An Act of Bastardry

World War II General WWII Discussion
#21

To get a larger feel for this issue research further back to WWI, particularly 1917. Feelings ran high against ‘Germans’. Before 1917 there were large German ethnic enclaves in the US cities where German was commonly spoken and a German or European culture was visable. All that rapidly vanished with the Great war. Locally my great grandfather and some other farmers of German ancestory had barns & other buildings burned & other expressions of hatred directed at them.

My limited experince of two years in Japan suggests returning immigrants & their decendants would have been seen as barbarians & not true Japanese.

The land grab is at the core of the problem. It would be facinating to research just who was accquiring the Niesi homes, farms, and businesses at the loan forclosure and tax auctions.

#22

I’d suggest that the land grab was more a by-product of, or a step in solving, the real core problem, which was the fear of cheap labour and an inability to compete.

The ultimate Caucasian aim was to eliminate cheap labour competition.

It was the fear of cheap labour, and the concomitant fear of a consequent reduction in Caucasian profitability and living standards, that was at the heart of American, and contemporaneous Australian, policies that discriminated against Japanese and other Asian migration.

While there are clearly significant racist elements involved in the Western attitudes to Asians, the significance of the cheap labour aspect as an issue by itself, and how it wasn’t confined to Asians (albeit not free of racism directed at another group), is illustrated by the conflict in Australia during WWI when a shipload of Maltese men became symbolic of the debate about cheap labour.

It’s a bit more complicated than the quote below, but the link gives a fuller account.

Victims of White Australia

The timing of the Gange’s arrival at Melbourne could not have been less opportune. The vessel was scheduled to berth at Melbourne on 28 October, the very date on which Australians were to vote in a national referendum on the conscription issue.

The opponents of conscription, especially those in the labour movement, had argued all along that, if conscription was introduced, ‘white’ Australian workers who served overseas as soldiers would be replaced by imported, ‘cheap’, ‘coloured’ labour: ‘coloured job jumpers’. Living standards and wage rates would be reduced to the benefit of the capitalist class, and the vision of a White Australia would be lost. (The Brisbane Worker, 12 October 1916)

Those who supported conscription were no less dedicated to a White Australia. They argued that unless the Empire won the war, the Kaiser would dictate eventual peace terms, and the White Australia policy would remain only if it were suitable to Germany.

It was against this backdrop, often marked by bitter and sometimes violent debate, that the Gange had arrived off the coast of Western Australia in mid-October. The anti-conscriptionists were delighted by the arrival of such ‘evidence’ of their ‘cheap labour’ claims. Indeed, many years later, the Labor tyro Jack Lang would recall in his memoirs, ‘It was just the evidence we needed’.

Despite Prime Minister Hughes’ attempts to have the Chief Censor impose a ‘prohibited publication’ ruling concerning the Gange’s arrival, the anti-conscriptionists were kept well posted by leaks from within the telegraphic service.

Frank Anstey’s column in Labour Call was embarrassingly accurate in exposing the movements of the vessel and its human cargo. Thus, the Gange posed a threat to Hughes’ referendum.

The Prime Minister, a staunch advocate of conscription, had given several guarantees against the importation of so-called cheap foreign labour after earlier arrivals of unskilled migrants from Southern Europe, including Maltese.

In light of the Gange’s imminent arrival, carrying the largest single group of Maltese migrants ever to come to Australia, Prime Minister Hughes became desperate. The boat simply had to be stopped, and the dictation test was the most effective way, within the immigration law, of stopping these men from disembarking.

If you can get any of the links after this to work, which in order were direct to the page and then no more successful attempts to get you there, you’re a better man than me, Gunga Din. The only way to get into it seems to be: Copy this “[COLOR=“Black”]national centre for history education barry york maltese ship” into Google and click on the first result. [/COLOR]

http://www.hyperhistory.org/index.php?option=displaypage&Itemid=731&op=page

If the link above, which is direct to the paper, doesn’t work (it didn’t when I checked it), go here http://www.hyperhistory.org/ and type in ‘Maltese ship’ in search panel on left. The first link on the search should be to Barry York’s paper entitled ‘The Maltese Ship’

Bugger me dead! That doesn’t seem to work either. Assuming you’re still interested after trying the above two links to no effect, click on the first item in the search here. http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=national+centre+for+history+education+barry+york+maltese+ship&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

#23

RS…I’m not a expert on California politics, or economics. Still I’m confident that eliminating the sucessfull business compitition & accquiring cheap assets was a significant motivation. Similar actions had been taken against African/American or Negro business comunities on a smaller scale in many cities in the 19th and early 20th Century.

