tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/pearl-harbor-34019/articlesPearl Harbor – The Conversation2023-06-13T12:30:17Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1882682023-06-13T12:30:17Z2023-06-13T12:30:17ZThe overlooked story of the incarceration of Japanese Americans from Hawaii during World War II<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529104/original/file-20230530-23-br74q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=215%2C30%2C742%2C336&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A 1945 photograph of detainees at the Honouliuli Internment Camp.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/bedc8c747d3d46ae9ffe6368e16eb64c">courtesy of National Park Service</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the months and years following Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on Dec. 7, 1941, the U.S. government incarcerated a large number of Japanese American civilians from the U.S. mainland. </p>
<p>Often forgotten are the Japanese Americans who lived in Hawaii and were also forced from their homes and imprisoned in Hawaii and on the U.S. mainland. </p>
<p>Their forced relocation and incarceration has been largely omitted from the dominant narrative of Japanese American internment in the U.S. during World War II. Additionally, attempts by governments to provide redress to those individuals and memorialize their treatment have been slower than for individuals interned on the U.S. mainland. </p>
<h2>Internment in the US mainland and Hawaii</h2>
<p>In February 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt <a href="https://tupress.temple.edu/books/the-rise-and-fall-of-america-s-concentration-camp-law#:%7E:text=It%20restricted%20the%20freedom%20of,it%20was%20repealed%20in%201971.">issued</a> <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/executive-order-9066">Executive Order 9066</a>, which allowed for the creation of U.S. military areas from which people could be excluded. </p>
<p>Although the executive order made no mention of any ethnic group, it implicitly <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-shameful-stories-of-environmental-injustices-at-japanese-american-incarceration-camps-during-wwii-174011">targeted Japanese Americans</a> because of widespread xenophobic fear that they would spy for the Japanese government or engage in acts of sabotage within the U.S.</p>
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<img alt="A crowd of men gathers behind President Franklin D. Roosevelt as he signs a paper." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444560/original/file-20220204-17-keykob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444560/original/file-20220204-17-keykob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444560/original/file-20220204-17-keykob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444560/original/file-20220204-17-keykob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444560/original/file-20220204-17-keykob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444560/original/file-20220204-17-keykob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444560/original/file-20220204-17-keykob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">On Dec. 8, 1941, a day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the U.S. declaration of war against Japan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/cabinet-members-watch-with-mixed-emotions-as-president-news-photo/514080362?adppopup=true">Bettmann/GettyImages</a></span>
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<p>As a result, almost 120,000 civilians of Japanese ancestry, the majority of whom were from the West Coast and were American citizens, were <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4614-9185-9">incarcerated</a> in camps by the government on suspicion that they <a href="https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295984513/judgment-without-trial/">posed a threat</a> to U.S. security on basis of their ancestry.</p>
<p>In Hawaii, which had been colonized by the U.S. in 1898, the incarceration of Japanese Americans was much smaller in scale than that on the mainland.</p>
<p>Given that Japanese Americans <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p067648">made up</a> more than one third of Hawaii’s total population during World War II and thus a sizable <a href="https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295984513/judgment-without-trial/">wartime</a> labor force, U.S. forces incarcerated about <a href="https://www.nativebookshawaii.org/products/bayonets-in-paradise-martial-law-in-hawai%CA%BBi-during-world-war-ii">2,000 Japanese Americans</a> from Hawaii. These people <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/psq.12695">included</a> community figures, Japanese language teachers and Shinto priests.</p>
<p>Additionally, hundreds of Japanese Americans in Hawaii, although not imprisoned, were <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p067648">forcibly removed</a> from their homes, taken to other parts of the territory and, at times, not permitted to return to their homes.</p>
