Arley Paguay

Wilson clasby 

English 207 

24 February 2020 

 

                                                    Annotated Bibliography 

 

Working thesis statement: In the production of Japanese Relocation, the film stated that the Japanese community had freedom to decide whether they wanted to go to the new pioneer land or not to shut down any ideas that the US government is practicing unjust treatment to citizens and legal aliens of Japanese descent. 

 

  Cooper, Michael L. Remembering Manzanar : Life in a Japanese Relocation Camp . Clarion Books, 2002.

Cooper’s purpose for this book was to share the stories of Japanese American children who were evacuated with their families and were forced to live in internment camps during World War II by using  firsthand accounts, oral histories, and essays from school newspapers and yearbooks to tell the story. The families shared their truth about what happened during this time and Cooper raised awareness by documenting  these stories to help us better understand what life was really like for the Japanese under internment. A strong concept brought up in the book was the feelings of being described as threats and disloyal citizens and how that devastated the  Japanese American community because it was thrown at them all at once. The japanese community couldn’t defend their name because it was blasted causing the Japanese community to be treated less than human by the white Americans. I would like to use the stories of the Japanese people to create my paper and knock out the lies that were told in the relocation film. This book uncovers most of that and because it uncovers it with first hand information it allows for my paper to hold weight when I am going against the film produced by the government.  

 

   Flamiano, D., 2010. Japanese American Internment in Popular Magazines. Journalism History, 36(1), pp.23-35.

Dolores Flamiano examines the media coverage during the time of the Japanese relocation and through extensive research found that a lot of major news outlets didn’t cover the plight of the relocation of over 100,00 Japanese Americans and aliens from the west coast.  The media outlets that did cover the major news used derogatory terms to describe the Japanese people and many took the route of justifying the army for their actions by using two prime examples: military necessity and the Japanese assimilation problem. The news articles and reporters  cried “national security” but the west coast isn’t the whole nation. The assimilation of Japanese to American culture like Flamiano mentioned wasn’t seen as much as the assimilation of other immigrants. The Japanese communities kept true to their roots and traditions, but that didn’t sit right with ethnocentric areas like California and states across the nation. Another interesting piece of this scholarly article was the mention of California governor Culbert L. Olson who expressed this idea of why the U.S army was justified in relocating the Japanese community. He directly said in February 1942: “You know, when I look out at a group of Americans of German or Italian descent, I can tell whether they’re loyal or not, but  it is impossible for me to do this with [the Japanese].” That racist comment and many others were used in the argument to justify the current situation of the Japanese communities and most were points of view. The new outlets failed to mention the racist laws that prevented assimilation for immigrants. This would be a major contribution to my essay because it shows how the media publish information they see fit. When information like this is published without full context on both sides it allows for one particular side to be favored and that was a huge win for the Government. 

 

   “George Takei.” online video clip. Television Academy Interviews. 22 Feb. 2019,         interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/george-takei.

  The video I have selected is from an Interviewing Hollywood interview with actor George Takei who recalls his time in one of the camps during the relocation of Japanese Americans and legal aliens. George Takei says he was only 4 years old without much knowledge of what was going on but remembers the tension between his mother and father, the packing and endless tears. He follows on by saying he was born and raised in the United States, but simply because his family and community happen to look like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor, they were all dragged away from their homes. George for the beginning period of his life grew up in this camp and mentions the armed guards, machine gun towers, barbed wire fences and his mornings spent in school behind these fences. The most interesting part of this video is when he mentions that every morning he would go to school and before the day would begin they would say the pledge of allegiance and he would have his right hand over his chest reciting the words freedom and justice for all staring at the barbed wire fences and armed guards. 

 

     Hersey, John. “Behind Barbed Wire. (Japanese Relocation in World War II).” The New York Times Magazine, vol. 137, The New York Times Company, Sept. 1988.

 

In this article, John Hersey investigates issues of mistreatment in the relocation camps and explains why the soldiers and non-Japanese people felt it was okay to mistreat thousands of Japanese Americans and Japanese aliens by broadcasting stories. The overall conclusion was to shine a light  to the real and damaging effects the executive order 9066 created. Hersey starts off explaining a national act of contrition for a grievous lapse signed into  law in this country’s cherished standards of liberty. It was passed by then president, Ronald Reagan, to compensate for the inhuman treatment. $20,000 was given to each surviving internee, whether citizen or alien, and, more significantly, an unprecedented apology by the United States Government. Hersey argues how the unjust treatment was only put onto the Japanese community despite the fact that the U.S army had declared war with both Germany and italy. One of the most interesting pieces of information revealed was the number code the family received after being told they had to leave their homes and go into the camps. The numbers they received  allowed them to label their luggage and themselves. This dehumanized the Japanese people in the camps because they weren’t seen as individuals with names of their own, but as a group of family members that shared the same number. Hersey shows us how the U.S government stripped the Japanese community of who they were and to make matters worse, Hersey reveals they were given a week if that, to sell away their property and pack no more than one bag and leave. They weren’t told where or for how long. Family No. 10710 just had to go and that was that. This contributes to my essay because it further explains why my thesis on the mostreat of Japanese was hidden because we don’t see the change from their name to numbers in the film. 

 

    Mackey, James, and William Huntzicker. “Racism and Relocation: Telling the Japanese-American Experience.” Social Education, vol. 55, no. 7, American Book Co., Nov. 1991, pp. 415–18, http://search.proquest.com/docview/1304708786/.

 

Following the story of Gladys Ishida and her family during the relocation the authors showed how families like Gladys were affected during the relocation. Since the article was written from the perspective of Gladys, she tells the story of how her father worked hard to own a successful farm but due to the alien land law that was passed in 1913 he wasn’t allowed to own it anymore and was forced to write it under a family friend’s name. Sadly, Gladys’s father passed away before seeing his kids own the land and then Pearl Harbor happened a year after the passing and that dream ended as a whole. Every Japanese alien and citizen was forced to leave behind everything they owned and any property that was left behind was up for grabs, including Gladys’s father’s farm. They mentioned that this was one of the thousands of cases . That’s why I would like to use the Alien land law act to emphasize how limitations for immigrants was a problem before the relocation camps and explained the racism. I want to connect the Alien law act and the executive order 9066 and how they only fueled racism and created barriers that limited the Japanese Americans.