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During World War II, the United States, by order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, forcibly relocated and incarcerated at least 125,284 people of Japanese descent in 75 identified incarceration sites. Most lived on the Pacific Coast, in concentration camps in the western interior of the country. Approximately two-thirds of the inmates were United States citizens. These actions were initiated by Executive Order 9066 following Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Of the 127,000 Japanese Americans who were living in the continental United States at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, 112,000 resided on the West Coast. About 80,000 were Nisei and Sansei. The rest were Issei immigrants born in Japan who were ineligible for U.S. citizenship under U.S. law.
The Japanese American Citizens League is an Asian American civil rights charity, headquartered in San Francisco, with regional chapters across the United States.
Japanese American history is the history of Japanese Americans or the history of ethnic Japanese in the United States. People from Japan began immigrating to the U.S. in significant numbers following the political, cultural, and social changes stemming from the 1868 Meiji Restoration. Large-scale Japanese immigration started with immigration to Hawaii during the first year of the Meiji period in 1868.
The Pacific Citizen (P.C.) is a national, award-winning semi-monthly newspaper based in Los Angeles, California, United States. The P.C. has been providing the leading Asian Pacific American (APA) news to the community since its inception in 1929. The newspaper is published by the Japanese American Citizens League, JACL, which is the nation’s oldest and largest APA civil rights organization.
James Yutaka Matsumoto Omura was the English language editor of the Rocky Shimpo newspaper in Denver, Colorado, during World War II. He was an outspoken critic of the expulsion of people of Japanese ancestry from the west coast of the United States to concentration camps, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Subsequently, he became a vocal champion of the Nisei draft resisters, providing a 'substantial anchor' to the work of the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee by publishing their grievances in the Rocky Shimpo. At a time when the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) preached passive conformity with the federal government as the best policy, Omura became the JACL's arch-enemy for counseling active resistance.
George Tetsuo Aratani was a Japanese American entrepreneur, philanthropist and the founder of Mikasa china and owner of the Kenwood Electronics corporation.
Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga was a Japanese American political activist who played a major role in the Japanese American redress movement. She was the lead researcher of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC), a bipartisan federal committee appointed by Congress in 1980 to review the causes and effects of the Japanese American incarceration during World War II. As a young woman, Herzig-Yoshinaga was confined in the Manzanar Concentration Camp in California, the Jerome War Relocation Center in Arkansas, and the Rohwer War Relocation Center, which is also in Arkansas. She later uncovered government documents that debunked the wartime administration's claims of "military necessity" and helped compile the CWRIC's final report, Personal Justice Denied, which led to the issuance of a formal apology and reparations for former camp inmates. She also contributed pivotal evidence and testimony to the Hirabayashi, Korematsu and Yasui coram nobis cases.
Estelle Ishigo, née Peck, was an American artist known for her watercolors, pencil and charcoal drawings, and sketches. During World War II she and her husband were incarcerated at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming. She subsequently wrote about her experiences in Lone Heart Mountain and was the subject of the Oscar winning documentary Days of Waiting: The Life & Art of Estelle Ishigo.
Sue Kunitomi Embrey was a teacher, activist and long-time chair of the Manzanar Committee, which established the annual Manzanar pilgrimage and obtained National Historic Site status for the former concentration camp.
Sakaye Shigekawa was an American physician who specialized in obstetrics. Born to Japanese-American parents, she was imprisoned and forced to live and work at an internment camp in California, providing medical care to fellow Japanese-American internees during World War II. She completed her training in Chicago before returning to Los Angeles in 1948, where she practiced for more than 50 years.
Ralph Lazo was the only known non-spouse, non-Japanese American who voluntarily relocated to a Japanese American internment camp during World War II. His experience was the subject of the 2004 narrative short film Stand Up for Justice: The Ralph Lazo Story.
Chiyoko Sakamoto (1912–1994) was California's first Japanese American female lawyer.
Esther Takei Nishio was an American woman from California, incarcerated at the Granada War Relocation Center in Colorado during World War II. She was the first Japanese-American student to enroll in a California university after returning from camp, in 1944, when she was chosen as a test case for resettlement.
Sanga Moyu (山河燃ゆ) is a Japanese television drama based on the 1983 novel Futatsu no Sokoku (二つの祖国) by Toyoko Yamazaki. It was NHK's taiga drama in 1984.
