Parkland College recently hosted a guest speaker, Mari Yamagiwa who led a presentation entitled “The Japanese American Experience During WWII”.
Yamagiwa is a Chicago native and University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana (UIUC) alumni, having obtained a Master’s in Social Work (MSW). Currently, she works as a program coordinator at New Breath Foundation, an organization dedicated to supporting Asian Americans, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders, in addition to immigrants, refugees, and other survivors.
As a fourth-generation Japanese American, Yamagiwa has had an inside look at what life was like for her family and those of similar ancestry during WWII. Her great-grandparents, along with a vast number of Japanese American citizens, immigrated from Japan to the United States west coast in the early 1900s, creating lives for themselves as farmers, fishermen, business owners, and laborers.
Decades later, the lives of roughly 120,000 individuals of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of which were American citizens, would have their lives uprooted.
Following the bombings on December 7th of 1941 at Pearl Harbor, the FBI immediately arrested hundreds of Japanese American community and religious leaders with the absence of both evidence and explanation. The already present Japanese discrimination grew to new heights. Political figures such as L.A. mayor Fletcher Bowron began publicly advocating for the removal of Japanese Americans’ citizenship. Students learned that even their favorite childhood author, Dr. Seuss, was responsible for producing Anti-Japanese comics and caricatures.
In February of 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066. This order permitted the removal of citizens that were considered a threat to “relocation centers” further inland. Japanese Americans were ultimately targeted.
The “relocation centers” were dry, desolate areas. Fairgrounds, racetracks, and even horse stables were used until the long-term facilities were built.
A lesson in terminology was in order amid Yamagiwa’s presentation.
“Words change the ways stories are told.”
Mari Yamagiwa
A list of commonly used words concerning the Japanese WWII incarceration side by side to a more accurate term:
Relocation → forced removal/exclusion
Internment → incarceration
Internment camps → concentration/incarceration camps
Yamagiwa painted a picture of life in the incarceration camps through illustrative words and visuals. “Lines were everywhere,” Yamagiwa described. On average, about 300 people shared one facility such as bathrooms and dining halls. Meanwhile, two or more families shared living quarters. If a family managed to procure a space of their own, there was little to no separation or privacy; many walls did not even reach the ceilings. Rooms were only supplied with an oil stove, one hanging light bulb, and little to no insulation. Illness and food poisoning had a constant presence. The tragic reality of the mass incarceration of the Japanese population in America was that some entered the camps and never saw life outside of barbed wire again.
It is important to note that regardless of the conditions, Japanese Americans made a life for themselves in the camps, in what Yamagiwa describes as “creative resistance”. Isolation, fear, and uncertainty plagued the camps. nonetheless, the incarcerated forged their happiness. They held church, dances, sporting events, and other activities. “People married, worshiped, and had children,” Yamagiwa emphasized. “A powerful resistance to those who sought to dehumanize them.”
The incarcerated individuals also greatly contributed to the United States’ agricultural production and through military means during wartime. As bizarre as it seems, the U.S. draft found its way through the walls of the Japanese American concentration camps. Many were eager to prove their loyalty to the United States, while others refused to fight in light of the treatment received by the United States’ government. A group consisting almost entirely of Japanese American citizens, also known as the 100th infantry battalion, 422nd regiment, would become one of the most-decorated regiments in U.S. military history for their size and duration of service.
“The government was quick to tear down the camps,” Yamagiwa detailed. The last of the incarceration camps would be shut down in early 1946. Clearance interviews were conducted and the U.S. government sent Japanese Americans on their way, providing only a bus ticket. On their way where, though? The homes and possessions of the Japanese individuals living in America were essentially gone. Some began to rebuild what they had lost on the coast, others turned to the Midwest for a new life.
Despite release, the years spent in the camps would never escape the minds of Japanese Americans or their families. “On an individual level, the impact varied…” Yamagiwa explained. Many first-generation Japanese Americans had chosen to immigrate to the States in search of a better life, building it from the ground up. The country they had such high hopes for had come to label them an enemy based on their race. A bit of a contrast to second-generation Japanese Americans, in which some remember the concentration camps as fun; somewhere they could always hang out with friends. Their struggle arose later when they attained awareness of the reality of it all.
In another attempt to further prove their loyalty “Japanese Americans distanced themselves from Japanese culture, language, food, etc.” Yamagiwa said. The estrangement from certain aspects of Japanese heritage during and after the incarceration of WWII is, undoubtedly, still affecting families today.
“The incarceration of Japanese Americans didn’t come out of nowhere.”
Mari Yamagiwa
Starting with the Naturalization Act of 1790, U.S. citizenship was based on race. The United States’ legal demonstration of Asian discrimination can be traced back to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited the immigration of Chinese workers and deemed Chinese immigrants in the U.S. as aliens, and denied them U.S. citizenship. Prior to the second world war, policies like the Alien Land Act largely ostracized the Asian population in America, banning “aliens ineligible for citizenship” from owning or renting land. Laws were also in place for a time that stripped a woman’s U.S. citizenship if married to an alien. This created even more negative stigma around immigrants and foreigners. “This was a part of a large pattern of American history,” Yamagiwa said of the Japanese American incarceration. America has long opposed immigration and integration, an ideology we can see even today.
Demonstrating the lack of education on the topic, Yamagiwa asked for a show of hands as to who was taught about the Japanese American incarceration during WWII. Nearly everyone in Room D-105 raised their hand. Yamagiwa followed up by inquiring how many spent more than one class period on the subject- the amount of raised hands was significantly reduced.
There will never be any true justice for the events that the Japanese Americans experienced during WWII, but creating a more general awareness of this era in American history is the very least that can be done.
A huge thank you to Mari Yamagiwa!
This exceptional, informative presentation was also made possible by Professor Travis Sola and former Parkland student and president of the Japanese Culture Club, Joey Morton, who were inspired by a painting during a trip to the Japanese American Service Committee in Chicago, IL.
Riley Parks
Prospectus Reporter