A History of Japanese Americans in California
By
Isami Arifuku Waugh, Ph.D., Lecturer
University of California, Davis
Alex Yamato, Ph.D. Candidate
University of California, Berkeley
Raymond Y. Okamura, Researcher and Writer
From FIVE VIEWS:
An Ethnic Historic Site Survey for California
California Department of Parks and Recreation
Office of Historic Preservation, 1988
Sections
Introduction
Immigration
Settlement
Organizations/Religion
Discrimination
World War II - Incarceration
References
A History of Japanese Americans in California:
INTRODUCTION
The history of ethnic minorities in California is characterized by adversity, hard work, community initiative, heartache, triumphs, indomitable spirits, and hope for the future. People of color in the United States have often been depicted as helpless victims of discriminatory practices and legislation, with little appreciation of their strengths, how they struggled with adversity, and how they established and defined themselves in all aspects of their lives. What has been of value to their communities has frequently gone undocumented; neither their spirit nor their energy has been fully depicted. This is as true for Japanese Americans in California as for other minorities.
Concern for these matters influenced the selection of places associated with the history of Japanese Americans in California. That is, the places selected for inclusion in this report not only relate to the Japanese experience in California, they also reflect the attempts of Japanese Americans to establish themselves in all aspects of life -- economically, educationally, socially, religiously, politically, and artistically. The selected properties reflect both events and actions directed against Japanese Americans, as well as the efforts they made to determine the nature and direction of their own lives.
A History of Japanese Americans in California:
IMMIGRATION
One of the first groups of settlers that came from Japan to the United States, the Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony under the leadership of John Schnell, arrived at Cold Hill, El Dorado County, in June 1869. Additional colonists arrived in the fall of 1869. These first immigrants brought mulberry trees, silk cocoons, tea plants, bamboo roots, and other agricultural products. The U.S. Census of 1870 showed 55 Japanese in the United States; 33 were in California, with 22 living at Gold Hill. Within a few years of the colony's founding, the colonists had dispersed, their agricultural venture a failure.
The 1880 Census showed 86 Japanese in California, with a total of 148 in the United States. Possibly these were students, or Japanese who had illegally left their country, since Japanese laborers were not allowed to leave their country until after 1884 when an agreement was signed between the Japanese government and Hawaiian sugar plantations to allow labor immigration. From Hawaii, many Japanese continued on to the United States mainland. In 1890, 2,038 Japanese resided in the United States; of this number, 1,114 lived in California.
Laborers for the Hawaiian sugar plantations were carefully chosen. In 1868, a group of Japanese picked off the streets of Yokohama and shipped to Hawaii had proved to be unsatisfactory. Thereafter, a systematic method of recruiting workers from specific regions in Japan was established. Natives from Hiroshima, Kumamoto, Yamaguchi, and Fukushima were sought for their supposed expertise in agriculture, for their hard work, and for their willingness to travel. Immigrants to California from these prefectures constituted the largest numbers of Japanese in the state.
Except for a temporary suspension of immigration to Hawaii in 1900, the flow of immigration from Japan remained relatively unaffected until 1907-08, when agitation from white supremacist organizations, labor unions, and politicians resulted in the "Gentlemen's Agreement," curtailing further immigration of laborers from Japan. A provision in the Gentlemen's Agreement, however, permitted wives and children of laborers, as well as laborers who had already been in the United States, to continue to enter the country. Until that time, Japanese immigrants had been primarily male. The 1900 Census indicates that only 410 of 24,326 Japanese were female. From 1908 to 1924, Japanese women continued to immigrate to the United States, some as "picture brides."
In Japan, arranged marriages were the rule. Go-betweens arranged marriages between compatible males and females, based on careful matching of socio-economic status, personality, and family background. With the advent of photography, an exchange of photographs became a first step in this long process. Entering the bride's name in the groom's family registry legally constituted marriage. Those Japanese males who could afford the cost of traveling to Japan returned there to be married. Others resorted to long-distance, arranged marriages. The same procedure that would have occurred if the groom were in Japan was adhered to, and the bride would immigrate to the United States as the wife of a laborer. Not all issei were married in this manner, but many were. For wives who entered after 1910, the first glimpse of the United States was the Detention Barracks at Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. New immigrants were processed there, and given medical exams. As a result, this was the place where most "picture brides" saw their new husbands for the first time.
Those hoping to rid California of its Japanese population thought the Gentlemen's Agreement would end Japanese immigration. Instead, the Japanese population of California increased, both through new immigration and through childbirth. Anti-Japanese groups, citing the entry of "picture brides," complained that the Gentlemen's Agreement was being violated. A movement to totally exclude Japanese immigrants eventually succeeded with the Immigration Act of 1924. That legislation completely curtailed immigration from Japan until 1952 when an allotment of 100 im migrants per year was designated. A few refugees entered the country during the mid-1950s, as did Japanese wives of United States servicemen.
The pattern of immigration has left its mark on Japanese communities to this day. While immigrants before 1924 were uniformly young, the delay in immigration of women resulted in many marriages in which the husband was considerably older than the wife. Immigration of women between 1908 and 1924 also meant that the majority of children (nisei) were born within a period of 20 years, 1910-1930. Researchers during World War II noted that rather than a normal curve, the Japanese population in the United States was bi-modal -- an age group for the original immigrants and another for their children. This has influenced the ways in which Japanese communities have been organized, e.g., the need every 25 years or so to have facilities and organizations oriented to children, with long periods of time when such facilities were not needed. Consequently, large numbers of nisei would enter the job market at the same time, and they would have children at about the same time. The immigration pattern is also reflected today among issei who are still living. The vast majority are women. Eighty-five percent of the clientele of Kimochi-Kai and other Japanese senior citizen organizations in California's major cities are women.
A History of Japanese Americans in California:
PATTERNS OF SETTLEMENT AND
OCCUPATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS
Most Japanese immigrants entered the United States through San Francisco. Other ports-of-entry were Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. As a result, the first large settlement of Japanese in California was in San Francisco. U.S. Census figures trace the movement and settlement of Japanese over the years.
