A Japanese Diaspora Still Seeking Peace

by Timothy M. Nakayama

A New York Times article by Norimitsu Onishi on April 23, 2004, looked at the release of the Japanese hostages in Iraq. It noted Japanese hostility, rather than relief, to the hostages' return to Japan. Colin Powell had praised the courage of the Japanese hostages; but in stark contrast, the Japanese authorities and general public chastised and castigated them for their “disobedience” for ignoring “official” warnings of risk and danger. The hostages are expected to reimburse the Japanese government for $6,000 each for the trouble they have caused!

With all its rhetoric that it is a “democratic” country, [Japan] is such a far cry from the freedoms, initiatives and responsibilities we are allowed in the Western world as we struggle as citizens for the good of society. 

My first reaction to the article was my own continuing sense of disappointment and distress about Japan and its social/hierarchical/governmental structure. Their powers-that-be have no room for NGOs (non-governmental organizations). With all its rhetoric that it is a “democratic” country, it is such a far cry from the freedoms, initiatives and responsibilities we are allowed in the Western world as we struggle as citizens for the good of society. Japanese society is circumscribed and docile; it is a polite society – so crowded, with hardly room to breathe!

In all segments and strata of Japanese life the difference between “official” and “unofficial” is so stringent that anything not sanctioned by a “responsible authority” is strictly forbidden. The good that could be realized by volunteers is disallowed unless authorities permit it. The laws of the land circumscribe what is allowable for religionists, and the entry of the Christian faith – Roman Catholics in the 16th Century, and Anglicans and Protestants in the 19th Century – fall into that category.

During the Great Hanshin Earthquake Disaster in Kobe, Japan, in January 1995, in the absence of directives from government and police, there was an unbelievable paralysis of the infrastructure – in addition to the deaths and destruction caused by the earthquake. I think it is only because I have both lived in Japan and dealt with their bureaucracies here in North America that I can understand the kind of stuff that occurs.

I was in Okinawa ministering to an English-language congregation (mostly Americans) at that time. As soon as we heard about the earthquake disaster we began to do what we would normally do in responding to any disaster: gathering food and clothing, emergency equipment and supplies that we stuffed in “Care Packages.” We found a post office in a city near Kobe to which we could mail our parcels from faraway Okinawa. We kept up a stream of packages, including bananas from our churchyard! And in this instance, a kind of informal “volunteerism” developed in the Kobe area to cope with this great disaster. In contrast to this, the Japanese churches did not mobilize in the way we did. They were waiting for instructions, if any, from national headquarters! Meanwhile, volunteer search dogs, their masters, plus rescue workers from other countries were restricted from helping in the disaster – another manifestation of a system unable to respond, completely constipated.

The Japanese people began to see first-hand the value of volunteerism during that destructive earthquake, of individual and corporate initiative for the common good, but in their highly structured society anything that could embarrass any ruling authority continues to be disallowed. People automatically support their ruling masters because they have learned their lessons well – social condemnation and shame (the worst of consequences) are feared. Memories of strong and courageous moral examples in the past – of those who opposed social oppression in the Meiji and pre-Meiji eras and retold by previous generations – are hardly remembered in today's Japan.

This way of life was taught to us by our Issei (first generation immigrants) forebears in North America, who were obedient to the ruling authorities to a fault. Thus, during the Second World War, opposing  governmental orders for our wartime “relocation” was unthinkable. The U.S. Nisei (second generation, and the first to be born in the U.S.) are about 10 years older than Canadian Nisei. Some of them had learned of Western “rugged individualism” and inherited the Meiji spirit that guided their elders, and during the Second World War they opposed the curfew imposed upon us and the incarceration into the “camps” that followed. Those protests became the seeds of governmental reparations and redress that were to be realized almost a half century later.

Japanese Descendants in North America

Coming from Canada, I remember that the United States always had and has broad international influence in so many ways. I believe the decision by the U.S. for redress and reparations to Americans of Japanese ancestry influenced the Canadian government for redress to Japanese Canadians in 1988, for instance. Interestingly, I learned that the intention to incarcerate Japanese Canadians actually preceded action in the USA. The Canadian idea was planted in the mind of FDR before he issued Executive Order 9066, which caused the infamous Japanese American relocation.

Growing up as a child in Canada at a time when all Japanese Canadians were forcibly relocated from our west coast into the deep mountainous wildernesses of interior British Columbia, my future ministry was deeply influence by these events.

Canada assumed that Japanese Canadians, by virtue of their race, were puppets of the Emperor of Japan – the dreaded “yellow peril,” fifth column, and hive of spies. All of us, including children, were automatically classified as “enemy aliens,” and a priority was to remove us from the country's west coast area that would be first invaded by Imperial Japan. The pervasive attitude was expressed in an epithet to me, when on the Monday after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a fellow classmate called me, “You dirty, yellow, Jap!” I was 10 years old in late 1941.

