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Today, America still suffers from the horrific events of the Japanese internment camps. We as Americans must use this history to reflect and make sure something like this never happens again. If there is one thing to take away from relocation of the Japanese, it is that even in times of stress and fear, we need to hold true to our core values and principles

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It has been three-quarters of a century since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. The order, issued just over two months after Japan's surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, gave the U.S. military the ability to designate areas "from which any or all persons may be excluded."

There was no mention of any particular ethnic or racial group anywhere in the order. Nevertheless, the implications were quickly quite clear: Not even a week passed before people of Japanese descent were being ordered to leave their homes in California. Soon, the forced relocation applied to the whole state, as well as much of the rest of the West Coast.

Roosevelt signed another order the next month, creating an agency to usher these people - mostly U.S. citizens - to camps set up expressly to incarcerate them as potential threats.

By the time the last internment camp closed in 1946, roughly 120,000 Japanese-Americans had been held in 10 camps, tar-paper barracks set up in a handful of states.
Beacons In A 'Dark Chapter'
Before an Oregon Senate committee, George Nakata, who was no more than 8 years old when the Roosevelt's order was signed, spoke earlier this week of a "dark chapter in American history ... not found in many school textbooks," according to The Associated Press.

"I can never forget, upon entering the building [where I was incarcerated], the smell of livestock urine, the pungent odor of manure underneath the wooden floors," Nakata told lawmakers, who are considering a bill to establish a Day of Remembrance of the internment. The AP notes that California and Washington have passed similar resolutions.

In their commemorations, many have turned to the courage of a few as a beacon in that "dark chapter" - especially Fred Korematsu, who as a young man refused to be relocated in 1942. Korematsu, a U.S. citizen, took his case all the way to the Supreme Court, which ultimately ruled against him.

"The majority of justices claimed the detentions were not based on racial discrimination but rather on suspicions that Japanese-Americans were acting as spies," as NPR has reported.

Though in his dissent, Justice Robert Jackson wrote the decision "has validated the principle of racial discrimination in criminal procedure and of transplanting American citizens."

He added: "The principle then lies about like a loaded weapon, ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need."

That conviction was eventually vacated in 1983 by a U.S. District Court in San Francisco. But "if anyone should do any pardoning," Korematsu said at the time, "I should be the one pardoning the government for what they did to the Japanese-American people."

Japanese-Americans across the country still harbor memories of childhood years spent behind barbed wire.

That includes Roy Ebihara, who recently spoke with StoryCorps.

"I really didn't understand what this all meant and how it would affect our family. I guess I felt we were guilty of something but what, I didn't know," he told his wife Aiko during the interview.

"I just feel that I want to go back and accept that pride, that pride of who we are."

Regret And Reflection In LA
At the time Roosevelt's order was signed, The Los Angeles Times defended the internment - a decision the Times editorial board on Sunday called "our lasting shame."

"The time has come to realize that the rigors of war demand proper detention of Japanese and their immediate removal from the most acute danger spots," the paper wrote in 1942. "It is not a pleasant task. But it must be done and done now. There is no safe alternative."

A year later, the paper pinned their rationale on the idea that "as a race, the Japanese have made for themselves a record for conscienceless treachery unsurpassed in history."

In this respect, the paper was in lockstep with the mayor of its home city at the time, Fletcher Bowron. On member station KPCC, Michael Holland and John Rabe point to Bowron's archived speeches, which referred to citizens of Japanese descent as a threat to the homeland.

Some of his addresses drew on legal trappings for credibility:

"I have merely pointed out a legal theory that native-born Japanese never were citizens under a proper construction of the provisions of the United States Constitution. If they never were citizens, nothing could be taken from them and their position is different. ... [They] are in a class by themselves."

Bowron later "made several public apologies for the treatment of the Japanese citizens of Los Angeles," Holland and Rabe write.

The Times of 2017, for its part, condemned the claims of its forebears.

The anniversary marks a time "to exercise some humility and to reflect on how we reach our positions on the passionate issues of the day," the paper's editorial board wrote Sunday. "Here's one obvious conclusion: Even in times of stress and fear, we need to keep a firm grip on our core values and bedrock principles."

Others in the U.S. also treated Sunday as a time for reflection - and as an opportunity to cast an eye on the present.

"Curators at the Japanese American National Museum say they see parallels between how Japanese Americans were treated during World War II and how Muslim Americans are treated today," NPR's Hansi Lo Wang reports for our Newscast unit.

Starting this weekend, the Los Angeles museum is displaying two pages of Roosevelt's original executive order.

