日本拘留期间的日本抵抗运动

"nana korobi ya oki"：

日本拘留期间的日本抵抗运动

萨拉-赫斯

在第二次世界大战日本人被拘禁期间，美国政府编造了一个神话，说日本人温顺而盲目地服从集中营的安排，以平息表面上的反抗。 

然而，通过访谈、文件和集中营记录，我们将发现，与流行的顺从叙事相反，事实上存在着抗议这种不道德和非法拘留的巨大反抗浪潮。 

这些不服从的行为表现为最高法院的案件、逃避兵役、抗议和罢工。 

基于这些发现，本文旨在证明 20 世纪 40 年代日裔美国人经历的反叙事，即公民不服从叙事。

引言

几十年来，日本人被拘留事件一直是美国历史上的一个污点，它可耻地提醒人们，美国在第二次世界大战的阵痛中屈服于盲目的恐惧和仇恨。

 1942 年，富兰克林-德拉诺-罗斯福总统签发了第 9066 号行政命令，强制将约 12 万日本人和日裔美国人关进拘留营。1 

约翰-L-德威特（John L. DeWitt）中将在为这一不公正的行为辩护时，将日本人描绘成未被同化的、外来的、"崇拜天皇 "的民族，他们有能力发动大规模、有智慧、有策略的袭击，如对珍珠港的突然轰炸。 

对于这种威胁，德威特将军认为这种激烈的行动在军事上是必要的。 

一刀切地拘留所有日裔与美国的生命、自由和正当法律程序等价值观相去甚远，这也是许多政治家在接下来的几周里努力应对和争论的问题。 

美国，这个所谓的自由国度，怎么可能为如此明目张胆的种族歧视辩护呢？ 

也许是为了应对美国在没有正当法律程序的情况下关押本国公民的认知失调，政府（通过宣传、媒体和政治听证会）向社会强加了一个更大的刻板印象，即日本人默许甚至愿意为了战争中社会的整体利益而搬迁到拘留营。 

为了平息对集中营的反对，战争安置局（WRA）不得不掩盖对集中营的任何负面报道，以使行动看起来顺利、有序、符合道德规范。 

政府的理由是，在战争中，我们都必须做出牺牲，尤其是对日本人来说，这种牺牲意味着他们的整个生活都要被连根拔起。 

这使人们对日本人产生了矛盾的看法：

一方面，他们被社会视为纵容、背后捅刀子、渴望权力的战争贩子，

但另一方面，他们又被认为是顺从和意志薄弱的。 

从本质上讲，政府的立场是，虽然日裔美国人还不够美国化，不能在不受监视的情况下生活，但他们仍然是 "公民"，可以应征入伍，为美国的利益而参战。

1 "第二次世界大战期间的日裔美国人拘留"，美国国家档案和记录管理局。

美国和日本。 为了调和这些不一致的观点，收容所的倡导者和政治家将日本人在二战期间的经历精心策划为一种顺从、接受和压倒性服从的持久记忆。 虽然这只是将亚洲人刻板地视为被动或顺从的更大社会病症的一个症状，但我们将发现报纸文章、法庭诉讼和反抗行为都表明情况恰恰相反。

历史记录

在政府平息对拘留的异议的努力中，这一时期的日本被拘留者经常被描绘成、并且在人们的记忆中仍然是坚毅、温顺和顺从的，他们默默地默认美国政府的要求，不加质疑。 这些刻板印象在最近的学术研究中得到了推进；其中一位历史学家埃利奥特-巴尔坎（Elliott Barkan）断言："抗议的声音太少，族群太小，敌意太深，复仇（或找替罪羊）的欲望太强。 因此，创伤和动荡又持续了将近四年。"3 在这里，巴坎表明，日本人的任何抵抗都无法改变拘留的大潮流。 此外，巴坎说 "创伤和动荡仍在继续 "是因为抗议的程度很低，这就把责任更多地推到了日本人的无能上，而不是推到了战时压迫日本人的力量上。 其他历史学家则引用日本人的价值观 "shikata ga tai"（无可奈何）和 "gaman"（忍受、坚持）来解释这些倾向： "在集中营和矫正研究中，shikata ga nai 和 gaman 等看似被动的文化概念不断被用来解释为什么更多的被监禁者要么不抗议或反抗整个监禁计划，要么事后不谈论这段经历（Muller 2001；Takezawa 1995；Nagata 1993；Ina 1998；J.

