In recent years, the Nikkei community has engaged in a renewed discussion to reject the euphemistic and false terms the government used to minimize the unjust and inhumane nature of the Japanese American incarceration.
Read Part 8 >> The government pursued a hard line, determined to challenge the bid of each renunciant who sought restoration of citizenship. In bleak contrast to Goodman’s decision to restore citizenship en masse, the DOJ began sorting renunciants into 22 categories of offenses it characterized as serious enough to deny …
Read Part 7 >> Creating Alien Enemies Edward Ennis’ Deputy in the DOJ Alien Enemy Control Unit, John Burling, was the designated hearing officer for the renunciation hearings at Tule Lake. Burling said that the renunciation hearings would be a careful, deliberate process, making it difficult to renounce. Instead, the DOJ set …
Read Part 6 >> Why Did They Renounce? After its publication in 1946, The Spoilage remained for many decades the primary source on Tule Lake. This seminal work cited allegations of harassment by pro-Japan groups that led to the mass renunciations, using field notes written after the war ended, September 25, 1945 …
Read Part 5 >> Stampede to Renounce Public Law 405, authored by U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle, permitted American citizens to renounce their citizenship during time of war. Congress passed it and President Roosevelt signed it into law on July 1, 1944. This denationalization law was directed at the Japanese Americans in …
Read Part 4 >> Western Defense Command Preparation for Individual Detention On December 17, 1944, Major General H. C. Pratt, Commander, WDC, rescinded the Mass Exclusion Order that ordered all Japanese Americans removed from the West Coast. Effective January 2, 1945, individual disloyalty, instead of race, would be used as the test …
Read Part 3 >>End of Army OccupationThe WRA and the Army had very different organizational dynamics, and their relationship was often tense and fraught with disagreement. Conflict over management of the stockade climaxed on May 23, 1944, when the WRA’s Board of Inquiry approved the release of two inmates, while …
Read Part 2 >> The Stockade: Symbol of the Worthlessness of U.S. CitizenshipWith the Center’s elected leaders imprisoned in the stockade, the stockade became the omnipresent reminder of the keepers’ arbitrary use of power at Tule Lake. It was an evocative reminder of the unjust post-Pearl Harbor roundups of Japanese American …
Read Part 1 >> Martial Law With most of the elected Nikkei leadership imprisoned in the stockade, Commander Austin made plans for a mass public meeting on November 13, 1943 to be attended by the Army and WRA and the Negotiating Committee. This mass meeting never materialized as the prisoner population did …
I hope this uniquely American story will serve as a reminder to all those who cherish their liberties of the very fragility of their rights against the exploding passions of their more numerous fellow citizens, and as a warning that they who say that it can never happen again are …
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