--- title: Truth in Exile date: 2023-02-03T12:18:00-05:00 author: University of Maryland canonical_url: "https://terp.umd.edu/truth-in-exile" section: Articles --- # Truth in Exile *February 3, 2023* — by [Liam Farrell](/authors/liam-farrell) - *Photo courtesy of UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library* > Decades after more than 100,000 Japanese Americans were forced into camps during World War II, a UMD archival expert is making sure the dark history of their management finally comes to light. *The image depicts a historical moment during World War II in April 1942, showing Japanese Americans arriving by train at the Santa Anita Park assembly center in California.* **A FEW YEARS** after Masao Kawate died in 1997, his son Haruo was sifting through his papers and diaries in Tokyo when a curious letter caught his attention. Kawate, a high school teacher, had known that his father, a second-generation Japanese American born to immigrants in California, had lived in the United States before being imprisoned along with more than 100,000 other Japanese immigrants and Americans in camps during World War II. But the 1958 note addressed to a San Francisco attorney raised new questions about what that experience—and his father’s life—had actually entailed. “I am now seriously thinking of going back to the United States if possible. But being a renounced I have to get my citizenship reinstated to do it,” he wrote. “In the past I have never filled out the affidavit to apply for reistating (sic) my citizenship because I thought my case was quite difficult. But having heard that many persons who were in the similar situation were successful in getting the citizenship reinstated through you, I have decided to write you.” Kawate was baffled: Why did his father renounce his U.S. citizenship in the first place? *Masao Kawate and his family — Masao Kawate and his family. (Photo courtesy of Haruo Kawate)* --- **FOR THE JAPANESE** people first herded into racetracks and livestock pavilions in early 1942, and later camps scattered across California and Idaho and as far away as Colorado and even Arkansas, the official story that the government was trying to protect them from potential violence by their white neighbors evaporated quickly. If that was the case, as historian Richard Reeves noted in his 2015 book “Infamy,” why were the machine guns on the towers pointed in toward them—and not facing out? The road to those camps was built in earnest after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, but the racial animosity that laid the foundation started much earlier. Laws dating to the 18th and 19th centuries barred Japanese immigrants from becoming U.S. citizens, and new Asian arrivals were banned entirely in 1924. In 1940, all resident aliens, including nearly 92,000 Japanese, had to begin registering annually at post offices and notify the government of changes in address. Within days of the strike in Honolulu, the FBI began arresting Japanese community leaders, and rumors spread of rampant sleeper agents just waiting for the emperor’s signal to sabotage American ports, naval bases and oil wells. Earl Warren, then California attorney general, said “that the Japanese situation as it exists in this state today, may well be the Achilles’ heel of the entire civil defense effort.” In February 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 allowing civilians to be excluded from military areas, all-encompassing language that in practice was used to target West Coast Japanese. With often less than a day to prepare before an evacuation, families sold their farms and houses for pennies on the dollar and hastily stashed their possessions in warehouses, gave them away or unwillingly abandoned them. *poster announcing removal orders for Japanese immigrants and Americans — An April 1942 poster in San Francisco announces removal orders for Japanese immigrants and Americans. Spurred by racism and wartime paranoia, government and military officials were convinced this would solve a burgeoning national security issue during the early days of America’s involvement in World World II. (Photo via National Archives and Records Administration)* *Prisoners in the Tule Lake Relocation Center in California say goodbye to people being transferred and granted leave. — Prisoners in the Tule Lake Relocation Center in California say goodbye to people being transferred and granted leave. Despite the stated security concerns, the growing need for military personnel and civilian workers eventually led to a declining camp population. (Photo via National Park Service)* *Workers from the Tule Lake farm eat lunch — Workers from the Tule Lake farm eat lunch. Tension over living and working conditions often led to protests and incidents catalogued on the archival cards discovered by UMD Professor Richard Marciano. (Photo via National Park Service)* **THE INCARCERATION** program quickly strained under the weight of its logistical and philosophical contradictions. As early as the aftermath of the June 1942 Battle of Midway, which crippled the Japanese fleet and its ability to reach American territory, the supposed tactical reason for the camps had largely disappeared. In addition, the need for military personnel with Japanese language skills, as well as civilians to work on the farms and in schools, hospitals and factories in the rest of the country, clashed with the alleged defensive policy of isolation. In 1943, the population of the camps dropped from a peak of about 107,000 to 93,000 through resettlements, although wartime need and reintegration did little to soften the rest of America’s attitude. One poll of Los Angeles Times readers two years after Pearl Harbor found that 88% favored a constitutional amendment to deport everyone of Japanese descent. Tension only increased following the administration of government loyalty questionnaires for internees 17 and older, asking if they were willing to serve in combat or auxiliary operations, and if they would swear allegiance to the United States and renounce any connection to the emperor of Japan. The latter question put everyone in a bind: For first-generation immigrants who could never become U.S. citizens, answering “yes” would render them stateless; for their children, it was offensive to assume that they had any allegiance to give up in the first place. “I can’t seriously answer such ridiculous questions,” Masao Kawate wrote in his diary. “This is the greatest insult to us all.” *Incident card that reads: "Registration. May 1943, File 235. Name: Kawate, Masao. Arrested: Mar. 6, 1943. Sentence: 25 days. Released: Mar. 31, 1943. Sent to Moab Relocation Center, Utah — Masao Kawate’s incident card was among the files that UMD Professor Richard Marciano discovered in the National Archives and has been using to understand the internal security operations of Japanese camps during World War II. (Photo courtesy of Richard Marciano via National Archives)* *UMD Professor Richard Marciano, Isaac Hernandez ’24, Haruo Kawate and Akif Zaman ’23 are pictured on campus — From left, UMD Professor Richard Marciano, Isaac Hernandez ’24, Haruo Kawate and Akif Zaman ’23 are pictured on campus. Hernandez and Zaman were part of a student team that researched the path of Kawate’s father in World War II-era Japanese camps. (Photo courtesy of Richard Marciano)* --- **BY THE TIME** camps began closing in January 1945, tens of thousands of Japanese Americans from the West Coast were settling permanently in states such as Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Minnesota. Others had been serving for years, with great distinction, in the U.S. Army. Tule Lake was the last camp to shutter, on March 20, 1946, seven months after Japan’s surrender; the final prisoners were handed $25 and a train ticket back to wherever they had been taken from. In the ensuing decades, the federal government made some attempts at restitution. In 1959, the Justice Department restored citizenship for all Japanese Americans who had renounced but later applied to regain it, and the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 included a formal apology and $1.2 billion for payments to camp survivors. Such efforts are still ongoing; San Diego, for example, apologized only last year for a resolution supporting the removal of “enemy aliens.” *Tule Lake — Tule Lake, shown in 1942, eventually became the largest camp. Near the end of the war, nearly 5,600 Japanese Americans held there renounced their citizenship rights so they could be released. (Photo via Library of Congress)* *Masao Kawate poses with other teachers — Masao Kawate worked as a teacher at the Tule Lake camp and is pictured in May 1945 (top right) with other instructors.* **Issue:** [Winter 2023](https://terp.umd.edu/editions/winter-2023) **Types:** [Features](https://terp.umd.edu/category/features)