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<img alt="The official government instructions on internment of Japanese Americans." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528699/original/file-20230528-200990-ntvv6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528699/original/file-20230528-200990-ntvv6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528699/original/file-20230528-200990-ntvv6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528699/original/file-20230528-200990-ntvv6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528699/original/file-20230528-200990-ntvv6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1177&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528699/original/file-20230528-200990-ntvv6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1177&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528699/original/file-20230528-200990-ntvv6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1177&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">With the authorization of the U.S. government, the U.S. military rounded up and incarcerated Japanese Americans shortly after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-internment-of-japanese-americans-was-the-world-war-ii-news-photo/1354474652?adppopup=true">History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The Honouliuli Internment Camp, known as Hell Valley among internees, <a href="https://www.nativebookshawaii.org/products/bayonets-in-paradise-martial-law-in-hawai%CA%BBi-during-world-war-ii#:%7E:text=Bayonets%20in%20Paradise%3A%20Martial%20Law%20in%20Hawai%CA%BBi%20During%20World%20War%20II,-%2445.95&text=Hardcover%2C%20489%20pp.,Hawai%CA%BBi%20during%20World%20War%20II.">opened</a> in 1943 on the island of Oahu and was the largest confinement site in Hawaii.</p>
<p>Unlike other camps in Hawaii, it housed civilians and prisoners of war. During its three years of operation, the camp <a href="https://www.nativebookshawaii.org/products/bayonets-in-paradise-martial-law-in-hawai%CA%BBi-during-world-war-ii#:%7E:text=Bayonets%20in%20Paradise%3A%20Martial%20Law%20in%20Hawai%CA%BBi%20During%20World%20War%20II,-%2445.95&text=Hardcover%2C%20489%20pp.,Hawai%CA%BBi%20during%20World%20War%20II.">held around 320</a> Japanese American civilians.</p>
<p>The camps in Hawaii, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-shameful-stories-of-environmental-injustices-at-japanese-american-incarceration-camps-during-wwii-174011">as on the mainland</a>, were crowded, monitored by armed guards and surrounded by barbed wire fences.</p>
<p>As a result of their detention, <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/japanese-americans/justice-denied">former internees have experienced</a> mental health issues alongside heightened rates of suicide and early death.</p>
<h2>Official US redress</h2>
<p>Following <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/a-tragedy-of-democracy/9780231129237">years of advocacy</a> by Japanese American organizations, President Jimmy Carter authorized the creation of the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/111th-congress/house-report/666/1">Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians</a> in 1980.</p>
<p>Three years later, the commission <a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/24746908">issued recommendations</a>, including that the U.S. government apologize and provide reparations of US$20,000 to Japanese American survivors, including Japanese Americans from Hawaii.</p>
<p>Despite his <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/psq.12695">initial opposition </a>to the commission’s recommendation that the U.S. government provide reparations, in 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/100th-congress/house-bill/442">Civil Liberties Act</a>, which provided a formal apology and reparations of $20,000 to many former internees.</p>
<p>At the signing, <a href="https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/remarks-signing-bill-providing-restitution-wartime-internment-japanese-american">Reagan referred</a> to Japanese American internment as a “grave wrong” that was undertaken “without trial … based solely on race.” </p>
<p>Despite this, he made no reference to the fact that the civilian camps were created and run by the U.S. government and Army, nor did he recognize that these actions constituted human rights abuses. </p>
<p>Furthermore, upon its creation, the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/100th-congress/house-bill/442">Civil Liberties Act</a> had a significant flaw – it excluded hundreds of affected Japanese Americans from Hawaii from receiving that restitution.</p>
<p>That oversight was corrected in 1992, when <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p067648">President George H.W. Bush</a> signed into law the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/102nd-congress/house-bill/4551/text">Civil Liberties Act Amendments</a>, which broadened eligibility for restitution.</p>
<h2>Selective memorialization</h2>
<p>Since that period, U.S. government and nongovernment organizations have selectively memorialized Japanese American incarceration by designating some prison camps as national historical sites and creating mainland-centric memorials. </p>
<p>For example, the <a href="https://www.njamemorial.org/visit">National Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During World War II</a> in Washington, D.C., created in 2000, <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=4111">includes multiple walls</a> inscribed with the names of all mainland camps and the number of individuals interned there, but makes no reference to specific incarceration camps in Hawaii.</p>
<p>That said, the monument, which was organized by a Japanese American NGO, does <a href="https://www.nps.gov/places/japanese-american-memorial-to-patriotism-during-world-war-ii.htm">include an inscription</a> which recognizes that Japanese Americans were incarcerated in the mainland and Hawaii. </p>
