Were the Japanese the only people interned by the US government during World War II? Were Germans and Italians interned, too? What percentage were Japanese? What percentage were German? What percentage were Italian? What percentage of those interned were American citizens?
Also were people only interned if they would not sign a loyalty oath?
The Japanese were not the only people interned. Roughly the same number of people from other countries were interned as people of Japanese descent. (That is, based on my faulty memory, the total number of interned Europeans from all countries, combined, equalled the numbers of interned Japanese.)
The specific difference between the internments is that in the cases of the Germans, Italians, Bulgarians, and others, each person was examined by the FBI and, after being evaluated for risk, was detained for longer periods (from weeks to years) or was freed. The Japanese were all rounded up without examination and interned for the duration of the war without recourse. While the Europeans were able to arrange for other family members or neighbors to watch over their property while they were detained, the Japanese were ordered to sell off their property immediately. Additionally, the Japanese who were interned included a very large number of U.S. citizens. The overwhelming number of internees from European nations were recent immigrants who had not become citizens or were sailors on vessels that happened to be in U.S. waters when war was declared.
We’vwe discussed this in earlier threads, including WWII History Question.
From the other thread it seems that the only to avoid the internment camps as Japanese citizen was to move to another state or be a man and join the army (and take a loyalty oath.) Is this correct?
Although some citizens, permanent residents, and resident aliens of German or Italian background were subject to interrogation, incarceration, and perhaps deportation, this applied to them as individuals, and not to the general community of German- and Italian-Americans.
This was perfectly justified, BTW, given the existence of hostile/traitorous organizations (such as the notorious German-American Bund) and their “pacifist” (i.e., discouraging America’s entry into the war and assistance to Great Britain) and more overtly anti-American activities, such as rallies and fundraising for the fascist empires they were loyal to. The German Bund had hosted rallies in Madison Square Garden in the late '30’s, and the Nazi government was very aggressive in its espionage activities. Additionally, there was some evidence of German military reconnaisance of the Eastern seaboard; some U-boat sightings off the coast (and even some, very limited, paramilitary/espionage disembarkations) for ex. There was no question that Germany was pursuing the possibilities of establishing a “Fifth Column” that would undermine the U.S.'s impact in the war – or that the fact that they ultimately failed to succeed wasn’t for their lack of trying.
The Japanese-Americans (both citizens and permanent residents alike) in the American West were rounded up by the feds despite the absence of any politically hostile activities within that community. The typical issei (first-generation Japanese immigrant) (and his nissei and sansei children and grandchildren) were attracted to the United States for reasons of both economic opportunity (and escaping the class structure and limited upward mobility of Japan), and liberal cultural values (unlike that of the militarists, who established a fascist regime by a military coup in, IIRC, 1926).
Another factor for many of the immigrants was religious freedom. Many immigrants were Christian converts, and tolerance of Western faiths was probably (my WAG) tenuous at best in Japan at that time. Many others converted after their arrival – often to further their acceptance and assimilation in their new homeland.
Thus the Japanese-Americans were overwhelming “Americanist” and assimilationist in their allegiances and outlook. A family might speak Japanese at home, but the issei still made it a priority to learn English and interact with the society at large. Needless to say, their kids were speaking English outside the home and were fully at home with American pop culture – going to the movies, playing stickball in the streets and dreaming of becoming pro baseball players, etc. etc. The Japanese-Americans were gaining a reputation as a “model minority” – working very hard, establishing businesses and buying homes, emphasizing educational achievement, speaking English, embracing American culture, values, and often religion, and causing relatively little crime.
Although there were doubtless a few individuals who came to feel alienated or ambivalent about learning English and living in a strange land (and a few migrants doubtlessly did return to Japan before the war), there was no widespread anti-American/pro-junta sympathies, much less Japanese-American organizations that could be compared to the Bund.
Nor, to my knowledge, was there any comparative attempt by the Japanese goverment to use that community as a cover – and fertile ground – for political suasion, espionage, paramilitary, or “Fifth Column” activities. That’s not to say that Japan didn’t pursue espionage activities through its diplomatic staffs, only that there was no program to insert or cultivate “moles” amongst the Japanese-American community. (In fact, that would have been very difficult for Japan to do, since the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1924 virtually eliminated further immigrant flows from Asian and other non-western-European countries.) Those that were here were overwhelmingly Americanist and assimilationist; and those that the Japanese government might have tried to insert here, were no longer welcome as immigrants.
WAG here, but I’d bet that the consensus opinion back in Japan of the emigres as a whole was basically, “good riddance” and a perplexed shake of the head. Japan under the militarists (who had installed Emperor Hirohito) was profoundly nationalistic, culturally chauvanistic, racist (against other Asian peoples in particular, as well as the non-Asian races), and xenophobic. Any Japanese national who preferred to take his chances in the U.S.A. amongst the non-Japanese, speaking English, and often eschewing Shintoism and/or Buddhism for Christianity, was simply beyond the pale of understanding. But, again, that’s my WAG.
Unfortunately, a wide gulf existed between reality and perception. Most Americans didn’t know much about the Japanese-Americans, period, and most didn’t know any personally. Nor, after Pearl, would a level of familiarity necessarily have prevented the internment policy from taking effect.
