Relocation Camps Research Articles

The Japanese-American woman, the second world war, and the relocation camp experience

Americans tend to group people who look alike. This is done especially to those who do not have a northern European heritage and who cannot easily or readily blend into the majority. Japanese-Americans are an excellent example. Those who are visibly different due to color and/or facial features sometimes experience intense insecurity and also internal conflict. These feelings contribute to identity and/or personality problems for the already fragile minority psyche. Anglo-Americans who depict Japanese-Americans as passively and non-verbally retaining their Japanese cultures within a law-abiding ghetto community are ignorant of individual differences and ignore the cultural disparities between second and third generation ethnics. On the other hand some Anglo-Americans assume that Japanese-Americans are unobtrusively becoming Americanized, that they represent the ideal of the melting pot process. But how much do Anglo-Americans actually know about Japanese-Americans, and their almost unstudied scientific and cultural contributions? Japanese-Americans can be conveniently divided into Issei immigrants who came to the United States between 1895 and 1924; their Nisei, American-born children who grew up during the depression years of the 1930s and survived the wartime evacuation of 194245; and the Sansei, the American-born children of the Nisei. Estimated current ages of the generations are as follows: Issei, over 70; Nisei, 30-70; Sansei, under 30. Japanese-American women, in particular, have not concerned sociologists, psychiatrists or educators because, until recently, they seldom spoke for themselves. They were taught from early girlhood to accept a subservient role within a strong paternalistic family structure where sons were given differential treatment. They had limited educational opportunities and few career options. Little wonder that these women remained silent members of an already silent minority, subject to Anglo-American indifference, or, especially during World War II, active hostility. In the poem entitled ‘Lullabye’,’ Janice Mirikitani looks back upon the wartime hysteria which sent her into an internment camp soon after her birth. Written 30 years after the Pearl Harbor attack, the narrator in Mirikitani’s poem, a woman, questions why her mother went so docilely to the camp. The daughter explores the bitter, confused feelings of a parent

An Interview with Dr. Annie Dodge Wauneka

Out of the forests and deserts that for centuries have nurtured the Dine, the Navajo People, one strong and powerful woman exemplifies the special traits that describe so many of her tribal sisters: strength, determination, perseverance, indomitability. She is Dr. Annie Dodge Wauneka, of whom Stan Steiner has said, If there were a queen in the United States, it would have to be this woman.I Leadership responsibilities are nothing new to women of the People. The matrilineal clan and homestead organizations are built upon women's ownership of hogans and herds. The women are responsible for the family land, for this generation and the generations yet to come. They must respect Ground Mother. The decisions that they must make can only be pragmatic: there is no room for sentimentality in the beautiful but harsh world of the People. The women decision makers are guided by natural laws learned from their spiritual antecedents in this and the previous three worlds through which the People have come. White Shell Woman and Spider Woman gave them gifts and guidance and set the Navajo on the path toward their destiny. Dr. Annie Dodge Wauneka is the daughter of Henry Chee Dodge, the last tribal chief and the first tribal chairman of the Navajo. Born in 1913, she grew up in a livestock-raising household in which horses, donkeys, mules, sheep, and goats were herded. In the 1930's, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (B.I.A.) made the judgment that there must be a reduction in the number of animals being grazed on the Navajo reservation because, it maintained, the lands were being overgrazed. This was the second livestock reduction for the People: the first occurred when U.S. soldiers removed the Navajo from their lands along the Long Walk into relocation camps at Bosque Redondo, New Mexico. Kit Carson used both U.S. troops and volunteers to clear the People, their animals, and their crops, off the land which, it was incorrectly rumored, contained gold. For three years they languished in despair on starvation rations. Their return home was bittersweet: their eyes were met by scorched earth and dead animals. The stock reduction that Dr. Wauneka experienced in the 1930's came into being, as has been said, because the B.I.A. determined that the land was being overgrazed by too many herds on too little land. One Native explanation for the loss of grass in the 1930's targets the B.I.A.'s parent structure, the Department of the Interior, as the villain. In an attempt to eradicate endemic bubonic plague in the Southwest, Interior launched a plan to kill off the prairie dogs. Such spraying as was done killed an enormous array of small burrowing animals, say some Navajo, far more than just prairie dogs. When small rodents are destroyed, the burrows they excavate soon cave in, no longer holding rain water near ground level: it runs off or it evaporates. The loss of thousands and millions of tiny catchments in the

