Race, culture, and citizenship among Japanese American children and adolescents during the internment era

Journal of American Ethnic History

Volumn 23, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 3-40

  Tong, Benson ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34247653433     PISSN: 02785927     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (192)

1. Since childhood involves various "stages" of development, I define children as those of thirteen or younger in age, and adolescents as those from about fourteen to twenty one years old. See N. Ray Hiner and Joseph M. Hawes, "Introduction," in Growing Up in America: Children in Historical Perspective, eds. N. Ray Hiner and Joseph M. Hawes (Urbana, IL., 1985), xxii
2. Brian Komei Dempster, ed., From Our Side of the Fence: Growing Up in America's Concentration Camps (San Francisco, 2001), 40-42. This anthology is a collection of first-person reminiscences of adults reflecting on their childhood experiences in the camps
3. See Thomas James, Exile Within: The Schooling of Japanese Americans, 1942-1945 (Cambridge, Mass., 1987)
4. Gary Okihiro, Storied Lives: Japanese American Students and World War II (Seattle, 1999)
5. Yoon K. Pak, Whenever I Go, I Will Always Be a Loyal American: Schooling Seattle's Japanese Americans during World War II (New York, 2002)
6. Vincent Tajiri, ed., Through Innocent Eyes: Writings and Art from the Japanese American Internment by Poston I Schoolchildren (Los Angeles, 1990)
7. and certain parts in Erica Harth, ed., Last Witnesses: Reflections on the Wartime Internment of Japanese Americans (New York, 2001)
8. The last source includes excerpted accounts of the internment experience written during that era by children. David K. Yoo's Growing Up Nisei: Race, Generation, and Culture among Japanese Americans of California, 1924-49 (Urbana, IL., 2000) covers mostly adolescent and adult Nisei born in an era that precedes the birth of the generational unit of this study
9. Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (Boston, 1989), 7
10. First quote in Yong Chen, "Invisible Historical Players: Uncovering the Meanings and Experiences of 'Children' in Early Asian American History," unpublished paper, copy in author's possession; second quote in Elliott West, Growing Up in Twentieth-Century America: A History and Reference Guide (Westport, Conn., 1996), xiii
11. Glen H. Elder, Jr., John Modell, and Ross D. Parke, "Studying Children in a Changing World," in Children in Time and Place: Developmental and Historical Insights, ed. Glen H. Elder, Jr., John Modell, Ross D. Parke (Cambridge, 1993), 3
12. Yuji Ichioka, The Issei: The World of the First Generation Japanese Immigrants, 1885-1924 (New York, 1988), 3, 196
13. See Yuji Ichioka, "Kengakudan: The Origin of Nisei Study Tours of Japan," California History 73 (Spring 1994): 31-43, 87-88
14. Jere Takahashi, Nisei/Sansei: Shifting Japanese American Identities and Politics (Philadelphia, 1997), 49
15. See Lon Kurashige, Japanese American Celebration and Conflict: A History of Ethnic Identity and Festival in Los Angeles, 1934-1990 (Berkeley, 2002)
16. Elder, Jr., Modell, and Parke, "Studying Children in a Changing World," 14, 20, quote in 23
17. William M. Tuttle, "Daddy's Gone to War": The Second World War in the Lives of American's Children (New York, 1993), 15
18. Katherine Tasaki to Clara Breed, January 28, 1943, Louise Ogawa to Clara Breed, August 27, 1943, Clara Breed Collection, Manabi and Sumi Hirasaki National Resource Center, Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles. Clara Estelle Breed (1906-1994) was a librarian at the San Diego Central Public Library who corresponded extensively with Japanese American children at the Poston camp from 1942 to 1945. The vast majority of the 250 letters, Christmas cards, and postcards were written by Japanese American children; only a few of the items were written by librarian colleagues. The letters used for this article have never been edited and are available in their original form