<p>Additionally, between 1992 and 2008, mainland camps <a href="https://www.nps.gov/manz/index.htm">Manzanar </a>and <a href="https://www.nps.gov/tule/index.htm">Tule Lake</a> in California and <a href="https://www.nps.gov/miin/index.htm">Minidoka</a> in Idaho were designated as national historical sites or monuments by U.S. presidents or Congress. However, it was not until 2015 that President Barack Obama <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/24/presidential-proclamation-establishment-honouliuli-national-monument">designated</a> the Honouliuli Internment Camp a national monument. </p>
<p>This selective memorialization is unsurprising given that Hawaii, like other territories colonized by the U.S., is often <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/how-to-hide-an-empire-9781473545335">omitted</a> from accounts of American history. Nonetheless, such memorialization is problematic, as it reinforces the dominant narrative of Japanese American incarceration that <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/a-tragedy-of-democracy/9780231129237">focuses on</a> the mainland camps and West Coast Japanese Americans and obscures the imprisonment of Japanese Americans from Hawaii. </p>
<p>The bombing of Pearl Harbor has become <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/a-date-which-will-live#:%7E:text=December%207%2C%201941%E2%80%94the%20date,to%20them%20are%20hardly%20settled">ingrained in American memory</a> and, as a result, for many Americans, Hawaii symbolizes white American victimhood. </p>
<p>But as the incarceration of Japanese Americans from Hawaii demonstrates, Hawaii is also a symbol of human rights abuses committed by the U.S. government against Japanese Americans.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188268/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Olivia Tasevski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, he paved the way for the incarceration of Japanese Americans on the mainland and HawaiiOlivia Tasevski, Tutor in International Relations and History, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1822162022-06-16T17:24:58Z2022-06-16T17:24:58ZYour past is my present – how Volodymyr Zelenskyy uses history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467252/original/file-20220606-20-pr3x7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5963%2C3963&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the U.S. Congress on March 16, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RussiaUkraineWarCryptocurrencyDonations/3b2b9f7943c94d3498a8775c31a65ebe/photo">Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times via AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since Russia’s war against his country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has directly addressed the elected representatives of multiple countries in his quest for international support. These speeches have made explicit references to parallels between his country’s current plight and the particular historical experiences of these nations. </p>
<p>This strategy is one of many that Zelenskyy has employed to successfully build international support for Ukraine. As scholars of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=RHXgn2sAAAAJ">post-Soviet politics</a> and the use of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LvQBbVcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">historical memory</a>, we think Zelenskyy’s addresses help garner global support in three key ways: He evokes popular empathy for the Ukrainian people, enables foreign governments to assess their people’s interest in supporting Ukraine, and highlights the importance of territorial sovereignty to world peace.</p>
<h2>References to historical parallels</h2>
<p>Each of Zelenskyy’s speeches included historical references deliberately tailored to resonate with the people of the nation he was addressing at the time.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtDifMeMC68&t=1s">his speech to the German Bundestag</a>, for instance, he referred to the German people as standing behind a wall “between freedom and slavery.” That powerfully evoked the Berlin Wall’s division of post-World War II Germany into two countries, one aligned with the democratic West, and the other with the communist East.</p>
<p>He also reached farther back, referring to the “historical responsibility” of the German people, and making repeated references to the suffering endured by millions of Europeans during World War II because of the Nazi regime’s aggressive territorial expansion and genocidal atrocities. These references might have been particularly potent given Zelenskyy’s own Jewish heritage. </p>
<p>When <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt_CPMYawQs&t=1s">speaking to the Israeli Knesset</a>, Zelenskyy compared the current suffering and forced migration of his people to the experiences of the European Jewish community in the 1930s and 1940s, including fleeing the Holocaust. Specifically he said the Ukrainian “people are now scattered around the world. They are looking for security. They are looking for a way to stay in peace. As you once searched.” </p>
<p>While <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6viGEEi7JjU">addressing the U.S. Congress</a>, Zelenskyy referred to the horrors of unprovoked aggression from hostile foreign forces at Pearl Harbor and on 9/11. He highlighted how these sudden and unanticipated attacks wreaked havoc on the lives of “innocent people.”</p>