In 1890, 590 Japanese were in San Francisco, with 184 in Alameda County and 51 in Sacramento County. A scattering of residents appeared throughout California, with the smallest number in the Southern California area. Little is known about these early Japanese immigrants. Speculation is that they worked for the railroad, were laborers, or performed miscellaneous tasks, such as chopping wood or domestic service. By 1890, the move into agricultural work had begun in the Vacaville area, Solano County. By then a Japanese had been buried in the Visalia Public Cemetery in Tulare County, and labor contractors were beginning to gather new immigrants to work in a number of industries such as the railroads, oil fields, and agriculture.
By 1900, the same Northern California counties still had the largest numbers of Japanese, but the population had increased tremendously with movement into other parts of the state. San Francisco had 1,781 Japanese, Sacramento County 1,209, and Alameda County 1,149. In addition, Monterey County had 710, Fresno County 598, San Joaquin County 313, Santa Clara County 284, Contra Costa County 276, and Santa Cruz County 235. Agricultural work drew immigrants to what were then rural areas. In many communities, nihonmachi (Japanese sections of town) were developed, with establishment of small businesses catering to the needs of immigrants. By 1900, Southern California had a Japanese population of approximately 500, with the largest concentration in Los Angeles County. But already the immigrants had begun efforts to establish themselves. Ulysses Shinsei Kaneko, for example, became one of the first Japanese naturalized in California, in San Bernardino County in 1896. Businesses in towns and cities had been in operation for almost a decade. Buddhist churches and Japanese Christian churches had been established earlier. Japanese had purchased property, and a few nisei children had been born.
City trades included domestic service and businesses catering to other Japanese -- boarding houses, restaurants, barbershops, bathhouses, gambling houses, and pool halls. Labor contractors drew immigrants away from the cities to work for the railroads, canneries, and farms. Japanese laborers were an important element in California agriculture by the turn of the century.
Other immigrants initiated their own enterprises and industries. Some of these included industries the Chinese had pioneered earlier. Fishing and abalone industries developed at White Point and Santa Monica Canyon in Los Angeles County, and at Point Lobos in Monterey County. Kinji Ushijima, also known as George Shima, continued the reclamation work begun by Chinese in the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta. Shima eventually reclaimed more than 100,000 acres of land with the help of many laborers. The land now grows potatoes, asparagus, onions, and other produce.
Between 1900 and 1910, Japanese began to buy property and establish farms, vineyards, and orchards. All-Japanese communities developed in agricultural areas in central California, including Florin in Sacramento County (which the Japanese called Taishoku), Bowles in Fresno County, and the Yamato Colony at Livingston in Merced County.
By 1910, a distinct change had occurred in the California Japanese population, which then numbered 41,356. A move to the southern part of the state began, and the number of women in the community steadily increased. By the late 1920s, females constituted one-third of the Japanese population. Los Angeles County became the most populous Japanese settlement, with 8,461, and has remained so to this day. A major stimulus for the move south was the rapid expansion of the Los Angeles area during the Southern California boom period. Many Japanese also migrated to Los Angeles in 1906 after the San Francisco earthquake.
San Francisco remained the second most populous, however, with 4,518 Japanese. Next came Sacramento County with 3,874, Alameda County with 3,266, Santa Clara County with 2,299, and Fresno County with 2,233. Other counties having more than 1,000 Japanese included Contra Costa, Monterey, and San Joaquin. The large increases in the population were a reflection of unrestricted immigration of male laborers until 1908, entrance of Japanese women into the United States, and the resultant in crease in the birth of children. Numerous nihonmachi had been established in California, ranging from Selma's one block of businesses catering to Japanese in Fresno County, to whole sections of town in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Jose.
The Japanese population of Los Angeles County more than doubled by 1920, increasing to 19,911, more than three times as many as the next most populous county, Sacramento, with 5,800. California's total Japanese population numbered 71,952. Fresno County had 5,732, San Francisco 5,358, and Alameda 5,221. San Joaquin County increased its population of Japanese to 4,354. Other counties with Japanese populations of more than 1,000 included Monterey, Orange, Placer, San Diego, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Tulare. This population increase was due almost to tally to the immigration of women and the birth of children. By this time, the economic basis of the Japanese community had been firmly established in agriculture and its offshoots -- wholesaling, retailing, distributing. The Japanese organized their produce and flower industries vertically, resulting in a system in which all operations were owned and operated by Japanese, from raising the plants to retail sales. This resulted in organizations such as the Southern California Flower Market in Los Angeles, the California Flower Market in San Francisco, Lucky Produce in Sacramento, and the City Market in Los Angeles. Cooperatives like Naturipe in Watsonville, Santa Cruz County, were organized to improve the growing, packing, and marketing of crops produced by Japanese farmers.
Small businesses were numerous at this time. Many of the "city trades" were directly tied to rural occupations, particularly agricultural labor. Businesses such as boarding houses, hotels, restaurants, barber shops, and gambling houses were dependent on the constant traffic of single male laborers who traveled a circuit in California from one crop to the next, from the Imperial Valley to the Sacramento Valley. The Miyajima Hotel, a boarding house in Lodi, San Joaquin County, was one such business catering to agricultural laborers. Other city businesses were also oriented toward farming interests. For example, a number of Japanese entrepreneurs operating general merchandise stores had regular routes to the surrounding countryside, taking orders and making deliveries for food and other sup plies. Kamikawa Brothers in Fresno and Tsuda's in Auburn provided this service.
During the decade of 1910-20, Japanese farmers became important producers and growers of crops: Truck farming along the coast, in the Central Valley, and in Southern California; grapes and tree fruit in the Central Valley and Southern California; strawberries in a number of different locations; and rice in Northern California. Japanese were very much involved in experimenting with different strains of rice at the Biggs Rice Experiment Station in Butte County where Kenju Ikuta demonstrated that rice could be produced commercially. In addition, a large number of other Japanese were engaged in farming, distributing, and retailing of rice during this period. In later decades, Keisaburo Koda, known among the Japanese as the "rice king," established a ranch near Dos Palos in Merced County, where he produced new strains of rice.