4 埃里克-穆勒（Eric Muller）是一位法律学者，他在广受好评的拘留纪事中使用了这两个概念，他指出，大多数日裔（生活在国外的日裔，通常是移民）在面对美国政府时感到无能为力，任何反抗都不会有结果： "因此，接受无法改变的事物是日本文化的一种美德，或者至少是一种特征"。 吉尔-浅川（Gil Asakawa）支持这一论点，认为 "shikata ga nai "和 "gaman""仍然对许多[日本人]具有强大的影响力 "5。

日本人对收容所的反应不能完全归咎于这两种文化现象。 正如藤谷（Fujitani）所言，这种看法将日本文化贬低为"'鼓励顺从或服从权威的逆来顺受的文化'，"尽管事实上，在日本和美国，许多日裔在历史上经常 "选择塑造自己的未来"，与上述任何假定的被动概念一样，他们也经常假定 "坚持斗争"（ganbaru）的精神。"6这些对日本文化的印象既来自美国的东方主义观点，也来自日本明治时代颁布的更新颖、更杜撰的传统。 这个时代受到包括国家建设和帝国主义在内的政治议程的刺激，要求日本人必须顺从。

2 "收容抵抗者不为人知的故事"，NBC 新闻，2015 年 3 月 16 日。

3 埃利奥特-罗伯特-巴坎（Elliott Robert Barkan），《战争：反对所有日本后裔》（"War: Against All Those of Japanese Descent"），收录于《美国西部移民》（From All Points： 美国西部移民，1870-1952 年》（布卢明顿、印第安纳波利斯：印第安纳大学出版社，2007 年），第 377 页。

4 Mira Shimabukuro，"Recollected Tapestries： 4 Mira Shimabukuro, "Recollected Tapestries: The Circumstances behind Writing-to-Redress" in Relocating Authority： Relocating Authority: Japanese Americans Writing to Redress Mass Incarceration》（科罗拉多大学出版社，2015 年），72 页。

5 岛袋，《回忆挂毯》，72-73。

6 岛袋，《回忆挂毯》，73。

与所有萌芽中的帝国一样，日本的人口结构也在发生变化。 7 实际上，日裔美国人的抵抗运动对美国的解放进程和未来待遇留下了不可磨灭的影响。

从 20 世纪 70 年代开始，越来越多的研究人员开始发掘和揭示日裔美国人拒绝收容观念的行为。 首先，日裔美国人将他们的不满情绪诉诸司法领域，他们的案件一直争论到最高法院。 虽然这种反抗发生在集中营外，但在围栏的另一侧也存在着巨大的反抗力量，政府和民众的记忆随后将其压制了下去。 韦恩-前田（Wayne Maeda）指出，在集中营内，有 315 名日本男子拒绝为美国而战，只要他们和他们的家人被错误地监禁。 除了拒绝应征入伍，前田继续说："还有关于食物、生活条件、工资标准的抗议和示威活动--所有这些都被传统的关于日裔美国人被关押经历的描述所遗漏。 任何时候，如果遗漏了所发生事情的某些方面，就会造成偏差。

基于这些发现，本文认为，与日本人在二战期间顺从美国政府将他们安置在拘留营并被征召入伍的流行说法相反，事实上存在着巨大的反抗浪潮，以抗议这种未经正当法律程序的不道德和非法拘留。 通过对最高法院诉讼程序、拘留营反抗者和逃避兵役者的研究，我将探讨 20 世纪 40 年代日裔美国人经历的反叙事，即公民不服从叙事。

顺从叙事

为了鼓励人们认为日本人都热切地愿意为保护美国人民而屈服于拘留营，政府雇佣摄影师试图获取和传播媒体，将日本人描绘成快乐并愿意前往干净、宜居的拘留营的人。 1942 年，战争安置局聘请著名纪实摄影师多萝西娅-兰格（Dorothea Lange）拍摄日本人被拘留的过程，目的是 "将这一过程描绘成有序和人道的"。9 然而，兰格在她的记录中发现了相反的情况：她发现了混乱无序的场面、压力和心碎、马厩改建后不干净和拥挤的条件，以及企业、尊严和整个生计的丧失。 作为对这一发现的回应，政府没收了这些照片，显然试图用他们想要宣传的东西来掩盖真相。 政府还禁止被拘留者使用个人相机，这表明他们不希望难民营的状况被记录下来。 尽管政府不允许兰格发表她的照片，但却允许安塞尔-亚当斯（他并不像兰格那样是社会活动家）等人发表照片，这些照片从更积极的角度描绘了被拘留者的生活，照片中的人们面带微笑，几乎没有不和谐的迹象。 亚当斯的照片描绘了棒球比赛、教堂礼拜和孩子们上学路上的场景： "在亚当斯的眼中，曼扎纳尔（集中营之一）是一个日裔美国人有尊严、坚韧、乐观的地方，尽管他们身处困境、