"They say they hope younger visitors will have a chance to see firsthand the document that scarred the lives of generations of Japanese-Americans."

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75 Years Later, Americans Still Bear Scars Of Internment Order

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It has been three-quarters of a century since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. The order, issued just over two months after Japan's surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, gave the U.S. military the ability to designate areas "from which any or all persons may be excluded."

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There are many famous Japanese-Americans, such as actor George Takei and former long time senator of Hawaii, Daniel Inouye. Today, Japanese-Americans have found much success, as shown through statistics in the following article.

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Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends Project

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Pew Research Center

Pew Research Center

Pew Research Center

Pew Research Center

Pew Research Center

% (unless otherwise noted)

Note: Family households are those with a household head and one or more persons living in the household who are related to the household head by birth, marriage or adoption. Households with a household head and an unmarried partner are only considered family households if there are other persons in the household who are related to the household head by birth, marriage or adoption. Multigenerational households are households with two or more adult generations or one that includes grandparents and grandchildren. Figures may not sum to 100% due to rounding. Figures for Japanese and all Asians based on mixed-race and mixed-group populations, regardless of Hispanic origin. See methodology for more detail.
Source: Pew Research Center analysis of 2013-2015 American Community Survey (IPUMS).

Pew Research Center

% (unless otherwise noted)

Note: The household population excludes persons living in institutions, college dormitories and other group quarters. Households are classified by the race or detailed Asian group of the head. "Full-time, year-round workers" are defined as people ages 16 and older who usually worked at least 35 hours per week and at least 48 weeks in the past year. The share of the population ages 16 and older who are not employed differs from the unemployment rate because the share not employed is based on the total population, while the unemployment rate is based on those who are in the labor force (i.e. working or looking for work). Poverty status is determined for individuals in housing units and non-institutional group quarters. It is unavailable for children younger than 15 who are not related to the householder, people living in institutional group quarters and people living in college dormitories or military barracks. Due to the way in which the IPUMS assigns poverty values, these data will differ from those provided by the U.S. Census Bureau. Figures may not sum to 100% due to rounding. Figures for Japanese and all Asians based on mixed-race and mixed-group populations, regardless of Hispanic origin. See methodology for more detail.
Source: Pew Research Center analysis of 2013-2015 American Community Survey (IPUMS).

Pew Research Center

Read the methodology.

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Pew Research Center Pew Research Center Pew Research Center Pew Research Center Pew Research Center % (unless otherwise noted) Note: Family households are those with a household head and one or more persons living in the household who are related to the household head by birth, marriage or adoption.

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My late grandmother was full Japanese and she was put in the internment camps when she was younger. She told us (her grandkids) about how miserable the internment camps were and the harshness they were treated with. Below is a picture of her with three of my cousins from my mother's side. My mother is half Black, half Japanese, so she would always make me Japanese food growing up and taught me Japanese core beliefs that I have held with me.

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Ichiro is a second generation Japanese-American immigrant. His parents were born in Japan, but he was born in America. He struggles to figure out his true identity because of his mixed ethnicity. Similarly, many Japanese-Americans live with the same problem.

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For a long, quiet moment, a white-haired gentleman stood and gazed at the words engraved in a low granite wall. Few passersby noticed the memorial, tucked on a tiny patch of federal parkland near Union Station. But every time Grant Ichikawa returns to the spot and stands before the statue of two majestic birds caught in barbed wire, a half-century of memories floods back.

"This is a holy place for me. My whole life is here," Ichikawa, 93, a Japanese American veteran of World War II and resident of Vienna, said on a chilly afternoon in February. First, he pointed to a row of stone panels listing obscure towns across the west and south.

"Gila River - that's the camp where my family was interned," he said. Then he turned to another panel honoring about 20,000 Japanese Americans who served in the war, including more than 800 who died. "You fought not only the enemy," he recited from one tribute, carved in the granite. "You fought prejudice, and you won."

It took 47 years for the U.S. government to apologize, in1988, for the wartime executive order that swept more than 120,000 Japanese Americans into remote prison camps after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Still later, in 2000, the modest memorial was built, in part to honor Japanese Americans who served in U.S. Army combat and intelligence units and in part to commemorate the ordeal of families that were interned.

In a gesture to Japanese cultural roots, the monument is surrounded by a semicircle of flowering cherry trees.These are the same delicate trees that line the Tidal Basin - a gift from Japan whose centennial is being celebrated this spring, and one that has survived some of the worst years of the relationship between the two nations. In addition, the two struggling birds in the memorial are Japanese cranes.

