CRE 151: Week 3/day 4 Lecture -Japanese Americans
Week 3/Day 4 Lecture
I)
80 years after U.S. incarcerated 120k Japanese
Americans, trauma and Scars remain
1.
Life in internment camp
a.
Behind barbed wire fences with guards in towers
b.
Long lines to get food, use restrooms or wash
clothes
c.
Lost freedom and most of belongings
d.
Because they were ancestors of Japanese
2.
Feb. 19, 1942- two months after Japan’s attack
on Pearl Harbor
a.
Caused us to enter WWII
b.
Roosevelt signed executive order 9066
i.
Most Japanese diaspora lived on Pacific Coast or
Hawaii
ii.
Already Japanese were being arrested and held in
jails
c.
Original order did not specifically name
Japanese Americans or any other group
i.
Those incarcerated could only take what they
could carry
d.
What is Issei -first generation Japanese
e.
Nisei =second generation Japanese American
citizens
3.
Internment camps were officially known as
military exclusion zones
a.
Located in
b.
California, Arizona, Oregon, and Washington
4.
Families stripped of identity
a.
Names no longer important, instead each family
got a five-digit number they had to wear around their necks
5.
Generations later still face the trauma, the
loss of their identity
6.
Internment plan
7.
Only about 20k Japanese Americans were forcibly
removed but would remain free in other parts of the U.
a.
Still they were made to feel unwelcome
b.
They were labeled Japanese Americans “evacuees”
c.
Assembly centers called internment camps although
they were more akin to concentration camps
i.
The terminology strategically undermined the
severity of government actions
d.
During the same period the country imprisoned
11,500 of the five million German Americans
e.
And 3,000 of the Italian Americans
8.
Why so many more Japanese
a.
Long history of unbridled prejudice and fear
b.
Officials refused to listen to accounts of loyalty
with reference to Japanese Americans
c.
Individuals with as little as one-sixteenth
Japanese
i.
one of their great-great grandparents was a
full-blooded Japanese
9.
Lost as much as $3.64 billion (in 2022 dollars) of
wealth
a.
Lost their homes, businesses, and other
properties.
10. While
many Japanese Americans tried to adjust to incarceration many others sued the
government
a.
One case involving Minoru Yasui, Gordon K.
Hirabyashi and Fred T. Korematsu challenged their community for being treated
as enemy aliens
i.
From 1943-1944
ii.
Supreme court accepted the governments policy
without question and ruled against complainants
iii.
In their case, Gordan K. Hirabyashi stated:
1.
We the people of these Unites States, have made
tremendous advancements in the liberation of mankind from political, social,
and economic, and religious slavery…But even though this is America, these
things happening today are not American”.
b.
It was not until Mitsue Endo’s trial in 1944,
that questioned why she and her people had been imprisoned without a fair trial
the court ruled that the military authorities had aired without providing them
a hearing
i.
By then many had already left the concentration
camps to attend universities in east, take jobs in West Coast or to fight in
the war
1.
By the time the camps were finally closed it
consisted of children, young mothers and the aged.
ii.
Finally, in June of 1946 President Harry Truman shut
down the War Relocation Authority
1.
Since then the camps have been part of National
Park service which offers tours and archaeological digs to recover history an
stories of families forced into the camps
iii.
Prior to attack on Pearl Harbor Japanese
American men enlisted in armed forces
1.
After the attack they were dismissed and
re-classified as enemy aliens
2.
However, in 1943 military leaders called for
more soldiers
a.
Camp-dwellers became eligible for draft
i.
Those living in the camps,315 refused to serve
ii.
About 25,000 Japanese Americans ultimately fought
against Germany and Italy
iii.
100th Infantry Battalion was almost
exclusively Japanese Americans
1.
Many were first Nisei to enter war
2.
Reaching North Africa in 1943
3.
Next year in Italy, attached to 442nd
Regimental Combat team -a Nisei unit
a.
Among the most decorated of the war
b.
Suffered a casualty rate of 300 percent
c.
In the fight in Europe -680 lost their lives
d.
Some served in Military intelligence
b.
After war -Japanese Americans tried to ensure
that America would never forget
i.
In 1970s organized the Redress Movement
1.
1982 a Presidential Commission on Wartime
Relocation and Internment civilians concluded that the military had lacked
justification to incarcerate the Japanese and that the policies were driven by “race
prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership
ii.
Ronal Regan, in 1988 signed the Civil Liberties
Act which apologized to still living Japanese Americans who had been forced
into the camps
1.
Ordered restitution of $20,000 each
3.
Over last 50 years, Asian Americans have been
called the model minority because of their academic successes
a.
Such a label is a damaging stereotype
i.
It tends to hide the ongoing racism targeting
Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders generations after their ancestors arrived
in U.S.
1.
Still being treated as a foreigner by fellow
Americans
I)
The Ripple Effects of Japanese American
Reparations
1.
