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This is History for the Reckoning, a podcast that dives deep into the history that's hard to hear but critical to understand. Season one, American Concentration Camps, the story of World War II Japanese Incarceration. Welcome to another addenda episode of the podcast. I'd like to say a huge thank you to Chizo Amori for coming on because she, as someone who is served a survivor, someone who's been through these events, it's really special to get her testimony, to get her stories, and be able to hear from someone firsthand that it just proves that these things really happened when you talk to someone that lived through them. These things weren't that long ago. These things can still happen today. So thank you again, Chizu. I'd like to talk in this addenda episode about the JACL. So we mentioned in past episodes how the JACL, this organization called the Japanese American Citizens League, JACL, uh, were leaders in the community that are made up of Nisei, so not the immigrant generation, American citizens, the second generation. And that uh after the Esei had been rounded up by the FBI, there was a power vacuum there, and the JACL was the most prominent organization that came along to fill it and to lead and represent the Japanese American community to the nation and to the government. But we also mentioned how uh their policy was to cooperate with the government in these things that we feel are really objectionable today. So let's talk about exactly what they did during the war, what their legacy is, and what they're doing now. So the JSEL was formed in 1929. Like I said, it was led by Esei, so well sorry, it was led by NISAI. Interestingly, in 1990, the JSEL published a report. They'd hired a historian named Deborah K. Lim as a researcher to investigate what the JSCL did during the war. They chose to do this, they did not, they were not forced to do this, but there are many rumors about what the JSCL had done in relation to the government during the war, so they wanted it to be all out in the open. And thankfully, Frank Abe, who we're gonna hear from in a future episode, he'll be one of our guests, has made the entire report that Deborah Kim Lim prepared available on his website, resistors.com. So I'm going to be referencing it heavily and going through each major section of the report throughout this episode. So, first in the pre-war period, uh there were times when the FBI clearly reached out to the JCL and were asking for intelligence on specific individuals. They'd go, like, tell us a little bit about person X, and it seems like the JSCL did cooperate in those things. They claim they didn't give additional information. There wasn't a witch hunt, they weren't trying to go uh deep and like rat out people, but they do admit that they responded to the FBI and naval intelligence when they had questions in the pre-war period. So the next section is about the response to Pearl Harbor. So after Pearl Harbor, obviously huge events, both for the country but also in the Japanese American community, and the JACL kind of went into overdrive at that point. So uh many regions that the JCL were divided into formed really special committees that were even more zealous for supporting American causes and trying to show loyalty to the American government. The most famous one is called the Anti-Axis Committee. They pledged loyalty immediately to the country, to the president, and they reached out to various authorities to pledge support, to offer help. There's even this uh quote that came out over the radio at the time from the JSCL. It said, Quote, We are all Americans, pledge to the defense of the United States. Any disloyal act or word by any Japanese or American citizen of Japanese descent harms the United States. As Americans, we now function as counter-espionage. Any act or word prejudicial to the United States committed by any Japanese must be warned and reported to the FBI, naval intelligence, sheriff's office, and local police. Any menace to the security of our country must be thoroughly and completely wiped out, close quote. So they were particularly distrusting of the kibe. You remember from a previous addenda, the kibe are those who were American citizens but had been educated in Japan, and many in the leadership of the JCL were particularly suspicious of them, and at this time furnished a list of the kibe to the FBI, these people that they thought should get particular notice by the FBI. So the next section is response to military orders and the curfew. So remember, after Pearl Harbor, military orders came down on the West Coast, often that particularly affected or particularly applied to those of Japanese descent. So let's introduce here Mike Masaoka. He was one of the leaders in the JSEL throughout this period and even after this period. He was from Salt Lake City, so the orders didn't affect him personally, but he was a big mover and shaker in the JSEL, and a lot of his influence is seen in this entire report, this entire period. So a lot of the quotes that I'll be pulling out are directly from him. A lot of the memos had his name on them, even if he wasn't the primary author, he was a part of it. Uh at this time he floated the idea of a suicide battalion. So this did not come to be, but there is evidence that he actually did float it to authorities as an idea. The idea being that why don't we draft a whole bunch of uh Japanese Americans to be soldiers? Because he really felt like going into the military, fighting for your country would prove their loyalty, and to make sure that they stayed on task, that they are loyal, loyal, we're gonna keep their families as these hostages. So we're gonna put these men in horrifically dangerous situations, so it's kind of like they're always on a suicide mission. To make sure that they follow orders, we're gonna keep their families hostage. So a really alarming, awful thing to suggest, it did not come to be, but what did come to be is that when the American government did recruit Japanese Americans, even draft them, they put them into a segregated unit that was only Japanese Americans, and when they were sent over to Europe to fight the Nazis, they were put in