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Ozawa v. United States

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued October 3, 4, 1922. ; November 13, 1922, Decided

No. 1.

Reporter
260 U.S. 178 *; 43 S. Ct. 65 **; 67 L. Ed. 199 ***; 1922 U.S. LEXIS 2357 ****

TAKAO OZAWA v. UNITED STATES.

Prior History: [****1] CERTIFICATE FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE
NINTH CIRCUIT.

QUESTIONS certified by the court below, arising upon an appeal to it from a judgment of the District
Court of Hawaii which dismissed a petition for naturalization. The case was argued with Yamashita v.
Hinkle, post, 199, and was decided at the same time.

Core Terms

naturalization, aliens, words, white person, provisions, the Act, eligible, decisions, nativity, descent,
sections, terms

Case Summary

Procedural Posture
The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit certified a question for review, which arose upon
appeal from a judgment that dismissed appellant’s petition for naturalization on the ground that he was not
a “free white person” as required by U.S. Rev. Stat. § 2169.

Overview
After residing in the United States for 20 years, appellant applied for United States citizenship. The
district court denied the petition, concluding that as a person of the Japanese race born in Japan, appellant
was not eligible for naturalization under U.S. Rev. Stat. § 2169. The appellate court certified for review
the question of whether the Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906, 34 Stats. at Large, Part I, Page 596,

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providing “for a uniform rule for the naturalization of aliens” was complete in itself or was limited by U.S.
Rev. Stat. § 2169, which limited naturalization to aliens who were “free white persons” and to aliens of
African descent. The United States Supreme Court held that the Act was limited by the provisions of §
2169. There was nothing in the circumstances of the passage of the Act suggesting that Congress
contemplated any modification of § 2169 or its application. Since appellant was not a “free white person,”
he was not eligible for naturalization.

Outcome
The Court answered in the affirmative the question of whether the Naturalization Act of 1906 was limited
by the provisions of U.S. Rev. Stat. § 2169; therefore, appellant, who was of the Japanese race, was not
eligible for naturalization, which was limited to “free white persons.”

LexisNexis®

Headnotes

Immigration Law > Naturalization > Objective Requirements

HN1[ ] Naturalization, Objective Requirements

See U.S. Rev. Stat. § 2169.

Governments > Legislation > Expiration, Repeal & Suspension

Immigration Law > Naturalization > Objective Requirements

HN2[ ] Legislation, Expiration, Repeal & Suspension

There is nothing in U.S. Rev. Stat. § 2169 which is repugnant to anything in the Naturalization Act of
June 29, 1906, 34 Stats. at Large, Part I, Page 596. Both may stand and be given effect. Therefore, there is
no repeal by implication.

Governments > Legislation > Interpretation

HN3[ ] Legislation, Interpretation

260 U.S. 178, *178; 43 S. Ct. 65, **65; 67 L. Ed. 199, ***199; 1922 U.S. LEXIS 2357, ****1

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It is the duty of the court to give effect to the intent of Congress. Primarily this intent is ascertained by
giving the words their natural significance, but if this leads to an unreasonable result plainly at variance
with the policy of the legislation as a whole, the court must examine the matter further. The court may
then look to the reason of the enactment and inquire into its antecedent history and give it effect in
accordance with its design and purpose, sacrificing, if necessary, the literal meaning in order that the
purpose may not fail.

Immigration Law > Naturalization > Objective Requirements

HN4[ ] Naturalization, Objective Requirements

The Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906, 34 Stats. at Large, Part I, Page 596, is limited by the provisions
of U.S. Rev. Stat. § 2169.

Governments > Legislation > Interpretation

HN5[ ] Legislation, Interpretation

It is not enough to say that a particular case was not in the mind of the convention when the article was
framed nor of the American people when it was adopted. It is necessary to go further, and to say that, had
a particular case been suggested, the language would have been so varied, as to exclude it, or it would
have been made a special exception. A case being within the words of the rule must be within its
operation likewise unless there be something in the literal construction, so obviously absurd, or
mischievous, or repugnant to the general spirit of the instrument as to justify those who expound the
constitution in making it an exception.

Immigration Law > Naturalization > Objective Requirements

HN6[ ] Naturalization, Objective Requirements

The words “white person” indicate only a person of what is popularly known as the Caucasian race.

Lawyers’ Edition Display

Headnotes

Aliens — naturalization — persons of Japanese race. —

Headnote:

260 U.S. 178, *178; 43 S. Ct. 65, **65; 67 L. Ed. 199, ***199; 1922 U.S. LEXIS 2357, ****1

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The Act of June 29, 1906, providing a uniform rule for naturalization of aliens, is limited by the
declaration of U. S. Rev. Stat. 2169, that the provisions of “this title (title xxx., under the head
‘Naturalization’) shall apply to aliens being free white persons, and to aliens of African nativity and to
persons of African descent,” notwithstanding its reference to “this title,” and therefore the Act of 1906
does not permit the naturalization of persons of the Japanese race.

[For other cases, see Aliens, VII. in Digest Sup. Ct. 1908.]

Statutes — construction — effect of titles and chapters. —

Headnote:

Division of the Revised Statutes into titles and chapters is chiefly a matter of convenience, and reference
to a given title or chapter is simply a ready method of identifying the particular provisions that are meant.

[For other cases, see Statutes, II. i, in Digest Sup. Ct. 1908.]

Statutes — method of construing statutes — sacrificing literal meaning. —

Headnote:

The court, in construing acts of Congress, must give effect to the intent of Congress, and such intent is to
be ascertained primarily by giving the words used their natural significance; but if this leads to an
unreasonable result, plainly at variance with the policy of the legislation as a whole, the court must look to
the reason of the enactment, and inquire into its antecedent history, and give it an effect in accordance
with its design and purpose, sacrificing, if necessary, the literal meaning in order that the purpose may not
fail.

[For other cases, see Statutes, 184-235, in Digest Sup. Ct. 1908.]

Aliens — right of Japanese to naturalization. —

Headnote:

A person of the Japanese race is not a free white person, within the meaning of U. S. Rev. Stat. 2169,
limiting the provisions of the title on naturalization to aliens being free white persons, and to aliens of
African nativity, and to persons of African descent, and therefore such Japanese is not eligible to
naturalization as a United States citizen, although, at the time of its original adoption, Congress did not
have persons of the Japanese race in mind, and the persons applying for naturalization may have a white
skin.

[For other cases, see Aliens, VII. in Digest Sup. Ct. 1908.]

Aliens — white persons — Caucasian race. —

Headnote:

The term “white persons” in U. S. Rev. Stat. 2169, authorizing naturalization of aliens, refers to persons of
the Caucasian race.

260 U.S. 178, *178; 43 S. Ct. 65, **65; 67 L. Ed. 199, ***199; 1922 U.S. LEXIS 2357, ****1

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[For other cases, see Aliens, VII. in Digest Sup. Ct. 1908.]

Syllabus

1. Section 2169 of the Revised Statutes, which is part of Title XXX dealing with naturalization, and
which declares: “The provisions of this Title shall apply to aliens, being free white persons, and to aliens
of African nativity and to persons of African descent,” is consistent with the Naturalization Act of June
29, 1906, and was not impliedly repealed by it. P. 192.

2. Revised Statutes, § 2169, supra, stands as a limitation upon the Naturalization Act, and not merely
upon those other provisions of Title XXX which remain unrepealed. P. 192.

3. The intent of legislation is to be ascertained primarily by giving words their natural significance; but if
this leads to an unreasonable result plainly at variance with the policy of the legislation as a whole, the
court must look to the reason of the enactment, inquiring into its antecedents, and give [****2] it effect in
accordance with its design and purpose, sacrificing, if necessary, the literal meaning, in order that the
purpose may not fail. P. 194.

4. The term “white person,” as used in Rev. Stats., § 2169, and in all the earlier naturalization laws,
beginning in 1790, applies to such persons as were known in this country as “white,” in the racial sense,
when it was first adopted, and is confined to persons of the Caucasian Race. P. 195.

5. The effect of the conclusion that “white person” means a Caucasian is merely to establish a zone on
one side of which are those clearly eligible, and on the other those clearly ineligible, to citizenship;
individual cases within this zone must be determined as they arise. P. 198.

6. A Japanese, born in Japan, being clearly not a Caucasian, cannot be made a citizen of the United States
under Rev. Stats., § 2169, and the Naturalization Act. P. 198.

Counsel: Mr. George W. Wickersham, with whom Mr. David L. Withington was on the briefs, for Takao
Ozawa.

The Act of June 29, 1906, establishes a uniform rule of naturalization, and that rule is not controlled or
modified by § 2169, Rev. Stats.

The constitutional grant of power, the title [****3] of the act, its scope and terms, show that, save in
definitely excepted cases, it is a complete, exclusive and uniform rule of naturalization.

Congress exercised this power in the first Congress, second session, and passed the Act of March 26,
1790, 1 Stat. 103, entitled, “An Act to establish an uniform rule of naturalization.” This act was repealed
by a like act with a like title in 1795, and that by the Act of April 14, 1802, 2 Stat. 153, which in turn was
entitled, “An Act to establish an uniform rule of naturalization.” This in turn became Title XXX of the

260 U.S. 178, *178; 43 S. Ct. 65, **65; 67 L. Ed. 199, ***199; 1922 U.S. LEXIS 2357, ****1

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Revised Statutes, which comprised the uniform rule of naturalization until the passage of the Act of June
29, 1906, which purports to be and is entitled, “An Act To establish a Bureau of Immigration and
Naturalization, and to provide for a uniform rule for the naturalization of aliens throughout the United
States.”

This act purports to be a complete act. It provides, in § 3, for exclusive jurisdiction of naturalizing aliens,
and in § 4, “that any alien may be admitted to become a citizen of the United States in the following
manner, and not otherwise;” followed by five paragraphs prescribing the conditions of admission,
[****4] among them, in paragraph two, that the petition shall set forth “every fact material to his
naturalization and required to be proved upon the final hearing of his application.” In § 27 the form of this
petition is given, containing the allegations which Congress believed were “material to his naturalization
and required to be proved,” but nothing with reference to color or race.

The intent of Congress to enact, and its belief that it had enacted, a uniform rule for naturalization,
covering the entire subject and even giving to the rules and regulations the force of law, are clear. In re
Brefo, 217 Fed. 131; United States v. Rodiek, 162 Fed. 469; Bessho v. United States, 178 Fed. 245; In re
Leichtag, 211 Fed. 681; In re Mallari, 239 Fed. 416; Hampden County v. Morris, 207 Mass. 167; United
States v. Ginsberg, 243 U.S. 472; United States v. Ness, 245 U.S. 319; United States v. Peterson, 182 Fed.
289, 291.

The unrepealed sections of Title XXX and a few other special acts provide for naturalization in cases
excepted from the uniform law. In re Kumagai, 163 Fed. 922; In re Loftus, 165 Fed. 1002; United States
v. Meyer, 170 Fed. 983; In re McNabb, 175 Fed. 511; In re Leichtag, supra; [****5] United States v.
Lengyel, 220 Fed. 720; In re Sterbuck, 224 Fed. 1013; In re Tancrel, 227 Fed. 329.

Section 2169 is not restrictive in terms, and if restrictive only applies to Title XXX, Rev. Stats., and the
cases excepted from the general rule. Section 2169, as originally enacted, is an enlarging provision,
derived from the Act of 1870, c. 254, 16 Stat. 256, which extended the naturalization laws to aliens of
African nativity and to persons of African descent. It is not a restrictive declaration; and the introduction
into it of the words “being free white persons and to aliens,” by the Act of 1875, c. 80, 18 Stat. 318, does
not change the provision from an enlarging to a restrictive one. There is nothing in the language used to
show the intention of Congress to restrict naturalization to free white persons and Africans by this
amendment of 1875.

If construed otherwise, naturalization from the passage of the Revised Statutes to the amendatory Act of
1875, would have been restricted to those of African nativity or descent.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of May 6, 1882, c. 126, § 14, 22 Stat. 58, 61, — passed after it had been held
that the language of § 2169 excluded the Chinese, [****6] In re Ah Yup, 5 Sawy. 155; and a half Indian,
In re Camille, 6 Fed. 256, supports this view. In any event, § 2169 is applicable only to Title XXX and
does not apply to the Act of June 29, 1906.

260 U.S. 178, *178; 43 S. Ct. 65, **65; 67 L. Ed. 199, ***199; 1922 U.S. LEXIS 2357, ****3

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The origin of the Act of 1906 shows that it was intended to be a complete scheme for naturalization, the
test being “fitness for citizenship,” with no discrimination against Japanese. Message of President
Roosevelt, December 5, 1905, 40 Cong. Rec., pt. 1, p. 99. This policy, announced by President
Roosevelt, has been steadily followed in legislation in respect both to naturalization and immigration,
including the Immigration Act of 1917.

These acts show the traditional policy of the United States to welcome aliens, modified only by
restrictions against contract laborers, those morally, mentally and physically unfit for citizenship and the
Chinese, but with no restrictions against the Japanese race.

Numerous Chinese Exclusion Acts have been passed; but there is no line in any statute before or since
1875 which indicates any intention to classify the Japanese with those excluded or to discriminate against
them in any way.

This Court in a recent case, in reviewing the history [****7] of the Immigration Acts, has held that the
purpose of applying these prohibitions against the admission of aliens is to exclude classes (with the
possible exception of contract laborers) who are undesirable as members of the community, even if
previously domiciled in the United States. Lapina v. Williams, 232 U.S. 78; In re Gee Hop, 71 Fed. 274-
275.

The Immigration Act of 1917, and the circumstances of its passage in Congress, show the clear intention
of that body to make no declaration that Japanese are excluded from naturalization.Any other construction
would be violative of the existing treaty with Japan.

The Act of May 9, 1918, amending the Act of June 29, 1906, tends to support the view that § 2169 is only
restrictive of Title XXX of which it is a part. No court, excepting Judge Lowell, In re Halladjian, 174
Fed. 834, has taken into consideration what that section plainly says.

Section 2169, if applicable to the Act of 1906, must be construed like the Act of March 26, 1790, and, so
construed, “free white persons” means one not black, not a negro; which does not exclude Japanese.

