MANZANAR Historic Resource Study/Special History Study

DIVISIONS IN JAPANESE/JAPANESE AMERICAN COMMUNITIES OF EVACUEE ORIGIN

Three Major Groups — Issei, Nisei, Kibei

At the time of evacuation the people of Japanese ancestry living in the United States were divided into three major groups — the Issei, or immigrant Japanese born in Japan; (2) the Nisei, American-born and American-educated children of the Issei; and (3) the Kibei, born on American soil but educated wholly or partially in Japan. Although individual variations of personality within these categories were sometimes more important than the generalizations which could made about each group, the basic facts about the three groups provide invaluable insights into the background, attitudes, behavior, and generational/political divisions among the evacuated people. [53]

Issei. At the time of Pearl Harbor nearly one-third of Japanese living in the United States were Issei. These people had been born in Japan and were aliens in the United States, because American law prevented them from obtaining citizenship. Most of them, however, had lived on this side of the Pacific for more than 25 years, had raised families and established businesses or farming operations here, and intended to stay in their adopted land for the remainder of their days.

With some exceptions, these immigrant Japanese had arrived in the United States between 1890, when Japanese immigration into the continental United States began on a significant scale, and 1924, when immigration was forbidden by the Immigration Act of 1924. The majority of the men had come to America before 1908, when the Gentlemen's Agreement, curtailing further immigration of Japanese laborers into the continental United States, took effect. Thus, most Issei males were passing from middle life into old age when war broke out in 1941. The Issei women had reached this country somewhat later — predominantly in the decade between 1910 and 1920 with many entering as "picture brides" after the men had become financially able to send back to their native prefectures for wives — and had an average age of about 52 at the time of evacuation.

Had it not been for their race, Americans would probably have welcomed the Issei as desirable newcomers. Their high standards of literacy, education, industry, thrift, family ideals, community cooperation, respect for law, and desire for self-improvement were qualities admired by most Americans.

Although many Issei had come from the Japanese peasantry, a significant proportion were younger sons from middle-class families. Of the men still alive and in America in 1940, 80 percent had received, before leaving Japan, the equivalent of an American high school education; 10 percent had been to college in Japan or the United States; most of the others had been to primary schools. However, the Issei had started near the bottom of the American economic ladder — as section workers on railroads, common laborers in mines and lumber camps, domestics in the homes of the well-to-do, and especially as harvest hands in the fruit orchards and vegetable fields of the agricultural West. The cultural background and character traits of the stable and adaptable Issei, however, insured that many would not remain in the lower economic and social stratas of American society. Some had never risen above this station and were still following the seasonal harvests up and down the Pacific Coast states as late as 1941. Many, however, as a result of years of hard work and frugal living, had moved up the economic ladder, acquiring a stake in the land, an equity in the wholesale or retail marketing of agricultural products, or a small business in one of the larger west coast towns or cities. A few had risen to positions of prominence and wealth in the Japanese business community.

During the 1910s and 1920s the Issei had built families and businesses, while nurturing sentimental, traditional, and economic bonds with their adopted country. Some who failed, or had made the money they had come to earn, returned to Japan. The majority of the hardy and successful, however, remained to build stable community life, adapt to American modes of living and business practices, and provide American education for their children. The peak of the birth rate occurred in 1921, insuring that the majority of their offspring, the Nisei, were barely on the verge of maturity at the time of Pearl Harbor. After the Immigration Act of 1924 was passed and the alien land laws were enacted in the 1910s and early 1920s, overt agitation and persecution of Issei by anti-Asian groups quieted down. Few Nisei, therefore, had much first-hand experience with violent discrimination except in getting white collar and professional positions prior to Pearl Harbor.

From the time of their arrival in the United States at the end of the 19th century, the Issei had experienced a series of legal and extra-legal attacks which necessitated the development of self-sufficient communities wherever there were significant numbers of persons of Japanese ancestry in rural or urban areas. Like other immigrant groups, Issei sought out people from their own country and particularly from their own prefecture. In their early days in America, they often worked in gangs under a boss who served them as business manager and negotiator with employers. Later when they married, they drew together into communities either in scattered rural districts or in congested city areas. The Issei created closely knit communities, and the highly organized communities, their bonds tightened by the need to unite against discrimination, made the Japanese known as a people who stuck together. During the years just before Pearl Harbor, some of the more well-to-do and progressive Issei were moving into better residential districts in the cities, away from the older Japanese ethnic urban enclaves.

