Uprooting Community: Japanese Mexicans, World War II, and the US-Mexico Borderlands

Abstract

Uprooting Community is the second study on the Japanese in Mexico in as many years. My own book, Looking like the Enemy: Japanese Mexicans, the Mexican State, and US Hegemony, 1897–1945 (2014), examined the same subject matter. In recent years there has been a flourishing of studies on Asians in the Americas, especially Latin America and Mexico. The Japanese in Mexico are one of the least studied ethnic groups, especially in comparison to the Japanese in the United States, Brazil, or Peru, which is why Uprooting Community is a welcome addition to scholarship on the immigrant experience in Mexico.Uprooting Community utilizes national archives in the United States and Mexico. In addition, Selfa A. Chew examined newspapers and magazines to gauge popular sentiments of Japanese people on both sides of the US-Mexican border. Of great interest will be the 15 interviews conducted by the author of Japanese Mexicans who were interned during World War II or their descendants. This type of oral history is essential in uncovering Mexico's internment of Japanese Mexicans. The author does not appear to use Japanese-language sources, which may have proven useful in gaining a better understanding of the position of the Japanese government and how Japanese historians and others have examined and interpreted Japanese Mexican internment in Mexico.Uprooting Community has several objectives. First, Chew examines the racialization of Japanese Mexicans leading up to and through the World War II period. Chew argues that Japanese in Mexico have primarily been viewed through a racialized lens, regardless of time period, and as a result the majority suffered under intense anti-Asian racism that culminated in internment during the war. Chew delves deeply into the experience of Japanese Mexicans residing along the US-Mexican border and examines the disruption of those communities caused by their uprooting, relocation, and internment. Finally, Uprooting Community sheds new light on the importance of gender and what Chew calls “differential gendered treatment” (p. 22). Chew illuminates a broader understanding of the Japanese Mexican experience during this period.Part of the complexity of the Japanese Mexican experience during the war period is separating reality from fiction, and Uprooting Community does an excellent job with this endeavor. Three chapters are particularly strong. Chapter 5, “The Road to Concentration Camps,” obliterates any notion that Japanese Mexicans' lives were not disrupted by World War II. Chapter 6 continues the unmasking and is central to Uprooting Community's argument that Japanese Mexicans endured internment in concentration camps, which resulted in various forms of resistance on the part of the community. The discussion on the Temixco concentration camp in chapter 7 is a detailed examination of this camp and broadens our understanding.Uprooting Community is a well-researched study. Unraveling this experience is difficult to navigate due to dynamics at play that require an understanding of multiple histories, the interconnectedness of US racialization of Asians across the hemisphere, the turbulent history of Mexico leading up to World War II, Japanese involvement in Mexico, and the nuances of Mexican political culture at the local, regional, and national levels. By and large, Uprooting Community meets this challenge. Yet I do have some concerns regarding interpretations and perceptions of the internment campaigns at the hemispheric level as well as for the Japanese Mexican community. For example, Chew writes that “material conditions of ethnic Japanese in US internment camps were no doubt better in general than those experienced by the Japanese Mexicans and Japanese Canadians who were uprooted” (p. 129). We tread on a slippery slope when we, as historians, begin to categorize one country's internment camp as worse than another. Additionally, elite Japanese Mexicans, no doubt self-serving as observed in Uprooting Community, did serve a useful role for Japanese Mexicans and the Japanese and Mexican governments as well. However, at times Uprooting Community appears to view this particular group monolithically and demonizes those who were able to buy themselves opportunity and create a different reality. After all, this was not the United States. Mexico's political culture, even during times of crisis, allowed for a level of flexibility. Everything was negotiable, even internment. My own work on this topic offers a different analysis and interpretation of Japanese Mexican elites.Overall, Uprooting Community is a strong addition to the small but growing body of research on the Japanese Mexican diaspora and the immigrant experience in general. This volume is necessary reading for Latin American, Mexican, Latino, and Asian American historians. This book is easily adopted for graduate courses and would also work in undergraduate classes. Lastly, because of the uniqueness of the topic, the focus on World War II, and a relatively unknown history of internment, the general public will have a strong interest.