7 岛袋，《回忆挂毯》，74 页。

8 安妮-中尾（Annie Nakao），《纪录片中记录的日裔美国人的抵抗》（Japanese Americans' Internment Resistance Noted in Documentaries），《三藩市之门》（SF Gate），1999 年 7 月 5 日。

9 Adrian Florido，"Photos： 3 Very Different Views Of Japanese Internment," NPR，2016 年 2 月 17 日。

10 摄影师也被禁止拍摄岗楼或铁丝网的照片，这使得人们认为日本人并没有被强行关押，他们只是在战时自愿暂时搬到美国各地居住。 11 一张 1942 年 4 月 1 日的照片由战争安置局的摄影师克莱姆-阿尔伯斯（Clem Albers）拍摄，照片中三位衣着光鲜的妇女正登上前往集结中心的火车。12 照片中，她们咧着嘴笑，肢体语言轻松，手臂伸出高高的车窗外挥手告别，似乎她们只是在度假或休闲一日游。 总之，照片的基调掩盖了这些妇女即将进入的狭窄和非人化的环境，并进一步推进了政府所希望的议程，即拘留是一个平稳、合乎道德的过程，没有遇到太多的摩擦。

日裔美国人公民联盟与美国政府的合作是促成日本人顺从观念的另一个方面。 日美公民联盟成立于 1929 年，是一个致力于保护亚太裔美国人公民权利的全国性组织。 战争期间，JACL 本应坚决反对拘留行为，因为这严重侵犯了宪法权利；然而，从 1941 年开始，JACL 主席木户三郎（Saburo Kido）和执行秘书迈克-正冈（Mike Masaoka）发起了一场运动，以增加会员人数，并增强公众对日本人是忠诚的美国公民的印象。 在《日美信使》（The Japanese American Courier）上发表的一篇由日裔美国人联谊会撰写的文章《让我们忠诚地服从命令》（Let's Obey Order Loyally）中，日裔美国人联谊会表达了他们对拘留的立场：

忠诚的基本原则是服从其效忠的政府的命令。 在这种情况下，对于这里的日本人来说，这个政府就是美利坚合众国。 它的意志必须占上风。 忠诚和愉快的服从是最好的方式。 这其中会有艰辛和牺牲。 但是，所有美国人都将被要求这样做。 当其他人以他们的方式做出贡献时，我们可以通过忠诚和愉快的服从作为我们的贡献来提供帮助。

显然，由于对社区的潜在影响，JACL 不想公开违背政府政策。 在种族仇恨日本人的背景下，作为一个有影响力的组织，日本公民自由协会决定鼓励其成员走阻力最小的道路，传达忠诚。 在他们看来，这是确保为被怀疑为叛国者的日裔美国人平反的 "最佳方式"。 同年晚些时候，美国日裔公民自由协会发布了 "日裔美国人信条"，这是一份由正冈撰写的声明，旨在向日本公民宣扬美国的爱国主义。 信条的部分内容如下

我为自己是日裔美国公民而自豪。 我相信美国的制度、理想和传统......虽然有些人可能会歧视我，但我绝不会因此而愤懑或失去信心，因为我知道这些人并不代表美国人民的大多数。 诚然，我将尽我所能阻止这种做法，但我将以美国人的方式这样做。 因为我相信美国，我相信她也相信我......我保证在任何时候都会为她争光......欢呼雀跃，毫无保留，希望能为美国人民争光。

10 弗洛里多，"照片"，1。

11 Jasmine Alinder，"流离失所的微笑： 摄影与二战期间日裔美国人的监禁》，《展望》第 30 期（2005 年 10 月）。

12 见附录 A。

13 "The United States in World War II: Historical Debates About America At War," Oberlin Staff (Omeka).

