AMERICA'S JAPANESE: A TEST OF TOLERANCE
Myer, Dillon S.
America's Japanese: A Test Of Tolerance By DILLON S. MYER WHEN Japanese Americans leave war relocation centers these days to take up new lives in normal communities scattered across the country,...
...An excellent illustration of such support is the little known fact that today in Hood River Valley there is a vigorous organization known as the Hood River County League for Liberty and Justice, which in recent weeks has been holding public meetings, distributing pamphlets, and buying newspaper advertising in a campaign to get the truth about America's Japanese before all Valley residents...
...On the fighting front there have been 21,000 inducted into the Army, half from the mainland and half from Hawaii...
...IT is these myths which are retailed as a principal staple by such groups as the Ritchie-McCroskey disciples in Oregon, the Remember Pearl Harbor League in certain sections of rural Washington, the California Preservation League, the euphemistically-named Monterey Bay Council on Japanese Relations, a few of the many West Coast newspapers, the so-called Tenny Committee or "Little Dies Committee" of California, and the Native Sons of the Golden West, all banded together against the return of the evacuee farmers and businessmen for a wide variety of political and economic reasons...
...If a good job is done, if the bigots are defeated, and if the thousands of Nisei and Issei return to the main stream of American life and are accepted as an integral part of the whole people, then our credo of racial and religious tolerance will have survived its most crucial test up to this time...
...They will run into the l?42-45 models of anti-Nisei myths which not only turn up every day in some West Coast town, but occasionally make an isolated appearance somewhere between the Rockies and the Atlantic Coast, long enough to cause momentary difficulty for Japanese resettlers in some Eastern or Midwestern community before succumbing to local commonsense...
...Some incidents occurring in the two-weeks period following the Secretary's report were forwarded by WRA to its parent agency, the Interior Department, for public announcement...
...Actually, in 1940 there were seven per cent fewer persons of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast than in 1930...
...Without that fund of goodwill WRA would not be driving ahead today toward the liquidation of its eight relocation centers before Christmas...
...Any rational person realizes, of course, that the Imperial Japanese high command was not in the habit of communicating its plans to 110,000 persons of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast...
...More than 16,000 have left the centers for other parts of the Union...
...Recently some of the officers and enlisted men of the 4th Marine Division wrote to West Coast papers supporting Secretary Ickes' condemnation of anti-Nisei terrorism...
...But they won't fight the Japs...
...A Congressional committee said in 1942, "The total Japanese population may be expected to drop substantially during the coming years" because its birth rate has- been insufficient to offset mortality and emigration...
...There is a democratic stake for the whole country in early and successful termination of the war relocation program...
...As the efforts of WRA and of other Federal, state and local agencies and the many cooperating organizations and individuals make increased headway against this racist propaganda, it will fool fewer and fewer persons...
...Apart from 17,300 persons at the Tule Lake segregation center in California, some of them cleared by the War Department for relocation but the number not yet announced, there are 40,000 Nisei and Issei eligible for resettlement who still reside in WRA's eight relocation centers...
...Nationwide indignation against the removal of the names of Nisei servicemen from the Hood River American Legion honor roll, first helped to bring about restoration of these names and later encouraged fair-minded citizens to set up their local League to combat the anti-Nisei prejudice which is fed on myths disseminated by such organizations as Hood River First, Inc...
...Among those returning will probably be a small number of the 35,000 who relocated from centers eastward before Jan...
...These remarks are intended not only for the perpetrators of these acts but also the instigators—whoever they may be—and the authorities whose duty it is to protect democratic rights as well as to apprehend pickpockets...
...In the weeks ahead, however, as some of the evacuees cleared by the War Department to return to the West Coast go back to their former homes, responsible civic leaders will find they must continue their efforts to inform and educate their fellow citizens concerning the loyalty and Constitutional rights of Japanese Americans...
...The whole story goes up in smoke when one points out that the Japanese settled in these places long before the military installations were built...