19. Sucheng Chan, "Race, Ethnic Culture, and Gender in the Construction of Identities among Second-Generation Chinese Americans, 1880s to 1930s," in Claiming America: Constructing Chinese American Identities during the Exclusion Era, ed. K. Scott Wong and Sucheng Chan (Philadelphia, 1998), 131
20. Chris Friday, "Recasting Identities: American-born Chinese and Nisei in the Era of the Pacific War," in Power and Place in the North American West, ed. Richard White and John M. Findlay (Seattle, 1999), 145
21. Ibid
22. Paul R. Spickard, Japanese Americans: The Formation and Transformations of an Ethnic Group (New York, 1996), 70, 72-73
23. David J. O'Brien and Stephen S. Fugita, The Japanese American Experience (Bloomington, IN, 1991), 6
24. Stephen S. Fugita and David J. O'Brien, Japanese American Ethnicity: The Persistence of Community (Seattle, 1991), 42-44
25. Brian Masaru Hayashi, 'For the Sake of Our Japanese Brethren': Assimilation, Nationalism, and Protestantism Among the Japanese of Los Angeles, 1895-1942 (Stanford, CA., 1995), 108-126
26. Fugita and O'Brien, Japanese American Ethnicity, 93
27. Yoo, Growing Up Nisei, 19-21, 26-27
28. John Modell, The Economics and Politics of Racial Accommodation: The Japanese of Los Angeles, 1900-1942 (Urbana, IL., 1977), 113-16
29. Hayashi, 'For the Sake of Our Japanese Brethren', 120-121
30. Valerie J. Matsumoto, "Japanese American Women and the Creation of Urban Nisei Culture in the 1930s," in Over the Edge: Remapping the American West, ed. Valerie J. Matsumoto and Blake Allmendinger (Berkeley, 1999), 295-96
31. Benson Tong, "Asian American Girls," in Girlhood in America: An Encyclopedia, 2 vols., ed. Miriam Forman-Brunell (Santa Barbara, CA., 2001), 1:51
32. Valerie J. Matsumoto, Farming the Home Place: A Japanese American Community in California, 1919-1982 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1993), 76-77
33. Lauren Kessler, Stubborn Twig: Three Generations in the Life of A Japanese American Family (New York, 1993), 131-132. Kessler's work is a biography that offers the story of a Hood River family in Oregon
34. Arthur A. Hansen, Japanese American World War II Evacuation Oral History Project, Part III: Analysts, 5 vols. (Munich, 1994), 3:50. Hansen's multi-volume work offers complete transcriptions of interviews conducted with Nisei adults who were youngsters during that period
35. Japanese American National Museum, Regenerations Oral History Project: Rebuilding Japanese American Families, Communities, and Civil Rights in the Resettlement Era, 4 vols. (Los Angeles, 2000), 1:443. This multi-volume collection offers complete transcriptions of interviews conducted with adult Issei and Nisei in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Chicago, but who were youngsters during the war years
36. Hansen, Japanese American World War II Evacuation, 3:50
37. Japanese American National Museum, Regenerations, 3:199
38. see also Matsumoto, Farming the Home Place, 76-77
39. Kathleen Coles and Susan Imswiler, eds., Japanese Americans: Generations in Nevada (Reno, Oral History Program, 2000), 56. This collection of unedited interviews focuses on Japanese Americans who lived in Nevada during that era
40. Mei T. Nakano, Japanese American Women: Three Generations, 1890-1990 (Berkeley, 1990), 111
41. Takahashi, Nisei/Sansei, 43
42. Japanese American National Museum, Regenerations, 4:17
43. Standing Guard Publication Group, Standing Guard: Telling Our Stories (Placer County, CA., 2002), 60
44. for another similar account, see also Jill H. Kunishige, "Nisei Journey: How Five Japanese American Siblings Responded to Internment Years of World War II" (MA. thesis, Pacific Oak College, Pasadena, California, 2002), 67. The first source offers extensive edited interviews with Japanese American ex-internees who were children during that era. The second source offers extended excerpts of interviews conducted with adults who were children during that era