我可以在一个更伟大的美国成为一个更好的美国人。

1941 年 5 月 9 日，正冈的良师益友、犹他州参议员埃尔伯特-托马斯（Elbert Thomas）在国会记录中宣读了这一完全尊重和钦佩的理念。 日本女同性恋和男同性恋协会也将其作为正式信条。 在接下来的几年里，这份文件经常在杂志上被提及，在日美民盟的活动中被用来肯定他们的爱国主义，白人社区领袖也在试图赞扬日裔美国人的 "忠诚"。 尽管许多人都采用了这一立场，但这一立场并没有得到普遍采纳。 一些日裔成员在专栏文章和演讲中表达了他们的反感： "15 另一位活动家亨利-宫竹（Henry Miyatake）轻率地将该信条解释为 "你可以把我们当垃圾对待，但我们仍然会忠诚"。 然而，日裔美国人理事会将抵抗者视为有损于他们与政府妥协以获得自由的议程的累赘，因此他们竭力压制不同意见的声音。 在战争期间，JACL 领导人与政府合作甚至勾结，以推进这种忠诚思想。 在战争期间，该组织协助军方识别潜在的不忠男女，鼓励罗斯福总统让日裔美国人参战以证明自己，起初反对公民将他们的案件提交法庭，甚至发表宣传文章称日本人是 "安静的美国人"。 基于这些承诺，许多被拘留者指责日美民盟没有正确代表人民的最佳利益，这导致了社区内部的分裂。

尽管日美理事会宣传日裔美国人以忠诚和为美国牺牲的名义热切地进入集中营，但第二代日裔美国人比尔-细川（Bill Hosokawa）揭示了许多日裔美国人在进入集中营时的真实心态，即不甘、恐惧和愤怒。

采访者： "毫无疑问，有很多歇斯底里，有很多偏见。 JACL和你自己一直在说，这是非此即彼的。 我们必须心甘情愿地合作 否则就会有流血冲突 那么在抗议下的合作呢？

细川："我认为那是件好事。 我不认为有很多愉快的合作。 可能会有很多人装作很高兴的样子。 现在，有一些照片是年轻的孩子们在坐火车前往集中营时向他们的朋友挥手告别。 他们该怎么办？ 哭泣吗？ 哭？ 没有太多的欢呼雀跃。 有愤怒、沮丧、痛苦和绝望，大量的这些。 但他们有一种感觉，'上帝啊，如果这是我们的使命，我们一定要完成它'"17。

细川的叙述显示，决定配合拘留营的胁迫，与其说是自愿、被动或盲目服从，不如说是 "整个社区感受到的压倒性的无望感"。 这个日语短语的意思是 "没办法"，用来表达一个人无法控制的情况。 因此，虽然有证据表明日本社会内部存在坚决服从的现象，但这并不代表整个日本社会的单一情绪。

14 Brian Niiya，"Japanese American Creed"，载于 Densho Encyclopedia。

15 Niiya，《日裔美国人信条》，1。

16 Niiya，《日裔美国人信条》，1。

17 《二战中的美国》，1。

18 《第二次世界大战中的美国》，1。

社区。 恰恰相反，日本人的想法非常复杂和微妙。 可以肯定的是，尽管 "shikata ga nai "不可避免地在集中营中弥漫，但这些情绪却遭到了反对政府不满的日本人的否定。 对于反抗者来说，同龄人缺乏紧迫感阻碍了他们获得解放，尽管美国政府和 "shikata ga nai "的压力压得他们喘不过气来，但仍有一些日裔美国人在全国各地以各种方式表现出反抗的火花。

最高法院案件

日裔美国人是以最结构化、最合法的方式对拘留提出挑战的反抗者，他们通过诉讼对第 9066 号行政命令提出挑战，并一直打到美国最高法院。 最著名的法庭案件是弗雷德-柯瑞松（Fred Korematsu）的案件，他故意违抗军方命令，从加利福尼亚州圣莱安德罗（San Leandro）的家中搬迁。 他出生在美国，因此拥有与生俱来的公民权。 为了不那么容易被认出，Korematsu 接受了小规模的整容手术，改变了眼形，使自己看起来 "不那么像日本人"。 此外，他还将自己的名字改为克莱德-萨拉（Clyde Sarah），并开始声称自己是西班牙和夏威夷混血儿。 1942 年 5 月 30 日，他最终落网，被关押在旧金山的县监狱等待审判。 在拘留期间，美国公民自由联盟北加州主任欧内斯特-贝西格（Ernest Besig）找到了他，两人商定由柯勒马松在法庭上代表所有被强行关押在美国的日本人。 在柯瑞松看来，"人们应该得到公正的审判，并有机会以民主的方式在法庭上为自己的忠诚辩护，因为在这种情况下，人们未经任何公正的审判就被关进监狱。 宪法保障自由、财产和正当程序，而在此期间，日裔美国人被剥夺了这三个要素。 美国人不得在没有正当理由的情况下被拘留，而柯立松指出，一个人的种族既不是正当理由，也不是正当理由。 此外，Korematsu 还了解到，美国的司法部门不能审理案件，除非是真正的 "案件和争议"，即具有不利利益的当事人之间活生生的、具体的纠纷。 这意味着美国人不能仅凭理论或原则就将案件提交法院；案件需要有一个 "人"，这个人受到了政策或行动的直接伤害，并能获得有效的补救。 因此，无论是美国公民自由联盟还是日本民众，都需要科勒马松（Korematsu）作为打官司的领头人，一直将官司打到最高法院。 在将案件提交至美国最高法院的过程中，柯瑞松直接挑战了美国总统在做出行政和军事决定时的广泛自由。 值得注意的是，他的领导地位与政府坚持日本被拘留者在战争期间扮演的顺从角色大相径庭。