At the time the original law was passed, which provided for the admission of “aliens being [****8] free
white persons,” there can be no question but white was used in counterdistinction from black, and “free
white persons” included all who were not black. The latter were chiefly salves, regarded as an inferior
race.

“White person,” as construed by this Court and by the state courts, means a person without negro blood.
United States v. Perryman, 100 U.S. 235; Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393, 420; Du Val v. Johnson,
39 Ark. 182, 192.

260 U.S. 178, *178; 43 S. Ct. 65, **65; 67 L. Ed. 199, ***199; 1922 U.S. LEXIS 2357, ****6

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The primary definition of these words, as given by the great dictionaries, is one who is white, not black,
nor a negro.

The insertion by Congress of the word “free” in § 2169, in 1875, a word which had a definite meaning in
1790, but has no meaning if construed as a new enactment in 1875, shows the intention to reenact the old
section with the old meaning.

Giving the words “free white persons” their common and popular acceptation in 1875, no “uniform rule”
can be laid down, based on color, race or locality of origin, and there is nothing in the laws of the United
States, its treaties, in the history of the time, or the proceedings of Congress, to show that Japanese were
intended to be excluded. Up to 1875, there had been no Japanese immigration, [****9] no suggestion of
their exclusion. America had recently opened Japan to the western civilization, which Japan was gladly
welcoming.

Judicial construction of the phrase, up to 1875, does not sustain such an exclusion. See Dred Scott and Du
Val Cases, supra; Lynch v. Clarke, 1 Sandf. 583; People v. Hall, 4 Cal. 399; People v. Elyea, 14 Cal. 145.
Cf. 2 Kent’s Comm., p. 72.

No “uniform rule,” applicable in all cases, can be drawn from the decisions since 1875. Low Wah Suey v.
Backus, 225 U.S. 460; In re Ah Yup, 5 Sawy. 155; In re Hong Yen Chang, 84 Cal. 163; In re Po, 28 N.Y.S.
383; In re Alverto, 198 Fed. 688; In re Mozumdar, 207 Fed. 115; In re Dow, 213 Fed. 355; Ex parte
Shahid, 205 Fed. 812; In re Dow, 226 Fed. 145; United States v. Balsara, 180 Fed. 694; In re Camille, 6
Fed. 256; In re Mudarri, 176 Fed. 465; In re Saito, 62 Fed. 126; In re Kumagai, 163 Fed. 922; Bessho v.
United States, 178 Fed. 245; In re Knight, 171 Fed. 299; In re Yamashita, 30 Wash. 234; In re Nian, 6
Utah, 259; In re Rodriquez, 81 Fed. 337.

The policy of the United States has been to include into its citizenship by annexation vast numbers of
members of races not Caucasian, including many Mongolians. [****10] The annexation of Hawaii
converted thousands of Japanese, not to mention other nationalities, into American citizens. The most
recent is the Porto Rico Act, which makes the Porto Ricans, who are as dark as the Japanese, American
citizens.

The petitioner in the court below presented an incomplete list of fourteen naturalization in various courts,
and that court says it is understood that about fifty Japanese have been naturalized in state and federal
courts. In fact, the census of 1910 shows 209 American born citizens, 420 naturalized, and 389 with first
papers, who are Japanese.

The words “free white persons,” neither in their common and popular meaning, nor in their scientific
definition, define a race or races, or prescribe a nativity or locus of origin.They deal with personalities and
the qualities of personalities, and are only susceptible of meaning those persons fit for citizenship and of
the kind admitted to citizenship by the policy of the United States.The words deal with individuals, not

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with races, nor with natives of any country or of any particular descent.

The word “free” is an essential part of the clause. Under the Constitution, it is used in opposition
to [****11] slave. It imports a freeman, a superior, as against an inferior class.

“White” we have already sufficiently defined, and shown that the words “free white persons” had in 1875
acquired a signification in American statute law as expressing a superior class as against a lower class, or,
to speak explicitly, a class called “white” as against a class called “black”; the white man against the
negro.

“Person” is “a living human being; a man, woman or child; an individual of the human race.” United
States v. Crook, 25 Fed. Cas. 695. The provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment in reference to persons
“are universal in the application to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction without regard to any
difference of race, or color, or nationality.” Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 369. The same rule has been
applied to include aliens under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U.S.
235.

No case has considered this point or given emphasis in the construction of the section to the words “free”
and “persons,” which are as important to the construction as the word “white.” Nearly all think the section
deals with races.

The question certified does not deal with [****12] individuals, but with a people, and the affirmative
answer would exclude a Japanese who is “white” in color and is of the Caucasian type and race.

The Japanese are “free.” They, or at least the dominant strains, are “white persons,” speaking an Aryan
tongue and having Caucasian root stocks; a superior class, fit for citizenship.

The Japanese are assimilable.

Congress in repeating without qualification the words “white persons” has left the subject in great
uncertainty. All authorities without exception agree on dismissing the idea of white as a characteristic to
be demonstrated by ocular inspection. If it is sought to interpret it as an ethnological term, authorities are
so conflicting that it opens the way to serious inequalities of application. To apply the ambulatory
definition which some of the learned judges have adopted, is to rob the law of all definiteness and to leave
it to the whim of the particular judge or court. The only safe rule to adopt is to take the term as it
undoubtedly was used when the naturalization law was first adopted, and construe it as embracing all
persons not black, until the Act of 1870, and after that date, as having no practical significance. [****13]
If this would run counter to the intention of Congress, that body can readily amend the act so as to make
clear the legislative intention. But the subject certainly should not be left in the uncertain state in which it
now is.

260 U.S. 178, *178; 43 S. Ct. 65, **65; 67 L. Ed. 199, ***199; 1922 U.S. LEXIS 2357, ****10

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So far as the petitioners in the Yamashita case [post, 199,] are concerned, all that appears is that they were
born in Japan and that they were duly naturalized by a state court in 1902. Every intendment of fact in
favor of the jurisdiction therefore must be presumed. They may have been pure blooded Ainos, and as
such “Caucasian” within the meaning of that term, as employed by most of the ethnologists and in a
majority of the decisions construing the term “white persons” to mean those of the Caucasian race, so that
in any event the judgment of the lower court must be reversed.

Mr. Solicitor General Beck, with whom Mr. Alfred A. Wheat, Special Assistant to the Attorney General,
was on the brief, for the United States.

The Act of June 29, 1906, is not complete in itself but is limited in its application to the eligible classes of
persons mentioned in § 2169, Rev. Stats. At the time of the passage of the Act of 1906, through a uniform
course of judicial [****14] construction of statutory language, continued in the law for over a century, it
had become settled that Japanese and all other people not of the white or Caucasian race were not eligible
for naturalization as “white persons.” In re Ah Yup, 5 Sawy. 155; In re Hong Yen Chang, 84 Cal. 163; In
re Gee Hop, 71 Fed. 274; In re Po, 28 N.Y.S. 383; In re Nian, 6 Utah, 259; In re Camille, 6 Fed. 256; In re
Burton, 1’Alaska, 111; In re Saito, 62 Fed. 126.

The Act of 1906 did not extend the privilege of naturalization to any persons not theretofore eligible.
Section 2169, Rev. Stats., was not repealed, and was specifically reaffirmed by the Act of May 9, 1918, c.
69, 40 Stat. 542, making special provision for the naturalization of Filipinos, Porto Ricans, and aliens who
served in the military and naval forces of the United States. Petition of Charr, 273 Fed. 207, 210-212.

Since the passage of the Act of 1906, the courts without exception have continued to hold that § 2169 was
still in force, its limitation still binding. In re Alverto, 198 Fed. 688; In re Kumagai, 163 Fed. 922; In re
Knight, 171 Fed. 299; In re Young, 198 Fed. 715; Bessho v. United States, 178 Fed. 245; United States
v. [****15] Balsara, 180 Fed. 694; In re Yamashita, 30 Wash. 234; In re Dow, 226 Fed. 145; Petition of
Charr, 273 Fed. 207; In re Halladjian, 174 Fed. 834; In re Bautista, 245 Fed. 765; In re Singh, 257 Fed.
209; 246 Fed. 496; In re Lampitoe, 232 Fed. 382; In re Mozumdar, 207 Fed. 115.

So the ultimate question is, is the Japanese a white person, and it presents itself as a question of statutory
construction.In the first place it is said that we must give to these words the meaning which they had in
the minds of the legislators of 1790, which is probably true; and that they were then used as a sort of
“catchall” and meant all men except Negroes and Indians, which is surely untrue. It is undoubtedly true
that the men of 1790 used the words as they understood them, and that their purview of possible and
probable immigration comprised only Negroes and white men. But there is no warrant for believing that
in their minds the whole human race consisted of black men, red men, and white men. To do so is to deny
them the intelligence which they surely possessed. But on the other hand, to argue that they cast their
eyes over the earth and considered the races thereof, and then, with deliberation, chose [****16] to
exclude Chinese, Japanese, and the other yellow and brown peoples, is to give them credit for an
imagination which they did not have. To ascertain their intent, it is not necessary to entangle one’s
common sense in a web of theory. The men who settled this country were white men from Europe and
the men who fought the Revolutionary War, framed the Constitution and established the Government,

260 U.S. 178, *178; 43 S. Ct. 65, **65; 67 L. Ed. 199, ***199; 1922 U.S. LEXIS 2357, ****13

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were white men from Europe and their descendants. They were eager for more of their kind to come, and
it was to men of their own kind that they held out the opportunity for citizenship in the new nation. It is
quite probable that no member of the first Congress had ever seen a Chinese, Japanese or Malay, or knew
much about them beyond the fact that they were people living in remote and almost inaccessible parts of
the world having manners, customs and language which seemed strange, and unwilling to mingle with
western people. Chinese immigration to this country did not begin until after the discovery of gold in
California, and the census of 1870 was the first to report Japanese, 55 in number.

It is a matter of common knowledge that for many years Japan, and to a somewhat less degree, China,
[****17] maintained a policy of isolation, and this policy continued from the middle of the seventeenth
century until the Perry Expedition in 1853. American thought and statesmanship were directed toward
Europe, not toward Asia.It was Europe and its “set of primary interests” with which Washington was
concerned in his farewell address, and it was against interweaving our destiny with that of any part of
Europe, or entangling our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambitions that he warned his
countrymen. It was European trade that was sought and, beyond doubt, European immigration which was
desired and expected. Citizenship has always been deemed a choice possession, and it is not to be
presumed that our fathers regarded it lightly, to be conferred promiscuously according to a “catchall”
classification.It could only be obtained by those to whom it was given, and the men of 1790 gave it only
to those whom they knew and regarded as worthy to share it with them, men of their own type, white men.
This does not imply the drawing of any narrow or bigoted racial lines, but a broad classification inclusive
of all commonly called white and exclusive of all not commonly so called. This [****18] has been the
rule followed by the courts, and the cases already cited, many of which show exhaustive research and
wealth of learning, leave very little to be said. A reading of the opinions of the judges who have written
in these cases reveals impressive unanimity in one respect.Each person admitted, with the single exception
of the Filipino ( In re Bautista, supra, a special case), was admitted because he was deemed as matter of
fact to be white; each person refused was refused because he was deemed as matter of fact not to be white.
The ethnological discussions have covered a wide range of most interesting subjects, particularly in the
border-line cases, the Syrian case ( In re Dow, 226 Fed. 145), and the Armenian case ( In re Halladjian,
174 Fed. 834). But the present case can not be regarded as a doubtful case. The Japanese is not, and never
has been, regarded as white or of the race of white people.

While the views of ethnologists have changed in details from time to time, it is safe to say that the
classification of the Japanese as members of the yellow race is practically the unanimous view. Unless it
could be demonstrated that the Japanese were of the white race, ethnological [****19] differences would
be unimportant, even if otherwise relevant.

Mr. U. S. Webb, Attorney General of the State of California, and Mr. Frank English, by leave of court,
filed a brief as amici curiae.

Opinion by: SUTHERLAND

260 U.S. 178, *178; 43 S. Ct. 65, **65; 67 L. Ed. 199, ***199; 1922 U.S. LEXIS 2357, ****16

Page 12 of 16

Opinion

[*189] [**66] [***205] MR. JUSTICE SUTHERLAND delivered the opinion of the Court.

The appellant is a person of the Japanese race born in Japan. He applied, on October 16, 1914, to the
United States District Court for the Territory of Hawaii to be admitted as a citizen of the United States.
His petition was opposed by the United States District Attorney for the District of Hawaii. Including the
period of his residence in Hawaii, appellant had continuously resided in the United States for twenty
years. He was a graduate of the Berkeley, California, High School, had been nearly three years a student
in the University of California, had educated his children in American schools, his family had attended
American churches and he had maintained the use of the English language in his home. That he was well
qualified by character and education for citizenship is conceded.

The District Court of Hawaii, however, held that, having been born in Japan and being [****20] of the
Japanese race, [*190] he was not eligible to naturalization under § 2169 of the Revised Statutes, and
denied the petition. Thereupon the appellant brought the cause to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the
Ninth Circuit and that court has certified the following questions, upon which it desires to be instructed:

“1. Is the Act of June 29, 1906 (34 Stats. at Large, Part I, Page 596), providing ‘for a uniform rule for the
naturalization of aliens’ complete in itself, or is it limited by Section 2169 of the Revised Statutes of the
United States?

“2. Is one who is of the Japanese race and born in Japan eligible to citizenship under the Naturalization
laws?

“3. If said Act of June 29, 1906, is limited by said Section 2169 and naturalization is limited to aliens
being free white persons and to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent, is one of the
Japanese race, born in Japan, under any circumstances eligible to naturalization?”

These questions for purposes of discussion may be briefly restated:

1. Is the Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906, limited by the provisions of § 2169 of the Revised Statutes
of the United States?

2. If so limited, [****21] is the appellant eligible to naturalization under that section?

First. Section 2169 is found in Title XXX of the Revised Statutes, under the [***206] heading
“Naturalization,” and reads as follows:

HN1[ ] “The provisions of this Title shall apply to aliens, being free white persons, and to aliens of
African nativity and to persons of African descent.”

