After Camp Portraits in Midcentury Japa Nese American Life and Politics
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
After Camp Portraits in Midcentury Japa nese American Life and Politics .#", /(01+)(+ University of California Press —-1 !"#$"%"& '() *+,"%") '(+-(+ —0 —+1 571-48160_ch00_2P.indd iii 9/22/11 3:54 PM Portions of Chapter 2 3 rst appeared in Greg Robinson, “Le Projet M de Franklin Roo se velt: Construire un monde meilleur grâce à la science . des races,” Critique Internationale No. 45 (May 4667), pp. 87– 94. Portions of Chapters : and 26 3 rst appeared as Greg Robinson, “Nisei in Gotham: Japa nese Americans in War time New York,” Prospects: An Annual of American Cultural Studies, Vol. :6 (4667), pp. 792–7;7 . Chapter < originally appeared in somewhat different form as Greg Robinson, “Birth of a Citizen: Miné Okubo and the Poli- tics of Symbolism,” in Greg Robinson and Elena Tajima Creef, eds., Miné Okubo: Follow- ing Her Own Road (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 4669), pp. 2<;– 288. Portions of Chapter 8 3 rst appeared as Toni Robinson and Greg Robinson, “Mendez v. Westminster: Asian- Latino Co ali tion Triumphant?” Asian Law Journal, Vol. 26, 4 (May 466:), pp. 282– 29:, and in revised form as Greg Robinson and Toni Robinson, “The Limits of Interracial Co ali tion: Méndez v. Westminster Reconsidered,” in Nicholas De Genova, ed., Racial (Trans)formations: Latinos and Asians Remaking the United States (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 4668), pp. ;:– 22;. Chapter 22 3 rst appeared as Greg Robinson and Toni Robinson, “Korematsu and Beyond: Japa nese Americans and the Origins of Strict Scru- tiny,” Law & Contemporary Problems, Vol. 89, No. 4 (Spring 4667), pp. 4;– 77. Portions of Chapter 24 3 rst appeared in Greg Robinson, “Une alliance malaisée: Nisei et Africains- Américains,” Matériaux No. 95 (Autumn 4665), pp. <;– 88. University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more informa- tion, visit www .ucpress .edu . University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, En gland © 4624 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Robinson, Greg, 2;88– After camp : portraits in midcentury Japa nese American life and politics / Greg Robinson. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1)0+ ;59- 6- 746- 45279- 8 (cloth : alk. paper) 1)0+ ;59- 6- 746- 4527;- : (pbk. : alk. paper) 2. Japa nese Americans— Social conditions— 46th century. 4. Japa nese Americans— Politics and government— 46th century. :. Japa nese Americans— Civil rights— History—46th century. <. Japa nese Americans— Evacuation and relocation, 2;<4– 2;<7. 7. Cold War— Social aspects— United States. 8. Community life— United States— History—46th century. 5. United States— Social conditions—2;<7– 9. United States— Ethnic relations— 46th century. I. Title. E29<.J:R8: 4624 4624 ;5:'.6<;78—dc4: 46226:6<5< Manufactured in the United States of America 42 46 2; 29 25 28 27 2< 2: 24 -1— 26 ; 9 5 8 7 < : 4 2 0— In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable +1— printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on 76- pound Enterprise, a :6% post- consumer- waste, recycled, deinked 3 ber that is pro cessed chlorine- free. It is acid- free and meets all =+)1/+1)( (> :;.<9) requirements. 571-48160_ch00_2P.indd iv 9/22/11 3:54 PM 2. Po liti cal Science? FDR, Japa nese Americans, and the Postwar Dispersion of Minorities The term po liti cal science usually refers to all the ways— polls, models, and statistics—that academics have used to bring scienti3 c principles to the study of po liti cal behavior. Yet my use of these two words comes from a completely opposite direction and refers to the use of science for politi cal purposes— an unexamined aspect of the domestic and foreign policy of President Franklin Roose velt during the years of World War II. FDR and his advisors, believing that concentration of minority groups, especially urban- based, within established nations bred poverty and intergroup ten- sions, sought to alleviate con? ict by scienti3 cally planning the mass mi- gration and absorption of unwanted groups into rural and underpopulated areas. Through the mass dispersion and assimilation of ethnic and racial minority populations, the United States would promote peace and economic growth. My focus is divided into two distinct, though interrelated, dispersion initiatives. The 3 rst one took place within the United States. Here, during 2;<:– <<, Roo se velt formulated plans to “distribute” incarcerated Japa nese Americans in small groups throughout the country to solve the “Japanese problem.” He meanwhile considered various proposals for the scattering of Jews and other immigrants. On