Timothy Handy 29 April 2016

Arizona State University A Call for Synthesis: The Development of Oral Histories and Historical Inquiries on

Japanese American Internment since the 1980s

Although the topic of Japanese American internment camps during World War II has

been well established for decades, historical studies have continued to undergo significant

revisions. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) issued Executive Order (EO) 9066 in

1942, it did not mention of any specific racial groups. Instead, it gave broad authority to the

military to establish exclusionary zones. EO 9066 delegated the design and implementation of

this program to subordinates across various federal agencies, with the military taking the lead.

While EO 9066 enabled the military to establish war zones, it only allowed for removal if it was

deemed necessary, and as long as the federal government provided assistance and transportation.

In a bid to protect Japanese Americans from negative public sentiment and prevent possible

subversive activity, the government conducted mass removals of Japanese Americans, both

immigrants and natural born citizens (referred to as Issei and Nisei, respectively) from

Washington, Oregon, California, and Southern Arizona.1 Ultimately, these mass removals,

regardless of citizenship status, forced Japanese Americans to abandon almost all of their

possessions and either voluntarily move as far inland as they could or be placed in “relocation

centers” – a polite, government phrase for internment camps.2

Perhaps more than many other historical events, the treatment of Japanese Americans and

the implementation of internment camps has undergone significant shifts in a short amount of

time. The relative secrecy of the program, which was solely in the hands of the United States

government, meant that many important documents were not available to scholars until the

1 The terms Issei and Nisei translates to first and second generation Japanese Americans. These names

follow actual numbering conventions in Japanese – ichi, ni, san, yon, etc (one, two, three, four), and sei refers to generation or age. Sansei translates to third generation and so forth.

2 Greg Robinson, By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 20013), 3-4.

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passage of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 1966.3 This coincided with a shift in

historical methods towards the cultural turn and the birth of social historical studies. Thanks to

FOIA, a slew of government documents became available to historians. This helped to shape

scholarship, which had previously relied on anecdotal evidence and sparse firsthand accounts.

While initially meager, over several decades, the revisionism shift was complimented by the rise

of personal accounts and oral histories from internment camp survivors. Because the release of

government documents spurred significant scholarship, the topic found new audiences in the

American public. This scholarship brought the internment camps to the forefront, which,

culminated with several important landmark decision in the 1980s: most importantly, previous

Supreme Court decisions of internment related convictions being invalidated, and the creation of

the United States Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, which

exposed the cruelties Japanese Americans endured because of the internment camps.4 This

renewed attention brought the issue of internment camps to the attention of many Americans and

inspired some Nisei to start documenting their own accounts.

The focus on the federal government by historians and the autobiographical accounts and

oral history projects have accounted for a sizeable amount of scholarship since the 1980s –

which has continued through to this day. The argument that access to government records and

documents helped expand the historical studies of Japanese Americans and internment camps

was not a new revelation in the 1980s, but it was still significant. Roger Daniels, a prominent

historian in Japanese American internment whose work was published in the late 1960s, said that

he could have published it years earlier if more documents had been declassified and made

available. Even then, the Department of Justice (DOJ) instructed Daniels to make note of any

3 Emiko Hastings, “’No Longer a Silent Victim of History’: Repurposing the Documents of Japanese

American Internment.” Archival Science, vol. 11, no. 1 (March 2011): 30. 4 Ibid., 29.

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FBI files within their records so that they could be removed completely. Access to DOJ records

through FOIA also allowed those convicted of crimes to re-litigate previous Supreme Court

decisions that held internment related convictions legal. In the early 1980s, this spurred interest

in Japanese American internment camps, which culminated in the report by the United States

Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians and a renewed interest in oral

histories, personal accounts, and historical inquiry.5

Because of this rather unique progression, a historiographical review since the 1980s is

warranted. Many point to Peter Irons, whose efforts led to the internment cases being re-litigated,

as well as his ground breaking text Justice at War: The Story of Japanese-American Internment

Cases, which was published in 1983, as significant in the internment saga. Coupled with the

congressional committee, Irons’ work is one of the most significant on this topic. Although he

started his research as a bid to examine legal strategies and tactics used in areas of unsettled

constitutional law, eventually, his research transmuted into participating in one internee’s fight to

vacate his criminal conviction. What Irons found, however, was that the Justice Department

attorneys once charged their superiors with “suppression of evidence” and presenting the

Supreme Court with military records that contained “lies” and “intentional falsehoods,” as well

as allowing War Department officials to provide blatant lies and mistruths when testifying.

Besides this, Irons argues, lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union who were tasked

with defending Japanese Americans allowed their loyalty (both personal and partisan) to FDR to

cloud their judgment. As such, strategies and arguments originally devised for the defendants

were scuttled, which hindered their chances of proper representation.6 Irons’ extensive work is

5 Hastings, “’No Longer a Silent Victim of History,’” 39-40. 6 Peter Irons, Justice at War: The Story of The Japanese American Internment Cases. (Berkeley: University

of California Press, 1983) vii-x.

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heralded as one of the most important events and pieces of literature on Japanese American

internment camps, and rightfully so.

While that is true, the aim of this essay is to explore how historical works have

progressed since then. Irons’ work arguably is one of the biggest causes in the renewed interest

in the 1980s. Other causes include newly attained government documents and first hand

accounts. These documents and accounts serve a unique purpose in historical work – while each

may stand on its own individually, nevertheless, the two interact in a distinctive way to lend

credibility to one another. This can be attributed to the two focuses operating on two separate

tracks for the past twenty-five years. Although each of these historical focuses provide valuable

insight into the interment camps and life for Japanese Americans, on their own, they usually lack

something that only the other can provide –first hand, humanizing accounts and proper context,

respectively. However, in recent years, historical research and personal accounts have slowly

shifted towards a synthesis of each other. This essay will focus on four major parts of historical

inquiry since the 1980s: personal accounts, the secret surveillance lists commissioned by FDR,

the loyalty questionnaires, and works dealing with the synthesis of traditional historical

scholarship and oral histories.