Like other immigrant groups, the Issei clung tenaciously to their native language and often depended on their American-born children to aid them in affairs outside the Japanese community that required a knowledge of English. They also tried to pass on their language and cultural values and traditions as a heritage to their children, emphasizing home and religious instruction and establishing Japanese language schools to supplement the Nisei's public school education. Their emphasis on respect for age and family ties created a strong and tight discipline within the family unit until the maturing Nisei began to rebel and reach out to the wider spectrum of American society for the independence they saw other American adolescents enjoying. [54]

In its War Relocation Authority: A Story of Human Conservation the WRA described the general outlook of the Issei at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. The publication noted in words that some might challenge:

.... Speaking very broadly, the west coast Issei in the spring of 1942 were a tired, hapless, and bewildered group of people who retained a sentimental attachment for the Japan they had known as children or adolescents in the earlier years of the century but who wanted nothing more acutely than to live out the rest of their lives [in the United States) in comfort and in peace. [55]

For the Issei, who were subjected to a barrage of restrictions, harassments, and indignities — including the precipitous internment of their leaders in federal detention centers — the effect of Pearl Harbor and its aftermath was a pronounced increase in social solidarity. For them, the repressive measures enacted by the government represented only the latest and most serious of a long series of discriminatory actions, and they responded in their customary manner — with cultural retrenchment. [56]

Nisei. In contrast with their parents, the Nisei, who made up approximately two-thirds of the persons of Japanese ancestry on the west coast at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, were predominantly an adolescent and young adult group. American-born and educated, the Niseis were citizens of the United States. They were "completely American in speech, dress, and manner; and far more inclined than the average Issei to seek out WRA personnel and give free expression to their opinions." "In all but a few cases, their language was distinctively American as were the clothes they wore, the games they played, the social customs they followed, and the entertainments they enjoyed—sometimes to the consternation of their parents."

Because most of the west coast Issei married and settled down to family responsibilities comparatively late in life, the age gap between them and their American-born children was uncommonly pronounced. An abnormally high percentage of the Issei, as compared with the total population of the country, were between the ages of 15 and 25 when they entered relocation centers. An even more strikingly low percentage of them had passed the age of 30, and only a few hundred were over 35.

Despite the numerical superiority of the Nisei, the Issei "exercised an influence in the evacuee population out of all proportion to their numbers." According to the WRA, this

was partially due to their greater maturity and stability as well as to the prestige which age and parenthood traditionally command in Japanese communities. But it was also due, perhaps in even greater measure, to the plain fact that practically all of the nearly 40,000 Issei were adults while a substantial majority of the Nisei were under 21. Actually, if adults alone are considered, the Issei evacuees . . . outnumbered the American citizen group by a margin of almost four to three.

After the Nisei had proved themselves mature and responsible, the Issei had expected to relinquish gradually the control of the community, family, and business to them. Most Nisei, however, were still of high school or college age at the time of Pearl Harbor, so that this was still for the future. The children, for the most part, had distinguished themselves in the public schools to the pleasure of their parents, and they were kept busy with school and chores at home and a round of picnics and other social activities sponsored by the language school, Buddhist and Christian church organizations, prefecture societies, produce companies. Boy and Girl scouts, and Japanese teen-age clubs — programs and cultural agencies established by the Issei to undermine the Americanization process.

Among the older Nisei were some who were called "regular Issei type," while among the Issei were men and women with the point of view of "typical Nisei." Generally, however, the major lines were by generations. The older Nisei often argued among themselves and rebelled against community and Issei control. The conservative Issei leadership as represented by the Japanese Association was still unshaken, but more and more young Nisei businessmen were organizing their own service clubs and chambers of commerce to do business outside the Japanese community without consulting the associations. These efforts widened the social distance between Issei and Nisei and represented a potential challenge to the ethnic group's solidarity.

