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The term "Model Minority" was created in the late 60s to describe, typically Asian American, citizens that are socioeconomically successful. It is a stereotype boxes all Asian Americans into being "good at math and science" and "extremely disciplined." This racist stereotype is still very much present in today's American culture.

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By Sophie Khan and Huixian Li, fellows at the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality at Georgetown University Law Center
This op-ed is cross-posted, with permission, and was originally posted in The Hill.
The U.S. Justice Department's recent move to investigate Harvard's affirmative action policy continues this country's long history of pitting people of color against each other, in this case, Asians against African Americans and Latinos, to advance the interests of white Americans.

When the term "model minority" was coined in the New York Times in 1966 to describe Japanese Americans, the nation was awash with racial unrest and a growing movement against racial inequality. Soon after, U.S. News & World Report depicted Chinese Americans as "winning wealth and respect by dint of [their] own hard work." Similar stories in Time, Fortune and Newsweek praised Asian American groups, building a narrative that undermined claims of institutional racism by African American civil rights leaders.

A half century later, little has changed. The model minority trope, typically applied to Asian Americans, is still trotted out to downplay racism and dismiss claims of white privilege. But even as the myth persists, as we're seeing in the resurgent debate over affirmative action, we now know its flaws. One, apparent in our own research, is that it glosses over the substantial diversity of the Asian American population. The model minority myth is largely based on aggregate statistics showing higher median incomes and educational attainment for Asian Americans over other racial and ethnic groups, including whites.

But when the Asian American community is broken down into its respective ethnic groups, a drastically different picture emerges. The poverty rate among Nepalese Americans is 21 percent higher than the official poverty rate. Hmong Americans are 20 percent less likely to have a bachelor's degree or more than the average American. In contrast, 70 percent of Indian Americans have at least a bachelor degree, and their average household income is 80 percent higher than the American average.

The myth continues to be used as evidence against institutional racism. If Asians can do well, it says, any minority group can, if they just apply themselves. But research suggests that the upward mobility of Asian Americans over the past century is actually a result of post-war declines in labor market discrimination against them as compared to other minorities. Meanwhile, restrictive immigration policies since 1965 have favored and attracted highly educated Asians to the United States. In contrast, most African Americans can trace their family history back to generations of slavery, followed by a century and a half of systematic racism.

Even as labor market discrimination against Asian Americans has declined, studies show that institutional discrimination never disappeared. Asian job applicants with "whitened" first names received a 7 percent higher callback rate than those with "ethnically Asian" first names. Asian renters and home buyers are told about and shown fewer units than whites with the same economic background, and Asian home buyers are offered less financial help. Since 9/11, the New York Police Department has subjected Muslim Americans, many from Asia, to discriminatory religious profiling and unlawful surveillance.

The Justice Department's Harvard investigation is based on the idea that whites and Asian Americans are facing discrimination. However, ramping up affirmative action in college admissions could actually benefit underrepresented Asian American groups. At the University of California in Berkeley, which bans race conscious admissions, Asian Americans, who make up about 15 percent of the college-aged population in California, make up more than 40 percent of the student body.

But, while Berkeley has approximately twice the share of Asian Americans as Ivy League universities with affirmative action, 69 percent of the Asian Americans enrolled are Chinese Americans or South Asian Americans. Many Asian American groups have worked to overturn the University of California system's affirmative action ban so that applicants from underrepresented Asian groups are considered more holistically.

It's worth noting that while opponents of affirmative action say the practice hurts Asian Americans, most Asian Americans support the practice. The real concern of opponents isn't advancing justice for Asian Americans. It's about ending the race-conscious policies they believe hurt white people. Affirmative action opponents who claim to support "merit-based" college admissions often ignore that legacy admissions favor applicants from wealthy white families while disadvantaging Asian American applicants and other people of color, many of whom are immigrants or children of immigrants and less likely to have parents that graduated from elite American universities.