弗雷德-科勒马松的英勇努力并非没有遭遇磨难：最高法院以 6 比 3 的比分判决科勒马松败诉，但三位大法官的反对意见至今仍在民权案件中被广泛引用，其中包括罗伯特-杰克逊大法官的反对意见。 杰克逊在谴责性的反对意见中写道："法院一直以来都在确认种族歧视的原则......那么原则就在于

19 Karen Korematsu，"Fred Korematsu's Story"，Fred T. Korematsu Institute。

20 Steven A. Chin 和 David Tamura，《当正义失败时： 20 Steven A. Chin 和 David Tamura，《当正义失败时：Fred Korematsu 的故事》（纽约：Metropolitan Teaching and Learning Co.，2001 年），67-68 页。

21 虽然柯瑞松在战争期间没有打赢官司，但他将自己的论点诉诸法庭的努力引起了人们对日本人抵制拘留观点的关注。

“NANA KOROBI YA OKI”:

Japanese Resistance during the Japanese Internment

Sarah Hess

During the Japanese internment of World War II, the United States government orchestrated a myth that the Japanese meekly and blindly submitted to the camps in order to quell the appearance of opposition. However, through interviews, documents, and camp records, we will uncover that contrary to the popular narrative of compliance, there was in fact a significant wave of resistance in protest of this immoral and unlawful detention. These disobedient acts manifested themselves in Supreme Court cases, draft dodging, protests, and strikes. Based on these findings, this paper aims to prove a counter-narrative to the Japanese American experience in the 1940s, a narrative of civil disobedience.

Introduction

For decades, the Japanese internment has remained a stain on the United States’ history, a shameful reminder that America succumbed to blind fear and hatred in the throes of World War II. In 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, and forced approximately 120,000 Japanese people and Japanese Americans into internment camps.1 In defending such an unjust act, Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt painted the Japanese as an unassimilated, alien, “Emperor-worshipping” people capable of large-scale, intelligently strategized attacks such as the surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor. To this threat, General DeWitt argued that such drastic action was a military necessity. The blanket internment of all those of Japanese descent was a far cry from American values of life, liberty, and due process of the law, and it was something that many politicians grappled with and debated in the weeks to follow. How could the United States, the supposed land of the free, possibly justify such blatant racial discrimination? Perhaps to cope with the cognitive dissonance of America locking up its own citizens without due process of law, the government (through propaganda, media, and political hearings) forced upon society a larger stereotype that Japanese people were acquiescent, even willing, to relocate to the internment camps for the overall benefit of a society at war. To quash opposition to the internment, the War Relocation Authority (WRA) was motivated to bury any negative coverage of the camps to make the operation seem smooth, orderly, and ethically sound. In war, the government reasoned we must all make sacrifices, and for the Japanese community in particular, this sacrifice entailed the uprooting of their entire lives. This birthed a paradoxical perception of the Japanese people: on one hand, they were viewed by society as conniving, backstabbing, power-hungry warmongers, but on the other side of the coin they were thought to be submissive and weak-willed. In essence, the government’s position was that while Japanese Americans were not American enough to live without surveillance, they were conveniently still “citizens” in the sense that they could be drafted to fight in war for

1 “Japanese-American Internment During World War II,” United States National Archives and Records Administration.