"We are Americans, but we are very proud of our Japanese cultural heritage. Both the cherry trees and the cranes signify our ties to the old country," said Gerald Yamada, 67, a retired U.S. government lawyer who played a key role in promoting and developing the memorial project.

Today, the estimated 800,000 Japanese Americans - some of whose forebears immigrated more than a century ago - have achieved extraordinary economic success and have worked exceptionally hard to integrate fully into U.S. society. Many lost thriving produce farms and other businesses during the war, then redoubled their efforts after it ended. Some joined the federal government or built political careers, notably Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Norman Y. Mineta, transportation secretary under President George W. Bush.

Yet the complicated legacy of their special past continues to privately haunt the postwar Japanese American community. Once caught between two warring powers and viewed with suspicion by their ancestral homeland and their adopted country, many have wrestled ever since with a legacy of wounded dignity, conflicted identity and vertiginous twists of fate.

With a single act - the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 - a proud and accomplished immigrant group became a pariah population, ridiculed and feared. Only after decades of effort to out-perform and assimilate - decades also of embarrassed silence about the past - have many Japanese Americans begun to publicly discuss their wrenching wartime experiences.

"We were always told to be as American as possible," said Floyd Mori, 73, a lifelong activist from California and Utah who heads the District-based Japanese American Citizens League. He recalled being excluded as a boy from schoolmates' birthday parties. Even his original name, Shiro, was changed to Floyd so he would fit in better. "We were seen as the enemy, and we were ashamed of being Japanese," he said. "I put my heritage aside, and it took me years before I began to understand and appreciate those values."

Despite their drive to assimilate, scholars say many Japanese Americans have clung fiercely to core Japanese traditions and values, from rice-pounding holiday rituals and ikebana flower-arranging classes to absolute insistence on paying the entire restaurant bill.

Yet they rarely put these roots on public display. While other, newer Asian Americans tend to cluster in urban enclaves with ethnic eateries, Japanese Americans are more secluded and scattered through affluent communities. Most live on the West Coast or in Hawaii, and only a handful make their home in the Washington area, census data show, mostly because of government-related jobs.

Larry Shinagawa, 46, a professor of Asian American studies at the University of Maryland, said many Japanese Americans have adhered strongly to the ancient samurai values of endurance, reserve, ambition, duty and avoiding embarrassment. These values helped them survive the war, then put it behind them and rebuild their lives, even while the wounds were fresh.

"We are the most mainstream American of all Asians, yet we are more traditional than the Japanese in Japan," said Shinagawa, a California native. He described how his family was forced to abandon its home in 1941, carrying heirloom kimonos and swords to a guarded horse stable, where they were housed for weeks. "We are frozen in time. We are caught between two cultures, and we have mixed feelings about everything."

Another legacy of the war was that Japanese Americans remained estranged for decades from the country and government of Japan. Little fresh immigration and few visitor exchanges took place until the past 20 years.

In the 1970s, a wave of Japanese investment brought a new form of rivalry, along with thousands of businessmen from Tokyo, to the West Coast. Today, there are well more than 100,000 Japanese nationals living and working temporarily in the United States, yet for the most part, they do not mingle socially with Japanese Americans.

Now that longtime chill is beginning to thaw, in part because of aggressive diplomatic outreach by Japan and in part because a new generation of Japanese American students and young professionals, including fourth- and fifth-generation immigrants, have begun to visit Japan and take jobs there. Yet some of the visitors report being viewed as objects of confusion and curiosity in their ancestral homeland.

"I have been to Japan five times now, and I found people were fascinated to meet a Japanese American. They didn't even know we exist," said Hillary Nakano, 23, a Californian who is living in Washington as a fellow with Mori's nonprofit group. She said that when she tried to explain about the wartime internment camps, her peers in Japan had no idea what she was talking about.

Kaitlin Inamasu, 19, a student at George Washington University from Hawaii, said she has never been to Japan and speaks English, Spanish and Hawaiian. But she said that coming to Washington, where people constantly ask her about her background, made her suddenly aware and proud of her Japanese roots. Now, when she goes home on vacation, she has started asking her grandparents about their internment. "I had never asked before, and they had never talked about it," she said.

Since the 1988 apology by President Ronald Reagan, and the accompanying legislation that provided financial redress for camp survivors, a burst of pride, creativity and discussion among Japanese Americans has gradually replaced the years of silent shame over the war. Some creative projects even raise the still-sensitive issue of disputes within internment camps between young men who volunteered for the U.S. war effort and others who were too embittered to join up.