Most historical scholars focused on the foundation of the internment crisis and the

bureaucratic organizations that supervised them. Using official reports and records, they focused

their attention on the inner workings of FDR and his administration. Beyond that, few looked

with any real depth into the life and conditions the Japanese American internees suffered

through. If mentioned at all, personal accounts were usually superficial or pulled from FBI

documents.7 Conversely, the survivors of internment camps tended to pay scant attention to

7 Eric Muller, American Inquisition: The Hunt for Japanese American Disloyalty in World War II, (Chapel

Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007): 61-65.

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events and causes leading up to the internment period, but rather they focus on their own

experiences with minimal contextual information or in-depth analysis of government documents.

Personal Accounts and Oral Histories

Personal accounts have gone from being few and far between to numerous in recent

years. Even works that had been published years before found new attention since the early

2000s. Yasutaro Soga’s chronicles as a Japanese Issei living in Hawaii give insight to life

throughout the internment process. Soga’s memoir was originally published in the 1950s, but

was only recently translated to English. Soga intended his chronicles to be published shortly after

the internment process through a journalistic medium, and as such, his writing is conveyed in a

journalistic style, offering a truly first hand account of the time. The introduction, provided by

Tetsuden Kashima and published in 2008 (nearly fifty years after the initial Japanese exclusive

publication), provides the necessary context for the internment experience of Soga. This was

only possible with the great amount of historical research done since government documents

became available. This text, however, is a perfect example of the need for historical accounts and

documents to work in tandem with each other. Kashima uses government documents and reports

to explain the anti-Japanese sentiment that had existed for years before World War II, including

the classification system of organizations and individuals that the United States based on

“perceived perfidiousness.”8 After his initial detention, Soga details his experience at an inquiry

set up by the immigration office. He notes that he was interrogated about his religious

preferences (to which he had none) and the contention that he was pro-Japanese.9

8 Tesuden Kashima, Introduction to Life Behind Barbed Wire: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a

Hawai’i Issei, trans. By Kihei Hirai (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008), 2.9 Yasutaro Soga, Life Behind Barbed Wire: The World War II Internment of a Hawai’i Issei, trans. By

Kihei Hirai (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008), 41-46.

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Such documentation of how departments such as the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI)

and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigated and ranked these potential threats

would not have been available at the time of original publication, nor would the variations that

existed between the Justice and War Departments or the fact that different camps throughout the

United States were run by completely different agencies. Soga’s account depicts how he was

transferred repeatedly between sites, where he experienced conditions that varied from one

another, likely due to differences in agencies.10 Soga’s work is especially important, as it appears

to be one of the few personal accounts by an Issei – most that have received any widespread

publication all tend to be written by Nisei.11 Although some historians fail to make a defined

difference, Issei were the only Japanese Americans who were subject to the covert surveillance

and who were arrested or detained immediately following the bombing of Pearl Harbor.12 To add

to the already significant importance of Soga’s work, he also was one of the few Issei from

Hawaii to actually be transferred to a detention center, as FDR’s administration found it

unworkable to detain the high number of Japanese Americans living there. The publication of

Soga’s memoirs seems to have been brought about in the increased attention personal accounts

received since the early 2000s. Although sparsely written before, many Nisei did not feel

comfortable publishing their own accounts until the early 2000s. As we’ll see, oral histories and

personal accounts were becoming increasingly popular at this time.

There were few survivors who felt they could publish their personal accounts prior to the

2000s. Although she was not the first to publish her personal account, Yoshiko Uchida did so at

a time when personal accounts about Japanese internment camps were still in their nascent

10 Kashima, Introduction to Life Behind Barbed Wire, 8-11. 11 Anecdotally, uneven numbers of personal accounts seem to be written by female survivors. Several

historians have made mention of this, so it is just as surprising to see a large work as Soga’s. 12 Robinson, By Order of the President, 46-72.

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stages. Published in 1982, her personal account of the internment period in Desert Exile was

never intended to act as an explanation or rationalization for the decisions made by the federal

government. Uchida simply sought to put a human face on how those decisions affected

Japanese Americans. The problem with Uchida’s work is twofold; first, it only provides a

cursory overview of the internment camps, and her family had a relatively better experience than

most, something that Uchida readily admits herself. Her personal account runs contrary to the

typical history in several ways, such as her family being fortunate enough to have the means and

resources available to store their belongings without having to sell them.13 Secondly, the fact that

Uchida focused narrowly on her own experiences, rather than inclusion of others in the two

internment camps where she lived does not provide close to a complete picture of the internment

experience for Japanese Americans.14 As it was published in 1982, Uchida’s account suffers

from a lack of significant contextual information that historical scholarship could have provided.

Although rather brief and somewhat superficial, it should not be discounted as this was a story

published at a time when very few were willing to speak out.

Much like Soga’s work, the memoirs of prolific writing and poet, Toyo Suyemoto, were

published in the mid-2000s posthumously. Whereas Soga’s work was intended to act as a critical

write up of the treatment of Japanese Americans by the federal government, Suyemoto argues

that her account was meant to only be her story, there was no political intent involved, and not to

explore her internment or put forward a work that protested her treatment and the injustices in

internment. The focus of her work was not to admonish or chastise her treatment by the federal

government. Perhaps this is the difference between Issei and Nisei perspectives: the fifty years

13 Yoshiko Uchida, Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese American Family (Seattle: University of

Washington Press, 1982), 60. 14 Ibid., 153. According to Uchida, she wrote this only as a personal story and only intended to discuss her

story and anyone she came in contact with – this was not meant to be taken as a representative of Japanese Americans as a whole.

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that separated their writings, or a combination of both. Suyemoto also provides excellent context

for her memoir at times. For example, she notes that while the government was trying to find

ways to relocate Japanese Americans out of internment camps, they were also running public

relations campaigns in parts of the country where they were likely to be resettled. The idea was

that it would take a concerted effort to reorient white Americans to be accepting of Japanese

Americans if they were to be relocated into their cities.15. This text follows the trend of personal

accounts finally being published in the 2000s.