The Act of June 29, 1906, entitled “An Act To establish a Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, and
to provide for a uniform rule for the naturalization of aliens [*191] throughout the United States”,
consists of thirty-one sections and deals primarily with the subject of procedure. There is nothing in the
circumstances leading up to or accompanying the passage of the act which suggests that any modification
of § 2169, or of its application, was contemplated.

260 U.S. 178, *178; 43 S. Ct. 65, **65; 67 L. Ed. 199, ***199; 1922 U.S. LEXIS 2357, ****19

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The report of the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, recommending its passage,
contains this statement:

“It is the opinion of your committee that the frauds and crimes which have been committed in regard to
naturalization have resulted more from the lack of any uniform system of procedure in such matters than
from any radical defect in the fundamental [****22] principles of existing law governing in such cases.
The two changes which the committee has recommended in the principles controlling in naturalization
matters, and which are embodied in the bill submitted herewith are as follows: First. The requirement that
before an alien can be naturalized he must be able to write either in his own language or in the English
language, and read, speak, and understand the English language; and, Second. That the alien must intend
to reside permanently in the United States before he shall be entitled to naturalization.” House Report No.
1789, 59th Cong., 1st sess., p. 3.

This seems to make it quite clear that no change of the fundamental character here involved was in mind.

Section 26 of the act expressly repeals §§ 2165, 2167, 2168, [**67] 2173 of Title XXX, the subject-
matter thereof being covered by new provisions. The sections of Title XXX remaining without repeal are:
Section 2166, relating to honorably discharged soldiers; § 2169, now under consideration; § 2170,
requiring five years’ residence prior to admission; § 2171, forbidding the admission of alien enemies; §
2172, relating to the status of children of naturalized persons, [****23] and § 2174, making special
provision in respect of the naturalization of seamen.

[*192] HN2[ ] There is nothing in § 2169 which is repugnant to anything in the Act of 1906. Both may
stand and be given effect. It is clear, therefore, that there is no repeal by implication.

But it is insisted by appellant that § 2169, by its terms is made applicable only to the provisions of Title
XXX and that it will not admit of being construed as a restriction upon the Act of 1906. Since § 2169, it
is in effect argued, declares that “the provisions of this Title shall apply to aliens, being free white persons
. . .,” it should be confined to the classes provided for in the unrepealed sections of that title, leaving the
Act of 1906 to govern in respect of all other aliens, without any restriction except such as may be imposed
by that act itself.

It is contended that thus construed the Act of 1906 confers the privilege of naturalization without
limitation as to race, since the general introductory words of § 4 are: “That an alien may be admitted to
become a citizen of the United States in the following manner and not otherwise.” But, obviously, this
clause does not relate to the subject [****24] of eligibility but to the “manner,” that is the procedure, to
be followed.Exactly the same words are used to introduce the similar provisions contained in § 2165 of
the Revised Statutes. In 1790 the first Naturalization Act provided that, “Any alien, being a free white
person, . . . may be admitted to become a citizen, . . .” C. 3, 1 Stat. 103. This was subsequently enlarged
to include aliens of African nativity and persons of African descent. These provisions were restated in the
Revised Statutes, so that § 2165 included only the procedural portion, while the substantive parts were
carried into a separate section (2169) and the words “An alien” substituted for the words “Any alien.”

In all of the Naturalization Acts from 1790 to 1906 the privilege of naturalization was confined to white
persons [*193] (with the addition in 1870 of those of African nativity and descent), although the exact
wording of the various statutes was not always the same. If Congress in 1906 desired to alter a rule so
well and so long established, it may be assumed that its purpose would have been definitely disclosed and
its [***207] legislation to that end put in unmistakable terms.

260 U.S. 178, *191; 43 S. Ct. 65, **66; 67 L. Ed. 199, ***206; 1922 U.S. LEXIS 2357, ****21

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The argument [****25] that because § 2169 is in terms made applicable only to the title in which it is
found, it should now be confined to the unrepealed sections of that title is not convincing. The persons
entitled to naturalization under these unrepealed sections include only honorably discharged soldiers and
seamen who have served three years on board an American vessel, both of whom were entitled from the
beginning to admission on more generous terms than were accorded to other aliens. It is not conceivable
that Congress would deliberately have allowed the racial limitation to continue as to soldiers and seamen
to whom the statute had accorded an especially favored status, and have removed it as to all other aliens.
Such a construction can not be adopted unless it be unavoidable.

The division of the Revised Statutes into titles and chapters is chiefly a matter of convenience, and
reference to a given title or chapter is simply a ready method of identifying the particular provisions
which are meant. The provisions of Title XXX affected by the limitation of § 2169, originally embraced
the whole subject of naturalization of aliens. The generality of the words in § 2165, “An alien may be
admitted [****26] . . .” was restricted by § 2169 in common with the other provisions of the title. The
words “this Title” were used for the purpose of identifying that provision (and others), but it was the
provision which was restricted. That provision having been amended and carried into the Act of 1906, §
2169 being left intact and unrepealed, it will require something [*194] more persuasive than a narrowly
literal reading of the identifying words “this Title” to justify the conclusion that Congress intended the
restriction to be no longer applicable to the provision.

HN3[ ] It is the duty of this Court to give effect to the intent of Congress. Primarily this intent is
ascertained by giving the words their natural significance, but if this leads to an unreasonable result
plainly at variance with the policy of the legislation as a whole, we must examine the matter further. We
may then look to the reason of the enactment and inquire into its antecedent history and give it effect in
accordance with its design and purpose, sacrificing, if necessary, the literal meaning in order that the
purpose may not fail. See Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U.S. 457; Heydenfeldt v. [**68]
Daney [****27] Gold Mining Co., 93 U.S. 634, 638. We are asked to conclude that Congress, without the
consideration or recommendation of any committee, without a suggestion as to the effect, or a word of
debate as to the desirability, of so fundamental a change, nevertheless, by failing to alter the identifying
words of § 2169, which section we may assume was continued for some serious purpose, has radically
modified a statute always theretofore maintained and considered as of great importance. It is
inconceivable that a rule in force from the beginning of the Government, a part of our history as well as
our law, welded into the structure of our national polity by a century of legislative and administrative acts
and judicial decisions, would have been deprived of its force in such dubious and casual fashion. We are,
therefore, constrained to hold that HN4[ ] the Act of 1906 is limited by the provisions of § 2169 of the
Revised Statutes.

Second. This brings us to inquire whether, under § 2169, the appellant is eligible to naturalization. The
language of the naturalization laws from 1790 to 1870 had been uniformly such as to deny the privilege of
[*195] naturalization to an alien unless he came [****28] within the description “free white person.” By
§ 7 of the Act of July 14, 1870, c. 254, 16 Stat. 254, 256, the naturalization laws were “extended to aliens
of African nativity and to persons of African descent.” Section 2169 of the Revised Statutes, as already
pointed out, restricts the privilege to the same classes of persons, viz: “to aliens [being free white persons,
and to aliens] of African nativity and persons of African descent.” It is true that in the first edition of the
Revised Statutes of 1873 the words in brackets, “being free white persons, and to aliens” were omitted,
but this was clearly an error of the compilers and was corrected by the subsequent legislation of 1875 (c.

260 U.S. 178, *193; 43 S. Ct. 65, **67; 67 L. Ed. 199, ***207; 1922 U.S. LEXIS 2357, ****24

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80, 18 Stat. 316, 318). Is appellant, therefore, a “free white person,” within the meaning of that phrase as
found in the statute?

On behalf of the appellant it is urged that we should give to this phrase the meaning which it had in the
minds of its original framers in 1790 and that it was employed by them for the sole purpose of excluding
the black or African race and the Indians then inhabiting [***208] this country. It may be true that these
two races were alone thought of as being excluded, [****29] but to say that they were the only ones
within the intent of the statute would be to ignore the affirmative form of the legislation. The provision is
not that Negroes and Indians shall be excluded but it is, in effect, that only free white persons shall be
included. The intention was to confer the privilege of citizenship upon that class of persons whom the
fathers knew as white, and to deny it to all who could not be so classified. It is not enough to say that the
framers did not have in mind the brown or yellow races of Asia. It is necessary to go farther and be able
to say that had these particular races been suggested the language of the act would have been so varied as
to include them within its privileges. As said by Chief Justice Marshall in Dartmouth College [*196] v.
Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518, 644, in deciding a question of constitutional construction: HN5[ ] “It is not
enough to say, that this particular case was not in the mind of the convention, when the article was
framed, nor of the American people, when it was adopted. It is necessary to go further, and to say that,
had this particular case been suggested, the language would have been so varied, as to exclude it,
or [****30] it would have been made a special exception. The case being within the words of the rule,
must be within its operation likewise, unless there be something in the literal construction, so obviously
absurd, or mischievous, or repugnant to the general spirit of the instrument, as to justify those who
expound the constitution in making it an exception.” If it be assumed that the opinion of the framers was
that the only persons who would fall outside the designation “white” were Negroes and Indians, this
would go no farther than to demonstrate their lack of sufficient information to enable them to foresee
precisely who would be excluded by that term in the subsequent administration of the statute. It is not
important in construing their words to consider the extent of their ethnological knowledge or whether they
thought that under the statute the only persons who would be denied naturalization would be Negroes and
Indians. It is sufficient to ascertain whom they intended to include and having ascertained that it follows,
as a necessary corollary, that all others are to be excluded.

The question then is, Who are comprehended within the phrase “free white persons?” Undoubtedly the
word [****31] “free” was originally used in recognition of the fact that slavery then existed and that
some white persons occupied that status. The word, however, has long since ceased to have any practical
significance and may now be disregarded.

We have been furnished with elaborate briefs in which the meaning of the words “white person” is
discussed [*197] with ability and at length, both from the standpoint of judicial decision and from that of
the science of ethnology.It does not seem to us necessary, however, to follow counsel in their extensive
researches in these fields. It is sufficient to note the fact that these decisions are, in substance, to the
effect that the words import a racial and not an individual test, and with this conclusion, fortified as it is
by reason and authority, we entirely agree.Manifestly, the test afforded by the mere color of the skin of
each individual is impracticable [**69] as that differs greatly among persons of the same race, even
among Anglo-Saxons, ranging by imperceptible gradations from the fair blond to the swarthy brunette, the
latter being darker than many of the lighter hued persons of the brown or yellow races. Hence to adopt
the color [****32] test alone would result in a confused overlapping of races and a gradual merging of
one into the other, without any practical line of separation. Beginning with the decision of Circuit Judge

260 U.S. 178, *195; 43 S. Ct. 65, **68; 67 L. Ed. 199, ***207; 1922 U.S. LEXIS 2357, ****28

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Sawyer, in In re Ah Yup, 5 Sawy. 155 (1878), the federal and state courts, in an almost unbroken line, have
held that HN6[ ] the words “white person” were meant to indicate only a person of what is popularly
known as the Caucasian race. Among these decisions, see for example: In re Camille, 6 Fed. 256; In re
Saito, 62 Fed. 126; In re Nian, 6 Utah, 259; In re Kumagai, 163 Fed. 922; In re Yamashita, 30 Wash. 234,
237; In re Ellis, 179 Fed. 1002; In re Mozumdar, 207 Fed. 115, 117; In re Singh, 257 Fed. 209, 211-212;
and Petition of Charr, 273 Fed. 207. With the conclusion reached in these several decisions we see no
reason to differ. Moreover, that conclusion has become so well established by judicial and executive
concurrence and legislative acquiescence that we should not at this late day feel at liberty to disturb it, in
the absence of reasons far more cogent than any that have been suggested. United States v. Midwest Oil
Co., 236 U.S. 459, 472.

[*198] The determination that the [***209] [****33] words “white person” are synonymous with the
words “a person of the Caucasian race” simplifies the problem, although it does not entirely dispose of it.
Controversies have arisen and will no doubt arise again in respect of the proper classification of
individuals in border line cases. The effect of the conclusion that the words “white person” mean a
Caucasian is not to establish a sharp line of demarcation between those who are entitled and those who are
not entitled to naturalization, but rather a zone of more or less debatable ground outside of which, upon
the one hand, are those clearly eligible, and outside of which, upon the other hand, are those clearly
ineligible for citizenship. Individual cases falling within this zone must be determined as they arise from
time to time by what this Court has called, in another connection ( Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U.S. 97,
104) “the gradual process of judicial inclusion and exclusion.”

The appellant, in the case now under consideration, however, is clearly of a race which is not Caucasian
and therefore belongs entirely outside the zone on the negative side. A large number of the federal and
state courts have so decided and we find no [****34] reported case definitely to the contrary. These
decisions are sustained by numerous scientific authorities, which we do not deem it necessary to review.
We think these decisions are right and so hold.

The briefs filed on behalf of appellant refer in complimentary terms to the culture and enlightenment of
the Japanese people, and with this estimate we have no reason to disagree; but these are matters which
cannot enter into our consideration of the questions here at issue. We have no function in the matter other
than to ascertain the will of Congress and declare it. Of course there is not implied — either in the
legislation or in our interpretation of it — any suggestion of individual unworthiness or racial inferiority.
These considerations are in no manner involved.

[*199] The questions submitted are, therefore, answered as follows:

Question No. 1. The Act of June 29, 1906, is not complete in itself but is limited by § 2169 of the
Revised Statutes of the United States.

Question No. 2. No.

Question No. 3. No.

It will be so certified.

End of Document

260 U.S. 178, *197; 43 S. Ct. 65, **69; 67 L. Ed. 199, ***208; 1922 U.S. LEXIS 2357, ****32

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The Problem of Biculturalism: Japanese American Identity and Festival before World War
II
Author(s):

Lon Kurashige

Source: The Journal of American History, Vol. 86, No. 4 (Mar., 2000), pp. 1632-1654
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of Organization of American Historians
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2567581
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The Problem of Biculturalism:
Japanese American Identity and
Festival before World War II

Lon Kurashige

On May 23, 1934, Mihiko Shimizu persuaded the leading association of Japanese
immigrants in Los Angeles to establish a celebration in honor of their American-

born children. Such a Nisei, or second-generation, festival, he asserted, was needed
to reenergize the small businesses of Little Tokyo, which no longer enjoyed the rapid
growth and prosperity they had in the 191 Os and 1920s.1 Shimizu saw the sluggish

market for his dry goods as an indication of a long-term trend that would prove
more devastating to Japanese retailing than the current depression-era belt tighten-
ing. With the immigrant generation (or Issei) getting older and new immigration
from Japan prohibited, Little Tokyo soon enough would not be able to rely prima-

rily upon a Japanese-speaking clientele. The growth market was the Nisei. To attract
second-generation customers, Shimizu advised Issei shop owners and managers to

cut prices, enlarge merchandise displays, and hire clerks who spoke English and
could cater to the younger generation’s tastes. The challenge of a Nisei festival, he
maintained, was to disabuse Japanese American youth of the notion that “American

[department] stores” offer “better quality and less expensive goods of the same type
found in Japanese stores.”2

Lon Kurashige is assistant professor of history and American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern
California.

