Japanese Internment Camps During World War II
After the Japanese attack on American ships at Pearl Harbor in 1941, sentiment grew in support of relocating all Japanese Americans living along the West Coast to the interior of the country. Many in the western states, as well as those holding high positions in the United States government, feared a Japanese invasion and felt that the presence of those with Japanese ancestry living along the West Coast posed a national security threat. In March of 1942, President Roosevelt issued an executive order defining an area of the West Coast from which all persons of Japanese ancestry were to be excluded. The army forcibly relocated approximately 110,000 evacuees (most of whom were American citizens) to ten relocation centers in western states. Smaller numbers of Germans, Italians, and people of other nationalities were also interned or forcibly relocated.
Yamamoto lived in one of these camps during World War II. Barbed-wire fences surrounded the camps, and soldiers carrying guns patrolled the camp perimeters. Barracks hurriedly constructed of wood and tarpaper served as shelters with cots, blankets, and a light bulb; bathing, toilet, laundry, and dining facilities were communal. Some internees had access to small jobs, and a few even had gardens to grow food to supplement what was doled out, but there was very little to do on a daily basis at the camps. The internees had left their homes and businesses, and estimates of these losses amounted to approximately $350 million. The relocation disrupted family life and undermined the traditional authority of the father in these households.
Those concerned with civil liberties were stunned to see that the United States Supreme Court failed to rule that the forced relocations violated the civil rights of the internees and were therefore unconstitutional. The last of the centers closed in 1946. In 1988, President Reagan signed a bill granting each surviving Japanese-American internee a tax-free payment of $20,000 and an apology from the U.S. government.
Japanese-American Writing
Three distinct groups of Japanese dominate the economic, political, and cultural history of the Japanese-American population: the Issei, those who immigrated to the United States; the Nisei, the second-generation, American-born children; and the Sansei, the children of the Nisei. An extensive but little-known body of Issei writing exists, but most of it is confined to Japanese libraries. The literature available to American audiences primarily includes several oral histories and biographies, such as anthropologist Akemi Kikumura’s Through Harsh Winters, the story of her mother, and journalist Kazuo Ito’s thousand-page tome on the Pacific Northwest entitled Issei: A History of Japanese Immigrants in North America.
Nisei literature, mainly through short stories and autobiography, exhibits a dichotomy of sorts, between writers who see the tension between Japanese ethnicity and white society and those who do not. An author from the first category is painter Mine Okubo, who wrote Citizen 13660, an illustrated diary of her life at an internment camp. Hisaye Yamamoto is one of the most widely read members of the Nisei group, as is fellow writer Wakako Yamauchi. Some critics think that Monica Stone’s Nisei Daughter failed to challenge white mainstream culture, but the autobiography was written before the term “Asian American” became a positive, widely used expression, and the concept of being “Japanese American” was not prevalent.
The work of Sansei writers appeared in the period between the 1970s and the 1990s through poetry, drama, and prose. Work from the 1970s addressed larger societal issues such as the Vietnam War, feminism, and civil rights. Prominent works of poetry include Patricia Ikeda’s House of Wood, House of Salt and Geraldine Kudaka’s Numerous Avalanches at the Point of Intersection.
Source:
Thomas E. Barden – Short Stories for Students – Presenting Analysis, Context & Criticism on Commonly Studied Short Stories, vol. 14, Hisaye Yamamoto – Published by Gale Cengage Learning.