After Imprisonment: Ichiro's Search for Redemption in No-No Boy

It is a curious experience to read John Okada's No-No Boyl today. When we read of Ichiro Yamada, his family, and others of Japanese ancestry being unjustly incarcerated in relocation camps during Second World War, Ichiro's double-negative response to questions regarding his loyalty and willingness to serve in armed forces is understandable. It is difficult to see it as shameful, treasonous act which most Japanese-Americans then thought it to be. How would a person today under similar circumstances-deprived of home, property, and family, and moved into a barren desert against his will-reply to questions: Are you willing to serve in armed forces of United States in combat duty wherever ordered? Will you swear unqualified allegiance to United States of America and faithfully defend United States from any or all attacks of foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to Japanese Emperor, to any other foreign government, power or organization?2 Probably No-No. But even under these oppressive circumstances, thousands of Japanese-Americans willingly served and fought for their country to prove that they were Americans; 442nd Combat Team emerged as most decorated in armed forces. As Okada says, For each and every refusal based on sundry reasons, another thousand chose to fight for right to continue to be Americans because homes and cars and money could be regained but only if they first regained their rights as citizens, and that was everything (p. 34). Okada himself answered questions affirmatively, joined U.S. Army, and was discharged in 1946. The preface of Okada's novel reveals his ironic attitude towards the removal of Japanese from Coast, which was called evacuation, and ... [the] concentration camps, which were called relocation centers (pp. x-xi). As if in answer to second question (stressing loyalty to Emperor), central figure of Okada's preface is not Ichiro but a Japanese-American soldier, patterned after author himself, who is stationed in Pacific and flying regular reconnaisance flights

Upward Social Mobility of the Koreans in Hawaii

Upward Social Mobility of the Koreans in Hawaii Wayne Patterson SAINT NORBERT COLLEGE I STUDIES of immigrant groups usually include an assessment of the group's relative rate of upward mobility and the speed and degree to which it shed the ways of the old world and adopted the values of the new. The success or lack of success in adjusting to a new home is frequently attributed to the conditions in the receiving country. But because this approach at best can provide only a partial explanation for the adjustment of an immigrant group to its new surroundings, researchers have attempted to refine their analyses by examining the values and traditions of the old country from which emigration took place. To be sure, the combination of old-country traditions and new-country conditions in the analysis of adjustments has helped explain the record of immigrant groups in their ascension of the socioeconomic ladder and their shedding of traditional values in the new country. ' Yet the addition of an analysis of old-country traditions and values to the explanatory model rests upon the assumption that the immigrants are representative of those traditions and values. That is, the analysis of old-country traditions in helping to explain upward social mobility in the new country is only as valid as the emigrants are typical. For instance, emigrants differ from their countrymen in at least one respect—their de1 . Some representative works for East Asians are Betty Lee Sung, The Chinese in America (New York: Collier Books, 1967) and Harry H. L. Kitano, Japanese Americans: TheEvolution ofa Subculture (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969). 82PATTERSON sire to leave the homeland, if even for a short while. If the assumption of the typicality of an immigrant group cannot be justified, then the analysis of social mobility in the new country must be modified to take this divergence into consideration. In addition to the need to question the assumption that the emigrants are typical there is a second assumption that needs to be questioned . This is the assumption that social mobility or adjustment in the new country is independent of events and conditions in the old country. Such a caveat is not as obvious as the first but will become apparent at length. Broadly speaking, it is the thesis of this article that the adjustment of immigrant groups cannot be adequately explained solely by analyzing old-country traditions and new-country conditions. The model must include a close look at the immigrants themselves apart from the traditional order and also a close look at conditions and events in the old country. II This essay represents a preliminary attempt to apply such an analysis to the Koreans in Hawaii. It is fair to consider Koreans in Hawaii as being practically synonymous with Koreans in America, for from the time of their immigration seventy-five years ago until recently there were about five times as many Koreans in Hawaii as in the entire American mainland. While the observations of this essay are limited to the Koreans in Hawaii, their import extends to include all of the Koreans in America. Korea was the last of the three East Asian nations to have some of its population emigrate to Hawaii. About fifty thousand Chinese had come between 1850 and annexation in 1898. From 1885 until the Gentleman 's Agreement in 1907-1908, about 180,000 Japanese arrived.2 The Koreans numbered but 7,000 and came in the years 1903, 1904, and the first half of 1905.3 All three of these East Asian peoples had been recruited for work in the sugarcane fields by the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association . Since their arrival in America the more numerous Japanese have achieved middle class status, overcoming racial prejudice, discrimination , and the infamous relocation camps of World War II. Their almost phenomenal record of adjustment and upward social mobility has been 2.Romanzo Adams, Interracial Marriage in Hawaii (New York: Macmillan, 1937), pp. 31-32. 3.For the history of Korean immigration to Hawaii, see Wayne K. Patterson, "The Korean Frontier in America: Immigration to Hawaii, 1896-1910" (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1977). SOCIAL MOBILITY OF KOREANS83 amply documented...

Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps. Ry Michi Nishiura Waglyn (New York: Morrow, 1971)

Four months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, all Japanese-Americans, whether first, second, or third generation, whether alien or American born, were evacuated to relocation camps. Thus, over 110,000 people, the majority children or young adults, were forced to abandon their homes with frequently less than forty-eight hours to pack and to move. Some left crops growing in the fields; merchants had to sell businesses for a fraction of their worth.

Footprints: Poetry of the American Relocation Camp Experience

Footprints: Poetry of the American Relocation Camp Experience

Mass removals and separate development

As the Bantustan leaders sit down in conference with Mr Vorster to negotiate 'independence', one other major aspect of the Bantustan policy of the South African government goes on apace. This is the mass removal out of the 'white' areas of hundreds of thousands of Africans and their resettlement in the African reserves. The displacement and herding around of black people was not the invention of the present government. Its predecessors carried out earlier mass removals, following such policy guidelines as the 1913 Native Land Act, the 1923 Stallard Commission and its resulting legislation, and the 1936 Land Act which set the limits upon land which was to constitute the reserves. But with the application of the policy of apartheid after 1948, and especially the rigorous enforcement of legislation in the 1960s, removals took on a more systematic nature. Legislation like the Group Areas Acts of 1950 and 1957, the Natives Resettlement Act of 1954, the Native Trust and Land Amendment Act of 1954, and the Native (later Bantu) Laws Amendment Acts of 1952, 1963, 1965 and 1970 have provided the authority and the machinery for the mass removals. At the same time the institutional framework for Separate Development has been established by the Bantu Authorities Act of 1951, the Promotion of Bantu Self-government Act of 1959, the Bantu Homelands Constitution Act of 1971, and the Bantu Affairs Administration Act of 1973. The main focus of attention on removals has been on the resettlement camps,' the impoverished and destitute 'dumping grounds'.2 Although these camps are perhaps the most glaring cases of suffering, they are not the whole story. The pattern has developed beyond the particular instances of Limehill and Stinkwater and the total numbers have increased. Future plans are staggering; but then so is the theoretical proposition that over half the black population should be removed into the reserves.

“State of the city,” from Trek (1942)

A friend of ours was born in Topaz. Like many others at the time, her parents had married hastily, just before the forced evacuation, so they would not be separated in different relocation camps. D...