<p>Finally, <a href="https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/zvernennya-prezidenta-ukrayini-volodimira-zelenskogo-do-parl-73441">speaking to the British Parliament</a>, he quoted one of <a href="https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/we-shall-fight-on-the-beaches.html">Winston Churchill’s most memorable speeches</a>, delivered at a time when Britain was threatened by, and successfully resisted, an expansionist power – Nazi Germany. Zelenskyy then added his own twist, saying “<a href="https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/we-shall-fight-on-the-beaches.html">We shall fight in the seas</a>, we shall fight in the air, we shall defend our land, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight in the woods, in the fields, on the beaches, in the cities and villages, in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. <a href="https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/zvernennya-prezidenta-ukrayini-volodimira-zelenskogo-do-parl-73441">And I want to add</a>: we shall fight on the spoil tips, on the banks of the Kalmius and the Dnieper! And we shall not surrender!”</p>
<h2>Appeal to emotions</h2>
<p>These historical parallels were intended to appeal to his audiences’ emotions, with the intent of inspiring popular empathy abroad. While <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-04-25-op-27057-story.html">politicians have long evoked history in their rhetoric</a>, Zelenskyy’s use of history is distinct given its variety and intended audience. His goal was not to rally his own people, but to build an international coalition of support.</p>
<p>His historical references tapped into different sentiments in different countries – trauma in the United States and Israel, shame and guilt in Germany, pride in the United Kingdom. But the underlying goal in each instance was to compel the people of these countries to recall their own pasts so that they could sympathize with the pain and suffering of the Ukrainian people today.</p>
<p>In addition, his appeals prompted broader conversations in the media and among the public, revealing popular sentiment toward the conflict and allowing leaders to gauge reactions to the possibility of their country’s increased involvement. Where people were more receptive to Zelenskyy’s historical parallels, leaders could feel more confident that their policies supporting Ukraine would receive broad popular support. </p>
<p>The appeal of his message in Germany seemed clear when the Bundestag’s <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/zelenskyy-speech-sparks-soul-search-germany/">immediate transition to other matters of state following Zelenskyy’s speech drew public outrage</a>. Since then, Germany has <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-germany-supplying-howitzers-antiaircraft/31837562.html">continued to increase its assistance</a>.</p>
<p>Zelenskyy’s address to the U.S. Congress evoked concern and empathy for the Ukrainian people among both <a href="https://time.com/6157965/zelensky-congress-speech-aid/">elected representatives</a> and <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/pain-frustration-hope-americans-react-zelenskyy-plea-83488052">the public</a>. Within hours of this speech, <a href="https://time.com/6157965/zelensky-congress-speech-aid/">President Joe Biden announced an additional $800 million package of military support for Ukraine</a>.</p>
<p>There was <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/polling-ukraine-support-for-sanctions-and-governments-handling-grows">popular support for Ukraine among the U.K. public even prior to Zelenskyy’s speech</a>. Leading up to the speech, the government <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-03-11/britain-johnson-response-ukraine-war-refugees-sanctions">was criticized for not doing enough to help Ukrainian refugees</a>. Two days after the speech, the U.K. government <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorial/the-irish-times-view-on-britain-s-ukraine-response-we-ll-help-but-please-stay-away-1.4823686">announced an overhaul of the visa application process for Ukrainian refugees</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467290/original/file-20220606-20-mhr8qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man on a video screen addresses a room full of people." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467290/original/file-20220606-20-mhr8qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467290/original/file-20220606-20-mhr8qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467290/original/file-20220606-20-mhr8qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467290/original/file-20220606-20-mhr8qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467290/original/file-20220606-20-mhr8qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467290/original/file-20220606-20-mhr8qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467290/original/file-20220606-20-mhr8qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the British Parliament on March 8, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ukrainian-president-volodymyr-zelensky-addresses-mps-in-the-news-photo/1239027760">House of Commons/PA Images via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>In contrast, Zelenskyy’s attempts to draw connections between the current situation in Ukraine and the Holocaust <a href="https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hjn3nxbf5">drew criticism</a> from <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/zelensky-sparks-indignation-israel-infuriating-holocaust-comparison-1689850">across the political spectrum in Israel</a>. Israel’s support for Ukraine has been relatively <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/israels-support-of-ukraine-alliance-isrisky-but-unavoidable/2022/05/03/759e8378-caaf-11ec-b7ee-74f09d827ca6_story.html">muted and cautious</a>. The poor reception of this historical analogy played into <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/report-russia-middle-east-national-security-challenges-united-states-and-israel-biden">Israel’s reluctance to support Ukraine</a>. </p>