Offering up an imaginary monolithic culture as the model for success is futile and dangerous. The model minority rhetoric ignores institutional racism against Asian Americans, not to mention fundamental differences in the history and current reality faced by other people of color, such as African Americans and Latinos. Ignoring these backstories enables society to shirk responsibility for the racial inequality that still exists today. Concrete policies like affirmative action can help us move beyond stereotypes and confront racism together.

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I Champion Those Who Kneel Against Injustice

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By Sophie Khan and Huixian Li, fellows at the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality at Georgetown University Law Center This op-ed is cross-posted, with permission, and was originally posted in The Hill . The U.S.

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The anti-Japanese sentiment expressed in this time period can be related to sentiment in today's American society. In wake of Trump's muslim travel ban, it is important to remember our nation's history with racist scapegoating during times of war and conflict.

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The bombing of Pearl Harbor not only marked a turning point in America's role in World War II, but also helped catalyze rampant anti-Japanese sentiment across the country.

Americans ― Japanese-Americans ― bore the brunt of this xenophobia. As bold signs with bigoted slogans were erected on storefronts and stories like ″"How to Tell Japs from the Chinese" were splashed across the pages of newspapers and magazines, Americans of Japanese descent were quickly painted as "the enemy."

These racist attitudes, perpetuated by government officials, had real consequences for Japanese-Americans. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 paved the way for more than 110,000 of them to be forced from their homes and imprisoned behind barbed wire during the war. What's more, their detention received Congress' blessing.

On Thursday, the 76th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Americans look back on the tragedy that changed the lives of so many citizens. Against the backdrop of the Trump administration's travel ban targeting travelers from mostly Muslim-majority countries, World War II-era propaganda and signs remind us what happens when an entire group of people is scapegoated during a time of conflict.
Scroll down below to see anti-Japanese wartime propaganda.

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These Anti-Japanese Signs From World War II Are A Warning Against Bigotry Today

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The bombing of Pearl Harbor not only marked a turning point in America's role in World War II, but also helped catalyze rampant anti-Japanese sentiment across the country. Americans ― Japanese-Americans ― bore the brunt of this xenophobia.

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The Issei, or first generation Japanese, were more loyal to Japan because they had a stronger connection and tie to their homeland. In contrast, the Nisei, or second generation Japanese- Americans who were born in the United States to Japanese parents, are more immersed in American culture and may feel more loyal to the United States. We see this contrast in the novel through Mrs. Yamada and Taro.

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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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For many people of Japanese decent that were living in America, it was difficult to decide where to align their loyalty. This difficulty resulted in a lack of identity in most Japanese- Americans. Ichiro lives with the guilt of remaining loyal to Japan throughout the novel while struggling to find his identity in post World War II America.

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During an annual pilgrimage in late April to the site of a former internment camp, U.S.-born children of Japanese immigrants to the U.S. recounted divisions among Japanese-Americans during and after World War II.

During the war, the U.S. government interned more than 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry at 11 relocation camps built across the U.S., as they were deemed a danger to national security. Some 10,000 people were relocated to a camp constructed in the desert in Manzanar at the foot of the Sierra Nevada in California's Owens Valley, the site of the April pilgrimage.

Satsuki Ina, 71, professor emeritus at California State University, Sacramento, who was a keynote speaker at the 46th Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage at the Manzanar National Historic Site, was born at the Tule Lake Segregation Center, another former camp in the state. The war ended when she was 1 years old and the family was subsequently released.

Ina did not even know that such camps for Japanese-Americans had existed before she began studying at the University of California, Berkley, in the 1960s. Shocked to know that her parents had been interned, she decided to pursue a career in the field of combating racial discrimination.

Ina's parents were ashamed of their internment and said nothing about it until their death, she said.

The relocation camps were built in remote areas, surrounded by barbed wire and patrolled by armed guards.

Toru Isobe, 89, was a high school student when he and five other family members were interned and forced to live in a small room at the Manzanar camp. Dust blown into the dwellings made the residents' eyes red, he recalled.