The reasons for the disparate treatment of Japanese-Americans as a group is generally credited to racism against Asians and Japanese in particular. (This form of racism as a subject of historical study is a rich one, addressed by many historians, such as Ronald Takaki.) Having said that, though, a number of secondary factors (not that they can be considered truly apart from racist complications; these are mutually-reinforcing developments and suspicions) also factored in the implementation of the internment policy as well:
-
the 10-on-the-Richter-Scale shock of Pearl Harbor. Nothing truly comparable had yet happened with respect to Germany or Italy vis-a-vis the United States at that time. Pearl Harbor suggested that the Japanese were as untrustworthy and “inscrutable” (given the preceding conciliatory diplomatic flurries immediately preceding Dec. 7) as they were boldly bellicose. How, many Americans asked, could their nationals and recent emigres be any better?
-
the small population and limited dispersal of the Japanese-Americans, which made interment more palatable and feasible --politically, economically, and logistically. The roundup that proceded in the spring of '42 resulted in a total camp system population of 120,000-125,000 people (citizens and permanent residents alike) during the course of the war. (One reason for the different numbers I’ve come across is that many children were born behind barbed wire; we’re talking about the incarceration of entire families, after all).
That the vast majority of mainland Japanese-Americans lived in California, with most of the rest residing in neighboring western states, made for a more compelling “Fifth Column” argument by the alarmists who insisted on severe measures (such as U.S. Rep. John Rankin, one of the leading voices in Congress for establishment of the interment camps). This demographic concentration also made their roundup and interment easier and less costly. Significantly, Japanese-Americans on the East coast were not rounded up; only those living in the West were issued orders to report for internal deportation. IIRC, the Japanese-Americans in Hawaii (an American territory since the late 19th C.) were also largely left alone, strangely enough, although I could be very wrong about that.
-
the political low profile and isolation of the Japanese-Americans. After Pearl, this community had very few friends, or for that matter voices, in American public discourse, to put it mildly. For all their hard work and success, not many individuals from the community had achieved a high public profile, or the kind of national fame or renown (i.e., in politics, sports, or Hollywood) that would put a human face on the community, and that would prompt many to doubt the wisdom or fairness of the interment policy. The Japanese-American presence in Congress of recent decades (such as former Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, Hawaii, and Sec. of Transportation and former U.S. Rep. Norm Mineta, California) reflect the postwar acceptance and rise of the community; significantly, those exemplars both distinguished themselves in military service. If the Japanese-Americans civic culture had an Achilles heel in the prewar period, it was their subdued political profile; these were people who simply wanted to work hard, achieve economic prosperity, and keep a low profile while doing it. The Japanese-Americans weren’t politically disengaged; they voted and embraced the civic values of this country. But you could say that they were politically quiescent, not known for politically partisan activism, much less running for office.
-
Very related to 2) & 3) above, a certain hermeneutic quality that still applied to the J-A community. I don’t have the stats to prove it, but this was a relatively recent immigration wave, and for all their assimilationist intent and sentiment, the J-A community had at that point a very low rate of ethnic and racial intermarriage, typical for recent immigrants in general – and probably due as much to racism from outside the community as much as to insularity within. The J-As were to a large degree happily bilingual and bicultural (enjoying both hot dogs and sushi), but that was not sufficient to allay mainstream anxieties about this and other “exotic” (read, non-western-European) immigration flows. (The Immigration & Naturalization Act of 1924 exemplified prevailing fears and suspicions cast towards non-European immigrants.)
As for the second question in the OP, about loyalty oaths, this is very well covered by Michi Weglyn in her definitive history of the internment, Years of Infamy. Basically, it amounted to a, one hopes, inadvertently constructed legal double bind for the half of internees who had been prevented from becoming citizens by the 1924 Immigration Act. Internees had to take a loyalty questionnaire; and, IIRC, Questions 17 & 18 asked for the respondent if he/she was willing, if asked, to abjure any and all loyalties and affiliations with any other country. The problem with asking this of permanent residents/alien residents barred from becoming U.S. citizens is that by doing so they would be left stateless, with neither Japanese nor American citizenship. The issues posed by these questions (such as the possible ramifications for couples and families in which not all members were citizens), and by the questionnaire in general, was a major source of controversy, dissension, and anguish by the internees. On this and many other questions, you may also find the works of Roger Daniels and Daniel S. Davis most helpful.
Japanese-Americans in Hawai’i were not interned primarily because the Islands were under martial law already. Also, it would have been highly impractical and economically damaging to remove them. There would have been hardly anyone left there to run the farms.
A few Japanese-Americans were allowed to stay in the evacuation area. In particular, people who worked as chicken sexers, i.e., people who could pick up a baby chick and tell if it was male or female (which you need training for), were allowed to stay, presumably to make sure there were still enough eggs for everybody.
I have rarely read a better or better thought-out reply than Scrivener’s. Well done; very well done indeed.
Now turning to martial law, the collapse of the civil law system and its replacement my military courts and all that; did this really occur in Hawaii? I ask out of the purest ignorance.
At Staff College, the example of martial law used was in San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. Of course California was a state, while Hawaii in 1941 wasn’t. Perhaps that makes some sort of difference.
In Hawaii in 1942, if you robbed a bank, were you hauled in front of a military judge?
Martial law was imposed in Hawai’i almost immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor I believe.
This site http://www.thisweek.com/goodies/facts/history.html
says it was lifted in September of 1944.
It’s not that hard to believe. After all, there was an actual military attack on Hawai’i. This wasn’t exactly the potential of one. This attack was real.
William Rehnquist covers it in his book, * All the Laws but One* published in 1998. It’s about civil liberties in wartime.
So all the Germans and Italians that were interned were invested individually?
Yep. Bulgarians, Romanians, Finns, and others, as well.
invested = investigated
Were any German or Italian children interned?