San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Apologies for past discrimination can help with healing
Last month, close to 80 years after a racist executive order went into effect during World War II, the California State Assembly formally apologized for its role in discriminating against citizens of Japanese descent through the passage of bigoted legislation and forced internment.
When President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in 1942, more than 120,000 Japanese Americans lost their homes and businesses, and families were forced into prison camps. Decades of anti-asian sentiment and anti-asian laws led to this moment, with California out front, loud and proud.
“During the years leading up to World War II, California led the nation in fanning the flames of racism,” state Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, who introduced the unanimously passed resolution on Feb. 20, said in an Associated Press story.
I spoke with Erin Suzuki, assistant professor of literature at UC San Diego, who specializes in Asian American and Pacific Island literatures and is considered an expert in Asian American studies, to discuss the state’s role in this discrimination, its impact, and what (if any) meaning this kind of public, institutional apology holds. (This email interview has been edited for length and clarity.) Q:
Can you talk a bit about how California was “(leading) the nation in fanning the flames of racism” in the years leading up to World War II?
A:
Large-scale Asian immigration to the U.S. began in the late 19th century; they were perceived as a threat to American labor, and their racial and cultural differences made it easy to single them out for violence, exclusion and expulsion. The U.S.’ first anti-immigration laws — the Page Act of 1875 and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 — were initiated by California politicians and were explicitly aimed at stopping Chinese immigration to California and the West Coast. Japanese immigrants to the U.S. were likewise affected by this generalized anti-asian racism, and the passage of the (California) Alien Land Law of 1913 and the 1924 Johnsonreed Act barred Japanese immigrants from owning land and restricted further immigration from Japan, respectively.
Anti-japanese sentiment grew in California throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Since both popular and political discourse in California had already done the work of framing the Japanese American community as perpetual foreigners who were fundamentally “alien” to the United States, the fear of an emboldened Japanese Empire abroad, added to already existing anxieties about Asian immigrants at home, all contributed to the framing of the Japanese American community as a potential threat to national security.
Q:
Can you talk a bit about what some of the damage was as a result of President Roosevelt’s executive order?
A:
Many Japanese Americans in California lost their homes and businesses, if they owned them; all suffered from the loss of some personal property. There was a lot of fear and uncertainty around what would happen, how long the internment would last, and whether they would ever be allowed back home. They were placed in camps, guarded by soldiers with guns, and did unpaid or underpaid labor. All had to give up any semblance of personal privacy, and intergenerational families had to make some hard decisions in order to stay together.
Q:
I’ve heard that very few people and organizations stood up for Japanese Americans at the time. What kind of message did this lack of support send to the Japanese American community once they were released from these camps and attempted to rebuild their lives?
A:
There was a generalized feeling of guilt or shame in the immediate aftermath of the war. Some Japanese Americans never returned to their prewar homes, and instead built lives elsewhere; others returned, but preferred not to talk about it too much. Most continued to face anti-japanese and anti-asian racism after returning from the camps, even those who had enlisted and served in the U.S. military.
My sense is that the experience of being singled out and scapegoated fostered a strong sense of community identity, even as it also led to a strong desire on the part of individual Japanese Americans to not stick out, not make waves, and “prove” their Americanness by being model citizens. Although this somewhat self-effacing style meant that Japanese Americans were often portrayed as an obedient “model minority,” Japanese Americans were also very politically active around the causes of civil rights and immigration reform..
Q:
What does this sort of institutional apology from the California State Assembly mean in this situation?
A:
I think that institutional apologies and reparations are meaningful in that they clearly and directly admit that the state was in the wrong when it came to its treatment of Japanese Americans. Official apologies, like the one offered by the California State Assembly, emphasize that the state erred in considering Japanese Americans a threat; this is an admission that can help the current survivors and descendants of survivors gain some closure on the event. Reparations, like the ones attached to the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, provide a tangible acknowledgment of the reality of the suffering and dispossession the community faced at that time.