For helpful criticism and advice, I want to thank Brian Hayashi, Philippa Levine, Tom Archdeacon, Paul
Spickard, Art Hansen, John Modell, Sucheng Chan, Yuji Ichioka, Laura MacEnaney, David Thelen, David Nord,
Susan Armeny, Robert Rubin, Mauricio Mazon, Steve Ross, Lois Banner, Anne Cherian Kurashige, Soo-Young
Chin, Brian Niiya, and the Los Angeles social history research group. Welcome support for this research was
granted by the Rockefeller Foundation through the Asian American Studies Center, University of California, Los
Angeles; the Department of Asian American Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara; John and Dora
Randolf Haynes Foundation; National Endowment for the Humanities; Civil Liberties Public Educational Fund;
and Japanese American National Museum. Translations were generously provided by Eiichiro Azuma.

Readers may contact Kurashige at kurashig@usc.edu.

i Kashu Mainichi (Jpn.), May 23, 1934. Kashu Mainichi and its rival Rafu Shimpo were the two leading news-
papers within the southern California Japanese American community. Each was bilingual and maintained separate
staffs to report in Japanese and English. See Togo Tanaka, “The Vernacular Newspapers,” manuscript, n.d., folder
W 1.95 Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records (Bancroft Library, University of California,
Berkeley) (numbers in later references to this collection designate folders); and David Yoo, “‘Read All About It’:
Race, Generation, and the Japanese American Ethnic Press, 1925-1941,” Amerasia Journal, 19 (no. 1, 1993), 69-
92. Citations for vernacular periodicals, unless labeled as “Jpn.,” are from English-language sections.

2Kashu Mainichi, May 23,

1934.

1632 The Journal of American History March 2000

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Japanese American Identity before World War II 1633

But Shimizu faced a more immediate burden within his own generation. To his
chagrin, a rival organization planned a festival in the same quest for Nisei purchasing
power. The sponsorship of the much-touted celebration was plunged into contro-
versy. The Nisei group chosen by both sides as their partner in running the festival
stayed out of the fray. Yet the neutrality of that group, the Los Angeles Chapter of
the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), expressed its own belligerence. The

young JACLers railed against the “factionalism” and “selfishness” of the Issei elders,
refusing to participate in an event that compromised their “pure” and “altruistic”
attempt to unite and aid the ethnic community.3

Such a high-handed response was normally a hazardous proposition in a commu-

nity where age and claims to deference were so positively correlated. But the JAcLers
were emboldened in their criticism of the Issei old guard by the specter of anti-Jap-
anese prejudice. Certain “American factions,” the ethnic press intimated, had
warned the youngsters to keep away from the Issei leadership lest they be “painted
with the tar-brush of Japan-ism.” Larry Taiji, a columnist and JAcLer, advised the
Nisei organization not to ally itself with “Japanese nationalistic groups” to avoid
becoming a “target to the many anti-Japanese groups who are awaiting just such an
opportunity” to question the Nisei’s loyalty to the United States. Tarnishing the
public image of the younger generation also was a serious proposition for the Issei
leaders. They had counted on the Nisei’s American citizenship as a bulwark against
new developments of the antagonism that already prohibited Japanese immigrants
from becoming American citizens and owning land in California. Faced with Nisei
defiance and the renewed threat of racial hostility, the competing Issei associations
had little choice but to settle their differences by handing over the proposed Nisei
Week festival to an ostensibly independent JACL. Thus began southern California’s
preeminent and longest-running Japanese celebration.4

This essay addresses the practice and development of Nisei Week in the crucial
decade before the World War II internment of Japanese Americans. It takes as a
point of departure the revisionism advanced by Brian Masaru Hayashi, Jere Taka-
hashi, and Yuji Ichioka, who view the 1930s as a critical context for understanding
the choices, (in)actions, and conflicts among the internees as they wrestled with the
contradictions of democracy and imprisonment. The story emerging complicates
the master narrative of what I call the “Nisei coup d’etat,” which holds that the
American-born generation, epitomized by the JACL and aided and abetted by gov-
ernmental authorities, seized leadership of the ethnic community from the Issei
after the Pearl Harbor attack and steered it along a path to Anglo norms.5 The revi-
sionists argue that most Nisei accepted assimilation only because the repression dur-

3For a chronology of the competition over Nisei Week’s sponsorship, see Rafu Shimpo, June 26, 1934; and

Rafu Shimpo (Jpn.), June 25, 1934. Rafu Shimpo, July 1, 1934.
4Kashu Mainichi, June 24, 10, 1934; Rafu Shimpo (Jpn.), July 28, 1934; Kashu Mainichi (Jpn.), July 20,

1934.

5 Writings predicated on the master narrative include Roger Daniels, Concentration Camps, USA: JapaneseAmer-
icans and World War II (New York, 1971); Michi Weglyn, Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of Americas Concentra-
tion Camps (New York, 1976); Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and
Internment of Civilians (Washington, 1982); and Paul R. Spickard, “Nisei Assume Power: The Japanese American

Citizens League, 1941-1942,” Pacific Historical Review, 52 (May 1983), 147-74.

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1634 The Journal of American History March 2000

ing World War II made alternative identities untenable. In short, not all Nisei were
assimilationists in the 1930s. Hayashi found a deep ambivalence among second-
generation Protestants about choosing between American and Japanese culture and
deciding whether to join their parents in supporting Japan’s aggressions in East Asia.
Takahashi connected this ambivalence to different political perspectives among the
second generation. Assimilationists, notably the JACL, identified squarely with the
United States and American culture, while other Nisei and Kibei, American citi-
zens raised primarily in Japan, were less interested in blending into the American
mainstream or placed labor politics above cultural orientation. Finally, Ichioka
contends that the JAcLers’ identity was more complex than their unquestioned
allegiance to the United States suggested, for their assimilationism did not pre-
clude support for Japanese imperialism.6

The rise of Nisei Week revealed the JACL’s use of biculturalism to manufacture
consent among different groups of Japanese Americans. By joining Japanese dance,
music, and cultural and martial arts exhibits with a parade, beauty pageant, and
other American traditions, the festival presented a harmonious blending of East and
West. Through spectacles,’ speeches, and essays the Nisei portrayed themselves as
“Japanese” enough to support Little Tokyo, but entirely “American” in their dedica-
tion to the United States and willingness to use their ethnic heritage to advance
American relations with the increasingly important nation of Japan. In this way Nisei
Week’s biculturalism was not at odds with the acculturation to American ideals and
standards of living that JAcLers epitomized (and anti-Japanese pundits demanded).
Even after they abandoned the hope of bridging the Pacific Ocean, Nisei Week leaders
remained committed to a seemingly contradictory mixture of ethnic retention and

Americanization. But how could the JACLers promote bonds of ethnicity, while
embracing the values and culture of the larger society?7

6Brian Masaru Hayashi, “For the Sake of Our Japanese Brethren”: Assimilation, Nationalism, and Protestantism

among the Japanese of Los Angeles, 1895- 1942 (Stanford, 1995), 119-26; Jere Takahashi, Nisei/Sansei: Shifting
Japanese American Identities and Politics (Philadelphia, 1998), 48-84; Yuji Ichioka, “A Study of Dualism: James
Yoshinori Sakamoto and the Japanese American Courier, 1928-1942,” Amerasia Journal, 13 (no. 2, 1986-1987),
49-81; other works that contradict the view of Japanese American assimilation before World War II include John
J. Stephan, Hawaii under the Rising Sun: Japans Plan for Conquest after Pearl Harbor (Honolulu, 1984); Yuji
Ichioka, “Japanese Immigrant Nationalism: The Issei and the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1941,” California History,
69 (Fall 1990), 260-75, 310-11; Eiichiro Azuma, “Racial Struggle, Immigrant Nationalism, and Ethnic Iden-
tity: Japanese and Filipinos in the California Delta,” Pacific Historical Review, 67 (May 1998), 163-99; and David
Yoo, Growing Up Nisei: Race, Generation, and Culture among Japanese Americans of California, 1924-1949
(Urbana, 2000). Brian Hayashi’s latest book connects the biculturalism of the 1930s and the internment experi-
ence: Brian Masaru Hayashi, Governing Japanese: Internees, Social Scientists, and Administrators in the Making of
Americas Concentration Camps, 1942-1945 (Princeton, forthcoming).

7 For a broader study of Nisei Week and the formation of Japanese American identity throughout the twenti-
eth century, see Lon Kurashige, The Contested Kimono: Ethnic Orthodoxy, Options, and Festival (Berkeley, forth-
coming). Historical studies of American festivals have informed my investigation of ethnic identity formation.
They include Robert Anthony Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-
1950 (New Haven, 1985); April Schultz, “‘The Pride of the Race Had Been Touched’: The 1925 Norse-Ameri-
can Immigration Centennial and Ethnic Identity,” Journal ofAmerican History, 77 (March 1991), 1265-95; and
Susan G. Davis, Parades and Power: Street Theatre in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1986). On
festivals in American history, see also Matthew Frye Jacobson, Special Sorrows: The Diasporic Imagination of Irish,

Polish, and Jewish Immigrants in the United States (Cambridge, Mass., 1995); George Lipsitz, Time Passages: Collec-
tive Memory and American Popular Culture (Minneapolis, 1990); and John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public
Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, 1992).

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Japanese American Identity before World War II 1635

Here it is important to distinguish between the plodding process of cultural

change-be it assimilation or ethnic retention-and the politically sensitive rheto-
ric of ethnicity.8 Ethnic identity is not a cultural artifact to possess or of which to be

dispossessed; it is a game of politics and ideology in which players, both members of
a group and others, spin definitions of a group. The question is not whether the

Nisei wanted to have an identity, but how, and by whom, this construct was defined
and deployed. Nowhere was the game of identity more obvious than within the
competition of ethnic meanings indigenous to Little Tokyo. Why did some notions
of identity carry more authority than others at Nisei Week? How were these ethnic
orthodoxies enacted, enforced, and resisted during the festival?9

I argue that Nisei Week in the 1930s and early 1940s was a vehicle, not for self-

determination, but for deciding who among Japanese Americans determined the
ethnic self. Initially, the festival was used by the JAcLers to stoke the vitality of the
ethnic enclave. They relied on biculturalism to appeal to Japanese Americans and

whites to “buy in Little Tokio.” When a United States-Japan war seemed imminent
to them, the young leaders switched to Americanism in an attempt to shield the eth-
nic community from a resurgent nativist assault. To them, Americanism was an

expedient means to stave off external attacks and thus to continue enforcing the eth-
nic solidarity so essential to the future of the immigrant economy. Paramount for
either an Americanist or bicultural identity was exceptional social control and uni-
formity of opinion among Japanese Americans. Nisei Week’s officials crafted
notions of ethnic identity that authenticated their vision of the ethnic community
by masking the group’s heterogeneity of opinion and its inequality of social
privilege-particularly along the lines of generation, class, ideology, and gender.

Because there were no official legislatures through which ethnic identity could be

8The distinction between “race” and “ethnicity” is the subject of much discussion but little agreement. By
“race” or “racial identity,” I refer to publicly recognized groups-black, white, red, brown, and yellow-that con-
stitute what David Hollinger calls the ethno-racial pentagon. I use “ethnicity” or “ethnic identity” to denote the
self-representations of persons who share an ancestral heritage, whether real or imagined. The word “identity” is a
less-than-ideal way to characterize ethnicity because, as Hollinger suggests, it implies “fixity and givenness.” On
“race” and “ethnicity” in American social theories, see Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the
United States: From the 1960s to the 1980s (New York, 1986), 14-24. The case for replacing “identity” with “affil-
iation” is made in David A. Hollinger, Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism (New York, 1995), 6-7. For a
historian’s etymology of “identity,” see Philip Gleason, “Identifying Identity: A Semantic History,” Journal of
American History, 69 (March 1983), 910-31.

9 My understanding of ethnic and racial identity is grounded in Omi and Winant’s understanding of race as
an “unstable and ‘decentered’ complex of social meanings constantly being transformed by political struggle”:
Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 68. Social and textual constructions of race are also dis-
cussed in David Theo Goldberg, ed., The Anatomy of Racism (Minneapolis, 1990); Dominick La Capra, ed., The
Bounds of Race: Perspectives on Hegemony and Resistance (Ithaca, 1991); Dana Y. Takagi, The Retreat from Race:
Asian-American Admissions and Racial Politics (New Brunswick, 1992); Sylvia Junko Yanagisako, Transforming the

Past: Tradition and Kinship among Japanese Americans (Stanford, 1985); and Yasuko I. Takezawa, Breaking the
Silence: Redress andJapanese American Ethnicity (Ithaca, 1995). On the construction of ethnic and racial identities
by insiders, see Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, “African-American Women’s History and the Metalanguage of
Race,” Signs, 17 (Winter 1992), 251-74; Lisa Lowe, “Heterogeneity, Hybridity, Multiplicity: Marking Asian
American Differences,” Diaspora, 1 (Spring 1991), 24-44; Lisa Lowe, Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cul-

tural Politics (Durham, 1996); Kevin K. Gaines, Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the
Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill, 1996); and Cornel West, Race Matters (Boston, 1993), 23-32. For a masterly
explication of the relevance of rhetorical and linguistic analysis for American historiography, see Robert F.
Berkhofer Jr., Beyond the Great Story: History as Text and Discourse (Cambridge, Mass., 1995).

