Why Japanese in Hawaii Weren’t Interned during WWII
28. Jul, 2008
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Once again, I thought I’d stick with the Hawaii-Japan topic, since i just got back from there (that’s right, eat your hearts out).
In high school, all of us younguns had to do a Senior Report, of sorts. Now, whenever I do essays / reports / etc, and I have the opportunity to write about whatever I want (bad idea, teachers), I like to choose a topic that almost nobody else has studied, so the professor can’t check my facts. I’m not saying that I go around making stuff up, but I feel a little better when I’m not writing on something within the teacher’s field of expertise. It, how should I say, often results in a higher, how should I call it, grade.
Of course, as you can tell by the title, I decided to study Japanese internment. More specifically, how it affected Hawaii.
If you don’t know already, Hawaii’s population includes tons of Japanese. I’m not just talking tourists in khaki shorts with cameras around their necks. Back during the war, Hawaii’s population was 1/3 Japanese. That’s huge. 157,000 Japanese made their home on the islands. In contrast, the United States mainland only had around 126,000 Japanese. 100,000 of those 126,000 were put in internment camps. That’s a lot of people being put away for no reason.
Now, as you probably learned in history class (if you’re an American, at least), “All Japanese were put in internment camps.” That is, at least, what we are led to believe. The history books tend to gloss over Hawaii, though. What happened to people over there?
Well, not that much.
Of the 157,000 Japanese living in Hawaii, only under 2000 of them were put in internment camps. These were people of supposed power, who could “possibly pose a threat to America.” The ironic thing is, though, Japanese-Americans on the mainland posed a much smaller risk compared to their Hawaii counterparts. Over half of the Japanese-Americans on the mainland were born in America and had American citizenship, yet they were the ones to get interned. They were forced to sell their land on the cheap (Japanese owned a lot of California grape growing land, all of which they lost. Sad, yeah?), and lost pretty much everything (My family’s sword was taken. Bastards!).
In Hawaii, however, almost everyone got off scott free. I’m not saying that anyone should have been interned – I think it was a terrible thing – but they should have at least been consistent about it. Really, the Japanese in Hawaii had much closer ties to Japan than those in the mainland. Still, in the end, it was all economy-based. If you suddenly lose 1/3 of your population, then the economy will implode on itself. According to my grandpa, a lot of Japanese ran banks and worked on farms at the time, so suddenly cutting them out of the economic equation would have been disastrous.
That is why Japanese didn’t get interned in Hawaii, even though more Japanese lived in Hawaii than any other part of the US.
Jokes on America, though. I hear stories about my Great Grandma during the war. She would walk around the streets of Nu’uanu, picking up cigarette packaging and pulling out the aluminum linings, then send it back to Japan so they could make weapons and bombs. On top of that, she went around to all her neighbors and friends (who apparently were pro Japanese, as well) and got them to put stitches into hachimaki, which were sent to Japan for kamikaze bombers to wear for good luck. Great job, America! Way to intern the right people.
Though, I would be sad if my Great Grandma was interned, she was just a sweet old lady picking up trash for those dirty cigarette smoking sailors. How nice!
No related posts.
my great grandpa was one of those interned from hawaii…
my great grandpa was one of those interned from hawaii…
my great grandpa was one of those interned from hawaii…
my great grandpa was one of those interned from hawaii…
At my college we hosted International education week. I had a table set up and had random students answer basic trivia about the world. This just reminded me of a students answer. Someone thought pearl harbor was in japan. He he :)
I picked this topic for a school paper, too. Mainly because the school wasn't going to teach anything about it (shock, shock).
my grandma, a full blooded japanese, was living in hawaii at the time with her father, mother and sister. she was originally from stockton california because her father, kenso nushida, was playing baseball. i dont know if you heard of him. but she moved to hawaii when she was ten and the bombing came a year later. but she had family on her mother, jane fujishige's, side living in california. my great-great-grandfather,( i forget his name, but it started with a T) was one of the cooks at the camp in arizona. he had to sell his farm. im not too sure about the story, but i know that he was a good cook and everybody liked his food. unfortunately, he died there.
my grandmother, iris nushida, said that they were going to intern the japanese in hawaii to molokai, but it never happened. the japanese had it tough in hawaii also. i mean, the government took away all their stuff in the house, my grandma was called a Jap by some navy boy, and during school, they felt a separation between the haoles(white kids) and the japanese.
anyway, i really liked what you wrote and it kinda reminded me of that book under the blood red sun, you might have heard of it, but just the part about the sword. haha.
i totally get what your'e saying, im just saying, in hawaii, it wasnt paradise for them.
Or maybe Japanese in Hawai'i weren't sent to camps because Hawai'i wasn't even a part of the US! The “mainland” as you were calling it was the only land. Hawai'i didn't become a state until 1959–4 years after the war.