particularly dangerous missions and were given orders that put them in harm's way. It's arguable, but I think they were genuinely put in harm's way more than their white counterparts would have been. So it might be that there's a holdover from the suggestion that Mike Masaoka made. So the JCL were consulted as uh these orders were put in place as the suggestion that all of Japanese Americans were going to be forcibly removed from the West Coast, the JCL were able to give their thoughts, give their feedback. In fact, Mike Masooka testified before Congress on the matter in March of 1942, saying, quote, with any policy of evacuation definitively arising from reasons of military necessity and national safety, we are in complete agreement. As American citizens, we cannot and should not take any other stand. But also, as American citizens believing in the integrity of our citizenship, we feel that any evacuation enforced on grounds violating that integrity should be opposed. So the the party line, the JCL stance, was that they'd cooperate with what the government wanted, but they wanted rights respected. In particular, they had memos about how they expected that if these orders came down, they would not just be applied based on race, that they would be applied to, for instance, all those who were descended from enemies of uh the United States at that time. So it would include Italians, it would include Germans, that that did not end up happening. But their official stance was uh we will totally cooperate, but we want you to respect individual rights and we want this to be done in an orderly way. They really felt that that cooperation was going to help their community later. In particular, it'd score like points so that they could influence the conditions that would be affected later, that they could try to make things as good as possible. So the next section is actions initiated in the community, which is to say the US government didn't make them do this, the JACL chose to do it themselves. The biggest one is the KiBay survey. So we mentioned how they furnished a list to the government of here's all the kibay, those who've been educated in Japan, but are American citizens. The JACL at this point took it a step farther. They chose to do an in-depth survey of all the kibay. They really distrusted them. So this was things like uh detailed demographics of the kibay, where they live, their hobbies, all these kinds of things. They sent it out to all of their chapters and expected every chapter to fill out information about all the kibe in their chapters, but I think also in their communities, they really wanted to take a survey of all the kibay and expected this to happen. There are also accusations of this time that the the Nisei and JSCL in particular were taking advantage of the tough spot that Isei were in. Like maybe anisei father had been removed from the home, now the wife's in a tough position, or that these Isei maybe they didn't have the language ability, or because they weren't citizens, they lacked certain uh rights. And so there's this accusation that they're being taken advantage of by giving, like, well, one accusation was like uh Nisei might step in and take over a business, take over property, that kind of thing, and leave these effectively widows, these women whose husbands have been taken away without any recourse, leave them out in the cold. The report does not give direct evidence of that kind of thing happening, doesn't mean that didn't happen. But one thing that came up a lot was this accusation of Issei might go to the JCL and look for help. So, like legal help, things like travel orders, the ability to uh voluntarily leave the state of California, the West Coast, and that the JCL were accused of charging them exorbitant fees to do this kind of thing. Based on the report, it's not clear that this happened at all. It probably did, because there's enough stories from different places that makes it sound like this definitely happened, but it is pretty clear that this was not JSCL policy. It was pretty clearly denied by the JSCL at the time. The next section is the JCL position on legal test cases. So as uh these orders were coming down before the force removal, like curfews, like the inability for people to travel, military orders, and then as the force removal happened, it was pretty clear to a lot of people in the community that this was unconstitutional. These kinds of orders would not stand up in court, and so there were several people that wanted to make legal test cases. Let's purposely break these orders so that it can go to court and we can prove by in front of a judge, in front of a jury, that these things are unconstitutional and have it all struck down. The JACL was very against doing this kind of thing. They thought that biting back was going to make the entire community look bad. The J ACL position was let's just cooperate. We know that it's ridiculous. We know that maybe they wouldn't even hold in court, but we insist on cooperating to look like loyal Americans. One note that I'll put there is that the ACLU also refused to take up these test cases. So the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties League, who is very famous for uh defending the civil liberties of American citizens through the law, were also not on the side of testing these orders against the Japanese Americans at this time. I guess another no on that is that ultimately, when these test cases did start to come out, and we're going to cover those in future episodes, these cases that went before the Supreme Court that challenged the legality of these orders against the Japanese American community, the JSCL did deliver amicus briefs in some of these cases. So you could say their stance changed, turned around, at least became more nuanced, and they did try to offer some support to these cases as they went on. So next is their relationship with the War Relocation Authority and other government agencies. So the War Relocation Authority, WRA, was the organization that set up the camps, that had everyone moved into the camps, had to take care of them once they were there. They were the jailers, I guess you'd say. So there was clearly a close relationship