"The apology told people it wasn't their fault. It lifted the feelings of guilt, so now the stories can be told," said Yamada, 67, during a recent visit to the memorial, at Louisiana Avenue and D Street NW.

Yamada, who served in the Army during the Vietnam War, also heads the Japanese-American Veterans Association. But it is Ichikawa and another local World War II veteran, Terry Shima, who work tirelessly to raise public awareness of their history. Shima, 88, loves visiting schools to recount the heroic exploits of his compatriots who fought the Germans in Europe and worked as intelligence gatherers in the Pacific. The American students, he said, are always amazed.

"In World War II we were treated as non-persons. Now, in 70 years, there has been a huge transformation," said Shima, a resident of Gaithersburg who always wears his veterans' cap. "We proved our loyalty and leveled the playing field for future generations to compete and succeed in America."

Like Ichikawa, he said he reveres the memorial, but for a different reason. "To me, it represents the greatness of America," Shima said. "The government recognized it had made a huge mistake and apologized for it. No other nation would have done that."

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Japanese Americans still grapple withmixed legacy

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For a long, quiet moment, a white-haired gentleman stood and gazed at the words engraved in a low granite wall. Few passersby noticed the memorial, tucked on a tiny patch of federal parkland near Union Station. But every time Grant Ichikawa returns to the spot and stands before the statue of two majestic birds caught in barbed wire, a half-century of memories floods back.

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Throughout the novel, Ichiro is influenced and shaped into his identity by the people around him. His acquaintance, Kenji, shows Ichiro how to be optimistic and lead a happy life. He influences Ichiro to want to have a better relationship with his parents because of Kenji's strong bond with his family. Ichiro's girlfriend, Emi, pushes him to be his best self because she instills the belief in him that there is a potential for happiness in his future. The website below shows many pictures of the Japanese-American community and what their lives were like.

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Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the secretary of war to designate military zones within the U.S. from which "any or all persons may be excluded." The order was not targeted at any specific group, but it became the basis for the mass relocation and internment of some 110,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry, including both citizens and non-citizens of the United States. In March 1942, Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt, commander of the U.S. Army Western Defense Command established a massive exclusion zone along the west coast and demanded that all persons of Japanese ancestry report to civilian assembly centers. On short notice, thousands were forced to close businesses, abandon farms and homes, and move into remote internment camps, also called relocation centers. Some of the detainees were repatriated to Japan, and others moved eastward to other parts of the U.S. outside of the exclusion zones. A number even enlisted with the U.S. Army. But most simply endured their internment in frustrated resignation. In January 1944, a Supreme Court ruling halted the detention of U.S. citizens without cause, and the exclusion order was rescinded, and the Japanese Americans began to leave the camps, most returning home to rebuild their former lives. The last camp closed in 1946, and by the end of the 20th century the U.S. government had paid $1.6 billion in reparations to detainees and their descendants. See also color film of the camps in our video channel. (This entry is Part 10 of a weekly 20-part retrospective of World War II)

View this page Hints: full screen. Skip to the next and previous photo by typing j/k or ←/→.

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World War II: Internment of Japanese Americans

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Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the secretary of war to designate military zones within the U.S. from which "any or all persons may be excluded."

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Mrs. Yamada, Ichiro's mother lives with the belief that she will return back to Japan one day. She hates her temporary home in America, and believes that Japan won World War II. Ichiro's friend Freddie is unable to readjust to society after being released from prison, so he drinks, picks fights, and gambles. Every character in the novel has something about their identity that they are ashamed about and try to hide through coping.

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When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. government took action at home. People of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast were forcibly removed from their homes and taken to desolate inland areas of the U.S. Some 120,000 men, women and children were placed in internment camps for the duration of World War II.

In Washington, D.C, the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery is exhibiting art and other objects created in those camps -- a grim yet handsome reminder of a dark chapter of American history.
'We Had No Furniture'
Norman Mineta grew up in San Jose, Calif., the son of Japanese immigrants. He went on to serve in Congress and eventually became commerce secretary under Bill Clinton, and transportation secretary under George W. Bush.

Mineta still has vivid childhood memories of his internment at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming. He was 11 years old when his family was relocated to hastily built, bare barracks.

"We had no furniture," Mineta recalls. "All you get is four blank walls and one light bulb in the middle of the room and a black potbellied stove over in the corner ... and cots. That was it."