<h2>A key shared ideal</h2>
<p>Perhaps Zelenskyy’s best rhetorical tactic was his appeal to the liberal ideals of the post-World War II order. By threatening Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty, Russia has also threatened a foundational principle of the largely peaceful era since 1945 – a country’s sovereignty. </p>
<p>He used this shared value in different ways. For example, he reminded Americans when their <a href="https://www.nps.gov/perl/index.htm">territorial security was compromised</a> and the British when theirs was <a href="https://worldwar2.org.uk/the-battle-of-britain">preserved through resistance</a>. But the goal was the same – to unite and mobilize international support behind his nation in an otherwise fractured global environment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182216/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>History brought Ukraine’s plight home to people around the world, and helped mobilize political and military support against the Russian invasion.Anil Menon, Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science, University of MichiganPauline Jones, Professor of Political Science, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1740112022-02-10T13:38:11Z2022-02-10T13:38:11ZThe shameful stories of environmental injustices at Japanese American incarceration camps during WWII<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444561/original/file-20220204-23-1u417w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=547%2C395%2C2447%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dust storm on July 3, 1942, at the Manzanar War Relocation Authority Center in California.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/539961">Dorothea Lange/Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Japanese fighter pilots bombed the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Thomas S. Takemura was raising vegetables and raspberries on his family’s 14 ½-acre farm in Tacoma, Washington. </p>
<p>It wasn’t long after the United States declared war on Japan that Takemura and other people of Japanese ancestry were stripped of their rights and shipped off to incarceration camps scattered in small remote towns like Hunt, Idaho, and Delta, Utah. Scorching heat and dust storms added to the day-to-day misery. </p>
<p>Takemura’s incarceration began on May 12, 1942, just a week before he could harvest his lettuce. </p>
<p>“What a shame,” he later said. “What a shame.”</p>
<p>Takemura gave <a href="https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-67-153/">this detailed account</a> in 1981 when he testified before the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/japanese-americans/hearings">Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians</a>. This commission investigated the wrongful imprisonment of Japanese Americans, one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice in American history. </p>
<p>All told, Takemura estimated he lost at least $10,000 in farm profits for each of the four years he was gone. But the total costs were not just about the money, he told the commission. </p>
<p>Takemura also lost “love and affection,” he testified, “and much more when a person is ordered to evacuate and leave his home without knowing where he is going or when he can return. … To me, words cannot describe the feeling and the losses.” </p>
<h2>Wartime hysteria</h2>
<p>Takemura’s wartime tragedy was the result of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s signing of <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=74&page=transcript">Executive Order 9066</a> on Feb. 19, 1942, 80 years ago this month. The order allowed for the creation of military areas from which people could be excluded. </p>
<p>It did not mention any specific racial group but Japanese Americans were the clear target because of widespread fear that they would become spies for the Japanese government or commit acts of sabotage within the United States. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A crowd of men gathers behind President Franklin D. Roosevelt as he signs a paper." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444560/original/file-20220204-17-keykob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444560/original/file-20220204-17-keykob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444560/original/file-20220204-17-keykob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444560/original/file-20220204-17-keykob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444560/original/file-20220204-17-keykob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444560/original/file-20220204-17-keykob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444560/original/file-20220204-17-keykob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">On Dec. 8, 1941, a day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the U.S. declaration of war against Japan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/cabinet-members-watch-with-mixed-emotions-as-president-news-photo/514080362?adppopup=true">Bettmann/GettyImages</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On March 2, Gen. John L. Dewitt, head of the Western Defense Command, created Military Area 1, which encompassed western Washington, Oregon and California and southern Arizona, and Military Area 2, which included the rest of these states. By the end of summer 1942, roughly <a href="https://densho.org/catalyst/how-many-japanese-americans-were-incarcerated-during-wwii/">110,000 Japanese Americans</a>, two-thirds of whom were United States citizens, had been expelled from their homes in <a href="https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/anthropology74/images/figure1.1.jpg">Military Area 1 and the California portion of Military Area 2</a>.</p>