45. Kazuko Endo, "My Experiences of the Past Year," December 30, 1942, Japanese [American] Evacuation and Resettlement Study JERS (henceforth JERS), Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, no. 67/14C, reel 322, folder P2.741. The JERS collection - which covered all existing camps - was generated by social scientists during that period who often made participant observation studies and at other times collected documents of the camp administrations. Among these documents were essays schoolchildren wrote for schoolwork, camp newspapers that featured columns on children's activities, and camp school newspapers that children and adolescents published
46. Ellen Levine, A Fence Away from Freedom: Japanese Americans and World War II (New York, 1995), 14. This anthology provides excerpts of interviews of a representative sampling of adult Japanese Americans who were children in all of the different camps
47. Japanese American National Museum, Regenerations, 1:9
48. Elliott West and Paula Petrik, "Introduction," in Small Worlds: Children and Adolescents in America, 1850-1950, ed. Elliott West and Paula Petrik (Lawrence, KS, 1992), 4
49. See also several similar accounts of schoolchildren in the farming White River Valley of Washington in Stan Flewelling, Shirakawa: Stories from a Pacific Northwest Japanese American Community (Auburn, Wash, 2002), 178
50. also see Dempster, From Our Side of the Fence, 3-4
51. Mary Hara, "Reviewing the Past Year," undated, most likely 1942, JERS, reel 322, folder P2.741
52. For other similar accounts, see also Japanese American National Museum, Regenerations, 2: 210-211, 214
53. Endo, "My Experiences of the Past Year."
54. For other similar accounts, see Levine, Fence Away from Freedom, 15-27
55. Quote in Pak, Wherever I Go, I Will Always Be a Loyal American, 119
56. First quote in Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, Farewell to Manzanar (Boston, 1973), 8
57. second quote in John Tateishi, ed. And Justice For All: An Oral History of the Japanese American Detention Camps (New York, 1984), 33
58. third quote in Eileen Sunada Sarasohn, ed., The Issei: Portrait of a Pioneer: An Oral History (Palo Alto, CA., 1983), 158
59. see also Masako Nakae's recollections in Standing Guard Publication Group, Standing Guard, 60
60. Hansen, Japanese American World War II Evacuation, 58
61. Yoshito Steven Hirabayashi, "The Educational Experiences of Japanese American Children in Relocation Camp Schools During World War II" (Ph.D. diss. University of San Francisco, California, 1993), 31. This dissertation provides long excerpts of interviews that the author conducted with adult Japanese Americans who were children during that period
62. Jim Akagi, "My First Experience in a War," December 28, 1942, JERS, reel 322, folder P2.741
63. see also George Takei, To the Stars: The Autobiography of George Takei (New York, 1994), 12
64. Akagi, "My First Experience in a War"; Tomiko Masuda, "The Happenings from December 7 and on (41-42)," JERS, reel 322, folder P2.741
65. Mits Kawachi, "My Experiences during the First Year of War," December 28, 1942, JERS, reel 322, folder P2.741
66. Kessler, Stubborn Twig, 209
67. Shusho Kumata, "How Our Life Has Changed in A Year," January 3, 1943, JERS, reel 322, folder P2.741
68. See also Akagi, "My First Experience in a War" and Endo, "My Experiences of the Past Year."
69. Linda Tamura, The Hood River Issei: An Oral History of Japanese Settlers in Oregon's Hood River Valley (Urbana, IL., 1993), 176. Tamura's work provides excerpts of interviews of adult Japanese Americans reflecting on their children's experiences
70. See also Fusa Tsumagari to Breed, April 25, 1942
71. Margaret Ishiro to Breed, September 8, 1942
72. Ogawa to Breed, September 16, 1942
73. William Bill Watanabe to Breed, January 23, 1943
74. Ogawa to Breed, January 27, 1943, all Clara Breed Collection
75. Katherine Tasaki to Breed, July 24, 1942, Breed Collection
76. Itsuko Taniguchi, poem, quoted in Gary Y. Okihiro and Joan Myers, Whispered Silences: Japanese Americans and World War II (Seattle, 1996), 197