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1636 The Journal of American History March 2000

created, nor any authorities who could enforce such a disposition, Nisei Week
became an effective, if disguised, means to promote and police group boundaries.

Buy Cultural

A surge of advertising was the first sign that Nisei Week was about to begin. Little
Tokyo merchants flooded the vernacular press with sales announcements and rede-
signed display windows to appeal specifically to the second generation. In 1934 one
retailer proclaimed that preparations were done “All for the Satisfaction of the

Nisei!” Such appeals masked a fear among Little Tokyo merchants that the second
generation had developed consumption tastes that lured them outside the enclave,
particularly to department stores whose economies of scale allowed them to under-
cut small businesses. Some shop owners criticized Nisei who, they said, were embar-
rassed to wear clothing made in Japan. Others simply bemoaned the loss of an

estimated half a million dollars a year that could be spent by Nisei shoppers. How

would the merchants stop the hemorrhaging of money from the ethnic enclave?’0
That was the question that pushed the Issei leadership to place unproven second-

generation businessmen in charge of Nisei Week. Never before had Little Tokyo
been turned on its head, with the Nisei-albeit temporarily-in command. Sei

Fujii, an Issei leader and newspaper publisher, challenged the JAcLers “to show their
old folks how much of an asset they are instead of being [a] burden as they used to
be.” The youngsters, for their part, welcomed the chance to run what they called the
“greatest civic project undertaken by a second generation group.” Nisei Week was a

rite of passage that continued the JACL’S initiation into community leadership. With
solid Issei backing, the organization was founded in 1930 and mirrored the exten-

sive and tightly organized network of Japanese immigrant associations throughout
the West Coast. By 1936 thirty-eight chapters, governed by a national headquarters

in San Francisco, supported the older generation’s economic endeavors and efforts to
fight anti-Japanese discrimination. “The early devices of the rising Nisei organiza-
tion,” one member observed, “were in many instances mild imitations of the Issei. “1I

While the JAcLers patterned themselves after the immigrant leadership, they dif-
fered significantly from the bulk of their own generation. They were overwhelm-
ingly male despite equal numbers of Nisei women in Los Angeles and were about a

decade older than the majority of their peers in the second generation. Moreover,
they were almost twice as likely to have attended college and to be in management

positions than most of the Nisei men their age. Thus the organization was made up

of the second-generation elite-lawyers, dentists, medical doctors, and entrepre-
neurs who relied upon the ethnic enclave for their businesses and practices and

10 On Nisei purchasing power, see Kashu Mainichi (Jpn.), May 23, 1934; Kashu Mainichi, July 12, 1935. For
concerns about Nisei conspicuous consumption, see ibid., Aug. 4, 1934, Aug. 16, 1939.

II Kashu Mainichi, Aug. 4, July 20, 1934. Togo Tanaka, “History of the JACL,” manuscript, n.d., chap. 2, p. 1,
T 6.25, Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records. For the early history of the Japanese American
Citizens League (JACL) see chapters 2-4. A more celebratory account is Bill Hosokawa, JACL in Quest of Justice:
The History of the Japanese American Citizens League (New York, 1982).

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Japanese American Identity before World War II 1637

therefore had vested interests in enhancing and protecting Little Tokyo. 12 The excep-

tional status of the JAcLers was doubly true for the organization’s leaders. Consider
the success story of Keiichi “Kay” Sugahara, the first president of the Los Angeles

chapter. Born in 1909, Sugahara was thirteen when he and his younger siblings were

orphaned. To help provide for his brother and sister, he worked at a fruit stand from

junior high through his years at the University of California, Los Angeles (UcLA). In
1932, as a senior, the young Sugahara teamed with white partners to launch the first

customs brokerage firm in Little Tokyo. As someone who could bridge American

and Japanese cultures, he capitalized on the needs of businesses importing goods
from Japan. The success of this venture, he claimed, made him a millionaire before

the age of thirty.’3

Under Sugahara’s command, the theme of the first Nisei Week festival was “Buy
in Lil’ Tokyo.” Sugahara’s brother, Roku, promised his generation that Little Tokyo
stores would have the lowest prices and the highest-quality Japanese and American
merchandise. Just in case competitive prices and products were not enough, the
JAcLers linked enclave purchases with Nisei Week participation. Admission to festival
events required receipts from Little Tokyo stores, and by the late 1930s, purchasing
merchandise enabled shoppers to cast votes for their favorite beauty contestants.”

But even the most successful of such gimmicks ended with Nisei Week. In order

to secure year-round patronage, the organizers of Nisei Week strove to give the sec-

ond generation a stake in the future of the immigrant enclave. The logic was
straightforward: If the Nisei benefited materially from Little Tokyo, they would
have more reason to shop there. The most compelling incentive Issei merchants
could offer the younger generation was employment. While free to patronize white-
owned businesses, Nisei usually could not work for them. Most white employers
refused to hire Japanese Americans, and major labor unions denied them member-

ship.”5 One field open to the Nisei was higher education, but only a select few fol-
lowed this route since even college graduates faced racial barriers that forced them
back to the restricted world of the ethnic enclave. On the eve of World War II, most
Nisei were working in the ethnic enclave’s primary sectors: agricultural production,

“2Lon Kurashige derived this social profile of JACLers from a sample of 183 members of the organization in
1941. The sample was created by matching the JACL’S membership list, published in its newspaper, the Pacific Cit-
izen, with records contained in “wRA Form 26,” a machine-readable dataset containing censuslike records for the
over 110,000 Japanese Americans interned in the Department of the Interior’s concentration camps during World
War II. Among JACLers, 28% had attended college and 14% were “retail managers,” while only 16% of the Nisei
in their age cohort (born before 1917) had gone to college and 7% worked in management. Pacific Citizen, May
1941; “wRA Form 26: Evacuee Summary Data (‘Locator Index’),” electronic dataset, 1942, U.S. Department of
the Interior, War Relocation Authority, RG 210 (National Archives, Washington, D.C.).

13Kay Sugahara interview in Nisei Week souvenir booklet, 1983, official publication of the Nisei Week Japa-
nese Festival, Los Angeles, California (in Lon Kurashige’s possession); Kay Sugahara personal record, “wRA Form
26.”

‘4Rafu Shimpo, Aug. 10, 1934; Kashu Mainichi, Aug. 5, 1934, Aug. 18, 1939.
‘5John Modell claims that the low rate of unemployment for Japanese Americans in the retail and sales trade

reported by the 1940 census was deceptive. Only two-thirds of these workers were employed for the full year in
1939, and many unskilled Japanese Americans found no work at all. Yet the Japanese compared favorably to
members of “other races” in the retail and sales trade, whose unemployment rate was more than twice theirs. See
John Modell, The Economics and Politics of Racial Accommodation: The Japanese of Los Angeles, 1900-1942
(Urbana, 1977), 138-39.

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1638 The Journal of American History March 2000

retail enterprise, and domestic service. While Issei leaders looked to them to calm

anti-Japanese antipathy in white America, the Nisei relied upon the older generation

for employment opportunities.16
Yet most Little Tokyo retailers refused to hire Nisei for sales positions because of

their inability to meet the needs of Japanese-speaking clients. To spur Nisei employ-

ment, Nisei Week organizers persuaded enclave merchants that Nisei salespersons
would boost their businesses by attracting second-generation shoppers. In 1934 the
festival’s employment bureau placed thirty-five workers in just three days, and

although their jobs, like the sales and the beauty pageant, typically ended with Nisei

Week, the employment agency attained a permanent place in Little Tokyo. 17

The strongest appeals for Nisei patronage relied upon a sense of fictive kinship.
According to Roku Sugahara, Little Tokyo offered a pleasanter shopping experience

than the stores outside its protective borders. There was, he suggested, “a better

understanding, a feeling of freedom and congeniality, and friendliness” because
the “seller knows the background and characteristics of the buyer much better.” The
winner of the Nisei Week essay contest in 1938 also viewed Little Tokyo as an eth-
nic sanctuary. Answering the question “Why I should buy in Little Tokyo,” he listed
the enclave’s unique benefits for Nisei customers:

Japanese can serve Japanese people with good taste. They know what type of
clothing or merchandise would be best suited, whereas an American firm naturally
would not. And, too, they are inclined to be more personal and understanding, as
there are no barriers of speech or race. This results in friendly, sociable business
tactics, and not cold ruthless negotiations.’8

Festival leaders used ethnicity as both carrot and stick to attract Nisei shoppers.
While they played up the “natural” affinities among Japanese Americans, they also
stressed the obligations that such ties entailed. “If the Nisei expect to see Lil’ Tokio

exist and rise out of its present depression,” the Rafju Shimpo newspaper com-
manded, “they must cooperate and help build Lil’ Tokio by putting some funds into
the businesses” and “buy all necessities at Japanese stores and only buy those things

which are not carried in Lil’ Tokio at American stores.” The result of “this extensive
trading,” explained the 1938 essay contest winner, “will be a closer union of our
race-drawn together by the cohesive force of economic and social dependency.”

Roku Sugahara’s do-or-die scenario best characterized the invocation of group obli-
gation: “It all depends on the nisei, whether they will aid in strengthening our eco-
nomic foundation or will stand idly by while it crumbles into oblivion. “19

Despite these appeals, Nisei Week leaders were aware of the pitfalls of attempts to
attract second-generation customers. The Kashu Mainichi newspaper cautioned
against any business strategy that promoted ethnic insularity as not only unfeasible,

16The four most common occupations for Issei in 1941 were gardener, retail manager, truck farmer, and farm
hand; for Nisei they were sales clerk, farm hand, retail manager, and gardener. “wRA Form 26.”

17Not much is known about this employment bureau, except that it was informally connected to the JACL and
was criticized for bias toward members of that organization. See Rafu Shimpo, Aug. 19, 1934, Aug. 7, 1938.

18 Kashu Mainichi, Aug. 5, 1934, Aug. 28, 1938.
19 Rafu Shimpo, Aug. 29, 1938; Kashu Mainichi, Aug. 28, 1938, Aug. 5, 1934.

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Japanese American Identity before World War II 1639

but “un-American.” During the depression, the paper insisted, hoarding money
within Little Tokyo was “un-American,” since the nation’s recovery required pump-

ing money into the broader economy.20 Carl Kondo, the runner-up in the Nisei
Week essay contest in 1935, criticized the futility of the “buy in Lil’ Tokio” cam-
paign. He warned that Japanese merchants should not rely on Nisei consumption

because their mom-and-pop establishments could not compete with the department
stores in nearby downtown Los Angeles. Even if prices were slashed in Little Tokyo,

Kondo argued, the Nisei were too influenced by American culture to be interested
in Japanese merchandise or to be swayed by invocations of racial responsibilities.21

Kondo maintained that Japanese businesses should cultivate external, rather than

internal, markets. He believed that the nation’s increasing interest in Japan as a ris-

ing world power and United States trading partner created a favorable climate for
purveying Japanese artifacts, services, and cultural displays to the exotic tastes of
white America. The Kashu Mainichi also championed the benefits of the tourist
market. It pointed with envy to Chinatown and the Mexican-inspired Olvera Street
as two of Los Angeles’s successful ethnic attractions and lamented that “one cannot
immediately feel the foreign atmosphere or distinction upon entering Lil’ Tokyo.”22

Nisei Week proved the optimal occasion to dress up Little Tokyo for white con-
sumption. Here the Oriental-styled street displays, decorations, music, dance, and

fashions assumed dual meanings: symbols of ethnic pride for Japanese Americans
but also exotic enticements for outsiders. The kimono, in particular, attracted so
much interest that Nisei Week leaders in 1936 added a second fashion show, where
those Japanese garments were modeled exclusively for white Americans. The festival
booklet billed the event as “an exhibition of Japanese pajamas and lounging clothes”
with refreshments served by “petite Japanese maidens in picturesque kimonos.” The
JAcLers invited hundreds of “leading women in Los Angeles society” and selected
kimono styles that would “appeal particularly to American women.”23

Enclave merchants also proposed that Nisei women wear kimonos while serving
as tour guides who provided a “night of adventure to Americans in Little Tokyo.”
The hostesses were to greet tourists as they entered the enclave, answer questions
about Japanese culture, including flower arrangements and the tea ceremony, and
assist them in purchasing merchandise. Nisei Week leaders in 1940 redesigned the
festival booklet to increase the enclave’s tourist appeal. A glossy full-page advertise-
ment especially greeted white Americans. “WELCOME TO LITTLE TOKYO”

appeared in orientalized script inserted within a photograph of the community’s
main thoroughfare. The night scene featured a group of well-groomed, entertain-
ment-seeking white Americans chaperoned by four smiling, kimono-clad women.
Fluorescent Little Tokyo storefronts, particularly the Fuji-kan Theater’s elaborate

20 Kashu Mainichi, Aug. 12, 1934.
21 Ibid., Aug. 12, 1935. For evidence of the Nisei’s lack of interest in shopping in Little Tokyo, see the internee

newspaper at the Manzanar concentration camp for Japanese Americans: Manzanar Free Press, Nov. 30, 1942,
Banc fD 769.8 A6 U567 (Bancroft Library).

22 Kashu Mainichi, Aug. 12, 1935, Aug. 15, 1937.
23 Nisei Week souvenir booklet, 1936, n.p. (in Kurashige’s possession); Kashu Mainichi, July 24, 1937.

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1640 The Journal of American History March 2000

_ – _ . X . . .. . .. . ……………. ; _ l | | _ . | .~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~. .. .. .. . .. – .. . .. .. . . .

_ _ ~ . _ ….. .

Nisei Weeks tea ceremony in 1938 cultivated tourism in Little Tokyo by
encouraging an appreciation for the refinements

of Japanese culture.