Shared lavatories and showers, without partitions, were limited in number and inmates formed long waiting lines outside even when it snowed, said Isobe, who was raised in the city of Shizuoka and emigrated to the U.S. at the age of 12.

Inside the internment camps, there was strife among residents pledging their loyalty to the U.S. and those siding with Japan. Divisions between issei, the direct immigrants from Japan, and their U.S.-born offspring, or nisei, ran deep.

Ina's father was a "no-no boy," the term given by the U.S. government to Japanese-Americans who answered no to two key questions on a questionnaire to examine their willingness to serve in the U.S. armed forces and defend the U.S. No-No boys were segregated at the Tulelake camp and considered potential enemies of the U.S.

Ina's father loved Japan and named his daughter Satsuki in honor of her birth in the month of May. After the war, however, he did not speak Japanese and called his daughter Sandy instead. He never revealed the reason for the change.

Issei helped each other survive in the U.S. and established Japanese communities in various parts of the country. Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles is a typical example.

It was a bustling district with a large number of Japanese restaurants and other shops.

But no longer. Japanese-Americans are now a minority in Little Tokyo, where many sushi and ramen restaurants are run by other Asian immigrants. Hotel New Otani, a symbol of Little Tokyo, has been taken over by a U.S. hotel chain.

At the pilgrimage to the former Manzanar camp, Ina called for Japanese-Americans today to say "no-no" to the discrimination she says they still face.

Isobe, meanwhile, lamented that "Japanese (in the U.S.) don't feel the value and pride of being Japanese."

Issei have passed away and nisei have moved to the suburbs, said Isobe, who serves as a guide at the Japanese American National Museum.

Little Tokyo remains only in name, he said, and other Japanese communities in North America have faded as well.

Japanese-Americans, cut off from Japan through the war, have Americanized themselves and lost their linguistic heritage and communities, according to Ina.

Driven by pressure to be respected, they tend to pursue careers as professionals and engineers, she said.

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Japanese-Americans recall how war tested loyalties, spurred identity crisis | The Japan Times

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During an annual pilgrimage in late April to the site of a former internment camp, U.S.-born children of Japanese immigrants to the U.S. recounted divisions among Japanese-Americans during and after World War II. During the war, the U.S.

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A No No Boy refers to a boy of Japanese decent that refused to declare loyalty to the United States and agree to fight for the United States in World War II. They were labeled as "unloyal" and were outcasted in American society.

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In the winter of 1943, the War Relocation Authority launched their loyalty questionnaire in an attempt to segregate the "loyal" and the "disloyal." Though the vast majority eventually answered the key loyalty questions affirmatively, a significant minority either refused to answer, gave qualified answers, or answered negatively-about 12,000 out of the 78,000 people over the age of seventeen whom the questionnaire was distributed to.

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A growing resentment towards the Japanese race began as the government pushed them into internment camps. Many argue that this attitude was intensified by the government when the internment was issued. The resentment continued after the war as many Americans still held a anti- Japanese sentiment.

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In February of 1942, a small minority of American citizens and immigrants faced a problem, they were of Japanese descent. This meant that they were the targets of executive order 9066, which authorized the United States Army to relocate them to internment camps indefinitely, and without their consent, in the name of national security. In contemporary analysis it may seem shocking that such a breach of civil liberties was entertained in policy, however, deeper analysis will move us beyond the shallow explanation provided by the national security argument. Executive Order 9066 was the culmination of an extensive history of anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States, and the ease with which the United States Government infringed on the basic human rights of Japanese-Americans and Japanese Immigrants can be attributed to nothing less.

Between 1861 and 1870 a paltry 218 Japanese immigrated to the United States. This number would increase steadily through the late 19 th century, until 1907-1908, when the Gentleman's Agreement -between Japan and the United States- "drastically reduced immigration from Japan" (Molina, pg. 75). Nevertheless, by the first decade of the twentieth century the number increased exponentially to 62,432 individuals (Gulick, pg. 10). The Japanese quickly became a recognizable minority on the West Coast, and, like their Chinese counterparts (and most non-white, non-protestant immigrants) were quickly discriminated against.