The 1930 census shows that Los Angeles County still had the most Japanese, almost doubling its population, to 35,390. California's Japanese population numbered 97,456. Los Angeles had more than four times as many Japanese as did the second county, Sacramento, which had 8,114. Close in number were San Francisco with 6,250, Alameda with 5,715, Fresno with 5,280, San Joaquin with 4,339, and Santa Clara with 4,320. Again, the increase can be attributed to immigration of Japanese women as well as the birth of children. Because immigration was totally curtailed in 1924, however, the birth of children probably was the more important reason, numerically speaking. Another source for population increases was migration from other parts of the country. Some Japanese residents of Seattle, Washington, for example, moved to Los Angeles County during the 1930s because of increased economic opportunities during a period of nationwide depression.
This period, however, was a time of growth for most nihonmachi throughout California. Almost every agricultural area with a population of Japanese residents had a flourishing Japanese section of town. Cooperatives established in previous years were functioning at their peak. Nisei children were in schools and beginning to enter the labor market. This subtle change can be noted in such things as Japanese-language newspapers adding English sections to their publications, and Japanese church youth organizations being organized.
The 1940 census shows little change from the 1930 figures. During this decade, the Japanese population of California decreased from 97,456 to 93,717, although a few counties like Los Angeles continued to increase. During the years 1942-45, Japanese Americans were incarcerated in 10 fenced and guarded concentration camps. Two of these camps were located in California: Manzanar in Inyo County and Tule Lake in Modoc County. The camp at Tule Lake did not close until March 1946. Encouraged by the War Relocation Authority to resettle in the East and Midwest, approximately one-third of the internees chose this alternative. Some never returned to the West Coast.
Those who did return had to rebuild lives that had been dramatically altered by the concentration camp experience. In some communities, one-third or more of the Japanese population did not return. Moreover, some nihonmachi did not survive. Non-Japanese businesses and residents had moved into sections of town previously occupied by Japanese Americans. The war was also a turning point in generational control of businesses, churches, and community politics, as the adult children of immigrants began to dominate in all spheres of Japanese activities.
The Japanese population of California decreased to 84,956, according to the 1950 census. Los Angeles County had the largest population, with 36,761 . San Francisco, Alameda, Fresno, Sacramento, and Santa Clara counties each had 4,000-6,000 Japanese residents. This period was one of intensive efforts to re-establish Japanese American communities. After serving as hostels for returning internees, churches re-instituted their usual activities and services. The struggle for economic survival began anew. Those nihonmachi able to be rebuilt were again the centers of the Japanese American community, but were less oriented to the immigrant generation. For example, during the 1930s, landscape gardening emerged as an occupation. It gained in importance after World War II as the numbers of nisei working as gardeners increased.
The decade 1950-60 saw almost a doubling of the Japanese population in California, to 157,317. Los Angeles County again led the state with 77,314, more than seven times the number in Santa Clara County, which had 10,432 Japanese residents. This large increase is generally attributed to the birth of sansei, the third generation of Japanese. A secondary but far less important reason numerically was the gradual return to the West Coast of individuals who had resettled to other areas during the World War II internment. A minor increase may also be attributed to Japanese women immigrating from Asia as wives of U.S. servicemen.
The birth of children resulted in a resurgence of activities in churches, Japanese-language schools, and athletic leagues. The Japanese population had made the transition from a rural to an urban population with the economic base less oriented to agriculture, although this was still important. In urban areas, Japanese women frequently worked in secretarial-clerical positions, while men obtained jobs in technical professional areas. This pattern generally holds true today, although with sansei children in their adult years now, there is increasing technical and professional training, and occupations of greater diversity for both males and females.
A History of Japanese Americans in California:
ORGANIZATIONS AND RELIGIOUS PRACTICES
The first Japanese American community organization of record in the United States was the Gospel Society or Fukuin Kai, established in October 1877 in San Francisco. The Gospel Society offered English classes, operated a boarding house, and provided a place for Japanese to meet. With the influence of White Christians, the religious orientation of the society developed. Out of this organization eventually came the Japanese Christian churches, some of which were established in the 1890s.
The issei established three types of organizations in the communities they settled: churches, political/social organizations called by various names, and Japanese-language schools. Churches, whether Christian, Buddhist, or Shinto, were the focus of activity for most Japanese communities, and often were the earliest organizations to be established. Subsequently, churches expanded beyond religious services as women's organizations (fujinkai) became active, and youth groups were established with the advent of children. The churches provided both religious sustenance and a social life. It is estimated that before World War II, 85 percent of Japanese were Buddhist. Possibly the sole Japanese American community with only a Christian church was Livingston (Yamato Colony). During the World War II internment, churches served as storage centers for personal property left behind by Japanese Americans, and as hostels for returning evacuees. The churches themselves organized into umbrella groups such as the Buddhist Churches of America, the Japanese Evangelical Mission Society, the Holiness Conference, and the Northern and Southern California Christian Church Federation. Most of the original congregations still exist today.
The political/social organizations were organized under different names, depending on the community. Some of these names were doshikai, kyogikai, and nihonjinkai (Japanese Association). All Japanese were assumed to belong to political/social organizations which dealt with issues affecting the total Japanese American community. Often, they had their own offices or buildings for conducting business and holding meetings. Association leaders were spokespersons for the community in dealings with the larger community, and worked as intermediaries in differences of opinion or conflicts. Decisions were made by male members of the organization. Sometimes, a women's organization (fujinkai) was attached to this organization. Many of these organizations died with the World War II internment. Properties were signed over to the nisei, and records were lost or destroyed during this period. Today, only a few of the original organizations still exist and function.
As nisei children grew older, Japanese-language schools flourished throughout the state. The first Japanese-language school of record in the state was Shogakko in San Francisco, established in 1902. By the 1930s, virtually every Japanese American community had its own nihongakko (Japanese-language school) operated by a church or Japanese association. Some communities had two or more schools. Occasionally, both Buddhist and Christian churches in a community supported their own Japanese-language schools. Teachers were often church ministers, their wives, or well-educated persons in the community. Occasionally, a dormitory was built in conjunction with the Japanese-language school, as in Fresno, Guadalupe, and Sacramento, where children of busy parents would live at the school. Many of these schools closed with the incarceration of West Coast Japanese American residents during World War II. In many communities, however, a revival of Japanese-language schools occurred during the 1950s and 1960s, when the sansei generation became of school age. Currently, some communities still operate Japanese-language schools, but their numbers are small.
