It is difficult to imagine, in our own time, the specter of camps in which the American government would actually confine citizens and other residents who had immigrated from other countries simply because they were from a particular country. The recent suggestions from Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump that Muslims in the United States should be investigated and should have to carry a special form of identification received an avalanche of criticism, even in the face of a series of terrorism that has been sponsored by radical elements of Islam. The era entering World War II was vastly different, particularly in the attitudes that the majority held toward the Japanese. In the aftermath of the devastating attack at Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declaration of war against the Empire of Japan, the American government began rounding up Japanese-Americans and holding them, worried that they might assist the Japanese military in an invasion of the Pacific coast. The government prejudice toward Japanese-Americans was a major source of racism throughout the nation.
In Julie Otsuka’s novel When the Emperor Was Devine, one unnamed Japanese family resides in one of the American internment camps for those of Japanese descent; theirs was located in Utah. The family spends a lot of time dreaming of the day when the war would be over, the camp would close, and they could go back to their home: “Yes, the world would be ours once again: warm days, blue skiescold frosted glasses of pink lemonadethe street lamps coming on every evening at dusk” (Otsuka, p. 82). The racism of the American government had made the assumption that families like this one could not be trusted to live their lives and remain loyal to the country in which they loved, one of the greatest perversions of the presumption of innocence that has taken place in the history of the republic. What is interesting from this passage is that the first two items on the list – warm days and blue skies – would also have been part of their lives in Utah. The images become more specific later in the list and refer to specific sensory memories rather than larger experiences. It is clear that what is important is not the warmth of the day or the clarity of the sky but the connection of those two elements with freedom, with the sort of happiness that they connect with seeing these other things happen as part of their daily routine. The prejudice that the American government showed to the Japanese-Americans in this instance made it acceptable for the government to take these normal routines away from them in the eponymous interests of national security.
Each chapter in this book is narrated by a different member of the family that was interned in the camp. The fact that the family never receives a name in the book suggests that the racism of the American government was directed at all Japanese-Americans. The experience of the one family can be generalized to apply, in principle if not in specific detail, to all of the families who found their lives put on hold while they were forced to live in the camp. One of the more poignant quotes comes from the reminiscences of one of the children who had been interned in the camp: “We used to wake, every morning, to the blast of a siren. We used to stand in line for our meals three times a day. We used to stand in line whenever we had to shower or use the latrine” (Otsuka, p. 119). The freedom that the children had had before, to wake up, if not at the time of their choosing, but instead to the gentleness of a mother’s waking or even to an alarm clock instead of the shrill fear of the siren, is gone. The comforting routine of sitting down to a family meal is replaced by regimented consumption of food at the times indicated by the government. Even going to the bathroom or bathing requires this regimented process. The repetition of the phrase “We used to stand in line” at the beginning of each sentence emphasizes how regimented their lives had become, how foreign this routine was in comparison to the loving, gentle rhythms of life in their home. One cannot imagine that any of the American government leaders would have wanted his or her family to live this way, and a willingness to subject others to conditions that one would not accept for oneself – without a shred of evidence as to their guilt – is one of the most essential characteristics of racism.
One could argue that an effect of the racism of the American government actually benefited the Japanese-Americans in the camps. After all, living in the camps meant that the Japanese-Americans had a buffer zone between them and the rest of American society, keeping the anger of the public from impacting them. The American government kept many families together, except in the instances where some family members were found to merit further questioning in other facilities, and the American government also provided for their needs while they were in the camps.
During World War II, the racism of the American government threaded out among society and informed attitudes that individuals held toward Japanese-Americans as well. If there is a silver lining to this awful cloud, it is the fact that more recent attempts to generalize about people because of their race, whether it is the current controversy surrounding the #BlackLivesMatter movement, or the chilling proposals to start investigating mosques because of the possibility of terror activity, have received far more criticism than what appeared when it was time to round up the Japanese. So this is a sign of progress, but we remain far from the egalitarian society that we claim to be.
Works Cited
Otsuka, Julie. When the Emperor Was Divine. New York: Anchor, 2003.