Discrimination against the Japanese in the early twentieth century carries an odd familiarity with that against other immigrant populations, and even those in contemporary America. They were described as "willing to live on almost nothing," which, alongside their "willing[ness] to labor longer hours and under any conditions whatsoever" allowed them to "underbid and outwork the white man" (Gulick, pg. 11). The traditional "cheap labor" argument was levied against the Japanese, a sure method of aligning poor, white workers against them. The argument against immigrants also echoed popular theories born in the eugenics movement. A Lieutenant Colonel in the Army argued that within some races "the number of children seems to multiply rapidly," (Molina, pg. 77) an idea remarkably similar to the "differential fecundity" claimed to be present in the targets of the American eugenics movement (Cohen, pg. 73). These ties display the mutual support offered by discriminatory social movements of the same period. Additionally, concepts such as differential fecundity are important because they made up the framework of "scientific racialism" which initially became well developed under the shadow of slavery, and this framework was readily applied to the Japanese and widely accepted in American society (Molina, pg. 77). However, the story of Anti-Japanese sentiment takes a peculiar turn which provides additional, critical insight into the need to remove them.

It was acknowledged even among anti-Japanese proponents that the "Japanese may be... superior to Americans in every way," a concession not frequently afforded to a targeted minority (Gulick, pg. 16). The Japanese were recognized as being "too enterprising and thrifty," and known to "aspire to economic independence" (pg. 12). As such, there was a fear among the community -particularly his "rivals"- that the Japanese would "set up for himself" and 'easily undersell his competitors...driv[ing] them out" (pg. 12). The acknowledgement and fear of the industriousness of the Japanese is a radical diversion from the frequent argument of pauperism among immigrants. It suggests the precarious position Japanese immigrants faced, a sort of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" strata of society. Most importantly however, the Japanese' ability to compete "successfully with white produce merchants and farmers" was not only offensive to the Americans who "pulled themselves up by their boot-straps," but they presented direct business competition (Taylor, pg. 3). This was more than enough incentive for American businessmen to lobby for their removal, or at least to have their economic ability severed.

The discrimination would only accelerate over the coming years, and several important events were its engine. Critical to U.S. domestic fears was the Oahu Sugar Strike of 1920. Inspired by a powerful labor movement across the U.S. in 1919 involving "4.16 million workers" in "3,630 strikes," the Japanese demanded higher wages, alongside "an eight-hour work day" and "contract changes" (Duus, pg. 54). When their demands were "firmly rejected" by sugar plantation owners, the Japanese -who were notably hesitant- finally came to action, and on "January 31[1920] an official strike declaration... was issued" (pg. 66). Unfortunately for the Japanese however, American newspapers quickly misreported that "the Japanese government was instigating the strike," in spite of the fact that they were rebuffed when requesting assistance from the Japanese government. The "Acting Consul General" for Japan even stated that the "Japanese has under no circumstances any connection or relation with the labor Union in this territory," a statement which was accompanied by similar repudiations from labor organizers on Oahu (pg. 69). However, these statements were labeled "weak denials," (pg. 69) and the "Japanese Conspiracy" was soon circulating in local newspapers (pg. 67). This notion exacerbated fears of Japanese competition with the United States on the global, political scale, which will be discussed later. Unfortunately, though, as it so often does, legislative and judicial practices reflected (and served to propagate) the fear and discrimination which resulted from these events and sentiments.

California, the recipient of most Japanese immigration, would prominently display discrimination in legislation. Between just two states legislature sessions "fifty one anti-Japanese bills were proposed," (Gulick, pg. 188) and in 1913 the State Legislature passed the Alien Lands Act which prevented "those not eligible for naturalization" from owning land for more than three years" (Molina, pg. 86). This effectively eliminated competition for white farmers in California, again reflecting the role economics played in the exclusion of the Japanese. Additionally, California became notorious for its "so-called school question," when the "School Board of San Francisco adopted the principle of race segregation" (Gulick, pg. 186). The Japanese found this humiliating, as it placed them at the bottom of the racial hierarchy with African Americans and other minorities.