Recent Japanese Settlement Changes in the Los Angeles Area

RECENT JAPANESE SETTLEMENT CHANGES IN THE LOS ANGELES AREA* Midori Nishl California State College, Los Angeles Young Il Kim, California State College, Los Angeles The Japanese in the Los Angeles area have had an unusually dynamic settlement history. FoUowing 1890 migrants from Japan began to arrive on the Pacific Coast in ever increasing numbers, hopeful of finding a better livelihood and permanent homes. Almost from the beginning they showed a decided preference for die Los Angeles Basin, and bv 1910 diis had become die largest Japanese agglomeration in America. In spite of restrictive legislation in California this ethnic group made slow but steady economic progress, and dieir place in the general community seemed firmly established and regulated by local custom. Pearl Harbor in 1941 marked die end of dieir established way of Ufe; die Pacific Coast was at once declared a MiUtary Defense Zone, where all residents of Japanese race, whether American or foreign-bom, were to be moved out and "relocated " elsewhere. A number of relocation camps were set up in die interior where most of the evacuees spent two-diree years until die end of die war. Fortunately so-called "resettlement" had begun much earlier: many Japanese of college age were able to continue dieir education in midwestem or eastern colleges, and many more left die camps for employment and new homes in various areas. The ban on Pacific Coast residence was rescinded in January·. 1945,,and genuine resettlement was begun shortly afterward. Aldiough many chose to remain in die Midwest and die East, California was still "home" to die larger share of the evacuees, widi die Los Angeles area die prime favorite. Hesitantly at first, dien widi growing confidence, die return movement continued diroughout 1945. The returnees hoped to resume dieir former type of Ufe as nearly as possible. Immediate problems included housing shortages, few employment prospects, limited capital widi which to start new businesses or restore old ones, and a general feeling of uncertainty as to dieir acceptance. Conditions had changed and many new adjustments were necessary, but friends, relatives, and familiar surroundings made die rehabilitation process easier. Many had incurred heavy property losses during dieir absence. On die favorable side, however, metropolitan Los Angeles was expanding rapidly and diere were many new employment opportunities for skilled work- * This study is a continuation of a research project begun as a doctoral dissertation , University of Washington, 1955. See also 'Japanese Setdement in the Los Angeles Area, A.P.C.G. Yearbook, 1958, pp. 35-48. Subsequent research in Japan ana Hawaii has provided additional data for future use on sources of Japanese migration. The senior author wishes to acknowledge much valuable assistance given by Young Il Kim, graduate student at California State College, Los Angeles, where he received the M.A. degree. Mr. Kim is continuing graduate work in geography at UCLA. 23 ers. An additional advantage which gradually became apparent was an altered attitude toward the Japanese as a race; prejudice was still encountered but it was diminishing steadily. Nisei seeking employment began to compete with the general community; in the skilled trades many jobs which had been unavailable in 1940, began to open up by 1950 and were freely available in 1960. Table 1 Japanese population crowth in Los Anceles City, Los Anceles County, California, and the United States from 1890 t? 1960 Los AngelesLos AngelesUnited YearCityCountyCaliforniaStates 196051,46877,314157,317464,332« 195025,50236,76184,956141,768 194023,32136,86693,717126,947 193021,08135,39097,456138,834 192011,61819,91171,952111,010 19104,2388,46141,35672,157 190015020410,15124,326 189026361,1472,039 * This figure includes the United States proper, Alaska, and the Hawaiian Islands . The continental U.S. (including Alaska) has 260,877 Japanese and the Hawaiian Islands 203,455. Sources: Compiled from reports of the United States Bureau of Census, Eleventh . Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Census of Population (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office). Population Trends The growth curve of the Japanese in America, bodi nationally and locally, shows certain significant correlations, including die effects of unfavorable or favorable immigration laws, and the strong preference of this edinic group for semi-tropical environments (Soudiem California, Hawaii). The sharply rising...

Civil Liberties and the Japanese American Cases

HE UNHAPPY STORY of the treatment of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II has been told and retold.1 In early 1942, pursuant to an Executive Order2 and a later Act of Congress,3 Lt. General J. L. DeWitt, Commanding General of the Western Defense Command, imposed curfew restrictions on German and Italian aliens and on all persons of Japanese ancestry. Shortly thereafter DeWitt ordered the exclusion of both alien Japanese and American citizens of Japanese descent from zones which included most of the three West Coast states. After a short experiment with a voluntary exodus, a compulsory system of evacuation and detention in Relocation Camps was put into effect. In 1943, the Supreme Court had its first opportunity to review this military action. Gordon Hirabayashi, a senior at the University of Washington, had been convicted in a district court for failing to report for evacuation and for disobeying the curfew He had been sentenced to three months in prison on each count, but the sentences were allowed to run concurrently. The Supreme Court seized on this fact of concurrent sentences to rule that if conviction could be sustained on one of the charges, it would be unnecessary to test the validity of the other accusation. The Court then considered the easier count, that of violating the curfew. In a narrowly defined opinion Chief Justice Stone held that the military commander might reasonably have concluded that a curfew had been needed, and under emergency conditions such a mild device was a legitimate exercise of the war power. The Chief Justice emphasized that nothing was decided regarding the constitutionality of the evacuation program. It is unnecessary to consider whether or to what extent such findings [of danger of espionage and sabotage] would support orders differing from the curfew order. 4

Allen H. Eaton, Beauty behind Barbed Wire: The Arts of the Japanese in Our War Relocation Camps, Foreword by Eleanor Roosevelt

(1953). Allen H. Eaton, Beauty behind Barbed Wire: The Arts of the Japanese in Our War Relocation Camps, Foreword by Eleanor Roosevelt. College Art Journal: Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 61-63.

Beauty behind Barbed Wire: The Arts of the Japanese in Our War Relocation Camps

Beauty behind Barbed Wire: The Arts of the Japanese in Our War Relocation Camps

Beauty Behind Barbed Wire: The Arts of the Japanese in Our War Relocation Camps

Beauty Behind Barbed Wire: The Arts of the Japanese in Our War Relocation Camps

The Governing of Men: General Principles and Recommendations Based on Experience at a Japanese Relocation Camp. Alexander H. Leighton

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsThe Governing of Men: General Principles and Recommendations Based on Experience at a Japanese Relocation Camp. Alexander H. Leighton C. Herman PritchettC. Herman Pritchett Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Library Quarterly Volume 16, Number 2Apr., 1946 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/617241 Views: 2Total views on this site PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.