Persons originating from the same area in Japan formed kenjinkai, which are social organizations designed to support, aid, and acquaint fellow kenjin (persons from the same prefecture). Social services in the form of financial aid, informal counseling, and care for the sick or injured were functions of these groups. Communities had one kenjinkai if the Japanese American community was primarily composed of people from the same area of Japan. If the community was large, as in Los Angeles, many kenjinkai existed, reflecting the different geographic origins of the immigrants. Very few exist today.
Particularly in agricultural areas, cooperatives to grow, ship, and market agricultural products emerged, giving issei farmers greater control over their economic destinies. Some of these cooperatives including Lucky Produce in Sacramento, Naturipe in Watsonville, the California Flower Market in San Francisco, and the City Market in Los Angeles are still operating today.
The Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) emerged as the largest nisei organization. Organized in 1930, with headquarters now in San Francisco, JACL gained prominence as an organization during the World War II internment, when issei leaders were separately detained and the War Relocation Authority refused to allow the immigrant generation leadership positions. With chapters throughout the country, JACL speaks for a certain segment of the Japanese American community.
Nisei also provided leadership in Christian and Buddhist churches. Due to an "integration" move in Christian churches, Japanese Christian Churches have removed the "Japanese" designation, and have adopted names that make it difficult to identify them as ethnic churches. Many Japanese Americans now attend churches with non-Japanese congregations. Coupled with the fact that many Japanese Americans attend no church at all, it becomes difficult to evaluate religious preference. Of those that do belong to a church, their preference still remains either Christian or Buddhist.
Japanese American community organizations have been in existence since 1877, serving the changing needs of their members. A relatively recent phenomenon is senior citizens' centers, where programs geared to the needs and interests of issei are carried out by second- and third-generation Japanese Americans. Some of these include Kimochikai in San Francisco, the Pioneer Center in Los Angeles, the Nikkei Service Center in Fresno, the Suisun Nisei Club in Suisun City (Solano County), and the Asian Community Center in Sacramento.
History of Japanese Americans in California:
DISCRIMINATORY PRACTICES
As with most people of color, Japanese Americans have suffered a variety of discriminatory practices, legislation, and restrictions. Perhaps this could have been expected considering the initial conditions under which Japanese were originally enticed to immigrate to the United States -- as only a source of labor, with no plans for them to stay and participate actively in the life of the society.
Even as a source of labor, Japanese immigrants were criticized for being too numerous. They were seen as unassimilable and potentially capable of overrunning the state. The Asiatic Exclusion League, formed in May 1905, mounted a campaign to exclude Japanese and Koreans from the United States. Under pressure from the league, the San Francisco Board of Education ruled on October 11, 1906 that all Japanese and Korean students should join the Chinese at the segregated Oriental School that had been established in 1884. There were 93 Japanese students in the 23 San Francisco public schools at that time. Twenty-five of those students had been born in the United States.
To appease those Californians who were agitating for cessation of Japanese immigration without offending the Japanese government, President Theodore Roosevelt negotiated the 1907-08 Gentlemen's Agreement, whereby the Japanese government agreed not to issue passports to laborers immigrating to the United States. However, parents, wives, and children of laborers already in the United States could immigrate, as well as laborers who had already been here.
This agreement nevertheless stimulated the anti-Japanese movement. Rather than cutting off all immigration from Japan, the agreement resulted in a steady stream of Japanese women entering California. Soon thereafter, children were born, resulting in increases in the Japanese population, rather than decreases. Arranged marriage, sometimes with the exchange of photographs, was the accepted mode of contracting marriages in Japanese society. This practice allowed male issei immigrants to marry, and to send for their brides to join them in this country. The effect was to bolster the stereotyped image of Japanese as being sneaky and untrustworthy, even though the provisions of the Gentlemen's Agreement were being scrupulously maintained.
As the Japanese American population steadily increased, through immigration of picture brides and the birth of nisei children, anti-Japanese forces regrouped after World War I. Charges were made that the Japanese birth rate was three times as high as the general population's. The fact that Japanese females in prime child-bearing years were compared with White women from 15 to 45 years of age was not mentioned. The unassimilability of Japanese was charged. As part of the Immigration Act of 1924, immigration from Japan was completely cut off for 28 years.
Beginning in January 1909 and continuing until after World War II, anti-Japanese bills were introduced into the California legislature every year. The first to become law was the Webb-Hartley Law (known more commonly as the Alien Land Law of 1913), which limited land leases by "aliens ineligible to citizenship" to three years, and barred further land purchases. Amendments to this law in 1919 and 1920 further restricted land leasing agreements. Although the law contains no mention of Asians by name, it is clear that "aliens ineligible to citizenship" included, among others, Japanese, a group without access to U.S. citizenship and the target of anti-Asian groups during this period.
The issue of U.S. citizenship eventually was decided by the 1922 Supreme Court decision of Takao Ozawa v. United States, which declared that Japanese were ineligible for U.S. citizenship. "Free white persons" were made eligible for U.S. citizenship by Congress in 1790. "Aliens of African nativity and persons of African descent" were similarly designated by Congress in 1870. Due to some ambiguity about the term "white," some 420 Japanese had been naturalized by 1910, but a ruling by a U.S. attorney general to stop issuing naturalization papers to Japanese ended the practice in 1906. Ozawa had filed his naturalization papers in 1914. In 1922, the U.S. Supreme Court judged that since Ozawa was neither a "free white person" nor an African by birth or descent, he did not have the right of naturalization as a Mongolian.