Further, the Japanese were dealt a national blow in 1922, when, in Ozawa v. United States, it was determined that a Japanese person was not "eligible to citizenship under the Naturalization Laws" (United States Supreme Court, pg. 151). The courts determined that although there was no indication of "individual unworthiness or racial inferiority," the Japanese were "not Caucasian and therefore belong entirely outside the zone on the negative side" (pg. 156-157). This was a massive blow to the Japanese. It confirmed within the American Court system that regardless of any seemingly kind suppositions about their "culture and enlightenment," the Japanese were being placed in an inferior position in American society. This would later be justification for further discrimination in policy.

That discriminatory policy would come in the form of the Immigration Act of 1924, and the Japanese Exclusion clause. With increasing pressure over the Japanese Conspiracy from Hawaiian representatives, Albert Johnson, Chairman of the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, pushed for a bill that prohibited the "immigration of all Asians" (Duus, pg. 300). Section 13 of that bill stipulates that "no alien ineligible to citizenship shall be admitted to the United States," and, among those section 28 defines as "debarred from becoming a citizen," are the Japanese (U.S. Congress, 1924). The Japanese would not recover from the "shock of exclusion" for some time (Hirobe, pg. 67).

It is important to note that fear of the Japanese was not limited to domestic issues. The Japanese had recently achieved victory against Russia "the largest nation in Europe," in the Russo-Japanese war, thereby demonstrating their "growing prestige and power" (Finkelman, pg. 7). Increasing tension between the United States and the emerging Japanese empire would lead both sides to become increasingly conscious of the other, and the U.S. secretary of State remarked in 1906 that "Japan is ready for war" (pg. 8). Tensions escalated in 1908 when President Roosevelt demonstrated U.S. power by ordering the "Great White Fleet [to] steam into Yokohama Bay" in Japan (pg. 8), and by 1919, a prominent Japanese leader Seigo Nakano remarked that "'a clash between Japan and America' over the future of Japanese interests in China would be 'difficult to avoid'" (Duus, pg. 50). Although it may seem obvious, it is important to note that the American public was not unaware of U.S.-Japan relations, as is illustrated by several political cartoons which appeared in the Tacoma Times in 1904. Both are by Bob Satterfield, the first detailing an impression that the Japanese are reckless and haphazard, almost careless with the specter of war looming. Given increased tension between the United States and Japan, this assumed Japanese attitude towards armed conflict stoked a fear of possible reckless aggression towards the U.S. Additionally, the latter cartoon offers Satterfield's impression of Japanese censorship of the war, immediately implying distrust of the Japanese empire and their reports of the conflict. Both sustain the notion that domestic racism was both paralleled and supported by international tension and distrust.

It is clear that by the time the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor there was already a deeply rooted hatred of the Japanese living in America. By the turn of the century the Japanese were considered among "Mexicans...Chinese, and Negroes," a position of marked inferiority within American society, and these sentiments were reflected and propagated by judicial and legislative practices (Molina, pg. 39). Therefore, given the history of anti-Japanese sentiment stemming from the beginning of the century, it seems impossible to claim national security as the sole motive for executive order 9066.

Finkelman, Paul. "2015 Mid-Atlantic People of Color Conference: Coping with a New "Yellow Peril": Japanese Immigration, The Gentlemen's Agreement, and the Coming of World War II." West Virginia Law Review 117 W. Va. L. Rev. 1409. Date Accessed: 2016/09/20. www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/Inacademic.

Quintard Taylor. "Blacks and Asians in a White City: Japanese Americans and African Americans in Seattle, 1890-1940." The Western Historical Quarterly 22, no. 4 (1991): 401-29.

Hirobe, Izumi. Japanese Pride, American Prejudice. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2001.

Duus, Masayo. The Japanese Conspiracy: The Oahu Sugar Strike of 1920. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, London, England: University of California Press, Ltd., 1999.