And so, in all 10 of the internment camps, people began making what they needed with whatever materials they could find. Scrap lumber became chairs, tables, dressers. Found metal became knives (they weren't allowed to bring sharp objects into the camps). And for fun, scrap wood was carved into small, painted birds.

Delphine Hirasuna, a third-generation Japanese-American, was organizing family belongings after her mother's death and found a bird pin that belonged to her mother, stashed away in an old wooden box in the garage. Lacquered, with shades of brown and yellow -- it was this pin that inspired the exhibit at the Renwick.

Hirasuna found many other trinkets from her family's time in internment, and began asking around for other camp-made objects. She began going house to house in California farm country.

"When I asked them if they had anything, they would go into their sheds ... and they would haul out this dusty box," Hirasuna says. "And the items in the box would still be wrapped in newspaper from 1945. So it was pretty obvious to me that they never looked at it when they brought it back from camp."
Looking Like The Enemy
A painted wooden carving of the Heart Mountain barracks, a model ship crafted of wood, wire and string, a carved and polished Buddhist shrine are all on display at The Art of Gaman exhibit at the Renwick gallery.

From the Amache internment camp in Colorado came a silk vest a mother made for her son who was going off to war. (Eventually, some of the internees were drafted or even volunteered for a special combat unit of U.S.-born Japanese-Americans.) The cream-colored vest is decorated with 1,000 red, French-tied knots.

"One person made each knot," explains Robyn Kennedy, chief of the Renwick. "This was passed around in the camp, and this was in order to provide strength and good luck for the person it was given to."

On the back of the vest a ferocious tiger is painted in orange and black ink. His hunched shoulders and sharp teeth show his strength.

"No one is going to go through that tiger to get this person's back," Kennedy says.

It's ironic that people of Japanese ancestry could fight and die for America, but in those post-Pearl Harbor days, they were also seen as a potential threat. They looked like the enemy. Families were told they were relocated for their own protection, but even at age 11, that made Norman Mineta wonder.

"You have guard towers every [200], 300 feet all around the camp with barbed wire, holding us in," he says. "You look up and you wonder: If we're in here for our protection, why are those machine guns pointing at us?"
'With Patience And Dignity'
The Art of Gaman exhibit provides striking visual evidence of how internees coped -- fashioning, by hand, arts and crafts that enhanced their difficult days.

" Gaman means to bear the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity," Hirasuna explains.

She began work on her picture and history book -- also called The Art of Gaman -- not long after Sept. 11, 2001. She says she is inspired by the way internees discovered their creative talent.

"It makes me wonder what we, all of us, have in ourselves," Hirasuna says. "Could we create things of beauty like that in adversity in such a situation?"

There were a few professional artists in the camps -- some of the internees had been illustrators for Disney. But most of the people in the camps had not created art or crafts before their internment -- and never did again. They went back to being doctors, dentists, farmers, shop owners.

To Hirasuna, their acts of creativity are also acts of courage -- "the quiet courage of people who are put in the worst circumstances, and they find it in themselves to rise above it and make things that are truly beautiful."

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The Creative Art Of Coping In Japanese Internment

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After the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, the U.S. government relocated 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry from their homes on the West Coast to desolate inland areas of the U.S. The Art of Gaman is a new exhibit that showcases works of art created by internees during this dark chapter of U.S.

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Ichiro is discriminated against by White Americans for being Japanese, and by Japanese-Americans for not entering the draft. Because he experiences so much mistreatment, it makes him sympathetic to the mistreatment of others. In the novel, every character has faced prejudice because of race or disability.

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After Internment Japanese American's Right to Return

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After Internment: Seattle's Debate Over Japanese Americans' Right to Return Home

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Issei are first generation immigrants from Japan, and Nisei are second generation Japanese-Americans born in the United States. The Issei primarily speak Japanese and little English, while it is the other way around for Nisei. For Ichiro, the divide between him and his parents is fairly severe, as he feels he cannot relate to them and their Japanese traditions that they try to impose on him.