77. Hayami, January 1, 1943, diary
78. See also Yuko Hirasaki to Breed, September 16, 1942, Tsumagari to Breed, May 8, 1942, Breed Collection
79. Tasaki to Breed, March 16, 1944, Breed Collection
80. Standing Guard Publication Group, Standing Guard, 87, 89
81. Hara, "Reviewing the Past Year."
82. see also William Akiyoshi, 'Experience in a Camp," undated, most likely 1942, JERS, reel 322, folder P2.741
83. Hirabayashi, "Educational Experiences of Japanese American Children," 39
84. See also Kunishige, "Nisei Journey," 55, 71
85. James, Exile Within, 65
86. Robert Cooperman, "The Americanization of Americans: The Phenomenon of Nisei Internment Camp Theater," in Re-Collecting Early Asian America: Essays in Cultural History, ed. Josephine Lee, Imogene L. Lim, and Yuko Matsukawa (Philadelphia, 2002), 327, 329
87. Hirabayashi, "Educational Experiences of Japanese American Children," 37
88. Valerie Matsumoto, "Nisei Women and Resettlement During World War II," in Making Waves: An Anthology of Writings By and About Asian American Women, ed. Asian Women United of California (Boston, 1989), 116
89. see also Tamura, Hood River Issei, 204, 206-207
90. Charles Kikuchi, The Kikuchi Diary: Chronicle from an American Concentration Camp, ed. John Modell (Urbana, IL., 1973), 53, 62, 89-90. Kikuchi kept this diary while residing in the camp; he made numerous observations of his own family life, including those related to his female siblings and their relationship to his parents
91. On how delinquency was tied to breakdown of family life, as understood by wartime social scientists, see Jeffrey P. Moran, Teaching Sex: The Shaping of Adolescence in the 20th Century (Cambridge, Mass, 2000), 121-122
92. For reporting of juvenile delinquency, see Rohwer Outpost, February 6, 1943
93. Topaz Times, March 1, 1943
94. Poston Chronicle, March 11, 1943
95. Richard S. Nishimoto, Inside an American Concentration Camp: Japanese American Resistance at Poston, Arizona, ed. Lane Ryo Hirabayashi (Tucson, AZ, 1995), 88, 90. Nishimoto's observations were made during the camp years as part of his job as a field worker or assistant to social scientists who documented the nature of the camp life
96. Spickard, Japanese Americans, 56-57
97. see also Isami Arifuku Waugh, "Hidden Crime and Deviance in the Japanese-American Community, 1920-1946" (Ph.D. diss. University of California, Berkeley, 1978), 12-15, 156-159, 241
98. Nishimoto, Inside an American Concentration Camp, 139
99. Waugh, "Hidden Crime and Deviance in the Japanese-American Community," 169-71, 178, 199
100. Waugh, "Hidden Crime and Deviance in the Japanese-American Community," 180-196
101. "Editorial: Juvenile Delinquency," Rohwer Outpost, February 6, 1943
102. "It Must Be Stopped," Granada Pioneer, March 20, 1943
103. "Group Seek to Coordinate All Activities," Heart Mountain Sentinel, January 9, 1943
104. U.S. Department of War, Final Report: Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast, 1942 (New York, 1978), 207. This as well as other government reports documented the origins, implementation, and closure of the camps
105. The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (Washington, D.C., 1982), 144-45
106. Lilian Yuriko to Breed, April 20, 1942, Clara Breed Collection
107. Sandra C. Taylor, Jewel of the Desert: Japanese American Internment at Topaz (Berkeley, 1993), 120
108. See for examples Arthur L. Harris to Miles E. Cary, memorandum, February 3, 1943, JERS, reel 203, folder J2. 112
109. see also Thomas, Exile Within, 46-47
