda, 19 October 1942 and 20 October 1942, Folder 11: Cooperatives; Anon., “For Release,” 12 September 1942, 1–3, Folder 9; Anon., “Cooperative, C.E., and Industry,” 3, Folder 8: Cooperatives: Reports on Cooperative Community Enterprises and Industry, Box 8, JARCR/CU. 22. Topazu Sho¯hi Kumiai Nishu¯nen Kinenshi (December 1944), 5, Folder 2, Box 335, JARP/UCLA; R. A. Bankson, “Organization and Development of the Topaz Consumer Cooperative Enterprises,” ca. September 1943, part 1, pp. 3, 11, Folder 26, and part 2, pp. 2–4, Folder 27, Box 1, United States Relocation Authority: Central Utah Project, Manuscript and University Archives, Allen Library, University of Washington, Seattle (hereafter cited as USWRACUP/UW). 23. Opler, “A History of Internal Government at Manzanar: March 1942 to December 6, 1942,” 105; M[orris] E[.] O[pler], “Private Enterprise and Co-operative Enterprise at Manzanar,” 20 October 1943, 1, 2, Morris Opler Papers, courtesy of Mrs. Aiko Hertzig-Yoshinaga, Arlington, Va. (hereafter cited as MAHYPA/ VA); E[d] H[.] S[picer], “The Local Group in Poston,” 17 August 1943, 4–7, Folder 65 “The Block as a Social Institution” Study, Box 7, JARCR/CU; Daily Report no. 19 by Town Hall, 4 August 1942, Folder 66.011A1 Manzanar August 1942, Box 402, Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government(General); Report no. 30, 17 August 1942, Folder 66.011A1 Manzanar August 1942, Box 402, Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (General); Daily Report no. 36 from Town Hall, 23 August 1942, Folder 66.011A1 Manzanar August 1942, Box 402, Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (General) RG 210: Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I. 24. Opler, “A History of Internal Government at Manzanar: March 1942 to December 6, 1942,” 16, 71–73; Sue Kunitomi Embrey, Arthur A. Hansen, Betty Kulberg Mitson, eds., Manzanar Martyr: An Interview With Harry Y. Uyeno (Fullerton: The Oral History Program, California State University, 1986), 28–33. 25. Anon., “Survey of Issei Opinion,” ca. November 1942, Folder J 10.12, JAERR/UCB, reel #247. The authorship and dating are unclear but internal evidence suggests that the survey was conducted in 1942. The author was very likely Ed Ouchi, whom Alexander Leighton interviewed on December 19, 1942, since he mentioned having completed this survey. See Alexander Leighton, “Interview with Ed Ouchi 12–19–42,” 20 December 1942, Folder J 10.12 and his Sociological Journal 2 February 1943, Folder J 10.13, JAERR/UCB, reel # 247; E. B. Marks, Jr., “Report,” 27 November 1942, 1, 3, Folder H 1.81, reel #117; [Tomomasa Yamasaki], “Report submitted by non-citizens, Block Leader #11, member, Executive Council 11–6-3, Manzanar, Calif.,” ca. 14 August 1942, Folder O11.10, JAERR/UCB, reel #158. 26. Tamie Tsuchiyama, “Excerpt of Letter from Tsuchiyama to Thomas,” 29 March 1943, 2, Folder J 6.21, JAERR/UCB, reel #239.

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR

261

27. M[orris] E. Opler, “Family Pressure on a Nisei to Expatriate Because of the Draft,” CAS Report #180, 12 February 1944, MAHYPA/VA. 28. Togo Tanaka, “Documentary Report” #89, ca. December 1942, 397–98, Folder O10.08, “Documentary Report” #87, 1 December 1942, Folder O10.12, JAERR/UCB, reel #158. 29. E[d] H[.] S[picer], Interview with Richard Nishimoto, 29 December 1942, 1, 2, Folder J 10.18, JAERR/UCB, reel #247; Morris E. Opler, “An Expatriate,” 30 August 1943, 7–8, Morris E. Opler Papers, MAHYPA/VA. 30. Opler, “An Expatriate,” 30 August 1943, 5–7. 31. Ibid. 32. Anon., “Conflicting Opinions at the Manzanar Center,” Project Report, 6 August 1942, Folder O 1.76, JAERR/UCB, reel # 149. 33. Anon., “Garnish Net Project, Parker Reception Center, Parker, Ariz.,” n.d., Folder 51, Box 9; Vernon R. Kennedy to Davis McEntire, 7 October 1942; Smoot Katow, Andrew Sugimoto, and Henry Kanegae to Temporary Community Council, 25 August 1942, Folder 51 Camouflage-general administration memos and contracts; Anon., “Camouflage,” n.d., Folder 53 Camouflage—minutes of meetings and reports (chronology of project); W. Wade Head to the Residents of Poston, 28 January 1943, Folder 52 Camouflage—general administration memos and contracts, Box 9, JARCR/CU; G[eorge] Y[amaguchi], “Camouflage Meeting,” 16 January 1943, Folder J 15.00 2 of 2, JAERR/UCB, reel #256; T[om] S[asaki], Conversation with Frank Kuwahara, George Kubo, 20 April 1943; Personal Journal MF, 17 March 1943, Folder 54 Camouflage—interviews and observations, Box 9, JARCR/CU. 34. Rosamund B. Spicer, Diary, 24 September 1942 entry, 7, Folder EHS Notebooks/Diaries, Box 3, EHSRBSP/ASM; Takahashi-Cates, “Comparative Administration and Management of Five War Relocation Authority Camps,” 141; D. Dwight Douglas, C. A. Perkins, 11th Naval District Intelligence Officer, to Director of Naval Intelligence, 21 April 1943, Box 1, Harry Uyeno Papers, Special Collections, Green Library, Stanford University; Ed Spicer, “Appendix A[:] The Strike March 1943,” 11, 12 in John Walker Powell, “Community Government in Poston—An Informal Discussion,” 1 June 1946, Folder J 3.16, JAERR/UCB, reel #219; Koh Masuda, ed., Kenkyusha’s New Japanese-English Dictionary 4th ed. (Tokyo: Kenkyu¯sha, 1974), 545; Minoru Nishio, Etsutaro¯ Iwabuchi, Shizuo Mizutani, eds., Iwanami Kokugo Jiten Dai Sanpan (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1979), 63; Exhibit II: “Legal Department May 1942–October 1943,” 16, in Scott Rowley, “Narrative Report Legal Divsion,” 30 November 1945, Folder J 5.50, JAERR/UCB, reel #311; Anon., Left Camp, ca. 30 September 1943, Folder 2: Census Intakes, registration, arrival reports, #’s 8/42–7/43, Box 8; [Leighton], Interview with Head, Gelvin, and Henrietta-Johnson, 30 June 1943, 18, Folder 11–62, Box 30 (Restricted Access Materials), JARCR/CU; Sumi Kasuya, Minutes of the General Assembly, 11 December 1942, Folder 500 Community Management (Topaz), Box 97, RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I. 35. Boris T. Pash to R. B. Hood, 18 December 1942, Folder 000.91 Camouflage Net, Box 1 RG 338 WDC, NARA II; Opler, “A History of Internal Government at Manzanar: March 1942 to December 6, 1942,” 43–44, 84–85; Raymond Hirai, “Kibei Meeting,” n.d., Folder 95.23.7, Box 8, Raymond Hirai Papers,

262

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR

JANM/LA; Yoneda, Ganbatte, 137–38; “Report and Minority Views of the Special Committee on Un-American Activities on Japanese War Relocation Centers,” (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing, 1944), 78th Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, Report no. 717, Union Calendar no. 243, 30 September 1943, 16p by the Dies Committee plus 12p report, “Minority Views of the Honorable Herman P. Eberharter (17–28), Folder 93.75.11J -.11P, no box number, Manzanar Docs, JANM/LA. See page 6 of Eberharter’s Report. Only the first initials of the first and last names are used here and elsewhere for these alleged informants. 36. Staff Meeting [Minutes], 15 January 1943 and [Toshio Yatsushiro], “Analysis of questionnaire replies,” 15 January 1943, Folder 29: Outside Employment, Box 11, JARCR/CU; Minutes of Block Managers Meeting, 11 December 1942, Folder H 1.50 Block Managers Meeting Minutes, JAERR/UCB, reel #114; Togo Tanaka, “Documentary Report,” #10, 22 June 1942, 47–48, Folder O10.06, JAERR/UCB, reel #158. 37. John W. Powell, “Evacuees Arrived in Poston on August 10, 1942,” 11 August 1942, Folder 2, Box 8, JARCR/CU; Corbett, Quiet Passages, 117, 118, 120; Hyung-ju Ahn, “Korean Interpreters at Japanese Alien Detention Centers during World War II: An Oral History Analysis,” (M.A. thesis, California State University Fullerton, 1995), 106–114; Hyung-ju Ahn, Between Two Adversaries: Korean Interpreters at Japanese Alien Enemy Detention Centers during World War II (Fullerton: Oral History Program, California State University, 2002), 41– 45; A. H. Moore and Albert M. Franco, Memorandum for the Officer in Charge, 8 December 1942, Folder 000.5 Subversive Activities, Box 1 RG 338 WDC; U.S. Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service, “Parolee’s Agreement,” 26 June 1942, Microfilm Copy of the Records of the Assembly Centers, 1942–45, Box 02, RG 338 WDC, NARA II, reel #21-R; Haas, Notes on Community Government, 20; A. H. Moore and Albert M. Franco, Memorandum for the Officer in Charge, 8 December 1942, Folder 000.5 Subversive Activities, Box 1 RG 338 WDC, NARA II; I. B. Summers to B.R. Stauber, 11 August 1943, Folder 39.052#1 April 1942–August 1943, Box 287, RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I. 38. A. H. Leighton, “Int[er]v[iew]u w[ith] Bob Sakai,” 30 November 1942, 4, Folder 5, Box 10, JARCR/CU; Togo Tanaka, “History of J.A.C.L.,” p. 34, Folder O10.16, JAERR/UCB, reel #158; Togo Tanaka, “Journal,” 14 January 1942, Folder A 17.07, JAERR/UCB, reel #011; J. Edgar Hoover, “Summary of Information War Relocation Authority and Japanese Relocation Centers,” 2 August 1945, 77, Folder 62–69030–710, Box 84; D.M. Ladd, [Memorandum for] the Director, 23 January 1943, Folder Section 3 Serials 30X3–55, Box 81, RG 65 FBI/WRA, NARA II; Anon., “Conflicting Opinions at the Manzanar Center,” Project Report, 6 August 1942, Folder O 1.76, JAERR/UCB, reel # 149; Opler, “A History of the Internal Government at Manzanar: March 1942 to December 6, 1942,” 54, 55; J. Y. Kurihara, “Murder at Manzanar,” 16 April 1943, 3, Folder O8.10, JAERR/UCB, reel #157; Embrey, Hansen, Mitson, eds., Manzanar Martyr, 51, 40, 41; James Oda, Heroic Struggles of Japanese Americans: Partisan Fighters from America’s Concentration Camps (North Hollywood, Calif.: KNI, 1981), 61–64; J. Edgar Hoover, “Summary of Information War Relocation Authority and Japanese Relocation Centers,” 2 August 1945, 15, Folder 62–69030–710,

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR

263

Box 84, RG 65 Records of the FBI, World War II Headquarter Records on the WRA (hereafter cited as FBI/WRA), NARA II; Edward J. Kirby, “Subversive Activities at War Relocation Centers,” 9 January 1943; Blaney J. Barton and George R. Blair, [Joint Report], n.d., ca. January 1943; Edward J. Kirby and Blaney J. Barton, “Report of Special Agent Edward J. Kirby, dated 1–9-43 at Salt Lake City, Utah,” 9 January 1943, Folder Section 3 Serials 30X3–55, Box 81, RG 65, FBI/ WRA, NARA II. 39. Yoneda, Ganbatte, 133; H.M. [Sociological Journal], 18 November 1942, Folder 31, Box 13, JARCR/CU; A[lexander] H[.] L[eighton], “Interview with Ed Ouchi, 12–19–42,” 20 December 1942, Folder J 10.12, JAERR/UCB, reel #247; J. Edgar Hoover, “Summary of Information War Relocation Authority and Japanese Relocation Centers,” 2 August 1945, 15, 61, Folder 62–69030–710, Box 84, RG 65 FBI/WRA, NARA II. 40. Alexander Leighton, Sociological Journal, 21 April 1943, 2, Folder J 10.11, JAERR/UCB, reel #247; Block Managers’ Logs, 18 September 1942, Folder 4–29 (Block #18), Box 4; W. Wade Head to Charles F. Ernst, 9 February 1943, Folder 25: Transfers: Correspondence, Requests for Indefinite Leave—10/ 42–2/43, Box 10, JARCR/CU; Alexander Leighton, Sociological Journal], 24 September 1942, 3–4, Folder J 10.10, #3 of 6, JAERR/UCB, reel #247; A[lexander] H[.] L[eighton], Sociological Journal], 27 January 1943, Folder J 10.12, JAERR/ UCB, reel #247; Alexander Leighton, Sociological Journal, 3 and 5 November 1942, Folder 38, Box 13, JARCR/CU; Anon., attachment to Ed H. Spicer, “Meeting of the Public Relations Committee of the Community Council,” 11 September 1942, Folder J 6.27 “Law and Order,” JAERR/UCB, reel #241; J. Edgar Hoover, “Summary of Information War Relocation Authority and Japanese Relocation Centers,” 2 August 1945, 66–67, Folder 62–69030–710, Box 84, RG 65 FBI/ WRA, NARA II. 41. A[lexander] H[.] Leighton, Sociological Journal]?], 18 November 1942, 1–2, Folder 5, Box 10; [Alexander Leighton], Monthly Report on the Colorado Rivers War Relocation Project, Poston, Arizona, no. 2, November 11 to December 10, 1942, 2, 3, Folder 28: AHL Monthly Reports on Poston to Admiral McIntire (U.S. Navy), Correspondence, November 1942–May 1943, Box 2; A[lexander] H[.] L[eighton], Sociological Journal, 4 November 1942, Folder 38, Box 13, JARCR/CU. 42. Block Manager’s Log, 21 September 1942, Folder 5–10 (Block Manager’s Log Block 45), Box 5, JARCR/CU. 43. Hayashi, ‘For the Sake of Our Japanese Brethren,’ 16, 17; Alice Yang Murray, “‘Silence No More’: The Japanese American redress movement, 1942– 1992,” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1995), 90; Embrey, Hansen, and Mitson, eds., Manzanar Martyr , 40; Opler, “A History of Internal Government at Manzanar,” 122, 124–25. 44. A[lexander] H[.] L[eighton, “Note to Go with the Minutes of Committee Meeting,” 23 November 1942, Folder 9, Box 10, JARCR/CU; Hayashi, ‘For the Sake of Our Japanese Brethren,’ 15. 45. Norris James to W. Wade Head, 17 November 1942, Folder 4, Box 10, JARCR/CU; R. W. Schmitt to Earl P. Browne, 9 August 1943, Folder (71.113 Fujii, George Sadayoshi) 16895, Box 441; C. H. Small to D. S. Myer, 28 February

264

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR

1943, Folder 71.113 Nishimura, Chiyoko Irene, Box 4158, and R. W. Ware to D. S. Myer, 23 February 1943, and Kay Nishimura to H. Mayeda, 29 March 1942, Folder 71.113 Nishimura, Kay Kazuo, Box 4166, RG 210 WRA, Washington Office Records, Evacuee Case Files, NARA I; A[lexander] H[.] L[eighton], “Minutes,” 21 November 1942, 3, 4, Folder 9, Box 10, JARCR/CU. 46. Block Manager’s Log, Block 28, entries for 6 October 1942, 28 September 1942, 15 October 1942, 14 February 1943, 12 September 1942, 5 October 1942, 29 October 1942, 30 October 1942, Folder 4–36, Box 4, JARCR/CU; E[d] H[.] S[picer], “Interview with Dr. Mizushima,” 29 May 1943, 8, Folder J 10.17, JAERR/UCB, reel #247. 47. Block Manager’s Log, 9 October 1942, 22 October 1942, 26 October 1942, 9 November 1942, 9 December 1942, 18 November 1942, Folder 4–28: (Block Manager’s Logs-Block #17), Box 4, JARCR/CU. 48. Block Manager’s Logs, 3 December 1942, 12 December 1942, 23 November 1942, 4 November 1942, 19 November 1942, 21 November 1942, Folder 5– 28, Box 5; Distribution of Issei, Nisei/Sansei, also Kibei Poston, Arizona, Unit I; Distribution of Issei, Nisei/Sansei, also Kibei Unit III, 25 September 1942, Folder 4: Census Studies-Distribution of Issei, Nisei, Sansei, Kibei, Box 14; Block Manager’s Logs, 23 November 1942, 8 December 1942, Folder 5–28, Box 5, JARCR/ CU. 49. Block Manager’s Logs, 8 December 1942, Folder 5–23, Box 5 JARCR/ CU; Elizabeth Colson, “Personal Journal,” 23 March 1943, 2, Folder J 10.16, JAERR/UCB, reel #247; Block Manager’s Logs, 1 December 1942, Folder 5–23, Box 5, JARCR/CU. 50. Block Manager’s Logs, 8 February 1943, 22 October 1942, 11 January 1943, 16 January 1943, 19 November 1942, 20 November 1942, 13 November 1942, Folder 5–23, Box 5, JARCR/CU. 51. Poston II Community Congress, “The People of Poston II States its Case,” 23 November 1942, Folder J 8.00, JAERR/UCB, reel #244; Haas, Notes on Community Government, 37, 43; Block Manager #19’s Log, 30 October 1942, Folder 4–30, Box 4, JARCR/CU. 52. Norris E. James, Chronology of Events in the Disturbance at Colorado River War Relocation Project, Poston (ca. 1942), 2, 3, Folder J 15.60, JAERR/ UCB, reel #263; E. H. Spicer, “Running Account of General Strike Poston, November 18–28, 1942,” 21 November 1942 entry, 4, Folder J 15.60, JAERR/UCB, reel #263; Ed Spicer and Alexander Leighton, “Chronology of Poston Incident,” ca. 6 December 1942, 17, Folder J 15.60, JAERR/UCB, reel #263; R[osamund] B[.] S[icer], “Strike 61. Personality.220—Smoot Katow. Interview by AHL with Smoot Katow,” 13 October 1942, Folder 5, Box 10; V. Kennedy, “General Report of Employment Situation,” 30 November 1942, 3, Folder 3, Box 10, JARCR/CU. 53. Norris E. James, Chronology of Events in the Disturbance at Colorado River War Relocation Project, Poston (ca. 1942), 7, Folder J 15.60, JAERR/UCB, reel #263; E. H. Spicer, “Running Account of General Strike Poston, November 18–28, 1942,” 22 November 1942 entry, 2, Folder 15.60, JAERR/UCB, reel #263; Ed Spicer and Alexander Leighton, “Chronology of Poston Incident,” ca. 6 December 1942, 21, Folder J 15.60, JAERR/UCB, reel #263.

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR

265

54. [Fred Tayama], Statements, 8 December 1942; Anon. informer (Tayama?), Notes taken December 9, 1942, Folder 323.3/32 Manzanar (Riot), Box 56, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; Opler, “A History of the Internal Government at Manzanar,” 127, 130; “Notes on Interview with Mr. Merritt, December 7, 1942,” “Notes on Discussion with Dr. Morse Little, Surgeon in Charge of Center hospital—12/8/42,” Folder 323.3/32 Manzanar (Riot), Box 56, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 55. Bendetsen and Col. Mueller, 10 December 1942, 12:05 p.m., Record no. 87–88, by E. M. Rudy, Folder 323.3/32 Manzanar (Riot); Transcript of meeting between Ralph Merritt, Reports Office Bob Brown, Japanese members of Reports Office (Chiye Mori, George Kurata, Togo Tanaka, Tom Yamasaki, Joseph Blamey, Tad Uyeno), n.d., Folder 323.3/32 Manzanar (Riot), Box 56; Bendetsen and Col. Mueller, 10 December 1942, and Bendetsen and [Ralph] Merritt, 7 December 1942, Folder 291.2 Japanese *Segregation Telephone Conversations, Box 6, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; Ralph P. Merritt to D.S. Myer, 7 January 1943, Folder 66.011A #2 Manzanar, Box 401, Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (General), RG 210: Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I. 56. J. Edgar Hoover, “Summary of Information War Relocation Authority and Japanese Relocation Centers,” 2 August 1945, 15, Folder 62–69030–710, Box 84, RG 65 FBI/WRA, NARA II; E. R. Fryer and Lewis Sigler, “Report on the Incident,” 22 December 1942, 14–16, Folder O 7.00, JAERR/UCB, reel #157; A. J. Petrie to John Clear 16 January 1943; R. H. Rutledge to E. R. Fryer, 26 December 1942; E. R. Fryer to Richard Rutledge, 28 December 1942, Folder 41.040, Box 292: Central Files WRA HDQS, Individual Reports, RG 210: Records of the WRAHSCGF files 41.030 to 41.060, NARA I; R.R. Best to Dillon S. Myer, 3 April 1943; D. S. Myer to R. R. Best, 9 March 1943, Lewis A. Sigler to The Director [&] John H. Provinse, 12 April 1943, Folder 39.053; D. S. Myer to Edward J. Ennis, 3 May 1943, Folder 39.055; D. S. Myer to All Field Assistant Directors and Project Directors, ca. 5 June 1943, Folder 39.055, Box 289, RG 210: Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I; Bendetsen and Col. Weckerling, December 7, 1942, 3 p.m., Record #26, 27, 28, and “Highlights of conversation between Colonel Wilson and Major Moffitt,” 7 December 1942, Folder 291.2 Japanese *Segregation Telephone Conversations, Box 6, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 57. Tamie Tsuchiyama, “The Poston Strike: A Chronological Account,” n.d., 7, 8, Folder J 6.24, JAERR/UCB, reel #239; John Walker Powell, “Community Government in Poston—An Informal Discussion,” 1 June 1946, 27, 28, Folder J3.16, JAERR/UCB, reel #219; Theodore H. Haas to Philip M. Glick, 26 December 1942, Folder J 1.71a, JAERR/UCB, reel #195. 58. Theodore H. Haas, Memorandum to Mr. Head, 3 January 1944, 3, Folder 50, Box 13, JARCR/CU; Haas, Notes on Community Government, 36. 59. Special Meeting Block Managers Assembly Minutes, 6 January 1943; Block Managers Assembly Minutes, 5 February 1943, Folder 66.011A Manzanar June 1942–December 1943 (continued), Box 402, Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (General), RG 210: Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I.