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Cultural anthropologist, Ruth Benedict stated that, "The Japanese were the most alien enemy the United States had ever fought in an all-out struggle. In no other war with a major foe had it been necessary to take into account such exceedingly different habits of acting and thinking" in Chrysanthemum and Sword published during World War?. From this phrase, we can understand how Japanese and Americans were regarded as "different" during that era. In that atmosphere, there were people who left Japan for the United States and decided to live their life there. As time passed, they and their descendants became Japanese Americans. Like it or not, they could not escape completely from Japanese elements because of their racial and cultural heritage. This article will explore how Japanese Americans viewed their homeland. The feelings toward Japan did not emerge merely from their ancestry but were weaved by the political, economical and social contexts around them. Furthermore, the different stances held by the separate generations allow us to distinguish them from one another.
Issei: Pulled between the differences of their homeland and country of residence
For Issei, Japan was their homeland, the land of the Emperor, and which they still perceived their imagined community. They sent relief to the victims of the great Kanto Earthquake and to people who suffered from poverty after World War ?. Issei organized Kenjinkai and Nihonjinkai as a strategy for surviving. Nihonjinmachi in the U.S. like Japantown and Little Tokyo, were ethnic ghettoes, but for Issei, they were enclaves of Japan since they did not have many connections outside Nihonjinmachi and could fully carry out their lives within its walls.

Pressure from a hostile host society and the lack of English ability made it almost impossible for many Issei to live outside the Japanese community. In addition, the Emperor-centric ethnic ideology of the Meiji era helped them to feel a sense of Japanese community, like one big family. This compact, reciprocal helping and watching within the community prevented delinquency and fragile family structures, which is specific to urban poor areas.

The Manchurian incident of 1931 stimulated patriotism among Issei and many care packages were sent to Japanese soldiers in China. At the time of the Marco Polo Bridge incident of 1937, $28,600 dollars was sent from the United States alone, which was 34% of the $97,200 received altogether from all areas with overseas Japanese residents such as North and Latin America, Hawaii, Manchuria, Southeast Asia and Micronesia.

However, in the atmosphere of rising anti-Japanese sentiment, it became dangerous to show loyalty toward Japan, which was absolute for Issei. They changed the content of the Japanese language textbooks from "be a good Japanese National" to "it is for your parent's country's sake that you become a good American citizen." Issei manipulated the symbol of what it is to be a "good Japanese". Their feelings toward Japan wavered between their homeland and their resident country.
Nisei: Stigmatized ethnic heritage and negative feelings toward Japan
Nisei, generally, had little knowledge of Japan and kept their distance from Japanese language and culture. Issei originally identified themselves as Japanese and had little connection outside their community and thus did not hold strong negative feelings toward Japan. On the other hand, Nisei were educated to be American and fluent in English. They had much more contact with the host society; however, harsh racial discrimination prevented them from living outside the Japanese community. They were discriminated against solely on the basis of their outward appearance and thus they rejected Japan. Although there were some Nisei leaders who sent donations to Japan before World War?, the experience of the relocation camps strongly affected Nisei's ethnic identities and their feelings toward their ancestral land.

After World War?, an economically developed Japan emerged and large Japanese corporations tried to establish foreign branches within Nihonjinmachi in the U.S. The ensuing conflicts over the redevelopment of Little Tokyo and Japantown and the management of Nisei Week had a negative impact upon Nisei's feelings toward Japan yet again. In fact, there were multiple views held among the Japanese Americans in regard to the redevelopment ranging from criticism to vital for the revival of Little Tokyo. The once poor, defeated nation of Japan now became a threat to destroy Japanese Americans' ethnic heritages.

All in all, the experiences of Nisei-discrimination in daily lives, the relocation camps and the impact Japanese companies had in the U.S.-were common for many Nisei. Their feelings toward Japan were formed in a compulsory and standardized way.

Moreover, there are some people called Kibei who were born in the U.S. but educated in Japan for some years before returning to America. Their feelings toward Japan varied according to their type of stay and length of sojourn.
Sansei: Outer empowerment and freedom of choice
For Sansei, the situation was yet again different. Sansei were more assimilated than their ancestor counterparts within the U.S., enjoyed being a part of their upward stratum and weakened atmosphere of hostility from the host society, experienced the Pan-Asian American Movement and the success of Redress. Both social movements bolstered their ethnic identities. Also, the image of an economically successful and industrialized Japan, though it might be a cause of trouble for Japanese Americans due to U.S.-Japan relations, was more attractive than the poor defeated nation image. It was a new phenomenon to have outer influences enable Japanese Americans to positively reformulate their ethnic identities and their feeling toward Japan, the country of their ancestors.

In contrast to the case of Issei and Nisei, Sansei had a chance to construct their feelings toward Japan more spontaneously and selectively. They can connect themselves with Japan and Japanese culture without strong prejudice or dislike. They can decide on their own whether to participate in Japanese cultural ceremonies, travel to Japan or study Japanese.

Japan's post-war success as a trading partner enabled Sansei to reconstruct their ethnic identities and at the same time, it was the cause of unfortunate "Japan Bashing." However, the impact on their lives was limited compared to those suffered by Issei and Nisei during their lifetime.