Courtesy Japanese American National Museum.

neon marquee, in front of which the group stood, radiated an energy and enthusi-
asm that seemed to overwhelm the tourists. The smiling Japanese women reflected
the enclave’s warmth and hospitality, while the flood of bright lights and signs sym-
bolized its entrepreneurial vigor-a shopper’s paradise.24

Rite to Be Japanese

Nisei Week was more than an occasion to dress up Little Tokyo in order to drum up
business. The festival was an indispensable piece of a larger endeavor to promote a
greater understanding of Japanese history and culture. Nisei Week’s leaders knew
that they could not simply change Little Tokyo for the convenience of the Nisei:
they had to change the Nisei for the sake of Little Tokyo’s survival. Indeed, it was
not just purchasing power that concerned the JAcLers. What was equally important to
them was “that right steps are taken to create nisei ‘community consciousness.’ “25

24 Kashu Mainichi, July 11, 1940; Nisei Week souvenir booklet, 1941, n.p. (in Kurashige’s possession).
25 Rafu Shimpo, Aug. 27, 1939.

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Japanese American Identity before World War II 1641

Central to this consciousness was an appreciation for seemingly ancient Japanese
traditions, especially the folk dancing of the ondo, which became the centerpiece of

Nisei Week. This style of communal line dancing emerged in medieval Japan, but it

was revived and altered in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by Japa-
nese officials searching for cultural symbols to unify and modernize the nation. In

the United States, Nisei Week leaders appropriated the ondo as a tool for inventing

ethnic solidarity. They relied upon the talents of such increasingly rare Nisei as

Yoshiko Mori, who were more interested in Japanese traditions than Western enter-
tainment. Born in Sacramento in 1920, Mori, in her early teens, convinced her par-

ents to move to Los Angeles where she would be better able to pursue Japanese

dance. She studied Kabuki dancing in Japan after graduating from high school and
then returned to the ethnic community, where she taught many volunteers to per-
form the ondo at the Nisei Week finale. Mori agreed to the task not only to share
her love of Japanese dance but also to encourage her generation to learn about their

ancestral culture. She maintained that Japanese dancing counteracted the Nisei’s
Americanization by teaching them to be more graceful, considerate of others, and

respectful to their “higher-ups.”26

In this way the ondo became a key symbol of Issei-Nisei solidarity. While outsid-
ers may have seen it as a mirror of Japanese culture, ethnic leaders considered it an
example of generational cooperation. The Issei leader Sei Fujii was struck by the

communal spirit exhibited at the ondo practice sessions. He loved “the atmosphere
that existed there” because everyone felt “just like one family.” He expressed these
same sentiments a few weeks later at the conclusion of the ondo finale, when he
gazed with delight at the young Nisei girls dancing with hoary Issei men. The ondo
finale also moved a Nisei columnist to comment upon the bonds between the gener-
ations. He noted that the Issei’s enthusiasm for dancing enabled the Nisei to “see a
very amusing side to this older generation.” “It is no wonder that they try to keep a
stiff upper lip with all the traditions of Japan to live up to…. But down deep they
are apparently the same rhythm loving frivolous bunch of individuals that we much
deplored second generation are.”27

The Nisei Week leaders also sought to unite the generations in the knowledge of
Japanese history. For example, the festival’s parade in 1935 featured children in cos-
tumes that characterized Japan’s historical periods, from its mythic creation in 600
B.C. to the present era of the Taisho emperor. But Nisei Week’s most pronounced
construction of memory focused on the Issei as pioneers in the United States. The
JAcLers initiated Pioneer Night in 1935 to commemorate the earliest Japanese
immigrants “who came to this country and who toiled and went through many
hardships.” This event feted those Issei who had resided for over forty years on the
mainland of the United States by celebrating their rugged spirit with an afternoon
tea followed by a banquet at a local Japanese restaurant. The Nisei were urged to
honor their parents because they had traveled so far “to create a future for their chil-

26 Yoshiko Mori (pseudonym) interview by Lon Kurashige, May 20, 1993, audiotape (in Kurashige’s
possession).

27 Kashu Mainichi, Aug. 4, 1934; Kashu Mainichi (Jpn.), Aug. 19, 1934; Rafu Shimpo, Aug. 19, 1934.

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1642 The Journal of American History March 2000

dren in the land of the free.” The Rafu Shimpo expressed its gratitude to the Issei for
remaining in the United States despite the “oppression from the hakujin [white per-
sons] and the depression of the times.” This ability to survive, the Nisei Week book-
let noted in 1940, must not be lost on the second generation, for they too were

pioneers because they also faced “unkind prejudices.” Thus the booklet maintained
that only by uniting with their parents in “a spirit of mutual understanding and
affection” could the Nisei hope to overcome the handicap of race.28

Nisei Week’s leaders, however, said nothing about issues of class within the ethnic
community. It was common among Japanese Americans to carry on the probusiness
ideology of the Issei old guard and to portray labor organizers and other left-leaning
activists as anathema to the group’s social prestige and respectability. In his study of
social groupings among Japanese Americans in the 1940s, James Sakoda reported
that a slight interest in trade unionism was sufficient for a person to be branded an
aka (red). According to him, these so-called radicals and Communists, who did not
maintain the middle-class ideology, were considered “unacceptables” and hence
“ostracized by the community.” So too were the Issei migrant workers who “lived in
hotels, boarding houses, and labor camps and usually did not participate in the
activities of the community.” Nisei Week hid these “unacceptables” behind a facade
of entrepreneurial success. Its leaders totally ignored the suggestions of the leftist
newspaper Doho, which thought that Pioneer Night should highlight the rampant
exploitation of Japanese immigrants and that the festival leaders should squarely
address troubling issues “of Nisei labor, of dual citizenship, of anti-alien legislation,
of vocational problems, [and] of unity of nisei organizations.” Calling itself the
only progressive Nisei publication, Doho emerged in 1938 to challenge the “reac-
tionary elements” in the local Japanese American community. It labeled Sei Fujii,
the publisher of the Kashu Mainichi, a “jingoist” because of his support for Japan’s
military leadership and branded Fred Tayama, the 1940 JACL president, a “labor-

baiter.” Tayama, one of the most successful Nisei entrepreneurs in Little Tokyo, who
reportedly kept a standing golf date with the Japanese consul general, owned a chain
of restaurants (U.S. Cafes) that Doho accused of subjecting workers to “sweat shop
conditions.” The newspaper backed labor organizers who set up picket lines in front
of Tayama’s businesses. But the JACL president prevailed in court by winning an
injunction against the picketers; he opposed labor unions and dismissed Doho as a
Communist rag: “Just the fact that it singles you out for attack,” he said, “means
you’re all right. “29

Nisei Week’s screen of success was best captured by the parade floats in 1936 that
showcased the enclave’s agricultural economy. A gargantuan celery stalk symbolized

28 Rafu Shimpo, Aug. 16, 1935; Kashu Mainichi, July 19, 9, 1935; Rafu Shimpo, June 17, 1934, Aug. 3, 1941;
Nisei Week souvenir booklet, 1940, n.p. (in Kurashige’s possession). See also Tsuyoshi Matsumoto, “History of
the Resident Japanese in Southern California,” manuscript (in English and Japanese), 1941, “Togo Tanaka Jour-
nal,” folder 3, A 17.06, Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records.

29Doho, June 10, 1938; James Sakoda, “Personal Adjustment,” manuscript, Jan. 12, 1943, pp. 11-12, 17-18,
file 11, James Sakoda Reports on Tule Lake, R 20.86, Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records;
Doho, July 1, 1939. For other criticisms of Nisei Week, see Kashu Mainichi, Aug. 8, 1937; and Rafu Shimpo, Aug.
18, July 28, 1935. Doho, June 10, 1938; Togo Tanaka, “Report on the Manzanar Riot,” 1-5, 0 10.12, Japanese
American Evacuation and Resettlement Records.

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Japanese American Identity before World War II 1643

__ ~~~~~~~~~~1

Participants in Nisei Week’s parade educated the americanized second
generation about the periods and dress of premodern Japan.

Courtesy Japanese American National Museum.

the bountiful harvests in Venice, California; horticulturists from the San Gabriel
Valley adorned their float with bouquets of flowers; Orange County farmers deco-
rated their tractors and other farm implements, while the wholesalers from the cen-

tral produce market in Los Angeles displayed a huge mural showing a thriving
business environment. Yet, revealingly, the entrepreneurial spirit of the floats
ignored the significance of labor to the ethnic enclave. There was no credit given to
those who worked the celery fields in Venice or picked flowers in San Gabriel. Like-
wise, there was no mention of those who loaded the produce at the central market
or lost their jobs in Orange County to innovations in farm vehicles. The workers
and their advocates in the ethnic enclave played no official role in Nisei Week.30

This could not be said for Japanese American women. While the Issei enforced a
rigid sexual division of labor throughout the year, Nisei Week was a rare moment
when women were encouraged to leave the domestic sphere to participate in the com-
munity’s public life.31 Festival leaders depended upon women to organize the ondo

30 Kashu Mainichi, Aug. 18, 1936.
31 Data from “wRA Form 26” show occupations other than homemaker for 63% of Japanese American women

age 16 and older. Yet employment outside the home did not diminish gender differences-in the workplace Issei
women clustered in domestic service and agricultural labor, while the Nisei, because of their English-language
skills, became typists, secretaries, and general office clerks. Managerial jobs were the almost exclusive domain of
Japanese American men. “wRA Form 26.” This sexual division of labor reflects Sylvia Yanagisako’s findings in
interviews with Issei in Seattle: women were responsible for “things inside the home” (uchi no koto); men tended
to “things outdoors” (soto no koto). Yanagisako, Transforming the Past, 98.

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1644 The Journal of American History March 2000

r S I ! vs I _

….. … __

A float in the Nisei Week parade displays the prominence of Japanese Americans
in southern California’s wholesale produce industry.
Courtesy japanese American National Museum.

and fashion shows, and they relied upon the beauty pageant contestants not only to
attract shoppers to Little Tokyo through merchandise voting but to represent the
community at official receptions. The women greeted local politicians and the Japa-
nese consul general and served as goodwill ambassadors among the organizations
within the ethnic community. This opportunity to “bring the Japanese people
together” was what motivated one admittedly shy nineteen-year-old to enter the
beauty contest. She and her parents, who were merchants in Little Tokyo, saw the
contest not as a beauty pageant, but as a way for young women to get involved in
issues of great concern to the ethnic community.312
In truth, the significance of the beauty contestants was primarily symbolic. Their
role was to epitomize a bicultural identity that instilled ethnic solidarity in Japanese
Americans while communicating ethnic fantasies to the outside world. The JACL
president in 1938 declared that the ideal candidate blended “the quiet charm of the
Japanese wom [a] n with the more lively personality of the American girl.” The Rafu
Shimpo expounded: “She must be able to wear a kimono and walk with zori [slippers]
on as well as look radiant in a white evening gown.” The Nisei Week queen in 1940
reportedly epitomized the hybrid of East and West and, according to the Kashu
Mainichi “represented the best of nisei womanhood.” The newspaper reported that

32 May Sakurai response to questionnaire administered by Lon Kurashige, c. April 1993 (in Kurashige’s possession).

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Japanese American Identity before World War II 1645

she went to sewing school three nights a week, took lessons on Japanese musical
instruments two nights, studied the Japanese language one night, and worked a full-
time job as a secretary for a Japanese doctor. The queen “knows her Japanese man-

ners as well as American etiquette.” Industrious, cultured, and community-minded,

she was, more important, humble. “Her winning modesty doesn’t permit her to talk

very much about herself She would rather listen to you.”33
If the festival queen had been encouraged to talk, she might have agreed with

others who criticized the role of women during Nisei Week. Sandra Sekai, Nisei

Week queen in 1938, wanted to be more than a pretty symbol. She was born and
raised in Los Angeles and had attended UCLA briefly before her father decided that

college was unnecessary for women. Like many in her generation, she found job

opportunities only within the ethnic community and even there had to beat out
hundreds of other applicants for a secretarial position. Sekai entered the beauty con-
test with the encouragement of a JACL member and was enthusiastic about promot-
ing “goodwill between different types of Japanese.” Yet her surprise at being named
“Queen of the Nisei” soon turned to frustration, as she resented taking orders from
the festival leaders and regretted the lack of opportunity to voice her own opinions.
“They ordered us,” she remembered, “and we just followed.” A Rafu Shimpo colum-
nist was also uncomfortable with the position of women in the festival. She sug-

gested the introduction of a cake and pie baking contest to increase women’s

involvement in the festival and also criticized the lack of leadership roles for women

in both Nisei Week and the concurrent JACL convention that took place in 1938.
But well aware of the sexual division of labor within the Japanese American com-

munity, the writer predicted that women’s participation in both Nisei Week and the
JACL convention would “be overshadowed by male-domination.” Her cynicism

was not unfounded. While women were crucial to Nisei Week as volunteers and

performers and were dangled as bait for consumers, they were excluded from the
highest levels of decision making.34

The JACLers made this clear in one of the funnier moments at Nisei Week. The
festival’s talent revue in 1936 featured a routine in which the JACL’S leading men
dressed as women. They appeared as “anvil-footed, muscle-bound Romeos in
women’s garb” in a skit, known as the “florodora sextet,” which parodied a scene
from an 1890s Broadway hit famous for its idealization of feminine beauty. Patrick
Okura, one of the florodora members, explained that the JACLers initially recruited
women for the routine but thought that an all-male cast would prove more enter-
taining. A graduate of UCLA and one of the first Nisei successfully to challenge segre-
gationist hiring practices by the city of Los Angeles, Okura was somewhat of a star

in his own right. The florodora act, he noted, was a “big hit” that the JACLers would

“For women’s consumption and the feminization of public space in post-World War II suburbia, see Liza-
beth Cohen, “From Town Center to Shopping Center: The Reconfiguration of Community Marketplaces in Post-
war America,” American Historical Review, 101 (Oct. 1996), 1072-77. Raft Shimpo, June 26, 1938, Aug. 17,
194 1; Kashu Mainichi, Aug. 1 1, 1940.

34 The leftist newspaper Doho was one of the few voices in Little Tokyo to argue that gender roles were unfair
to women, who were “relegated to the lowest and hardest work.” Doho, March 15, 1941. Sandra Sekai (pseu-

donym) interview by Kurashige, Jan. 28, 1993, audiotape (in Kurashige’s possession). Rafu Shimpo, Aug. 31, 1938.

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1646 The Journal of American History March 2000

remember as a trial by humiliation that bonded the Nisei leaders. But the cross-

dressing revealed more than the JACLers’ sense of humor and status as the Nisei elite.