Influenced by the anti-Japanese movement, an amendment to the State Political Code in 1921 allowed establishment of separate schools for children of Indian, Chinese, Japanese, or Mongolian parentage. These children were not to be integrated into other public schools once separate schools were established. School districts in Sacramento County elected to maintain separate schools in the communities of Florin, Walnut Grove, Isleton, and Courtland. Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino children in these school districts attended segregated schools until World War II. In 1945, a Japanese American family challenged the constitutionality of segregated schools, and the Los Angeles County Superior Court concurred that segregation on the basis of race or ancestry violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The California legislature repealed the 1921 provision in 1947.
The most widely perpetrated discriminatory action toward West Coast Japanese Americans was the internment camp policy of World War II, which was set into motion by the signing of Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The executive order did not mention Japanese Americans by name, but the designation of military areas and the decision to exclude certain persons from these areas was directed toward Japanese Americans. Thirteen temporary detention camps in California were hastily established to hold Japanese Americans until more permanent camps in remote sections of the country could be constructed.
After Executive Order 9066 was issued, the vast majority of public proclamations emanating from Lt. General John DeWitt, Commander of the Western Defense Command, were directed toward controlling the movement and freedom of Japanese Americans. Similarly, the civilian exclusion orders, issued by DeWitt, directed Japanese Americans along the West Coast to report for detention at designated times and places.
Incarceration policy was challenged by Gordon Hirabayashi, who violated curfew regulations in the state of Washington; Fred Korematsu of Oakland, who was prosecuted for knowingly remaining in an area forbidden by military orders; Minoru Yasui, who was prosecuted for violation of curfew orders as a test case; and Mitsuye Endo of Sacramento, who claimed unlawful detention. None of the judgments that resulted from these cases dealt directly with the constitutionality of incarcerating more than 120,000 Japanese Americans. But Ex parte Endo, issued December 16, 1944, did result in the rescinding of exclusion orders, effective January 2, 1945, which eventually closed the 10 concentration camps in the United States.
During the internment years, several legislative actions affected thousands of Japanese Americans. A California statute of 1943, amended in 1945, prohibited "aliens ineligible to citizenship" from earning their living as commercial fishermen in coastal waters. Torao Takahashi brought suit, and after a tortuous sequence of events, including a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the statute was unconstitutional, resident alien Japanese fishermen were again allowed to fish the waters off the California coast in 1948.
In 1944, a federal statute amended the Nationality Act of 1940 to permit U.S. citizens to renounce citizenship during wartime. The Department of Justice intended that leaders of disturbances at the Tule Lake Segregation Center renounce their citizenship, therefore making themselves eligible for further detention when the camps were dismantled. Instead, 5,522 renunciations came from Japanese Americans (5,371 were from persons confined at Tule Lake), rather than the several hundred expected from pro-Japan elements. When the concentration camps were closed, many internees regretted renouncing their U.S. citizenship, citing coercion, intimidation, and fears of hostility by the dominant society. Lawsuits to revalidate citizenship continued until 1965, including Abo v. Clark (77 F. Supp. 806), which returned U.S. citizenship to 4,315 nisei.
During World War II, while Japanese and Japanese Americans were unable to defend themselves in court, California's Attorney General was allocated additional funds to prosecute violations of the Alien Land Law of 1913. A total of 79 cases were prosecuted, including 59 after the war. The first challenge to the Alien Land Law was Harada v. State of California, in which the Superior Court of Riverside County declared in 1918 that Jukichi Harada could purchase property in the name of his children, who were U.S. citizens though still minors. Subsequent court cases in other jurisdictions had differing results, some ruling that minor children could not own property.
Two escheat cases had particular significance in invalidating the Alien Land Law. The case of Oyama v. State of California in 1948 determined that non-citizen parents could purchase land as gifts for citizen children. The Fujii v. State of California case in 1952 resulted in the Alien Land Law of 1913 being declared unconstitutional. Legal obstacles to land purchases by Asians were thus removed.
To provide partial restitution for losses and damages resulting from the internment, an Evacuation Claims Act was passed by Congress. While losses by Japanese Americans were conservatively estimated to be around $400,000,000, only 10 percent of this amount was disbursed to former internees. The issue remains alive today in 1981, with the establishment of a Congressional Commission to investigate the historical, legal, economical, and psychological impacts of the forced internment of over 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry during World War II.
Japanese Americans have also endured informal discriminatory practices. Shopping, dining, and recreational activities at some business establishments were denied to Japanese Americans in previous years. Restrictive covenants in housing affected where they lived. When deceased members of the highly decorated 442nd Combat team were returned to the United States after World War II, some cemeteries refused to allow them gravesites because of their ancestry. In the past, some occupations have been closed to Japanese Americans, yet others such as gardening have been considered particularly suitable for their temperament, skills, and social standing in the society. Outward manifestations of discriminatory practices toward Japanese Americans can be subtle, but are still very much in existence as recent legal cases involving discrimination in employment promotion indicate.
A History of Japanese Americans in California:
INCARCERATION OF JAPANESE AMERICANS
DURING WORLD WAR II
Temporary detention camps called Assembly Centers represented an early phase of the mass incarceration of 92,785 Californians of Japanese ancestry during World War II.
Japanese Americans were held at these temporary detention camps for two to seven months until they were transferred to one of the permanent concentration camps. An entire population of loyal and productive Californians was eliminated from the public scene.
The incarceration of Japanese Americans had a profound effect on the military, political, and economic affairs of the state at the time, and the episode remains a major blot on the history of American law. United States citizens and lawful permanent residents were imprisoned without charges, without evidence, without trial, and in violation of every basic constitutional right.
In the years preceding World War II, racist discrimination against Asian Americans was a fact of life on the West Coast. Discrimination in housing, employment, education, public accommodations, and social relations was pervasive. Moreover, the media constantly reinforced negative stereotypes: newspapers, radio, movies, comic strips, and pulp novels innundated the public with lurid tales of Japanese spies and saboteurs. This historical background is indispensable for an understanding of what happened to Japanese Americans during the war years.
Japan had been waging war in Asia since 1937, and United States relations with Japan had steadily worsened. With the expectation of war, the U.S. Government undertook precautionary measures. In October 1941, the State Department ordered a covert investigation of Japanese American communities on the West Coast and Hawaii. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the military intelligence services intensified secret surveillance programs which had been in existence for several years. All of these intelligence reports certified that the Japanese American population as a whole posed no threat to national security.
