The Latin-American Japanese and World War II

The Latin-American Japanese and World War II C. Harvey Gardiner During World War II the United States was a co- which Panama had arrested and interned its Axis conspirator and participant in a program that seized, aliens, declared war against the Axis states, and frozen shipped, and interned 2,264 Latin-American Japanese, Axis fands. Soon, however, the internment issue pro against none of whom was a charge of espionage, sabo voked a different approach. After enumerating the tage, or subversion ever leveled. Residents of twelve problems attendant upon the construction, mainte Latin-American countries, they experienced the viola nance, and operation of an internment camp, Amer tion of their civil and legal rights, both by their country ican authorities suggested that the enemy aliens be sent of residence and by various branches of the American to the United States “as was done during the last war.” government.1 Panama agreed.2 The ignorance, prejudice, hate, fear, and dis So it came about that, before Christmas 1941, the regard for legal norms that accompanied American progressive steps whereby enemy aliens were appre abuse of Japanese Americans reached out to include hended, interned, and shipped from Panam a to the Japanese Latin Americans living on the Pacific side, United States reflected close adherence to, if not con from Mexico to Chile. Brazil, with more Japanese than scious duplication of the experience of 1917-1918, ail the rest of Latin America, was not involved by when Germans first went to Taboga Island and then virtue of its facing the Atlantic. The same was true of were shipped north. In both instances, the specter of Argentina. One country, Peru, was home to approxi lax Panamanian control of internees sped the process. mately 75 percent of the people of Japanese ancestry on The U.S. -Panamanian precedent bred the program of the Pacific side of Latin America; however, even 1941-1942 and it, in turn, established the American though Peru, a primary focus of U.S. policy, deserves approach to the control of .presumably dangerous aliens our major attention, the program did not originate from the rest of Latin America where, also, no agree there, nor did it begin with the United States. In fact, ments were reduced to writing. it did not even begin with World War II. On December 9—less than forty-eight hours after The tiny country of Panama played a precedent- the bombing at Pearl Harbor—American efforts aimed making role regarding enemy aliens that influenced the at economic strangulation through a government- intemment-repatriation program of the entire hemi sponsored boycott that listed 159 Japanese businesses sphere. On October 17-18, 1941, the American [in Peru. This blacklist was euphemistically termed ambassador and the Panamanian foreign minister dis [The Proclaimed List of Certain Blocked Nationals." cussed the internment of the Japanese in the event of ■Probably that fazzy avoidance of truth was conceived war. After reviewing the record of U.S.-Panamanian by some of the same minds that avoided the term cooperation during World War I, they concluded that “concentration camps” when they referred to the Panama would arrest the ethnic Japanese on Panama handling of Japanese Americans. nian soil and intern them onTaboga Island, nine miles After the January 1942 meeting in Rio de Janeiro off the Pacific end of the canal. The United States of Western Hemisphere foreign ministers, numerous would bear all expenses and assume hill responsibility Latin-American governments broke diplomatic ties should any claims arise. The two governments never with Japan and prepared to repatriate their enemy reduced these arrangements to a written document. aliens, diplomatic and consular personnel, and private For months Panamanian authorities, aided by citizens, via the United States. In April 1942 they American officials—especially FBI agents—had been arrived in the United States from Panama, Costa Rica, refining their lists of potentially subversive aliens. On Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. The initial December 7, 1941, in a matter of hours, they took ousting and repatriating of Japanese who were not those Axis aliens into custody. An analysis of Japanese formal representatives of Japan along with the diplo apprehended indicates that 94 percent were arrested mats opened the door to continuing these practices. that very day; 71 percent in the city of Panama, 23 Basic responsibility for deportation and intern percent in Colon. ment programs rested with the chief executives of the Ambassador Edwin C. Wilson urged the immedi various countries. “When the security of the state ate construction in Panama of an internment camp. requires it,” Article 70 of the Peruvian Constirution Particularly pleasing to Washington was the speed with read, “the Executive can suspend totailv r par 1 _ a rtN - A v i£ * k _ a n J a p a n e s e 143 tially. the guarantees sec down in Articles 56, 61, the press mounted