Gulick, Sydney. The Japanese American Problem: A Study of the Racial Relations of the East and the West. New York, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1914.

Molina, Natalia. How Race is Made in America: Immigration, Citizenship, and the Historical Power of Racial Scripts. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2014.

Cohen, Adam. Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck. New York, New York: Penguin Publishing Group, 2016

Ozawa v. United States. The American Journal of International Law 17, No. 1 (1923): 151-157. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2187762

U.S. Congress. The Immigration Act of 1924. 68 th Cong., 1 st Sess., May 26 1924.

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The History of Anti-Japanese Sentiment in America

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In February of 1942, a small minority of American citizens and immigrants faced a problem, they were of Japanese descent. This meant that they were the targets of executive order 9066, which authorized the United States Army to relocate them to internment camps indefinitely, and without their consent, in the name of national security.

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Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Rosevelt issued an executive order that would put all people of Japanese heritage in internment camps. The bombing sparked a national fear about the safety of the United States so the government decided that the Japanese living in America could not be trusted.

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In his speech to Congress, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was "a date which will live in infamy." The attack launched the United States fully into the two theaters of World War II - Europe and the Pacific. Prior to Pearl Harbor, the United States had been involved in a non-combat role, through the Lend-Lease Program that supplied England, China, Russia, and other anti-fascist countries of Europe with munitions.

The attack on Pearl Harbor also launched a rash of fear about national security, especially on the West Coast. In February 1942, just two months later, President Roosevelt, as commander-in-chief, issued Executive Order 9066 that resulted in the internment of Japanese Americans. The order authorized the Secretary of War and military commanders to evacuate all persons deemed a threat from the West Coast to internment camps, that the government called "relocation centers," further inland. Read more...

Primary Sources
Links go to DocsTeach, the online tool for teaching with documents from the National Archives.
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Additional Background Information

Prior to the outbreak of World War II, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had identified German, Italian, and Japanese aliens who were suspected of being potential enemy agents; and they were kept under surveillance. Following the attack at Pearl Harbor, government suspicion arose not only around aliens who came from enemy nations, but around all persons of Japanese descent, whether foreign born ( issei) or American citizens ( nisei). During congressional committee hearings, representatives of the Department of Justice raised logistical, constitutional, and ethical objections. Regardless, the task was turned over to the U.S. Army as a security matter.

The entire West Coast was deemed a military area and was divided into military zones. Executive Order 9066 authorized military commanders to exclude civilians from military areas. Although the language of the order did not specify any ethnic group, Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt of the Western Defense Command proceeded to announce curfews that included only Japanese Americans. Next, he encouraged voluntary evacuation by Japanese Americans from a limited number of areas; about seven percent of the total Japanese American population in these areas complied.

On March 29, 1942, under the authority of the executive order, DeWitt issued Public Proclamation No. 4, which began the forced evacuation and detention of Japanese-American West Coast residents on a 48-hour notice. Only a few days prior to the proclamation, on March 21, Congress had passed Public Law 503, which made violation of Executive Order 9066 a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Because of the perception of "public danger," all Japanese Americans within varied distances from the Pacific coast were targeted. Unless they were able to dispose of or make arrangements for care of their property within a few days, their homes, farms, businesses, and most of their private belongings were lost forever.

From the end of March to August, approximately 112,000 persons were sent to "assembly centers" - often racetracks or fairgrounds - where they waited and were tagged to indicate the location of a long-term "relocation center" that would be their home for the rest of the war. Nearly 70,000 of the evacuees were American citizens. There were no charges of disloyalty against any of these citizens, nor was there any vehicle by which they could appeal their loss of property and personal liberty.

"Relocation centers" were situated many miles inland, often in remote and desolate locales. Sites included Tule Lake and Manzanar in California; Gila River and Poston in Arizona; Jerome and Rohwer in Arkansas, Minidoka in Idaho; Topaz in Utah; Heart Mountain in Wyoming; and Granada in Colorado. (Incarceration rates were significantly lower in the territory of Hawaii, where Japanese Americans made up over one-third of the population and their labor was needed to sustain the economy. However, martial law had been declared in Hawaii immediately following the Pearl Harbor attack, and the Army issued hundreds of military orders, some applicable only to persons of Japanese ancestry.)