America and against Japan. In order to reconcile these inconsistent views, internment advocates and politicians orchestrated the enduring memory of the Japanese experience during World War II to be one of resignation, acceptance, and overwhelming compliance. While this is a symptom of the greater societal disease of stereotyping Asian people as passive or submissive, we will uncover newspaper articles, court proceedings, and acts of resistance that suggest the opposite.

Historiography

In the government’s efforts to quell dissent to the internment, the Japanese internees during this time period are often depicted and still remembered as resolved, meek, and subservient, silently acquiescing to the U.S. government’s demands without question.2 These stereotypical notions have been advanced through recent scholarship; one such historian, Elliott Barkan, asserts that “the voices of protest were too few, the ethnic group too small, the hostility too deep, the desire for revenge (or a scapegoat) too strong. And so the trauma and upheaval continued for nearly four more years.”3 Here, Barkan suggests that any resistance by the Japanese was futile in changing the overarching current of the internment. Furthermore, by stating that “the trauma and upheaval continued” as a result of low levels of protest, Barkan shifts the blame more towards Japanese ineptitude rather than the forces against them in their wartime oppression. Other historians explain these tendencies by citing the Japanese values of shikata ga tai (it cannot be helped) and gaman (endure; persevere): “Within camp and redress studies, seemingly passive cultural concepts such as shikata ga nai and gaman are continuously offered as reasons why more incarcerees either did not protest or rebel against the entire project of incarceration or did not talk about the experience afterwards (Muller 2001; Takezawa 1995; Nagata 1993; Ina 1998; J.

Hirabayashi 1975; Kikumura and Tanaka 1981; Nakano 1990; Ishizuka 2006; Matsumoto 1984; Nagata 1994).”4 Eric Muller, a legal scholar who utilized these two concepts in his critically acclaimed chronicle of the internment, states that most nikkei (people of Japanese descent living abroad, often as immigrants) felt powerless in the face of the United States government and that any resistance would be fruitless: “It was thus a virtue, or at least a feature, of Japanese culture to accept what could not be changed.” Gil Asakawa bolsters this argument, offering that both shikata ga nai and gaman “still have a powerful hold over many [Japanese].”5

The Japanese reaction to the internment cannot be solely attributed to these two cultural phenomena. As Fujitani has argued, such regard reduces Japanese culture to a “‘culture of resignation that encourages subservience or compliance to authority,’ despite the fact that many Nikkei in both Japan and the United States have, throughout history, regularly ‘chosen to shape their own futures,’ assuming an ethos of ganbaru (perseverance in struggle) just as often as any of the presumed passive concepts noted above.”6 These impressions of Japanese culture stem from both orientalist perspectives within the United States of America as well as more recent, invented traditions promulgated during the Meiji Era of Japan. This era, spurred by political agendas including nation-building and imperialism, necessitated an obedient

2 “The Untold Stories of Internment Resisters,” NBC News, March 16, 2015.

3 Elliott Robert Barkan, “War: Against All Those of Japanese Descent” in From All Points: America’s Immigrant West, 1870s-1952 (Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2007), 377.

4 Mira Shimabukuro, “Recollected Tapestries: The Circumstances behind Writing-to-Redress” in Relocating Authority: Japanese Americans Writing to Redress Mass Incarceration (University Press of Colorado, 2015), 72.

5 Shimabukuro, “Recollected Tapestries,” 72-73.

6 Shimabukuro, “Recollected Tapestries,” 73.

population like all budding empires. As this shift was more politically motivated than culturally, Fujitani concludes that there is nothing fundamentally Japanese about the acceptance of or compliance with oppression.7 In actuality, Japanese American resistance left an indelible impact on the course of liberation and future treatment by the United States.

Starting in the 1970s, more researchers began to uncover and bring light to the acts of Japanese Americans that rejected the idea of internment. First, Japanese Americans brought their frustrations to the judicial sphere, arguing their cases all the way to the Supreme Court. While this defiance occurred outside the camps, there was significant resistance on the other side of the fences as well that was silenced by the government and popular memory thereafter. Wayne Maeda states that within the camps, there were instances of draft resistance in which 315 Japanese men refused to fight for America so long as they and their families were wrongfully imprisoned. In addition to the draft refusal, Maeda continues, “There were protests and demonstrations over food, living conditions, wage scales—all those things were left out of traditional accounts of the Japanese American internment experience. Any time you leave out aspects of what went on, it’s skewed.”8

Based on these findings, this paper contends that, contrary to the popular narrative that the Japanese compliantly obeyed the United States government in their internment camp relocation, coupled with military conscription, during World War II, there was in fact a significant wave of resistance in protest of this immoral and unlawful detention without due process of the law. Through studies of Supreme Court proceedings, internment camp resisters, and draft dodgers, I will be examining a counter-narrative to the Japanese American experience in the 1940s, a narrative of civil disobedience.

