Being Japanese-American: After December 7, 1941

The lives of thousands of Japanese-Americans were forever changed on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese military released multiple aircraft which bombed Pearl Harbor, a United States military camp located on the island of Oʻahu in Hawai‘i. The attack resulted in the destruction of eight battleships—including the famous USS Arizona—three light carriers, three destroyers, and damaged or sunk four naval vessels. Besides the extensive damage done to the military camp, 2,043 American servicemen and civilians were killed (“Civil Rights”). This set the social climate for Japanese-Americans in Hawai‘i for some time to come, and eventually resulted in change of the Japanese identity in Hawai‘i forever.

Before WWII, there was already a stigma against Japanese-Americans in some parts of the United States as well as a separation between immigrants and the following generation. Those who came from Japan to settle in America were known as issei. Though they were somewhat sheltered in Hawai‘i from the stigmas that ran rampant on the U.S mainland, many were not allowed to own land or become naturalized citizens, and were often segregated from whites, like many other “minority” races (“Civil Rights”). Second generation Japanese-Americans--those born in the United States to immigrant parents--were called nisei. These people were citizens by birthright, and many had managed to become somewhat successful in business and farming (“Civil Rights”). In the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor bombing, many issei were brought under scrutiny, having come from Japan, and were looked at as possible conspirators against the United States government.

On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9006. This order primarily targeted Japanese-Americans, and made it possible for the war department of the United States to have them forcibly removed from their homes and relocated (“Civil Rights”). There was a mix of “reasons” for the Japanese in America to be detained. Some members of the United States government claimed that it was a safety precaution, an attempt to “protect” the Japanese-Americans from “racist retribution” (“Relocation and Incarceration”). Others had a harsher view, such as Lieutenant John L. DeWitt, head of the Western Defense Command who was quoted as saying, “The Japanese race is an enemy race, and while many second and third generation Japanese born on United States soil, possessed of United States citizenship, have become ‘Americanized,’ the racial strains are undiluted” (“Civil Rights”). No matter what the reasoning, the order was acted upon.

At first, there was a plan for the Japanese-American population of Hawai‘i to be pushed into internment camps, like the 110,000 or so Japanese living on the West Coast of the continental United States (“Civil Rights”). This sort of relocation was soon realized as an impossibility in Hawai‘i. There were about 158,000 Japanese-Americans living in Hawai‘i at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, an amount that made up over 40% of the entire population of the islands. Many Hawai‘i landowners opposed the internment of the Japanese, not because of morality, but because Japanese workers made up a large percentage of the plantations, and their continued servitude was needed. There is also the slightly ironic fact that 90% of carpenters and transportation workers were also Japanese, meaning that they would be needed to rebuild Pearl Harbor. This was all backed by the fact that there was a strong military presence in the Hawaiian Islands at this time, and an internal threat--an uprising of Japanese-Americans against the United States government--seemed extremely unlikely. This is what eventually allowed most of Hawai‘i’s Japanese population to be allowed to go about their lives (“Civil Rights”).

Unfortunately, not all Japanese-Americans in Hawai‘i were safe from the repercussions of the bombing. Within 48 hours of the attack by Japan, several hundred Japanese living in Hawai‘i were taken into custody. Most of these were influential members of the Japanese communities in the islands, including Buddhist priests, newspaper editors, Japanese language school officials, and others. Most of these were Japanese males, though there were some females, and about 100 Germans and Italians were also taken into custody and interned (Niiya).

After being held primarily in jail cells, the prisoners were transferred to temporary internment camps in the islands, which included Lalaheo Stockade on Kaua‘i, Haiku camp on Maui, Kīlauea Military Camp on the Big Island, and perhaps most notably, Sand Island on O‘ahu (Niiya). The latter camp was known for its forced labor, strip searches, and other demoralizing acts upon the internees (Niiya). In his memoir, Life Behind Barbed Wire: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a Hawai‘i Issei, Keiho Soga describes some of the terrible injustices of the camp. Internees were housed in tents, and were not allowed to stay in them during the day unless they were sick. The internees were sternly watched and were not allowed to talk in groups of more than three people (31). Sand Island was known for primarily one thing, and that was the breaking of the spirits of the Japanese who were held there, often without explanation of their situation when taken from their families, which caused excessive fear and confusion among those interned as well as those left behind (Oshido 223).

In February of 1942, the internees of the Sand Island internment camp were sent to the continental United States. In the spring and summer of the same year, the internees from the other camps around the island chain were transferred to Sand Island. Families were also allowed to go with the internees, and about 1,000 women and children did join their family members in the camp. In late 1942 and early 1943, many of those internees were also sent to the continental United States (Niiya).

On March 1, 1943, Sand Island was shut down, and the internees that had been held there were transferred to the Honouliuli internment camp, located in a gulch in Central O‘ahu. Its peak population was about 320 people, and families were allowed to visit twice in a month (Niiya). Many internment camps existed on the mainland, in Colorado, Arizona, Wyoming, Arkansas, California, Utah, and Idaho. These camps held the majority of the 1200-1400 people interned in America during WWII (“Civil Rights”). Finally, in 1944, President Roosevelt rescinded the executive order that had been the cause of the internment camps, and by 1946 they had all been officially shut down (“Relocation and Incarceration”).