attacks on the Japanese, the Peru 62,67 and 68. ” That meant that Peruvian homes could vian police fashioned lists of prospective deportees that be invaded and individuals detained without written encouraged the solicitation and acceptance of bribes in authorization, that people could neither congregate return for the opportunity to escape deportation tem nor move about freely, and finally, that they could be porarily. removed from the country without legal recourse. In early 1942, in both Lacm America and the Other Latin-American constitutions and laws were United States, more uncertainty and tension beset similar. those of Japanese ancestry. Then the American gov At the same time, in the United States the Alien ernment corralled them in the horse barm of sLita Enemy Act of 1798 permitted the summary appre Anita and other assembly centers en. route to desolate hension and internment of nationals of states at war relocation centers. In the same period, those m Peru with the United States. However, to apply this 143- scheduled for internment, they knew not where, were year-old law to Latin-American Japanese, someone fretting in the Jails of Lima and other cities. would have to seize those enemy aliens and bring them In the Lima embassy, Emmerson concluded that within range of American legal authority. That, in the Japanese posed a very serious problem. He con turn, called for U.S.-Latin American cooperation at sidered the colony in Peru, led by a telanvciy small the executive level. number of powerful individuals, to be dangerous, thor Between April 1942 and April 1945 approxi oughly organized, and intensely patriotic. To defuse mately 1,800 Peruvian Japanese were interned in the the potential danger associated with the colony, he United States. They represented 80 percent of all the recommended that “Japanese leaders believed to be Latin-American Japanese interned here. The deporta dangerous should be expelled from Peru. These in tion-internment program involving the Latin- clude," Emmerson declared, “officers of Japanese asso American Japanese was totally unrelated to the reloca ciations, businessmen who have been active in the tion-internment program of the War Relocation Au Japanese colony, journalists, directors of educational thority. The Immigration and Naturalization Service and propaganda organizations, and teachers in held the people from Latin America in Texas, at Japanese schools."5 The State Department quickly Kenedy in a one-time CCC camp; at Seagoville in a established these recommendations as the cornerstone federal reformatory for women; and at Crystal City in a of the ensuing deportation program. migrant labor camp. Pivotal in this statement of criteria for expulsion As soon as the first shipment of enemy aliens were the words “believed to. be dangerous." Many arrived from Panama, the question of keeping the individuals named by Peruvian authorities could well internee families together quickly entered U .S .-' be the objects of economic envy, cultural detestation, Peruvian relations. When the State Department and irrational and emotional outbursts, and whimsical dis the Peruvian Foreign Office agreed that family unity like. To Peruvians, the Japanese constituted social and should be preserved, one was left to wonder how much economic, not military, dangers, and the designation of the decision stemmed from elementary humanitar- of “dangerous" men by Peru largely ignored American ianism and how much reflected the expedient control concerns about the conduct of a war. Inasmuch as of even larger numbers of aliens. After all, the U.S. Emmerson’s expulsion criteria required no proof that a ambassador in Lima, R. Henry Norweb, had declared, person was dangerous, American authorities were will “We may be able to assist the Peruvian Government by ing to ally themselves with Peruvians in a program that making available information and suggestions based honored blind prejudice and emotion, ignoring legal upon our handling of Japanese residents of the United rights and formalities. It was happening that way with States."3 the Japanese Americans in the United States, so why The embassy staff in Lima included John K. not in Peru? Emmerson, probably the only person with a command By mid-June 1942, three ships had transported of Japanese at any American diplomatic mission in all Japanese from west coast South American countries to Latin America. Thirty-five years later he would de the United States. One vessel, the Etolin, docked at clare, “During my period of service in the embassy we San Francisco; the other two, the Acadia and the found no reliable evidence of planned or contemplated S/uxumee, transited the canal and docked at New acts of sabotage, subversion, or espionage."4 Nonethe Orleans. Among the passengers on the three ships were less, Japanese assets were frozen and successive issues of more than 500 Peruvian Japanese, all of whom were the American blacklist targeted more businesses.

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