Department of History Japanese American Citizens League The ...

Department of History University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

Japanese American Citizens League The Effect of World War II Relocation Camps

Senior Thesis History 489: Research Seminar

Professor Kate Lang Cooperating Professor:

Earl A. Shoemaker

Maggie E. Carignan

Copyright for this work is owned by the author. This digital version is published by McIntyre Library, University of Wisconsin Eau Claire with the consent of the author.

Maggie Carignan JACL: The Effect of WWII Relocation Camps

CONTENTS

Abstract..........................................................................................................................................

3

Breaking the Silence.....................................................................................................................

4

JACL Creed......................................................................................................................................

5

Introduction...................................................................................................................................

6

Immigration and Discrimination Begins....................................................................................

7

The Early JACL................................................................................................................................ 10

World War Two Relocation......................................................................................................... 17

Government Confusion................................................................................................................ 21

Economic Damage......................................................................................................................... 23

Psychological Damage.................................................................................................................. 25

Constitutionality............................................................................................................................ 26

Post-War Redress.......................................................................................................................... 30

Conclusion: Redress Granted...................................................................................................... 37

Figures 1-4...................................................................................................................................... 40

Bibliography................................................................................................................................... 42

2

Maggie Carignan JACL: The Effect of WWII Relocation Camps

Abstract The Japanese American Citizens League was established at a time when life for Americans of Japanese descent was very difficult. They were facing discrimination from Americans of all other ancestries and from the government. In establishing the League, the founders hoped to be able to fight for their rights and show that they were Americans no matter what ethnicity they were. The League fought for a number of different rights in the 1920s and 1930s, mostly concerning the granting of citizenship. After the United States entered World War II, life for those of Japanese ancestry changed in a number of ways when they were ordered to enter relocation camps. With the change of their lives, the objective of the Japanese American Citizens League changed as well. For four decades the main task of the League was to set right the actions of the government and get redress for what evacuees had experienced. Examining this change in the organization will be the focus of this paper.

3

Maggie Carignan JACL: The Effect of WWII Relocation Camps

Breaking the Silence honored by our ancestors is a lamentation; not of battles lost or won, but a remembrance of the lives of those

who have passed before us. . . . Breaking the silence Is also a tribute to their perseverance. . . . We do this, not to rake up old coals, but to see with new eyes: the past can no more be denied.

--- Nikki Nojima Louis, Breaking the Silence1

1 Yasuko I. Takezawa, Breaking the Silence: Redress and Japanese American Ethnicity, (Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1995), vii.

4

Maggie Carignan JACL: The Effect of WWII Relocation Camps

I am proud that I am an American citizen of Japanese ancestry, for my very background makes me appreciate more fully the wonderful advantage of this nation. I believe in her institutions, ideals, and traditions; I glory in her heritage; I boast of her history; I trust in her future. She has granted me liberties and opportunities such as no individual enjoys in this world today. She has given me an education befitting kings. She has entrusted me with the responsibilities of the franchise. She has permitted me to build a home, to earn a livelihood, to worship, think, speak, and act as I please - as a free man equal to every other man. Although some individuals may discriminate against me, I shall never become bitter or lose faith, for I know that such persons are not representative of the majority of the American people. True; I shall do all in my power to discourage such practices; but I shall do it in the American way, above board, in the open, through courts of law, by education, by proving myself to be worthy of equal treatment and consideration. I am firm in my belief that American sportsmanship and attitude of fair play will judge citizenship on the basis of action and achievement and not on the basis of physical characteristics. Because I believe in America, and I trust she believes in me, and because I have received innumerable benefits from her, I pledge myself to do honor to her at all times and in all places, to support her Constitution, to obey her laws, to respect her Flag, to defend her against all enemies foreign or domestic and to actively assume my duties and obligations as a citizen, cheerfully and without any reservation whatsoever, in the hope that I may become a better American in a greater America.

- JACL Creed, 19412

2 Portland JACL, JACL Creed; available from ; Internet; accessed 25 October 2009.

5

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download