Justice Deferred: A Fifty-Year Perspective on Japanese-Internment Historiography

Abstract

THE BRIGHT RISING SUN broke through the grey morning dawn, a squadron of warplanes from the Japanese Imperial Air Force streaked southeastward, casting a black shadow over the blue Pacific water. Their destination the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The Japanese warplanes bombed the Seventh Fleet, hurled isolationist America into world war, and sent Americans into catatonic shock. As mass hysteria swept the land, citizens shouted Remember Pearl Harbor the decision-makers swiftly answered back. Pervasive racism, military necessity, and an impulse for revenge motivated the United States Government to intern 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of whom were United States citizens. Western Defense Commander General John DeWitt, the man in charge of the lock-up, reflected the thinking of Americans when he reasoned, A Jap is a Jap, and it makes no difference if he is an American citizen/'1