Narrative of Submissiveness

To encourage the perception that the Japanese were all eagerly willing to submit to internment camps for the protection of the American people, the government hired photographers to attempt to gain and circulate media depicting Japanese people as happy and willing to go to clean, livable camps. In 1942, the War Relocation Authority hired famous documentary photographer Dorothea Lange to photograph the Japanese internment with the intention of “depict[ing] the process as orderly and humane.”9 Lange, however, found the opposite in her documentation: she uncovered confused and chaotic scenes, stress and heartbreak, unclean and packed conditions in repurposed horse stables, and the loss of businesses, dignity, and entire livelihoods. In response to this discovery, the government seized the photos, clearly attempting to shroud the truth in the propaganda they wanted to promote. The government also forbade the use of personal cameras by the internees, suggesting that they did not want camp conditions documented. Despite not allowing Lange to publish her photos, the government allowed others such as Ansel Adams (who was not a social activist to the extent that Lange was) to publish photos that depicted the internment in a more positive light, peppered with smiling people and little evidence of disharmony. Adams’ photos depict scenes from baseball games, church services, and kids walking to school: “In Adams’ vision, Manzanar [one of the camps] comes off as a place where Japanese Americans, dignified, resilient, and optimistic in spite of their circumstances,

7 Shimabukuro, “Recollected Tapestries,” 74.

8 Annie Nakao, “Japanese Americans’ Internment Resistance Noted in Documentaries,” SF Gate, July 5, 1999.

9 Adrian Florido, “Photos: 3 Very Different Views Of Japanese Internment,” NPR, February 17, 2016.

built a temporary community in the desert.”10 Photographers were also forbidden from capturing pictures of the guard towers or barbed wire, which contributed to the perception that the Japanese were not being held against their will but simply relocating their lives voluntarily and temporarily around the United States during the wartime. Other photos that survived depicted the internees in positive spirits.11 A photograph from April 1, 1942 taken by Clem Albers, a photographer for the War Relocation Authority, shows three smartly dressed women boarding a train on their way to an assembly center.12 In the photo, they are grinning from ear to ear, their body language is relaxed, and their arms are extending out of a raised train window to wave goodbye, as if they are embarking on nothing more than a vacation or casual day trip. Overall, the tone of the photo belies the cramped and dehumanizing conditions that these women are about to enter, and further the government’s desired agenda that the internment was a smooth, ethical process that was not met with much friction.

The cooperation of the Japanese American Citizens League with the United States government was another aspect that contributed to the idea of Japanese subservience. The JACL, founded in 1929, is a national organization dedicated to protecting the civil rights of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans. During the war, the JACL should have stood in staunch opposition to the internment for its egregious violation of constitutional rights; however, starting in 1941, JACL President Saburo Kido and Executive Secretary Mike Masaoka initiated a campaign to increase membership and bolster public perception of the Japanese as being loyal American citizens. In “Let’s Obey Order Loyally,’’ an article written by the JACL and published in The Japanese American Courier, the JACL expressed their position on the internment:

A basic tenet of loyalty is to obey the orders of the government to which one owes his allegiance. In this case, for Japanese here, that government is the United States of America. Its will must prevail. Loyal and cheerful obedience is the best way. There will be hardships and sacrifices. But all Americans will be called on along that line. While others contribute in their way, we can assist by loyal and cheerful obedience as our contribution.13

Clearly, the JACL did not want to openly contradict government policy due to the potential ramifications on their community. In the context of the racial hatred of the Japanese, the JACL made a decision as an influential organization to encourage its members to take the path of least resistance and convey loyalty. In their minds, this was the “best way” to ensure the vindication of Japanese Americans suspected to be traitors. Later that year, the JACL released the “Japanese American Creed,” which was a statement written by Masaoka intended to assert American patriotism amongst Japanese citizens. Sections of the creed read:

I am proud that I am an American citizen of Japanese ancestry. I believe in her institutions, ideals, and traditions … 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. Because I believe in America and I trust she believes in me … I pledge myself to do honor to her at all times … cheerfully and without any reservations whatsoever, in the hope

10 Florido, “Photos,” 1.

11 Jasmine Alinder, “Displaced Smiles: Photography and the Incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II,” Prospects 30 (October 2005).