266

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR

60. T[oshio] Y[atsushiro], “Block 35 residents,” 17 December 1942, Folder 29, Box 7; Anon., “Central Executive Board,” 12 January 1943, Folder 11, Box 10; W. Wade Head to John Collier, 11 January 1943, Folder 11–62, Box 30, (Restricted Access Materials), JARCR/CU; Anon., “Issei Informal Representative Council,” 15 August 1942; A[lexander] H[.] L[eighton], “Interview with R. Nishimoto about 10.30 to 12 noon,” 20 December 1942, Folder J 10.12, JAERR/UCB, reel #247; Kenji Kawabe, “Reasons and Report on Demand for Mass Resignation of Issei Central Executive Committee,” 10 January 1943, Folder 20, Box 6; [Central Executive Committee], “Reasons for Refusing [the] Demand of Resignation by [the] Issei Advisory Board,” 11 January 1943, Folder 20, Box 6, JARCR/CU; Haas, Notes on Community Government, 25–27, 30; Staff Meeting Minutes, 15 January 1943, Folder 29, Box 11, JARCR/CU. 61. “Tokyo in Japanese at 2:40 a.m. to West of America, 12/7/42, Mtd Okazaki,” 7 December 1942, Folder Master Analysis File, Box 42, RG 208, Records of the OWI, Records of the Analysis and Research Bureau, Monitoring Reports Japanese Broadcasts, December 1941–November 1945, NARA II; “Tokyo in Japanese to at 2:40 a.m. to West of America, MTD Okazaki,” 7 December 1942, Folder Master Analysis File December 7, 1942, Box 42, December 6, 1942 to December 12, 1942, RG 208, Records of the OWI, Records of the Analysis and Research Bureau, Monitoring Reports Japanese Broadcasts, December 1941–November 1945, NARA II; Foreign Language Broadcast Intelligence Service (hereafter cited as FLBIS), Federal Communications Commission, “Special Release English Translation of Admiral Nomura’s Speech, Broadcast by the Tokyo Radio on February 9, 1943, on the Treatment of Japanese Interned Abroad,” Supplement to the Daily Report, 17 February 1943, Box 2, FLBIS, RG 262 Records of the FLBIS, NARA II. 62. CWRIC, Personal Justice Denied, 186–204; Daniels, Concentration Camp:, North America, 112–15; Taylor, Jewel of the Desert, 147–50; Irving V. Tierman, “Japanese Americans,” 4 September 1943, Folder Reference Material, Box 1733, Personnel Security Division Japanese-American Branch General File 1942–46, RG 389 Records of the OPMG, NARA II; Ruth E. McKee, “History of W.R.A.: Pearl Harbor to June 30, 1944,” 178, Folder 4, Box 19, EHSP/UA. 63. Captain Stanley D. Arnold, ed., “History of Japanese Program” (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Provost Marshal General, January 20, 1943 to September 1, 1945), 6, 7, Folder 291.2 History of Japanese Program Prepared by Japanese-American Branch, Box 7, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; John J. McCloy to Dr. Alexander Meicklejohn, 20 September 1942, Folder A5.02, Box 1, Part 1 Evacuation and Assembly Centers, December 7, 1941—December 1942, Section 2 PreEvacuation Policies, Programs, and Studies, December 7, 1941—March 1942, JAERR/UCB; John J. McCloy to General DeWitt, 22 May 1943, Folder #230 Personnel, Box 4; Arnold, “History of Japanese Program,” 9–10, Folder 291.2, Box 7, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 64. DeWitt and McCloy, telephone conversation, 18 January 1943, #565, Folder #291.2 Release of Japanese 1st Section, Box 7; McKee, “History of W.R.A.,” 166; John J. McCloy to General DeWitt, 22 May 1943, Folder #230 Personnel, Box 4, RG 338 Records of the WDC, NARA II. 65. Theo. J. Koenig to Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt, 14 July 1942; Calvert L. Dedrick to John J. McCloy and Col. Karl R. Bendetsen, 17 November 1942; De-

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR

267

Witt and McCloy, telephone conversation, 18 January 1943, #565, Folder #291.2 Release of Japanese 1st Section, Box 7, RG 338 Records of the WDC; John J. McCloy to [Milton] Eisenhower, 15 October 1942, Folder Aliens-1 (Japanese Americans) 1942–44, Box 1, RG 208 Records of the OWI, Records of the Office of the Director, 1942–45, NARA II; Alison R. Bernstein, American Indians and World War II: Toward a New Era in Indian Affairs (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1991), 40. 66. DeWitt to General Gullion, 14 January 1943, 1635Z, #555, Folder #291.2 Release of Japs 1st Section, Box 7; J.L. DeWitt to Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, 27 January 1943; Bendetsen and Capt. Hall, telephone conversation, 19 January 1943, 10:25 a.m., Record no. 58–59–60–61; Ray Ashworth to Bendetsen, 23 January 1943; Calvert Dedrick to Bendetsen, 23 January 1943; Lewis M. Means, Memorandum to Commanding General, WDC, 21 January 1943, Folder #291.2 Release of Japanese 1st Section, Box 7, RG 338 Records of the WDC, NARA II. 67. DeWitt to Col. Theodore J. Koenig, 23 July 1942, Folder 291.2 Japanese– Segregation, Box 6; Bendetsen, Memorandum for [the] Commanding General, WDC, 28 January 1943, Folder 291.2 Release of Japanese 1st Section, Box 7; W. B. Parsons, to Asst. Chief of Staff G-2 (CIB), WDC, 9 July 1942, Folder 291.2Japanese—Segregation, Box 6; DeWitt to Chief of Staff United States Army Washington, D.C., “Separation of Kibei from Nisei,” 9 October 1942, Folder 291.2 Japanese, Box 4, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 68. K[arl] Bendetsen and Capt. Hall, telephone conversation, 19 January 1943, 8, Folder 291.2 Release of Japanese 1st Section, Box 7, RG 338 Records of the WDC, NARA II. 69. Karl Bendetsen, Memorandum for Commanding General, WDC, 28 January 1943, Folder #291.2 Release of Japanese 1st Section, Box 7, RG 338 Records of the WDC, NARA II; Philip Webster, “Investigation of Japanese Activities by Civil Affairs Division of Western Defense Command and Fourth Army,” 26 April 1943, Folder 39.052#1 April 1942–August 1943, Box 287, RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF NARA I. If War Department estimates were based on the World War I internment “spoilage” rate of one in twelve German Americans, then they would have anticipated between nine thousand and ten thousand Japanese American repatriates and expatriates. See William B. Glidden, “Internment Camps in America, 1917–1920,” Military Affairs 37, no. 4 (1973): 137–41. 70. E. M. Rowalt to Charles Ernst, 1 February 1943, Exhibit G, in Bankson, “Registration at Topaz”; McKee, “History of W.R.A.,” 183. 71. Russell A. Bankson, “Registration at Topaz,” ca. April 1943, 2, 7–8, 11, 15, 17, 21, 25–26, 42; [Russell Bankson], “General Summary of the Registration,” 24 February 1943, 1, 5, Folder 2–10, Box 2, USWRACUP/UW. 72. McKee, “History of W.R.A,” 177–85. 73. R. Gelvin, “Selective Service Statistics,” 19 March 1943, Folder 3, Box 11, JARCR/CU; Yukiko Kimura, Issei: Japanese Immigrants in Hawaii (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1988), 236; “Number of Applicants for Voluntary Induction Unit I—By Blocks,” 29 March 1943; “Number of Applicants for Voluntary Induction Unit II—By Blocks,” 29 March 1943; “Number of Applicants for Voluntary Induction Unit III—By Blocks,” 29 March 1943, Folder 3, Box 11, JARCR/CU;

268

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR

Alexander H. Leighton, [Sociological Journal], 12 January 1943 and 14 February 1943, Folder J 10.12, JAERR/UCB, reel #247; Bankson, “Registration at Topaz,” 47, 50, 53, 55, 58, Folder 2–10, Box 2, USWRACUP/UW; John M. Hall, Minutes, 19 October 1943, Folder Minutes of the Japanese American Joint Board, Box 1759, RG 389 Records of the OPMG, NARA II; Taylor, Jewel of the Desert, 149– 50; Daniels, Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States since 1850 (Seattle: University of Washington, 1988), 252, table 6.5. 74. McKee, “History of W.R.A.,” 184; Daniels, Concentration Camps: North America, 114; CWRIC, Personal Justice Denied, 195; Taylor, Jewel of the Desert, 150; R. Gelvin, “Selective Service,” 19 April 1943, Folder 3, Box 11, JARCR/CU; [Margaret D’Ille et al.], “The Loyalty Controversy—A Statement and a Suggested Program,” ca. 18 May 1943, 8, 18, Morris E. Opler Papers, MAHYPA/VA. Takahashi-Cates give similar but slightly different numbers in the Appendix I of her “Comparative Administration and Management of Five War Relocation Authority Camps,” 611. 75. E[d] H[.] S[picer], [Sociological Journal], 7 January 1943, Folder J 12.10, JAERR/UCB, reel #250; Morris E. Opler, “Why So Many Kibei Said No to Question 28,” 31 August 1943, Morris E. Opler Papers, MAHYPA/VA. 76. B[ureau of] S[ociological] R[esearch], “Negative and Neutral Answer Question no. 28,” 1 July 1943, Folder 3, Box 11; A[lexander] H[.] L[eighton], Staff Meeting, 4 November 1942, Folder 5–45, Box 5; E[lizabeth] C[olson], “Interview with Head,” 14 December 1942, Folder 11–62, Box 30, JARCR/CU; B[ureau of] S[ociological] R[esearch], “Negative and Neutral Answer[s] for Question no. 28 (February 1943) on DDS Form 304-A and WRA - 126- Rev.,” Folder J 10.25, JAERR/UCB, reel #247. 77. M[orris] E. Opler, “A Study of Change of Answer Cases at Manzanar,” 3 April 1944, 4, Morris E. Opler Papers, MAHYPA/VA; Thomas and Nishimoto, The Spoilage, 96; T[amie] T[suchiyama], “Removal of Tachibana” ca. 3 February 1943, Folder J 10.20, JAERR/UCB, reel #247; B[ureau of] S[ociological] R[esearch], “Negative and Neutral Answer[s] for Question no. 28 (February, 1943) on DDS Form 304-A and WRA - 126- Rev.,” Folder J 10.25, JAERR/UCB, reel #247. 78. Ralph P. Merritt, Bulletin no. 49, n.d., Folder Manzanar Relocation Center Administrative Inst., Box 8, Washington Office Records, Washington Central Files 11.227 Field & Center Procedures, Manzanar and Minidoka Relocation Centers, RG 210: Records of the WRAHSCGF, files 41.030 to 41.060; Block Managers Assembly Minutes, 8 February 1943; Comments on Minutes of Block Managers’ Meeting of February 8, 1943, Folder 66.011A Manzanar June 1942– December 1943 (continued), Box 402; Block Managers [Minutes], 2 April 1943; Special Mtg. Minutes, 20 April 1943; [Block Managers’ Minutes], 30 April 1943, Folder 66.011A Manzanar June 1942–December 1943 (continued), Box 402, Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (General), RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I. 79. Bankson, “Registration at Topaz,” 31–32; Exhibit V “Issei Meeting,” 15 February 1943, 6; Appendix Our Struggle for Freedom, 22 February 1943, Folder H 2.03, JAERR/UCB, reel #119; Minutes, Block Managers[’] Meeting, 16 February 1943, Folder 12, Box 4, JARCR/CU.

NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE

269

80. Carl Kondo, “Comments on Segregation,” 13 July 1943, Morris E. Opler Papers, MAHYPA/VA; Bankson, “Registration at Topaz,” 41–42, 47; John F. Embree, “Registration at Central, Utah, 14–17 February 1943,” Project Analysis Series no.1, February 1943, Folder 4, Box 8, EHSP/UA; Minutes of the Block Managers’ Meetings, 17 January 1943, Folder H 1.51, JAERR/UCB, reel #115; Paul Robertson to Dillon S. Myer, 11 August 1943, 2, 3, Folder 39.055, Box 289, RG 210: Records of the WRA Headquarters Subject-Classified General Files, NARA I.; [Foreign] Minister Suzuki, “Manzanar Shu¯dan Seikatsusho Shisatsu Ho¯koku,” 7 June 1944, in Japanese Foreign Ministry, “Dai To¯a Senso¯ Kankei Ikken Ko¯senkokukan Tekikokujin oyobi Furyo Toritsukai Shin Kankei Ippan oyobi Shomondai Zaitekikoku Honpo¯jin Shu¯yo¯sho Shistatsu Ho¯koku Zaibei no Bu Dai Ikkan,” Gaiko¯ Shiryo¯kan, Tokyo, Japan; Department of State Memorandum, 24 April 1944, Folder War Relocation Centers, Box 1740 Personnel Security Division Japanese-American Branch General File, 1942–46, RG 389 Records of the OPMG, NARA II. 81. Robin D.G. Kelley, “An Archaeology of Resistance,” American Quarterly 44, no. 2 (June 1992): 292–98. FIVE “WHY AWAKE A SLEEPING LION?” GOVERNANCE DURING THE QUIET PERIOD, 1943–1944

1. Myer, Uprooted Americans, 65. 2. Michael John Wallinger, “Dispersal of the Japanese Americans: Rhetorical Strategies of the War Relocation Authority, 1942–1945,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Oregon, 1975), 111–24; Robert A. Taft to Don Tobin, 3 August 1946, Folder Personal Correspondence File 1946, Box 2, Papers of Dillon S. Myer, HSTL/IM; Henriette S. Johnson, “Conversation between W. Wade Head, Project Director, and H. H. Townshend, Supply and Transportation Officer, on December 1, 1942;” Charles A. Popkins to W. Wade Head, 11 June 1943, Folder 1/7; William A. Barrett, To Whom It May Concern, 12 June 1943, Folder 1/10: Townsend, Letters and Statements, 1943, Box 1, Wade Head Collection, FM MSS-117, Arizona Historical Foundation, Hayden Library, Arizona State University, Phoenix (hereafter cited as WHCAHF/ASU); Anon., Career in Poston, Folder 12–2; RBS, [Henry W. Smith], 16 September 1943, 1–12, Folder 12–2, Box 12, JARCR/CU. 3. WRA Press Release on Duncan Mills, Folder 1/14: Personal Letters Concerning WRA, Also New Year’s Greeting to Camp One, 1 January 1943, Box 1; Richard Nishimoto, [Field Notes], January 13 [1944], Folder **J 6.15A, File “Administration,” JAERR/UCB, reel #238; Department of the Interior Information Service, [News Release], 21 June 1948, Folder Newsclippings and P.R. BLM, Box 1, Papers of Luther T. Hoffman, HSTL/IM. 4. John Edgar Hoover, “Memorandum for the Attorney General,” 8 December 1942, Folder 62 69030 Section 1 Serials X-20, Box 81, RG 65 Records of the FBI, FBI/WRA; J. Edgar Hoover, “Summary of Information War Relocation Authority and Japanese Relocation Centers,” 2 August 1945, 32, 35b, Folder 62– 69030–710, Box 84; [Solon Kimball], “The History of Community Government,” 7–9, Box 28, RG 28, SKPTC/CU; J. Edgar Hoover, “Summary of Information

270

NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE

War Relocation Authority and Japanese Relocation Centers,” 2 August 1945, 29– 32, 35b, Folder 62–69030–710, Box 84; H. R. Duffey to Director, FBI, 7 April 1943, Folder Section 4 Serials 56–100, Box 81, RG 65 Federal Bureau of Investigation, Records of the World War II Headquarter Records on the War Relocation Authority (hereafter cited as FBI/WRA), NARA II; D. M. Ladd, Memorandum for the Director, 25 September 1943, Folder Section 10 Serials 416–45, Box 83, RG 65 FBI/WRA; D. M. Ladd, Memorandum for the Director, 14 July 1943, Folder Section 9 Serials 271–415, Box 83; H. R. Duffey to Director, FBI, 22 May 1943, Folder Section 5 of 16, Box 86, RG 65 FBI/WRA, NARA II. 5. J. Edgar Hoover, “Summary of Information War Relocation Authority and Japanese Relocation Centers,” 2 August 1945, 77, Folder 62–69030–710, Box 84, RG 65 FBI/WRA, NARA II; [Spicer], “FBI: remarks about Washington Conference of PD’s,” 26 May 1943, Folder 3: FBI Investigations at the Centers, Box 1 MS 42, EHSP/UA; Minutes of the Block Managers’ Meetings, 3 March 1943 and 4 March 1943, Folder H 1.51, JAERR/UCB, reel #116. 6. John W. Powell, “The History of Community,” n.d., 11, 12, no folder, Box 28, RG 28 SKPTC/CU; D. M. Ladd, Memorandum for the Director, 25 September 1943, 6, Folder Section [10] Serials 416–45, Box 83, RG 65 FBI/WRA; J. Edgar Hoover, Memorandum for the Attorney General, 24 September 1942 and D. M. Ladd, Memorandum for the Director, 6 August 1942, Folder 62 69030 Section 1 Serials X-20, Box 81; J. Edgar Hoover, “Summary of Information War Relocation Authority and Japanese Relocation Centers,” 2 August 1945, 2, Folder 62– 69030–710, Box 84, RG 65 FBI/WRA; John Edgar Hoover to D. S. Myer, 2 June 1943, Folder Section 5 of 16; John Edgar Hoover, Memorandum for the Attorney General, 1 September 1943, Folder Section 9 of 16, Box 86, RG 65 FBI/WRA, NARA II; Cates, “Comparative Management of Five War Relocation Authority Camps,” 141; Dillon S. Myer to Ralph P. Merritt, 11 August 1944; Philip M. Glick to Edgar Bernhard, 29 June 1944; D. S. Myer, Memorandum to the Under Secretary, 8 March 1944; J. Edgar Hoover, Memorandum for Mr. Ugo Carusi, 26 October 1943, Folder 39.051A#1, Panel for Board of Appeals of Leave Clearance, September 1943, Box 286, RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I. 7. WRA, Washington, D.C., Relocation Planning Division, “Males of Japanese Ancestry Transferred to Leupp, Arizona, Center (formerly at Moab, Utah) from Other Centers,” ca. 15 July 1943; Anon., “Perimeter Description of the Area Boundary, Leupp Relocation Center, Arizona,” 10 April 1943; J. L. DeWitt, “Civilian Restrictive Order No. 30,” 1 May 1943, Folder 323.3 - Leupp Relocation Center, Box 56, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; D. S. Myer to All Field Assistant Directors and Project Directors, ca. 5 June 1943; Lewis Sigler to the Solicitor [Glick], 14 August 1943; Paul Robertson to Dillon S. Myer, 11 August 1943, 2, 3, Folder 39.055, Box 289, RG 210: Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I; Weglyn, Years of Infamy, 125–32; Drinnon, Keeper of the Concentration Camps, 106. 8. Bendetsen to Commanding General, WDC, 26 June 1943, Folder 370.093 Military Police vol. 2, Box 66, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; Conn, Engelman, and Fairchild, The United States Army in World War II: The Western Hemisphere, vol. 12, part 2, p. 94; Delos C. Emmons, Memorandum for C[ommanding] G[eneral], WDC, 26 March 1944, Folder 370.091 Convoys, Escorts and Guards; Brehoon Somervell, Memorandum for Mr. McCloy, 25 February 1944; Colonel Bathurst

NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE

271

and Captain Hall, telephone conversation, 28 February 1944; M. F. Mochau to Commanding General, Army Service Forces, War Dept., 26 September 1944, Folder 370.093 Military Police vol. 2, Box 66, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; John M. Phillips, Memorandum to Major Davis, ca. 8 January 1944, Folder Employment of Persons of Japanese Ancestry in Plants and Facilities Important to the War Effort, Box 1720 Eleventh Naval District to Exemption Certificate, RG 389 Records of the Office of the Provost Marshal General (hereafter cited as OPMG), NARA II; Block Managers’ Meeting, 12 May 1944, Folder 66.011A Manzanar January 1944–December 1944, Box 402, Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (General), RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I; Janet Olincy Goldberg to Lois [Ferguson], n.d., Manzanar Docs, Object ID # 94.169.10, JANM/LA. 9. Taylor, Jewel of the Desert, 137–45; Dr. M. A. Harada [and] Dr. James Go¯to, Memorandum to Special Committee Representing Japanese Nationals, 13 April 1943, Folder 514.1 Shooting (Wakasa), Box 98, RG 210: Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I; Russell A. Bankson, “The Wakasa Incident,” n.d., Folder 2–7 Reports War Relocation Authority, Box 2, USWRACUP/UW; R.A. Bankson to Charles F. Ernst, 13 April 1943, Folder 514.1 Shooting (Wakasa), Box 98; Henry H. Miller, Memorandum to J. F. Hughes, 20 April 1943, Folder 514 Police, Box 97; John J. McCloy to Dillon S. Myer, 8 June 1943, Folder 514.1 Shooting (Wakasa), Box 98, RG 210: Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I. For another account of the incident, see Drinnon, Keeper of the Concentration Camps, 43. 10. John McCloy, Diary, 25 May 1943, Folder 27: III-11 Enemy Aliens, Box DY5, John Jay McCloy Papers, Robert Frost Library, Amherst College, Amherst, Mass.; Delos Emmons to Commanding General WDC and 4th Army, 12 October 1942; Bendetsen and Lt. Hall, 5 October 1942; [Conversation between Col. Bendetsen and Col. Whitcomb], Record no. 97, 20 November 1942, 8:40 a.m., transcribed by Evelyn M. Rudy, Folder 093 Hawaii, Box 4; General Emmons and John McCloy, telephone conversation, 13 June 1944; 15 March 1943, Minutes of the Block Managers’ Meetings, Folder H 1.51, JAERR/UCB, reel #116; Delos C. Emmons to J. J. McCloy, 10 November 1943, Folder 020 War Department, Box 1, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; Project Reports Division, Daily Log, 23 September 1943, Folder H 1.99 4 of 4, JAERR/UCB, reel #119; Delos C. Emmons, “Paraphrase of Confidential Radiogram,” 14 September 1943, Folder 008 Policy Folder 9/18/43, Box 1; Lieutenant General Emmons to John J. McCloy, 14 September 1943, Folder 000.7-Press, Box 1; Joel F. Watson, Memorandum for Chief of Staff, 25 May 1944, Folder 291.2/37- Japanese Exclusion and Screening Program (vol. I), Box 4, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 11. Jerry N. Hess, “Second Oral History Interview with Karl R. Bendetsen, New York City, N.Y.” (interview, 1972), 98, 104, HSTL/IM; CWRIC, Personal Justice Denied, 206–8; Karl R. Bendetsen to Train Commanders, 31 August 1943, Tab 3, Folder 319.1 Final Report (by NSC, 1943) on segregation of Japanese in Various Relocation Centers (from and to Tule Lake), Box 48; John Hall for John J. McCloy, Memorandum to General McNarney, 6 August 1943, Folder 253.91 Transfer of Evacuees vol. III, Box 27, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 12. James H. Keeley, Jr., Memorandum to Mr. Brandt, Mr. Long, 17 October 1942, Folder Jap. Govt. Agreement, Box 186, RG 59, General Records of the