I remember always feeling intimidated by the non-Japanese majority. We whispered on the bus, streetcar, or public places to avoid their hostility.

The irony of our being “evacuated” and “relocated” by a government order was that it concentrated us together in ways we could not have devised . . . We were to come out of it as a community with a common experience – nothing unites more than an imposed common experience. We began to call it our “camp” experience.

The irony of our being “evacuated” and “relocated” by a government order was that it concentrated us together in ways we could not have devised for ourselves – more than our “li'l Tokyo” neighborhoods ever did. We were to come out of it as a community with a common experience – nothing unites more than an imposed common experience. We began to call it our “camp” experience. We measured time by the “camp” experience. We talked of “before camp,” “during camp,” and “after camp.”

We inadvertently came upon these words as an “in-house” term, immediately understood, and easily communicated – we were able to talk about a very difficult stream of memories among ourselves without having to go into any degree of detail, yet be immediately understood. People outside our community didn't know. We were not deliberately hiding the subject from others, but others might assume we were talking about some summer camping outing, and our conversations would not raise any particular suspicions. How convenient – we could speak about a painful memory in such shorthand. How remarkable that our community has been measuring its life by the “camp” experience. It was our Japanese-Canadian/American community's experience, somewhat like the Jewish Exile and “Exodus.”

Comparing Canada and the United States, the “camp” experience was a political action in Canada, whereas it was a military action in the United States. The Canadian Cabinet and Prime Minister W.L. Mackenzie King issued an “Order in Council” that caused the development of the British Columbia (B.C.) Security Commission, the Custodian of Enemy Alien Property, registered us, imposed a curfew on us, seized all our properties, and herded us into the Vancouver Hastings Park (now the Pacific National Exhibition), then banished us to the silver and gold-mining “ghost towns” at the headwaters of the Columbia River, and other remote B.C. areas. The U.S. Presidential Order 9066 mobilized the Western Command to round up Americans of Japanese Ancestry and send them initially to racetracks and agricultural exhibition grounds, and then into military “camps” in California, Idaho, Utah, Arkansas and elsewhere.

In late 1944, Japanese Americans began leaving the “camps,” and settled in Midwest metropolitan areas and the Eastern U.S. They were allowed to return to the West a year before the end of the war; some chose to stay where they had resettled and not to return. Japanese Canadians were in exile much longer – until 1949 – with additional disruptions such as the “repatriation” of one-sixth of the population sent “back” to Japan when the war ended. (To speak of “back” to Japan was inappropriate when those of us who were born in Canada had never been in Japan in the first place. Within ten years, 10% of that repatriated population had returned to Canada.) The “camps” were shut down as quickly as possible, and those who had not been repatriated were re-settled “East of the Rockies.” When the legislation allowed us to return to the west coast, most people, weary of numerous moves and out of resources, chose to remain where they had resettled. In addition, our properties had been auctioned off while we were still in “camp,” so there was nothing to which we could return. The Japanese Canadian community in the B.C. lower mainland and along the west coast became starkly different from pre-war conditions. The largest Japanese Canadian population center became Toronto, Ontario, 2,000 miles to the east.

The Present: Reparations and Repeating Our Mistakes

In Canada there was no human rights legislation that could protect us – so political action was the only remedy. After U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed the Reparations and Redress Act in August 1988, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney signed an Apology and Redress in September 1988. The Canadian system was more prompt and liberal in distributing a detailed statement of apology and sending monetary redress. A letter signed by President George H.W. Bush and monetary redress came later to Japanese Americans survivors.

What lessons can we take from this experience? Are Americans safer because of the massive airport security checks during the time of the American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Were Americans safer because of the “relocation” of the Americans of Japanese ancestry during WW II? It was alleged that Japanese Americans were incarcerated for their own protection. If so, it is inconsistent and sobering to discover that the gun turrets were aimed at those incarcerated in the “camps.” The “camps” were prisons. And it took 46 years – almost a half-century – before redress and reparations. What can Arab Americans expect as outcomes of today's oppression?

The Rev. Timothy Makoto Nakayama has served diverse racial/ethnic communities in three countries. He was born, raised, and ordained in Canada, then emigrated to Seattle, Wash., and later was a missionary in Okinawa. Tim's ministry of over 40 years of social change includes regional community organizing, assisting in the formation of the national Episcopal Asiamerica Ministry, and welcoming refugees from around the world. He now lives in Seattle, and may be reached by email at frtim@yahoo.com .