Published in the mid-2000s, Mary Matsuda Gruenewald spoke of her internment

experience at length in Looking Like the Enemy. This text, however, is much more substantial

and poignant than most. In some ways, Matsuda Gruenewald writes from a similar position as

Uchida; Uchida notes that publishing her story was driven by the questions of Sansei youth, just

as Matsuda Gruenewald also shares her experience because she was apart of what historians have

called the “silent generation.” The Nisei rarely spoke of the internment period, much to the

dismay of Sansei and younger generations – in 1967 Matsuda Gruenewald’s child could not find

any accounts of internment camps. Matsuda Gruenewald attributes the lack of sharing stories to

the shame many Japanese Americans felt. Even when speaking with other internment camp

survivors, most would only acknowledge their shared experience, without discussing it any

further. Many Nisei held their stories until the 2000s, when they finally felt it was appropriate to

discuss it.16 But the need to tell their individual stories is where the similarities seem to end

between the two – Uchida offers a somewhat superficial story, while Matsuda Gruenewald

provides a more thoughtful and in-depth account, providing insight into the mental and

15 Toyo Suyemoto, I Call To Remembrance: Toyo Suyemoto’s Years of Internment, edited by. Susan B.

Richardson (New Brunswick: New Jersey, 2007): 142. 16 Looking Like the Enemy: My Story of Imprisonment in Japanese-American Internment Camps

(Troutdale, Oregon: NewSage Press, 2005), xi.

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emotional mindsets of the time. Matsuda Gruenewald accentuates her personal story by

providing contextual information as well. This offers a more comprehensive view of the period.

Suyemoto, meanwhile, tends to split the difference between the two by offering a deeply

personal account that is not critical of the government, but includes little additional information

to orient the reader.

To show that there were events happening that the Japanese Americans were not aware of

at the time, Matsuda Gruenewald explains how personnel changes that affected them: “As a

result, General DeWitt, labeled the ‘military zealot’ by the Washington Post, was relieved of his

duties with the Western Defense Command in the fall of 1943. By year’s end, Attorney General

Francis Biddle urged the return of the internees to their former residences…at the time we were

unaware that all of this was going on.”17 In another section, she quotes the work of Michi

Weglyn, one of the authors in the 1970s credited as uncovering major documents from DOJ,

which resulted in several Supreme Court convictions being overturned.18 By quoting an author

who worked on significant scholarship thirty years later, she is lending credibility to her own

account. Other pieces of information that would not have been available at the time of

internment, like the population of the camps, the percentages of those considered loyal and

disloyal drawn from the loyalty questionnaires and how the questionnaires were conceived and

administered by the Army and WRA add further dimensions and significance to her text.

Comparing Uchida and Matsuda Gruenewald’s work provides ample evidence on how

personal accounts have evolved over several decades, as well as the need to synthesize other

historical works into their stories. Over twenty years separate the two accounts, and in that time,

historical scholarship had a significantly renewed interest; besides the congressional commission

17Matsuda Gruenewald, Looking Like the Enemy, 141, italics added for emphasis. 18 Ibid., 122.

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and internment related convictions being vacated, and the Civil Liberties Act was passed in

1988, which provided an official apology for internment by the president and a redress of

$20,000 to surviving internees.19 Some historians have credited these actions as facilitating a

more honest and realistic record of Japanese Americans. No longer worried about depicting

Japanese Americans as unconditionally loyal, but rather focused on understanding their plight

without fear of retribution, historians like Eric Muller dissected topics like draft resistance and

protesters.20 Uchida’s account reads as a short tale on her time leading up to internment and her

experiences in the camp. While not the intended focus of her work, arguably the most significant

impact from her account is the treatment of her Issei father immediately after Pearl Harbor.

Assumedly, she likely had no knowledge of the surveillance reports commissioned by FDR on

the Issei, yet Uchida goes into significant depth about her father’s role as a successful business

man for a Japanese company based in the San Francisco area, a prominent figure in a local

Japanese church, and the family’s hosting of Japanese guests. These factors likely led to his

appearance in these secret reports and to his detention by the FBI following Pearl Harbor.21

After reading several personal accounts, it becomes clear that, while incredibly valuable,

they should not be relied on solely for evidence in a greater historical context. While Matsuda

Gruenewald, and to a lesser extent, Suyemoto, made a conscious effort to provide context for the

reader and explain the effects to Japanese Americans as a whole, many simply tell their

individual story. For example, Suyemoto’s memoirs – in telling her own story, she focuses on the

things that pertained solely to her – such as the library she worked in, and her experiences with

the barren state of the camp.22 Uchida, meanwhile, focuses on her experiences teaching classes to

19 Hastings, “’No Longer a Silent Victim of History;’” 42. 20 Ibid., 30. 21 Uchida, Desert Exile,46-52. 22 Suyemoto, I Call to Remembrance, 89, 112-15.

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children.23 While it can hardly be expected that survivors of internment camps should also act as

historians and scholars, their narratives have many overlapping themes, such as the lacking

sanitary facilities and poorly constructed buildings at each camp. At a minimum, it becomes

clear that the personal accounts should be used in conjunction with one another as apart of a

larger historical work.

FDR and the Secret Surveillance

In recent years, the inner workings of FDR’s administration received more historical

attention. Although those like Muller have focused on government agencies and FDR’s cabinet,

Greg Robinson pursues a narrative about FDR’s direct involvement and decisions regarding the

internment of Japanese Americans. Published in 2001, By Order of the President, Robinson

embodies traditional historical work that is founded largely on primary sources, like memos,

correspondence between FDR and his cabinet, as well as policies and reports, without accounting

for any personal stories of Japanese Americans. This text is meticulously researched and written

– enough so that it is among the most commonly cited texts on internment camps written by

other historians. Eschewing the cultural shift of the 1960s, Robinson focuses almost exclusively

on FDR and his role in interning Japanese Americans during World War II, a narrative that runs

counter to FDR being hailed as a Progressive hero who championed human rights and

government programs to help the neediest Americans. Interestingly, Robinson’s narrative is the

opposite of long established facts. In fact, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Interment

of Civilians put the blame squarely on those in the upper echelon of the government. The

commission razed Secretary of War Henry Stimson and General John DeWitt, while implicitly

stating that FDR was guilty only because of his failure to dissect and analyze the information

provided by his cabinet (or the lack of thereof). The commission argued that there was no

