nbsp

Life Before Internment Camps


Life before the internment camps for most Japanese Americans was the same as it was for Americans of any ethnic background. They did normal things as we do today, going to school, playing with their friends... etc,. However, life for Japanese Americans had never been easy. In 1913, California passed the Alien Land Law which prohibited "aliens ineligible to citizenship" (ie. all Asian immigrants- including Japanese) from owning land or property, though it permitted three year leases. Then in 1920 California extended the Alien Land Law to prohibiting leasing land to "aliens ineligible to citizenship." By 1925, it was also prohibited in Washington, Arizona, Oregon, Idaho, Nebraska, Texas, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, New Mexico, Minnesota, and Missouri. During World War II, Utah, Wyoming, and Arkansas also followed. A 1922 court case, Ozawa v. U.S., had the Supreme Court reaffirming that Asian immigrants were not even eligible for naturalization. In June, 1935 Congress passed an act making aliens otherwise ineligible to citizenship eligible if (a) they had served in the U.S. armed forces between April 6, 1917, and November 11, 1918, and been honorably discharged, and (b) they were permanent residents of the United States. A small number obtained citizenship under this act before the deadline on January 1, 1937. The 1940 census found 126,947 Japanese Americans; 62.7% were citizens by birth. In addition, 157,905 were in the Territory of Hawaii, and 263 in the Territory of Alaska.

"I'm for catching every Japanese in America, Alaska, and Hawaii now and putting them in concentration camps.. . .Damn them! Let's get rid of them now!"

Congressman John Rankin, Congressional Record, Feb.19,1942.

But, for all the bad feelings, many Japanese immigrants were friends with the Americans they lived near and worked with. Many Japanese had come to America to work, make money and then go back to Japan. But some also wanted to settle in American and raise their families here.

In October and November of 1941, Special Representative of the State Department Curtis B. Munson, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's orders, carried out an intelligence gathering investigation on the loyalty of Japanese Americans.
Exerpts:

"The Issei, or first generation, is considerably weakened in their loyalty to Japan by the fact that they have chosen to make this their home and have brought up their children here. They expect to die here. They are quite fearful of being put in a concentration camp. Many would take out American citizenship if allowed to do so. The haste of this report does not allow us to go into this more fully. The Issei have to break with their religion, their god and Emperor, their family, their ancestors and their after-life in order to be loyal to the United States. They are also still legally Japanese. Yet they do break, and send their boys off to the Army with pride and tears. They are good neighbors. They are old men fifty-five to sixty-five, for the most part simple and dignified. Roughly they were Japanese lower middle class, about analogous to the pilgrim fathers."

"Second generation who have received their whole education in the United States and usually, in spite of discrimination against them and a certain amount of insults accumulated through the years from irresponsible elements, show a pathetic eagerness to be Americans. They are in constant conflict with the orthodox, well disciplined family life of their elders. They are universally estimated from 90 to 98 percent loyal to the United States if the Japanese-educated element of the Kibei is excluded. The Nisei are pathetically eager to show this loyalty. They are not Japanese in culture. They are foreigners to Japan. Though American citizens they are not accepted by Americans, largely because they look differently and can be easily recognized. The Japanese American Citizens League should be encouraged, the while an eye is kept open, to see that Tokio does not get its finger in this pie -- which it has in a few cases attempted to do. The loyal Nisei hardly knows where to turn. Some gesture of protection or wholehearted acceptance of this group would go a long way to swinging them away from any last romantic hankering after old Japan. They are not oriental or mysterious, they are very American and are of a proud, self-respecting race suffering from a little inferiority complex and a lack of contact with the white boys they went to school with. They are eager for this contact and to work alongside them."