Et tu Brute? The Ugly Face of Racism and the Betrayal of Japanese Americans During WWII

 

First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.

A Poem by Martin Niemöller  

Et tu Brute? And you Brutus?  Is what Caesar is alleged to have said when he was stabbed in the back by his good friend Brutus in 44 BC.  The annals of betrayals are filled with many examples.  I’ve always been fascinated with such great injustices like the atrocious decision of President Franklin D. Roosevelt after the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, to arrest and imprison 110,000 innocent, loyal American citizens, and immigrants of Japanese origin. This screams out loud of racism, prejudice, and wonton lawlessness.  Remember that not one, not one case, was ever brought against any of the Japanese Americans that were interned in what they called “relocation camps.”  When I first wrote on this subject in another post on this blog, I called these camps Concentration Camps; my sister-in-law read it and reminded me that they were called “relocation camps” not concentration camps.  They were concentration camps, without the ovens or the killing of the Hitler camps. I’ve read three books on this subject trying to wrap my mind around the atrocities.  The latest one, is a book first published in the early 1970s called “Farewell to Manzanar” by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and her husband James D. Houston.  This book is a personal account by Wakatsuki, who was at Manzanar as a young child.   

The history of this brazen racism goes back to the middle 19^th century.  It heated up in the early 20^th century when racism against Asians rose to a fever pitch, leading to laws that put in stone such racism.  In 1911 the US Bureau of Immigration declared that Japanese Americans born in Japan could not become citizens.  In 1913 the Alien Land Bill prevented Japanese aliens from owning land in California.  The Immigration Act of 1924 severely restricted immigration even from Europe.  A quota was initiated giving Southern Europeans a tiny quota compared to northern Europeans.  Italians, for example, and others were limited to 2% of the Italian American and other Southern European population of 1890.  For Japanese Americans, it was more severe:  Japanese Americans were no longer allowed to immigrate to America.  Prior to WWII Japanese Americans were not allowed to have a fishing license in California, thereby preventing fishermen from practicing their trade.  The act was an insult to the Japanese and other European governments of which they protested vigorously. 

Eugenics is believed to have been a driving force for the rampant racial discrimination.  Sir Francis Galton, Charles Darwin’s cousin and collaborator was the father of Eugenics.  From 1880 up until the mid 1950s Eugenics was popular among the U.S. and world Intelligentsia, scientists, corporate leaders, politicians such as Winston Churchill, and even presidents such as Woodrow Wilson.  As many as 31 states had Eugenics laws on the books.  The famous Eugenics U.S. Supreme Court case of Buck vs Bell (1927) is one example, where a young woman, Carrie Buck, as well as her child, were accused of being  “imbeciles” or “feeble minded” without any proof.   She was forced to be sterilized.  The child she had prior to sterilization ranked at the top of her class.  Carrie lived a normal life, married, and survived two husbands.  The accusation was patently false and without merit.  It is no coincidence that racial discrimination had a strong connection to Eugenics.  Many other women were sterilized without their knowledge.  As many as 70,000 women were sterilized without their knowledge. Click here.

Racism and prejudice in general have no rhyme nor reason; it goes against any rhyme or reason; it is counter intuitive and evil because it leads to great injustices.  Asians, and Japanese Americans, in my estimation, and I think it is correct, are some of the best citizens any country could have.  They are self-reliant, industrious, law-abiding, and productive people that contribute to any culture or civilization.  Besides the cruelty of imprisoning innocent people and all that follows from it, the incarceration of entire families was mentally and psychologically abusive.  The dignity of the person was taken away and the result was traumatic and permanently life changing for most, especially men and fathers.  Here is where you see how important human dignity is to the individual; without it you emasculate the person; you suck the soul out of the individual. Wakatsuki’s father who was born in Japan, for instance, was a proud man, a successful farmer and family man.  When they deprived him of his role as a husband and a father, he suffered immeasurable physical and psychological harm.  This is something that cannot be fixed or repaired.  He was first arrested and removed from his family and sent to a camp in Jerome, Arkansas for nine months.  In an emotional reunion when he was reunited with his family at Manzanar, he gets off the bus upon arrival and his family is there to greet him.  Both him and his family are frozen in place for a long time just looking at each other, unable to hug each other.  The pain that was going on with him and his family was palpable.  This was psychological abuse of the worst kind to innocent people.  Psychological terrorism. 

I don’t know if this evil perpetrated against these innocent good citizens was pre-meditated but consider this:  Many of the places where the “relocation camps” were installed were some of the worst places for anyone to live.  Manzanar, for example, was at the foot of the Sierra Nevada in the Owens Valley desert of California.  An unforgiving place.  The summers are brutally hot and the winters brutally cold with gale force winds.  On top of that, the ramshackle buildings the Army put up were of primitive construction.  Wood slats that had openings for the dust to get in making the winters unbearable.  In “Farewell to Manzanar” Wakatsuki describes an episode where they were covered with a half inch of dust in their beds during a windstorm.  I personally visited Manzanar in 2019 in the month of July; the temperature was 105 and the wind was so strong I could not stay outside of my car.  At Heart Mountain, in Wyoming it was brutally cold as well in the winter.  Click here for a fine documentary made years ago by David Ono, a TV anchor on the ABC Channel 7 in Los Angeles.  I highly recommend you watch this. 

In 1945 the camps were closed, and the people released on their own recognizance with no financial aid. Many had lost everything, house, business, and personal property.  They had no job nor anyone willing to hire them due to the heavy prejudice that existed at the time.  Wakatsuki and her family relocated to Long Beach, California and found a place to live on the westside in a communal barracks boarding house.  Racism was still raging unabated. Wakatsuki managed to befriend a Caucasian girl her age. When she asked if she could join the girl scouts with her, the answer was no.  In a powerful example of the racism, they had to endure, she recalls this story about what happened one day when she and her sister were traveling: “We were sitting on a bus stop bench in Long Beach, when an old, embittered woman stopped and said, “Why don’t all you dirty Japs go back to Japan?” She spit at us and passed on.  We said nothing at the time.  After she stalked off down the sidewalk, we did not look at each other.” 

In another black eye for America, there is the United States Supreme Court case of Korematsu vs United States in 1944.  The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, approved of what FDR did with Executive Order 9066 imprisoning innocent American citizens and alien immigrants without due process.  So much for innocent until proven guilty; so much for Stare Decisis.

Recommended Reading:

1.     Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston

2.    Infamy; The Shocking Story of the Japanese American Internment in World War II; Richard Reeves

3.    The Eagles of Heart Mountain, A true Story of Football, Incarceration and Resistance in World War II America, Bradford Pearson

         My previous Blog post: The Rape of Japanese Americans in World War II