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Japanese-American Incarceration
The Japanese internment of 1942 lives on infamously to this day as one of the worst breaches of the constitution in American history. Needless to say, Executive Order 9066, the order directly from the President that began the mass incarceration of all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast, has been studied deeply as scholars search for the reasons behind it. The most obvious reasons seem to be that of national security concerns regarding the Japanese and their loyalties towards the Empire. However, if national security was the chief driving factor, then why were communities such as German-Americans and Italian-Americans on the east coast not similarly targeted and removed? The answer lies in the economic motivations, as well as the perceptions of race regarding the conflict in the Pacific versus the conflict in Europe. Through Executive Order 9066, the U.S. effectively destroyed the economic independence of Japanese communities while also gaining a large captive workforce for the war effort. On top of this, any “security concerns” would be quelled, as the West Coast was far more militarily vulnerable when one sees that the majority of United States forces, with the exception of the navy, were amassed on the East Coast for deployment to Europe. Furthermore this captive population of immigrants could be used for production to aid the ongoing war effort. All of this creates the terrifying precedent that the United States could detain one for their race regardless of citizenship. This analysis can help explain further U.S. actions that continue to this day with other Asian Americans, especially with regard to the racial profiling of Chinese-American intellectuals who live, study, and teach within the United States.
"Race" Over Citizenship
Japanese immigration to the United States truly began in the late 19th to early 20th century as there was a strong demand for workers following the ban on immigration from China, leaving a dearth of laborers. This demand would be met by laborers from Japan, as seen in Joyce J. Chen’s study. Figure 1 showcases the massive Japanese immigration that would take place after the exclusion of Chinese laborers. Of course, most of these immigrants would remain on the West Coast, maintaining communities in the large cities and countryside. After this, the first “Nisei,” or the second generation of Japanese-Americans, would be born and raised in the United States. Contrary to myths of oriental despotism, many of the first-generation immigrants had experience in village-level democracy in Japan and spread such practices in their communities in the United States (Hayashi, Brian Masaru 43).
Security concerns primarily remained about the loyalty of Japanese-Americans, and this is how the Federal government portrayed it to the rest of the United States (See Disloyal Japanese to Go to Tule Lake Camp article). This primarily grew from a concern regarding the possibility of a two-ocean war. The United States Army was mainly focused on the East Coast where they were preparing for transportation into North Africa and Europe. Meanwhile, this left the West Coast vulnerable. As author Brian Hayashi states, this put “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” at risk of sabotage or airstrike by enemy carriers (Hayashi, Brian Masaru, Pg. 80). Regardless of how feasible such attacks may be, the concern was primarily regarding the allegiance of Japanese-American immigrants and whether they would hinder war efforts for the sake of an enemy nation. However, if this was purely based upon worries of allegiance, why were Italian-Americans and German-Americans not treated with a similar distrust? Was this due to the army’s presence on the East Coast, or was it based upon concepts of race rather than nationality and citizenship?
Executive Order 9066 was based purely on racial lines, a proclamation that one’s race trumped citizenship. Firstly, with regards to racism, one cannot ignore the history of its use against Asian laborers prevalent throughout the late 19th and early 20th century within the United States. The Page Law, which barred members of any Asian nation from immigrating to the U.S., put in place seven years before the Chinese Exclusion Act had been upon racist assumptions of Chinese and Japanese. With regards to racism against the Japanese in particular, one 1924 case would see a Japanese man refused citizenship based on his race. Additionally, John Dewitt, who enforced Executive Order 9066, was quite clear in his views of the Japanese during the war saying in his reports, “The Japanese race is an enemy race… To conclude otherwise is to expect that children born of white parents to sever all racial affinity and become loyal Japanese subjects” (Gluckstein, Donny Pg. 112). To Dewitt, it was not possible for one’s racial loyalty to overcome loyalty from citizenship, and clearly, to him, America was not a nation with whom the Japanese “race” could align.