...Aside from the dangerous precedent established, we regard these attacks upon a peculiarly helpless and isolated minority as a kind of cowardice that merits the most extreme contempt...
...Weiser, a town of 3,700 population on the Snake River boundary between Oregon and Idaho, was chosen as the spot for their next public rally...
...In Weiser, Idaho, which I like to think is a variation of the River Weser in Germany where the legendary Pied Piper drowned the rats of Hamelin, public opinion took a firm stand on the eastern bank of the Snake River and effectively swamped recent efforts of the Japanese Exclusion League to make a race-baiting foray from rural Oregon into Idaho...
...That priceless asset is the goodwill of most Americans...
...The spectacular battle record of the all-Nisei 442nd regimental combat team and the 100th infantry battalion in hard fighting in Italy and France won the acclaim of GI's everywhere and was noted by the nation's press from coast to coast...
...Once it used to be whispered darkly that it was a mistake to put Japanese-Americans in the Army...
...They will discover, as many have who relocated eastward or went back to the West Coast, that they have new Caucasian friends, responsible members of the community who will take pains to see that they get just treatment and a good chance to readjust themselves to normal life "on the outside...
...Another of the fables designed to picture the Nisei and Issei as disloyal, contends that in California they located in specific areas near important military sites for purposes of espionage...
...The Marines declared: "This kind of vicious intolerance mocks the principles for which we fight...
...America's Japanese: A Test Of Tolerance By DILLON S. MYER WHEN Japanese Americans leave war relocation centers these days to take up new lives in normal communities scattered across the country, each departing family and individual carries one asset far more valuable than their personal belongings or the railroad fare and small cash grant provided by the War Relocation Authority...
...The clincher comes in the form of this final argument : "Sure, they knew...
...Most of these were older workers who cannot remain much longer in the farm labor market...
...The time to stop those who would use race hatred to conquer men's minds is now...
...Caucasian friends came around, painted out the sign, swept the porch, and by their actions said more forcefully than words could what they thought of the anonymous race-baiters...
...The population of these eight projects will drop rapidly in the coming weeks...
...An additional factor behind WRA's determination to "work itself out of a job" in the near future is the fact that every day the centers remain open and populated, is one more day during which the residents will serve as the special, isolated targets of those whose interests are advanced by creating hostility toward Japanese Americans...
...Homes on the outside, jobs and friendly neighbors would be the exception, not the rule, for the members of this minority originally evacuated from the West Coast by the Army in March 1942...
...TH2 confidence WRA has in the aid most Americana will offer to resettling Japanese Americans partly explains why the Authority can and has set closing dates for the centers as they are further depopulated this fall and early winter...
...IF the Japanese American problem is not solved, it may well strengthen the hand of home-grown fascists, starting on the West Coast and branching out elsewhere, to launch bigger and bolder campaigns of prejudice against the Negro, the Jew, the Catholic, the Mexican, the Filipino, the foreign-born, the children of the foreign born, and so on to the sickening and inevitable end to which Hitler brought Germany...
...It is my firm conviction that this time the American people will give them a bad licking that will be a good augury for racial justice in the days to come...
...THE new crop of anti-Nisei fairy tales, widely circulated since' the treacherous attack against Pearl Harbor, have more glamor but—it is hoped—less lasting virility than the old ones...
...at Gresham, Ore., not far from Hood River, the organization changed its name to the "Japanese Exclusion League" when its new promoter, Arthur J. Ritchie, said he found the old label too long to sign on dues receipts...
...15 and Dec...
...Race agitators began to say, "Sure, they fought well in Europe against the Nazis because they like to kill white men...
...For that reason the confidence of the evacuees in the decency of the average American has held firm...
...15, WRA now would be living in a nightmare of plans to house thousands of American citizens and aliens at Government expense for a long time, * * * THE faith that the Authority and the many cooperating church, business, labor, civic, and welfare organizations have had in the decency and common sense of the great majority of the people has been fully justified...