When global war finally came to the United States on December 7, 1941, the government was well prepared to handle domestic security. Using previously prepared lists, the FBI summarily arrested over 2,000 Japanese nationals during the first few days of the war. No criminal charges were ever filed against these individuals. They were considered suspicious simply because of their leadership positions in the Japanese American community. Organization officers, Buddhist and Shinto priests, newspaper editors, language and martial arts instructors were all imprisoned at one of 26 internment camps operated by the Justice Department. Dependents were left without a source of livelihood, and the Japanese American community was stripped of its established leadership.
Like the previous immigration campaigns, California politicians and pressure groups lobbied the federal government to remove or lock up all Japanese Americans. Even though Attorney General Francis Biddle and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover advised against it, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the mass expulsion and incarceration of Japanese Americans by signing Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. The order itself was carefully worded to avoid constitutional challenges. It did not single out a specific group, nor did it say people were to be locked up. But there was a common understanding that Executive Order 9066 was designed primarily for the purpose of removing and imprisoning Japanese Americans. With no public demand for locking up German Americans or Italian Americans, the government chose to forego the theoretical option of incarcerating descendants of the European enemy nations as well. On February 20, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson designated Lt. General John L. DeWitt, head of the Western Defense Command, to carry out the intent of Executive Order 9066.
The first action under authority of Executive Order 9066 was the expulsion of the entire Japanese American community from Terminal Island (San Pedro Bay, Los Angeles County) on February 25-27. Armed soldiers marched into the old fishing village and ordered every person of Japanese ancestry, including native-born Americans, to leave their homes within 48 hours. The majority of Terminal Island residents were United States citizens, but they were evicted without legal recourse of any kind. The eviction was especially harsh because most of the men had been arrested earlier by the FBI and the move had to made almost entirely by women and children. The government made no provisions for alternative housing, and some 2,000 Japanese Americans became displaced persons.
On March 2, DeWitt declared the western halves of California, Oregon, and Washington plus the southern half of Arizona as "Military Area #1," and announced his intention to remove every person of Japanese ancestry therefrom. Japanese Americans were urged to "voluntarily" give up their homes and jobs before they were forcibly expelled by the army. A total of 10,312 Japanese Americans hurriedly left the proscribed areas, with 4,310 moving to the eastern side of California, which was then a "free zone."
On March 11, DeWitt created the Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA) as a sub-unit of the Western Defense Command and appointed Colonel Karl R. Bendetsen as the military director responsible for implementation of the expulsion and detention program. In the meantime, Congress passed Public Law 77-503 on March 21 which made it a federal offense for a civilian to disobey a military order issued under authority of Executive Order 9066.
On March 24, all Japanese Americans on Bainbridge Island, Washington were ordered to report for imprisonment under "Civilian Exclusion Order #1." Subsequently, "Civilian Exclusion Order #2" issued on March 30 applied to the Long Beach-San Pedro area in California. Eventually, 108 separate "Civilian Exclusion Orders" were issued, each applying to a different locale in Arizona, California, Oregon, and Washington. Japanese Americans were directed to bring only what they could carry in their hands and turn themselves in at a "Civil Control Station" near their homes. Upon reporting, they were registered, numbered, tagged with shipping labels, and placed aboard buses, trains, and trucks under armed guard for transportation to one of the 15 Temporary Detention Camps. From that point on, Japanese Americans became prisoners of their own country. On arrival at the camps, they were forced to submit to body and baggage searches, fingerprinting, and long interrogations about their background.
Japanese Americans were imprisoned on the basis of ancestry alone. There was no evidence they had done anything illegal or were dangerous in any way. Native-born Americans were locked up without charges or trial and in complete disregard for their constitutional rights.
DeWitt gave the rationale of "military necessity" to protect the West Coast against sabotage in case of invasion, but such a claim was contrary to the actual U.S. Army "estimate of the situation" which concluded that an invasion of the West Coast was extremely unlikely. The claim was also inconsistent with the fact that Japanese Americans in Hawaii were not similarly incarcerated en masse. Hawaii was the site of the Pearl Harbor attack, some 3,000 miles closer to the enemy, and in far greater danger of invasion. There were 159,534 Japanese Americans in Hawaii, comprising 34.2% of the population, but Lt. General Delos Emmons, the military commander in Hawaii, decided that "military necessity" there required the Japanese Americans to remain free and help in the war effort.
The "military necessity" excuse was further contradicted by the fact that babies, children, bedridden old people, blind or paralyzed persons -- people incapable of committing acts of sabotage or espionage -- were also incarcerated. Even orphans in institutions and children adopted by White families were imprisoned if they had any Japanese ancestry at all.
By March 24, all Japanese Americans were placed on a dusk to-dawn curfew. On March 27, DeWitt abruptly prohibited any further "voluntary" movement of Japanese Americans away from "Military Area #1." Japanese Americans were "frozen" in their homes until arrangements could be made for their incarceration. They were trapped with no option aside from imprisonment. DeWitt methodically issued detention orders almost daily, and an average of 3,750 persons a day were forced out of their homes and locked up in the Temporary Detention Camps.
In a corollary act, the California State Personnel Board summarily fired all State employees of Japanese ancestry on April 2. Blanket dismissal charges were filed against anyone with a Japanese surname. Those who had taken leaves of absence to enter the Temporary Detention Camps were dismissed in absentia, while those who were still free were ordered to promptly vacate their jobs.
On June 2, DeWitt proclaimed the eastern half of California as "Military Area #2" and prohibited Japanese Americans from leaving that area as well until they, too, could be ordered to report for detention. By this action, DeWitt betrayed an earlier promise to spare those who moved to the eastern half of California during the "voluntary" period. Significantly, only the eastern half of California was proscribed: the eastern halves of Oregon and Washington were left alone. This discrepancy was due to the continued political pressure in California to eliminate Japanese Americans from the entire state.