272

NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE

State Dept., Records of the Special War Problems Division, Subject Files, 1939– 1954, NARA II; Corbett, Quiet Passages, 58–59, 84, 64–65, 129; Edward J. Ennis, Memorandum to Mr. Sidney K. Lafoon, 12 August 1942, and ibid., Memorandum to Mr. Sidney K. Lafoon, 18 June 1942, Folder Alien Enemy Control Unit 1942, Box 186, Folder Alien Enemy Control Unit, RG 59, General Records of the State Dept., Records of the Special War Problems Division, Subject Files, 1939–1954; [Lawrence] Salisbury to Mr. [Breckinridge] Long, 25 June 1942 and Frank Knox to Joe J. Mickle, 22 February 1943, Folder Jap. Govt. Agreement, Box 186, RG 59, General Records of the State Dept., Records of the Special War Problems Division, Subject Files, 1939–1954, NARA II. 13. WDC/CAD, Research Branch, “Applicants for Repatriation Who Have Neither Cancelled Their Applications nor Been Segregated at Tule Lake: 31 March 1944,” 31 March 1944; WDC CAD Research Branch, “Applicants for Repatriation from Central Utah by Sex, Age and Citizenship, Who Have Neither Cancelled Their Application nor Been Segregated to Tule Lake: 31 March 1944;” WDC/ CAD Research Branch, “Applicants for Repatriation from Colorado River by Sex, Age and Citizenship, Who Have Neither Cancelled Their Application nor Been Segregated to Tule Lake: 31 March 1944;” WDC CAD Research Branch, “Applicants for Repatriation from Manzanar by Sex, Age and Citizenship, Who Have Neither Cancelled Their Application nor Been Segregated to Tule Lake: 31 March 1944,” Folder #291.2: Japanese, Statistical Studies (Applicants for Repatriation), Box 31, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; B. R. Stauber to Edwin M. Ferguson, 10 December 1945, Folder 39.051A #1 Panel for Board of Appeals for Leave Clearance September 1943 to [?], Box 286, RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I; Charles Ernst to Dillon Myer, 18 March 1943, and list of individual cases of repatriates/expatriates, Folder 2, Box 11, EHSP/UA; Release on Segregation no. 27a, 30 September 1943, Folder 2 Releases of Segregation; Merritt to Myer, 2 March 1943, Folder O 1.68, JAERR/UCB, reel #149; Morris E. Opler, “Family Counseling: The Evacuee Point of View,” 3 October 1944, Morris E. Opler Papers, MAHYPA/VA; Ralph P. Merritt, Bulletin no. 49, n.d., Folder Manzanar Relocation Center Administrative Inst., Box 8, Washington Office Records, Washington Central Files 11.227 Field and Center Procedures, Manzanar and Minidoka Relocation Centers; Block Manager’s [Minutes], 2 April 1943; Special Meeting minutes, 20 April 1943; [Block Managers’ Minutes], 30 April 1943, Folder 66.011A Manzanar June 1942–December 1943 (continued,) Box 402, Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (general), RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I. 14. Taylor, Jewel of the Desert, 153; War Relocation Authority, “Summary Notes on Segregation Conference of W.R.A. Officials Denver, Colorado July 26– 27, 1943,” Folder 1: WRA report on the “The Segregation Program” Notes from WRA Segregation Conference 7/43, BSR report, Box 11, JARCR/CU; Administrative Committee Report, 12 July 1943, Folder H 1.49, JAERR/UCB, reel #112. 15. Morris Opler, “The Repatriate-Expatriate Group of Manzanar,” 4 August 1944, 11–16, 68–70, 21, 32, 117, 36–37, 43–46, 50–51, Folder 8: Manzanar Relocation Center, Manzanar, Calif. 2 Studies by Morris E. Opler, Box 15, EHSP/ UA; Morris Opler, “Preliminary Analysis of Segregation Group at Manzanar,” 23 September 1943, Folder 7, Box 15, EHSP/UA; Opler, “Studies of Segregants at

NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE

273

Manzanar I. The General Picture,” 19 October 1943, 1–5, 16–17; Opler, “Studies of Segregants at Manzanar II. United States Citizens Only with No Foreign Travel,” 118–19, Folder O 3.06, JAERR/UCB, reel #155. See also Folder 6, Box 15, EHSP/UA. 16. Lou E. Butler, “Meeting Family Welfare Section,” 31 March 1944, Folder J 5.01; John W. Powell, “The Community—and the Management,” 1 May 1944, no folder, Box 28a, STKP/CU; Richard Nishimoto, Sociological Journal Excerpts, 11 January [1944], Folder J 6.15A, File “Attitudes,” JAERR/UCB, reel #238; Lou E. Butler, “Meeting Family Welfare Section” 31 March 1944, Folder J 5.01, JAERR/UCB, reel #234; Yone Ono, July Month Log of Bl[oc]k #19, 10 August 1943, 4, Folder J 8.10, JAERR/UCB, reel #244. 17. Isamu Noguchi to Mr. Evans, 24 May 1942, Folder 6, Box 11; E[d] H[.] S[picer], “Isamu Noguchi on the Nisei,” 6 October 1942, Folder J 10.10—#4 of 6, JAERR/UCB; W. Wade Head to E. M. Rowalt, 22 October 1942, Folder 25: Transfers-Correspondence, Requests for Indefinite Leave—10/42- 2/43, Box 10, JARCR/CU; Maeda, “Isamu Noguchi: 5–7-A, Poston, Arizona,” 67–73. 18. H. Rex Lee to Robert M. Callum, 2 December 1944, Folder 71.604E #1, Box 473, RG 210, Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I; Yoneda, Ganbatte, 150–54; John Embree to George E. Taylor, 23 May 1945, Folder John Embree, Box 444, RG 208, OWI, Bureau of Overseas Intelligence, Foreign Morale Analysis Division (hereafter cited as FMAD), NARA II. 19. Daniels, Concentration Camps: North America, 121; Toshio Mori, “Volunteers for Victory,” 27 August 1943, 3, 4, 50, 24, Folder 1–21: Reports War Relocation Authority, Box 1, USWRACUP/UW; Anon., Announcement, 13 September 1943, Folder 13.607F WAAC’s, Box 217, Manzanar Relocation Files, RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I. 20. DeWitt to McCloy, 13 November 1942, Folder 319.1 Reports, Box 8, RG 338 WDC, WCCA and CAD, Central Correspondence, 1942–46, NARA II; H. Rex Lee to Robert M. Callum, 2 December 1944, Folder 71.604E #1, Box 473; E. Arnold, teletype to Manzanar, Heart Mountain, Granada, Minidoka, 2 September 1944, Folder 71.604A #1 May 1944, Box 473; W. A. Johnson, no title, 12 February 1943, Folder ASW 254 Employment, Box 14, RG 107 Office of the Secretary of War, Asst. Sec. of War, Correspondence of John J. McCloy, NARA II; Robert M. Cullum to Mr. H. Rex Lee, 19 January 1945, Folder 71.604 #1 February 1943, Box 472, RG 210, Records of the WRAHSCGF; Stimson to Andrew J. May, n.d., Folder 35.210, Box 329, RG 338 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I. 21. Hayashi, ‘For the Sake of Our Japanese Brethren’, 155; Eriko Yamamoto, “Miya Sannomiya Kikuchi: A Pioneer Nisei Woman’s Life and Identity,” Amerasia Journal 23, nos. 3 (1997): 90, 91; Ottis Peterson to Duncan Mills, 12 January 1945; Robert Dolins to Edwin G. Arnold, Memorandum, 25 November 1943, Folder 71.604 #1 Feb. 1943, Box 472, RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I; R. Harris Smith, OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 278; Richard Nishimoto, [Sociological Journal excerpts], 3 August [1944], Folder J 6.15A File “Attitudes,” JAERR/UCB, reel #238; Otis Peterson to Duncan Mills, teletype message no. 26, 12 January 1945; Robert Dolins to Edwin G. Arnold, Memorandum,

274

NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE

25 November 1943, Folder 71.604 #1 Feb. 1943, Box 472, RG 210, Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I; Davis McEntire, Memorandum to Project Directors, 18 December 1942; Harold P. Greaves to Ralph P. Merritt, 30 June 1943, Folder Japanese Translators; Charles S. Hyneman and Ben H. Hall, Memorandum to Director of Personnel, 6 June 6, 1945, Folder Japanese Section, Box 65 Records Relating to the Staffing of Japanese Translation Section, 1942–45, RG 262 FLBIS, NARA II. 22. Daniels, Concentration Camps: North America, 98–101; Okihiro, Storied Lives, 37–42, 46, 136; Fred Hoshiyama, “Diary #1,” 12 December 1942, Folder H 9.04**; Doris Hayashi, “Diary,” 11 December 1942, Folder H 9.02**, JAERR/ UCB, reel #131. 23. Richard Nishimoto, 12 September 1944, Folder J6.15A, JAERR/UCB, reel #238; Wade Head to Dillon S. Myer, 13 December 1943, Folder 1, Box 7, JARCR/CU; [Solon Kimball], “The History of Community Government,” chap. 4, pp. 17–18, 21, Box 28, RG 28, SKPTC/CU; Information War Relocation Authority and Japanese Relocation Centers,“ 2 August 1945, 29–32, 35b, Folder 62– 69030–710, Box 84; H. R. Duffey to Director, FBI, 7 April 1943, Folder Section 4 Serials 56–100, Box 81, RG 65 FBI/WRA, NARA II; E. M. Rowalt to All Project Directors, 23 April 1943, Folder 66.010 #1, Box 400, Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (General), RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I; Richard Nishimoto, [Field Notes], 12 September [1944?], Folder J 6.15A File ”Administration,“ JAERR/UCB, reel #238; EC [Elizabeth Colson], no title, 25 February 1943, 15–16, Folder 5–43, Box 5, JARCR/CU; Solon Kimball, ”History of Community Government,“ chap. 6, Section B, 6, Box, STKP/CU; Wade Head to Dillon S. Myer, 13 December 1943, Folder 1, Box 7, JARCR/CU. 24. Bradford Smith to M. S. Eisenhower, 14 November 1942, Folder Aliens1 (Japanese-Americans) 1942–44, Box 1; Harry Alpert to Clyde W. Hart, 29 January 1944; D. S. Myer to Elmer Davis, 15 February 1943; Gardner Cowles Jr. to Myer, 2 November 1942, Box 3, RG 208 Record of the Director, OWI, NARA II; Gordon C. Chang, “‘Superman is about to visit the relocation centers’ and the Limits of Wartime Liberalism,” Amerasia Journal 19, no. 1 (1993): 38–46; Philleo Nash to Palmer Hoyt, 28 June 1943, Folder OWI Files-Alphabetical File Minorities-publication-general-Japanese Americans-relocation centers—August 1943, Box 23 Office of War Information Alphabetical File (Mi-Pe), Papers of Philleo Nash, White House File, HSTL/IM. 25. WRA, Information Digest, 1 October 1944, Folder WRA Information Digest, Box 1, EHSRBSP/ASM; Wallinger, “Dispersal of the Japanese Americans,” 281, 285, 292–95; Block Managers’ Minutes, 15 August 1943, Folder 66.011A Manzanar June 1942–December 1943, Box 402 Central Files, WRA HDQS, Community Government (General), RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I; Deborah A. Overmeyer and Geoffrey J. Giglierano, “American Museums and Executive Order 9066: Who Has Told the Story, The Story That Was told,” in Saunders and Daniels, eds., Alien Justice, 235. 26. [Ed Spicer], “What we have learned from the recent unpleasantries,” n.d., Folder WRA-Self-Government at Poston EHS Notes Box 2, EHSRBSP/ASM; Leighton, The Governing of Men, 195; Powell, “The Community—and the Management,” 22; Richard Nishimoto, reproduction of report by John Powell, 26

NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE

275

April 1944, 13–14, Folder J6 .15A, File “Administration,” JAERR/UCB, reel #238. 27. Bendetsen and Col. Wing, 7 December 1942 9:50 a.m., Record 5–6-7–8, by E. M. Rudy, 4, Folder 323.3/32 Manzanar (Riot), Box 56, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 28. Los Angeles Examiner, 4 December 1943. 29. James M. Sakoda, “As They Await Evacuation: The Impact of the War Between America and Japan on the Values of Different Types of Japanese on the Coast” (report to Dr. Ralph Gundlach, University of California Psychology 145), 22 April 1942, Folder 55, Box 10 JARCR/CU; Carl Kondo, “Segregation [and] Relocation,” 20 July 1943, Folder 6, Box 15, EHSP/UA; A[lexander] H[.] L[eighton], [Sociological Journal], 5 November 1942, Folder 38, Box 13 JARCR/CU. 30. Anon., “The Caucasians Make the Rules,” n.d., Box 27a, RG 28, STKP/ CU; Edward J. Kirby, “Subversive Activities at War Relocation Centers,” 9 January 1943, Folder Section 3 Serials 30X3–55, Box 81, RG 65 Records of the FBI, World War II Headquarter Records on the War Relocation Authority; [Fred Tayama], Notes taken December 9, 1942, Folder 323.3/32 Manzanar (Riot), Box 56, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 31. Hisako Kuroiwa, The Minutes of General Assembly, 28 November 1942; Yasuko Nosaka, Minutes of Headquarters Staff Meeting, 21 December 1942, Folder 500, Box 97, RG 210: Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I, Washington, D.C. The demonization process did not happen in Hawaii, where a Kibei Survey conducted in March 1942 identified some seven hundred individuals as “Kibei.” They were reasonably well treated on the assumption the Kibei would reciprocate since their loyalty was to neither country. See Frank O. Blake, “Memorandum for the officer in charge, Headquarters Hawaiian Department,” 4 November 1942, Folder 093 Hawaii, Box 4, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; Documentary Report no. 91, 6 December 1943, JAERR/UCB, reel #149; Anon., “Robert Minoru Watanabe, A Kibei,” 5 January 1944, Morris E. Opler Papers, MAHYPA/VA. 32. [E.H.S.], “Denver Conference, 1943, Jan.” ca. January 1943, Folder W.R.A.-Comty. Analysis Section Notes, Box 3, EHSRBSP/ASM; Weston LaBarre, Fourth Community Analyst Letter, 3 July 1943, Folder 32, Box 1, JARCR/CU; Report no. 28, 14 August 1942, Folder 66.011A1 Manzanar August 1942, Box 402, Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (General) RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I; Community Analysis Section, “Japanese American Educated in Japan,” CAS Report no. 8, 28 January 1944, Folder 27, Box 1, JARCR/CU. 33. E[d] H[.] S[picer], “Interview with Dr. [Nagisa] Mizushima,” 29 May 1943, Folder J 10.17, JAERR/UCB, reel #247; [Richard Nishimoto], [Sociological Journal], 10 January [1944], Folder J 6.15G (Personalities and life histories, political structure), reel #239; John Walker Powell “Community Government in Poston—An informal discussion,” 1 June 1946, 36–38, Folder J 3.16, reel #219; Nishimoto, [Sociological Journal], 5 April 1944, Folder **J 6.15G (Personalities and life histories, political structure), JAERR/UCB, reel #239. 34. Ralph Merritt to Dr. John H. Provinse, 28 February 1944, no folder [loose-leaf], Box 28a, RG 28 STKP/CU.

276

NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE

35. ERD, “Manzanar,” n.d., Folder Manzanar, Box 20, RG 59, General Records of the State Department, Records of the Special War Problems Division, Inspection Reports on War Relocation Centers, 1942–1946, NARA II; [Emory Bogardus], Recommendation Letter for Mrs. Kiyoharu Anzai, Folder 71.113 Anzai, Kiyoharu K., no box number, RG 210 WRA, Washington Office Records, Evacuee Case Files, NARA I; Comments on Minutes of Block Managers’ Meeting on March 12, 1943, Folder 66.011A Manzanar June 1942–December 1943 (continued), Box 402, Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (General), RG 210: Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I; Block Managers’ Minutes, 12 March 1943, Folder O 2.92, JAERR/UCB, reel #154; Block Managers’ Meeting, 25 August 1944, Folder 66.011A Manzanar January 1944–December 1944, Box 402 Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (General), RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I. 36. M[orris] E[.] O[pler], “Interview with Secretary of Town Hall,” 29 July 1943, Morris E. Opler Papers, MAHYPA/VA. 37. Oscar F. Hoffman, to Dillon S. Myer and to Dr. John Provinse, Dr. Edward Spicer, 18 April 1944, no folder, Box 28a, STKP/CU. 38. Muneno Saiki, “Farewell Address of Saiki Muneno, Retiring Chairman of the Topaz Community Council, Given Before the Council December 30, 1943,” no folder, Box 28a, RG 28 STKP/CU. 39. Russell A. Bankson, “Crisis in the Topaz Community Council,” 24 December 1943, Folder 2–2; Bankson, “The Topaz Part in the Tule Lake Harvest,” n.d., Folder 2–4, Box 2 USWRACUP/WU; 4 March 1943, Minutes of the Block Managers’ Meetings, Folder H 1.51, JAERR/UCB, reel #115. 40. Richard Nishimoto, [Sociological Journal excerpts], 17 August [1944], Folder J 6.15g (Personalities and life histories, political structure); David French, “Report on Poston for Week Ending October 1, 1944,” Report no. 18, Folder J3.21a, JAERR/UCB, reel #220. 41. Richard Nishimoto, [Sociological Journal excerpts], 31 July [1943], Folder J 6.15g (personalities and life histories, political structure), JAERR/UCB; Anon., “Central Executive Board,” 12 November 1943; “City Planning Board Meeting,” 26 November 1942; “Executive Committee Meeting,” 27 November 1942; A[lexander] H[.] L[eighton], “Meeting with the Central Executive Committee,” 30 December 1942; City Planning Board Meeting, 26 November 1942, Folder 11, Box 10, JARCR/CU. 42. Smoot Katow to Ed [Spicer], 2 July 1943, Folder WRA-Correspondence Evacuees, Box 1, EHSRBSP/ASM. 43. John H. Provinse, “Seinen Kai,” 12 April 1944, 7, Folder E 2.56, JAERR/ UCB, reel #028; Richard Nishimoto’s reproduction of report by John Powell, 23 April 1944, 11, Folder J 6.15a “Administration,” JAERR/UCB, reel #238. 44. G[eorge] Y[amaguchi], “Final L[e]nt Service at Block 45,” 24 April 1943, Folder 39, Box 10, JARCR/CU; Kimiko Takeda, “Shu¯yo¯jo no Seikatsu no Purasu Minasu,” 5 June 1945, Mohabe no. 28, no folder, Box 343, JARP/UCLA. 45. Rev. Jitsuo Morikawa, “The Poston Christian Church,” 24 March 1943; George Y[amaguchi], no title, ca. 19 February 1943, 4, 7–8, Folder 40, Box 10, JARCR/CU; Taylor, Jewel of the Desert, 155–57, 123; Lester E. Suzuki, Ministry

NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE

277

in the Assembly and Relocation Centers of World War II (Sebastopol, Calif.: Yardbird, 1979), 116, 188, 256, 259–60, 329–30, 335, 75; Herbert V. Nicholson and Margaret Wilke, Comfort All Who Mourn: The Life Story of Herbert and Madeline Nicholson (Fresno, CA: Bookmates International, 1982), 92, 98–100. Yoo, Growing Up Nisei, 116–20, follows Gary Okihiro’s suggestion that religion functioned to channel internees toward resistance, asserting that “Japanese religious beliefs [were] a vehicle for, and an expression of, the people’s resistance,” but very little evidence of this exists in the three camps under study here. For Gary Okihiro’s observation, see Gary Y. Okihiro, “Religion and Resistance in America’s Concentration Camps,” Phylon 45 (1984): 1155–56. 46. Kashima, Buddhism in America, 98–102; Taylor, Jewel of the Desert, 157; Morris Opler, “Buddhist Sects at Manzanar,” 18 April 1944, Morris E. Opler Papers, MAHYPA/VA; Manzanar Buddhist Church, “Speech by Ralph Merritt for Hana Matsuri,” 8 April 1945, Manzanar Docs. Object ID #94.183.37; [Ralph Merritt], “Remarks at Obon Festival of the Buddhist Church at Manzanar,” 14 August 1943, Manzanar Docs, Object ID #94.183.42, JANM/LA. 47. G[eorge]Y[amaguchi], Buddhist Interest Chart, 20 August 1943; [George Yamaguchi], “An application requesting fund to conduct a survey,” 26 June 1943, Folder 35; [George Yamaguchi], “133-Religion Interviewed Henry Miwa, Buddhist Religion in Poston, C.R. N.O. R.C of Poston,” 13 May 1943, Folder 32, Box 10, JARCR/CU; Gyo¯sei Nagafuji, “Kakocho¯ Nisshi Shinshu¯,” 17 and 25 November 1942, no folder, Temporary Box 80, Institute of Buddhist Studies, Berkeley, Calif.; Rev. [S.] Nagatomi, “The Spirit of Sacrifice,” n.d., Manzanar Docs., Object ID #94.183.42, JANM/LA 48. G[eorge] Y[amaguchi], “Consolidation of Buddhist Sects,” 25 April 1943; [George Yamaguchi], “Sentiments expressed on the new Buddhist brotherhood of America,” n.d.; [Yamaguchi], “Why hasn’t Unit I Busseis integrated as well as Unit 2 and 3?, ” n.d.; “Predominate Sentiments,” ca. August 1943; G[eorge] Y[amaguchi], “131-Buddhism Interview Observ. gy,” 5 May 1943, Folder 32, Box 10, JARCR/CU; Kashima, Buddhism in America, 52–61; Duncan Ryu¯ken Williams, “Camp Dharma: Japanese-American Buddhist Identity and the Internment Experience of World War II,” in Charles S. Prebish and Martin Baumann, eds., Westward Dharma: Buddhism beyond Asia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 195–96. 49. Opinion Research Center, Report to Agriculture Department, Poston, 4 September 1943, 12, Folder J 1.16, JAERR/UCB, reel #188. 50. Joint Meeting of Block Managers, Councilmen, and Manpower Commission, 19 November 1943, Folder J 1.62, JAERR/UCB, reel #194; Anon., “Permanent Self-Government Minutes Meeting,” 9 June 1943, Folder 1, Box 7, JARCR/ CU; K[enji] U[yeno], “Campaign for Election of Councilman,” 23 May 1943, Folder 1, Box 7, JARCR/CU. 51. [Kimball] to John H. Provinse, 2 December 1944, no folder, Box 28b, STKP/CU. 52. [Richard Nishimoto], Survey of Issei Opinion, ca. August–November 1943, Folder J 6.15G “Personalities (Life Histories),” JAERR/UCB, reel #239; Poston Opinion Research Center, “Exhibit—N: Survey J-3,” 9 June 1943, Folder

278

NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE

J 12.05, JAERR/UCB, reel #250; [Ed Spicer], to Tosh[io Yatsushiro], Iwao [Ishino] and Scotty [Yoshiharu Matsumoto], 8 April 1944, Folder WRA- Correspondence Evacuee members of the BSR & CA Staff Alphabetical order, Box 1, EHSRBSP/ ASM; Solon Kimball, “History of Community Government,” chap. 5, pp. 3, 6, Box 28, RG 28 SKPTC/CU. 53. Block Managers’ Meeting Minutes, 10 January 1944 and 13 January 1944, Folder H 152A, JAERR/UCB, reel #115. 54. M. E. Opler, “Interview with Mrs. H. Hirose of 15–2-?, A Woman of about 40 Years of Age,” 26 July 1943, Morris Opler Papers, MAHYPA/VA. 55. 19 November 1943, 6 a.m. EWT, Folder Master Analysis November 19, 1943, Box 53, From February 7, 1943 to February 10, 1943; Corbett, Quiet Passages, 195; Tokyo (Japanese Home Empire Service) at 2:00 a.m. EWT, 7 June 1944, Folder Master Analysis File, June 7, 1944, Box 160, RG 208, Records of the OWI, Records of the Analysis and Research Bureau, Monitoring Reports Japanese Broadcasts, December 1941–November 1945, NARA II. 56. I. Motoki, “I. Motoki Writes from Poston,” ca. 1945, Folder J 8.00, JAERR/UCB, reel #244. 57. Ralph P. Merritt to D. S. Myer, 14 January 1944, Folder 66.011A #3 Manzanar, Box 401, Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (General), RG 210: Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I; Ned [Edward] Spicer to Asael Hansen, 1 April 1944, AP 90–116, Box 1, EHSRBSP/ASM; Anon., “Permanent Self-Government Minutes Meeting,” 9 June 1943, Folder 1, Box 7, JARCR/ CU; T. Y. [Toshio Yatsushiro], Block 35 residents, 17 December 1942, Folder 29: Block #35- statistics, block study, notes and log, block meetings notes, personality block study (with charts, interviews, impressions, and notes), “Block study method and techniques and outline,” Box 7, JARC/CU; E[lizabeth] C[olson], “Interview with Head,” 14 December 1942, 13, Folder 11–62, Box 30, (Restricted Access Materials), JARCR/CU; Yone Ono, July Month Log of Bl[oc]k#19, 10 August 1943, 4, Folder J 8.10, JAERR/UCB, reel #244. 58. Station JZI Program, 8 December 1941, Frequency 9535 Kilocycles, Folder Dec 8 1941, Box 633 Tokyo 12/41, Transcripts of Monitored Foreign Broadcasts, 1941–1946; Transcript of Short Wave Broadcast, 1 March 1942, Folder MAR 1–10 1942, Box 635; Tokyo JZI Japanese lang., to the West Coast of America 0240 to 0300 EWT, 7 December 1942, monitored by Okazaki, Folder Dec 7, 8, 9, 1942, Box 649 Transcripts of Foreign Broadcasts, 1941–1946; Foreign Minister Tani Answers Interpellations, 3 February 1943, 6:30 a.m. EWT, Folder Master File Analysis February 3, 1943, Box 52, RG 208, Records of the OWI, Records of the Analysis and Research Bureau, Monitoring Reports Japanese Broadcasts, December 1941–November 1945; FBIS, “Special Release English Translation of Admiral Nomura’s Speech, Broadcast by the Tokyo Radio on February 9, 1943, on the Treatment of Japanese Interned Abroad,” no folder, Box 2; Harold N. Greaves, Jr., to Ralph P. Merritt, 30 June 1943, no folder, Box 2, RG 262 Records of the FLBIS, NARA II; “Nomura Speaks” Tokyo Domei, 9 February 1943, 6:30 a.m. EWT to the world, no folder, Box 53, from February 7, 1943 to February 10, 1943; Tokyo/Japanese Home Service/At 6 a.m. Saturday, Folder Master Analysis File May 15, 1943, Box 73, RG 208, Records of the OWI,

NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE

279

Records of the Analysis and Research Bureau, Monitoring Reports Japanese Broadcasts, December 1941–November 1945, NARA II. 59. Harold N. Greaves, Jr., to Ralph P. Merritt, 30 June 1943, Folder Japanese Translators, Box 65, RG 262 Records of the FBIS, NARA II; Local Council Meeting [Minutes], 15 March [1944], Folder J 6.15G (Personalities and life histories, Political structure), reel #239; David French, “Comments on Kir-Stimson’s List of Causes and Cures for Relocation Problems,” CA Report no. 5, May 1944, Folder J 3.22, reel #220; David French, “Community Analyst Trend Report from October 23 to November 12, 1944,” Report no. 26, p. 3, Folder J 3.22, reel #220; Richard Nishimoto, Sociological Journal excerpts, 4 November [1944], Folder J 6.15A, File “Attitudes,” reel #238; Richard Nishimoto, Sociological Journal excerpts, April 28 [1944], Folder J 6.15A, File “Attitudes,” JAERR/UCB, reel #238. 60. [Ichitaro¯ Mutsutsuyu], [radio broadcast notes], ca. August 1944, Folder 94.98.15, Manzanar Docs, Object ID #94.98.15, JANM/LA; Tamie Tsuchiyama, “Communications,” 28 December 1943, 4–7, Folder J 6.26**[B], JAERR/UCB, reel #240. See also Yone Ono, 25 August 1943, 26 August 1943, 27 August 1943, Folder J 8.10, JAERR/UCB, reel #244, for discussion of war news and Russia. 61. Kampo¯ Go¯gai Sho¯wa Ju¯hachinen Nigatsu Niju¯hachinichi Shu¯giin Giji Sokkiroku Dai Ju¯hachigo, in Dai Hachi Ju¯ichi Hachiju¯yonkai Teikoku Gikai Shu¯giin Giji Sokkiroku, Fuzoku Toshokan, Kyo¯to University, Kyo¯to, Japan. 62. James Hirano, Reports of the meeting of Block Managers (January 1944—March 31, 1944), 54, 72, Topaz, Utah (Block Managers meeting), Folder H 1.50; 7 February 1944, Folder H 1.52A; Minutes of the Block Managers’ Meetings, 16 February 1944, Folder H 1.52a, JAERR/UCB, reel #115; Russell A. Bankson, “Japanese Red Cross Supplies Distributed at Topaz,” 23 February 1944, Folder 2–4[*b] Reports War Relocation Authority, Box 2, USWRACUP/UW. Manzanar residents, too, received their share of the goods. The block managers reported receiving 425 kegs of soy sauce, 13 kegs of bean paste, and a case of medicine along with over 450 letters from Japan. See Seventy-Fifth Block Managers’ Meeting, 11 February 1944; Minutes, Seventy-Third Block Managers’ Assembly, 28 January 1944, Folder 66.011A Manzanar Jan. 1944-Dec. 1944, Box 402 Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (General), RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I; Block Manager’s Minutes, 20 July 1943, Folder 66.011A Manzanar June 1942–December 1943, Box 402 Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (General), RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I; [Richard Nishimoto], [Sociological Journal], 27 April [1943] and 16 July [1943], Folder J 6.15j, File “Spanish Consul,” JAERR/UCB, reel #239. 63. Block Managers’ Logs, 23 November 1942, Folder 5–20, Box 5, JARCR/ CU; [Richard Nishimoto], Sociological Journal excerpts, 8 February [1944], Folder J 6.15B File “Cultural Survivals,” reel #238; Akira Togawa, “Diary,” 2 August 1942, 14 November 1942, 25 November 1942, Folder 2, Box 3, JARP 1711, JARP/UCLA; Alexander H. Leighton, [Sociological Journal], 15 January 1943, Folder J 10.13, JAERR/UCB, reel #247. 64. Daniels, Concentration Camps: North America, 123.

280

NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX

SIX “TAKING AWAY THE CANDY”: RELOCATION, THE TWILIGHT OF THE JAPANESE EMPIRE, AND JAPANESE AMERICAN POLITICS, 1944–1945

1. [William Scobey] to Colonel C. W. Pence, 7 September 1943, Folder 342.18 Enlistment, J.A. (Divisions), Box 22, RG 107 (Entry 180, 390–9-32–6) Office of the Secretary of War, Asst. Sec. of War, Correspondence of John J. McCloy, NARA II; CWRIC, Personal Justice Denied, 256–59; John J. McCloy, Memorandum for General McNarney, 2 October 1943, Folder November 27, 1943—Tab 33; G-1 Memorandum for the Record, 3 April 1944, Folder April-3-1944-Tab 40, Box 1717, RG 389 Records of the OPMG, NARA II; Mike Masaoka, They Call Me Moses Masaoka: An American Saga (New York: William Morrow, 1987), 135– 36; tenBroek, Barnhart, and Matson, Prejudice, War, and the Constitution, 169. Although a quota of five hundred was set, only 139 applied, or about 28 percent as compared with 40 percent nationwide. See Doris Weatherford, American Women and World War II (New York: Facts on File Books, 1990): 34. For an introduction to the subject, see Stacey Yukari Hirose, “Japanese American Women and the Women’s Army Corp, 1935–1950” (M.A. thesis, Asian American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, 1993). 2. Toshio Mori and George Sugihara, “Selective Service at Topaz,” ca. September 1944, 4, Folder 17, Box 2, USWRACUP/UW. 3. David French to Ned [Edward Spicer], 20 February 1944, Folder 5, Box 10, EHSP/UA; [Richard Nishimoto], [Sociological Journal excerpts], 11 March [1944] and 4 August [1944], Folder J 6.15b, File “Draft and Military Service,” JAERR/UCB, reel #238. 4. E[lizabeth] C[olson], “Personal Journal,” 26 June 1943, Folder 52, Box 10, JARCR/CU; Richard Nishimoto, [Sociological Journal excerpts], 18 August and 23 August [1944], Folder J 6.15b File, “Draft and Military Service,” JAERR/ UCB, reel #238; Russell A. Bankson, “Vesper Service for Soldiers From Topaz,” n.d., Folder 1–11 Reports WRA, Box 1 USWRACUP/UW; Russell A. Bankson, “Spring Festival at Topaz,” ca. May 1944, Folder 1–10: Reports WRA, Russell A. Bankson, “Pfc. Thomas Higa Visits Topaz,” 8 July 1944, Folder 1–15 Reports WRA, Box 1, USWRACUP/UW; David French, “Report on Poston for Week Ending October 15, 1944,” CAS Report no. 23, n.d., Folder J 3.21b, JAERR/UCB, reel #220. 5. Toshio Mori and George Sugihara, “Selective Service at Topaz,” 13, Folder 17, Box 2, USWRACUP/UW; Y[oshiharu] M[atsumoto], no. 114 TCC (Final) Joint meeting of TCC and IAB, 22 May 1943, Folder J 8.20, reel #244; [Richard Nishimoto], [Sociological Journal excerpts], 11 March [1944], Folder J 6.15A, File “Attitudes,” JAERR/UCB, reel #238. 6. David French, “Report on Poston for Week Ending October 15, 1944,” CAS Report no. 23, n.d., Folder J3.21b, reel #220; Local Council Meeting, 13 October [1944] and R[ichard] N[ishimoto], Sociological Journal, 8 March [1944], Folder **J 6.15b, File “Draft and Military Service,” JAERR/UCB, reel #238. 7. [Yae] Kawahara to Gentlemen, 2 February 1944, untitled folder #4, Box 1, Chika Sugino Papers, JANM/LA; Committee for Restoration of Civil Rights

NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX

281

of United States Citizens of Japanese Ancestry Colorado River Relocation Project to the President, 18 February 1944, Folder J 5.00 Army Registration, JAERR/ UCB, reel #234; Toshio Mori and George Sugihara, “Extracts from the Community Council Meeting,” 13 March 1944 Appendices, 7, Folder 17, Box 2, USWRACUP/UW; Hiro Katayama, “Reaction to the Reinstitution of Selective Service,” Community Analysis Report #33, 10 April 1944, Folder 1, Box 13, EHSP/ UA, 12. 8. Richard Nishimoto, [Sociological Journal excerpts], 1 March, 4 March, and 15 March [1944], 13 April [1944], Folder J 6.15b, File “Draft and Military Service,” JAERR/UCB, reel #238; Russell A. Bankson, “Spanish Vice-Consul’s Visit to Topaz,” n.d., Folder 1–12 Reports WRA, Box 1, USWRACUP/UW. 9. James D. Crawford, Memorandum to All Block Managers, 12 April [1944]; [Richard Nishimoto], [Sociological Journal excerpts], 3 April [1944], Folder J 6.15b File “Draft and Military Service,” JAERR/UCB, reel #238. 10. [Richard Nishimoto], [Sociological Journal excerpts], 11 February [1944], 23 January [1944], 4 February [1944], and 17 February [1944], Folder J 6.15b File “Draft and Military Service,” JAERR/UCB, reel #238. 11. Local Council Meeting, 19 July [1944], in Richard Nishimoto, Sociological Journal excerpts, Folder J 6.15b File “Draft & Military Service,” JAERR/UCB, reel #238. For an excellent discussion of the Heart Mountain draft resisters, see Eric L. Mueller, Free to Die for Their Country: The Story of the Japanese American Draft Resisters in World War II (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001). 12. Local Council Meeting, 19 July [1944], in Richard Nishimoto, Sociological Journal excerpts, Folder J 6.15b File “Draft and Military Service,” JAERR/ UCB, reel #238. 13. Ibid., 19 July, 23 July, 27 July [1944]. 14. Hiro Katayama, “Reaction to the Reinstitution of Selective Service,” Community Analysis Section Report #33, 10 April 1944, Folder 1, Box 13, EHSP/ UA, 9; Taylor, Jewel of the Desert, 171–75. 15. Lucy Adams, “Comments Following a Block Meeting on the Nisei Draft,” CAS Report #219, 2 March 1944, Folder 6, Box 15; M[orris] E. Opler, “Meeting on the Subject of Selective Service of Nisei Block Representatives, Sunday, Feb. 27,” CAS Report #215, 29 February 1944, Folder 6, Box 15, EHSP/UA, 1–4. 16. Voice of the Niseis, “To The Niseis,” ca. 11 February 1944, Folder J 5.00, reel #234; Richard Nishimoto, [Sociological Journal excerpts], 15 March 1944, Folder J 6.15g, (Personalities and life histories, political structure), JAERR/UCB, reel #239. 17. David French to Ned [Edward Spicer], 16 February 1944 and 20 February 1944, Folder 5, Box 10, EHSP/UA. 18. Richard Nishimoto, Sociological Journal excerpts, 30 August [1944], Folder J 6.15b File “Draft and Military Service,” JAERR/UCB, reel #238. 19. Richard Nishimoto, [Sociological Journal excerpts], 15 August [1944], Folder J 6.15b File “Draft and Military Service,” JAERR/UCB, reel #238. 20. Exhibit I: “Legal Services Rendered to Evacuees and Appointed Staff by Months from October 1945 through November 1945,” 1–8, in Scott Rowley, “Narrative Report Legal Division,” 30 November 1945, Folder J 5.50, JAERR/ UCB, reel #311.

282

NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX

21. Local Council Meeting, 19 August, [1944], Folder J 6.15b, File “Draft & Military Service,” JAERR/UCB, reel #238; Department of the Interior, Advance Release, 23 November 1944, Folder Japanese-Americans, Box 251, RG 208 Records of the OWI, Records of the Deputy Director for Labor and Civilian Welfare, General Records of Deputy Director Herbert Little, NARA II; [Richard Nishimoto], Sociological Journal excerpts, 6 November [1944], Folder J 6.15b, File “Draft and Military Service,” JAERR/UCB, reel #238; [Morris Opler], “Reaction at Manzanar to the Report of a Tragedy Connected with the Draft,” 5 May 1944, Folder Cornell University-Opler/Leighton, Box 43, RG 220 Records of Temporary Committees and Boards, Records of the CWRIC, MAHYPA/VA. 22. Weglyn, Years of Infamy, 219–26; John J. McCloy to General Delos C. Emmons, 5 November 1943 and John J. McCloy to General J. L. DeWitt, 19 November 1942, Folder 020 War Department, Box 1, RG 338 WDC, WCCA, CAD, NARA II; John McCloy, Diary, 12 August 1944, Folder 32: III-11 Enemy Aliens, Box DY6, John Jay McCloy Papers, War Department, WDI, Special Collections, Robert A. Frost Library, Amherst College, Amherst, Mass. (hereafter cited as JJMP/AC); H.W.S. Memorandum for Lt. Colonel D.J. McFadden, 23 November 1944, Folder 013.3 Habeas Corpus, Box 1, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; C. H. Bonesteel to Chief of Staff, War Dept., 21 September 1944, Folder 33: War Department—Japanese American Relocation (Exclusion) Program Return of Evacuees to the West Coast—Documents (indexed) 1944 August 8–December 16, JJMP/AC; Wallinger, “Dispersal of the Japanese Americans,” 315–23. 23. John McCloy, Diary, 12 August 1944, Folder 32: III-11 Enemy Aliens, Box DY6, JJMP/AC; [Richard Nishimoto], [Sociological Journal], 27 January [1944], Folder J 6.15A, JAERR/UCB, reel #238. 24. Dillon S. Myer, “Relation With Other Government Agencies Federal, State and Local,” n.d., 2, 3, Folder D. S. Myer—WRA Memoranda and reports, 1943–46 (folder 2), Box 1; D. S. Myer, Memorandum to the Under Secretary, 2 June 1944, Folder Director of the War Relocation Authority, Box 1, Papers of Dillon S. Myer, HSTL/IM; W. H. Wilbur to Chief of Staff, War Dept. 9 December 1944, Folder 291.2 Japanese, Box 4, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; Myer, Uprooted Americans, 177–84. 25. [Richard Nishimoto], [Sociological Journal], 24 October [1944] and 5 October, Folder J 6.15A, Box, JAERR/UCB; E[dwin] H[.] S[picer], Diary, entry 8 July 1946, 25, 26, Folder EHS Notebooks/diaries, Box 3, EHSRBSP/ASM; John Provinse to the Director, 7 December 1944, Folder 66.010#4, Box 400 Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (General); Anon., 152nd Block Managers Assembly, 20 July 1945, Folder 66.011A Manzanar January 1945, Box 402 Central Files WRA HDQS Community Government (General) RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I. 26. [Myer] to All Project Directors, 9 December 1944; Morris Opler, “Family Counseling: The Evacuee Viewpoint,” 3 October 1944, 1–2, Folder Cornell University—Opler/Leighton, Box 43, RG 220 Records of Temporary Committees and Boards, Records of the CWRIC, NARA II, MAHYPA/VA; Russell A. Bankson, “Relocation Information Program at Colorado River Relocation Center,” 28 April 1945, 2–6; Bankson, “Relocation Information Program at Manzanar Relocation Center,” 9 May 1945, 9; Bankson, “Relocation Information Program at

NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX

283

Central Utah Center,” 15 May 1945, 7, Folder 4, Box 3, USWRACUP/UW; David French, Memo to Duncan Mills, 16 August 1945, Folder J 3.22, JAERR/UCB, reel #220; L. T. Hoffman to Myer, 3 November 1945, Weekly Narrative Reports of the Central Utah Project (August 7, 1943—November 3, 1945) by Charles F. Ernst/L. T. Hoffman, Project Director, Folder H 1.07, JAERR/UCB, reel #109. 27. Myer, Uprooted Americans, 203; Minutes, Block Manager’s Meeting, 30 July 1945, Folder J 1.62, JAERR/UCB, reel #194; Colorado River Agency, Factual Data, As of February 28, 1950; C. H. Gensler to the Commissioner, 8 August 1945; Willard W. Beatty to C. H. Gensler, 30 May 1945, Folder #4 Colorado River-Colonist (Pt. 1 of 3) 240.0 6/11/45 to 2/16/53, Box 1 Credit Report Correspondence, 1943–1963, Colorado River Agency & Colorado River Colonist, Phoenix Area Office, RG 75 Bureau of Indian Affairs, NARA-Rocky Mountain Region, Denver, Col. (hereafter cited as NARA/RMB). 28. “Summary of the Survey Concerning Relocation by the Poston Community Council,” ca. June 1944, 1, Folder J 3.22, JAERR/UCB, reel #220; Charles Ernst to Dillon Myer, 7 June 1943; [Oscar Hoffman], “‘Topazeans’ Plans to Reestablish Themselves on the West Coast,” Community Analysis Section Report #42, July 1944, 1, 2; [Oscar Hoffman], “Resident Attitudes Towards Relocation,” Community Analysis Section Report #24, n.d., 13, Folder 1, Box 13; Oscar Hoffman, “Resettling Japanese from Central Utah Project,” ca. 7 June 1946, Folder 8, Box 10, EHSP/UA. 29. Taylor, Jewel of the Desert, 188; David French, “Community Analyst Trend Report from March 12 to 18, 1945 (Report no. 61, 20 March 1945),” Folder J 3.20, JAERR/UCB, reel #219; Thomas, The Salvage, 115. 30. Charles F. Ernst, “A Report by Charles F. Ernst, Project Director,” n.d., Folder H1.35, JAERR/UCB, reel #110; David French, “Report on Poston for Week Ending October 8, 1944,” CAS Report no. 19, appendix, 2–3, Folder J3.21A, JAERR/UCB, reel #220. 31. [Richard Nishimoto], [Sociological Journal], 12 October [1944], Folder J.615A, JAERR/UCB, reel #238; John W. Powell, “The Community—and the Management,” 1 May 1944, no folder, Box 28A, RG 28 SKPTC/CU. 32. [Richard Nishimoto], [Sociological Journal], 29 June [1944], 18 July [1944], 29 July [1944], 12 September [1944]; Dillon S. Myer, “Administrative Notice no. 100,” 15 June 1944, Folder J 6.15h “Property Disputes,” JAERR/ UCB, reel #239. 33. [Richard Nishimoto], [Sociological Journal], 29 June [1944], 26 September [1944], 9 October [1944], 7 July [1944]; Block Managers Meeting, 26 September [1944], 9 October [1944], Folder J 6.15h, File “Property Disputes,” JAERR/ UCB, reel #239. 34. [Richard Nishimoto], 12 October [1944], Folder J.615A File “Administration,” JAERR/UCB, reel #238. 35. [Richard Nishimoto], 12 March [1944] and 12 October [1944], Folder J.615A “Attitudes,” reel #238; R[ichard] N[ishimoto], [Sociological Journal], 23 July [1944] and ] and 16 August [1944], Folder J6.15J “War news reports,” JAERR/UCB, reel #239. 36. George T. Hessevick, 8 February 1945, translated by Mary S. Kim, Folder 291.2 Japanese, Box 4, RG 338 WDC; Headquarters, Eastern Security District,

284

NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX

NSC to AC/S G-2, WDC, 8 February 1945, Folder 080—Japanese-American Citizens’ League, Box 15, RG 338, WDC, WCCA, Civil Affairs Division, General Correspondence (Unclassified), NARA II. 37. R[ichard] N[ishimoto], [Sociological Journal], 16 October [1944], 27 October [1944], 4 November [1944], 26 October [1944], 19 October [1944], Folder J 6.15j “War news reports,” JAERR/UCB, reel #239. 38. [R[ichard] N[ishimoto], [Sociological Journal], 17 August [1944], Folder J 6.15j “War news reports,” JAERR/UCB, reel #239. 39. David French to Director [Dillon Myer], 16 March 1945, Folder Community Government, Box 1, EHSP/UA. 40. Richard Nishimoto, Sociological Journal excerpts, 9 January [1944], Folder J 6.15a, File “Attitudes,” reel #238; Richard Nishimoto, [Sociological Journal excerpts], 4 February [1944], Folder J 6.15b File “Draft and Military Service,” reel #238; Local Council, Unit I, 6 October [1944] and 4 August [1944], Folder J 6.15g (Personalities and life histories, political structure), reel #239; David French, “Report on Poston for Three Weeks Ending September 24, 1944,” CAS Report no. 17, Folder J 3.21a, JAERR/UCB, reel #220; David French to Duncan Mills, 24 April 1945, Folder WRA-Relocation Center Poston Arizona, Box 2, EHSRBSP/ASM. 41. Hirabayashi, ed., Inside an American Concentration Camp, 174, 183, 195, 191; Masaru Narahara to Dillon S. Myer, 24 February 1945, Folder 291.2 Japanese, Box 4, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; “All-Center Conference,” 16–22 February 1945, 10, 11, no folder title, Box 27B; Solon T. Kimball, “History of Community Government,” chap. 7, p. 7, Box 28, RG 28 SKPTC/CU. 42. Nishimoto, Inside an American Concentration Camp, 196–97. 43. Kimball, “A History of Community Government,” chap. 7, p. 12; Ned [Edward] Spicer to Asael Hansen, 1 April 1944, 2; Ned [Edward] Spicer to Morris Opler, 4 April 1944, Folder WRA–Correspondence Alphabetical Order, Box 1, EHSRBSP/ASM. 44. Minutes of Meeting of Community Council and Block Commissioners with Mr. S. T. Kimball, 4 January 1945, no folder, Box 27A, RG 28, SKPTC/CU; Japanese American Citizens League Anti-Discrimination Committee, “Statement in Support of H.R. 3999 For the Cooper-Magnuson Subcommittee Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate,” section 1, ca. 21 May 1948, 3, Folder 7 JACL Anti-Discrimination Committee, Box 25, JARCR/CU; Alice Yang-Murray, “‘Silence No More’,” 99–100; S. T. Kimball, “Report on Community Government July 1, 1944–Dec.31, 1944,” 14 February 1945, 2, no folder title, Box 28A, RG 28, SKPTC/CU; WRA, Information Digest, 1 October 1944, 4–5, Folder WRA Information Digest, Box 1, EHSRBSP/ASM. 45. [Richard Nishimoto], “All-Center Conference,” 16–22 February 1945, 10–11, no folder title, Box 27B, RG 28, SKPTC/CU. 46. Nishimoto, Inside an American Concentration Camp, 222–23. 47. H.F. “‘Special Representatives’ Meeting—January 15, 1945,” 16 January 1945, Masaru Narahara to Luther T. Hoffman, 23 March 1945, and L. T. Hoffman to Judge James H. Wolfe, 19 February 1945, Folder 513 Council, Box 97, RG 210 Records of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I. 48. Nishimoto, Inside an American Concentration Camp, 213, 231.

NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX

285

49. Ibid., 232. 50. “Trend reports of Co-op Enterprises,” 11–17 March 1945, 25–31 March 1945, 1–7 April 1945, 8–14 April 1945, Folder H 3.60, JAERR/UCB, reel #126; Topazu Sho¯hi Kumiai,“Topazu Sho¯hi Kumiai Nishu¯nen Kinenshi,” (December 1944), 3, 4, Folder 2, Box 335, JARP/UCLA; “Trend reports of Co-op Enterprises,” 11–17 March 1945, 25–31 March 1945, 1–7 April 1945, 8–14 April 1945, Folder H 3.60, JAERR/UCB, reel #126; [Topaz] Coop News, vol. 8 no. 11, 18 May 1945, Folder 3 Coop News, Box 334, JARP/UCLA; Minutes of Block Managers’ Meetings: 9 January 1945, Topaz, Utah Block Managers’ reports, Folder H 1.57, JAERR/UCB, reel #116; WRA Monthly Report, September 1944, Folder 2.80; Ibid., August 1945, Folder 2.80; Yoshio Nakamura, [Dissolution letter], ca. 15 August 1945, Folder 2.82; Treasury Department, WRA to [Elmer] Rowalt, 22 December 1942, Folder 2.82, JAERR/UCB, reel #154. 51. Ambassador Armour, telegram, to Secretary of State, 25 March 1945, Box 84 Records of the Special War Problems Division Subject Files, 1939–1954 [Box 20], RG 59, Records of the Special War Problems Division, State Department, NARA II; War Problems [Division], Memorandum, 13 April 1945, Folder Japanese Embassy, Box 154 General Records of the Department of State, Records of the War Problems Division, Subject Files, 1939–54, RG 59 Records of the Special War Problems Division, State Department, NARA II. 52. Popi Kushu¯, April 1945, 2, Folder 2, Box 35, JARP/UCLA; Akira Togawa, “Diary” 7 August 1945, Folder 4, Box 3, JARP 1711, JARP/UCLA; David French, Memo to Duncan Mills, 16 August 1945, Folder J 3.22, JAERR/UCB, reel #220. 53. David French, Memo to Duncan Mills, 16 August 1945, Folder J3.22, JAERR/UCB, reel #220. 54. [Tokyo (Japanese Home Empire Service)], 62, Folder Master Analysis File August 19, 1945, Box 242 (1945), RG 208, Records of the OWI, Records of the Analysis and Research Bureau, Monitoring Reports Japanese Broadcasts, December 1941–November 1945, NARA II; David French, Memo to Duncan Mills, 16 August 1945, Folder J 3.22, JAERR/UCB, reel #220. 55. Taylor, Jewel of the Desert, 221; Myer, Uprooted Americans, 203; Daniel, Concentration Camps, 166; Weglyn, Years of Infamy, 259; Frank Chuman, Bamboo People: The Law and Japanese-Americans (Del Mar, Calif.: Publishers, Inc., 1976), 203–23, 312–13; Tom C. Clark to Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 28 April 1945, Tom C. Clark, Memorandum for the Attorney General, 26 June 1945, Folder Japanese Americans, Box 4 Civil Rights File Fe-Poli, Papers of Eleanor Bontecou, HSTL/IM; Richard D. McKenzie, “Oral History Interview with Eleanor Bontecou,” 5 June 1943 (manuscript, 1980), 8–9, 18, HSTL/IM. 56. Ko¯ji Ariyoshi, “‘Japanese Militarists’ False Propaganda About American Atrocities,” 6, Yenan Report #23, 11 November 1944; Yenan Report #35, “Record of a Round-Table Conference on the Allied Landing on Japan,” 12, and Analysis of Yenan Report #35, ca. 19 March 1945, 1, Folder Yenan Reports 1– 70, Box 445, RG 208 OWI, Bureau of Overseas Intelligence, FMAD, NARA II. 57. H. B. White, Intelligence Report for General Use by Any U.S. Intelligence Agency, 31 July 1945, Folder Intel. Reports—7th SC, Box 1724, Personnel Security Division Japanese-American Branch General File 1942–46, RG 389 Records

286

NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX

of the OPMG, NARA II; [Alexander Leighton], “The Development of the Research Methods of the Foreign Morale Analysis Division,” Report no. 29, pp. 6–8, 36, 30 November 1945, Folder FMAD Weekly Report #29, Box 445; [Alexander] Leighton, Monthly Report, 10 October 1944, Folder R[e]p[o]rts f[o]r Adm McIntire, Box 443; Anon., “Sponsors and Participants,” Folder Sponsors and Participants of Japanese Morale Analysis Section and report on “Wartime Analysis of Japanese Morale,” Box 443; [Alexander Leighton], 30 November 1944, 6 December 1944, 21 December 1944, Folder Daily Log 1 of 2, Box 443; [Alexander] Leighton to [Ross] McIntire, 10 September 1945; Leighton to Miss C.R., 21 June 1945, Folder R[e]p[o]rts f[o]r Adm McIntire, RG 208 OWI, Bureau of Overseas Intelligence, FMAD, NARA II; George T. Lodge, “Some Observations of Interest from the Standpoint of the Government of Occupied Japanese Areas Based on a Visit to Gila River Relocation Center,” 11–13, Special report no. IV, 18 June 1945, Folder FMAD Special Report #4, Box 444, RG 208 OWI, Bureau of Overseas Intelligence, FMAD, NARA II. 58. Michael H. Wiggins, Roy P. Stewart, William K. Block to Lt. Col. Gorman, 25 May 1945, and L. K. Shropshire et al., to Director of Training, Civil Affairs Division, Provost Marshal General’s Office, 21 July 1945, and Anon, CAD Tour of Duty with OWI [Report] #3 July 3, 1945 to July 21, 1945, Folder Comments on FMAD Reports, Box 443, RG 208, OWI, Bureau of Overseas Intelligence, FMAD, NARA II; Jerome Weidman, [Comments on FMAD Reports to Alexander Leighton], 23 July 1945; [Alexander Leighton], Informal Memorandum to Lt. Col. Gorman, 25 May 1945, Folder Comments of FMAD R[e]p[o]rts., Box 443, RG 208 OWI, NARA II. 59. Theodore Cohen, Remaking Japan: The American Occupation as New Deal, edited by Herbert Passin (New York: Free Press, 1987), 17, 35, 38; James F. Schnabel, The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Policy, Volume I: 1945–1947 (Wilmington, Del.: Michale Gla¯ wada, Hishi: Nihon no No¯chi Kaiku (Tokyo: Nihon zier, 1979), 7–10; Keiki O Keizai Shimbunsha, 1981), 39; No¯chi Kaiku Kiroku Iinkai, No¯chi Kaikaku Tenmatsu Gaiyo¯ (Tokyo: Ochanomizu Shobo¯, 1997), 107–8; George L. McColm to Alexander Haig, 17 March 1981, Folder MHDC 698, Box 28 Miscellaneous Historical Documents Donated by George L. McColm, HSTL/IM; George L. McColm to Dr. Clifford Foust, 24 March 1994; George L. McColm, “Planning the Invasion and Occupation of Japan,” Bomb’s Day Address to the National Agr. Leadership Conference, New Orleans, 6 August 1995; Land Magazine (1942), 456, Folder MHDC 698, Box 28 Miscellaneous Historical Documents Donated by George L. McColm, HSTL/IM; Interview with George L. McColm, 12 August 1999, Lewiston, CA.; [Roscoe Bell], Weekly Narrative Report, to Charles F. Ernst, 25 September 1942 and 29 January 1943; W. Wendell Palmer, Monthly Report, to Roscoe Bell, 28 July 1944, Folder H 7.01 3 of 3 July 1944– August 1944, JAERR/UCB, reel #129; George L. McColm to Alexander Haig, 17 March 1981, Folder MHDC 698, Box 28 Miscellaneous Historical Documents Donated by George L. McColm, HSTL/IM; Dictionary of International Biography (1986 ), 434; Lawrence H. Redford, ed., The Occupation of Japan: Economic Policy and Reform: The Proceedings of a Symposium Sponsored by the MacArthur Memorial, April 13–15, 1978 (Norfolk, Va.: The MacArthur Memorial,

NOTES TO CHAPTER SEVEN

287

1980), 153; John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: W.W. Norton, 1999), 560; Richard B. Finn, Winners in Peace: MacArthur, Yoshida, and Postwar Japan (Berkeley: University of California, 1992), 131; John McCloy, “From Military Government to Self-Government” in Americans as Proconsuls: United States Military Government in Germany and Japan, 1944–1952, edited by Robert Wolfe (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, ca. 1983), 3, Folder 4: From Military Government to Self-Government, Box +SP4A, JJMP/AC. SEVEN THE LONG SHADOW OF INTERNMENT

1. Colorado River Irrigation Project, Record of Wells, 1 June 1952; R. H. Rupkey to Mr. C. C. McDonald, 29 March 1963, Folder (603) Colorado River Ind. Resn. Well Logs, Poston Camps I, II, III World War II, Box 75–94 0055; Robert N. Parnell, “Final Report Operations Division,” (February 15, 1956), Folder Colorado River Reservation Final Report Engineering Section War Relocation Authority, Colo. River Relocation Center (vol. I), Box 75–94 0055; History of the Colorado River Indian Irrigation Project, Folder (603) Colorado River Ind. Resn. Hist. of Colo. R. Ind. Irrig. Proj. Circa 1945, Box 75–94 0055, RG 75, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Phoenix Area Office, Irrigation Projects, 1935–1961 (hereafter cited as BIAPAOIP), NARA/PRB; Memorandum of Understanding between the Director of the War Relocation Authority and the Secretary of the Interior, 14 April 1942, Folder 4.5.2.11 Colorado River Gravity Project Japanese Internment Gen., Box 10, RG 75 BIAPAOIP, NARA/PRB; William Zimmerman to William H. Zeh, 8 December 1947; C. H. Gensler to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 9 March 1948; [C. H.] Gensler to John Provinse, telegram, 28 August 1946, Folder 120 WRA–Position (Disposition of Buildings), Box 64 (from Fiscal Authorities to Welfare) Folders Indian Office Orders, RG 75, Records of the BIA, Irrigation District Number Four, Colorado River Irrigation Project, Records of J. W. Shepard, Fiscal Officer of the Colorado River War Project, 1942–1948, NARA/PRB; Colorado River Agency, “Factual Data, As of February 28, 1950,” Folder #4 Colorado River-Colonist (Part 1 of 3) 240.0 6/11/45 to 2/16/53, Box 1, Credit Report Correspondence, 1943–1963, Colorado River Agency and Affairs, NARA/RMB; Dean E. Mann, The Politics of Water in Arizona (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1963), 89, 100–2, 145–46, 170–77. 2. Recapitulation Sheet—Sale of Buildings for Use Off-Site, 1 April 1947, Folder Reports Topaz, Box 6; “Central Utah Relocation Center Topaz, Utah Fixed Assets Inventory,” 15 October 1945, Folder Central Utah Relocation Center (4) Classification and Surplus Data Topaz, Utah, Utah 4, 4a 1of 2, Box 17 Real Property Case Files, 1940–1946, Utah; H. D. Lowry to Thomas B. Frost, Jr., 13 February 1947 and 15 July 1947, Folder Central Utah Relocation Center 6 topaz, Utah WRA-RE-3–1946 1A-Utah-4a, Box 3 Real Property Case Files, 1940–1946, Utah; Willis Martin to War Assets Admin[istration], Salt Lake City, “Application for Discount,” 24 February 1947, Folder Central Utah Relocation Center (3) Topaz, Utah, 4, 4a (Disposal Data, vol. 2, April 1, 1947), Box 18 Real Property Case Files, 1939–1962, Utah; Final Report—Utilities System, 29 May 1947, Folder

288

NOTES TO CHAPTER SEVEN

Reports—Topaz, Box 6, RG 270 Records of the WAA, FY94, NARA Rocky Mountain Branch, Denver, Col.; Okihiro, Storied Lives, 88–89; Abstract of Bids, 25 November 1946, Folder Central Utah Relocation Center 6 topaz, Utah WRA RE-3–1946 1A-Utah-4a, Box 3; Telephone conversation between Mr. Housh and Mr. [Erwin] Utz, 7 August 1945; Dudley Crafts to George E. Fuller, 2 February 1946, Folder Central Utah Relocation Center (3) (Disposal Data, vol. I, Closed, August 1, 1945 thru March 3, 1947) 2 of 2, Box 18 Real Property Case Files, 1939–1962, Utah, RG 270 Records of the War Assets Administration (hereafter cited as WAA), FY94, NARA/RMB. 3. Garrett and Larson, eds., Camp and Community, 127–28, 140, 68; J. A. Krug to Todd Watkins, 11 September 1946; John Coolick to Vice Administrator for Field Operations, 16 January 1947; John J. O’Brien to Fred W. Johnson, 19 July 1946; Real Property Classification, 2 January 1946, WAA Form 1219; Jeffrey F. Burton, Mary M. Farrell, Florence B. Lord, and Richard W. Lord, Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites (Washington, D.C.: Western Archaeological and Conservation Center, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Publications in Anthropology 74, 1999), 7; The Inyo Register, 6 December 1946, Folder Manzanar Relocation Center—Manzanar, Calif. Disposal Data, Box 89, RG 270 Records of the WAA, California, Real Property Disposal Case Files, NARA/PRB. 4. Jeffrey F. Burton et al., Three Farewells to Manzanar: The Archaeology of Manzanar National Historic Site, California, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Western Archaeological and Conservation Center, National Park Service, Department of the Interior, 1996) 66; Donald L. Fixico, Termination and Relocation: Federal Indian Policy, 1945–1960 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986), 41; Theodore H. Haas, “The Rebirth of Indian Spirit and Action,” (Address to Sixth Convention of the National Congress of American Indians at Rapid City, South Dakota, 22 September 1949), no folder title, FRC Box 457234, Area and Field Office History Files (Correspondence) “Mixed,” Phoenix Area Office, 1929–1957 RG 75 Records of the BIA, NARA, Rocky Mountain Region Branch, Denver, Col.; W. Wade Head to Commanding Officer Davis-Monthan Field, 27 November 1944, Folder 004 General and Statistical Letters to the Office, July 1944–January 45, Box 37, RG 75 Records of the BIA, Sells Indian Agency (Papago), Central Classified Files, 1925–51, Pacific Region Branch, Laguna, Niguel, Calif.; W. Wade Head, “Application for Federal Employment,” U.S. Civil Service Standard Form 57, November 1947; Anon., “Federal Employment Record, 1932– 1950,” ca. 1950, W. Wade Head Papers, copy courtesy of William Head, Jr., Gallup, N. M. 5. Powell, “The Community—and the Management,” 22; R[ussell] A[rden]B[ankson] to Lambert Wilson Associates, 19 April 1960, Folder Outgoing Correspondence 1933–1966, Box 1, Russell Bankson Papers, AX 250 1P, Special Collections, Knight Library, University of Oregon, Eugene; Marquis—Who’s Who, Who’s Who in the West 7th ed. (Chicago: A.N. Marquis, 1949, 1951, 1954, 1956, 1960), 475; Ralph P. Merritt, “Recollections,” Oral History, Special Collections, 330/5, 112–18; 129–32, University Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles; Public Administration Clearing House [Chicago], “Former Staff Members of ‘1313’,” ca. April 1952, Folder 2–2: Ephemera, Box 2, Charles F.

NOTES TO CHAPTER SEVEN

289

Ernst Papers, Manuscripts and University Archives, Allen Library, University of Washington, Seattle. 6. Daniel C. Chapman to Dillon S. Myer, 19 January 1948, Folder Personal Correspondence File, 1948, Box 3; Abe Fortas to John W. Pehle, 14 June 1944, Folder Personal Correspondence File 1943–1944, Box 2, Papers of Dillon S. Myer, HSTL/IM; Community Analyst Letter no. 12, p. 3 November 1944, Folder Community Analysts Letter, Box 2, EHSRBSP/ASM; Edward H. Spicer, “Story of Oswego,” 7 September 1944, Folder 4, Box 13, EHSP/UA. The obvious influence of the WRA experience carried over to the operation of this Emergency Refugee Shelter. See WRA, Token Shipment: The Story of America’s War Refugee Shelter (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, ca. 1946), 4–9, 13, 18, 41– 48, Folder unnumbered, Box 18, EHSP/UA; Myer, Uprooted Americans, 109– 114, 122–23; Inez Mercer to Ned [Edward Spicer], 9 October 1945, Folder WRA Correspondence—Alphabetical order, Box 1, EHSRBSP/ASM. 7. George Woodbridge, UNRRA: The History of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, vol. 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1950), 1; Ibid., 2: 372–73; Luther T. Hoffman to Marion Clawson, 7 April 1948, and 22 March 1948, Folder BLM-SF & Sacr.1948–54; Arch K. Jean to Luther T. Hoffman, 23 May 1947, Box 1, Folder UNRRA (China) January 1946–March 1947; [Department of the Interior], July 1948, Folder Newsclippings and P. R. BLM; Department of the Interior Information Service, [New Release], 22 October 1951, Folder Newsclippings & P.R. BLM; E. Reeseman Fryer to Lu, 20 May 1953 and Carl M. Forsberg to Luther T. Hoffman, 29 July 1959, Folder Iran and Near East—1958–59, Box 1, Papers of Luther Hoffman, HSTL/IM. 8. Dillon S. Myer, “An Autobiography of Dillon S. Myer” (oral interview, University of California, Berkeley Regional Oral History Office, 1970), 183–84; Dillon S. Myer to Russell Lord, 26 June 1942, Folder Folder Personal Correspondence File 1941–1942, Box 2; D. S. Myer to Milton Eisenhower, 12 August 1946, Folder Personal Correspondence File 1946, Box 2; Director [Dillon Myer] to Col. Earle M. Wilson, 24 July 1946, Folder D. S. Myer–Comm. of Fed. Pub. Housing Auth.-Speeches, 1946–47, Box 1; Dillon S. Myer, The Role of Governmental Cooperation in Resource Conservation, Paper no. 73, presented at Inter-American Conference on Conservation of Renewable Natural Resources, in Denver, Colorado 9/7–20/48, Folder D. S. Myer—IIA Speeches, 1948–1950, Box 1; D. S. Myer to Mrs. Larry Tajiri, 30 October 1950, Folder Personal Correspondence File 1951 Myer, Box 4, Papers of Dillon S. Myer, HSTL/IM. 9. John McCloy, Diary, 25 May 1943, Folder 27: III-11 Enemy Aliens, Box DY5, JJMP/AC; Bill Hosokawa, Nisei: The Quiet Americans (New York: William Morrow, 1969), 491–92; [Engineer Corps], “Final Report[:]Construction Branch[,] Operations Divisions[,] Wartime Civil Control Administration,” Tab 2: Engineer Construction Costs for Japanese Assembly Centers and Tab 4, n.d., Folder 319.1 Final Reports from Var. Branches & Divisions, Box 48, RG 338 WDC, NARA II; Myer, Uprooted Americans, appendix M, 339; Taylor, “Evacuation and Economic Loss: Questions and Perspectives,” in Daniels, Taylor, and Kitano, Japanese Americans, 166; Lowell C. Pratt to Dillon Myer, 2 August 1949, Folder Personal Correspondence File 1949 (folder 2), Box 3, Dillon Myer Papers, HSTL/IM; Jerry N. Hess, “Oral History Karl R. Bendetsen,” (interview, 1972),

290

NOTES TO CHAPTER SEVEN

129–31, 145–50, 227–35, HSTL/IM; Donna Komure, “Interview with Karl Bendetsen by Angus Macbeth and Donna Komure” (interview), October 31, 1981, Folder Bendetsen, Box 42, RG 220, Records of Temporary Committees, Commissions and Boards, Records of the CWRIC, 1981–1983, NARA II. 10. Pacific Citizen, 29 May 1948, in Scrapbook vol. 1, Folder 41, no box number, JJMP/AC; Irons, Justice at War, 354, 353; John J. McCloy to Jane B. Kaihatsu, 12 April 1984, reprinted in Daniels et al., From Relocation to Redress, 213; Karl Bendetsen to Jane B. Kaihatsu, 9 April 1984, reprinted in Daniels et al., From Relocation to Redress, 215. 11. Captain Stanley D. Arnold, ed., “History of Japanese Program” (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Provost Marshal General, January 20, 1943 to September 1, 1945), 6–7, 9–10, Folder 291.2 History of Jap Program Prepared by Japanese-American Branch, Box 7, RG 338 WDC, NARA II. 12. Masumi Izumi, “The Passage and Repeal of the Emergency Detention Act, 1950–1971: How the Japanese American Internment Influenced American Concerns about Race, Liberty, and Internal Security,” (Ph.D. diss., Do¯shisha University, 2002), 68–75; Alonzo L. Hamby, Man of the People: A Life of Harry S Truman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 548–49; Daniels, Asian America, 303; Allan Wesley Austin, “Loyalty and Concentration Camps in America: The Japanese American Precedent and the Internal Security Act of 1950,” in Last Witnesses: Reflections on the Wartime Internment of Japanese Americans, edited by Erica Harth (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 258–64. 13. FBI Director to the Attorney General, “Detention of Communists in the Event of Sudden Difficulty with the Soviet Union,” 20 October 1947, Folder Custodial Detention (100–1) Main File Section 190, Custodial Detention Japanese 1941 Files, Freedom of Information and Privacy Act Reading Room, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington, D.C.; D. L. Nicholson to J. Edgar Hoover, 10 February 1949; S. W. DuBois, Memorandum for Jack D. Neal, ca. 31 August 1948; Jack D. Neal to Chief of Naval Intelligence, 11 August 1948; Paul Ishimoto to Miss [Elizabeth B.] Smith, ca. 1954, Folder Japanese Org. in U.S., Box 193 Subject Files, 1939–1954, RG 59, General Records of the State Dept., Records of the Special War Problems Division, Subject Files, 1939–1954, NARA II. 14. Christine Nasse, ed., Contemporary Authors, vols. 21–24, 1st rev. (1977), 483; David French to Ned [Edward Spicer], vol. 29, 24 October 1946, Folder Correspondence, Box 4, EHSRBSP/ASM; Contemporary: New Revision Series, 330–31. See also Irons, Justice at War, 192–94. 15. Carey McWilliams, “Does Social Discrimination Really Matter? Exclusiveness in a Democracy” Commentary, Nov. 1947 and “Anthro 120/220 Minorities,” n.d., no folder, Box 3 of “EHS Courses,” EHSRSBP/ASM. 16. James E. Officer, “Edward Holland Spicer, 1906–1983,” Biographical Memoirs vol. 68 (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1995), 11, 16, EHSRSBP/ASM; Foster, Applied Anthropology, 203–4, 216–17; Edward H. Spicer, “Reluctant Cotton-Pickers,” and his “Resistance to Freedom: Resettlement from the Japanese Relocation Centers during World War II,” cases 3 and 14, in Edward H. Spicer, ed., Human Problems in Technological Change: A Casebook (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1952).