In the "relocation centers" (also called "internment camps"), four or five families, with their sparse collections of clothing and possessions, shared tar-papered army-style barracks. Most lived in these conditions for nearly three years or more until the end of the war. Gradually some insulation was added to the barracks and lightweight partitions were added to make them a little more comfortable and somewhat private. Life took on some familiar routines of socializing and school. However, eating in common facilities, using shared restrooms, and having limited opportunities for work interrupted other social and cultural patterns. Persons who resisted were sent to a special camp at Tule Lake, CA, where dissidents were housed.

In 1943 and 1944, the government assembled a combat unit of Japanese Americans for the European theater. It became the 442d Regimental Combat Team and gained fame as the most highly decorated of World War II. Their military record bespoke their patriotism.

As the war drew to a close, "internment camps" were slowly evacuated. While some persons of Japanese ancestry returned to their hometowns, others sought new surroundings. For example, the Japanese-American community of Tacoma, WA, had been sent to three different centers; only 30 percent returned to Tacoma after the war. Japanese Americans from Fresno had gone to Manzanar; 80 percent returned to their hometown.

The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II sparked constitutional and political debate. During this period, three Japanese-American citizens challenged the constitutionality of the forced relocation and curfew orders through legal actions: Gordon Hirabayashi, Fred Korematsu, and Mitsuye Endo. Hirabayashi and Korematsu received negative judgments; but Mitsuye Endo, after a lengthy battle through lesser courts, was determined to be "loyal" and allowed to leave the Topaz, Utah, facility.

Justice Murphy of the Supreme Court expressed the following opinion in Ex parte Mitsuye Endo:

I join in the opinion of the Court, but I am of the view that detention in Relocation Centers of persons of Japanese ancestry regardless of loyalty is not only unauthorized by Congress or the Executive but is another example of the unconstitutional resort to racism inherent in the entire evacuation program. As stated more fully in my dissenting opinion in Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 , 65 S.Ct. 193, racial discrimination of this nature bears no reasonable relation to military necessity and is utterly foreign to the ideals and traditions of the American people.

In 1988, Congress passed, and President Reagan signed, Public Law 100-383 - the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 - that acknowledged the injustice of "internment," apologized for it, and provided a $20,000 cash payment to each person who was incarcerated.

One of the most stunning ironies in this episode of denied civil liberties was articulated by an internee who, when told that Japanese Americans were put in those camps for their own protection, countered "If we were put there for our protection, why were the guns at the guard towers pointed inward, instead of outward?"

A note on terminology: The historical primary source documents included on this page reflect the terminology that the government used at the time, such as alien, evacuation, relocation, relocation centers, internment, and Japanese (as opposed to Japanese American).
Materials created by the National Archives and Records Administration are in the public domain.

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Japanese-American Incarceration During World War II

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In his speech to Congress, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was "a date which will live in infamy." The attack launched the United States fully into the two theaters of World War II - Europe and the Pacific.

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No-No Boy focuses on Ichiro Yamada as he returns from internment and jail after deferring from the World War II draft. Throughout the novel, Ichiro struggles to find his identity as a Japanese man living in America.