In this way, the tendency of outer pressures molding Japanese Americans' feelings toward Japan is decreasing, strengthening the freedom for future generations to select their own views. Taking this into consideration, we can predict that "not ever knowing Japan, or only knowing a little about this country of ancestors and not having any specific feelings toward it" might be added in a general pattern of feelings toward Japan among Japanese Americans.
Conclusion
The images of Japan for Japanese Americans have mainly varied based on U.S.-Japan relations. The common view among researchers is that "Ethnicity never disappears in the assimilation to host society." However, the feelings toward their ancestral country, whether Japan will be in an important position to the U.S. or in the world or not, might proceed down the road to "freedom to lose common feelings toward Japan."

Last, but not least, various elements such as class, gender, sexuality and distance from the Japanese community weaved the views of members of the Issei, Nisei and Sansei generations in that era in a complicated fashion. The categorization of their feelings observed here are no more and no less than merely a "survey" of Japanese Americans' attitude.

References:

Eiichiro Azuma
2005 Between Two Empires: Race, History and Transnationalism in Japanese America. Oxford University Press.

Miya SHICHINOHE SUGA
2004 Little Tokyo Reconsidered: Transformation od Japanese American Community through the early Redevelopment Projects. The Japanese Journal of American Studies , No.15. pp237-255.

Yasuko Takezawa
1994 Nikkei Amerikajin no esunisitii .?University of Tokyo Press.

Kunisuke Hirano

2007 Nikkei Amerikajin no nihonkan: Hondo zaijuuno issei kara sansei wo taisyou ni . Thesis submitted to The University of Tokyo.

* This article is a contribution of Imin Kenkyukai, a Discover Nikkei Affiliate.

© 2007 Kunisuke Hirano

Updated November 2007

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How Japanese Americans saw Japan: The case from Issei to Sansei in Mainland U.S.

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Cultural anthropologist, Ruth Benedict stated that, “The Japanese were the most alien enemy the United States had ever fought in an all-out struggle. In no other war with a major foe had it been necessary to take into account such exceedingly different habits of acting and thinking” in Chrysanthemum and Sword published during World War?.

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Ichiro Yamada, the protagonist of John Okada’s novel, is a 25-year old Japanese-American who is conflicted about his identity. He is upset at his parents because he believes they raised him to be too Japanese and not American enough. The following book review provides more background information about the novel and detail about Ichiro.

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Official site for JOHN OKADA: the book & CONSCIENCE AND THE CONSTITUTION: the film

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Original review of the 1957 publication of No-No Boy

SATURDAY REVIEW
September 7, 1957

MODERN TRAGEDY: Like most first novels, John Okada's "No-No Boy" (Tuttle; clothbound, $3; paperbound, $1.95) deals with problems of love and adjustment - to parents, friends, and society - but with unusual sociological complications. The hero, Ichiro, is a fictional example of the Americans of Japanese descent whom we herded into concentration camps "in the interests of national security." When his draft number came up in camp, Ichiro said "No!" -unless the judge would first reunite and release his family. Two years in prison and the shock after release of coming upon many fellow "relocatees" who had done their service in the army induce feelings of guilt, in spite of a continuing sense of personal wrong. The novel takes him toward an implied adjustment to his guilt and a blessing upon the unjust society.

For a first novel, the basic situation is well conceived and handled. This is no small trick, but perhaps it has been achieved at the cost of over-simplification of the novel as a form.

"No-No Boy" is an absorbing, if often strained, melodrama based on injustice and the immemorial problem of harmonizing the guilt of a society with the lesser guilt of the individual. The modern American, of whatever descent, is truly both the hero and the villain of the piece. The heroine is "that faint and elusive insinuation of promise" which is the American's heritage. The problem itself is tragic, and "No-No Boy" comes as close as anything in recent fiction to exploring the nature of this tragedy.

- EARL MINER

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Original review of the 1957 publication of No-No Boy SATURDAY REVIEW September 7, 1957 MODERN TRAGEDY: Like most first novels, John Okada's "No-No Boy" (Tuttle; clothbound, $3; paperbound, $1.95) deals with problems of love and adjustment - to parents, friends, and society - but with unusual sociological complications.