NOTES TO CHAPTER SEVEN

291

17. Richard Nishimoto, [Sociological Journal], 16 July [1944], Folder J 6.15j, File “Spanish Consul,” JAERR/UCB, reel #239; Broom and Riemer, Removal and Return, 203; CWRIC, Personal Justice Denied, 118–20; Yang-Murray, “‘Silence No More’,” 16; Edna Bonacich and John Modell, The Economic Basis of Ethnic Solidarity: Small Business in the Japanese American Community (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 96–97; Roger Daniels, “Japanese America, 1930–1941: An Ethnic Community in the Great Depression,” Journal of the West 24, no. 2 (April 1985): 35; Sarasohn, ed., The Issei, 229, 237. 18. John Modell, “The Japanese of Los Angeles: A Study in Growth and Accommodation, 1900–1946” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, Dept. of Political Science, 1969), 416; Hideo Aoki, “The Japanese Protestant Churches in Southern California and the Effect of the Evacuation” (M.A. thesis, Drake University, 1955), 64–65; Hayashi, ‘For the Sake of Our Japanese Brethren,’ 154. 19. Leslie Hatamiya, Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and the Passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), 45– 47; Maki, Kitano, and Berthold, eds., Achieving the Impossible Dream, 89–91, 151–53; J. Edgar Hoover, “Summary of Information War Relocation Authority and Japanese Relocation Centers,” 2 August 1945, 78–79, Folder 62–69030–710, Box 84, RG 65 FBI/WRA, NARA II; Japanese American Citizens League AntiDiscrimination Committee, “Statement in Support of H.R. 3999 For the CooperMagnuson Subcommittee Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate,” 21 May 1948, section 1, pp. 3–4, Folder 7, Box 25, JARCR/CU; Maki, Kitano, and Berthold, Achieving the Impossible Dream, 52–55; Japanese American Citizens League Anti-Discrimination Committee, “Statement in Support of H.R. 3999 For the Cooper-Magnuson Subcommittee Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate,” section 1, ca. 21 May 1948, 4, Folder 7 JACL Anti-Discrimination Committee, Box 25, JARCR/CU; Dillon S. Myer to Dr. Robert Gordon Sproul, 2 December 1948, Personal Correspondence File 1948 (folder 1) Myer, Box 3, Papers of Dillon S. Myer, HSTL/IM; Mike Masaoka, Statement, before the President’s Civil Rights Committee, 1 May 1947 and Mike Masaoka to the President’s Committee on Civil Rights, 23 April 1947, Folder Japanese American Citizens League, Anti-Discrimination Committee, Box 9, Records of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights, Papers of Harry S Truman, HSTL/IM; Roger Daniels, “The Effects of Incarceration Analyzed, Part VI,” 149, and Sandra C. Taylor, “Evacuation and Economic Loss: Questions and Perspectives,” in Daniels, Kitano, Taylor, eds., Japanese Americans, 166; Hatamiya, Righting a Wrong, 181; Broom and Riemer, Removal and Return, 204, table 49, estimated the total losses as $367,486,000. See also Nancy Nanaumi Nakasone-Huey, “‘In Simple Justice’: The Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act of 1948” (Ph.D. diss., University of Southern California, 1986), 277. 20. Murray, “‘Silence No More,’ ” 113–14; William Wei, The Asian American Movement (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), 21; Murray, “‘Silence No More’,” 66; Hisaye Yamamoto DeSoto, “Pilgrimmage,” Amerasia Journal 19, no. 1 (1993): 61–64; Maki, Kitano, and Berthold, Achieving the Impossible Dream, 61–62; Block Managers’ Minutes, Comments on the Minutes, 7 May 1943, Folder 66.011A Manzanar June 1942–December 1943, Box 402: Central Files WRA HDQS, Community Government (General), RG 210 Records

292

NOTES TO EPILOGUE

of the WRAHSCGF, NARA I; Norvil O. Aigner, “Interview with Arthur A. Hansen and David J. Bertagnoli,” 20 December 1973, in Japanese American World War II Evacuation Oral History Project Part V: Guards and Townspeople, edited by Arthur A. Hansen and Nora M. Jesch, vol. 1 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1993), 170; Yasuko I. Takezawa, Breaking the Silence: Redress and Japanese American Ethnicity (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1995), 42, 44–45; Maki, Kitano, and Berthold, Achieving the Impossible Dream, 82–83, William Hohri, “Redress as a Movement Towards Enfranchisement,” in Daniels, Taylor, and Kitano, eds., Japanese Americans, 197; Murray, “‘Silence No More,’ ” 145–46. 21. Asahi Shimbun, 21 March 1984, 18; Toyoko Yamasaki, Futatsu no So¯ kurasho¯ Zaiseishishitsu, ed., Sho¯wa koku (Tokyo: Shincho¯, 1983), 3 volumes; O Zaiseishi: Sho¯wa 27~48 Nendo¯ Dai Sankan Yosan (1) (Tokyo: To¯yo¯ Keizai Shim¯ kurasho¯ Zaiseishishitsu, ed. Kuni no Yosan: Sho¯wa po¯sha, 1994), 345, 379; O ¯ kurasho¯ Shukeikyokunai Zaisei Cho¯sakai, 1967), 525; Yonju¯nendo¯ (Tokyo: O Asahi Shimbun, 16 December 1965, 12. See also James J. Orr, The Victim as Hero: Ideologies of Peace and National Identity in Postwar Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, Press, 2001), 158–69; Patricia E. Roy, et al., Mutual Hostages: Canadians and Japanese during the Second World War (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 190–91. 22. Paul Miller, “Imagined Enemies, Real Victims: Bartov’s Transcendent Holocaust,” American Historical Review 103, no. 4 (October 1998), 1178–81; Vinay Lal, “Genocide, Barbaric Others, and the Violence of Categories: A Response to Omer Bartov,” American Historical Review 103, no. 4 (October 1998): 1187– 90. For greater discussion of how the Nazi Holocaust became a Jewish phenomenon, see Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry, and Cole, Selling the Holocaust. The exception to ignoring German and Italian internees is found in Lawson Fusao Inada, ed., Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese American Internment (Berkeley, Calif.: Heyday Books, 2000), 191–203. 23. Tom Taketo Sasaki, “Technological Change in a Navaho Indian Farming Community: A Study of Social and Psychological Processes,” (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, June 1950), ii, and his Fruitland, New Mexico: A Navaho Community in Transition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1960); George Yamaguchi to Dr. Spicer and Mrs., 13 September 1945, Folder WRA-Correspondence with Evacuee members of the BSR and CA Staff, Alphabetical Order, Box 1, EHSRBSP/ASM; A. H. Leighton, Monthly Report, 10 July 1944, Folder R[e]p[o]rts f[o]r Adm[.] McIntire, Box 443, RG 208, OWI, Bureau of Overseas Intelligence, FMAD, NARA II; Contemporary Authors, vols. 17–20, 1st rev. 371–72; Hirabayashi, The Politics of Fieldwork, 157–58. EPILOGUE TOWARD HUMAN RIGHTS

1. Toshio Yatsushiro, “An Interview with a Communist Terrorist who Surrendered in Northeast Thailand (Part II)” (Bangkok: Research Division, USOM/ Thailand, May, 1967), 6–7; Yatsushiro, “Toward an Operational Conceptual Framework for Studying Communist Insurgency: The Tambon Anomaly Pilot Study in Thailand,” (Bangkok: Research Division, USOM/Thailand, June 2,

NOTES TO EPILOGUE

293

1969), 2–4; Yatsushiro, “Criteria for Evaluating Different Approaches in Countering Insurgency” (Bangkok: Research Division, USOM/Thailand, December 16, 1968), 1; Yatsuhiro, “The Appeal of Communism in Northeast Thailand” (Bangkok: Research Division, USOM/Thailand, December 1963), 3; Toshio Yatsushiro Papers, Oahu, Hawaii. 2. John L. S. Girling, Thailand: Society and Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981), 87, 235–36, 259; Andrew Turton, “Agrarian Bases of State Power,” in Agrarian Transformations: Local Processes and the State in Southeast Asia, edited by Gillian Hart, Andrew Turton, and Benjamin White (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 59, 76; Yatsushiro, “A Study in Village Organization and Leadership in Thailand” (Bangkok: Research Division, USOM/Thailand, July 6, 1966), 6–8; Yatsushiro, “Village Attitudes and Conditions in Relation to Rural Security in Northeast Thailand: An Intensive Resident Study of 17 Villages in Sakon Nakorn and Mahasarakham Provinces” (Bangkok: USOM/ Research Division, May 1967), 6–7, 23–24; Yatsushiro, “‘A Summary of the Northeast Villagers’ Approach to Their Problems and Needs: A Study in Village Organization and Leadership in Thailand,” in Committee on Foreign Affairs, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 90th Congress, Part 2 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967), 447; Yatsushiro, Village Organization and Leadership in Northeast Thailand: A Study of the Villagers’ Approach to Their Problems and Needs (Bangkok: Research Division, USOM/Thailand and the Department of Community Development, May, 1966), 122, 129, Toshio Yatsushiro Papers, Oahu, Hawaii). 3. Eric Wakin, Anthropology Goes to War: Professional Ethics and Counterinsurgency in Thailand (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1992), 124, 138–40, 117–19, 121–22; Thadeus Flood, “The Thai Left Wing in Historical Context,” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 7, no. 2 (April–June 1975): 59–60; Ralph W. McGehee, Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1983; copyrighted by the author), chap. 8, “In Search of Reds”; Albert G. Swing to Dr. James R. Hoath, 9 August 1966, Folder 1963–Village Leadership/Organization Study (Comments by other) Draft Monograph, Toshio Yatsushiro Papers, Oahu, Hawaii; Jeffrey Race, “The War in Northern Thailand,” Modern Asian Studies 8, no. 1 (1974): 85–112. 4. Toshio Yatsushiro, “Self-Determination and Cross-Cultural Administration: A Case Study” (manuscript, McGill University, January 1960), 3–5, Toshio Yatsushiro Papers, Oahu, Hawaii; Yatsushiro, “Political and Socio-cultural Issues at Poston and Manzanar Relocation Centers: A Themal Analysis,” (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1953), 591, 597–604. 5. “Community Development and the Pattanakorn,” speech to the 22 Pattanakorn of Changwad Nakorn Phanom, 23 August 1963; “A Summary of the Northeast Villagers’ Approach to Their Problems and Needs” as cited in the Hearings before the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives 90th Congress, 1st Session, April 11, 18–19, 25–26, May 2–4, May 23, 1967, 447–49.

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A NOTE ON SOURCES

THE WIDE-RANGING and large number of archival sources used here generally fall into three broad categories: materials provided by internees, social scientists, and camp administrators. While not exhaustive, those listed here provide the reader with a sense of the most important sources and a feel for the ones only recently made accessible to the public. INTERNEES

Understanding the pre–World War II context of the interned West Coast Japanese Americans is essential for comprehending their camp political behavior. Several repositories have a wealth of information on the California Japanese. The best and most complete is the Japanese American Research Project at UCLA. While not much is known of the San Francisco Japanese community, a small number of organizational history books are available in the UCLA collection and provide the prewar background of the Japanese in that region. Publications by prefectural associations and other commercial organizations of the Japanese in Los Angeles produced in the late 1920s and early 1930s proved useful for this study. Newspapers, almost all on microfilm, made tracking the changes in terminology among Japanese Americans possible. The project also maintains the personal papers of Poston and Topaz literati as well as the voluminous diary set kept by Akira Togawa which spans a half century from the 1920s to the 1970s. Togawa’s diary offers a rare opportunity to see how a liberal Japan-born individual understood his prewar and wartime experiences. His painter-artist counterpart in Topaz, Matsusaburo¯ Hibi, left behind personal papers that were less useful, as was the case for the materials left by Yoneo Sakai, who left Manzanar before the end of 1942, and prominent leftists in the Topaz and Manzanar camps, such as Karl Akiya and Karl Yoneda. Additional sources came from a variety of institutions. The archives of the Japanese American Historical Society, in San Francisco, California, contained valuable documents, particularly the remaining records of the Yokohama Species Bank, enabling a detailed analysis of remittances to Japan. Other bank records held at the Pacific Regional branch of the NARA in San Bruno, California, provided additional insights, as did the Records of the Office of Alien Property, San Francisco Office, Record Group 131 boxes three and four (the San Francisco office was in charge of alien property and retained some of the seized bank records for Yokohama Species Bank and the Sumitomo Bank). The Research Branch of

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A NOTE ON SOURCES

the Civil Affairs Division of the Wartime Civil Control Administration produced a surprising number of detailed reports related to the Kibei phenomenon, and had numerous files on prewar Japanese political, social, cultural, educational, and economic organizations, based on Japaneselanguage records. The extensive collection of records at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, California, seemed very promising for sketching the prewar background of the Buddhists, but the archives closed its doors before a thorough inspection could be made. Once removed from the West Coast, however, Japanese Americans generated few remaining Japanese-language documents, outside of the camp newspapers and reports filed with administrators. Personal papers are one way to get at the voices suppressed by the camp newspaper editors, but many of those come from the cultural and political elites of the camps. The Carey McWilliams Papers at the Special Collections of the Honnold Library at Claremont McKenna College, however, have helped fill in some of the gaps since many important Japanese American leftists corresponded with McWilliams, shedding light on this segment of the interned population. Manzanar riot leaders and their descendants left their papers with the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, California. Joseph Kurihara’s “confession” statement to authorities of his involvement in the Manzanar Incident and theater artist Raymond Hirai’s papers are among the valuable documents housed in the museum. Though not catalogued, the Harry Uyeno Papers at the Special Collections, Green Library, Stanford University, were pivotal for understanding the Mess Hall Union Workers’ movement at Manzanar. To probe further how “average” Japanese American thought about their removal and internment, additional documents from other institutions were used. The Foreign Ministry’s archival holdings are stored at the Gaiko¯ Shiryo¯kan in Tokyo, Japan, and among the many documents are reports on Japanese Americans in the concentration camps. Although most were on the center at Tule Lake, reports on the Spanish Consul’s visits to other camps are also kept there. In addition, the Foreign Language Broadcast Intelligence Service holds translations of radio broadcasts beamed to North America, and other countries, important albeit not always clearly transmitted sources of information. These records were catalogued as Record 262 and housed in the NARA II in College Park, Maryland. In addition, records belonging to the Special War Problems Division within the State Department were also consulted since Japanese Americans used the Spanish Consul as their intermediary to intercede on their behalf when in conflict with federal government officials. As neutrals in these conflicts, Spanish Consul officials’ views proved an important check on both internees and camp administrators’ views.

A NOTE ON SOURCES

297

SOCIAL SCIENTISTS

As equally as the internees, the social scientists observing them produced a virtual mountain of documents. By far the largest collection produced by these researchers is the Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study materials at the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Under the directorship of Dorothy Swaine Thomas, study team members collected WRA reports, administrative notices and publications, community council minutes, block managers’ meeting minutes, meticulously kept logs of their own observations, and generated hundreds of pages of reports on various subjects, all of which were deposited at the university in 1948. In addition, study members left IBM punch cards of data culled from WRA Form 26, which was filled out by nearly all internees in 1942, NARA I staff members decoded and reformatted the material to fit current database software programs. The database materials for this study were available at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. Other high-quality reports were filed by Tamie Tsuchiyama and Richard Nishimoto, both of whom were fluent in English and Japanese. The collection also contains some insightful reports on Manzanar by two WRA documentary historians Togo Tanaka and Joe Masaoka, with the former’s reports especially revealing since his command of both languages allowed him access, despite his known political stance, to people with a wide range of views. Field reports by Topaz researchers Fred Hoshiyama and Doris Hayashi were less informative in part because the two were too preoccupied with their own personal lives to observe carefully their subjects; but the former’s observations of political factions in Tanforan proved priceless, and the latter’s careful notations of her circle of friends and their sentiments also help give a sense of the broad political views many of her American-born friends held. All these are available on 379 microfilm reels, rearranged and recatalogued by Elizabeth Stephens in 1996. The Japanese American Relocation Center Records, housed in the Rare Manuscript Collection of the Carl A. Kroch Library, at Cornell University, were indispensable for understanding in depth how internees, social scientists, and administrators interacted in the WRA camps. The records initially surfaced in 1982 and its existence was made known after photographs of camp paintings were published in Deborah Gesensway and Mindy Roseman’s Beyond Words: Images from America’s Concentration Camps (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), but were not used much except in two doctoral dissertations completed in the 1950s. The records are a virtual gold mine of materials for Poston, with many documents shedding light on the relationship between the WRA and OIA, administrative staff member relations, personality studies of specific staff and in-

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ternee leaders, daily entries on block life and politics culled from the managers’ logs and social scientists’ sociological journals, and filed reports on a wide range of subjects. Materials for Manzanar, particularly the reports filed by Morris Opler, were initially kept in the Rare Manuscript Collection but were released to the original author and have not been returned. However, the Manzanar community analyst’s large volume of reports are available in the papers of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians at NARA II and Special Collections at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. Private papers of anthropologists and social scientists were also indispensable. John Embree left his papers with the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University, and the few documents related to his work with the WRA proved helpful. Edward Holland Spicer and Rosamond B. Spicer, both anthropologists, however, left a valuable set of records with the Special Collection of the University of Arizona under the name “U.S. War Relocation Authority Records” and with the Arizona State Museum, also on the same campus. Edward Spicer was the “second-hand man” to Leighton, and was pulled to the WRA Washington, D.C. headquarters to help found the Community Analysis Section. His correspondence with other social scientists revealed much about WRA policies, but his wife, Rosamond Spicer, produced materials of greater historical value for this study. She kept a diary of her life in Poston, revealing much about her friends Tamie Tsuchiyama and the Kunitanis. Moreover, as a secretary to Dillon Myer, she kept copies of various field reports and Community Analyst newsletters. Solon T. Kimball, WRA Community Management Director, left the bulk of his wartime records—some thirty-three cubic feet—at the Special Collections section of the Milbank Memorial Library of the Teacher’s College, Columbia University. While most of the material is on Minidoka, reports and notes on community government in general and some specifically on Manzanar, Poston, and Topaz, can be found in boxes 27a and 28a of Record Group 28. To probe further how far the social scientists’ ideas of governing Japanese made their way into policy formation in the United States government, records of several federal government agencies required perusal. The Office of War Information worked cooperatively with the WRA to produce propaganda materials to show the world, especially Asia, how the American government was not racially discriminatory against Japanese and other Asians. In the process, the office redefined Japanese Americans as “Americans of Japanese ancestry.” The office also took under its wings the former staff of the Bureau of Sociological Research in Poston, and redirected their task from studying internees to examining the Japanese military and civilian populace. The records of this research division, known as the Foreign Morale Analysis Division, shed light on how social

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299

scientists’ ideas of governing Japanese worked their way into plans for the American occupation of Japan and other islands. Those records are readily available at NARA II in College Park, Maryland, but were supplemented with documents from the Civil Affairs Division, Civil Affairs Staging Area, since the officers of this diversion trained military government officers assigned to Japan and equipped them with ideas garnered from the governing of the WRA camps. The latter records are housed in Record Group 338, records of the United States Army Commands, boxes 1015 and 1016, under the label “Posts, Camps, and Stations, Presidio of Monterey, CA.” ADMINISTRATORS

Military authorities and officials from various federal government agencies who were connected with the removal and internment also produced a mountain of written records on Japanese Americans and the campsites. Documents from the United States Navy and its interest data on Japanese American internees for usage in the anticipated occupation of Japan and its empire revealed surprisingly little. Although Ross T. McIntyre, Navy Surgeon General and personal physician to President Franklin Roosevelt, initially commissioned Alexander Leighton and his Bureau of Sociological Research, neither McIntyre’s personal papers deposited at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York, nor those in the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Record Group 52, nor any other Navy records at NARA II shed much light on Poston. Records of War Department officials are more helpful since these officials were heavily involved in the removal process, clearance for relocation, and the formation of Japanese American combat teams. These records—including those at the office of the Secretary of War, the formerly top secret correspondence of Secretary of War Stimson, or “Safe Files”; and the office files of Assistant Secretary of War, John J. McCloy in Record Group 107 at NARA II; together with the personal papers of John J. McCloy at the Special Collections of the Robert A. Frost Library of Amherst College—make clear what “military necessity” meant. High-level military officers left behind records revealing more than their War Department superiors. The officers of the Western Defense Command and Fourth Army who were assigned to the Wartime Civil Control Administration, Civil Affairs Division, kept a surprising number of detailed records for the “Assembly Center” period, all of them available for public perusal since the early 1990s on over a thousand microfilm reels at NARA II in College Park, Maryland. The Research Branch of the Division developed its own intelligence assessment of West Coast Japanese Americans and, in the process, produced a large quantity of reports

300

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of suspected Japanese American organizations, generated translations of prewar publications, and confiscated a number of records of Japanese American organizations, all kept in boxes categorized as “formerly classified” or “unclassified” materials. These materials served an important comparative benchmark for the study of the Kibei and other Japanese nationalism-infused organizations. Also useful were the records of the Office of Provost Marshal General at NARA II, particularly with regard to the Japanese American Branch. The WRA headquarters’ records, known as “subject-classified central files,” housed at NARA I in Washington, D.C., are also invaluable for understanding both camp administrators and internees. As for the former, the correspondence of various project directors and other administrators is especially revealing for what these individuals intended to accomplish through various policies adopted for the camps. They reveal much about their ideas of governance as it relates not only to internee camp politics, the Loyalty Registration, relocation, and repatriation but also to how Japanese Americans reacted to their policies, as revealed in community council and block managers’ minutes. Among the most important documents are the Evacuee Case Files, recently released to the public, which contain copies of the WRA Form 26 that nearly all internees filled out in summer 1942 together with FBI and other reports from intelligence agencies. They shed considerable light on individual internees’ socioeconomic background and offer considerable detail on individual internees’ lives in general. Collections of personal records of administrators provided a wealth of information, particularly on the top-level administrators’ views of governance prior to removal and internment. Particularly illuminating were those belonging to Dillon Myer. Although his oral autobiography is readily available at the Regional Oral History Office at the University of California, Berkeley, far more informative are his papers stored in the Harry S Truman Library in Independence, Missouri. How the removal and internment changed the career trajectory of Myer can be tracked from his years with the Department of Agriculture, through the WRA, and on to the Institute of Inter-American Affairs, the Federal Public Housing Authority, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Some additional useful sources, particularly his speeches, can be found in his chief economist’s collection, the Warren Jay Vinton Papers at the Special Collection of the Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University. The John Collier Papers at the Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, proved to be less helpful than anticipated but nevertheless, some of his correspondence with Alexander Leighton and others associated with the Bureau of Sociological Research make clear that Meyer was the originator of the idea to study Japanese

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301

Americans from the standpoint of colonial administration in an effort to refine ideas of governance to be applied in other countries after the war. Project directors’ personal collections, too, were helpful in understanding their ideas and careers prior to, and subsequent to, internment. The Charles Ernst Papers at the Manuscripts and Archives in the Allen Library of the University of Washington in Seattle, the Clarence Martin Papers at the Holland Library, Washington State University, as well as related documents at the Washington State Archives in Olympia show how welfare system managers like Ernst interpreted internee behavior through the lens of their experience in handling welfare recipients during the Great Depression, particularly when insights culled from Ernst’s correspondence with then-governor Clarence Martin (1933–41) is combined with those from the Washington Emergency Relief Administration Papers at the Washington State Archives in Olympia. The Luther T. Hoffman Papers at the Harry S Truman Library unfortunately did not reveal much on his prewar background but the single archival box of materials did shed light on how internment was connected with the export of the New Deal ideals abroad after the war. Roy Nash’s work for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People shaped his attitude toward the Manzanar Japanese, as revealed in his records stored at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University, in Washington, D.C.; his Sacramento Indian Agency correspondence can be found at the NARA-Pacific Sierra Regional office in San Bruno, California. Ralph Merritt, the other project director for Manzanar, bequeathed his few remaining papers to the Young Research Library at the University of California, Los Angeles. Although Duncan Mills’s papers were never found, his predecessor W. Wade Head at Poston left his materials at the Arizona Historical Foundation in the Hayden Library of Arizona State University in Tempe. While there is not much for his postwar career track, some materials shed light on prewar and Poston activities, particularly his suppression and ultimate firing of H. T. Townshend, an incident that tells us much about his ideas of “race.” Other administrators and staff members farther down the bureaucratic hierarchy provided a valuable check against the top-level administrators’ views of governance. Russell Arden Bankson, in his papers in the Special Collections section of the Knight Library at the University of Oregon, reveals not only how the internment affected him, and how his prewar attitudes toward relocation and Asians may have set him apart from his more liberal administrative superior, but also suggests how lower administrators’ attitudes, particularly toward military service may have shaped upper administrators’ outlook on Loyalty Registration resistance at Topaz. While some former camp high school teachers published their experiences in collected essays, Edythe N. Backus left her written records

