Impossible Subjects by Mae M. Ngai

Author:Mae M. Ngai
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2013-10-07T16:00:00+00:00

5.2 Outmigration from War Relocation Authority centers, by year. Outmigration includes indefinite leave and terminal departure for relocation, military service, institutions, internment camps, and repatriation to Japan. (Source: Dorothy Swaine Thomas, The Salvage [Berkeley, 1952], table 25, p. 615.)

At Tule Lake, administrators noted that the most “discernible evacuee reaction [to the rescission of the mass exclusion order] was opposed to relocation” and “passive resistance.” Most troubling to internees, disloyalty no longer guaranteed that they would remain in camp. Worse yet, those given individual exclusion orders by the army (and it was unclear on what grounds these decisions were made) would have to resettle outside of the West Coast. Many drew the conclusion that renouncing citizenship was the now only way to remain in camp. At Tule Lake, internees reported that they were asked during individual exclusion hearings, “Do you want to go out or do you want to renounce your citizenship?”53

Between mid-December and the end of January some 5,500 internees applied to renounce their citizenship. At Tule Lake 85 percent of the citizens over the age of seventeen renounced their citizenship.54 They justified their actions variously—to ensure repatriation, to avoid resettlement, to avoid the draft. A minority was militantly pro-Japan and sought immediate repatriation—those whom the Justice Department had originally targeted. For example, a Nisei woman who, with her husband, joined the resegregationist organizations explained that they had been loyal Americans but were angry that the government interned them and treated their citizenship as

but scrap-papers that gave us no privileges what so ever…. Eventually it is true, that the questions and the discontentments of ours caused us to doubt and turn our mind…. Therefore thousands of us rose decisively to clarify our status by fulfilling our duties for a true sovereign…. We renounced our U.S.A. citizenships to clarify our status so that we would do our parts openly as Japanese whether in time of WAR or after the WAR. We offered our serimonious-bow [sic] to the Emperor of Japan every morning and prayed the Victory of Japan.55

Others would later state that they had been intimidated by the Hokoku Seinen Dan and renounced under pressure and in fear of reprisals.56 But more commonly internees renounced their citizenship for considered, instrumental reasons. Many believed, for example, that only by renouncing citizenship could they avoid resettlement and remain in camp until the war ended. An Issei explained: “Put it this way. If you’re a Hakujin [white American], you take this matter of soiling your loyalty record seriously and would never say anything to [soil] it. But if you’re a Jap and nobody believes your loyalty in this country anyway, you’ll think about your future and your family…. We’re going to have [our children] renounce citizenship just to stay here.”57

A Nisei said, “You know why the boys are renouncing? They are dodging the Army draft.” In some families, the son renounced to avoid the draft but the daughter did not, so the family could keep one foot in America. Even among those who described

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