23 Uchida, Desert Exile, 89.

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military need for internment, but rather, it was due to war hysteria and anti-Japanese prejudice, a

point that Robinson largely agrees with.24

Robinson argues that since EO 9066 seemed so out of character for FDR, most historians

have ignored his role in the internment camps. Instead, they focused on military policy and anti-

Japanese sentiment on the West Coast as the driving force behind EO 9066.25 Robinson contends

that FDR actually held the Japanese in low regard, considering them dangerous enough to

warrant internment. This was one of the main reasons why Japanese Americans were essentially

the only ones interned, and not German or Italian Americans whose motherlands were warring

with the United States.26 While there is some truth to the fact that Japanese Americans were

interned because they were far fewer in numbers than German and Italian Americans, the fact

that they could not blend into American society due to lack of whiteness gives credit to

Robinson’s argument.27

Compared to other historical works on the topic, Robinson starts his narrative generously

before the start of World War II. Since he argues that FDR was shaped by his previous

encounters and experiences with the Japanese people and culture, he reviews FDR’s interactions

as a young man, as well as his time as Assistant Secretary of the Navy several decades before his

ascent to the presidency. More telling is FDR’s negative experiences with the Japanese shortly

after being elected president and Japan’s attitude as a belligerent during the 1930s. Although he

resisted cutting ties with Japan or taking any action that would be an affront to them, he

24 Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, Personal Justice Denied (Washington,

D.C.: Civil Liberties Education Fund, 2011), 8-9. 25 Robinson, By Order of the President, 5-7. 26 Ibid., 43. 27 Japanese Americans (as well as other Asian immigrants) had a very difficult time blending into white

society, although not for lack of trying. By the 1920s, Asian immigrants were trying to claim they were white, at least by the definition laid out in American immigration law. In Whiteness of a Different Color, Matthew Frye Jacobson argues that Germans and other European immigrants where finally able to assimilate into white, American culture because so many non-whites were entering the country.

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remained steadfast throughout his belief that they could not be trusted, especially after they

refused to renew the Washington Naval Treaty because they demanded naval parity with the

United States and the United Kingdom.28 Diplomatic ties were further deteriorated by the

atrocities that Japan committed in China in the 1930s and signing onto the Tripartite Pact with

Germany and Italy.29

Dating back as early as 1936, FDR became concerned with Japanese Americans living in

Hawaii and along the Pacific Coast. Although the United States was not at war, FDR had

suspicions of Japanese espionage and other subversive activities on the West Coast; however he

was primarily concerned with those in Hawaii. Because of these suspicions, FDR commissioned

surveillance reports by the military, as the FBI was not operational in Hawaii at the time.

Although FDR was initially suspicious of all Japanese Americans, Robinson argues that he was

willing to accept that they could be anti-American or disloyal with little hesitation.30 Over the

next five years, the military continued to feed FDR surveillance reports which largely depicted

Japanese Americans, whether immigrants or citizens, as increasingly disloyal and willing to

commit espionage. But, with the reopening of its offices in Hawaii in 1940, the FBI started

producing their own reports on Japanese Americans. In a lengthy rebuttal, the FBI concluded that

most Japanese Americans were extremely loyal to the United States. Only a small portion of

those within the inner circle of the Japanese community was considered to be a high risk for

espionage. Even more telling, the FBI viewed Japanese immigrants who had been in the United

States for some time were even more loyal than the citizen Nisei.31 However, the FBI reports

were soon compiled with the Army’s, as well as those conducted by ONI. This compilation was

28 Ibid., 48-49 29 Ibid., 60. 30 Ibid., 54. 31 Ibid., 55, 62.

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ultimately called the “ABC list” of those to detain or arrest in the event of war with Japan – thus

ranking those West Coast Issei based on perceived threat.32

Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, many Issei men were either detained or

arrested by the FBI. Most personal accounts and oral histories of the time show that there was a

widespread knowledge of the “ABC list,” although whether this was known by Japanese

Americans at the time of internment or whether it came to light with subsequent publications of

government documents is unclear. Although she does not mention the surveillance lists, Uchida

does deduce that the government was targeting Issei who held stature in the community. At

times, Uchida even alludes to the fact that it was often more than standing in the community that

caused targeting, as her father was also a successful businessman for a large Japanese company.

Uchida argues that because the Issei were the sole targets of FBI detainment, many Japanese

organizations, such as the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), were effectively

dismantled or became ineffective.33

Although Japanese Americans in Hawaii were usually not subject to the same detention

procedures, they were the initial source of military surveillance, yet throughout Soga’s account,

there is no mention. Given that Soga’s initial Japanese only publication was almost a decade

after the war, it is likely that he had no idea the government even acted in such a manner. This,

however, points to the need for synthesis in historical work. Even though Soga didn’t mention

the surveillance lists at all, Kashima goes into fine detail about the “ABC lists,” including the

history (including the legal argument allowing for such lists to be commissioned), and how it

32 Ibid., 64. – Nisei were not included on the final version of the list, nor were any German or Italian

Americans. The army, likely due to ongoing suspicions, kept a separate list of both Issei and Nisei who should be arrested in Hawaii only.

33Uchida, Desert Exile, 56-67.

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affected Soga’s, as well as other Issei, experiences at the time.34 Matsuda Gruenewald initially

states that at the time, there was no way they could have known about the government studies

that started a decade before Pearl Harbor.35 She does, however, mention in retrospect these

reports as well, concluding “ data collected for years by naval intelligence and the FBI

documenting that residents of Japanese descent were not a threat.”36 Even though her personal

account benefits from having decades of revelations and records released on the internment

process, this is another example of when incorporating previous historical work into her account

would have helped – Robinson’s work was published several years earlier, and argues that

although the FBI viewed Japanese Americans as overwhelmingly loyal, military reports did not,

and it was those that FDR decided to follow. However, Robinson never mentions the treatment

or detention of the Issei before the formal implementation of internment camps that is recounted

by survivors.