The success of the performance, Okura confirmed, was founded upon the commu-
nity’s understanding of gender difference: men in Little Tokyo were not supposed to

behave like women except in the realm of play. Thus the JACLers reproduced the
spheres that separated men and women in Little Tokyo and once again ignored
Doho’s leftist perspective, which blamed these traditional gender distinctions for rel-

egating women to the “lowest and hardest work” in Little Tokyo.35

The Inverted World

While the gender inversion of the florodora routine reenacted patriarchal roles,
Nisei Week was more than a filial commitment to Little Tokyo’s social order. The
anthropologist John J. MacAloon explains that at festivals we not only “reflect upon
and define ourselves [and] dramatize our collective myths and history” but also
“present ourselves with alternatives, and eventually change in some ways while

remaining the same in others.”36 Indeed, the JACLers interpreted the premise of
Nisei Week-children leading parents-as an opportunity to change the ethnic
community by creating a vision of its Americanization. While they could appreciate
the Issei experience and learn Japanese rituals, their cultural orientation remained
decidedly American. Neither racial segregation nor the animosity that perpetuated it
discouraged their attachment to Western norms of behavior.

The instability of United States-Japan relations only increased the JACL’S com-
mitment to Americanization. Western nations became alarmed as Japan expanded

its empire into Korea and then northern China. The League of Nations, with the

support of the United States, condemned Japanese aggression in Manchuria in
1931, causing the Asian power to pull out of the international organization and to
grow increasingly defensive about its territorial claims. The United States was partic-

ularly concerned about the threat Japanese colonialism posed to its markets and
trade throughout Asia. This conflict between the two nations generated new anti-
Japanese fears that had direct repercussions for Japanese Americans. The most
ardent foe of the ethnic community in Los Angeles was Lail Thomas Kane, the self-

35 Nisei Week souvenir booklet, 1936, n.p. (in Kurashige’s possession). For the history of the flora-dora (as it
was properly spelled) number, see Lois W. Banner, American Beauty (New York, 1982), 181-82. Patrick Kiyoshi
Okura phone interview by Kurashige, Sept. 3, 1997, notes (in Kurashige’s possession). For biographical informa-
tion on Okura, see JACL Reporter, 4 (Sept. 1948), fF 870 J3 J222 (Bancroft Library).

36John J. MacAloon, “Introduction: Cultural Performances, Cultural Theory,” in Rite, Drama, Festival, Specta-
cle: Rehearsals toward a Theory of Cultural Performance, ed. John J. MacAloon (Philadelphia, 1984), 1. The schol-
arly literature on festivals is extensive, particularly in anthropology and folklore. On festivals (and rituals in
general) as agents of cultural reproduction and transformation, see MacAloon, ed., Rite, Drama, Festival, Spectacle;
Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York, 1973), 112; Roger D. Abrahams,
“Toward an Enactment-Centered Theory of Folklore,” in Frontiers of Folklore, ed. William R. Bascom (Boulder,
1977), 79-120; and Roger D. Abrahams, “Shouting Match at the Border: The Folklore of Display Events,” in

‘And Other Neighborly Names” Social Process and Cultural Image in Texas Folklore, ed. Richard Bauman and Roger
D. Abrahams (Austin, 1981), 319-20; Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York, 1992), 74, 197-
223; M. M. Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, trans. Helene Iswolsky (Cambridge, Mass., 1968); and Victor
Turner, ed., Celebration, Studies in Festivity and Ritual (Washington, 1982).