the international side, FDR commis- sioned the M Project (the M standing for migration), a top- secret anthro- pological study by a team of scholars that eventually encompassed some six hundred reports, essays, and translations of articles on human migra- tion and settlement. The goal of this project was to provide the president with expert advice on the possibilities for large- scale postwar relocation of millions of Euro pe an refugees and members of unwanted populations to Latin America in accordance with Darwinian racial principles. The study —-1 of these interconnected programs reveals both the complexities of Franklin —0 —+1 27 571-48160_ch01_2P.indd 15 9/22/11 11:26 AM 28 / Resettlement and New Lives Roo se velt’s views of race and society and the paradoxical nature of social engineering for Issei and Nisei.1 Franklin Roo se velt’s interest in demographics and migration developed early. As a child he noted the tensions stirred by the presence of a French Canadian minority in his grandfather’s hometown of Fairhaven, Massa- chusetts. When he grew to manhood and moved to New York City, he was regularly exposed to nativist fears of immigrants and to the countervail- ing efforts of settlement workers (including his future wife, Eleanor) and other progressives to “Americanize” the newcomers. In 2;46, during his unsuccessful campaign as Demo cratic candidate for vice president, the young FDR expressed his ideas on the subject in an interview with the daily newspaper Brooklyn Ea gle: Our main trouble in the past has been that we have permitted the foreign elements to segregate in colonies. They have crowded into one district and they have brought congestion and racial prejudices to our large cities. The result is that they do not easily conform to the manners and the customs and the requirements of their new home. Now, the remedy for this should be greater distribution of aliens in various parts of the country. If we had the greater part of the foreign population of the City of New York distributed to different localities upstate we should have a far better condition. Of course, this could not be done by legislative enactment. It could only be done by inducement— if better 3 nancial conditions and better living conditions could be offered to the alien dwellers in the cities. During the mid- 2;46s, when he was a private citizen, Roo se velt ex- pressed his admiration for the Canadian government’s policy of assisted settlement of Eu ro pe an immigrants in agricultural regions: “When the individual or family in the Eu ro pe an country applies to the Canadian agent for permission to come over he must agree to go to one of the sec- tions of Canada which is not already too full of foreigners. If, twenty-3 ve years ago, the United States had adopted a policy of this kind we would not have the huge foreign sections which exist in so many of our cities.”2 Even as Roo se velt expressed interest in resettling existing urban immi- grants, he articulated support for of3 cial restrictions on immigration, in ways that followed popu lar racist prejudices. In 2;47, one year after Con- gress passed a restrictive immigration act that effectively banned immigra- tion from southern and eastern Europe, Roose velt af3 rmed that Eu ro pe an immigrants should be barred “for a good many years to come” so that the -1— United States could “digest” (i.e., assimilate and Americanize) those who 0— had been admitted already, and he added that the government should con- +1— 571-48160_ch01_2P.indd 16 9/22/11 11:26 AM Po liti cal Science? / 25 centrate henceforth on admitting only the most readily “assimilable” so that quick “digestion” could proceed. While Roo se velt did not specify which immigrants would meet such a standard, his language of assimila- tion and especially his call for “Eu ro pean blood of the right sort” left little doubt that he meant primarily western Euro pe ans. Already, in 2;4:, , he had stated unequivocally that Japa nese, like other Asians, should be ex- cluded from both immigration and citizenship rights in order to protect America’s “racial purity.” In a second article in 2;47, he further warned of the dangers of racial mixing: Anyone who has travelled in the Far East knows that the mingling of Asiatic blood with Eu ro pe an or American blood produces, in nine cases out of ten, the most unfortunate results. In this question then of Japa nese exclusion from the United States, it is necessary only to advance the true reason— the undesirability of mixing the blood of the two peoples.3 The immediate roots of both the M Project and the plan for resettle- ment of Japa nese Americans lie in Franklin Roo se velt’s efforts to handle the question of Jewish refugees.