The Merced Assembly Center, located in Merced, California, was one of sixteen temporary assembly centers hastily constructed in the wake of Executive Order 9066 to incarcerate those of Japanese ancestry beginning in the spring of 1942, following the attack on Pearl Harbor and prior to the construction of more permanent concentration camps to house those forcibly removed from the West Coast. The Merced Assembly Center was located at the Merced County Fairgrounds and operated for 133 days, from May 6, 1942 to September 15, 1942, with a peak population of 4,508. 4,669 Japanese Americans were ultimately incarcerated at the Merced Assembly Center.
Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, was an American historian who focused on the World War II internment of Japanese Americans. He recommended to use the term incarceration instead of internment. "He was at the forefront of scholars calling for the use of more precise terminology regarding the forced uprooting and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, and for avoiding government euphemisms such as “evacuation” and “relocation.” He also argued that “comparative research relating this history to the internment of Middle Eastern and Muslim detainees, and the incarceration of militant activists of color and prisoners of conscience, is imperative.” Hirabayashi was an early member of The National Coalition for Redress/Reparations (NCRR), an organization that sought to right historical wrongs by returning money and land taken through incarceration during the war.
Louise Suski was the first woman editor-in-chief and English-section editor-in-chief at the Japanese-English language newspaper Rafu Shimpo.
Chizu Iiyama was a Japanese American activist, social worker, and educator active in the Redress Movement, desegregation in Chicago, and other causes. She is best known for her contributions to the Japanese American Redress Movement, which sought to obtain reparations and a formal apology from the United States government for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Chiye Mori was a Japanese-American poet and journalist who was influential in the Nisei literary community in Los Angeles in the 1930s. While incarcerated at Manzanar, Mori was the first female editor of the Manzanar Free Press newspaper.
Mary "Molly" Teiko Oyama Mittwer (1907–1994) was a Japanese American journalist and community organizer who is best known for covering controversial topics such as social reform, dating and marriage, racism and integration. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Oyama Mittwer wrote articles to help fellow Nisei Japanese Americans navigate the political and social complexities of the day and to promote multiracial and cross-cultural solidarity among activists of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. She wrote advice columns, articles, interviews, and poetry for major Japanese-American newspapers and journals, including but not limited Rafu Shimpo, Kashu Mainichi, Nichibei,Shin-Sekai, The New World Sun, Leaves, Gyo-Sho, Nisei magazine Current Life, and the Common Ground journal, which focused on giving minoritized racial groups a platform.
References
- ↑ "News | AASC". www.aasc.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2023-03-20.
- 1 2 3 "Valerie Matsumoto – UCLA Asian American Studies Department" . Retrieved 2023-03-20.
- ↑ "Japanese American Women's Lives in the Camps and Beyond". Densho.org. March 21, 2023. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
- ↑ Reviews of Farming the Home Place
- Chan, Sucheng (1994). "Review of Farming the Home Place: A Japanese American Community in California, 1919-1982". Pacific Historical Review. 63 (4): 602–603. doi:10.2307/3639967. ISSN 0030-8684.
- Barron, Hal S. (1997). Matsumoto, Valerie J. (ed.). "Rice and Jell-O". American Quarterly. 49 (1): 203–209. ISSN 0003-0678.
- Kessler, Lauren (1995). "Review of Farming the Home Place: A Japanese American Community in California, 1919-1982". The Journal of American History. 81 (4): 1790–1791. doi:10.2307/2081802. ISSN 0021-8723.
- ↑ Reviews of City Girls
- Wallis, Eileen V. (2016). "Review of City Girls: The Nisei Social World in Los Angeles, 1920–1950, MatsumotoValerie J." Pacific Historical Review. 85 (2): 321–322. ISSN 0030-8684.
- Imai, Shiho (Fall 2016). "City Girls: The Nisei Social World in Los Angeles, 1920-1950". Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth ; Baltimore. Vol. 9, no. 3. pp. 513–515 – via Proquest.
- ↑ Review of Over the Edge
- Dorst, John (2000). "Review of OVER THE EDGE: Remapping the American West". American Studies. 41 (1): 168–169. ISSN 0026-3079.