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Japanese American Identity before World War II 1647

~~~ ~~o

I . |B.B.s_|_

Coronation of the 1938 Nisei Week queen, held at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles,
revealed the second generation’s bourgeois and americanized aspirations.

CourtesyJapanese American National Museum.

proclaimed leader of a crusade to exclude Japanese Americans from commercial
fishing. Kane testified to the House Special Committee on Un-American Activities
in 1934 that Japanese American fishermen were prepared to lay mines and torpedo
American vessels should United States-Japan relations disintegrate into war. He
gained support from the American Legion and drafted state legislation to advance
his cause. Although his antifishing bills never left committee, Kane’s campaign
placed the ethnic community in the limelight of suspicion.
To defuse these fears, the JAC~ers used Nisei Week to underscore the community’s
openness to white America. They especially were concerned about the second gener-
ation’s “clannishness.” One leader complained that, despite its efforts to reach a broad
audience, Nise i Week “may still appear to be a ‘private affair’ of the nisei in Lil’
Tokio.” Another urged the Nisei to recognize that not all white Americans at Nisei
Week were anti-Japanese bigots. “Their good natured mingling and joshing with the
crowds and their genuine admiration for the Japanese arts showed their capacity for

37 Modell, Economics and Politics of RacialAccommodation, 174; Togo Tanaka, “Pre-evacuation Pressure Group
Activity in Southern California: Personality Sketches,” May 30, 1943, pp. 6-8, A 16.260, Japanese American
Evacuation and Resettlement Records.

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1648 The Journal of American History March 2000

tolerance and appreciation. Many came to see what they could see; some went back
with a deeper understanding of the Japanese as human beings rather than as a
‘peril.”‘ The Rafu Shimpo was more direct in pushing the Nisei to socialize across the
racial divide. The newspaper chided their tendency “to resign themselves within

their own group and peer out into the American community and say: ‘It can’t be
done. They won’t treat you right -they’re prejudiced.”‘I38

Even more troubling to the JACLers than the Nisei’s inability to get along with
whites was their inability to get along with each other. As a space of play encourag-
ing excessive and exaggerated behavior, Nisei Week “invited” unofficial spectacles by

delinquent youth known as “rowdies.” James Sakoda described them as failing “to
maintain the social codes of the Nisei group.” They spurned work, marriage, and
community responsibilities and identified with people of “lower social status” such
as blacks and Filipinos. Yet the rowdies did not remain aloof from Japanese Ameri-
cans; they came in gangs and often disrupted community events. What distin-
guished them at Nisei Week was their penchant for “aggressive behavior,” such as
the brawl that erupted at the festival’s street dance in 1938.39

Isami Arifuku Waugh, in her analysis of rowdies in Los Angeles, found that their
behavior reflected the brutalities of daily life in Little Tokyo. One of her informants
explained that he joined a Nisei gang as protection against the black and Mexican
gangs who preyed upon unsuspecting Japanese Americans. But the more common
reason for becoming a rowdy was the proliferation of Nisei social clubs and ath-
letic teams. Waugh explained that the clubs and teams were established by a white
schoolteacher who, in the tradition of Jane Addams and the settlement house
movement, sought to bring Nisei youth off the streets and train them in the man-

ners, customs, and activities of mainstream America. Ironically, the clubs and
teams that she created to mold good behavior became the basis for gang affilia-
tion, with disagreements over sporting contests often erupting into violence.
Another of Waugh’s informants recalled that the teacher-cum-social reformer
“would go into a deep depression” every time she heard about the trouble that
“her boys” caused.40

The Nisei Week leaders acknowledged their inability to control “rowdyism.” One
publicly regretted the fact that “past Nisei Weeks have had the undeserved blotch of
not being prepared to control those infantile groups whose malicious boisterousness
have been of much annoyance.” In 1940 the rowdies were instructed that the “girls
will respect you for being gentlemanly,” because Nisei Week “is the time to have
FUN but not for hell-raising, picking fights and drunkenness.” A year later in 1941
the Nisei Week leaders warned “rowdy individuals or purported gangs” that “twenty

38 Rafu Shimpo, July 25, 1940; Kashu Mainichi, Aug. 18, 1940; Raful Shimpo, Aug. 19, 1934.
39This permissiveness, the folklorist Roger Abrahams maintains, makes festivals potentially subversive: They

“bring us together in celebration but let each of us ‘do our own thing,”‘ and they “write our script of progress
within the events.” Thus these “mad moments in the margins of time continue to provide us with models of rev-
olution”: Abrahams, “Shouting Match at the Border,” 319-20. Sakoda, “Personal Adjustment.” For a description
of a street fight, see Isami Arifuku Waugh, “Hidden Crimes and Deviance in the Japanese-American Community”
(Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1978), 134-35.

40Waugh, “Hidden Crimes and Deviance in the Japanese-American Community,” 148, 135-43.

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Japanese American Identity before World War II 1649

police officers accompanied by a squad of a hundred judo experts would be patrol-
ling the festival” and anyone caught fighting “will be taken into custody and prose-

cuted.” But the rowdies were not to be intimidated; that year the Kashu Mainichi

reported that Nisei Week claimed four fights, two visitors injured, six Nisei on

police suspects lists, and arrests of peace disturbers.4′
While rowdies were a serious concern in Little Tokyo, youth delinquency was

never the problem there that it was in other ghetto communities. A study conducted

in the early 1930s found that the percentage of juvenile delinquents among Japa-
nese and Chinese Americans in Los Angeles was considerably less than in any other

ethnic or racial population, including native-born whites. The most serious crime

committed by the rowdies was to jeopardize the JAcLers public relations campaign.
In her criticism of “gate crashers” in Little Tokyo, Louise Suski, editor of Rafu
Shimpo, warned that rowdies “have become so bold that they even attend without
invitation a social held in a private home”; they cursed and yelled at a white Ameri-

can “who refused to admit them to a particular hall because their names weren’t on
the list.” The idea of youngsters getting their way through threats and intimidation

was anathema to Suski’s model of the self-made man. Her immigrant father had suf-
fered devastating hardships, including losing the family possessions in the San Fran-
cisco earthquake of 1906, to earn a medical degree and become a leading figure in
Little Tokyo. Suski herself was no less an autodidact, having taught herself the craft
of print journalism as the first editor of the ethnic community’s newly established
Nisei press. She was embarrassed by the rowdies’ behavior, but her mentioning
that the ticket taker was white exposed the racial stakes of community delin-
quency. The main significance of the “gate crashers,” Suski maintained, “was that
they reflected poorly on all Japanese Americans,” and so “any good that the other
nisei have built up, these youths are knocking down and tearing away by their

actions and language.”42
The JACLers’ response to the rowdies was to disassociate them from the ethnic

community. The Nisei leaders described the disaffected youth not only as abomina-
tions, but as aberrations in an otherwise upstanding community. The gang fight at
the Nisei Week street dance in 1938 so upset the current JACL president that he
warned those involved that “unless you boys change your ways” he would have them
“blackballed” from jobs in the Japanese enclave. The ethnic press applied additional

pressure. After the street dance incident, the Rafu Shimpo did something it had
rarely done: it named the individuals and groups involved in the fracas. The news-
paper stood firmly behind its action, insisting that “the good name of the Japanese
Americans must be preserved.”43

41 Sangyo Nippo, July 18, 1940; Kashu Mainichi, Aug. 4, 1940, Aug. 24, 1941; Waugh, “Hidden Crimes and
Deviance in the Japanese-American Community,” 152.

42 H. K. Misaki, “Delinquency and Crime,” in VocationalAttitudes of Second-Generation Japanese in the United

States, ed. Edward K. Strong Jr. (Stanford, 1933), 160-61. Rafu Shimpo, July 27, 1941; Louise Suski interview by
Kurashige, Oct. 5, 1992, audiotape (in Kurashige’s possession). On Suski’s father, see Louise Suski, “Biography of
Father,” Aug. 25, 1945, T 1.8682, Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records.

43 Waugh, “Hidden Crimes and Deviance in the Japanese-American Community,” 135.

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1650 The Journal of American History March 2000

-~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nisei Week queen Margaret Nishikawa rides in the festival parade with Mayor Fletcher
Bowron of Los Angeles, 1938. The pairing of young, attractive Nisei

women with political leaders was intended to symbolize trust
and goodwill between the ethnic community’s

male leadership and city hall.
Courtesy Japanese American National Museum.

American Front

The economic motives that began Nisei Week and the concerns about Little Tokyo’s
Americanization were inexplicably tied to the demonstration of the second genera-
tion’s civic virtue and political allegiance. “Through the medium of this festival,”
John Maeno declared in 1936, “the JACL hopes to present, acquaint, and connect
you directly with the young Japanese American citizen, his life and environment.”
Maeno, the organization’s second president, was one of the few Nisei lawyers in Lit-
tle Tokyo. A graduate of the University of Southern California, he used his college
ties to make inroads into Los Angeles political circles. He explained that as a “new
American,” the Nisei was a “true and loyal citizen of the United States” who sought
to take “part in civic development and community progress.”44

44 Nisei Week souvenir booklet, 1936, n.p.; Kashu Mainichi, Aug. 10, 1936; John Maeno interview by Kura-
shige, Sept. 2, 1991, audiotape (in Kurashige’s possession).

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Japanese American Identity before World War II 1651

The JAcLers used the Nisei’s citizenship to gain advantages in the political arena.
They, like the leaders of African Americans and many urban immigrant groups,
attempted to gain electoral power by combining Japanese American votes into one
large ethnic bloc. This way, as increasing numbers of Nisei came of age, they could
expand their impact on local elections. A flock of white office seekers took the Nisei

vote seriously and showed up at the festival’s inauguration in 1934, their large num-
bers even raising concerns in Little Tokyo that the festivities would turn into a
“political rally.” Nisei Week was also an occasion to pay respects to the highest
elected official in Los Angeles. In the opening ceremony in 1936 a colorful proces-
sion moved through the streets of Little Tokyo on its way to Los Angeles’s city hall
two blocks away. The ethnic community’s “leading citizens” accompanied the Nisei
Week queen and “her pretty and charming attendants” as they were carried along in
Japanese rickshaws. The ceremony concluded with these “kimono-clad, dark-eyed

beauties” presenting the mayor of Los Angeles “with an official invitation to attend
this gala event in Lil’ Tokyo.”45

Such a visible display of goodwill toward the Los Angeles community illustrated
the type of citizenship the JAcLers espoused. Being American, to them, meant not
just possessing legal entitlements, but performing a wide range of civic duties. The
winner of the JACL’S oratorical contest in 1938 placed the responsibility of resolving
“our race problem” squarely on the Nisei’s shoulders. He encouraged the Nisei to
engage in “active citizenship” by voting and involving themselves in public affairs.
Civic involvement, he asserted, would prove that the Nisei are a “racial group wor-
thy of being accepted on an equal plane” because “it will show to the white citizenry
that we are not a culturally or mentally inferior race . . ., that we are beneficial to
America’s social and economic welfare, and that we desire to cooperate with the
white race in solving our community and national problems.” The ultimate signif-
icance of active citizenship, the orator explained, was that eventually it would
compel “the white race, themselves, to take down the racial barriers that have been
erected against us.”46

But the JACLers did not equate proving loyalty to the United States with severing
ties to Japan. Despite America’s opposition to Japanese imperialism, they sided with
their parents, who, like most expatriates, reveled in the military victories of their
homeland. The formal declaration of the second Sino-Japanese war in 1937 height-
ened ties to the motherland, as both generations sent money, supplies, and well-wishes

to Japanese soldiers. Issei leaders called upon the JACLers to counteract the American
public’s overwhelming support for the Chinese (President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in
fact, disobeyed his own policy of neutrality in foreign wars by sending American
arms to Chinese troops). The older generation, with assistance from the Japanese
consulate, briefed the young leaders on the necessity and righteousness of Japan’s
foreign policies and helped to establish a Nisei “speakers bureau” to inform Ameri-
cans about Japan’s side of the story. Togo Tanaka, writing in the 1940s, confirmed
that the English section of his newspaper, Rafu Shimpo, based its editorials and cov-

45 Raft Shimpo, Aug. 20, 1934. Kashu Mainichi, Aug. 11, 1936; Nisei Week souvenir booklet, 1936.
46KashuMainichi, Sept. 11, 1938.

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1652 The Journal of American History March 2000

erage of the Sino-Japanese war on information provided by Issei who blamed Japan’s

negative image on Chinese propaganda. The staff of the paper’s Japanese section
prepared pamphlets for their Nisei colleagues about Japan’s plight in the West-the

subtitle of one read, “How about Giving Japan a Break?” Thus Tanaka concluded
that the JACLers, despite their strong commitment to American political institutions,

were mindful “not to disparage the cultural values of Japan, nor to antagonize Issei
feelings in the latter’s sympathies for Japan. JACL leaders even rationalized their
Americanism as being rooted in Japanese culture.”47

But opposition in the United States only grew when Japanese troops captured
Beijing and pressed on to victory. In 1939 FDR abrogated the treaty that had safe-

guarded United States-Japan trade and, a year later, in response to Japan’s Tripartite
Alliance with Germany and Italy and its apparent movement into Southeast Asia,
threatened to cut off the shipment of about 80 percent of the island nation’s war
supplies. The growing opposition to Japan buoyed antagonism to Japanese Ameri-
cans. By 1938 Lail Thomas Kane was in the habit of sharing his opinions with Rafu
Shimpo editor Togo Tanaka, who duly noted them as an alarming indication of pop-
ular sentiment. “By this time,” Tanaka later noted, “Kane’s attitude toward the Nisei
as ‘Jap-stooges’ appears to have crystallized.” This was evident in Kane’s telling
Tanaka, “I’m rapidly being convinced that the JACL which represents the Nisei lead-

ership is nothing more than an instrument of the Issei. You really take your orders
from Japan.” Thus Kane, still backed by the American Legion, continued to lobby

for legislation against Japanese American fishermen. He told Tanaka that if the
JACLers, whom he referred to as “jackals,” were really loyal “you would support this
fishing bill which is a national defense, patriotic proposal”-“you should know that
the security of the United States is menaced by the presence of fishing boats

manned by naval reserve officers of the Imperial Japanese Navy.” These fears
reached a national audience through Kane’s publications, including an article in the

Saturday Evening Post, and spread beyond the issue of Japanese American fishermen.
The immediate problem for Little Tokyo was that increasing anti-Japanese senti-
ment gave rise to boycotts against Japanese businesses that placed the depression-
weary enclave in even further jeopardy.48

“A direct correlation exists,” asserted Togo Tanaka in an analysis of JACL history
he wrote in the 1940s, “between the growing intensity of America-Japan friction
and the increasing frequency of Nisei and even Issei loyalty pledges.” The Issei old
guard responded to anti-Japanese affronts as they had done before: they had the
Nisei reassure Americans that their support for Japan was in no way at odds with
their commitment to living and raising their children in the United States. But
mounting United States-Japan hostility forced Nisei Week’s leaders to retreat from

47 Tanaka, “Vernacular Newspapers,” 18-19, 38. On Japanese nationalism among Japanese Americans in Los
Angeles at this time, see Hayashi, “For the Sake of OurJapanese Brethren”, Ichioka, “Japanese Immigrant National-
ism,” 260-75, 310-11; and Sakoda, Reports on Tule Lake, 11. Tanaka, “History of the JACL,” chap. 3, p. 5.

48Tanaka, “Pre-evacuation Pressure Group Activity in Southern California,” 10-11; Richard S. Nishimoto,
“Personal Service and Urban Trade,” manuscript, n.d., 73-74, 38-39, W 1.90, Japanese American Evacuation
and Resettlement Records; Tanaka, “History of the JACL,” chap. 3, p. 12.

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Japanese American Identity before World War II 1653

the idea of biculturalism. The Rafu Shimpo’s English-language staff, for example,
veered away from Japanese nationalism. Togo Tanaka claimed that the decision was

based on both the fallout from the rescinding of the trade agreement and the results

of a survey that revealed the impressive Nisei commitment to the United States. The

English section split from the paper’s Japanese staff to launch an editorial policy

encouraging the Nisei to drop biculturalism in favor of a “single American political
loyalty.” The Nisei were urged to support the JACL’S Americanism, buy United States

defense bonds, and forgo dual citizenship with Japan.49
Nisei Week now became a forum to ensure that Japanese Americans would not be

confused with their relatives overseas. The Kashu Mainichi in 1940 assured the
people of southern California of the Nisei’s eagerness to participate “in the building
of this great country, to assume responsibility for its defense against all enemies and
to safeguard its great institutions.” A year later the Nisei Week crowd was steered
away from dressing in Japanese garb. “From the American point of view,” the lead-
ing vernacular newspaper asked, “how can one be expected to be impressed by any
profession of loyalty via a ‘native Japanese kimono’? The two don’t jibe.” The call for
patriotic expression was especially evident in the festival’s parade. Old Glory replaced
the “rising sun” flags so prevalent at earlier celebrations, while beauty contestants,
draped in white evening gowns, floated through the streets of Little Tokyo perched
beneath a replica of the Capitol dome. A sedan resplendent with red, white, and
blue streamers carried a flowered marquee that left the Nisei’s identity unambig-
uous. Displayed beneath the facsimile of a spread-winged dove were the words
“USA, Our Home.”50

It was difficult to gauge the extent to which these patriotic activities paid off. No
amount of flag-waving or swearing of loyalty oaths could convince Kane and other
die-hard racists that the Nisei were trustworthy. But the JACL’S patriotism made such
a favorable impression on Kenneth Ringle, the naval intelligence officer responsible

for assessing the loyalty of the ethnic community, that he concluded “the entire ‘Jap-
anese Problem’ has been magnified out of its true proportion, largely because of the
physical characteristics of the people.” Japanese Americans also received support
from the Los Angeles Times, which encouraged its readers to attend Nisei Week
because its sponsors “had no part in and no responsibility for causing war clouds to
gather in the Orient.” Fletcher Bowron, the mayor of Los Angeles in 1941, echoed
this sentiment. In the speech that opened what became the last Nisei Week before
World War II, the mayor not only implored Japanese Americans to show their patri-
otism but reassured them, “we know you are loyal.”351

49Tanaka, “History of the JACL,” chap. 3, p. 17. Togo Tanaka, “Political Organizations,” manuscript, n.d., pp.
6-7, W 1.94, Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records; Tanaka, “Vernacular Newspapers,” 38-

39, 8, 9, 17; Minutes of Rafu Shimpo’ Board of Editorial Counsellors Meeting, July 14, 1941, folder 2, Togo
Tanaka “Journal,” A 17.06, Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records.

50 Kashu Mainichi, Aug. 4, 1940. Rafl Shimpo, Aug. 10, 1941. The “official attire” of the festival’s parade in

1941 was made out of cotton, not the usual silk, to conform with concerns about national defense. Sangyo Nippo,
July 30, 1941. Nisei Week souvenir booklet, 1990, p. 62 (in Kurashige’s possession).

51 Lieutenant Commander Ringle’s Confidential Intelligence Report to Chief of Naval Operations [c. Jan. 20-
March 27, 1942], A 5.01, Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records; Los Angeles Times as quoted

in Kashu Mainichi, Aug. 25, 194 1; Rafiu Shimpo, Aug. 25, 194 1.

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1654 The Journal of American History March 2000

Yet after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the United States’ declaration of war
on Japan, Bowron did not hesitate to call for the mass evacuation of 110,000 Japa-
nese Americans from the West Coast. The mayor, along with most public officials in

California and other western states, confessed his utter distrust of Japanese Ameri-
cans and did not think twice about denying them their constitutional rights. In

early February 1942, he warned a radio audience about the Japanese American

threat: “Right here in our own city are those who may spring into action at an
appointed time in accordance with a prearranged plan wherein each of our little

brown brothers will know his part in the event of any possible attempted invasion or
air raid.” Two weeks later, despite intelligence reports that deemed the overwhelm-

ing majority of Japanese Americans loyal to the United States, President Franklin
Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, sanctioning their removal to concentration
camps. Not long after that, over 33,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from

southern California, and with their departure ended a chapter in Nisei Week history.52

During World War II the JACLers took control of the ethnic community precisely
because they had failed to fulfill Nisei Weeks twin goals of ameliorating anti-Japanese
racism and securing the future of the ethnic enclave. While neither biculturalism

nor the switch to Americanism could prevent the internment, the latter identity

proved more pragmatic amid the extreme anti-Japanese sentiment that gripped the
nation during World War II. The JAcLers, pushed by government officials, adopted a
new language of identity predicated on the eradication, not celebration, of ethnic

difference. To prove their loyalty to the nation, they, as an organization and individ-
ually, cooperated with American intelligence agencies by informing on “suspicious”
elements within the ethnic community. Their surveillance activities, which the eth-
nic press highlighted often, generated deep animosities against the JACL (particularly

its most boisterously anti-Japanese leaders) that led to the intimidation, beating, and
attempted murder of JACLers within the internment camps.53 While military author-
ities saw the ethnic group as a monolithic (enemy) race, Japanese Americans experi-
enced World War II more divided than ever.

52 Fletcher Bowron, radio address on KECA (Los Angeles), transcript, Feb. 5, 1942 (6:30 p.m.), Fletcher Bow-
ron correspondence, A 15.14, Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Records. Ringle’s Report to Chief
of Naval Operations. For analysis of Ringle’s and other intelligence reports, see Bob Kumamoto, “The Search for
Spies: American Counterintelligence and the Japanese American Community, 1931-1942,” Amerasia Journal, 6
(no. 2, 1979), 45-75; Weglyn, Years of Infamy, 33-53.

53 See Weglyn, Years of Infamy; Daniels, Concentration Camps usA; and Richard Drinnon, Keeper of Concentra-
tion Camps: Dillon S. Myer and American Racism (Berkeley, 1987). On conflicts and resistance inside specific
internment camps, see Arthur A. Hansen and David A. Hacker, “The Manzanar Riot: An Ethnic Perspective,”
Amerasia Journal, 2 (no. 2, 1974), 112-57; and Richard S. Nishimoto, Inside an American Concentration Camp:
Japanese American Resistance at Poston, Arizona, ed. Lane Ryo Hirabayashi (Tucson, 1995).

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Contents

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Issue Table of Contents

Journal of American History, Vol. 86, No. 4 (Mar., 2000) pp. 1521-1962
Volume Information [pp. ]
Front Matter [pp. ]
Previews [pp. 1528-1529]
Presidential Address: “The Gods Bring Threads to Webs Begun” [pp. 1531-1551]
Biological Warfare in Eighteenth-Century North America: Beyond Jeffery Amherst [pp. 1552-1580]
Bible Reading and Nonsectarian Schooling: The Failure of Religious Instruction in Nineteenth-Century Public Education [pp. 1581-1599]
The Changing Experience of Nature: Historical Encounters with a Northwest River [pp. 1600-1629]
On the Borderland of Ethnicity and Race
On the Borderland of Ethnicity and Race: An Introduction [pp. 1630-1631]
The Problem of Biculturalism: Japanese American Identity and Festival before World War II [pp. 1632-1654]
In the Twilight Zone between Black and White: Japanese American Resettlement and Community in Chicago, 1942-1945 [pp. 1655-1687]
Textbooks and Teaching
[Introduction] [pp. 1688]
At Loose Ends: Twentieth-Century Latinos in Current United States History Textbooks [pp. 1689-1699]
A Novel Approach: Using Fiction by African American Women to Teach Black Women’s History [pp. 1700-1708]
What Happened in the Rainier Grand’s Lobby? A Question of Sources [pp. 1709-1714]
Teaching Gender History to Secondary School Students [pp. 1715-1720]
AIDS and American History: Four Perspectives on Experimential Learning [pp. 1721-1733]
Book Reviews
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Letters to the Editor [pp. 1885]
Announcements [pp. 1886]
Recent Scholarship [pp. 1887-1932]
Back Matter [pp. ]

Reading Journals (10% or 100 points total / 8) Each week for weeks 2-9, you will complete and submit a reading journal that summarizes the main points from the week’s reading and discusses ideas you developed based on the readings. The length and style are at your discretion. I cannot imagine that you would be able to adequately summarize and reflect on the week’s readings in less than two pages, but you might. It will be most helpful to you if you complete these weekly.

There are three grade possibilities for these assignments:

12.5 = You submitted something and it met expectations by engaging all the readings;

9 = You submitted something and it did not meet expectations;

0 = You did not submit anything. This is almost a simple “check” assignment.

The “9” grade is for those submissions that show you have not done (all) the reading or not done it thoroughly.

These assignments are mainly for you to a) keep you on track and b) give you a record of your ideas about the readings.

Length: 2+ pages Style: Informal, Formal, Academic, Whatever Works For You Citation: Mention the authors, use quotations marks, and, if it’s helpful for you, refer to pages.

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