110. Topaz Times, November 17, 1942
111. Press Bulletin (Poston), September 27, 1942
112. Tasaki to Breed, May 18, 1943, Clara Breed Collection
113. Japanese American National Museum, Regenerations, 2:250
114. Tsumagari to Breed, February 2, 1943, Clara Breed Collection
115. William D. Zeller, An Educational Drama: The Educational Program Provided the Japanese-Americans During the Relocation Period, 1942-1945 (New York, 1969), 79-80
116. Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, "The Impact of Incarceration on the Education of Nisei Schoolchildren," in Japanese Americans: From Relocation to Redress, ed. Roger Daniel, Sandra C. Taylor, and Harry H. L. Kitano (Salt Lake City, 1986), 44, 48
117. "Summary of Progress Toward Objectives, Core IX," JERS, reel 203, folder J2. 112
118. Shig Sakamoto, "How the War Affected Me," undated, JERS, reel 322, folder P2. 741
119. Hansen, Japanese American World War II Evacuation, 3:60, 64-65
120. quote in Miles E. Cary, "The Educational Program at Poston, Arizona, January 1943," JERS, reel 203, folder J2. 112
121. Charles Wollenberg, "Schools Behind Barbed Wire," California Historical Quarterly 55 (no. 3, 1976): 214
122. Hirabayashi, "Educational Experiences of Japanese American Children," 42
123. see also Japanese American National Museum, Regenerations, 1:13-14, 440
124. See also ibid, 2:66
125. Samuel O. Regalado, "Incarcerated Sport: Nisei Women's Softball and Athletics During the Japanese American Internment," Journal of Sports History 27 (Fall 2000): 439
126. Taylor, Jewel of the Desert, 125
127. Hirabayashi, "Educational Experiences of Japanese American Children," 39, 42, 52
128. John Armor and Peter Wright, Manzanar (New York, 1988), 111
129. Eleanor Gerard Sekerak, "A Teacher in Topaz," in Japanese Americans: From Relocation to Redress, eds. Roger Daniels, Sandra C. Taylor, and Harry H.L. Kitano (Salt Lake City, 1986), 41
130. Yoshiko Uchida, Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese-American Family (Seattle, 1982), 124-125
131. Catherine Embree Harris, Dusty Exile: Looking Back at Japanese Relocation During World War II (Honolulu, 1999), 51, 61. The last three sources - essentially autobiographies - document the lives of two school teachers who taught in the camp schools during the internment era
132. Zeller, An Educational Drama, 93
133. See also Masako Okada, "Enter to Learn; Go Forth to Serve," salutatorian address, June 1943, JERS, reel 322, folder P2.741
134. "Narrative Report for School Month October 1943, Poston II Schools," 1943, JERS, reel 203, folder J 2.21
135. See "High School Students to Aid School Completion," Poston Chronicle, June 3, 1943
136. Armor and Wright, Manzanar, 108
137. Lloyd A. Garrison, "Education Section: Final Report," 1945, JERS, reel 309, folder L 7.00
138. "280 Participate in Camp Harvest," Hunt Hi-Lites, November 23, 1943, JERS, reel 322, folder P2.761
139. for coverage of such involvement, see General Information Bulletin (Heart Mountain), September 25, 1942
140. Heart Mountain Sentinel, April 24, 1942
141. Granada Pioneer, November 14, 1942, August 25, 1943
142. Tuttle, Jr., 'Daddy's Gone to War', 113-115
143. Mitzi Nagasaka, "Memories That Will Subsist in My Mind," undated, most likely 1942, JERS, reel 322, folder P 2.741
144. For other similar accounts, see Japanese American National Museum, Regenerations, 1:158, 2:311
145. Tomiko Masuda, "The Happenings from December 7 and on (1941-42)," undated, most likely 1942, JERS, reel 322, folder P2. 741