Although blatant racism was always argued as the cause for internment of Japanese

Americans, Robinson methodically analyzes how FDR and his cabinet came to the decision to

intern all Japanese Americans on the West Coast. While the final decision to sign EO 9066

ultimately lay with FDR, there was intense disagreement within his cabinet between the military

and the attorney general. Initially, Honolulu FBI agents estimated that the Nisei were 98% loyal,

which resulted in a plan to place Issei lands and businesses in the hands of Nisei that had been

thoroughly vetted.37 Ultimately, this plan that would have been placed in the hands of DOJ and

FBI, but was disregarded by FDR as soon as the military pressed for action against Japanese

Americans. Military necessity, inflamed by Japan’s military successes in Asia, combined with

34 Kashima, Introduction in Life Behind Barbed Wire, 3-4. 35 Matsuda Gruenewald, Looking Like the Enemy, 7. 36 Ibid., 21. 37 Robinson, By Order of the President, 62.

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severe anti-Japanese sentiment on the West Coast ultimately preempted such a plan.38 While

FDR was conscious of voter feelings and political pressure, he acquiesced to the War

Department and signed EO 9066. While the traditional narrative that FDR ultimately considered

this to be a measure that was justified by the request of the military, Robinson argues that it was

clear that FDR was inclined to internment, based on his secret surveillance reports conducted

more than five years before.39 While there would have been no way for those internees to know

of this intense deliberation, this event does highlight the importance of historical work. At one

point, Attorney General Biddle suggested something similar to internment would be in the best

interest of the Japanese Americans, for no other reason than to protect them from the intense

outrage of those living on the West Coast, a feeling that Matsuda Gruenewald remembers vividly

at the time. Even as Robinson traces FDR’s decision to sign EO 9066 and the subsequent

implementation, he does not capture what was happening to Japanese Americans. Although

many sought to comply with the order the best they could, those with means thought about

moving inward on their own volition, so as to avoid internment. However, it was not always

feasible, as many could not find available homes or means of employment far enough away from

the coast due to anti-Japanese sentiment.40

FDR’s decision to intern the Japanese Americans proves several important points in

scholarship on this topic. First, with regards to FDR and his administration, there was much

deliberation and strife within his cabinet when it came to dealing with Japanese Americans.

Some of this, including FDR’s personal views of the Japanese, would likely not have come into

view until access to the records of his administration was granted. At one point, in personal

correspondence between FDR and his son, FDR lays out his rationale for continuing minimal

38 Ibid., 82-83 39 Ibid., 73-7540 Matsuda Gruenewald, Looking Like the Enemy, 91.

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trade with Japan in the late 1930s, furthering his anti-Japanese sentiment.41 Other documents

show that the loyalty of most Japanese Americans was not even a question as a result of the

secret surveillance, yet the concern was exploited by the military, which FDR ultimately sided

with.42 Does any of this make a difference to those Japanese Americans who actually

experienced it? The short answer is no, but when looking at Soga, Uchida, and Matsuda

Gruenewald’s individual experiences, it provides the necessary context to balance their stories

The Loyalty Questionnaires

During the period of internment, one of the biggest problems that Japanese Americans

faced was the loyalty questionnaire. This questionnaire, a joint effort between the military and

the Wartime Relocation Authority (WRA) was meant to determine the loyalty of both Issei and

Nisei, as well as determine their fitness for military service. However, the wording and

implementation of the questionnaire caused significant strife. In his text, American Inquisition,

Eric Muller takes a typical historical research based approach to internment camps. Published in

2007, Muller does away with the commonly explained internment camp history, as he focuses on

the government bureaucracy and how it approached and processed loyalty applications. Taking a

distinctly social history approach, Muller shifts focus away from key figures at the time, such as

FDR and his cabinet members, and instead focused on the inner workings of government

agencies. By focusing on primary sources, such as correspondence, memorandums, meeting

minutes, and recorded telephone conversations, Muller explores the concept of loyalty as

determined by the four separate government agencies that were in charge of some function of the

internment of Japanese Americans. Although he briefly discusses FDR’s secret surveillance of

the Issei starting in the early 1930s, he spends the bulk of his text discussing the loyalty

41 Robinson, By Order of the President, 61. 42 Ibid., 106-10.

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questionnaires commissioned by WRA and the Army.43 Created almost a year after the start of

internment in 1943, the questionnaires were designed to determine the loyalty of Japanese

Americans so that they could either be relocated outside of internment camps or to determine if

Nisei men were fit for military service.44

Questions 27 and 28 on the loyalty questionnaire raised the ire of many Japanese

Americans. Question 27 asked draft age Nisei men whether they would volunteer for the military

if they were ever asked. Question 28 initially asked both Issei and Nisei whether they would

swear allegiance only to the United States and renounce any allegiance to the Japanese emperor

and government.45 Many Issei interpreted this as giving up their claim to Japanese citizenship at

a time when they were ineligible to become American citizens – effectively leaving them

stateless.46 After initial outrage by Japanese Americans, question 28 was reworded by WRA to

ensure Japanese Americans would abide by the laws of the United States and not take any action

against the government. Although briefly addressed by Muller, the true impact that these

questions had on both Issei and Nisei is one that could only be told by Japanese Americans.

Muller primarily works from military documents without addressing concerns that came directly

from Japanese Americans, noting that “little information [could] be gained from the answer to

question #27, regardless of what that answer may be…[the Nisei were so] confused in their own

minds [that the recruiters could not] explain the questions to them in such a manner as to secure a

sound answer.”47 Instead, he relies on statistics that show that after the loyalty questionnaires

were given, requests for repatriation and expatriation increased thirty fold within a one-month

43 Muller, American Inquisition, 1-7. 44 Ibid., 31-38. 45 Ibid., 35.46Testuden Kashima, Judgment Without Trial: Japanese American Imprisonment During World War II

(Seattle: University of Washington, 2004), 162.47 Muller, American Inquisition, 40.

