Japanese Stereotypes

In the spring of 1942, we in the United States placed some 110,000 persons of Japanese descent in protective custody. Two out of every three of these were American citizens by birth; one-third were aliens forbidden by law to be citizens. Included were three generations: Issei, or first-generation immigrants (aliens); Nisei, or second-generation (American-born citizens); and Sansei, or third-generation (American-born children of American-born parents).

Within three months after removal from the west coast had been ordered, this entire group of men,women, and children had been lodged in temporary assembly centers, under military guard, awaiting transfer from the area. No charges had been filed against these people nor had any hearing been held.
This fissure the relatively small Japanese minority from the rest of the population. Like the earthquake that separated fissures that run along the Pacific Coast, this particular fissure was deeper in some areas than in others; it had been dormant for some years, but it was still potentially active. As fifty years of prior social history had shown, almost any jar or shock was capable of disturbing it. The attack on Pearl Harbor was more than a jar; it was a thunderous blow, an earthquake, that sent tremors throughout the area in which the fissure existed. The resident Japanese were the victims of this social earthquake. This is the root-fact, the basic social fact, which precipitated the mass evacuation of the west-coast Japanese—which has been accurately described as "the largest single forced migration in American
On December 11, 1941, the Western Defense Command was established and the west coast was declared a theater of war. General J. L. DeWitt was designated as military commander of the area. On December 7 and 8, 1941, the Department of Justice arrested, on presidential warrants, all known "dangerous enemy aliens." Subsequently, by a series of orders, the Department of Justice ordered the removal of all "enemy aliens" from certain designated zones or so-called "spot" strategic installations, such as harbors, airports, and power lines. The deadline fixed for this "dress rehearsal" of the larger evacuation to follow was February 24, 1942. Following the appearance of the Roberts Report on Pearl Harbor, the public temper on the west coast noticeably changed and by the end of January, 1942, a considerable press demand appeared for the evacuation of all Japanese.

In the excitement of the moment, it was not generally noted that the Roberts Report referred to espionage activities in Hawaii but was silent on the question of sabotage. For months after the release of the Roberts Report it was generally assumed, on the west coast, that acts of sabotage had been committed in Hawaii, despite absolutely conclusive proof from the most authoritative sources that no such acts had been