Despite these efforts to break away from the traditional Japanese community, the Nisei found themselves returning to the Japanese American community during the years before the war. Socially, the Nisei encountered barriers to their assimilation into the larger society and found it necessary to participate in social organizations, residential patterns, and marital arrangements along ethnic lines. Economically, they discovered upon graduation from high school and college that most available employment opportunities existed within their own communities. Thus, while the Nisei returned to the community perhaps more from necessity than desire, the result was a partial restoration of their ethnicity and a consequent maintenance of group solidarity. [57]

The majority of the Nisei, according to the WRA, "were far from psychologically prepared for the shock of evacuation when it came in the early months of 1942. Although it was widely recognized among the west coast Japanese population that war with Japan might mean serious restrictions on the freedom of the Issei, most Nisei persisted in believing throughout January and February 1942 that their American citizenship would protect them from similar treatment. When it became clear that all persons of Japanese descent on the west coast would be evacuated, the Nisei community was "hit as it had never been hit before in its history." Some were "stunned" and "unable to express their own thoughts about it coherently for many months to come," while a few "were deeply and permanently embittered." As they entered the centers, the traumatized Nisei "were impassive, shy, uncommunicative." Some " were openly sullen and resentful." "But in the minds and hearts of nearly all, to a great or less degree, according to the WRA, "there were trouble and confusion and sharply conflicting emotions." [58]

Kibei. Technically a subgroup of the Nisei, the Kibei had been born on American soil, but had received all or part of their education in Japan. Applied literally, the term Kibei denoted any Nisei who had gone to Japan, for however short a time, and had returned to America, in some instances the term was employed to describe any Nisei, whether he had gone to Japan or not who "spoke Japanese . . . preferably to English and who otherwise behaved in what the Nisei regarded as a 'Japanesy' manner." But its usual meaning was restricted to those whose residence in Japan exceeded two years and who received a portion of their education there. Prior to the war, the ratio of the Kibei to "pure" Nisei over 15 years of age was about 1 to 4. Some 20,000 persons of Japanese descent on the west coast were in this category. [59]

Many Kibei, especially those whose stay in Japan was brief, experienced little difficulty in adjusting to the American milieu, and their behavior was indistinguishable from that of other Nisei. Other Kibei chose to repress their Japaneseness and exhibited hyperbolic American behavior. But for those who had spent considerable time in Japan, the situation was somewhat different. Diverse reasons had led the Issei to send one or more children to Japan — to please the child's grandparents, to take off some of the parents' economic burden until they had established themselves, to be cared for if one parent had died, to learn Japanese language and culture to prepare for economic and social success within the ethnic community in America. Upon their return to the United States, the Kibei were regarded somewhat as outcasts by the more Americanized Nisei who often derided or even scorned them for their linguistic and social ineptitude. The Issei, on the whole, applauded them as "model" Japanese children. A few Kibei, however, condemned their parents for having sent them to Japan, because when they returned to America they were handicapped by their relatively poor English and "un-California-like" manners. The Kibei were mostly non-assimilationists once they returned to the United States. They formed their own clubs and recreational groups, actively led Buddhist and other cultural organizations, and willingly joined the community business structure. Kibei women tended to marry either Kibei or Issei men. For these reasons, the Kibei strengthened group solidarity in the Japanese/Japanese American community. [60]

The Kibei had certain advantages over both Nisei and Issei — characteristics which earned them respect as well as disdain at various times in the Japanese/Japanese-American community. They were, on the average, older than the Nisei, and, although they were much younger than the Issei, the recency of their education in Japan tended to make them more vigorous and effective exponents of modern Japanese ideology and cultural thought — sentiments that frequently earned the contempt of the more Americanized Nisei and offended the cultural traditions of the older Issei. Their generally superior bilingualism also operated in their favor. The medium of communication among the older Issei was primarily Japanese, of which most Nisei had imperfect control, while a working knowledge of English, which most Issei lacked, was essential in negotiating with the Caucasian community. [61]

Political Divisions

Conservatism and Pro-Americanism as Represented by the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). The Japanese American Citizens League emerged as the largest and most influential Japanese American political organization in the United States during the years prior to World War II. Despite its influence, however, its philosophical emphasis on assimilation with the wider society and Americanization was controversial within the Japanese-American community, having both avid supporters and ardent detractors. [62]

The roots of the citizens league movement began during the summer of 1918 with an informal study group consisting of six college-educated Nisei in San Francisco calling itself the American Loyalty League. Several years later, a similar group formed in Seattle under the leadership of Clarence Arai. In May 1923, led by Fresno dentist Thomas T. Yatabe, a statewide American Loyalty League was formed with the help and support of the Issei-run Japanese associations. After an initial burst of activity, this organization began to fade in the late 1920s, with only the Fresno chapter retaining its initial vigor. Arai visited California in 1928, reinvigorating the movement. As a result of a series of meetings, the JACL emerged. The first national JACL convention took place in Seattle in 1930. Organized by older Nisei who emphasized loyalty, patriotism, and citizenship, the JACL emerged largely as a response to xenophobia expressed by white Americans. With passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, Japanese immigration was cut of, and those Issei living in the United States had no chance of becoming naturalized citizens. Thus, the Issei looked to their American-born children, the Nisei, as United States citizens, to secure the future of Japanese America.

