"This year, many persons of Japanese ancestry in the United States will once again observe this great day within the confines of a relocation center." Fourth of July celebrations in Japanese Relocation Centers during World War II
July 4, 2024, marked 82 years since thousands of Japanese Americans faced Independence Day behind barbed wire. Japanese Americans - forcibly relocated to ten concentration camps during the Second World War - tried to maintain a sense of normalcy under incarceration and many, although stripped of civil liberties, still wished to demonstrate their loyalty to the U.S. during wartime.
The digital collection of primary source documents in Asian Life in America includes newspapers published by Japanese Americans incarcerated in camps during World War II. The newspapers provide first-hand reporting on events and daily life in the internment camps, as well as editorial perspectives that uncover the deeper struggles of Japanese Americans in the 1940s.
In 1942, five months after Executive Order 9066*, which allowed the forced removal and incarceration of thousands of Japanese Americans for "national security," a writer in the Manzanar, California camp published an editorial in the Manzanar Free Press on July 4. In it, the writer voiced the contradiction between American values and the deep injustice of being "...herded into camps..."
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Manzanar Free Press, Manzanar, California, July 4, 1942, from Asian Life in America
Fourth of July this year will have poignant meaning and value for an America gripped in a death struggle for the very principles affirmed in the Declaration of Independence.
For American citizens of Japanese ancestry herded into camps and guarded by the bayonetted sentries, of their own country it will be a doubly strange and bewildering day.
However, he urges readers to avoid,
...wallowing in... self-pity. Let us stop living in a dreamy, nostalgic past. Let us stop wallowing in the mire of self-pity and work out our destinies in a practical manner.
We, Nesei [second generation Japanese American citizens], have temporarily put our individual freedoms on ice so that national morale might remain sound, and the fight for world democracy might continue unfettered.
Two years later, July 1, 1944, an editorial in the Minidoka (ID) Irrigator echoed the sentiment from the Manzanar Free Press remarking on the juxtaposition between celebrating national freedom amid internment.
This year, many persons of Japanese ancestry in the United States will once again observe this great day within the confines of a relocation center. We who have had our liberties curtailed and, in some respects, taken away all together, realize more than ever before the value of the Four Freedoms.
Today, many men whose faces are Japanese but who are American in heart and mind, are out there proving their loyalty and worth in the uniform of their country.
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Minidoka Irrigator, Hunt, Idaho, July 1, 1944, from Asian Life in America
Despite the conditions in the camps, Japanese Americans planned festivities and celebrations that included baseball games, picnics, and elements of Japanese culture like music and dance.
A colorful Ondo line climaxed the weekend activities and approximately 300 boys and girls in gay kimonos clicked their bamboo castanets in rhythm with the native music.
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Manzanar Free Press, Manzanar, California, July 7, 1942, from Asian Life in America
While enduring the loss of their civil liberties, Japanese Americans remained optimistic. The author of an editorial in 1943 shares the feeling of "hope."
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Gila News Courier, Rivers, Arizona,July 3, 1943, from Asian Life in America
A year later (specifically tomorrow) the outlook has changed. Over 14,000 of us have resettled, have fled the oppression of the relocation centers. There is hope within us that we did not have a year ago.
Almost every day for five months now we have thrilled to the personal declarations of independence of friends who were leaving to find themselves places where once again they will be free from the onus of restrictions.
We look forward to a time when the rest of us can shake the pervasive dust of Gila from our shoes.
That time would not come until March 1946 when the final camp in Tule River, California closed permanently.
The internment camp newspapers in Asian Life in America document the struggles of Japanese Americans as they grappled with the loss of their homes, businesses, and civil liberties while maintaining hope and faith in the nation.
Students and researchers across disciplines will find more rich primary source material covering the 18th century through today in Asian Life in America enabling scholarship that covers the full depth of Asian American history and experiences.
*United States, Congress, House, Select Committee To Investigate National Defense Migration. National defense migration. Fourth interim report of the Select Committee Investigating National Defense Migration, House of Representatives, Seventy-seventh Congress second session, pursuant to H.Res. 113... Findings and recommendations on evacuation of enemy aliens and others from prohibited military zones. May 1942. 77th Congress, 2nd Session, H.Rpt. 2124, 1942. Readex: Readex AllSearch, https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/readex/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info%3Asid/infoweb.newsbank.com&svc_dat=ARDX&req_dat=FA2579D625DE4563BEC66ED7FEFD29B7&rft_val_format=info%3Aofi/fmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Actx&rft_dat=document_id%3Aimage%252Fv2%253A0FD2A62D41CEB699%2540SERIAL-12015F7BDFDB8868%2540-11E448BED5D61680%254040. Accessed 12 July 2024.
