I think of the Loyalty Questionnaire given to all incarcerated Japanese Americans over the age of seventeen, which demanded in questions 27 and 28 that they declare their loyalty to the United States, and also state their willingness to serve in the armed forces. Approximately 12,000 of the so-called “no-no boys” refused to give an unqualified “yes,” and were labeled by the War Relocation Authority as “disloyal.” And I admire them for it.
I think of Ansel Adams’ photography in the camps, determined to show happy, smiling, resilient Japanese American faces. He knew he was documenting an injustice, and wanted to show the world it was wrong. But he wanted us to perform our blamelessness, and staged it so that we would. So well meaning, and also so condescending. That we should require a veneer of happy suffering in order to be considered human. That we should be required to accept our abuse with a grin. There are no photos of our ancestors getting tear gassed and shot in Manzanar. No videos of us protesting in Tule Lake. But these things happened. Would that disqualify us from empathy?
—Maggie Tokuda-Hall, from "Justifying the Unjustifiable: Why Japanese Americans Must Stand with Palestine," in the Denshō Catalyst
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When I wrote Love in the Library, the true story of my maternal grandparents who met in a Japanese American incarceration camp during WWII, I did not start the story with Pearl Harbor. I made this choice on purpose. Leading with the state line of justification for the deep injustice that followed is, in my opinion, a mistake with several insidious repercussions. To start, a justification for the unjustifiable will always minimize the cruelty, absurdity, and violence of the disproportionate reaction. It will also minimize the pain of survivors — sure you were uncomfortable, but what was the US supposed to do, not defend itself? — and treat their lives as acceptable collateral damage. It will also occlude the climate of injustice and racism that preceded it. As if Japanese Americans had been whole-heartedly embraced by the American community until their ancestral nation attacked us; a claim that would be both ahistorical and deeply naive.
This is not a decision I made with the intention of brushing aside the American deaths on December 7th as if they did not matter. Of course they do. But mourning and the honest recounting of history are things that can happen simultaneously, or entirely separately. These are not mutually exclusive practices. And when we recount history, we are learning to understand that the pain of marginalized people can no longer be ignored. Grave injustice can always be rationalized in the moment, though it can rarely bear the scrutiny of even a vague attempt at rigorous hindsight.
—Maggie Tokuda-Hall, from "Justifying the Unjustifiable: Why Japanese Americans Must Stand with Palestine," in the Denshō Catalyst
Transcript: Well, to begin with, that was... until, see, up until, they kept the War Measures Act and the restrictions on Japanese up going until 1949. In '49, they finally, after pressure, they had to allow Asians to become, Canadian-born Asians to become citizens. Prior to that point, the B.C. government were able to have some control over this by denying the local Japanese at that time -- even though you were, as my father was a naturalized Canadian, he was not allowed to vote. So he didn't have the vote, and as a result of local elections, not being allowed to vote in B.C. also negated the fact that he was not on the voter's list in the federal government, too. They also followed that rule that no Asian would be allowed to vote in the federal election, the government of Canada election. Well, that all went by the board, and so that, in 1949, they had to allow everyone, and even up, just before that, they had been, the Indians themselves, the aborigines had been denied the vote, and they had to give them the vote after World War II, because they couldn't justify saying that they were not Canadians, 'cause they were all born in Canada. So they had to give them the vote. It became an issue.
Announcing Densho's first podcast! Campu draws upon our vast oral history archive and takes an object-centered approach to tell Japanese American incarceration history like you've never heard it before. Tune in wherever you listen to podcasts!
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Densho is pleased to announce a new digital genealogy series with Linda Harms Okazaki, noted expert in Japanese American genealogy. All sessions will be held on Zoom and advance registration is required. The initial webinar will be held on April 30th, with subsequent webinars to be held every two to three weeks (check back soon […]
Densho is pleased to announce a new digital genealogy series with Linda Harms Okazaki, noted expert in Japanese American genealogy. All sessions will be held on Zoom and advance registration is required. The initial webinar will be held on April 30th, with subsequent webinars to be held every two to three weeks (check back soon — we’ll update this post with dates and times as they are finalized).
1. Introduction to Genealogy (April 30th, 10-11am PST): Densho Family History Program with Tom Ikeda, followed by a discussion by Linda Harms Okazaki about the importance of family history and tips for getting started with your search.
>> Access Webinar Recording <<
2. Navigating Websites (June 18th, 10-11am PST): So much of our research requires knowing how to navigate websites. Although not everything is online, there are a lot of resources available at our fingertips which can help the family historian. Tom Ikeda will show you how to navigate the resources on the Densho website. Linda Okazaki will help you with strategies for successful research utilizing Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, and more.
>> Access Webinar Recording <<
3. U.S. Records (July 2nd, 10-11am PST): It’s important to understand where records are located, how to find or order them, and how to extract critical data. Learn about some of the most important documents for your family history journey, including vital records, census, land and more. Some of the information is necessary for jumping the pond and researching in Japan.