By the spring of 1942, the JACL claimed to have a membership of approximately 20,000 in nearly 300 communities throughout the country. Membership was confined to American citizens but not necessarily to persons of Japanese descent. The great bulk of the membership, however, were Nisei who lived in the three Pacific Coast states. Some 650 members lived in the Los Angeles area. [63]

Unsympathetic with the Issei's desire to have Nisei interpret to other Americans what Issei understood as good in Japanese culture, the JACL was a reaction against the Japanese orientation of the Issei leadership. It considered its function to be that of aiding Nisei to solve those mutual problems which could not be settled by individual effort. Because of their heritage of social and economic problems caused by American hostility toward the Issei, the JACL Nisei hoped through organization not only to establish an economic and political status for themselves and protect their own civil rights as American citizens, but also to alleviate and improve Issei status in America. Essentially, the JACL Nisei turned their backs upon Japan and tackled the problems of life in America for all persons of Japanese descent.

Although its members were regarded as the future leaders of Japanese Americans, the JACL was seen by some "as part of an elite network in the Japanese community." The conservative Issei, cynical from their long experience with American racism, often viewed the JACL critically and skeptically. They questioned whether the Nisei should, or ever would, be permitted by Caucasians to forget that they were Japanese.

Many of the founders of the JACL organization held professional degrees and thus attracted Nisei of similar status. Not surprisingly, since the group drew members of higher social position, the politics of the JACL was conservative and Republican. The conservatism may also have stemmed from an assessment of its power — given the organization's small size and the distinctly dependent position Nisei found themselves in relation to both their parents and the larger community, a strategy of conciliation made more sense than one of angry protest. An example of this strategy was the successful campaign the JACL funded during the 1930s to press for American citizenship for Issei World War I veterans. Lobbyist Tokutaro (Tokie) Slocum, who would later be an evacuee resident at Manzanar, pressed loyalty and patriotism to extremes to secure passage of the Nye-Lea Bill. Many in the organization felt that the only way to gain acceptance in the United States was to become 100 percent American and to discourage anything that might cast doubt upon their loyalty.

While the JACL may have seemed bold and rash to some Issei, there were some college-age Nisei at the time of Pearl Harbor who dubbed the JACL as reactionary and criticized it for ifs frequently close relations with conservative pro-American organizations, such as the American Legion, chambers of commerce, Daughters or the American Revolution, and similar groups. JACL leaders often derided such Nisei, some of whom joined Young Democrat clubs, in turn, as intellectuals, leftists, radicals, or even communists. [64]

The pro-American ideology that the JACL adopted placed the organization in a difficult position in the period preceding Pearl Harbor. As loyal Americans, JACL members were recruited by government officials to act as informers on their own community as relations between the United States and Japan worsened. War with Japan was a distinct possibility, and the government wanted to ensure that it could effectively contain those Japanese in America who were thought to be "suspicious." From the JACL point of view, to refuse the government's request could be interpreted as a sign that Japanese Americans were disloyal. Cooperation, they felt, was the only way that the Nisei could demonstrate their patriotism and ensure the safety of their community.

As war with Japan became a distinct possibility and thus placed Japanese American loyalty in question, Mike Masaoka, one of the JACL's most prominent spokesmen who would become the league's first full-time staff person as national secretary in 1941, believed that a statement on how he felt about America needed to be made by the organization. Born in 1915, Masaoka had grown up in Salt Lake City, become a Mormon, and graduated from the University of Utah. The Japanese American Creed, written by Masaoka for approval by the JACL national convention in 1940, was his solution. The creed, which symbolized all that the JACL stood for, read in part:

I am proud that I am an American citizen of Japanese ancestry, for my very background makes me appreciate more fully the wonderful advantages of this nation. I believe in her institutions, ideals, and traditions; I glory in her heritage; I boast of her history; I trust in her future. She has granted me liberties and opportunities such as no individual enjoys in this world today. . . .