<p>They were confined in 10 <a href="https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/japanese-relocation">hastily constructed camps</a> in California, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and Arkansas. While some were allowed to leave camp for military service, college or jobs, many lived in these desolate places until the war ended three years later. </p>
<p>Japanese Americans’ wartime experiences have been the subject of numerous books, essays, <a href="https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Literary%20works%20on%20incarceration">memoirs, novels</a>, <a href="https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Dramatic%20films/videos%20on%20incarceration">films</a>, <a href="https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Museum%20exhibitions%20on%20incarceration">museum exhibits</a> and <a href="https://densho.org/campu/">podcasts</a> – all of which highlight their fortitude in the face of this blatant violation of their civil liberties. Because many survivors tried to move on with their lives quickly, the postwar period does not figure prominently in most of these narratives. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black-and-white photo shows a woman standing in the doorway of one of a series of connected huts bordered by a muddy ditch." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444566/original/file-20220204-23-17w3dez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444566/original/file-20220204-23-17w3dez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444566/original/file-20220204-23-17w3dez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444566/original/file-20220204-23-17w3dez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444566/original/file-20220204-23-17w3dez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444566/original/file-20220204-23-17w3dez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444566/original/file-20220204-23-17w3dez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Japanese American families lived in these converted horse stalls at the Tanforan Assembly Center in San Bruno, California, shown in this April 29, 1942, photograph.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/537670">Dorothea Lange/Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But there was a gathering wave of discontent among some Japanese Americans in the 1960s and 1970s. With the backdrop of the civil rights movement and anti-Vietnam War protests, leaders of the <a href="https://jacl.org/">Japanese Americans Citizens League</a> and many other activists began to push for redress. They sought the restoration of civil rights, a formal apology and monetary compensation from the U.S. government.</p>
<p>With the support of U.S. Sens. Daniel Inouye and Spark Matsunaga and U.S. Reps. Norman Mineta and Robert Matsui, the league’s redress committee, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/03/24/820181127/the-unlikely-story-behind-japanese-americans-campaign-for-reparations">led by John Tateishi</a>, successfully lobbied Congress to create the <a href="https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Commission_on_Wartime_Relocation_and_Internment_of_Civilians/">Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians </a>in 1980. </p>
<p>Its nine appointed members were tasked by Congress to review Executive Order 9066 and other military directives that required the detention of U.S. citizens and permanent resident aliens. In addition to conducting archival research, they traveled across the country to take testimony from over 750 witnesses, <a href="https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/tacomacomm/id/54">including Takemura</a>, between July and December 1981. </p>
<p>Over 20 days of hearings, Japanese Americans’ poignant stories of freedoms extinguished and indignities endured poured out like a flood and coursed through the hearing rooms. </p>
<h2>Environmental hazards</h2>
<p>As Takemura’s story suggests, many testimonies made clear that Japanese Americans’ wartime anguish was embedded in the natural environment, from the temperate lands of the Pacific coast to the arid deserts of the inland West. </p>
<p>In other words, the impact of Executive Order 9066 was not just political, economic and cultural. It was also environmental. When former farmers spoke of their displacement, they referred to specific plots of land and specific crops, their years of tending the soil lost to neglect or rapacious speculators.</p>
<p>Like Takemura, <a href="https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-352-350/">Clarence I. Nishizu</a>, whose family farmed in Orange County, California, kept on planting vegetables after the war started, “since I thought that I, as an American citizen, would not be subject to evacuation and internment,” Nishizu later testified. </p>