146. "Editorial," It, December 11, 1944, JERS, reel 296, folder L3.49
147. "Editorial," Hunt Hi-Lites, March 3, 1944, JERS, reel 322, folder P2.761
148. Nagasaka, "Memories That Will Subsist in My Mind."
149. Ogawa to Breed, August 27, 1942, Breed Collection
150. Edward H. Spicer, et al. Impounded People: Japanese-Americans in the Relocation Center (Tucson, AZ, 1969), 87-88
151. Sakamoto, "How the War Affected Me."
152. Harris, Dusty Exile, 52
153. "Eight Boys Blast Charges Made By Miller as Groundless, Unfair," Minidoka Irrigator, November 7, 1942
154. Jiro Sumita, "Friendly Gesture," Granada Pioneer, December 5, 1942
155. For the concept "racial re-articulation," see Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1980s (New York, 1986)
156. quote on 5; for the phrase "subject positions," see Lisa Lowe, "Heterogeneity, Hybridity, Multiplicity: Marking Asian American Differences," Diaspora 1, no. 1 (1991): 24-44
157. Hayami, "My Viewpoint of the Evacuation," undated, diary
158. "What Fourth of July Means to Me By High School Students," Poston Chronicle, July 4, 1943
159. "Editorial", The Spotlight, January 1945, JERS, reel 295, folder L3.43
160. Donna K. Nagata, Legacy of Injustice: Exploring the Cross-Generational Impact of the Japanese American Internment (New York, 1993), 31-32
161. Kurashige, Japanese American Celebration and Conflict, 6
162. Hayami, December 14, 1942, diary
163. See also "We Face Future with Faith in U.S.," Heart Mountain Sentinel, June 12, 1943
164. "Editorial," Hunt Hi-lites, January 7, 1944, reel 322, folder P2.761
165. Mac Sakaguchi, "Gardens," Mystic, JERS, June 15, 1943, reel 295, folder L3.40
166. Fumiye Ando, "The War Stamps or Bond That You Bought Today," Junior Pioneer, February 1944, reel 295, folder L3.26
167. "Why Are You Here," It, October 30, 1944, JERS, reel 296, folder L3.55
168. see also Tasaki to Breed, May 18, 1943, Tsumagari to Breed, May 3, 1943, Hisako Watanabe to Breed, October 6, 1943, Clara Breed Collection
169. Ann Koto Hayashi, Face of the Enemy Heart of the Patriot: Japanese-American Internment Narratives (New York, 1995), 61
170. "Editorial," The Condenser, August 30, 1943, JERS, reel 139, folder N 1.148
171. "Editorial," It, May 19, 1944, JERS, reel 209, folder L 3.55
172. "Editorial," Campus Pepper, May 21, 1943, JERS, reel 151, folder 02.156
173. For impact of resettlement on women, see Matsumoto, "Nisei Women and Resettlement"; for impact of resettlement on male and female college students, see Okihiro, Storied Lives
174. "Kansas Elementary School Admits Nisei After Dispute," Granada Pioneer, November 31, 1943. S
175. ee also "On Relocation," Rohwer Outpost, November 24, 1943
176. for other negative treatments, see also Daniel I. Okimoto, American In Disguise (N.Y., 1971), 49
177. Okihiro, Storied Lives, 76, 80-81
178. for other similar accounts of successful adjustment, see Thomas James, "Life Begins with Freedom: The College Nisei, 1942-1945," History of Education Quarterly 25 (1987): 155-174
179. Robert W. O'Brien, The College Nisei (Palo Alto, CA., 1949)
180. Kimi Nagotani to Sue, letter, undated, reprinted in Campus Pepper, June 4, 1943, JERS, reel 151, folder O 2.156
181. Fumio Naka, letter to Sue, Campus Pepper, May 21, 1943, JERS, reel 151, folder O 2.156
182. Okihiro, Storied Lives, 135
183. Charlotte Brooks, "In the Twilight Zone Between Black and White: Japanese American Resettlement and Community in Chicago, 1942-1945," Journal of American History 87 (March 2000): 1679
184. Okihiro, Storied Lives, 37-38, 71-72
185. Cromwell Mukai, excerpt of letter, undated, reprinted in Topaz Times, October 27, 1942
186. See also "Former Resident Gives Advice to Potential College Students," Heart Mountain Sentinel, August 7, 1943
187. "Minutes of the Coordinating Council Meeting," November 28, 1944, Manzanar, JERS, reel 150, folder O1.190
188. Hayami, diary, January 4, 1943
189. For examples see Stafford Press, May 1944, JERS, reel 322, folder P2.762
190. see also Erica Harth, Last Witnesses, 198-199
191. Takako Aoki, "On Relocating," Manzanar Whirlwind, March 1945, JERS, reel 150, folder O2.061
192. Kazuo Kamachi, "Why Would I Like to Relocate," Manzanar Whirlwind, March 1945, JERS, reel 150, folder O2.061