Although some individuals may discriminate against me, I shall never become bitter or lose faith, for I know that such persons are not representative of the majority of the American people. True, I shall do all in my power to discourage such practices, but I shall do it in the American way: above board, in the open, through courts of law, by education, by proving myself to be worthy of equal treatment and consideration. . . .

Because I believe in America, and I trust she believes in me, and because I have received innumerable benefits from her, I pledge myself to do honor to her at all times and in all places; to support her Constitution; to obey her laws; to respect her flag; to defend her against all enemies, foreign or domestic; to actively assume my duties and obligations as a citizen, cheerfully and without reservations whatsoever, in the hope that I may become a better American in a great America. [65]

Togo Tanaka, a national officeholder in the JACL and the English language editor of the Los Angeles-based Rafu Shimpo and a future evacuee resident at Manzanar, also zealously advertised the Americanism of the organization and repudiated the local Issei leadership during the prewar period. According to Roger Daniels, a noted historian in the field of Japanese American history, Tanaka, in a speech in early 1941, "insisted that the Nisei must face . . . 'the question of loyalty' and assumed that since the Issei were "more or less tumbleweeds with one foot in America and one foot in Japan, real loyalty to America could be found only in his generation." [66] Tanaka consistently voiced this sentiment editorially, joined on the newspaper's editorial board by Fred Tayama and Tokie Slocum, both future evacuee residents at Manzanar. [67]

JACL leaders were summarily seized and interrogated by federal authorities in the wake of Pearl Harbor. Tanaka, for instance, was arrested under a presidential warrant and placed in Los Angeles jails for eleven days. Such persecution, however, only prompted JACL leaders to redouble their efforts to prove their loyalty as American citizens. They fought their campaign on two fronts. On one hand, they utilized the limited political influence they possessed to alleviate personal hardship and to exonerate the Japanese-American community from the most irresponsible charges of subversion being leveled against it. More ominously, as previously noted, they cooperated with the authorities as security watchdogs. Earlier in the fall of 1941, the JACL in Los Angeles had organized the Southern California Coordinating Committee for Defense, the function of which was to report to federal intelligence officers about the "subversive" activities of members of the Japanese population. This activity gave rise to bitter criticism of the JACL leaders as "inus" or stool pigeons. After Pearl Harbor, the coordinating committee was replaced by a more militant Anti-Axis Committee, headed first by Fred Tayama and later by Tokie Slocum (and also including future Manzanar evacuees Togo Tanaka, Joe Grant Masaoka, and Tad Uyeno), to serve as a liaison with the FBI to help flush out "potentially dangerous" and pro-Fascist Issei and Kibei. [68]

As the pressure for drastic measures to rid the west coast of all persons of Japanese descent increased in early 1942, so did the professions of loyalty, the purchase of war bonds, and Red Cross activities of the JACL. The JACL leaders realized keenly that their reaction to evacuation was the acid test of their future status in the United States, and they resolved to prove their worth as American citizens beyond all possibility of reasonable doubt. The league supported the early calls for voluntary evacuation of all adult Japanese from certain coastal areas with generally unqualified cooperation, while at the same time undertaking efforts to have Nisei exempted from mandatory evacuation orders. Masaoka elaborated on the organization's stand in testimony before the Tolan Committee. The league was "in complete agreement" with any policy of evacuation "definitely arising from reasons of military necessity and national safety." But if evacuation were "primarily a measure whose surface urgency cloaks the desires of political or other pressure groups who want us to leave merely from motives of self-interest," then members of the league felt that they had "every right to protest and to demand equitable judgment on our merits as American citizens." One day before the official announcement of mass evacuation was made on March 3, the JACL urged the Japanese in America to face the future without panic and to avoid sacrificing property at "ridiculous prices." All were urged to await definite government orders, noting that the "greater our cooperation with the government, it can be expected that the greater will be their cooperation with us in the solution or our problems." [69]

When the government's decision on mass evacuation was announced, the JACL determined to support evacuation, taking the line that the relocation centers represented the cause of democracy and supported the military defense of the nation. Saburo Kido, the national president of the JACL, reportedly observed:

Never in the thousands of years of human history has a group of citizens been branded on so wholesale a scale as being treacherous to the land in which they live.