between the JCL and the WRA. JSCL members had preferred positions within the camps. They had these trusted positions in the camps. So this started to really make people in camp angry. It started to feel like the JSCL were completely selling out the rest of the Japanese American community for their own benefit. They were getting these preferred positions. What's most troubling is the assertion by Deborah Lim that some of these JSCL leaders were literally on the WRA payroll. But from my reading of it, in my opinion, the evidence she cites doesn't directly support that. Although it's bad enough that it is clear that these JSCL leaders, Mike Masoka included, had great influence within the WRA. So they submitted a lot of memos with like their suggestions for what should be WRA policy. And in a lot of cases, that did end up becoming WRA policy. So I don't think they were literally on the payroll, but I think they were doing things as though they were on the payroll regardless. That they were really trying to make things happen that ultimately did happen. So one of those things is like the suggestion of segregating those that were thought to be troublemakers, which did come out later. One bombshell that Deborah Limb throws out in the report is how the JCL oversold their influence to the government. They said they had many more members that they did than they actually did. They said they were more influential within the community and were respected, more powerful than they actually were. That's very interesting that she was able to find evidence of that inside it. So the JCL also helped with recruiting soldiers once the government wanted the Nisei, these American citizens, to join the military. The JCL was convinced, and they were probably ultimately right about this, that the greatest way to prove loyalty, to make the rest of America trust Japanese Americans, was to show them fighting and dying just like all other Americans for their country. They thought it was going to be a very good look. At this point, they also complained when these JA, Japanese American soldiers, were treated badly. So there was an instance where like the president of the United States was going to be going through a camp, and at that camp, the military leaders told all of the Japanese American soldiers, stay in your barracks. We don't want the president to see you. And the JSEL did make a formal complaint about that. Alright, the next section is about activities in the camp. So it is clear that the JSCL was close to camp administration. They were the most likely to be, you could say, like sucking up, but like bending the knee to camp authority because this was an extension of bending the knee to all American government policy to look like good citizens, like they were cooperating. There was definitely a few notable individuals that would make reports on their fellow prisoners in the camps, like they were ratting out the people that were incarcerated with them. It's not clear exactly how widespread this was. And in fact, in the report, Deborah Lynn points out that uh the government themselves admitted that a lot of the information wasn't that helpful. They didn't get as much as maybe they were hoping, but it definitely happened. So because it definitely happened, that caused a lot of tension. So, in particular in Manzanar, we mentioned the Manzanar riot in a previous addenda, how these tensions around the JSCL members are getting preferred positions in the camp, like they're getting the better jobs. So it seems to be also a correlation where we suspect that these JSCL members are reporting on us, they're trying to sell out their own community, and that ended up with violence against these JSCL members, ultimately the Manzanar riot. So the JSCLs here, support of military service became public, and some in the camps saw that as a betrayal. So it's like we've been locked inside these concentration camps, and now you're supporting the government who wants us to go and die for them after they've taken away our constitutional rights. It was seen as a betrayal by some. So after the loyalty oath was administered, which we've touched on in previous episodes, uh, the government trying to use a piece of paper to say, oh, we've we've already told the entire US population that these people are untrustworthy. We need some kind of like rubber stamp to say, oh, they're trustworthy enough that their sons can be drafted into the military. So they gave out this loyalty questionnaire. And there are two famous questions on there that people found objectionable and they rightly did. And sometimes people chose to take a moral stance and say no and no to those two questions, which we're we're gonna talk about the loyalty questionnaire in depth later. But suffice to say, some people took a stance and said no no to two particularly objectionable questions on that survey. They were called no-nos. And the JSEL stance was that we should segregate these people, that they inherently had become disloyal, or at least their loyalty was in question for having made that stance, and they had forfeited their rights to be among the rest of the populace that needed to be segregated. What is interesting, at the same time, they did not think that this level of disloyalty was tantamount to these people forfeiting their American citizenship. So they still thought these people have rights, but they have made a they've taken a stance that makes them inherently untrustworthy. We should segregate them. And that happened in Thule Lake, which we've touched on a little bit before, the prison within a prison, the maximum security camp, as some have called it. So finally, in the report, uh Deborah K. Lynn put out is the position on action on those resistors. So within the camps, we're gonna touch on this when Frank Abe comes on the show. Or he's not gonna touch on it, we're gonna talk a lot when Frank Abe comes on the show, those who chose to resist these government actions. And the position of the JCL was that was a hard no, like anyone who tried to resist, particularly the draft. So I will point out that they had read the Pulse of America correctly. The rest of American society at this time felt like draft dodging was the most