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period.48 Numbers like these may not have any bearing on the personal accounts of interment

camp survivors, as most fail to grasp the statistical significance of this in their writing

Writings by historians often fail to show the human emotions and turmoil when

attempting to answer these questionnaires. Suyemoto, for example, refused to answer “yes-yes”

without conditional statements, but doing so landed her in a contentious hearing trying to

determine her loyalty.49 For Japanese Americans, it was a very difficult task to determine how

they would answer questions 27 and 28, often times split along generational lines between Issei

and Nisei. Matsuda Gruenewald details the physical and emotional anguish that she went through

in determining how to answer these two questions.50 To her and many other Japanese Americans,

the fact that they were even being asked these questions brought up feelings of continual betrayal

by the American government. Worse still, most Nisei had tenuous relations to Japan – most had

never been and their only contact to the country were grandparents and other relatives. In an act

of atoning for the horror of Pearl Harbor, many came willingly to internment camps to prove that

they were loyal to the United States.51 Matsuda Gruenewald’s writing conveys the anguish,

personal agony, and the intense deliberations that her family went through in determining how to

answer questions 27 and 28. Not only did these two questions increase doubt and concern from

Japanese Americans about their treatment at the hands of the American government, but it also

caused serious conflicts in the internment camps. There were hostile and vocal groups who

viewed the questions as a step too far by the American government. These groups occasionally

reverted to physical violence against those Japanese Americans that openly admitted to

48Ibid., 35-38. 49 Suyemoto, I Call to Remembrance, 146-47. 50 Matsuda Gruenewald, Looking Like the Enemy, 125, 131. 51 Ibid.,45-50.

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answering yes to both questions. Ultimately, those who answered “no-no” were often transferred

to other camps that were considered more secure.52

Under intense pressure from these groups, Matsuda Gruenewald’s family held their

deliberations in private so as not to draw the ire of those who were vocal “no-nos.”53 Emotions

and concern like this are an illustration of why personal accounts are important – Muller’s work

can’t convey anything like it. Even when he provides personal stories about internees, they are

drawn exclusively from government documents and surveillance reports.54 It should be noted

that while the majority of Japanese Americans were concerned or outraged about the two

questions as they were initially posed, some took it in stride and were immediately assuaged

when they received a revised questionnaire. According to Suyemoto, once the Issei saw the

revisions, they were more than willing to fill them out, although this take runs contrary to other

accounts.55

Synthesizing Historical Works

Attempts at synthesizing personal accounts with traditional historical works have so far

yielded mixed results. Although a synthesis between personal accounts and traditional historical

research of government operations isn’t new, recent works show how there is still a significant

amount of work to be done. Originally published in 1999 with significant additions and revisions

over the following years, Confinement and Ethnicity is an important piece of historical

scholarship for several reasons. As a report co-written by four historians, it focuses on many

internment camps that have previously been ignored or overlooked in historical scholarship.

52 Muller, American Inquisition, 27. 53 Matsuda Gruenewald, Looking Like the Enemy,113-17, 127-33. Matsuda Gruenewald’s work was

published in 2005 and benefits from the spate of historical scholarship that has been done in the preceding two decades. Although she typically does not rely on other sources, she does so on page 113 to frame the debate on Nisei men being able to volunteer for military service in order to prove their worth for full citizenship rights.

54 Muller, American Inquisition, 61-65. Muller only provides personal stories from three Japanese Americans and this seems to be the only mention throughout the entire text.

55 Suyemoto, I Call to Remembrance, 146.

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Drawing on a vast assortment of sources, such as historical and structural remains, photographs,

charts, maps, and personal accounts, the authors aim to preserve the historical importance of

these camps before they are lost to physical deterioration. While this work does not aim to make

any bold claims or advance any unique thesis, it does show how combining personal histories,

artifacts, and government documents can create a cohesive historical document.56

As with Soga’s memoir, Kashima provides a comprehensive introduction to the

collection. This introduction stresses the importance of this type of historical work by arguing

that in documenting these internment camps, it preserves the details of this important time in

American history from being lost. This work, Kashima contends, focuses attention on camps that

had previously escaped historical inquiry and provides tangible evidence of their existence,

founded in pictures and survivor accounts, as well as the current day conditions. Finally,

Kashima makes note that just like many other documents, records relating to many internment

camps were kept in the possession of the federal government under the guise of classified

documents and had only recently become available by the time that this was written.57

In choosing architectural and archeological sources, the authors argue that they are

conducting scholarship about an aspect of Japanese American internment camps that had rarely

been touched, as historians have already researched and written about the political, economic,

legal, and social aspects of internment. In picking sources, the report’s authors stress the

importantance of primary sources in conducting their research. One contribution to their effort

was being able to speak with former internees and local residents, who often accompanied the

authors on field visits. By not only being able to interview these individuals, but also having

56 Jeffrey F. Burton, Mary M. Farrell, Florence B. Lord, Richard W. Lord, Confinement and Ethnicity: An

Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002), 1-18.

57 Tesuden Kashima, Introduction in Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002), ix-xii.

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them available to explain features of the camps, they capture the significance of the camps, as

well as the internees’ experiences there.58

Just how extensive the inclusion of internees is open for debate, although the authors

subtly make it clear that it was not a major factor in their research. Two chapters of this work

stand out, because of how distinctly different they are from each other and the historical vantage

point that they take. In back-to-back chapters, the authors explore the Topaz Relocation Center in

Utah and the Tule Lake Relocation Center in California.59 In the case of the Topaz Camp, written

over nineteen pages, the authors report on everything from the fact that barracks used to house

internees were borrowed from other locations, that the bulk of the camp was used for food

production, and the unique naming of streets based on whether they ran east to west or north to

south in a bid to make it look as though the camp was normal to outsiders.60 In direct contrast,

their chapter dealing with the Tule Lake Camp is much more in-depth, and at one point, focuses

on how the camp was used to segregate the Japanese Americans who answered “no-no” to

questions 27 and 28 of the loyalty questionnaires, which effectively defined them as Japanese

Americans who were disloyal. Shortly after segregation of these purportedly disloyal Japanese

Americans, the camp was converted to a maximum-security facility in 1943, largely due to the

fact that 42% of those housed there were considered disloyal. Given that a sizeable amount of

disloyals had also renounced their American citizenship, the camp remained open longer than

others, with the remaining disloyals eventually transferred to the Crystal Camp facility that was

58Although briefly mentioned at the end of her account, Matsuda Gruenewald recalls a recent fieldtrip that

she had taken to a local internment camp. While it does not seem that this trip was in conjunction with this work, it still provides valuable insight. While at the camp, she notes things that are missing or have been removed and relays her experiences to those who also went on the trip, including recent generations of Japanese Americans.