My interest in the topic was renewed after my recent visit to the Noguchi Museum in Queens, Long Island, NY. Amazing Japanese-American, actually a citizen of the world and an artist ahead of his time. As a New Yorker, he was exempt from internment but nevertheless ASKED to be interned in Arizona. It took him 4 months to talk his way out again. I am learning Japanese in anticipation of my retirement from Europe to the Big Island.
Heey, saw this a year too late. But as a side note, I've hypothesized that Japanese Americans living in Hawaii during WWII can to some extent still speak Japanese because there was less anti- Japanese sentiment compared to the mainland. (being 1/3 of the population on an island helps!). Us mainland Japanese Americans can't speak Japanese for crap! Plus we still call the otearai. . benjo. Haha.
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The reason the Japanese were not interned in Hawaii has nothing to do with economics. And they did NOT run banks at that time. Check your facts. Hawaii and Hawaiians had a very different view on race, culture and what it meant to be an American which is why the Japanese-American forces came from that specific Island, while Japanese elsewhere were refused entry into the military.
Are you naive, stupid, or both? Your “great-grandmother” did nothing of the kind. That nonsense about sending aluminum foil to Japan is an old urban myth in Hawaii.
You owe the Japanese in Hawaii, your great-grandmother (or was it your grandmother? You could not get it straight on the BBC), and the BBC an apology for your story.
Are you naive, stupid, or both? Your “great-grandmother” did nothing of the kind. That nonsense about sending aluminum foil to Japan is an old urban myth in Hawaii.
You owe the Japanese in Hawaii, your great-grandmother (or was it your grandmother? You could not get it straight on the BBC), and the BBC an apology for your story.
japanese is very diverse, the japanese from hawaii is completely different human to those from main city of japan. Is great to see a part of nice, kind hearted japanese remains over in hawaii as during the world war, or even prior, when japan invaded so many asian country, it wasn't that good, and more worst when the 1st official human scientific experiment organisation unit 731 formed by the japanese, killing millions of civilians of from other races then japan, the nanking mass-killing….it was hard to like the japanese, i heard stories from friends grand parents from china, korea, and it was awful. but i find that any races, there are the bad ones, and good ones, and am glade the nice japanese blood line get pass on in hawaii.
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Actually the article writers right. It was highly based upon economics. (Hawaiian Japanese American) But true, I highly doubt much Japanese Americans ran banks of that sort. Only the buddhist monks types or the Japanese national types were interned in Hawaii. Besides that the Japanese were left alone. Yup culture was very different even when comparing Hawaii Japanese to mainland Japanese. Both have very rich backgrounds from Hawaiian Japanese working on the plantations while the mainland Japanese being interned. Hawaiian Japanese also have the knowledge of pidgin english a hawaii dialect. (pidgin english is a combination of all languages on the island). Hawaiian Japanese and mainland Japanese are very much different and similar. I do know that many Hawaiian Japanese and myself consider ourselves more Hawaiian Japanese than “American” Japanese. It may confuse people who are not from Hawaii but I am sure the author may understand from being raised here. There seems to be a different mindset in my opinion. I could go on and on about the differences and internment but there is just to much culture involved. (further information citizens of Hawaii are also a type of Hawaiian by definition). Not to say mainland Japanese are not important they certainly are. Huge culture from both sides I just know much more about my culture than the American Japanese culture.
I have talked to many relatives and their explanation of their history is very different from my side. Oh but non the less Japanese were looked down upon in Hawaii also. I am not sure how much but that is what I know from my understanding. People would refer to my parents as young kids as “Japs” which back in the day was an extremely racist term. My parents and grandparents, etc. still get offended. I do not feel that offended by it. Hardly at all it was just a term I am sure all Japanese can relate to.
Anyway that “great grandma” incident is pretty funny. I never really heard of the pro Japanese Americans especially from Hawaii that was interesting. My great grandparents would just send clothes after the war. Great blog! Oh and I am not sure about this but I do know Hawaiian Japanese are third generation +. I am fifth myself. grandparents can't even speak Japanese much. Thats how plantation worker my family was. I would like to know if American Japanese Americans are like that also. The generation part. There are so little Japanese in America i have met compared to Hawaii. Would be interesting to know. There opinion on Hawaiian Americans like myself too
The story about his great-grandma is not “funny”; it is just stupid. That nonsense about foil is a urban myth and should not be perpetuated.
lol Kaleo I would think they would think its funny because its so stupid? but yah it sounds stupid.
I wrote a paper on how Japanese internment affected Canada :D
“You know women”, eh?
reminds me of 'farwell to manzanar'
“You know women”, eh?
reminds me of 'farwell to manzanar'
Samantha [Moderator] 3 weeks ago
I wrote a paper on how Japanese internment affected Canada :D