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g7.217,1(16D]ÒM - pV-HOHQNRUL(J\HWHPHV7|UWpQHWL7DQV]pNWXGRPiQ\RVN|]OHPpQ\HL1 o 2015/1. ELTE, BTK, BUDAPEST, 2018. Cseh 'iQLHO 1 7KHµ$PHULFDQ:D\¶ The Forced Removal and Internment of the Hawaiian Japanese Abstract After the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, ± the defensive outpost of Oahu, the Hawaiian Islands ± the fate of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and Japanese aliens was dictated by the national defense and military necessity of the United States. The West Coast and Hawaiian Japanese faced mass forced removal and incarceration due to their descent as scapegoats for the unprovoked and sudden attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy. Nevertheless, as opposed to their peers on the Pacific Coast the Hawaiian Japanese were treated on an individual basis, making distinction between the loyal and potentially dangerous Japanese residents. Despite of the shock, racial prejudice, and paranoia the local Japanese were not collectively removed and placed in internment camps for the duration of the war. The multicultural and ethnic diversity of Hawaii, the labor needs of the islands, and the work of the intelligence agencies and military government HQVXUHGWKDWWKHµ$PHULFDQZD\¶SUH vailed on the Hawaiian Islands. Keywords: Japanese immigration; Hawaiian Islands; Hawaiian Japanese; West Coast Japanese; Japanese aliens (Issei); Japanese Americans (Nisei, Kibei); -DSDQHVHµSUREOHP¶ ; martial law; military government; forced removal and incarceration of persons of Japanese descent; After the sudden attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, distinguishing between loyalty and disloyalty was a primary concern for the authorities and the Roosevelt Administration, determining how to GHDO ZLWK WKH -DSDQHVH µSUREOHP¶ DQG WKH IRUFHG H[FOXVLRQ DQG incarceration of persons of Japanese ancestry from the Hawaiian Islands and the West Coast. There was an obvious push for the wholesale removal and incarceration of the Japanese community in order to FRXQWHUWKHDOOHJHGVXEYHUVLYHDFWLYLW\DQGµ)LIWK&ROXPQ¶WKUHDWSRVHG by the Japanese that endangered the national defense of the United States. In spite of intelligence and reports on the Japanese issue on February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order N o 9066. 2 It was carried out on a collective basis on the West 1 3K'VWXGHQW(|WY|V/RUiQG University, Budapest, [email protected] * The paper was made possible by the research grants awarded by the Hungarian- American Fulbright Commission (2016) and the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies 39 &VHK'iQLHO 7KHµ$PHULFDQ:D\¶7KH)RUFHG5HPRYDODQG, nternment of the Hawaiian Japanese Coast without any regard to age, gender, or citizenship. Ten incarceration centers were established on the Mainland and over 110,000 American citizens of Japanese parentage and Japanese nationals ± approximately 86% of the Japanese population of the Continental United States ± were excluded from the Pacific Coast and were detained in the permanent detention camps until the conclusion of WKHZDU7KHµLQFDUFHUHHV¶ZHUHHYHQWXDOO\UHOHDVHGRQ-DQXDU\ after the exclusion orders were revoked and they were allowed to resettle on the West Coast. However, contrary to the experiences of the West Coast Japanese the authorities employed a case by case principle on the Hawaiian Islands in dealing with the local Japanese in an effort to distinguish between the loyal and the potentially dangerous elements. The outbreak of the war affected a civilian population of approximately 423,330 residents due to forced restrictions and regulations, including 157,905 persons of Japanese ancestry. Immediately after the attack martial law was implemented in the Territory of Hawaii on December 7, 1941, and was only lifted on October 24, 1944, when President Roosevelt signed Executive Order N o 9489, thereby terminating martial law. The Presidential order also granted the Commanding General the authority to detain and remove dangerous persons from the Territory of Hawaii; it provided the same power as Executive Order N o 9066 on the West Coast. The potentially dangerous Japanese were identified and were kept under surveillance by the authorities, the counterintelligence agencies compiled a list of suspects to be apprehended in the case of conflict with Japan. The apprehensions were based on these lists and the first arrest was made on December 7, 1941, at 11:00 a.m. Throughout the war about 10,000 individuals were investigated by the intelligence agencies, as a result of this procedure 1,569 people were arrested, 1,466 of them were Japanese. Over all 1,250 Hawaiian Japanese were interned, representing less than 1% of the Japanese population of Hawaii. (Middelburg, The Netherlands, 2014). The research was also supported by the Asian American Studies Department, College of Ethnic Studies, San Francisco State University, and the Japanese American National Library in San Francisco. 