In 1990 U.S. began mailing $20,000 checks
to over 82000 Japanese American survivors of internment camps
2.
Has taken a decade to complete
a.
Money spent in several ways
b.
Mae Kanazawa Hara bought an organ for her
church
c.
Nikki Nojima Louis paid living expenses
while pursuing her doctorate
d.
George Takei donated money to Japanese
American National Museum in L/A.
e.
Currently the net worth of each check is
about $45,000
3.
So how did the rest spend their money
4.
What is the significance of reparations
a.
How would it affect Black Americans who
have yet to receive reparations
5.
As the Japanese Americans won the battle
in 1998 to finally get reparations
a.
Erec Yamamotto a U of Hawaii law professor
wrote
i.
In every African American reparation’s publication,
in every legal argument, in almost every discussion, the topic of Japanese
American reparations is listed
1.
It is an honest attempt at atonement for
unjust losses across the decades
b.
When Roosevelt signed the order creating the
camps, one notable Japanese American refused to show up
i.
Fred Korematsu -from Oakland was
convicted for failing to report as ordered
1.
He appealed his conviction for defying
military orders
a.
The Supreme court ruled that he had to appear,
he had to abandon everything and take only what he could carry in the decision
Korematsu v. United States.
c.
In 1980 congressional hearings began as
more than 500 Japanese Americans gave testimony
i.
Many for first time
ii.
Commission concluded that race prejudice,
war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership were the primary reasons
for the incarceration
iii.
Recommended each survivor be paid $20,000
d.
At same time, it was demonstrated that
the government had suppressed information, and even lied about Japanese
Americans being security risks
i.
Korematsu and two similar cases convictions
were vacated by executive order
ii.
It would not be util 1988 that
reparations legislation was being considered by Congress ultimately being
passed -1988 Civil Liberties Act authorizing reparations checks for those still
alive
iii.
Demonstrates possibility that the U.S.
government could be held accountable, culpable, and forced to apologize for
past acts even paying reparations
1.
Following this John Conyers introduced
H.S. 40 which until his death, he put forward in congress to establish a
similar commission to study reparations for black Americans
iv.
Reparations process helped Japanese Americans
both psychologically and materially
1.
Stretched across generations
2.
One talked about how the money made it
possible for her family to build generational equity
a.
Ability to invest in education,
homeownership, or anything that would benefit their families
v.
The redress report has helped California
task force shape its reparations for victims of slavery and Jim Crow
1.
But there is no equivalence between what
Japanese Americans suffered and what Black people experiences while there are
some parallels
a.
For example, how the government was
involved
b.
How race influenced the choices made
c.
And how justice was denied
2.
To talk about reparations is to talk
about loss
a.
Of property
b.
Personhood
3.
Estimated loss by Japanese American incarcerees
is about %6 billion equivalent to $18 billion today
4.
But this ignores the lost dreams,
opportunities, and dignity lost by the people
5.
Losses still felt today
vi.
Many used their reparations for noble purposes
1.
These influenced some other reparations
initiatives …which look more like public-policy initiatives
a.
Such as the 2021 initiative in Evanston, Illinois
providing $25k for black residents and their descendants who experience housing
discrimination in city from 1919 to 1969
b.
Florida which provides free tuition to
state universities for descents of black families in town of rosewood
victimized in 1923 massacre
2.
Goal of reparations is to restore
dignity, opportunity but is should also provide for autonomy where the individual
chooses how best to spend the money
a.
Maybe this influenced Evansville in its
reparations program that gave direct cash payments of 25,000 to its black
residents.
e.
But how can you replace the loss of
family unity, or the family Murakami who had to take their mothers ashes to a cemetery
outside of the city, and only have time to leave a homemade wooden marker in
the ground
i.
A generation of wealth lost in a weekend
ii.
When letter of presidential apology arrived,
they thew it away to late
1.
When they were released from internment
camp given 25 dollars and one-way ticket to leave camps
iii.
The money would have meant more if it had
come when she needed it 40 year earlier
f.
20k cannot resurrect proud community
i.
Establish lost homes and businesses
ii.
Broken family
g.
I could help deal with psychological
anguish by some
i.
Helping some finally leave the guilt they
had borne
1.
Traumatized for being a victim
6.
Purpose of reparations is not only
compensation but to repair and heal relationship with society at large
7.
Incarcerees have kept their memories
alive
a.
Now it falls on their descendants
b.
They arrive with their parents and elders
for pilgrimages to the former cites
c.
Now there is a memorial, a book called
Ireicho or sacred book located in the Japanese American national Museum
i.
In it it has all of their names 125,284
on 1,000 pages.
ii.
The memorial also has wood panels which
has the names of each incarceration camp written in both Japanese and English
1.
Glass vials with soil from each site
d.
Reparations represent both symbolic and
material
i.
Money and apology and public education
ii.
Provides for multigenerational healing
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