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SuperSummary, a modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, offers high-quality study guides for challenging works of literature. This 34-page guide for "No No Boy" by John Okada includes detailed chapter summaries and analysis covering 11 chapters, as well as several more in-depth sections of expert-written literary analysis. Featured content includes commentary on major characters, 25 important quotes, essay topics, and key themes like Prejudice in Pluralistic America and Intergenerational Divides. Plot Summary
The novel dramatizes thestruggles of twenty-five-year-old Ichiro Yamada as he returns home after two years spent in prison. Ichiro is a no-no boy, meaning that in response to the 1943 questionnaire entitled "Statement of U.S. Citizenship of Japanese American Ancestry," he answered no to questions 27 and 28. These questions asked respondents first, if they would serve in the U.S. military whenever ordered and second, if they would forswear allegiance to the Emperor of Japan or any other foreign power. Throughout the novel, Ichiro continually examines his own motives for answering no to these questions. Was he angry about internment? Was he a pawn of his mother who refuses to assimilate in any way whatsoever? Was he a coward or a fool? Ichiro wonders what the future now holds for him in America; the book maps his journey to figure that out. Ichiro attempts to reconnect with family, friends, and old acquaintances, desperate to resolve whether he is Japanese or American. Is America a place of promise that welcomes people of all backgrounds, or a place of prejudice where minorities are excluded? These are the questions Ichiro desperately seeks to answer.

His journey includes reuniting with childhood friends, trying to connect with his parents and younger brother, and visiting Japanese neighbors who have been galvanized by the war. He travels to old college haunts to see if he might pick up the pieces of his old life. He drowns his sorrows in alcohol at Club Oriental, in revelry at the pool hall and in intimate moments in bed with a woman, Emi, who shares his quandaries. Ichiro turns down opportunities from different well-meaning Caucasians who use Ichiro to alleviate their own guilt for the Japanese Internment. Ichiro witnesses addiction-in his father who drinks to forget his pain and his friend Freddie who escapes from shame and anger in gambling and womanizing. Ichiro experiences great loss-of his mother who commits suicide rather than see her sons become Americanized, of his friend Freddie who finally succumbs to his own fatalism, and of his friend Kenji who dies of war wounds.

The book offers no easy answers. Ichiro does not save his mother. He does not patch things up with his brother. His father does not recover from his addiction. Ichiro does not get the perfect job or have an idealized romance. The book is unflinching is its exploration of racism, assimilation, and the quest for a place in American society. It ends with Ichiro still chasing "that faint and elusive insinuation of promise as it continued to take shape in mind and heart."

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No No Boy Summary and Study Guide | SuperSummary

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SuperSummary, a modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, offers high-quality study guides for challenging works of literature. This 34-page guide for "No No Boy" by John Okada includes detailed chapter summaries and analysis covering 11 chapters, as well as several more in-depth sections of expert-written literary analysis.

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No-No boy is set in Seattle after World War II and the Japanese Internment. Ichiro's family owns a small grocery shop in an Japanese enclave. Many people in Seattle still held a resentment towards Japanese-Americans, especially those who deferred the draft.

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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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Character Overview
Ichiro:
Ichiro is called a No-No boy because he deferred the draft and served prison time instead of going fighting to World War II for the United States. He ultimately decided not to fight for America because his mother thought the it would betraying Japan if he were to fight for America. He feels guilt for not fighting and  struggles to find his identity throughout the book because he is not truly American not Japanese.

Mrs. Yamada:
Mrs. Yamada is a Japanese woman living in America and is Ichiro's mother. She is considered as "sick" because she is convinced that Japan won the war. She is extremely proud of her son for not fighting for America because she is loyal to Japan, despite living in America for so long. She is super opinionated and refuses to believe anyone who doubts her nationalistic views.

Mr. Yamada:
Mr. Yamada believes Mrs. Yamada is extremely sick and is unhappy because he cannot help his relatives and friends who are struggling in Japan. He has difficulty talking to his sons.

Taro:
Taro is Ichiro's brother and the son of Mr. and Mrs. Yamada. He resents Ichiro because he refused to fight for America. He enlists as soon as he turns 18 despite his mother's wishes.

Kenji:
Kenji fought for America and lost a leg. He is dying but continues to stand up for Ichiro when others made fun of him for being a No-No Boy.

Emi:
Emi is a Japanese-American woman he is friends with Kenji. Kenji introduces Ichiro to Emi and she begins an affair with him. Emi's husband Ralph served in the American army but refuses to come back to the US because he is ashamed of his brother who repatriated to Japan.

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The No-No Boy Community Note includes chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quizzes written by community members like you.