2 Executive Order N o 9066 approved the mass forced removal and incarceration of persons of Japanese ancestry citing military necessity and national defense. The United States Government indicated in the Presidential order that it was in the interest of the war effort, ÄWKHVXFFHVVIXOSURVHFXWLRQRIWKHZDU´ , to protect against espionage and sabotage that might target the Änational-defense material, national- defense premises, and national- GHIHQVHXWLOLWLHV´ The order was broadly defined and did not single out Japanese aliens and American citizens of Japanese descent. The Hawaii Department did not fall under the authority of the Western Defense Command, which meant that Executive Order N o 9066 did not apply to the Territory of Hawaii. Exec. Order. N o 9066, 7 Fed. Reg. 1407 (February 25, 1942), https://catalog.archives.gov/id/5730250 (accessed May 24 2017). 40 g7.217,1(16D]ÒM - pV-HOHQNRUL(J\HWHPHV7|UWpQHWL7DQV]pNWXGRPiQ\RVN|]OHPpQ\HL1 o 2015/1. ELTE, BTK, BUDAPEST, 2018. The study of the forced removal and incarceration of the Hawaiian Japanese offers a point of comparison that needs to be examined in GHSWKWREHWWHUXQGHUVWDQGWKH-DSDQHVHµSUREOHP¶DQGWKHVWDWXVRIWKH Japanese inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands, and the West Coast Japanese. Such crucial factors have to be examined as the Japanese immigration to and the ethnic diversity of the Hawaiian Islands, which created a multicultural and ethnic environment that proved to be more accepting than the West Coast. The labor needs/problems of Hawaii played an important role in opposing the mass removal of the Japanese community, even though according to President Franklin D. Roosevelt military and naval safety should have been absolutely paramount. Furthermore, the standpoint of the intelligence agencies, the pivotal departments, and the Roosevelt Administration will also be introduced. The present paper will study how the Japanese question was handled DQGKRZWKHµ$PHULFDQZD\¶± called for by Lieutenant General Delos C. Emmons, Commanding General of the Hawaiian Department, and Military Governor of Hawaii ± prevailed in the Territory of Hawaii despite of the push for mass removal. The Hawaiian Japanese: General Historical Overview The history of the Hawaiian Japanese can be traced back to the arrival of Manjiro Nakahama on June 27, 1841, 3 one of the most well documented Japanese immigrants to reach the Kingdom of Hawaii; the first Japanese to arrive were eight shipwrecked sailors who were brought to Hawaii in 1806 after they were rescued at sea. 4 Nevertheless, it was 1868 that marked the beginning of the migration from Japan with the departure of a group of 148 ±150 Japanese contract laborers 5 who left for Hawaii. They were called the µ*DQQHQ 0RQR¶ µILUVW -\HDU SHRSOHPHQ¶ since they left during the first year of the Meiji Period. There was a need 3 -DSDQHVH$PHULFDQ&LWL]HQV¶/HDJXH1DWLRQDO(GXFDWLRQ&RPPLWWHH A Lesson in American History: The Japanese American Experience, Curriculum Resource Guide , 5 th ed. JACL, 2011, 23. In a different source the year 1843 is given as the date IRU0DQMLUR1DNDKDPD¶VDUULYDOLQWKH.LQJGRPRI+DZDLL&OLIIRUG, UYEDA (ed.): Due Process: Americans of Japanese Ancestry and the United States Constitution 1787-1994, National Japanese American Historical Society, San Francisco, 1995, 14. 4 UYEDA: 14. 5 Thomas SOWELL, Ä7KH -DSDQHVH´ Ethnic America: A History, Basic Books, New York, 1981, 155 ±179, 159; Harry H. L. KITANO, Ä-DSDQHVH´ IN: Stephan THERNSTROM (ed.): Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups , Cambridge, Belknap Press of Harvard UP, Mass. 1980, 561. According to Roger Daniels, citing Hilary Conroy, it was around 1869 that the pioneer group of Japanese (141 men, 6 women, and 1 child), WKH µ *DQQHQ 0RQR¶ , arrived in Hawaii to work on the sugar plantations. Roger DANIELS: Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States since 1850 University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1988, 100. 41 &VHK'iQLHO 7KHµ$PHULFDQ:D\¶7KH)RUFHG5HPRYDODQG, nternment of the Hawaiian Japanese for laborers in Hawaii and the Hawaiian Trading Commissioner was stationed in Tokyo to recruit workers for the sugar plantations. What is unique about Japanese immigration is the close involvement of the Japanese government, the policy of the government to intervene and regulate the emigration of its nationals. The Japanese government cooperated with the Hawaiian officials due to fear of the Japanese immigrants being associated with the Chinese laborers, that Japan would become the origin of cheap labor comparable to China of the mid- 19 th century, 6 and face exclusion from the United States. Japanese in Hawaii, 1900-1970 7 Year Total Population Percentage Japanese