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with the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Not only was her correspondence with Ruth Watanabe of Santa Anita WCCA camp insightful about life in the camps, but also her unwavering support for Japanese Americans during the Poston strike provides an important window onto the world of “white liberals” and their dealings with Japanese Americans. Despite some staff members’ sincere desire to help internees, some officials for certain federal government agencies used Japanese Americans to advance their own aims. FBI agents in particular were antagonistic to Japanese Americans despite their director’s public stance against mass removal. Their persecution of the Japanese is apparent in their “detention files,” now available to the public in the Freedom of Information / Privacy Act (FOIPA) Reading Room at the J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington, D.C. These papers shed light on the timing and targeting of enemy aliens during the FBI sweeps following the Pearl Harbor bombing and extending into the early months of 1942. Other files of interest are the copies of the original uncensored documents initially obtained in the 1980s by other scholars through the Freedom of Information / Privacy Act. These materials were declassified in 1991 and are stored in boxes 85 to 87, together with the censored materials in Record Group 65 at NARA-II in College Park, Maryland. They bring to light the antagonistic relationship between the bureau and the WRA. And finally, the assembling and dismantling of the sites of governance, and how that process impacted the local populace, required checking a number of local repositories across the United States. Not only were the WRA records in NARA I consulted but also records in the Office of the Chief of Engineers Corps, the Quartermaster General, and the Adjutant General’s Office records, all kept in NARA II. The former made clear the conflict between General John DeWitt and the Army Crops of Engineers over the latter’s shoddy craftsmanship in the construction of WCCA camps. More relevant for this study, however, were the records deposited at regional branches of the NARA, where the connection between land and water rights, on the one hand, and Japanese American internment, on the other, becomes clear. The Pacific Region branch in Laguna Niguel, California, holds the records of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, the Bureau of Public Roads Administration, the War Assets Administration, and the Indian Irrigation Service of the Phoenix Area Office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, all of which provide the pre- and post-internment context for Poston. The Rocky Mountain regional branch in Denver, Colorado, maintains documents relevant mainly to Topaz, particularly the voluminous records of the Bureau of Reclamation. Also helpful in

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understanding why Millard County officials were eager for the construction of the camp are the records for the War Assets Administration and the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. Although the Colorado River Indian Tribal Council minutes never surfaced, some records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Phoenix Area Office, pertaining to the post–World War II Hopi colonization of Poston are also available at the Denver branch.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I

N THE COURSE of writing any book, authors accumulate many debts, both financial and personal. I was no exception, and saw the cost continually rise with each passing phase of the work. Funding was crucial for this project since extensive travel to locate widely scattered sources was required, and I was fortunate to receive some assistance. Kinjo¯ Gakuin University in Nagoya, Japan, provided the initial funding when I began this project in earnest as a faculty member there. Yale University’s Morse Fellowship and the Griswold Fund were crucial in providing both time and financial resources for research, as were research grants from the Arizona Humanities Council and the Japanese American Citizens’ League’s Civil Liberties Public Education Fund. Nevertheless, I paid out of my own limited resources much of the cost and, as a result, imposed on friends who happened to live in the area near the archives. To them I owe a lot. Mrs. Masako Hayashida allowed me to stay at her home near the University of California, Berkeley, campus; Hao Huu Nguyen and family, Kathy Wong, Martha Watanabe, and Vida Benavides shared their respective homes in the Washington, D.C., area; Vu Pham in Ithaca, New York; and Tom and Debra Thurston, in Hamden, Connecticut. Many thanks go to National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) archivists whose patient guidance and suggestive leads helped immeasurably to improve this manuscript. Aloha South of NARA I in Washington, D.C., proved invaluable, as did John Taylor, Larry McDonald, William Mahoney, David Pfeiffer, and Barry Zerby of NARA II in College Park, Maryland. Archivists at the regional branches of NARA were extremely helpful and their challenge to inspect alternative sources that I initially did not consider widened my horizons substantially. Thanks go to Paul Wormser, National Archives, Pacific Region, Laguna Niguel, California, for suggesting the Irrigation Projects file. Suzanne Dewsberry directed me on the U.S. Navy archival materials and the Bureau of Indian Affairs materials. Joan Howard and Eric Bittner of Rocky Mountain Region branch office guided me through the Bureau of Land Management records and other record groups. Kathy O’Connor, of the Pacific Sierra Region branch at the Leo J. Ryan Memorial Building in San Bruno, California, and Dennis Bilger of the Harry S Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, did the same, introducing me to a number of documents previously unused. Although not formally on staff at NARA, Aiko Hertzig-Yoshinaga and Jack Hertzig, the “aunt and uncle” of the modern Redress and Reparations Movement, and the late Michi Weglyn lent me their documents and expertise on the collection at NARA. To-

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gether, they all taught me much about sources and the responsibility of historians to pursue them vigorously. Staff members at other institutions proved equally helpful. Elizabeth Stephens, who undertook the major task of reorganizing the entire Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records, discovered some of Alexander Leighton’s office files and allowed me to peruse the materials at the Bancroft Library. Evelyn Cooper and Emily Thompson of the Arizona Historical Foundation at the Hayden Library on the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, too, alerted me to a number of documents used in this study. Gary Lundell of the Manuscripts and Archives at the University of Washington in Seattle proved helpful, as did Elaine Engst and Katherine Reagan of the Carl A. Kroch Library at Cornell University. Chester Hoshizume, Bryan Niiya, Eiichiro¯ Azuma, then of the Japanese American National Museum, also lent a hand in locating sources tucked away in that collection. Seizo¯ Oka of the Japanese American Historical Archives in San Francisco was extremely helpful in sharing documents, his own unpublished papers, and thoughts that guided me along my research path. Academic colleagues also provided a constant source of intellectual stimulation and clues to important documents. Many thanks go to Kent Haldan of Mills College, Oakland, California, for documents related to Los Angeles and San Francisco. Lon Kurashige of the University of Southern California sharpened my thoughts and my basketball skills. I gained some important insights from Kevin Leonard and Chris Friday, both of Western Washington University on the experiences of African Americans, Native Americans, and Chinese Americans. Bruce Haynes, Robert Johnston, and Ben Kiernan, all of Yale University, taught me about African American history, political history, and Thailand. Lane Hirabayashi provided me with valuable leads from his own research and graciously gave me solid advice. Rick Noguchi gave me tips on William Wade Head papers, and the late Professor Yuji Ichioka was, as always, a fountainhead of new documents and insights. Shig Kaneshiro of Gardena lent me his copies of the Myron Gurnea Report, which he filed for and received under the Freedom of Information Act, a process I was simply too impatient to try. Toshio Yatsushiro of the University of Hawaii and Alexander Leighton of Harvard University and Dalhousie University, provided invaluable leads and served as interviewees, together with George McColm, who opened his home to me as well as his files. Student workers also proved invaluable in the process of writing this book, and I have benefited from their help. Shinichi Itagaki, Gen’ichiro¯ Itakura, Akiko Kaiyama, Raymond Kim, Tim Mackey, Lika Miyake, Ta¯ tomo, Nobuhiro O ¯ tsuka, Hiroaki kashi Omino, Noriko Onohara, Aya O Sato¯, Tan Eng Tat, and Kyo¯ko To¯yama, all at one time or another tracked

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

307

down various sources for me at various libraries. Others, such as Satsuki Kagawa, Paul V. Lim, and Emil Schweiger, were immensely helpful with the database input, drafting the charts and tables, printing, and indexing of the manuscript. The staff of Princeton University Press provided support essential for the writing of this book. The press provided the readers who poured through this manuscript, spotted errors, and saved me much embarrassment. Brigitta van Rheinberg’s patient waiting for the manuscript was deeply appreciated, and her expert advice on precise wording made the manuscript far better than it would have been. Alison Kalett handled the multitude of forms surrounding the publication of the manuscript. Mark Bellis made some important changes in its presentation. Linda Truilo had the unenviable task of copyediting the manuscript and vastly improved it with her suggested revisions. To them, I owe a debt of gratitude. And finally, friends and family members made this task immeasurably easier. Hiroshi Yoneyama and Alan D. Sugano lent a hand in my struggles with the War Relocation Authority Form Twenty-Six database work, as did Hanh Duc Do, my roommate in New Haven, Connecticut. Special thanks go to the Hayase and Kagawa families, my own parents, Yoshiro¯ and Yoshiko Hayashi, and my brother-in-law Yuko¯ and sister Brenda ¯ ta for their encouragement, without which this book could never Keiko O have been completed.

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INDEX

Abe, Victor, 94–95 Abiko, Kyu¯taro¯, 43–45 Abiko, Yasuo, 43–44 Adamic, Louis, 56 Adams, Ansel, 160 Administrative Instruction Number ThirtyFour, 108, 116, 159 administrators, camp: career opportunities for, 10; center managers, 93; draft resistance, dealing with, 181; internees, treatment of, xiv; inu beatings, response to, 128–29; and Loyalty Registration, 142– 43; methods of, 1; and Poston Strike, 133–34; profiles of, 25–29; on relocation, 191; views of, 16, 22. See also under specific administrators agribusiness, 16–18 Aikoku Fujinkai (Patriotic Women’s Society), 65 Aiyukai (Loving Friends Society), 66–67 Akahoshi, Ted Ichiji, 114, 135 Akazuki, Ken, 58 Akiya, Karl Ichiro¯, 96 Alien Land Act, 194 All-Center Conference, 197–200, 203 Amat, Francisco de, 147, 156. See also Spanish Consulate American Indians, 16–19, 22–23, 88–89, 191. See also CRIT American Occupation of Japan, 11, 141, 204–6 Americans Betrayed (Grodzins), 3, 216 Amory, H. Russell, 93, 101 Anti-Alien Law, 193–94, 203 Anti-Axis Committee, 74 Anzai, Kiyoharu, 162, 164–65 apology, to interned Japanese Americans, 2 Arai, Clarence, 33 Aramaki, Kameki, 135 Arataka, Keiji, 135 Ariyoshi, Ko¯ji, 102, 103, 114, 157, 204 Arizona, 16–17 Arizona v. California, 207 Arnold, Stanley, 139, 212 Ashworth, Ray, 101, 140 assembly centers. See concentration camps assimilation, 20–22

associations, prefectural , 60–65 Auernheimer, Mrs. Jacob C., 85 Baba, Masaru, 199 Baba, Tsune, 142 Bainbridge Island, 33, 87, 100 Ban, Jo¯taro¯ , 102 Bankson, Russell, 28–29, 209 Barnhart, Edward N., 3 Barton, S. W., 207 basketball, 168 Becker, Julius W., 84–85 Bell, Reginald, 21 Bendetsen, Karl: internment camps, participation in creation of, 87–88, 92; Japanese American soldier, on use of, 139; on the Loyalty Registration, 140, 141–42; mentioned, 4; on military necessity, 79; profile of, 35–36, 211–12; on the riot, 103; on segregation, 152–53. See also OPMG Benedict, Ruth, 19–20 Bennett, John W., 218 Berle, Adolph, 37 Biddle, Francis, 37, 77 block managers, 108–11, 115–16, 159 Blood Brothers, Southern California Justice Group, 100–101, 126 Boas, Franz, 19 Bogard, Tracy, 146 Bonesteel, Charles H., 189, 199 Bopp, Franz, 30 Brooks, Charles W., 40 Brown, Robert, 18 BSR (Bureau of Sociological Research), 9, 23–24. See also social scientists Buddhism, 67–68, 70–71, 72, 169–70 Buddhist Brotherhood, 170 Buddhist Churches of America, The, 72, 170 Bureau of Sociological Research (BSR), 9, 23–24. See also social scientists Bureau of the Census, 37–38 Burge, Moris, 108, 149, 166, 190, 196 Cable Act, 50 Calhoun, John C., 22

310 Camacho, Manuel Avila, 7 camouflage net project, 125–26, 159 Campbell, Ned, 118–19, 135 Carson, Joseph, 85 Carter, John, 38 center managers, 93. See also administrators, camp Center Society for Overseas Residents, 175 Central Executive Board, 166–67, 174 Central Intelligence Agency, 220 Central Japanese Association, 52, 53, 75, 241n. 24 Central Japanese Society, 175 Chalfant, Billy, 89–90 Cheney, Alice, 98, 117 Christianty, 85, 168–69. See also religion Citizens’ Federation. See Manzanar Citizens’ Federation Civil Affairs Staging Area, 205–6 Civil Liberties Act in 1988, 2, 7, 216 Civil Rights First, 185, 186 Clarke, J. T. , 83–84 Collier, John: camps under, 1; management style of, 22–24; on self-government, 107. See also OIA Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT), 16– 17, 88, 207, 216. See also American Indians Come, Japanese (pamphlet), 59 Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC), 7 Committee for the Restoration of the Civil Rights of United States Citizens of Japanese Ancestry, 187 community analysts. See social scientists community council, 111–14, 159 community government. See selfgovernment compensation. See reparations concentration camps: administration of, 1, 10; creation of, by Executive Order 9066, 1, 87–94; features of, 1; politics and governance in, 94–106; security measures in, 148–51; self-government in, 107–21; spies in, 125–30; termination of, 189–97, 208–9. See also under specific camps conscription. See draft co-op, 117–20, 201 Cooper, Peter, 93

INDEX

Cooperative Movement, 117–20, 201 cotton picking, 78, 132, 214 Cottonwood Bowl Movement, 133 council. See community council Crawford, James, 108, 128, 166, 183–84, 190 CRIT (Colorado River Indian Tribes), 16–17, 88, 207, 216. See also American Indians Cross (an Army colonel), 36 Crowley, John, 18 Cushman, Allan, 190 Customs Service, 193 CWRIC (Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians), 7 Daniels, Roger, 4 Davao, 14, 81 Davis, Frank, 93, 94 Davis, Norman, 93–94 Dean, Margaret, 144 Dedrick, Calvert, 140 Del Webb Construction Company, 91 democracy: Japanese Americans, experienced by, 42–43. See also selfgovernment Democracy on Trial (Smith), 6 detention. See internment, mass Dewey, Thomas, 176 DeWitt, John: Final Report (1943), 2–3; internment camps, participation in creation of, 1, 87–88, 90–92; on Japanese language training, 36; on Loyalty Registration, 140–41; mentioned, 4, 15, 152, 158; on military necessity, 79–81; profile of, 35, 211; on self-government, 107. See also WDC Dies, Martin, 148 Dish Cloth Incident, 101 Do¯ho¯ (newspaper), 69, 74, 78 Do¯mei (news agency), 41 draft, 129, 132, 144, 157–59, 180; options of Nisei, 179; as propaganda, 139–42; resistance to, 181–88. See also Question No. 27 Drinnon, Richard 4 Duco, Mary, 199 Eisenhower, Milton: camps under, 1; Japanese Relocation, 159–60; mentioned, 103; on self-government, 108. See also WRA

INDEX

Ekimoto, Yoshio, 199 Embree, John, 22 Emergency Detention Act, 212 Emmerson, John, 204 Emmons, Delos C., 78, 139, 152 Endo¯, Fusaye, 117 Endo¯, Mitsuye, 197 enlistment. See draft Ennis, Edward, 37 Ernst, Charles: on Loyalty Registration, 142–43; mentioned, 109, 149, 150; profile of, 26–27, 209; on reparations, 198 espionage. See spying Espionage Act, 146 Evacuation Claims Act, 2, 216 Evans, John, 97–98, 101, 103–4, 109 Executive Order 9066, 1, 216 expatriation, 183–84. See also repatriation Fabrega, Octavio, 82 factions, internee political, 9–10 Fahy, Charles, 189 Fairchild, Henry Pratt, 21 Farnsworth, John Semer, 39 FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation): arrests, 76–77, 102, 146, 135; in the camps, 125–27, 147, 149–50, 166; and draft resistance, 180–81, 186; and Manzanar Riot, 135; mentioned, 203, 213; in the Philippines, Nisei spies for, 15, 81; and Project M, 38; and Poston Strike, 130–33; on the spy trials, 30; treatment of Japanese Americans, initial, 31–32; uncooperativeness of the, 81–82 Fearey, Robert, 206 Federal Communications Commission, 81– 82 Federation of Southern California (Issei) Women, 50 Field, Henry, 37–38 fifth column, 20, 30–32, 81, 212. See also espionage Final Report (DeWitt), 2–3 Findley, Nell, 98 Fonda, Jane, 4 Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service, 159 Foreign Morale Analysis Division, 204 Foreign Nationalities Branch, 37 French, David, 192–93, 196, 202–3, 213 Friends of New Germany, 31 Fryer, E. R., 89, 210

311 Fujii, George, 130–31, 133–34, 181, 186– 87 Fujii, Masuji, 165 Fujii, Sei, 52 Fujii, Shu¯ji, 74, 103 Fujin Renmei (Women’s League), 65 Fujinaka, K., 171 Fujioka, Shiro¯, 49 Fujisawa, M., 132 Fujita, Tad, 94 Fukawa, Masao, 78 Futatsu no Sokoku (Yamazaki), 217 Galton, Francis, 21 Gelvin, Ralph, 88 generation gap, 112, 171 generational concept, 44–45 Gensler, C. H., 191 German-American Bund, 20, 31 Germans, 30–31, 38, 77 Gibson, Raleigh, 82 Goldwater, Rev. Julius A., 93, 170 Goto¯, Rev. Taro¯, 94, 110, 119 Governing of Men, The (Leighton), 2–3, 214, 218 Greater Japanese Association. See Japanese Association of America Griebl, Ignatz, 31 Grodzins, Morton, 3, 216 G-2, 15, 135, 138 Gullion, Allen, 4, 15, 140 Gurnea, Myron, 149 Haas, Theodore, 119, 133, 136, 137, 209 Hanaoka, Yoshinobu, 135 Hansen, Arthur, 5 Harada, K., 171 Harada, Shikazo, 135 Hartman, William, 205–06 Hashima, Robert Seido¯, 57 Hashimoto, So¯kichi Harry, 135 Hatamiya, Toshiko, 70–71, 95 Hawaii, 35, 38, 44, 79, 153; internees from, 102, 152; Japanese Americans in, 48, 37, 59, 87; Kibei in, 47 (table 2.1); Nisei in, 46, 144 Head, W. Wade, 11, 106, 148–49, 209; mentioned, 166; Philippines, experience in the, 13–15; Poston Strike, demands after, 133–34; on self-government, 107; on spies, 125–26. See also Poston Heimushakai (Veterans’ Association), 66

312 Hibi, Mabel, 117 Higa, Thomas, 181, 182 Higashi, Kiyoshi, 114 Hikoyeda, Yei, 162 Hirahara, Sumio, 203 Hirai, Raymond Hiroshi, 135 Hirata, Masao, 214–15 Hiratsuka, Robert, 132 Hiroshima, 46, 47 (table 2.1), 53, 201–2, 213; remittances to, 60–61, 62 (table 2.3), 63 (fig. 2.2) Hoffman, Luther, 149, 191, 199; profile of, 27–28, 210, 213 Hoffman, Oscar, 185 Hokubei Hyo¯ron (newspaper), 73 Holman, Rufus, 148 Honor Court, 136, 166 Hoover, J. Edgar, 213; camps, on securities of, 150; on internment, 77; Japanese Americans, history with the, 32; mentioned, 103.; on the spy trials, 30; tensions with the War Department, 34. See also FBI Horton, Ken, 92 Hosokawa, Saki, 67 House Committee on Un-American Activities, 148, 160 Hughes, James, 110 Ichihashi, Yamato, 44, 101 Ickes, Harold, 189 Iiyama, Ernest, 58, 95–96, 113–14 Ikeda, Kando, 73 Iki, Robert, 122 Indefinite Leave Clearance, 138, 150 Indians. See American Indians informants. See spying; inu Interior Police, 92–93, 101 Interior Security Branch, 93 Internal Security Act, 212 internees: on Allied victory, xiii; treatment of, xiv. See also Japanese Americans internment, mass: Executive Order 9066, 1; illegality of, 2, 152, 189; opposition to, 37; process of, 76–79, 84–87; Roosevelt, supported by, 38; termination of, 189–97. See also concentration camps internment, selective, 37, 190. See also internment, mass internment camps. See concentration camps interviews, oral, xvi

INDEX

inu, 100, 125, 127, 129, 133, 134. See also spying Inukai, Tsuyoshi, 130 Irons, Peter, 5 Ishimaru, T. G., 98, 111, 139, 167 Ishimaru, Tep, 98, 111, 139, 167 Ishimoto, Paul, 213 Ishino, Iwao, 218 Issei: apprehensions of, 97; disillusionment of, 3; images of, created, 159–63; leadership of, 167, 171, 198; loyalty of, 34, 122; and Loyalty Registration, 146; reaction to war’s end, 202–3; repatriating, 154. See also Issei Advisory Board; Japanese Americans; Kibei; Nisei Issei Advisory Board, 116, 117 It Can’t Happen Here (Lewis), 30 Italian Americans, 31, 77 Ito¯, Frank Harayuki, 99 Ito¯, James, 134 Iwamoto, Chikara David, 99 Iwata, Harvey, 132 Izuno, Richard, 165 Jackson, Robert, 35 JACL (Japanese American Citizens League): in camp politics, xiv, 94; formation of, 54–55; informers among the, 149, 150; on loyalty, 69, 73–74; postwar, 215–17; on race, culture, and loyalty, 40, 215; spy hunt, response to, 129–30; James Wakasa Incident, 151–52 Japanese: Imperial Family of, 53, 58; Philippines, in the, 13–15, 81; threat of, perceived, 32. See also Japanese Americans, Japanese government, Imperial Japanese Americans: assimilation, probability of, 21; democracy, experience of, 42– 43; draft resistance of, 181–88; and espionage, 31–34, 36, 38–39, 129; history with the FBI, 31–32; internment of, under Executive Order 9066, 1–2, 76– 79, 85–87; as Japanese language teachers, 36; postwar, 214–14; propaganda, used in, 159–61, 203–4; and reaction to war’s end, 201–3; relocation of, 172–74, 191–97, 200; remittances, sent by, 59– 60, 60 (table 2.2), 62 (table 2.3), 61 (fig. 2.1), 63 (fig. 2.2), 178; and reparations, 136–37, 174–76, 192–94; repatriation of, 154–56; and social scientists, 40, 55, 162, 172, 217–18; war sympathies of,

INDEX

121–25; work projects, on patriotic, 5. See also internees; Issei; Kibei; Nisei Japanese Association of America: espionage, denial of, 69; formation of, 41–45; and Kibei Encouragement Movement, 48; local chapters of, 49–53; on race, culture, and loyalty, 40 Japanese government, Imperial, 40–41; American civilians, treatment of, 83–84; messages to Japanese Americans, 103–5, 137, 175; and protection, offer of, 122; reparations and assistance from, 174–78, 217; on repatriation, 153; warnings, given by, 78. See also To¯jo¯, Hideki Japanese Nationality Law, 41 Japanese Okies, 155 Japanese Relocation (film), 160 Japanese Students’ Club, 71–72 Johnson, W. A., 158 Jones, E. Stanley, 169 Joseph, Douglas, 90 Justice at War (Irons), 5 Justice Department, 37, 203 Kagoshima, 62; remittances to, 59–60, 62 (table 2.3), 63 (fig. 2.2) KaMai (newspaper). See Kashu¯ Mainichi Kanzaki, Yoshisa, 201 Kashu¯ Mainichi (newspaper), 52, 72, 78 Kasuga, Bill, 119 Katayama, Hiro, 185 Katayama, Sen, 58 Katow, Smoot, 167, 197, 200 Kawabe, Kenji, 137 Kawaguchi, Harry, 102 Kawahara, Yae, 182 Kawahira, Kiichi, 135 Kawashima, Mas, 137, 184 Keeper of Concetration Camps (Drinnon), 4 Kelley, Anna T., 29 Kelley, Willard, 127 Kennedy, Vernon, 133, 134, 137, 167 Kibei, 47 (table 2.1); dangers of, supposed, 34, 36, 55, 141; definition of, 48; images of, created, 159–63; leadership of, 163– 65, 168; repatriating, 154. See also Issei; Japanese Americans; Nisei Kibei Encouragement Movement, 48 Kido, Saburo¯, 71, 128 Kikuchi, Charles, 96