The history of the powerfull familys and business groups in Califonia has been a ugly one & I’d want to see more research on the subject before excluding them as supects in the Japanese relocation.

If cheap labor were the primary motive then its was misdirected as the Japanese community was rapidly leaving that social group. While the unions, laborers and trademens still saw the Japanese as labor compition the large scal business owners did not have that issue. In any case the other Asian immigrants and the mexican immigrants were a vastly larger pool of labr compition for the white laborers and tradesmen.

#24

I know. I’m from one, my Great Grandmother was from Germany…Up until about 15-years ago, there was still a German butcher/grocer in my home town which is highly unusual for suburban America…

I miss the authentic German sausage and kraut.:frowning:

My limited experince of two years in Japan suggests returning immigrants & their decendants would have been seen as barbarians & not true Japanese.

This is what I’ve read and gathered. However, there were a small number of Americans of Japanese decent that were unfortunate enough to have had their parents heed the call and return to Germany. One such man, for instance, served in Japanese Naval Intelligence as an unwilling translator. He befriended a downed US airman (who was impressed into service as his assistant) on the sister island of Iwo Jima, Chi Chi Jima, and was later forced to symbolically (pretend to) consume the downed flyer’s liver in order to recapture his warrior spirit after he was executed. Most of the Japanese sailors and soldiers were appalled at this. I’m not sure, but I think he testified at the war crimes trial…

The land grab is at the core of the problem. It would be facinating to research just who was accquiring the Niesi homes, farms, and businesses at the loan forclosure and tax auctions.

Mostly their fellow white farmers…

#25

Theres a local resturant run by the son of a Swiss immigrant. He still uses his fathers old recipies from the 1940s & 1950s. You can find a lot of European university students and old men there getting a nostagia fix on the bratwurst, veal, & pasta… Amoung my family the ‘German’ style cooking faded in the 1960s as my grandmothers generation died off.

#26

act of bastardy…what is that…when the japanese the atrocities…they where commiting in china…in early 30;s…has that been forgotten…the beheading…beheading on civilians…children…etc etc…is that been forgotten by the japanese army…what they done to all americans and filphinos on the BATTAAN DEATH MARCH…what amazes me that whoever the JAPANESE…ITALIANS GERMANS…all these countries where civilized nations…and crimes…committed amazes me…by civilized people

#27

Sam, do you suffer from a reading/writing disorder? If you do I feel sorry for you, but if you don’t you should

  1. Read what this is all about
  2. Write in a decent manner.

We are talking about innocent American citizens of Japanese decent, not the Japanese in general or POWs.

To get back on topic (somewhat):

For all my railing against the Canadian movie “Passchendaelle”, there is one thing that they show very good:
The American/British/Canadian hatred towards the Germans during WW1. One of the main characters is of German descent and has to experience the racism and hatred first hand, something very well captured in the movie.

To get to the point about German/Italian Americans not getting as discriminated against as Japanese, for me, there are two main reasons:

  1. They’re no visible minority, it is impossible to differ a German American from an English, French or Scandinavian. Italians could just as well be Spanish, Greek or from the Balkans. Also, they had been integrated into “American” society from pretty early on.

  2. With 15.2% people of identified German ancestry, they are the largest identified ancestry group in all of America, followed by 12.9% African, 10.9% Irish and 8.7% English according to a 2000 census.
    Whites contribute 74%
    Hispanic: 14.8%
    African: 13.4%
    Asian: 4.4%

Of course the exact numbers were different between 1933-1945, but I’m positive the order was pretty comparable (Librarian, I’d appreciate some of your infinite wisdom;))
This huge number of Germans within the American nation therefore obviously lead to America being logistically and socially incapable of interning all Germans/People with German ancestry.

I dare you to go through a list with the names of American soldiers, and take away any name that has a German ring to it.
Heck, even Eisenhower was of German, Swiss and English ancestry, with an obviously German name, Eisenhower being an anglicized version of Eisenhauer.