>> Access Webinar Recording <<
4. Immigration Records (July 9th, 10-11am PST): Have you always wondered when your ancestors first immigrated? Did you know that Japanese immigrants and their Nisei children often traveled back to Japan to visit relatives, maintain businesses, or to be educated. Learn how to search a variety of immigration records in this session, beginning with passenger manifests and moving on to Immigration Investigative Case Files, A-files and more.
>> Access webinar recording <<
>> Access resource list <<
5. Incarceration Camp Records (July 16th, 10-11am PST): Most Nikkei from the western states were incarcerated during WWII. Some individuals came from other states and even Latin America. You will learn about the abundance of archival material at the National Archives pertaining to the War Relocation Authority and the Department of Justice. Densho will co-present this session.
>> Register now<<
6. Military Records (July 23rd, 10-11am PST): Many Nikkei registered for the draft in WWI and WWII. Some of them served. During this session, we will cover how to go about finding US military records for your ancestors.
>> Register now<<
7. Family History Records in Japan (July 30th, 10-11am PST): Privacy laws in Japan, coupled with the language barrier, makes searching for Japanese records seem impossible. It might be daunting, but it is absolutely possible! Learn what records are available in Japan, and how you can use the documents found in your US research to obtain those Japanese materials.
>> Register now<<
8. Preserving Your Family Archives (August 6th, 10-11am PST): Densho-led session on how to preserve family papers, photos artifacts, and memorabilia.
>> Register now<<
9. Writing Your Family History (August 13th, 10-11am PST): Your family history should be shared. We’ll share tips and strategies in a final session co-facilitated by Densho and Linda Harms Okazaki.
>> Register now<<
10. Recording Oral Histories (August 20th, 10-11am PST): Learn best practices for conducting and recording your own oral history interviews with Tom Ikeda.
>> Register now<<
Linda Harms Okazaki is a fourth-generation Californian, active in the genealogy and Japanese American communities in California and beyond. She is passionate about teaching Nikkei to research, document, and share their personal family histories, and has been researching her husband’s ancestry since 2012, documenting his family in the incarceration camps and in Japan. Linda is a charter member of the Nikkei Genealogical Society and a contractual genealogist with Ancestry.com’s ProGenealogists, and has a bimonthly column, “Finding Your Nikkei Roots” with the Nichi Bei Weekly.
Funding for this workshop was provided by the Terasaki Family Foundation.
We’re holding a lot of grief and anger over the Black lives stolen by white supremacy in recent weeks. For George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Nina Pop, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others whose names never made national headlines, we demand justice and mourn their loss. But we also recognize that this is not enough. In …
We’re holding a lot of grief and anger over the Black lives stolen by white supremacy in recent weeks. For George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Nina Pop, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others whose names never made national headlines, we demand justice and mourn their loss. But we also recognize that this is not enough. In this moment—especially with the knowledge that it was an Asian American cop who stood by and did nothing as his partner literally crushed the life out of George Floyd—it is urgent that we as Nikkei and Asian Americans recommit to the hard and messy work of uprooting the anti-Blackness from within our communities.
The anti-Asian violence being directed at our communities during this pandemic is inextricably linked to the anti-Black violence that allows the police to murder unarmed civilians like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, that teaches the Amy Coopers of the world to weaponize their white tears to summon those same police, that teaches us to stay silent while those same police commit those same murders as if that will somehow protect us. If we hope to end this violence—all of it—we must reckon with our complicity in this tangled web of white supremacy, and our responsibility to dismantle it.
Our historical inheritance is Yuri Kochiyama and Grace Lee Boggs building Asian solidarity for Black liberation, but it is also Mike Masaoka and S.I. Hayakawa peddling a model minority myth that encourages us to step on others to ascend into whiteness. It is Vincent Chin beaten to death by angry white men and James Hatsuaki Wakasa shot by a camp guard, but it is also Peter Liang and Thou Thau.
We are both victims and accomplices of state violence, and we must engage with that complexity and leverage the privileges we have even as we name the systems that harm us.
We must learn from our history—not simply because our elders also faced incarceration and state violence, but because there are hard-won lessons that we urgently and desperately need to carry forward today: Crises can quickly become cover for the increased criminalization, surveillance, and policing of communities of color. Our acceptance in this country is conditional and revocable. We cannot rely on racist systems designed to plunder our labor and our culture for protection.
What kind of ancestors do we want to be? That’s a question we return to again and again, especially over the past few days, and it’s a question we pose to our community from a place of love and accountability. We don’t have all the answers, and we, like everyone else, are constantly learning and striving to do and be better. But what we do know is this: Silence is compliance, and we want to be the kind of ancestors who were loud and disobedient and stood on the side of justice.
Black Lives Matter.
—
[Header photo: Asian Americans at a rally to support Black Panther co-founder Huey P. Newton in Oakland, 1969.]
Additional resources:
Minnesota Freedom Fund
Black Visions Collective
Black and Asian American Feminist Solidarities: A Reading List
Letters for Black Lives
20+ Allyship Actions for Asians to Show Up for the Black Community Right Now