awful thing that you could possibly do. America was like, we're in a war, we're all on the same team here, everybody bear get on board. If you're drafted, you gotta go. There's absolutely no alternative. Uh, and so the JCL took a really black and white view of this stance. The people who chose to resist the draft, as in not show up for their draft appointments in the camps, most of them did it as a principled stand. This was their best way of protesting the treatment that they had received when their constitutional rights were taken away and they were put in these concentration camps. But the JCL did not see it that way. They saw it as you guys are putting this entire community as risk by choosing to do this thing, the rest of society is gonna think makes us look so, so awful. So how you dare you do that? We're gonna throw the book at you. They really wanted these people to be put down, convinced of the error of their ways, that kind of thing. So that ends the Deborah K. Limb Report. Now you might think this all sounds pretty damning, and I'd agree it was. Like, I completely disagree with the JACL's stance on most of these things during the wartime. As Emily Inouway Huey pointed out in her interview, a lot of these actions were taken because the JACL desperately wanted the American public to see Japanese Americans as loyal despite being of Japanese descent. I think they went about it the wrong way, but they really felt it was the right action at the time. I will point out that after the war, the JCL has, to a much greater degree, I think, lived up to their ideals as a civil rights organization. So they've supported civil rights efforts in many arenas. Uh the Denshow.com article on the JCL mentions that, quote, JACL lawyers also wrote briefs in support of ending segregation in schools in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, and in favor of ending restrictions against interracial marriage in the case of Loving v. Virginia. So, close quote. They worked hard to elevate and showcase the Nisei veterans as well. So during the war, they thought that these people going to war was going to make the community look good. Afterward, they really tried to pump up these stories and show how great and revered these people were who had chosen to put their lives on the line for our country. Most notably, I'd say, they spearheaded the reparations movement, which we'll cover in a future episode. So that was the major reckoning of the US government with what they had done to the Japanese and Japanese Americans during the war that ended in an apology and reparations being paid to these people. The Japanese American Citizens League was big enough, connected enough, had the legal acumen to move that forward, and they they did so, even though you could look back on this episode and think that some of the problems they had directly caused, but they did try to make up for it. So today the JSEL, which I am a member of, is very active in fighting for justice, for civil rights, both in the JA community and without. And at this point, I am proud to be a member of it. I think they're doing great work today. Okay, thank you for joining me on that deep dive about the JACL during World War II. I'd like to point you now to another podcast that I highly recommend called Kampu. That's produced by Densho. It is also about the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. This comes from Densho, this incredible historical archival organization that is documenting the Japanese American experience through history, has so many oral histories. I reference so many of their things in the creation of this podcast as I've been learning about the Japanese American experience. So highly recommend them just for their resources at densho.org, but also their podcast Kampu, which is going through the daily life within these concentration camps. So everything that you wanted to know that we didn't cover in my interview with Chizu, they cover in Kampu. So I highly recommend it. But one amazing story from it that I loved, again, it's because it's talking about daily life. What were the realities of being in a camp for years and years? Was outside of the camp there was a pharmacy that was being remodeled. When they tore down one of the walls, they found a bunch of these receipts and order forms from those that were in the concentration camp. So suddenly you get this peek behind the curtain. What were people ordering? What did they want? What did they need? What were influencing their daily realities that they tried to make up for by ordering from a pharmacy? It seems so simple, but today it's just this incredible piece of history. So I'm gonna play their trailer now, but I really hope you're gonna check out Densho's Kampu.

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Seiji Tsuji was finally leaving. Not that he really had a place to go. For three years behind barbed wire, Seiji received a train ticket to wherever he wanted, shipping for whatever belongings he had left, and$25. Like most of the people who were leaving, he didn't have much anymore. He'd lost, among other things, the car, the tractor, and the farm where he'd raised four children and buried another. Still, during his last few days at Heart Mountain, he fashioned scrap wood into boxes, packed them with care, hammered them shut. They were so heavy the soldiers could barely lift them onto the truck. It feels like rocks, one of them complained. He was right. When Seiji's wife asked him why he had packed crits of rocks, he told her he thought they were beautiful. From Den Show, I'm Hanna Maruyama, and this is Kampo.

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Season one of History for the Reckoning is made possible by support from the JACL Mount Olympus chapter, as well as generous financial support from the Takahashi Family Foundation and the JA Community Foundation. The music was produced by Patrick Coffin. If you want to support the show, follow us on Instagram at History for the Reckoning. Sign up for our newsletter at History for the Reckoning on Substack, where you'll also find the show notes for each episode, or support us financially through Patreon at patreon.comslash History for the Reckoning.