Japanese American Internment During World War 2

Key arguments regarding japanes internemnt

• interment driven more by natinal secoruiy or race

• orentilism does not appear in govemrnt ratinale but is the underlyinf reason for exdctuve order 9066

• interment was not episoidc but rather contorues when views as part of asian american experince

• loyalty was particualry demostrated by 2 episodes involving willing participation

Keywords

• Issei/Niesi

• Exective order 9066

• “fith coloum”- during times of war, the possibly of domestic , a group within a country at war who are sympathetic to or working for its enemies.

• the polotics of incarceration”

• orientlism/perpetual freginer

• general DeWitt. Military nesessity

• Korematsu and Endo court case

• 442nd regiemnt: most decorate army regiment in us history

The polotics of incarcertation

• what crime has been commited justfying incarcertaion?

• how to claim gult withouy giving a chance to prove innoicnec?

• how to justify the infrinemnet of constititinal rights to an entire racal group?

• what about the property of japanse prsinosers?

• Answer: “military nessesity” overrides the consituion

Exectuive order 9066

• military necessity justifies japanese evactuaion toward inland areas

• the isue of widespread japanse protest

• from assembly centers to concentration camps

japanes were put in camps, japanese were protesting the executive order

loyaly tests

Korematsu case vs endo case: Endo determined that a citizen could not be imprisoned if the government was unable to prove disloyalty, but Korematsu allowed the government a loophole to punish that citizen criminally for refusing to be illegally imprisoned.

The US Global Vision After World War 2

• End of World War 2: United States now the most powerful nation

• Postwar vision of the world: “open door capitalism”

  • IMF + World Bank

• Ex. Bretton Woods Agreement 1944 (reversal of economic protectionism; promotion of open market system)

• The obstacle to US vision: global socialism/communism

Geopolitics and the Cold War

• Cold War Global Taxonomy: Three Worlds

  • 1st world: US and allies

  • 2nd world: USSR

  • 3rd world: former colonies

• Asian countries amid Cold War rivalry

• “winning the hearts and minds”

  • propaganda by USSR: challenging US freedom/democracy by referencing Jim Crow and immigration laws

  • response by US: efforts to redevelop Japan and Germany after way (open door capitalism)

• how did the Cold War shape Asian America?

Setting the Stage for Immigration Law Reform During the Cold War

• Magnuson Act 1943

  • repeals 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act

• War Brides Act 1945

  • allowed non-quota immigration of American military spouses and children overseas (1946: Chinese spouses; 1947: all other Asian spouses)

• 1952 McCarren Walter Act

  • addressed increasing call to repeal race-based immigration laws

  • “mixed effort” towards Asians

    • positive aspects: repealed “aliens ineligible for citizenship;” ended Japanese immigration exclusion

    • negative aspects: enforced quota of 2 percent of total immigration number upon Asian countries; national origins quota unrepealed

1965 Immigration Act (Hart-Cellar Act)

• Influence of Civil Rights Movement, Cold War, 1960s “racial liberalism”

• Repeal of the 1924 Immigration Act, National Origins Quota

• “family reunification” + labor needs

• “hierarchical preferential system”

  • 1.) unmarried children of US citizens under the age of 21

  • 2.) spouses and unmarried children of permanent residents

  • 3.) professionals, scientists, and artists “of exceptional ability”

  • 4.) married children of the age of 21 of US citizens

  • 5.) siblings of US citizens

  • 6.) workers, skilled and unskilled, in occupations for which labor is in short supply in the US

  • 7.) refugees

• Unintended effect: Asian family reunification, chain migration, and later refugee migration

Liberal Consensus

• bipartisanship; leaned liberal, anti-communism

• social spending (new/fair deal)

• keynesianism

• racial liberalism

Chinese americans; freinds to foe

• During world war 2 “how to tell chinese from jappanese”

• chinese were freinds and fight agaisnt jappanese

Chinese during coldwar

• chinese americans as “no 1 emeny”

• the chinese conffession program

“Paper sons” an immigrant buying papers from a Chinese American citizen who agreed to pretend to be the immigrant's relative, because immediate family members of American citizens could be legally admitted under the exclusion law

Japanese as “modle minority”- after wwii, during cold war

• “quiet, law adidimg, hard working, academic exelence”

• 1948 alien land act repleded

• suprume court riles racial covenats as unconstitunal

• decline in farming jobs, incerease inc professinal occupations by Nesi

• increas in repectiblity from white americans