(Link to a map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Most_common_ancestries_in_the_United_States.svg)

#28

Yes, it was fundamentally a racist thing. I’m personally quite sure that Roosevelt was not inclined to do this, but public pressure directed at such an easily-identifiable group was such that Roosevelt the politician couldn’t resist that pressure. This infuriated his wife who minced no words on this issue to absolutely no effect. *At the same time, there were no actions directed against the Chinese who were allies (at least Roosevelt thought they were), and were, to the average American eye, indistinguishable from the Japanese. *Hundreds of thousands of American blacks served in the military in segregated units performing mostly - but not always - menial service, defending “freedom” when there was precious little of it in post-reconstruction southern America. *Hispanics from the southwest - Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California - also served in huge numbers while their families suffered greatly from discrimination at home, particularly in Texas. *

    • *Simple logic should have pointed to an equal “need” to evacuate Americans of Italian and German descent, but then who would be left to fight the war and staff the factories? *This alone ought to be proof enough that at the very least popular expediency and at worst, simple racism were at the root of the action against the Japanese. *We can moan and groan all we want in light of our Bill of Rights and Constitution about how “Americans aren’t like that”, but the sad truth is we were and to an unsettling degree, still are.
    • Interestingly, the 4077 Regimental Combat Team (all Japanese) which served in Italy, emerged as the single most decorated American unit during WW2. Go for Broke.
#29

Quite probably from similar motivations which saw the so-called Muskogee Airmen, all American negros as they were called at the time, perform well above the standard of their white American counterparts, being to demonstrate that they were at least as good as the whites.

Which they did, and which generally had no effect on the white public conscience or any better treatment of those negros in particular or negros in general after the war.

Much as Australia treated its own indigenous soldiers. Reg Saunders http://www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions/fiftyaustralians/43.asp was refused service in bars during and after the war because he was black. He wasn’t even counted as an Australian citizen until a national referendum in 1967 decided, with a heartening 90% yes vote, to include Aborigines as citizens of the country they had inhabited for perhaps the previous 40,000 years.

#30

Tuskegee Airmen, perchance?

#31

Correct!

I think my ancient brain confused it with board member muscogeemike.

#32

You were just thinking of the Okie Air Corp. :wink: :slight_smile:

Okie National Air corp..jpg

#33

I’m pretty sure the unit number I showed was wrong as well. Whatever, it was the unit that Senator Inouye from Hawaii served in in Italy. Sorry 'bout that…

#34

Yes, RS, I’ve heard it enough times before to believe that it probaby is true that the Japanese resented the way the US treated Japanese immigrants and the manner in which US immigration policy towards the japanese shifted. Maybe they resented Australia’s too. What puzzles me at the same time is that there are few societies on earth that are as closed to immigration as Japan itself. The chances of a foreigner - gaijin - being “accepted” in Japan - much less becoming a citizen - are zero to none. Prior, certainly, to WW2, all foreigners were carefuly watched by the Kempeitai (sp?) and their travel within Japan was surveilled and limited to designated areas. No doubt there were problems of discrimination on the US west coast and there must have been communities that were less than pleased to have “too many” Japanese living among them, but I do not recall hearing about them being prevented from moving around the country. So what, one wonders, were they really complaining about?

#35

They certainly resented Australia’s “White Australia Policy” which existed in various forms from about the middle of the 19th century until after WWII and which excluded, among others, Asians as migrants.

At leadership levels in politics, trade and commerce, the Japanese resented what they quite legitimately regarded as discriminatory policies and practices towards them by America and Australia, and Britain to a lesser extent so far a immigration policies were concerned. This resentment was compounded by the recognition that while America forced Japan to open its borders and to trade with the West, Japan was not treated as an equal in trade or politics by the West.

As for Japan being a closed society which was was hostile to immigration to Japan, that is quite true.

I think the characteristic which explains both Japanese resentment of treatment by the English speaking countries, and the West more generally, and seemingly contradictorily resisting immigration by Westerners is that the Japanese had a sense of racial and cultural superiority which entitled them to maintain their racial and cultural purity by resisting immigration while denying the same right to countries to which Japanese emigrated. That sense of racial and cultural superiority also underpinned Japanese atrocities in China and during the Pacific War.

Of course, America and Australia saw themselves as racially and culturally superior to the Japanese, so racial arrogance wasn’t unique to the Japanese.

#36

Were these just people born in Japan that were being interned or also people of Japanese descent that had been born in Australia?