...There is the same gap and occasional conflict between these Issei and their Nisei children as exist between the foreign-born parents and American-born children of other national minorities in the United States...
...Neither the impact-of outside public opinion on the racist minority in Hood River nor the effect of the good work done by the League for Liberty and Justice can be accurately measured but one result has been that 14 families totalling 70 persons have gone from WRA centers back to their former homes in Hood River without encountering serious difficulty...
...The Nagaishi family found that out when they went back to Seattle...
...The Weiser Signal ran an editorial giving the facts about the plan to peddle prejudice among its readers...
...No one wants children and youths to grow up in the restricted environment of the centers, looking to the government for support instead of to their parents...
...The plain truth is that the dangerous and highly-useful work Japanese Americans have done in the Pacific, ranging from B-29 bombing raids over Tokyo to the killing of Hirohito's men in jungle combat, as Army and Marine veterans know, is still one of the great untold stories of this war...
...Terrorism, now in its decline, and economic boycotts against the returning evacuees both have been condemned by the vast majority of the residents of the Pacific states...
...After all they're Japs, aren't they...
...They next made plans to organize anti-Nisei prejudice nationally...
...WRA staff members know from more than three years of experience that they are no more "inscrutable" than the average New England farmer who prides himself on the ability to keep his counsel...
...The Nisei and Issei will more and more be judged, on the West Coast as elsewhere, by the only standard that should be applied in a democratic country —the measure of their individual worth...
...Another threadbare myth claims that Nisei farmers are a serious competitive threat to other farmers...
...On one of his first ventures under the news banner, he and his associate, A. E. Mc-Croskey, were heckled to a standstill by University of Washington students when the two men held a "mass meeting" of the League in Seattle...
...In their trial run against Americans of Japanese ancestry the demagogues of prejudice can be beaten and their capacity to do future harm can be greatly diminished...
...After all, we're Americans, aren't we...
...Judgment of them as individuals is the only rational procedure because no stereotyped label can be applied to America's Japanese as a group...
...Others, not too many and principally among the older folks, will fear they have left security behind for an uncertain future...
...Originally started as the Oregon Property Owners Protective League Inc...
...Although the average ratio since January to June had been about one leaving for the West Coast as against two going to other regions, in recent weeks movement westward has exceeded that to the East...
...The fact is that from 1920 to 1940, farm acreage operated by persons of Japanese descent declined from seven-tenths of one per cent of the total West Coast farm acreage to four-tenths of one per cent...
...2 when the Army lifted the exclusion order on the Coast and May 24, the date of the last shooting attempt reported, • The striking decrease in terrorism since the end of May can be credited in part to widespread public and editorial condemnation which appeared in all states including California after the mid-May statement and report on incidents made by Secretary of the Interior Ickes...
...As for the old racist cry that Japanese farm workers imperil the livelihood of other agricultural laborers, it makes no sense because even in 1940 only one in 20 farm workers was of Japanese ancestry...
...and the Japanese Exclusion League...
...2 or are in the armed forces...
...This had the effect of further encouraging fair play groups of California citizens to demand vigorous local law enforcement to prevent further terrorism...
...They inflamed hoodlums and irrational individuals in these communities to undertake some 34 acts of violence or threatened violence against the returning Nisei and Issei between Jan...
...Many evacuees, taking their last look at the centers located in Western mountain and desert areas, will feel no regret at saying good* by to the camps in which they spent more than threa years of restricted living...
...They had better not tell it to the 4th Marines, who think highly of the courage of the Nisei soldiers they borrowed from the Army for the Iwo Jima campaign...
...None of these fabrications stand up under examination...
...Eisenhower to take all Americans into his confidence and tell them when and where the D-Day invasion of Normandy would take place...