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The novel is set in Seattle, Washington after World War II has just ended (mid 1940s). It also has a section where Ichiro and his friend go to Portland, Oregon. Ichiro returns to his home in Seattle after spending two years in an interment camp and then two years in prison. The following is a picture of Japantown in Seattle, WA which shows where Ichiro might have lived.  http://encyclopedia.densho.org/International_District

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Okada tells a story about a young Japanese-American man who moves in with his Japanese parents. He could fit into both of the communities, but longs to be apart of the American community. The novel is about Ichiro finding himself and his true identity. Below is a detailed, chronological analysis of every chapter that could help serve as a timeline for Ichiro's journey.

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The novel opens as Ichiro, a no-no boy and second-generation Japanese American man, returns home to Seattle. World War II has just ended, and Ichiro is free for the first time in four years. He has spent two years in an internment camp, and the next two in prison, after he refused the draft.

Ichiro moves in with his parents, Mr. Yamada and Mrs. Yamada, who own a grocery store where they live and work. He also joins his younger brother, Taro, who resents Ichiro and his parents. Taro feels American, and does not understand his Japanese family. Ichiro's relationship with his mother and father is also fraught, as he believes they raised him to be too Japanese, and this loyalty to them and to Japan caused him to reject the draft. Ichiro regrets his decision, and feels he has ruined his life. He faces discrimination from others in the Japanese community who did fight for the United States, as well as general anti-Japanese discrimination from people of other races and ethnicities.

Ichiro does his best to resume his normal life and explore options for his future. He spends some time with his friend, Freddie, another no-no boy who has been free for several weeks but remains unemployed, drinking, gambling, and partying. Disturbed by this, Ichiro begins to see Freddie as a cautionary tale.

Ichiro runs into an acquaintance, Kenji, near his old university. Kenji lost most of his left leg while serving in the United States Military, but holds no hate in his heart for the army, or for Ichiro for not serving. Kenji's leg has remained infected even after amputation, and he believes he only has a few years left to live. Still, he is happy with his life and would not trade it for anything. Ichiro and Kenji quickly become friends, and spend the day and night together, their friendship fully cemented when Kenji defends Ichiro from two Nisei teenagers who attack him for his rejection of the draft.

Kenji takes Ichiro to meet his friend Emi, a young woman whose husband is overseas and has refused to come home. Ichiro and Emi sleep together, and in the morning Emi argues with Ichiro that his life is not over-there is the potential for happiness in his future.

Kenji has to go to Portland for another surgery on his leg, and invites Ichiro to go with him. In Portland, Ichiro drops Kenji off at the hospital and applies for jobs as he waits for his friend to complete surgery. He meets with an engineer, a white man named Mr. Carrick, who feels that the United States was wrong in interning its Japanese citizens, and who offers Ichiro a job on the spot as a kind of reparation. Kenji rejects the offer, but is happy to see that there are people in the world free from prejudice.

Ichiro visits Kenji in the hospital. His friend is clearly sick, and expects to die. He tells Ichiro to go home and mend his relationship with his family instead of staying in Portland. Ichiro leaves and returns to Seattle in Kenji's car. He drops the car with Mr. Kanno, Kenji's father, who tells him that Kenji died that afternoon.

Mrs. Yamada believes Japan won WWII, despite all evidence to the contrary, and insists that the U.S.'s apparent victory was simply propaganda. Ichiro and Mr. Yamada have done their best to convince her otherwise, and finally, before Ichiro leaves for Portland, they seem to have a breakthrough. Unfortunately, however, the breakthrough completely destroys Mrs. Yamada, and when Ichiro returns home one day he finds that his mother, desperately unhappy in America and unable to return to Japan, has killed herself.

The next week after his mother's funeral, Ichiro begins to look for work in Seattle. He meets with Gary, a fellow no-no boy who now works at the Christian Rehabilitation Center, a charitable commune where he paints signs in the daytime and paints for himself at night. Gary believes imprisonment saved his life and helped clarify his purpose. Although Ichiro did not feel that way, he is inspired by how contented Gary seems to be.

In the evening Ichiro goes out with his friend Freddie one final time. Freddie is in a downward spiral, picking fights, smoking and drinking. The two go to a club where Freddie has been in fights before, and he is dragged outside by a man named Bull who wants to teach him a lesson. Ichiro intervenes, and Freddie runs to his car and takes off, but drives erratically and crashes into a wall, killing himself. Standing stunned in the aftermath, Ichiro begins to believe that there might be a future for him after all, if he will forgive himself and allow himself to choose happiness and community.

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The novel opens as Ichiro, a no-no boy and second-generation Japanese American man, returns home to Seattle. World War II has just ended, and Ichiro is free for the first time in four years. He has spent two years in an internment camp, and the next two in prison, after he refused the draft.