What happened to the Japanese in America post WW2?
I know that when most people talk about the numerous concentration camps that were set up during the World War II, they usually think of the Jews, the Nazis and Germany’s cruel policies. But Germany wasn’t the only place to ever have set up concentration camps during that time.
In the 1930s, concerned by Japan's rising military power in Asia, the American leaders began conducting surveillance on Japanese American communities in Hawaii. From 1936, at the behest of President Roosevelt, these leaders began compiling a "special list of those who would be the first to be placed in a concentration camp in the event of trouble" between Japan and the United States. Early in 1941, an investigation was conducted on Japanese Americans living on the West Coast and in Hawaii by Chief Munson. Munson determined that the "Japanese problem" was non-existent. His final report to the President "certified a remarkable, even extraordinary degree of loyalty among this generally suspect ethnic group" and argued against mass incineration.
Now let’s move to attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, which led military and political leaders to suspect that Japan was preparing a full-scale invasion of Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States. American public opinion initially stood by the Japanese Americans living on the West Coast, with the Los Angeles Times characterizing them as "good Americans, born and educated as such." However, six weeks after the attack, public opinion along the Pacific began to turn against them.
Several concerns over the loyalty of ethnic Japanese seemed to stem from racial prejudice rather than any evidence of malfeasance. A Commission report which investigated the Pearl Harbour attack accused persons of Japanese ancestry of espionage leading up to the attack.
Upon the bombing of Pearl Harbour, Presidential Proclamations were issued designating Japanese nationals as enemies. Information gathered by US officials over the previous decade was used to locate and incarcerate thousands of Japanese American community leaders in the days immediately following Pearl Harbour.
Another Proclamation was issued in 1942, requiring "alien enemies" to obtain a certificate of identification and carrying it "at all times". Japanese were not allowed to enter restricted areas. Violators of these regulations were subject to "arrest, detention and internment for the duration of the war."
Those who were as little as 1⁄16 Japanese could be placed in internment camps. Colonel Bendetsen said, "I am determined that if they have one drop of Japanese blood in them, they must go to camp.” Any Japanese who were not forced into camps, were forced to relocate from chief places like Alaska, California, and New York.
The situation of these internment camps was worse than bad. These Japanese were housed in "tar paper-covered barracks of simple frame construction without facilities of any kind". Many camps were built quickly by civilian contractors during the summer of 1942 based on designs for military barracks, making the buildings poorly equipped for cramped family living. In every camp, over twenty-five people were forced to live in spaces built to contain four. The camps were a barbed-wire-surrounded enclave with unpartitioned toilets, cots for beds, and a budget of 45 cents daily per capita for food rations. Armed guards were posted at the camps, which were all in remote, desolate areas far from population centres. There are even documented instances of guards shooting internees who reportedly attempted to walk outside the fences. The phrase "shikata ga nai" (loosely translated as "it cannot be helped") was commonly used to summarize the interned families.
Overcrowded and unsanitary conditions forced assembly centre infirmaries to prioritize inoculations over general care, obstetrics, and surgeries; at Manzanar camp, hospital staff performed over 40,000 immunizations against typhoid and smallpox. Food poisoning was common and demanded significant attention. The extreme climates of the remote incarceration sites were hard on infants and elderly prisoners. The frequent dust storms of the high desert locations led to increased cases of asthma and coccidioidomycosis, while the swampy, mosquito-infested Arkansas camps exposed residents to malaria, all of which were treated in camp by unskilled doctors with limited medical equipment.
Of the 110,000 Japanese Americans detained by the United States government during World War II, 30,000 were children. Most were school-age children, so educational facilities were set up in the camps, however, this did not erase the potential for traumatic experiences during their overall time in the camps. These 'schoolhouses' were essentially prison blocks that contained a few windows. "There was persistent mud or dust, heat, mosquitoes, poor food and living conditions, inadequate instructional supplies, and a half mile or more walk each day just to and from the school block”. The rhetorical curriculum of the schools was based mostly on the study of "the democratic ideal and to discover its many implications". English compositions focused on 'American ideals', and many of the compositions pertained to the camps. To build patriotism, the Japanese language was banned in the camps.
Many Japanese Americans worked to prove themselves as loyal citizens. Of the 20,000 Japanese Americans who served in the Army during World War II, many soldiers had “gone to war to fight racism at home” and were "proving with their blood, their limbs, and their bodies that they were truly American". Over a hundred women volunteered for the WAC (Women's Army Corps), where, after undergoing rigorous basic training, had assignments such as typists, clerks, drivers and nurses.
Countless Japanese Americans demonstrated the lengths they were willing to go to just to be accepted. They loved Japan, but had to separate themselves from their heritage, just to be accepted. Japanese in America, who had lived here for generations, were forced to pay for the actions of Militants in another continent. They didn’t dare to speak in Japanese, because if they did then it meant they weren’t American. And if they didn’t belong to the United States – the same United States that had been “so kind to them through this ordeal, who’ve fed them, clothed them, provided them with an education, medical care and shelter, who’ve protected them from harm by guarding their gates day and night” - then where did they belong?