59Out of the locations available, I picked these two because three accounts, Uchida’s, Matsuda Gruenewald’s, and Suyemoto’s, take place there.

60Burton, et al, Confinement and Ethnicity, 263-65. All of this, however, includes extensive use of photographs and blueprints, which does aid in the goal of providing photographic evidence to ensure the camps would not be forgotten, even as they eroded and deteriorated.

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always intended to house Japanese, German, and Italian Americans who would be sent back as

POW swaps.61 Although this text is a good start in synthesizing sources, it shows that there can

be a large disconnect from chapter to chapter, depending on the inclusion of personal accounts or

other documents.

Even though this work deals with a small fraction of the history of the internment camp

saga, it does show promise for what historical studies could look like when various sources,

including records, photos, and first hand accounts are combined. More than anything, it shows

that even something as obscure as recordation of historical sights can be aided by survivor

accounts. This was written at a time when personal stories and oral histories were still in their

emerging stages, which begs the question of what historical studies would look like now that

many more first hand accounts from Issei and Nisei internees are being written and published.

In his text Judgment Without Trial, published in 2004, Kashima attempts to synthesize

primary sources with the stories of Japanese American internees, through testimonies, personal

stories, and interviews that he conducted. Kashima is a survivor of the internment camps,

although he was only an infant at the time. His experience, however, spurred his interest in the

topic, leading him to conduct personal interviews with Issei survivors decades before this work

was published. This text is unique for several reasons – he argues that even though there has

been expansive scholarship on the internment of Japanese Americans, it typically has only

focused on the assembly centers and relocation centers, without addressing the decision-making

of the federal government. Instead, Kashima focuses on the implementation of the internment

camps and how internment occurred, not addressing why it occurred. In fact, Kashima relies on

61Ibid., 283.

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Robinson’s work throughout his text, mainly agreeing that the decision to intern was made well

before the entry into World War II, and was a “rational deliberation,” not made spontaneously.62

Although Kashima had conducted several personal interviews, they typically only pertain

to Issei and were conducted throughout the 1970s and the 1980s. This is helpful, as Issei stories

are rare and had not typically been incorporated into historical work until this point. The use of

Issei stories lends credibility to his work, and gives life to a previously one-sided topic. For

example, while the secret surveillance lists had been well established, Kashima relies on the

story of Saburo Muraoka of Chula Vista, California to provide another dimension. He argues that

although Muraoka was targeted like many other Issei who were actively involved in the Japanese

community, he faced harsher treatment than most. In this case, Muraoka was immediately

arrested and detained.63 There are several problems with the work, however, which show a

greater synthesis of how traditional historical scholarship and personal accounts would provide a

more engrossing and accurate depiction. In one instance, Kashima wades into the debate on the

loyal questionnaire debacle. However, he fails to include any accounts directly attributable to

Japanese Americans, something that many personal accounts have identified as one of the most

searing events of internment.64 Of equal concern, Kashima relies heavily on his own interviews

of Edward Ennis, an attorney with DOJ who defended the government’s decision to intern in

federal courts. However, in 2004, this doesn’t break new ground – Ennis had testified for the

Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, as well as being interviewed

extensively by Irons. Both of which took place in the 1980s.65

62 Kashima Judgment without Trial, 4-9. 63 Ibid.,45-49. 64 Ibid., 160-162. 65 Irons, Justice at War, 348-51.

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However, Kashima eschews any Nisei interviews throughout his work – their only

mention seems to be from testimonies provided at hearings and the occasional personal account.

This seems odd, considering at the time of publication, many Nisei were still alive and starting to

actively express their stories. In many regards, it would have aided his work, especially his

discussion on the stigma that Japanese Americans faced, as Matsuda Gruenewald had mentioned.

Interestingly, he relies on stories from Sansei to portray the stigma and call for survivors to tell

their stories. Although it does not fill the void left, it does provide an interesting and compelling

argument.66 The text’s publication in 2004 may have some bearing on this, as it predates most

personal accounts by at least several years. But, it does show the increase of historical

scholarship on the topic at the time.

Published almost ten years after Judgment Without Trial, The Train to Crystal City by

Jan Jarboe Russell attempts to blend oral histories from former internees at the U.S. Family

Internment Camp in Crystal City, Texas with FBI files, administrative records, and other

government documents.67 The Crystal City internment camp was created with the original intent

of holding what amounted to political prisoners. FDR realized that there were Americans

overseas who would be taken as prisoners of war (POWs), so he sought to detain Japanese,

German, and Italian Americans at a camp where they could be held until they were needed for

exchange with the Axis countries.68 So intent was FDR on gathering as many potential internees

for a prisoner swap, he pressured many Central and South American countries to ship their

66 Kashima, Judgment Without Trial, 218-20.67While not the focus of this essay, the Crystal City Internment Camp holds a unique place in this saga – it

was an internment camp that held Japanese, German, and Italian Americans, whereas practically all of the other internment camps held only Japanese. Many historians have argued that this is due to racial bias against Japanese, and that it would be near impossible to remove white German and Italian Americans, due to their assimilation and the sizeable population of both.

68 Jane Jarboe Russell, The Train to Crystal City: FDR’s Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America’s Only Family Internment Camp During World War II (New York: Scribner, 2015), 122.

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Japanese residents to the United States for internment at Crystal City.69 In the run-up to the

internment period, it was a widespread rumor that FDR was gathering Issei for this purpose,

although most feared that rather than swapping prisoners, the United States would kill the

interned Japanese Americans in retribution for any killings committed by the Japanese

government.70

Published in 2015, the text blends together oral histories and secondary sources,

eschewing traditional primary sources almost entirely. Her extensive use of oral histories that she

conducted within the immediate preceding years helps to give depth and meaning. In many ways,

her interviews capture a period of time that Kashima was unable to in Judgment Without Trial;

his only interviews were conducted in the 1970s and 1980s, decades prior to Jarboe Russell.