We question the motives and patriotism of men and leaders who intentionally fan racial animosity and hatred. . . [But] we are going into exile as our duty to our country because the President and the military commander of this area have deemed it a necessity. We are gladly cooperating because this is one way of showing that our protestations of loyalty are sincere. [70] During meetings in March and April 1942, the JACL leaders invited the WRA to take them under its wing in a kind of junior partnership, the league supporting the WRA program in return for more favorable treatment for the Nisei. Masaoka recommended that the WRA and the JACL work together to turn the relocation centers into indoctrination camps for the implementation of the JACL creed.

The decision to cooperate with federal government officials was controversial, as many voices repudiated the league as a "spokesman" for the Japanese population. In the eyes of some elements of the Japanese community, particularly the Issei, the JACL were viewed as the people who led them from the freedom of civilian life to the "prison-like" assembly and relocation centers. Many Issei resented the manner in which JACL leaders, whom they regarded as young and irresponsible, seemed to arrogate the role of community spokesmen. Angered by JACL's complicity with the FBI, they criticized JACL for toadying to white racist Americans and selling the Japanese cause "down the river." [71] Many of the Issei felt that the older Nisei in the JACL had attempted to save themselves from evacuation at the expense of Issei. [72] The Kibei were disturbed that the JACL apparently had forgotten that they too were American citizens, and many believed that JACL leaders were informing on them as well as on Issei. Some Nisei were disgruntled that the JACL should presume to "represent" the community. Some leftist Nisei groups, angered by the league's unapologetic patriotism, "looked upon J.A.C.L. as a large organization controlled by a small minority of 'reactionary' businessmen who used the body as a means of getting business connections and personal prestige." Whatever their grievances against the JACL, many Issei, Kibei, and Nisei generally believed that the league had sacrificed the community's welfare for its own aggrandizement. [73]

JACL members were among the first volunteers to go to the assembly and relocation centers, including Manzanar. In several camps, JACL leaders were the targets of threats and physical violence and had to be removed from the camps for their own protection. Because of the controversy surrounding the JACL, its membership dwindled to some 10 active chapters and about 1,700 members during the war. [74]

With the onset of evacuation, the JACL moved its headquarters to Salt Lake City in 1942. In its newspaper, the Pacific Citizen, the league continued to justify its position even after most Japanese had been evacuated to relocation centers. In one editorial on June 4,1942, for instance, the JACL leadership observed:

When military authorities announced that west coast Japanese, regardless of citizenship, would be uprooted from their homes and placed in government-supervised settlements for the duration of the war, the citizen Japanese announced that he was willing to cheerfully co-operate with the dictates of military necessity. Although realizing that he could have protested and fought evacuation and subsequent orders from the standpoint that his rights as an American are no different from the rights of Americans unaffected by evacuation, the majority of U.S.-born Japanese took the position that no personal hardship would be too great if it contributed to the final American victory.

Although thousands of their American-born Japanese brothers were already fighting in U.S. khaki, these Americans were willing as all Americans must be, to sacrifice their homes, their businesses and their normal lives toward the winning of the war.

The fact that these American Japanese have co-operated fully and are continuing to co-operate fully without questioning the military orders is proof, we think, of the essential loyalty of these citizens. Army officials have indicated that the cooperation of the American-born Japanese has done much to avert the ugliness of forced evacuation.

Should the American-born Japanese have protested the orders and declined to co-operate, they would have created a situation necessitating the use of thousands of additional soldiers and officers in carrying out evacuation, soldiers and officers urgently needed by America on the fighting fronts of the war.

The first thought of all Americans must be for the war, and the winning of the war. The attitude of the American citizen Japanese during evacuation has demonstrated that they are willing to sacrifice everything for the war. [75]

After the war, the WRA observed that it was doubtful whether the JACL's creed and position on evacuation reflected the attitudes held by a majority of the evacuees, a majority of the Nisei, or even a majority of the rank-and-file members of the organization. [76]