About this time, an important turning point in the Pacific War occurred. The U.S. Navy annihilated the core of the Japanese Navy at the Battle of Midway on June 3-6. From that point on, Japan totally lacked the capability to attack the West Coast. The U.S. government and military knew that any danger of invasion had vanished. However, instead of cancelling the detention program and saving millions in funds, war materiel, and personnel, the government continued to build new concentration camps and lock up more Japanese Americans.
The detention process progressed from district to district, county to county, over a five month period. By June 6, all Japanese Americans in the western half of the West Coast states had been locked up. By August 7, 1942, the entire process was completed. A total of 92,785 Californians, and an overall total of 120,313 Japanese Americans ended up in government custody.
Horse racetracks, fairgrounds, rodeo grounds, and labor camps were used as sites for the temporary detention camps. The WCCA/Western Defense Command expropriated 13 such locations in California and hurriedly converted them into transient detention facilities. Existing horsestalls and grandstands were used for living quarters, and flimsy tarpaper barracks were built for additional housing. Compounds were surrounded by high barbed-wire fences and guard towers; sentries in towers were armed with machine guns; soldiers with bayonet-tipped rifles patrolled camp perimeters; and searchlights crisscrossed camp interiors at night.
Detainees made the following observations:
Estelle Ishigo (Pomona):
The first sight of the barbed wire enclosure with armed soldiers standing guard as our bus slowly turned in through the gate stunned us. . . . Here was a camp of sheds, enclosed within a high barbed wire fence, with guard towers and soldiers with machine guns.
Charles Kikuchi (Tanforan):
I saw a soldier in a tall guardhouse near the barbed wire fence and did not like it because it reminds me of a concentration camp.
Mine Okubo (Tanforan):
We were close to freedom and yet far from it. The San Bruno streetcar line bordered the camp on the east and the main state highway on the south. Streams of cars passed by all day. Guard towers and barbed wire surrounded the entire center. Guards were on duty night and day.
The fence and guards were not there to "protect" the Japanese Americans; the barbed wire tops were turned inward, and the guards had their weapons trained into the camp. DeWitt, himself, explained the purpose of the security measures:
The Assembly Centers in the combat area are generally located in grounds surrounded by fences clearly defining the limits for the evacuees. In such places the perimeter of the camp will be guarded to prevent unauthorized departure of evacuees . . . . Should an evacuee attempt to leave camp without permission he will be halted, arrested, and delivered to camp police.
The camp interiors were arranged like prisoner of war camps or overseas military camps, and were completely unsuited for family living. Barracks and horsestalls were divided into blocks and each block had a central mess hall, latrine, showers, wash basins, and laundry tubs. Toilets, showers, and bedrooms were unpartitioned; there was no water or plumbing in the living quarters; and anyone going to the lavatory at night was followed by a searchlight. Eight-person families were placed in 20-x-20-foot rooms, six-person families in 12-x-20-foot rooms, and four-person families in 8-x-20-foot rooms. Smaller families and single persons had to share unpartitioned units with strangers. Each detainee received a straw mattress, an army blanket, and not much else. Privacy was non-existent. Everything had to be done communally. Endless queues formed for eating, washing, and personal needs. Sanitation and food quality were poor. Outbreaks of diarrhea and communicable diseases were common, and the stench in the horsestall areas was overwhelming.
While Japanese Americans were being confined in temporary detention camps, the War Department built 10 large concentration camps -- each designed to hold an average of 12,000 prisoners -- in the interior desert and swamp regions of the United States. Two of these concentration camps were located in California, while the other eight were in the states of Arizona (two), Arkansas (two), Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming.
Beginning on May 26 and continuing through October 30, approximately 500 detainees per day were taken from the temporary detention camps and placed aboard trains under armed guard for transfer to one of the 10 permanent camps. The movement required the use of 171 special trains -- at a time when railroads were critically needed to transport military supplies.
Two of the permanent camps were located in California. In Southern California, the Manzanar War Relocation Center, located between In dependence and Lone Pine in Inyo County originally as a temporary detention center, was the first center, established on March 21, 1942. On March 21-22, 1942, the first large contingent of Japanese Americans was relocated from Los Angeles to the Manzanar Assembly Center. Three months later, however, Manzanar was transferred to the War Relocation Authority (WRA) for use as one of 10 permanent centers. Manzanar's total land area included 6,000 acres in the Owens Valley with a living area of 620 acres. The living area consisted of 36 blocks. Each block contained 16 barracks, a central mess hall, laundry, and bath houses. The barracks were built of wooden planks nailed to studs and covered with tar paper. In some places the green wood warped, resulting in cracks in floors and walls. Congressman Leland Ford of California, who advocated that "all Japanese, whether citizens or not, be placed in inland concentration camps," observed that "on dusty days, one might just as well be outside as inside" at Manzanar.
Two rock entrance stations, a solitary high school auditorium, and an obelisk cemetery monument are the only extant features of the Manzanar landscape, interspersed with concrete barracks foundations, remains of tea gardens, cemetery grave sites, and mess hall debris. To many Japanese Americans, Manzanar "recreates for them that moment in their lives when all the world was enclosed within this one-mile square." Manzanar housed over 10,000 internees before the camp closed on November 21, 1945.
In Northern California, the Tule Lake Relocation Camp, located six miles south of the California-Oregon border, occupied 7,400 acres of land in the dry lake bed of the Klamath Falls Basin, Modoc County. Most of the land was devoted to agricultural activities while approximately 1-1/4 square miles represented the residential area surrounded by barbed wire fence and guard towers.
Within the enclosure were 64 blocks; nine blocks in turn were usually arranged to form a ward. Each block, measuring approximately 500 feet to a side, was repetitively organized around a core of 14 precisely located 20 x 100-foot-long barracks. Each barracks was divided into four to six apartment units. The barracks were designed to accommodate a total of 250 individuals per block. Tule Lake became the largest single camp with a population of over 18,000.
On May 26, 1942, the first evacuees arrived at Tule Lake from the assembly centers at Portland, Oregon, and Puyallup, Washington. Tule Lake began as just one of the 10 camps. By 1943, however, the War Relocation Authority (WRA) and the U.S. Army initiated a registration program requiring all adult evacuees to respond to a loyalty questionnaire to determine leave clearance for service in the U.S. Armed Forces and for resettlement outside of the restricted zones.