12 See Appendix A.

13 “The United States in World War II: Historical Debates About America At War,” Oberlin Staff (Omeka).

that I may become a better American in a greater America.14

This notion of utter respect and admiration was read into the Congressional Record on May 9th, 1941 by Senator Elbert Thomas of Utah, a mentor and friend of Masaoka. The JACL also adopted it as its official creed. Over the next several years, this document was often referenced in magazines, at JACL events to affirm their patriotism, and by white community leaders seeking to praise Japanese American “loyalty.” Despite its adoption by many, this position was not universally adopted. Some Japanese members expressed their disgust in op-eds and speeches: “Activist William Hohri called the creed an ‘apologetic self-declaration of imagined racial or ethnic inferiority and a promise of complete submission to and utter trust in the white majority.’”15 Another activist, Henry Miyatake, blithely paraphrased the creed as “You can treat us like crap, but we’re still going to be loyal.”16 This disapproval highlights the internal conflict that existed within the Japanese community, one far from homogeneously accepting their fate of internment. However, the JACL viewed resisters as liabilities who undermined their agenda of compromising with the government to attain freedom, and so they worked hard to stifle the voices of dissent. During the war, JACL leaders cooperated and even collaborated with the government to advance this idea of loyalty. For the duration of the war, the organization assisted the military in identifying potential disloyal men and women, encouraged President Roosevelt to let Japanese American men fight in the war to prove themselves, initially stood opposed to citizens taking their cases to court, and even published propaganda that the Japanese were “quiet Americans.” Based on these undertakings, many internees accused the JACL of not properly representing the best interests of the people, which led to fragmentation within the community.

Despite the JACL promoting this idea of the Japanese Americans eagerly entering the camps in the name of loyalty and sacrifice for the United States, second- generation Japanese American Bill Hosokawa sheds light on the true mindsets of many Japanese Americans as they entered the camps as one of resignation, fear, and anger.

Interviewer: “No question there’s a lot of hysteria, a lot of prejudice. The JACL and yourself just keep going to back to, it was either/or. We had to cooperate willingly and cheerfully, or there would be bloodshed. What about cooperation under protest?”

Hosokawa: “I think that would have been a good thing. I don’t think that there was a lot of cheerful cooperation. There might have been a lot of putting on a cheerful front. Now, there were pictures of young kids waving goodbye to their friends as they ride out on the train to the concentration camps. What are they supposed to do? Cry? You put on a face. There was not a lot of cheerfulness. There was anger and frustration and bitterness and despair, a tremendous amount of that. But there was the feeling that, ‘By God, if this is what we are called on to do, we will do it.’”17

Hosokawa’s account reveals that the decision to cooperate with internment camp coercion was not so much willingness, passivity, or blind obedience, but rather an “overwhelming sense of Hopelessness felt throughout the community.”18 As the Japanese funneled into the camps, they experienced a wave of shikata ga nai. This Japanese phrase translates to “it cannot be helped,” and it is used to express situations beyond one’s control. So, while evidence of resolved compliance within the Japanese community existed, it does not represent a one-dimensional sentiment of the entire

14 Brian Niiya, “Japanese American Creed,” in Densho Encyclopedia.

15 Niiya, “Japanese American Creed,” 1.

16 Niiya, “Japanese American Creed,” 1.

17 “The United States in World War II,” 1.

18 “The United States in World War II,” 1.

community. To the contrary, there was significant complexity and nuance among the Japanese. Surely enough, despite shikata ga nai inevitably permeating the camp, these feelings were met with negativity from the proportion of the Japanese community who opposed the government’s grievances. To the resisters, the lack of urgency among their peers served as a hindrance to liberation, and in spite of the United States government and the overwhelming weight of shikata ga nai, several Japanese Americans were still able to manifest sparks of resistance in various ways across the country.

Supreme Court Cases

The resisters who challenged the internment in the most structural, legitimate way were the Japanese Americans who challenged Executive Order 9066 through cases that went all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States. The most well-known court case is that of Fred Korematsu, who deliberately defied the military orders to relocate from his home in San Leandro, California.19 Despite being compelled to report to an assembly center, Korematsu subverted the orders to carry on his life as an American citizen. He was born in the United States and therefore had birthright citizenship. To appear less visually identifiable, Korematsu solicited minor plastic surgery