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Lecture # 8: Yellow Peril
WWII & Executive Order 9066
Pearl Harbor
 Sept 27, 1940 – Tripartite Pact signed

Japan’s vision of the Greater East
Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
 Dec 7, 1941 – attack on Pearl Harbor
 Dec 8, 1941 – US declares war on
Japan
 Japanese populations on day of attack:

HI =158,000 (40% of population)

CA = 94,000 (1% of population)

WA & OR = 25,000 (les than 1%)
Internment
 Anti-internment conditions in HI:
 Resistance by HI’s military governor, Delos Emmons
 Impracticality of interning 100,000+ people
 90% of labor in HI = Japanese
 Resistance by business and political leaders as well as press and
media
 Perception of HI as cosmopolitan and multi-racial space
 Pro-internment conditions on west coast:

FDR had already considered internment plan 5 years before
 Long history of anti-Asian sentiment  sensationalist press and
racist business and political leaders
 Japanese as economic competitors rather than necessary laborers
Executive Order 9066
Whereas, the successful prosecution of the war
requires every possible protection against
espionage and against sabotage to nationaldefense…:
Now therefore, by virtue of the authority
vested in me as President of the United States,
and Commander in Chief[,] I hereby authorize
and direct the Secretary of War,… whenever he
[deems] such action to be necessary or
desirable, to prescribe military areas in such
places and of such extent as he [may]
determine, from which any or all persons may
be excluded, and with respect to which, the
right of any persons to enter, remain in, or
leave shall be subject to whatever restriction the
Secretary of War or the appropriate Military
Commander may impose in his discretion.
Feb 19, 1942 – FDR signs
Executive Order 9066
Evacuation
 May 1942 – curfew imposed and
evacuation notices posted
 Civil disobedience & protest:



Minoru Yasui of OR
Fred Korematsu of CA
Gordon Hiyabashi of WA
 Evacuation process  control center,
assembly center, interment camp
 Ten internment camp  Topaz (UT),
Poston & Gila River (AZ), Amache (CO),
Jerome & Rohwer (AK), Minidoka (ID),
Mazanar & Tule Lake (CA), Heart
Mountain (WY)
Race & Democracy
“Japanese propaganda to the Philippines,
Burma, and elsewhere insists that this is a
racial war. We can combat this effectively
with counter propaganda only if our deeds
permit us to tell the truth.” -1942 Sec of
War report to FDR
 Feb 19, 1942 – 1st Filipino Infantry
Regiment
 Executive Order 8802 – 1941 –
prohibition of racial discrimination in
employment in wartime industries
 1944 – citizenship extended to Filipino
immigrants in US; 100 Filipinos
allowed to immigrate annually
 1943 – Chinese Exclusion Act repealed
and naturalization extended
No-No or Yes-Yes?

Feb 6, 1943 – Loyalty Questionnaire
administered

Question 27: “Are you willing to serve in the
armed forces of the United States on combat
duty, wherever ordered?”

Question 28: “Will you swear unqualified
allegiance to the United States of America and
faithfully defend the United States from any or
all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and
forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to
the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign
government, power or organization?”

4,600 No-no boys or 22% of eligible Nisei males

33,000 Nisei served. Ex. 442nd Regimental
Combat Team
Defeating the Yellow Peril
 Jan 2, 1945 – cessation of evacuation;
camps prepare for closures
 May 8 – Germany surrenders
 Aug 6 – Little Boy dropped on
Hiroshima
 Casualties – 90,000-160,000
 Aug 9 – Fat Man dropped on Nagasaki
 Casualties – 60,000-80,000
 Aug 15 – Japan surrenders
 Oct 1946 – last detention center closes
“There are things which have happened in the world while
there were cameras watching, things which we have images
for.”
“There are other things which have happened when no one
was watching which we restage in front of cameras to have
images of.”
“There are things which have happened for which the only
images that exist are in the minds of the observers present
at the time while there are things which have happened for
which there have been no observers except for the spirits of
the dead.”
“There are things which have happened in the world while there
were cameras watching, things which we have images for.”
“There are other things
which have happened when
no one was watching which
we restage in front of
cameras to have images of.”
“There are things
which have
happened for
which the only
images that exist
are in the minds
of the observers
present at the time
while there are
things which have
happened for
which there have
been no observers
except for the
spirits of the
dead.”
“She tells the story of what she does not remember but
remembers one thing: why she forgot to remember.”
“You put those things out of your mind or you’ll go insane”
Mine Okubo’s memoir:
 If her drawings are attempts to capture the images in her
mind, what does she seem to remember and why?
 What doesn’t she remember and why?
 What are the silences in her text?
 Why would she insist on her memoir as a human story of
pathos and humor?