In July 1943, Tule Lake was designated as the segregation center for accommodating a diverse population of evacuees who wished to be repatriated to Japan or who replied in the negative to Questions 27 and 28 of the questionnaire. Because of the program of segregation instituted at Tule Lake, its history was marked by disturbances and human tragedies at a level of intensity greater than that experienced in the other centers.
The last internee left Tule Lake on March 20, 1946, the last of the 10 centers to close. Today, a California State Historical Landmark plaque and monument identifies the camp site, where some of the original barracks buildings have been converted into contemporary housing facilities. Farm labor housing, airport terminals and runways, as well as an elementary school now occupy portions of the land that once was the home of 18,000 Japanese Americans.
Temporary Detention Camps in California, 1942
Name Location County Previous Use
1. Fresno Fresno Fresno Fairgrounds
2. Arboga Marysville Yuba Labor Camp
3. Merced Merced Merced Fairgrounds
4. Pinedale Pinedale Fresno Labor Camp
5. Pomona Pomona Los Angeles Fairgrounds
6. Walerga Sacramento Sacramento Labor Camp
7. Salinas Salinas Monterey Rodeo Grounds
8. Santa Anita Arcadia Los Angeles Horse Racetrack
9. Stockton Stockton San Joaquin Fairgrounds
10. Tanforan San Bruno San Mateo Horse Racetrack
11. Tulare Tulare Tulare Fairgrounds
12. Turlock Turlock Stanislaus Fairgrounds
13. Manaznar Owens Valley Inyo Aqueduct Land
History of Japanese Americans in California:
SELECTED REFERENCES
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Daniels, Roger.The Politics of Prejudice. New York: Atheneum, 1970.
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Fukuoka, Fumiko. "Mutual Life and Aid Among the Japanese in Southern California with Special Reference to Los Angeles." M.A. Thesis, University of Southern California, 1937.
Gee, Emma. "Issei: The First Women." Asian Women, University of California, Berkeley, Asian American Studies Department, 1971, pp. 8-15.
Hata, Donald T., Jr. "Undesirables: Unsavory Elements Among the Japanese in America Prior to 1893 and Their Influence on the First Anti-Japanese Movement in California." Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Southern California, 1970.
Ichihashi, Yamato.Japanese in the United States. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969 (c1932).
Ichioka, Yuji. "Ameyuki-san: Japanese Prostitutes in Nineteenth-Century America." Amerasia Journal 4:1 (1977), pp. 1-22.
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Ito, Kazuo.Issei: A History of Japanese Immigrants in North America. (Trans. Shinichiro Nakamura and Jean S. Gerard.) Japan: Japan Publications, Inc., 1973.
Iwata, Masakazu. "Japanese Immigrants in California Agriculture." Agricultural History, 36:1 (1962), pp. 25-37
Kai, Gunki. "Economic Status of the Japanese in California." M.A. Thesis, Stanford University, 1922.
Kawasaki, Kanichi. "The Japanese Community of East San Pedro, Terminal Island." M.A. Thesis, University of Southern California, 1931, 186 pp.
Kuramoto, Ford Hajime. "A History of the Shonien 1914-1972: An Account of a Program of Institutional Care of Japanese Children in Los Angeles." Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Southern California, 1972.
Mason, William A. and John A. McKinstry.The Japanese of Los Angeles, 1869-1920. Produced by the History Division of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, Contribution No. 1, 1969.
Misaki, H. K. "Delinquency and Crime." In Strong and Bell, Vocational Attitudes of Second Generation Japanese in the U.S., Stanford: Stanford University Publications, University Series, 1933.
Miyamoto, Frank S. "An Immigrant Community in America." In Conroy and Miyakawa, East Across the Pacific, Santa Barbara and Oxford: American Bibliographical Center, Clio Press, 1972.
Modell, John. "The Japanese of Los Angeles: A Study in Growth and Accommodation, 1900-1946." Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University, 1969.
Naka, Kaizo. "Social and Economic Conditions Among Japanese Farmers in California." M.S. Thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1913.
Nodera, Isamu. "A Survey of the Vocational Activities of the Japanese in the City of Los Angeles." M.A. Thesis, University of Southern California, 1936.
Shibutani, Tamotsu.The Derelicts of Company K. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1978.
Strong, Edward K.Japanese in California: Based on a Ten Percent Survey of Japanese in California and Documentary Evidence from Many Sources. Stanford University Publications, University Series, Education-Psychology, 1, No. 2 (1933), pp. 185-372.
Strong, Edward K.The Second Generation Japanese Problem. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1934.
tenBroek, Jacobus, Edward N. Barnhart, and Floyd W. Matson.Prejudice, War and the Constitution. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1970.
Thomas, Dorothy Swaine.The Salvage. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1952.
Thomas, Dorothy Swaine and Richard S. Nishimoto.The Spoilage. Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1969.
Toyama, Chotoku. "The Japanese Community in Los Angeles." M.A. Thesis, Columbia University, 1926.
United States Army. Western Defense Command and Fourth Army. Final Report, Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast 1942. Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1943.
Uono, Kiyoshi. "The Factors Affecting the Geographical Aggregation and Dispersion of Japanese Residences in the City of Los Angeles." M.A. Thesis, University of Southern California, 1927.
Waugh, Isami Arifuku. "Hidden Crime and Deviance in the Japanese American Community, 1920-1946." D.Crim. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1978.
Weglyn, Michi.Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1976.
Whitney, Helen Elizabeth, "Care of Homeless Children of Japanese Ancestry during Evacuation and Relocation." M.A. Thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1948.
Yanaga, Chitoshi. "The First Japanese Embassy to the United States." Pacific Historical Review 9:2 (June 1940), pp. 113-138.
Yoshida, Yosaburo. "Sources and Causes of Japanese Emigration." Annals, American Association of Political and Social Scientists, 34:2 (Sept. 1909)
COLLECTIONS
Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Yamato Ichihashi Papers, Hoover Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, California.