313 Kikuchi, Miya Sannomiya, 44, 100, 158 Kim, Chester H., 93 Kimball, Solon, 106, 149, 171–72; profile of, 22; on relocation, 174; on reparations, 198; on self-government, 107, 112 Kishi, Ben, 128 Kita, Harry, 99, 116 Kitare Nihonjin (pamphlet), 59 Klineberg, Otto, 19 Kneier, Charles, 107, 116 Knox, Frank, 176 Koba, Fred, 94 Kobayashi, Oritaro¯, 135 Kojima, Kazuo, 135 Kondo, Carl, 162 Kondo, Cho¯ei, 56–57 Kono, Tamotsu, 135 Kono, Toraichi, 39 Korematsu, Hi, 86 Kosakura, Albert, 94 Kouchi, Shinsei, 70 Kroeber, Alfred, 19–20 Kuhn, Fritz, 31 Kumata, Rev. Masaru, 94 Kurata, George, 100 Kurihara, Joe, 127–28, 134, 135 Kurokawa, Matsuzo¯, 165 Kuroki, Ben, 181 Kurosumi, Tokuji, 135 Kurusu, Saburo¯, 104–5 Kusuda, Paul, 100 LaBarre, Weston, 163, 213 labor, war-related, 102, 103, 125, 142, 143; camouflage net production, 125– 26, 159; cotton picking, 78, 132, 214; resistance to, 100–101 Labor Relations Board, 166–67 Ladejinsky, Wolf, 205–6 Laffler, Robert, 106 land development issues, 10, 16–19, 88– 90, 207–8 Laurel, Jose, 15 Lavery, Hugh, 168 League of Women Voters, 50 leave clearance, 126–27, 128, 140–41 Leighton, Alexander, 106, 129, 214; Foreign Morale Analysis Division, 204–5; Governing of Men, The, 3–4, 218; on Loyalty Registration, 140; on Poston Strike, 133, 161; profile of, 24 Lewis, Sinclair, 30

314 Lodge, George, 205 Los Angeles, City of, 18, 89–90 Loving Friends Society, 66–67 Lowie, Robert, 20 Lowman, David, 6 loyalty, 19–25, 33–34, 95, 211–12; war, during the outbreak of, 70–74. See also Loyalty Registration; Question No. 28 Loyalty Registration (1943), 2–3, 10, 138– 47, 148, 156; and Kibei, 161 Lyn, Fada, 66 Lyn, Kar, 66 MacArthur, Douglas, 81, 83 Maeda, John, 99 Maeno, John, 116, 132–33 Magic (Lowman), 6 Manzanar, 105 (table 3.1); block managers of, 108–10; Community Council of, 114, 115 (table 4.4), Cooperative Movement of, 120; creation of, 89–90; draft in, 144, 185–86, 188; Kibei leaders, 164–65; land and water disputes, 17–18; Loyalty Registration in, 146, 147, 148, 154; Mess Hall Workers’ Union, 120, 121 (table 4.6); Military Police in, reduction of, 151; personnel in, 29; politics in, 100; radio broadcasts in, 122, 176; religion in, 169–70; relocation of, 190, 191; repatriates, statistics on, 154, 156; spies in, 126–27, 150; spyhunters in, 128. See also Manzanar Citizens’ Federation; Manzanar Peace Committee; Manzanar Riot; Manzanar’s Charter Commission; Merritt, Ralph Manzanar Citizens’ Federation, 114, 126 Manzanar Free Press , xv, 128 Manzanar Peace Committee, 136 Manzanar Riot, 134–36 Manzanar’s Charter Commission, 100 marginal man, 21, 55, 162–63 Marginal Man, The (Stonequist), 56 Marks, Edward B., 209–10 Marshall, George, 82 Martin, Antonio, 127, 183, 214 Masaoka, Joe Grant, 114 Masaoka, Mike, 74, 100, 153, 215–16. See also JACL Masuda, Tom, 134 Masukane, Setsuichiro¯, 182 Mathiesen, H. A., 118–19 Matson, Floyd W., 3

INDEX

Matsuda, Takechiyo, 177–78 Matsui, Shu¯ji, 102 Matsumoto, T., 167 Matsumoto, Yoshiharu Scott, 218 Mayberry, Ralph, 169 McCarran Bill, 212 McCloy, John: on draft, 180; on military necessity, 78–79; profile of, 34–35, 211; on relocation, 188–89; on segregation, 138–39, 152. See also War Department McColm, George, 206 McGrath, J. Howard, 212 McIntire, Ross, 24, 106 Mercer, Inez, 210 Merritt, Ralph, 18, 129, 134–35, 208–9; on the draft, 186; on the FBI, 150; on Kibei, 164–65; and Loyalty Registration, 146, 154; propaganda and, 160; on relocation, 191. See also Manzanar Mess Hall Workers’ Union 120. See also Manzanar Michel, Robert, xiv military necessity, 2–3, 10, 78–79 Military Police, 92, 135, 151–52 military service. See draft Millard County, 18–19, 207–8. See also Topaz Miller, E. L., 149 Millis, Harry, 21 Mills, Duncan, 149, 191, 202 Mitani Plan, 99 Mitani, Rev. Masatane, 99, 112, 119, 130, 167, 177 Mitsubishi Company, 54 Mitsui Bussan, 15, 42 Miyabe, John, 169 Miyazaki, Toshio, 39 Mizushima, Nagisa, 131 Modaye, Jun, 204 Mori, Toshio, 158 Moriwaki, Akio, 94 Motoki, I., 174 Munson, Curtis, 34 Murakami, F., 117 Nagafuji, Rev. Gyo¯sei, 170 Nagai, Itaro¯, 132–33, 137, 181, 185, 186, 194, 196 Nagano, Paul, 169 Nagasawa, Tsuguo, 78 Nagatomi, Rev. Shingo, 100, 170 Nakagawa, Tom Tadao, 135

INDEX

Nakai, Joe, 111 Nakajima, K., 178 Nakajima, Michio, 94 Nakamura (member of the City Hall gang), 167 Nakamura, Gongoro¯, 65, 75 Nakamura, Henry, 114 Nakashima, Shig, 99, 119 Nakashima, Shigeru, 99, 119 Nakauchi, Kenji, 39 Narahara, Kogoro¯, 62 Narahara, Mas, 173 Narahara, Masaru, 197, 199 Naruto, Yahei, 147 Nash, Philleo, 160 Nash, Roy, 18, 115, 126, 208; profile of, 25–26. See also Manzanar Nasu, Hiroshi, 205 National City Bank, 84 National Japanese Student Relocation Council, 159 Native Sons of the Golden West, 3 NBC, 160 Neeno, Hiro, 114 Nelson, Len, 108, 148, 166. See also Poston New York Times, 38 newspapers, xv–xvi, 72–73, 176, 191. See also under specific newspapers NHK (Nihon Ho¯so¯ Kyo¯kai), 216 Nichibei Shimbun (newspaper), 43–45, 49 Nicholson, Herbert, 169 Nicholson, R. L., 99 1911 Commercial Treaty, 38, 70 1948 Evacuation Claims Act, 199 Nisei: education of, 3; definition of, 44; draft and, 129, 132, 139–42, 144, 179; images of, created, 159–63; in Japan, 46–48; leadership of, 95, 167, 168, 171; Philippines, spying in the, 15, 81; spy for the U.S. Navy, 32; views on, 73, 97, 116, 127, 157, 178–79. See also Issei; Japanese Americans; Kibei Nisei Writers and Artists Mobilization for Democracy, 74 Nishimoto, Richard, 68–69, 132, 137, 166; on the City Hall gang, 167; on the draft, 181, 183–85, 188, 193; on Kibei, 162; and Loyalty Registration, 145; on Nisei, 179; profile of, 55–56; on relocation, 194, 196–97; The Spoilage, 3 Nitta, Fred, 158

315 Noguchi, Isamu, 74, 112, 157 Nomura, Kichisaburo¯, 69, 104–5, 137, 175–76 Nomura, Seiichi, 166, 167 Nye-Lea Bill, 55 Ochikubo, George, 114, 166, 189, 199 O’Connell, Ralph, 166 Oda, James, 114 Office of Indian Affairs. See OIA Office of Naval Intelligence. See ONI Office of Strategic Service. OSS Office of the Provost Marshall General. See OPMG Office of War Information. See OWI Ogawa, Hidemi, 111, 167 Ogawa, Toby, 95, 96, 201 Ogura, H. K., 114 Ogura, Ko¯zo¯ Fred, 114 OIA (Office of Indian Affairs): camps under the, 1; dispute with Indians, 88– 89; on Indian lands, 16–17; management style of, 22–24; on relocation, 191. See also Collier, John Okamoto, Kiyoshi, 102 Okamoto, Minoru, 167, 185, 188, 196–97 Okihiro, Gary Y., 5, 277n. 45 Okinawa: Okinawa Overseas Association, 61–62, 63–64; Okinawa Prefectural Association of North America, 62, 64; students from, 62–63 ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence), 34, 82, 138, 149 Opler, Morris, 122, 123; on the draft, 186; and Loyalty Registration, 145–46; profile of, 20, 213; on repatriation, 156 OPMG (Office of the Provost Marshall General), 4, 138, 140. See also Bendetsen, Karl OSS (Office of Strategic Service), 158–59, 203–4 Ota, Fred, 99, 119 ¯ ta, Kamado, 64 O Ouchi, Ed, 129 Owen’s Valley, 17–18, 208. See also Manzanar OWI (Office of War Information), 158–60 ¯ yama, Ujiro¯, 66 O Ozomoto, Thomas, 159 Pacific Citizen (JACL publication), 69 Paiute Tribe, 18. See also American Indians

316 Palmer, A. Mitchell, 30 Park, Robert, 20–21 Parker, Frank, 14 parolees, camp, 127 Paternalism in the Japanese Economy (Ishino and Bennett), 218 Patriotic Women’s Society, 65 Patterson, Robert, 35 Peace Committee, 165 permanent settlement, 44–45, 59–60, 167 Philippines, 11, 13–15, 81, 83–84, 218 Philippines Department, 14–16 Philpott, Gerald, 151–52 Poole, DeWitt Clinton, 37 Poston, 105 (table 3.1); atomic bombing, reaction to the, 201–2; block managers of, 108, 110, 109 (table 4.1); and the BSR, 23–24; camouflage net production in, 125–26, 159; Community Council of, 114, 178, 112 (table 4.2); Cooperative Movement in, 118–9l; draft in, 144, 181–83, 186–88; informant system in, 149; Issei Administrative Board, 116; land and water disputes, 16–17, 88–89, 91; Loyalty Registration in, 145–46; personnel in, 29; politics in, 97–99, 166–68, 171–72; radio broadcasts in, 176–77; religion in, 168–69, 170; relocation of, 172, 190–92, 200; repatriates, statistics on, 156; spies in, 125; spy hunters in, 128; women of, 116–17, 98, 116–17, 118 (table 4.5). See also Poston Strike Poston, Charles, 17 Poston Chronicle, xv Poston Strike, 130–34, 135–36, 161; The Governing of Men, 4 Powell, John, 137, 156, 161, 177, 209. See also Poston Pratt, Henry C., 189, 190 Prejudice, War, and the Constitution (tenBroek, Barnhart, Matson), 3 Pressman, A., 190 progressives: formation of the, 57–58; Japan, support of, 125; postwar, 216– 17, war by, anticipation of, 70, 74 Project M, 37–38 propaganda, 73; by American government, 139–41, 159–63, by Japanese government, 41. See also radio broadcasts Protestantism, 168–69, 215. See also religion Provinse, John, 116, 190–91

INDEX

Public Opinion Quarterly, 172 Public Opinion Research Center, 171–72 Question No. 27, 138, 143–44, 199 Question No. 28, 138, 143, 144–47, 156, 199 Quezon, Manuel, 14–15 race, 2–7, 9; and loyalty, 19–25, 32–35 Race and Culture (Park), 20 racial discrimination, 11, 203; by administrators, 29; disillusions because of, 3; in the military, 181, 187; organizations against, 54; war, after outbreak of, 71 Radin, Paul, 20 radio broadcasts, 73, 104, 159, 176–77; on relocation, 173–74; on reparations, 122, 137, 174, 194 Radio Tokyo, 137 Rafu Shimpo¯ (newspaper), 52, 72, 78 Ramos, Benigno, 15 reception centers. See concentration camps Red Cross, 93–94, 178 Redfield, Robert, 112 religion, 168–70, 277n. 45. See also Buddhism; Christianity; Protestantism relocation, 157, 159, 163, 172–74; policy, new, 188–97, 200 relocation camps. See concentration camps relocation centers. See concentration camps remittances, 59–60, 60 (table 2.2), 62 (table 2.3), 61 (fig. 2.1), 63 (fig 2.2), 178 reparations, 211–12, 214, 217; All-Center Conference on, 197–99; and Civil Liberties Act in 1988, 2, 7, 216; Japanese Americans on, 136–37, 174–76, 192–94 repatriation, 152–56. See also expatriation Ringle, Kenneth, 33 riots, 102–3, 134–35, 161 Robertson, Paul, 151 Rocky Shimpo¯ (newspaper), 137, 176, 188 Roosevelt, Franklin: Executive Order 9066, 1; on internment, 76; mentioned, 4, 32; views of Japanese Americans, 38 Rose, E. A., 99 Rowalt, E. M., 142 Ryu¯ku¯ Journal (newspaper), 70 Ryu¯ku¯ Shimpo (newspaper), 62 Saiki, Muneo, 165–66 Sakamoto, Eddie, 86

INDEX

Sakoda, James, 162 Salinas WCCA camp, 99 Salvage, The (Thomas), 3 Sanbonmatu, Mitsuo, 99 San Francisco, 49–50, 89; Japanese in, 52, 57, 58, 60; and San Francisco Japanese Association, 42, 43, 48, 69 Sanga Moyu (television series), 216–17 Sangyo¯ Nippo¯ (newspaper), 72 Sannomiya, Miya. See Kikuchi, Miya Sannomiya Santa Anita Riot, 102–3 Santa Anita WCCA camp, 91–92, 101–02 Sasaki, Tom, 217–18 Sato¯, Masashi, 46 Satow, Riichi, 214 second generation. See Nisei Second-Generation Japanese Problem, The (Strong), 21 Secretary of War. See Stimson, Henry segregation, 136–39, 141, 152–54 seinen kai (youth group), 167–68 Selective Service. See draft self-government, 96–98, 106, 107–21 Shibata, Minejiro, 65 Shibutani, Tamotsu, 58, 72, 75 Shigekawa, Kiyoshi, 187, 199 Shigemi, Frank, 131 Shima, George, 42 Shinosaki, Hiroshi, 201 Shin Sekai (newspaper), 70, 72 Shiramizu, Shizuko, 189, 199 Shizume, Sophie, 169 Shu¯sui, Ko¯toku, 58 Sigler, Lewis, 151 Slocum, Tokutaro¯ Nishimura, 74–75 Smeltzer, Ralph, 134 Smith, Elizabeth B., 213 Smith, Frank, 169 Smith, Henry W., 29 Smith, Lawrence M. C., 37, 77 Smith, Page, 6 social scientists: in camps, 1, 10; on military necessity, 3; and propaganda, 160– 61, 162; in Thailand, 220; treatment of internees, xiv; views of, 16, 18–24. See also under individual social scientists Sommervell, Brehoon, 151 Sonoda, John, 159 Southland Asian American Organization, 216

317 Spanish Consulate, 147, 197; on the draft, 183; as intermediary between Japan and U.S., 77–78, 123, 137, 178, 201 Special Defense Unit, 37 Special Segregation Center, 150–51 Spicer, Ed (Ned). See Spicer, Edward H. Spicer, Edward H., 160–61; ; mentioned, 120, 125, 131, 172, 209–10; profile of, 24, 213–14; on relocation, 174, 190; on reparations, 198 Spicer, Rosamund B., 24 spies. See spying Spoilage, The (Thomas and Nishimoto), 3 Sproul, Gordon, 215 spying, 212; accusations of, 75; camps, in the, 125–30; denials of, 69; fears of, 30– 34, 36, 152; informant system, 149–51; Magic, 6; Philippines, in the, 15; problem, response to the, 130–35; Ruth Benedict on, 20; statistics on, 38–39. See also FBI; Japanese Americans: and espionage; ONI Stalin, Joseph, 7 Stanford University, 21 statistics: Community Council, 113; Japanese Americans, on arrested, 76–77; on Japanese Americans in camps, 104, Loyalty Registration, 144; Nisei, 45–46; relocation, 172; on repatriates, 154–56; on war sympathies, 121–22 Stimson, Henry: authority of, granted by Executive Order 9066, 1; on the draft, 140, 158, 179; on internment, 83; mentioned, 4, 15, 78, 189 Stone, Harlan, 215 Stonequist, Everett, 21, 56 strikes, 101–2, 130–34, 151, 161 Strong, Edward, 21 Sugahara, Kay, 102 Sugino, Chika, 98, 116–17, 178–79; on the draft, 187; mentioned, 86 Sugioka, Gene, 144 Sumida, Chester, 166 sumo, 99 Superman (comic book), 160 Suye Mura (Embree), 22 Suzukawa, K., 135 Swing, Albert, 220 Tachibana, Kono, 34, 39 Tachibana, Mary, 111, 117 Tachibana, Zenshiro, 135

318 Tachibana, Zentaro, 146 Tada, Takeo, 73 Tahbo, Taylor, 191 Takahashi, Aijiro, 167, 196 Takahashi, Henry, 94, 95 Takahashi, K., 102 Takeda, Kimiko, 168 Takeno, Roy, 174 Tamura, Kosaku, 98, 134 Tanaka, Shinpei, 182 Tanaka, T., 115 Tanaka, Togo, xiii, 75; mentioned, 72, 100, 114, 158; profile of, 56–57 Tanforan, 91, 94; politics in, 97 Tanforan Totalizer (newspaper), 96 Tani, Masayuki, 175 Taniguchi, Tosuke, 147 Tateishi, Sam Shigetoshi, 128 Tawa, Gennota, 52 Tayama, Fred, 74, 100, 134, 158 tenBroek, Jacobus, 3 Terminal Island, 70, 87, 100, 155 Thailand, 11, 219–22 They Call Me Joe (radio program), 160 Thomas, Dorothy Swaine, 3, 21, 25, 216 Thomas, William I., 21, 25 Thompson, Harry, 39 Todah, Tadayuki, 199 To¯ga, Yo¯ichi, 49 Togawa, Akira, 179 To¯jo¯, Hideki, 104, 122. See also Japanese government, Imperial Tokyo, City of, 176 Topaz, 105 (table 3.1); block managers of, 109–10; Community Council of, 113– 14, 165–66, 113 (table 4.3); Cooperative Movement, 119, 201; creation of, 18– 19, 89; draft in, 144, 181, 183, 185; draftees from, 157; informants in, 150; James Wakasa incident in, 151–52; Kibei, internees’ views on, 162; Loyalty Registration in, 142–43, 146–47; religion in, 169; relocation of, 172–73, 190, 191, 192, 195, 199–200, 203; repatriates from, 154, 155 (table 5.1) Topaz Times, 142–43 Townshend, Harold, 148 To¯yo¯ Kisen Kaisha, 42 transfer program, 153–54. See also segregation Triggs, Clayton, 93 Truman, Henry, 212, 216

INDEX

Tsuchiya, Stanley, 119 Tsuchiyama, Tamie, xiii, 56, 122, 135, 218 Tsukamoto, K., 94 Tsurutani, Henry, 114 Tule Lake Segregation Center, 153–54, 156, 203 Uchida, Isamu, 130–31, 133–34 Uchida, Tomoki, 47–48 Uchida, Yoshiko, 86 U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), 219 U.S. Army: Philippines, in the, 14–15 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 88–92 U.S. Army Map Service, 158 U.S. Attorney General, 212 U.S. Congress, 212 U.S. Justice Department. See Justice Department U.S. Navy, 106; history with Japanese Americans, 32–34; Japanese Americans, drafting, 158–59. See also ONI United States Operation Mission, 219–20 U.S. Senate Committee on Military Affairs, 148 U.S. State Department, 103, 147, 153, 213 U.S. Supreme Court, 2, 5, 189, 207 Universal Buddhist Church, 170 University of California, 1, 25, 33, 214 University of Chicago, 24 Urabe, John, 99 USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development), 219 Ushijima, Kinji, 42 Utah Nippo¯ (newspaper), 78 UTB (United Television), 216 Uyeno, Harry, 120–21, 134, 135 Van Norman, H., 90 Vance, Jonathan, 7 Vargas, Getu´lio, 7 Veterans’ Association, 66 vigilantes, 128–29, 165 Voice of Nisei, The, 181, 186, 187 Volunteers of Topaz, 157 Wakasa, James, 151 Wakasa Incident, 151 Wakayama, 53, 64, 65; remittances to, 60, 62 (table 2.3), 63 (fig. 2.2) Wakayama, Ernest Kinzo¯, 102, 135 Wallgren, Monrad, 148

INDEX

War Assets Administration, 208, 209 War Department: on the draft, 180; on General Delos Emmons, 152; on Japanese espionage, 34; Japanese language training and, 36; on Loyalty Registration, 138–40, 143. See also McCloy, John War Plan Orange Three, 14 War Relocation Authority. See WRA Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA), 87, 93–103 Watanabe, Kinzo¯, 42 Watanabe, T., 178 Watanabe, Utako, 117 water issues, 10, 16–19, 88–90, 207–8 WCCA (Wartime Civil Control Administration), 87, 93–103 WDC (Western Defense Command): on Kibei, 161; on Loyalty Registration, 140–41; on military necessity, 79; on relocation, 1, 190. See also DeWitt, John Weckerling, John, 36 Weglyn, Michi, 5–6 Western Defense Command. See WDC Western Growers Protective Association, 3 Wilbur, William, 190 Wilson, Edwin, 82 Wirin, A. L., 184 Wolfe, James, 150 Women’s Army Corp, 158, 180 women’s organizations: Poston Women’s Club, 98, 116–17, 118 (table 4.5); Women’s Christian Temperance Union, 50; Women’s League, 65 WRA (War Relocation Authority): camps, dismantling the, 207–8; camps under the, 1–2, 105 (table 3.1); censorship and,

319 xv; on the draft, 180; on Loyalty Registration, 143; policies, new, 159; propaganda and, 160; on relocation, 190–91; on reparations, 198–99; on self-government, 107–8, 112; Special Segregation Center, 150–51. See also Eisenhower, Milton; Myer, Dillon Wumino, Gerald, 166 Yellow Peril, 4, 7 Yahiro, James, 167 Yamaguchi, Genji George, 123, 126, 134, 135 Yamaguchi, George, 86, 218 Yamamoto, Elmer, 98, 199 Yamamoto, Isoroku, 54 Yamasaki, Tomomasa, 114 Yamate, Sasahito, 201 Yamazaki, Toyoko, 217 Yano, Nellie, 117 Yasuda, Frank, 174 Yatsushiro, Toshio, 11, 218–22 Yazaki, Tenyo¯, 44 Years of Infamy (Weglyn), 5 Yee, Frank, 93 Yokohama Species Bank, 42, 69–70 Yonai, Mitsuhiro, 53–54 Yoneda, Karl, 74, 114, 157 Yoshida, Kazuma, 201 Yoshida, Roy, 98 Yoshida, Toshio, 165 Young Democrats. See progressives youth groups, 167–68 Zablocki, Clement J., 221 Zaniecki, Florian, 21 Zellerbach Paper Company, 45