...One of the most widely circulated legends asserts with solemn absurdity that the Nisei and Issei knew in advance that Pearl Harbor would be bombed and withheld this vital information from the military authorities...
...They had better not tell that one to veterans of Pacific engagements who fought side by side with the Nisei at Guadalcanal and Saipan, in Burma, and on Okinawa...
...As more persons put Japanese Americans and their parents in their proper perspective, the solution of relocation problems becomes a simpler matter in every section of the country including the West Coast...
...At the most crucial moments this fair-minded majority, informed and supported by most newspapers, has provided the support needed by WRA to carry the day against a clamorous minority composed largely of professional race baiters preying upon the gullible and the chronically misinformed...
...Some of the legends have their roots in the decades of West Coast opposition to the admission of Orientals to this country...
...The most important reason is the conviction that the institutionalized life of the centers, with the evacuees dependent upon Government subsidy, destroys individual initiative and damages family ties...
...If most of the Nisei and their law-abiding Japanese alien parents, the Issei, did not know they could count upon the ready tolerance and sense of fair play of the average citizen, they would not be leaving the centers at the present rate of about 1,100 each week...
...These new lies, broadcast with dreadful irresponsibility by some organizations and a few newspapers and politicians in particular rural California localities, contributed'dTrectly or indirectly to the terrorism against evacuees returning to the West Coast...
...The long time prediction of WRA is that eventually about half the 110,000 persons moved off the Pacific coast will return...
...Another reason for early liquidation is the need for complete resettlement now, when evacuees will find wartime labor needs are still relatively high...
...Vandals painted a "No Japs Wanted" sign on the door of their garage...
...2 when the Army revoked mass exclusion of those of Japanese ancestry, 7,000 evacuees have gone back to California, about 1,100 to Washington, 900 to Oregon and 100 to the evacuated portion of Arizona...
...For example, there is the biological myth that the Pacific Coast Japanese population "breeds like rabbits" and in a few generations will overwhelm the Caucasian residents...
...One of the most apt descriptions of Japanese Americans came from Bob Hope who recently said of Nisei GI's he had entertained on their way back from Europe that "those boys are just as American as a hamburger sa*hdwich...
...When Ritchie sought a meeting hall to win dues-paying converts he was unable to find any organization or individual that would permit the use of building facilities...
...IN their general attitude the alien Japanese strongly resemble the foreign-born of any other nationality, with the added handicap that our laws exclude them from becoming citizens...
...Liquidation of the last of these projects by the end of the year was decided upon, however, for additional basic reasons...
...For the Nisei, who outnumber the alien-born Japanese more than two to one, have fitted readily into every home front phase of American behavior and activity ranging from baseball and the wearing of bobby socks to the advancement of American science in university laboratories...
...They found the Weiser public forewarned...
...That cut the head off the original lie, but a new one grew in its place...
...These communities, as ingrown as the "Little Tokyo" in Los Angeles that vanished with evacuation, would, if kept in operation, unmake young Americans by keeping them from natural association with other Americans in outside communities...
...As a result, since last Jan...
...The Issei are no more "enigmatic" or uncommunicative than other foreign-born residents who do not express themselves freely because of language difficulties...
...He never had the chance to try spellbinding an Idaho audience with the colorful myths, new and old, that have been used on the West Coast against the Nisei and Issei for the past 40 years...
...It would have made just as much sense for Gen...
...At the same time the private and public welfare agencies, with revenues up and needs down during the war, are better able to aid any of the old or infirm evacuees who need assistance than they will be if the national income drops and large scale unemployment appears...
...Moreover, some of them will never return to the West Coast but will join their Nisei children who have relocated in the East and Midwest...
...They could not be trusted...
...At the time that the Legion post received nationwide publicity for wiping out the names of the Nisei GI's, only three individual evacuees had returned to the Valley...
...SOME of these yarns are hydra-headed...
...Instead of planning to close the centers on successive dates between Oct...
Vol. 9 • September 1945 • No. 38