However, Jarboe Russell is not a historian, but rather a journalist, and at times, that difference

becomes clear in her methodology and interpretation of data. As a journalist, the fact that she

relied heavily on secondary sources presented problems – such as making the incorrect claim that

the Crystal City internment camp was the only family internment camp in operation, an

argument that was never made in the previous seventy years.71 If anything, Jarboe Russell’s work

is a laudable start towards a synthesis of personal accounts and traditional historical studies. But

since she relied almost exclusively on secondary sources, she is at the whim of their historical

interpretation of documents and events.72

69 Ibid., 29.70Uchida, Desert Exile, 48. 71Jarboe Russell, The Train to Crystal City, xvii. 72Claiming the Crystal City internment camp was the only family facility is marked on the first page (and

on the cover) of the book, setting a questionable tone for the rest of the work. Perhaps she had used the term “family detention center” in a different manner than most would have, but it is clear from the other personal account cited that families were typically kept together. The only thing unique about this detention center, at least by her text, is that it was used for prisoner swaps, but it did also hold families who were to be swapped or remove together. Jarboe Russell notes in her bibliography that while she relied on secondary sources, she interviewed some of the authors. Other discrepancies, although somewhat minor, happen throughout the book, and directly contradict other sources like By the Order of the President by Greg Robinson.

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The Train to Crystal City does excel at compiling oral histories on specific events, likely

due to the journalistic nature of the work. In one chapter, Jarboe Russell tackles the oft-discussed

loyalty questionnaires. Her focus, which provides a different narrative than those written by

Nisei women, follows the difficulties experienced by several Japanese American families in

determining how to fill out the survey. By combining the stories of multiple families, she was

able to convey the discord between brothers. In one instance, the eldest brother expatriated to

Japan after experiencing extreme anti-Japanese sentiment as a youth. These experiences pushed

him firmly into the pro-Japan camp during the war. Several of his brothers, on the other hand,

were firmly pro-America, enough so that they volunteered for the all Nisei combat troop.73 In

another family, one brother volunteered for the military, while the other refused to even answer

questions 27 and 28 on the questionnaire. His refusal laid not with disloyalty to the United

States, but rather a refusal until the government recognized his rights as an American citizen.74 In

a final story, as told by Attorney General Biddle, an Issei couple was in the process of

repatriating back to Japan while their two sons joined the military, showing another possibility

that some families faced. By combining these stories, Jarboe Russell provides a multifaceted take

on an event that most historians would have only broached from the standpoint of the

government.75 Although Jarboe Russell’s attempt at a synthesis between personal accounts and

government documentation falls short, it shows much progress has been made towards this goal.

Conclusion

73 Ibid., 144. 74 Ibid.,150. 75 Ibid., 151-52. Oral histories like this have been sorely lacking in previous historical work. Historians

have been more vocal recently about the desire to explore other histories besides young Nisei women, as a large portion of personal accounts tend to fall under. Perhaps this can be attributed to Matsuda Gruenewald’s explanation of not only holding stories about her experiences inside for decades, but also her brother’s refusal to discuss his time in the military during World War II. See “Introduction” in Concentration Camps on the Homefront by John Howard.

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The history of internment camps intended for Japanese Americans during World War II

has become a well-studied topic. Thanks to the trickle of information after FOIA’s passage in

1966, social historians were inspired to study and write about the topic over the next decade. As

more documents became declassified, this resulted in several Supreme Court decisions

convictions being vacated. Congress and three presidents throughout the 1970s and 1980s have

acknowledged the horrific experience. In 1983, the extensive report by the United States

Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians sparked renewed interest in the

field of study, which in turn provided historians with even more documents and oral histories to

draw on. Following the 1980s, new historical works tended to follow two separate and distinct

tracks – those focusing on oral histories and personal accounts, and those that took a traditional

historical approach. For various reasons, it was not until the past fifteen years have we seen

many attempts at synthesizing the two into a more inclusive historical narrative. Often, these

works that rely exclusively on personal accounts, which may provide some contextual

information, but usually lack key information. For example, many Japanese Americans did not

know that there were surveillance lists for Issei, who were determined to hold potential for

subversive activities, although they may have been able to guess something very similar from

their own experiences. Even those who were made aware of these lists at the time of their writing

appear to not have known the scope and depth of FDR’s secret surveillance. Conversely, those

who studied FDR and his internment policies were unable to put human faces or experiences to

their work. Some recent historical studies have shown promise in bridging this gap, but more

work needs to be done to incorporate personal accounts and traditional historical writings into a

cohesive history.

Bibliography:

Burton, Jeffrey F., Farrell, Mary M., Lord, Florence B., and Lord, Richard W. Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002.

Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, Personal Justice Denied.

Washington, D.C: Civil Liberties Public Education Fund, 2011. Hastings, Emiko. “’No Longer a Silent Victim of History:’ Repurposing the Documents of

Japanese American Internment.” Archival Science, vol. 11, no. 1. (March 2011): 25-46. Irons, Peter. Justice at War: The Story of The Japanese American Internment Cases. Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1983. Jarboe Russell, Jane. The Train to Crystal City: FDR’s Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and

America’s Only Family Internment Camp During World War II. New York: Scribner, 2015.

Kashima Tesuden. Foreword in Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II

Japanese American Relocation Sites. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002. ———. Introduction to Life Behind Barbed Wire: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a

Hawai’i Issei. Translated by Kihei Hirai. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008. ———. Judgement Without Trial: Japanese American Imprisonment During World War II.

Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003. Matsuda Gruenewald, Mary. Looking Like the Enemy: My Story of Imprisonment in Japanese-

American Internment Camps. Troutdale, Oregon: NewSage Press, 2005. Muller, Eric. American Inquisition: The Hunt for Japanese American Disloyalty in World War II.

Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. Robinson, Greg. By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001. Soga, Yasutaro (Keiho). Life Behind Barbed Wire: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a

Hawai’i Issei. Translated by Kihei Hirai. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008. Suyemoto, Toyo. I Call to Remembrance: Toyo Suyemoto’s Years of Internment. Edited by

Susan B. Richardson. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2007. Uchida, Yoshiko. Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese American Family. Seattle:

University of Washington Press, 1982.