The internment camps were only a small part of the issues facing the Japanese in the United States after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. All Japanese became the enemy of America in the eyes of the government and many people. The Japanese were required to be patriotic about America if they did not want to fall under suspicion (Oshido 201). There were restrictions put on labor and wages, as well as the prices of food, liquor, and the rationing of gasoline (Oshido 225). All Japanese had to register with the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, essentially making them aliens. They were required to carry their alien registration cards at all times, and were required to report a change in residence or occupation and needed the approval of the Alien Registration Bureau to do so. Japanese also needed permission to travel between islands, and were only allowed to do so by air in emergency situations (Oshido 226). Life became harder for the Japanese on all fronts.

Immediately after the bombing, a wave of repression of the Japanese culture arose. As depicted in All I Asking For Is My Body, many Japanese in Hawai‘i could not believe what Japan had done. Many immediately worked to hide aspects of the Japanese culture. “You have a Japanese flag in the tansu. Burn it or bury it. Hide all your Japanese books in the chicken coop. Don’t talk in Japanese when there’re any non-Japanese around” (Murayama 78). Anything Japanese became a symbol of alliance with the enemy. Countless Japanese-American households underwent house cleanings to remove Japanese memorabilia, including Buddhist shrines, Japanese books, magazines, records, and flags, as well as photos and letters from Japan (Oshido 229).

Japanese in Hawai‘i as well as those on the mainland also had to give up their traditional clothing for Western dress, and the women began curling their hair as the American fashion dictated, rather than keeping it long and straight (Oshido 229). Japanese language schools and newspapers were soon closed down by military order. Shintoism was banned, and many Buddhist priests were sent to the internment camps. Japanese traditions were repressed, including festivals and holidays, such as boy’s day and girl’s day (Oshido 230). The idea was strongly asserted, “a person’s identity as Japanese was to be hated and despised” (Oshido 229).

When the internment camps incarcerated the Japanese in Hawai‘i, many of those taken were the men who held the Japanese communities in the islands together. When they were removed, these communities crumbled, and without their culture to fall back upon, they were lost on a tide of discrimination and loss of hope for their future in America (Niiya). The parent and child dynamic of these communities also shifted. The first generation immigrants—the issei—came to represent the enemy and alien aspect of the Japanese, as well as the Old World, an obsolete past. Many issei were afraid of this change, and often kept to themselves. The nisei were seen as “tainted” by their Japanese blood, but were believed to be reachable by “Anglo conformity.” The nisei ability to speak better English aided in raising their status above the previous generation’s, and they were looked to as the future of the Japanese people in America (Oshido 231).

As addressed in All I Asking For Is My Body, some Japanese came to resent Japan for the punishments enacted upon those in the United States. Kiyoshi, the protagonist, has had issue with the strict policy of honor in his culture, and has spent a good deal of his life being beaten down by it. After the Pearl Harbor bombing, he wonders to himself “Here they worried you to death, made you a nervous wreck, don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t do anything that’d bring shame to the Japanese race, don’t be a rotten apple and spoil the whole barrel. What chance have I got, me, a single apple getting slammed by a barrelful of rottenness? Even if I tried deliberately, every day of my life, I wouldn’t be able to produce one-thousandth of the massive shame of Pearl Harbor” (Murayama 79). Though surely not all Japanese in America felt quite this strongly about the Pearl Harbor bombing, it could have certainly played a part in the break of Japanese-Americans from their home culture.

The Japanese culture and its people were oppressed in the United States for several years following the outbreak of World War II. The United States reacted to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor by punishing the Japanese who were living on American soil. Many were torn from their homes and the whole of their lives to pay for the misdeeds of those with no more connection to them than race. This was unjust, and changed the face of the Japanese culture in the United States. Today, many people have returned to their roots and no longer need to fear such harsh persecution for embracing their culture. Hopefully what we have learned from these events can be used as a tool in the fight to prevent such unjust acts from being perpetrated in the future.

Bibliography

“Civil Rights: Japanese-Americans.” PBS. 2007. Web. 25 Feb. 2015.

Soga, Keiho. Life Behind Barbed Wire: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a Hawaii Issei. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2008. Web. 25 Feb. 2015.

Murayama, Milton. All I Asking For Is My Body. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1959. Print.

Niiya, Brian. “History of the Internment in Hawai‘i.” Education through Cultural and Historical Organizations. 2010. Web. 25 Feb. 2015.

Oshido, Gary Y. Asian American History and Culture: Cane Fires: The Anti-Japanese Movement in Hawaii, 1865-1945. Pennsylvania: Temple University Press, 1992. Web. 25 Feb. 2015.

“Relocation and Incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II.” Japanese American Relocation Digital Archives. The Regents of the University of California, 2015. Web. 25 Feb. 2015.