This is further supported by the way that the executive order was written, and how the war in the Pacific was treated over all. Firstly, Executive Order 9066 was aimed at people of Japanese ancestry, not simply first-generation immigrants (Honnold Mudd Library). The implications of this are clear, to the decision makers such as Dewitt, the Japanese race was the enemy, not the Japanese nation. Additionally, there was a clear difference in how the war against the Japanese and the war against the Germans was portrayed; one only needs to look at the political comics of one Theodore Suess Geisel to see the racist caricatures levied against the Japanese (Dr. Seuss Goes to War). Furthermore, war correspondents and memoirs by soldiers display the racial overtures of the conflict in the Pacific (Gluckstein, Donny Pg. 113). Such reports cement the ideas of Dewitt as ideas of a racial conflict against the Japanese themselves, not simply against the Japanese Empire. Still, while race was a major motivating factor and justification, the United States had uses for an incarcerated population, primarily economic ones.
With regards to the economic justifications of internment during the 1940s, such evidence can be seen in concern over laborers voiced by John Dewitt. He claimed of the necessity of laborers in picking cotton for military equipment such as parachutes (Hinnershitz, Stephanie Chapter 1) . This concern of a lack of laborers showcases possible motives, but ultimately combined with security concerns shows the Japanese as a convenient source for this labor and race would play the justifying role. This is strengthened by the attempts to make such internment camps as efficient as possible, as their ultimate goal was to create self-sustaining communities. To completely isolate them from the outside world outside of in person contact with internment personnel, and then using them for wartime labor was the goal.
The Present Day
This relates to today in the racial profiling and persecution of Chinese intellectuals living, studying, and teaching within the United States. As the United States shifts its policies to oppose the Chinese Communist Party, intellectuals from the People’s Republic of China have become targets of investigation by the United States. These fears primarily relate to that of intellectual espionage as both China and the United States compete in the field of semiconductor technology. These fears have led to open and secret investigations against multiple intellectuals, perhaps most infamously and recently was Gang Chen, the at the time head of the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering, who was arrested but later found innocent. The result of such a wrongful arrest is clear to see, as surveys done with intellectuals of Chinese descent by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) found that:
35% of respondents feel unwelcome in the United States, and 72% do not feel safe as an academic researcher; 42% are fearful of conducting research; 65% are worried about collaborations with China; and a remarkable 86% perceive that it is harder to recruit top international students now compared to 5 years ago.
Despite these fears, 89% of the respondents still wished to contribute to leadership and technology in the United States. Still, the United States creates an environment of fear in their handling of their “China Initiative”, one that threatens to isolate and create paranoia amongst the intellectual community.
In conclusion, the United States incarceration of the Japanese American population of the West Coast during World War 2 was one based upon race given the proclamation itself as well as how the war in the pacific became perceived. In the eyes of commander Dewitt, the war was one based upon racial conflict, and in his mind, no Japanese-American could possibly sever their racial allegiance to Japan. It is clear then that in his mind America was not a racially diverse nation but a nation of one particular race to the exclusion of others. With racial lines fueling a paranoia, economic incentives made it enticing for Dewitt to incarcerate the Japanese American population. Such racial profiling and incarceration can be seen today with the persecution of Chinese born intellectuals in the United States, again growing out of fears of espionage and loyalties to a foreign nation. These fears do nothing but create paranoia and hamper the intellectual process through the isolation of Chinese-American intellectuals. During these times, it is important for the U.S. not to racially profile one based upon where they were born, and to reject the past notions of Dewitt and others that race trumps citizenship.
Bibliography
Xie, Yu, Xihong Lin, and Junming Huang. “Caught in the Crossfire: Fears of Chinese–American Scientists - PNAS.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, June 27, 2023.
Hayashi, Brian Masaru. Democratizing the Enemy : The Japanese American Internment. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004.
unknown. Disloyal Japanese to Go to Tule Lake Camp. Clippings, 1943.
Presidio (San Francisco, Calif.): publisher. Instructions to All Persons of Japanese Ancestry. Circulars. Honnold Mudd Library. Special Collections, 1942.
Hinnershitz, Stephanie. Japanese American incarceration: The camps and coerced labor during World War II. Philadelphia, pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021 Chapter 1
Chen, Joyce J. “The Impact of Skill-Based Immigration Restrictions: The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.” Journal of Human Capital 9, no. 3 (2015): 299
Gluckstein, Donny. “USA – Racism in the Arsenal of Democracy.” In A People’s History of the Second World War: Resistance Versus Empire. Pluto Press, 2012
Japanese American Incarceration by Stephenie Hinnershitz
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