Leftist Anti-Fascism as Represented by Communist-Affiliated Labor Organizations. By the mid-1920s, Issei Communists, influenced by the international labor and socialist movements, organized Japanese Workers Associations in New York City, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. In 1927 Karl G. Yoneda, a future volunteer evacuee resident at Manzanar, joined both the Los Angeles-based Japanese Workers Association (JWA) and the American Communist Party, and quickly became one of the area's foremost leaders in labor organization. Born of Japanese immigrant parents from Hiroshima Prefecture in 1906, Yoneda passed his first seven year of life in Glendale, north of Los Angeles, where his parents eked out a living in truck farming. In 1913 he was taken to Japan and spent the next years of his life there. After World War I, he attended high school in the city of Hiroshima. Attracted by progressive ideas, he read the writings of noted socialists and anarchists and participated in pro-labor activities. In 1926 he returned to the United States in order to avoid being conscripted by the Japanese military. Seven years later he married fellow Communist Elaine Black, a Caucasian who was active in labor organization activities in southern California. [77]

With the assistance of the American Communist Party's Trade Union Educational League, the Los Angeles-based JWA formed the Japanese Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee of Southern California in 1928 to organize specifically Japanese field hands. In 1929 this committee was disbanded and its members joined the newly formed Communist-led Trade Union Unity League-Agricultural Workers Industrial League, which eventually organized and led numerous strikes in California agricultural areas.

In spite of continual run-ins with police and immigration authorities, Yoneda and his comrades sought to bring Japanese workers under the wing of the labor movement through these and other Communist-affiliated bodies.

During the mid-1930s Yoneda moved to San Francisco, joining the longshoremen in 1936. As a result of a maritime strike in 1934, Harry Bridges, a left-wing labor organizer, emerged as leader of the west coast longshoremen, switching their affiliation from the more conservative American Federation of Labor (AFL) to the more radical Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1937. Other leftist-oriented progressive unions also switched their affiliation, among them the San Francisco and the Seattle Alaska Cannery Workers unions, both of which had large Asian memberships. During the late 1930s, Yoneda was an active member of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU). He was also active as a CIO organizer and elected union official of the San Francisco Alaska Cannery Workers Union Local 5. In the competition between the AFL and the CIO, the CIO had a special appeal to Japanese American workers. As a champion of industrial unionism, the CIO admitted all workers, regardless of race, in any given industry. As an advocate of racial equality, the CIO denounced the AFL policy of racial exclusion. Hence many Issei, Nisei, and Kibei workers joined the American labor movement for the first time through membership in CIO-affiliated unions.

Besides his activities in the American labor movement and the American Communist Party, Yoneda's life was tied closely to Japan. Throughout the 1930s, Karl engaged in numerous anti-militarist and anti-fascist activities with regard to Japan. As an underground worker, he helped to print, edit, and distribute thousands of anti-fascist leaflets and pamphlets destined for Japan. He participated in countless political rallies and demonstrations against Japan's military actions in China and joined boycotts of Japan-made goods in protest. From 1933 to 1936 he edited the Rodo Shimbun, official organ of the Japanese section of the American Communist Party, in which he wrote frequent editorials against Japanese militarism. The Japanese government not only banned the sale and distribution of the newspaper in Japan, but kept surveillance of Yoneda's activities through its consular staff in San Francisco.

With the corning of World War II, Yoneda never wavered in his anti-fascism. The American Communist Party, ostensibly fearful of harboring fifth columnists, suspended all Japanese members and their spouses after Pearl Harbor. However, neither this suspension nor the subsequent mass evacuation of Japanese Americans dampened his anti-fascist ardor. He tried to enlist for military service immediately after Pearl Harbor, but was rejected. On March 23, 1942, he, along with many JACL members, entered Manzanar as an early volunteer evacuee. Although authorities attempted to prevent his Caucasian wife from entering the camp, she succeeded in her determination to join her husband and son who were required to evacuate. At the camp, Yoneda emerged as one of the leaders of a faction of the evacuee population that advocated working with the WRA administration to press for improved living conditions and help in the war effort against the Axis powers. Although diametrically opposed to much of the pro-Americanism espoused by the JACL leaders, Yoneda supported their cooperative efforts with government authorities. In his mind, the global struggle against fascism had the highest priority. Everything else was secondary, so that he chose to cooperate with his own government, even though it stripped him of his rights. Though disagreeing with the need for evacuation, Yoneda believed that Japanese Americans should first work to defeat fascism in Japan and Germany and then address the wrongs inflicted on them by the United States government. He was among the first Nisei at Manzanar to volunteer for the U.S. Military Intelligence Service and served for much of the war as a propagandist and translator in the China-Burma-India Theater. [78]