<p>He was proved wrong, and his family members lost their crops and land. “I was uprooted just at the time when the bud of the rose started to bloom,” he testified. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black-and-white photo depicts seven people squatting in a strawberry field holding harvesting boxes, with mountains and farm buildings visible behind them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444569/original/file-20220204-501-3k4e9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444569/original/file-20220204-501-3k4e9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444569/original/file-20220204-501-3k4e9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444569/original/file-20220204-501-3k4e9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444569/original/file-20220204-501-3k4e9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444569/original/file-20220204-501-3k4e9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444569/original/file-20220204-501-3k4e9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this April 5, 1942, photograph, a Japanese American family harvests strawberries near Mission San Jose, California, just a few days before their forced removal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/537837">Dorothea Lange/Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Japanese Americans’ despair was also tied to the harsh environmental conditions of the camps, from blistering heat to blinding dust storms. In describing the trip to Manzanar, a “barren and desolate” camp in eastern California, <a href="https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-67-359/">Dr. Mary Oda</a> recalled, “My first reaction to camp was one of dismay and disbelief.” </p>
<p>In addition to the emotional toll wrought by the bleak surroundings, the physical toll was considerable. Oda said her older sister developed bronchial asthma, “a reaction to the terrible dust storms and winds,” and died at the age of 26. Her father had “constant nasal irritation” and later died of nose and throat cancer. </p>
<p>Oda was not alone in enduring the untimely deaths of beloved family members. <a href="https://collections.carli.illinois.edu/digital/collection/nei_japan/id/1631">Toyo Suyemoto</a> testified about the environment’s devastating impact on her son’s health. Starting at the Tanforan Assembly Center, a racetrack where horse stalls housed humans, infant Kay developed asthma and allergies and struggled with these conditions until his death in 1958 at the age of 16. </p>
<p><a href="https://neiudc.neiu.edu/jarc-hearing/11">Her voice cracking</a> ever so slightly, she concluded, “I simply wonder, members of the commission, what my son, Kay, who would have been 40 years old this year, might be able to tell you today had he lived, for he was a blessing to me.” </p>
<h2>A formal US apology</h2>
<p>One year after the hearings, the commission published <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/japanese-americans/justice-denied">Personal Justice Denied</a>, a nearly 500-page report that concluded Executive Order 9066 was driven by “race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership.”</p>
<p>Even former Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson admitted, “to loyal citizens this forced evacuation was a personal injustice.” </p>
<p>The testimonies validated this point hundreds of times over, but they demonstrated that the incarceration was also an environmental injustice. </p>
<p>Japanese Americans’ losses and suffering did not emerge in an environmental vacuum. The federal government’s decision to wrest them away from their land and place them in unfamiliar and unforgiving places contributed to and amplified wartime inequities. </p>
<p>Based on the commission’s recommendations, Congress passed the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/100/statute/STATUTE-102/STATUTE-102-Pg903.pdf">Civil Liberties Act of 1988</a>, giving every living victim a formal presidential apology and $20,000. All told, <a href="https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Civil_Liberties_Act_of_1988/">82,219 people</a>
received redress.</p>
<p>The success of the redress movement, however, did not mark the end of political action. Takemura spoke about his wartime experiences in local high school history classes for several years before his death in 1997, recognizing that many young people were “completely ignorant” about the incarceration. </p>
<p>Survivors and their families, activists and scholars also remain vocal, and they continue to draw attention to the environmental dimensions of the Japanese American incarceration. Most years, they make pilgrimages to the former camp sites, some of which are administered by the National Park Service as national historic sites, landmarks and monuments. </p>
<p>As they speak about the fragility of civil rights, then and now, they gaze at the same lonely vistas as their forebears and feel the wind kick up the dust or the sun beat down on their faces. They experience, even for a brief moment, the isolation and devastation of exile and confinement. </p>
<p>Eighty years after Executive Order 9066, amid a sharp increase in <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/anti-asian-hate-crimes-342-203747678.html">Asian hate crimes</a>, the fight for justice remains as urgent as ever. </p>
<p>[<em>More than 140,000 readers get one of The Conversation’s informative newsletters.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140K">Join the list today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174011/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Connie Y. Chiang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, he caved to war hysteria and paved the way for the incarceration of Japanese Americans.Connie Y. Chiang, Professor of History and Environmental Studies, Bowdoin CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1076982018-12-06T18:55:58Z2018-12-06T18:55:58ZRemembering Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into the theatre of war<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248389/original/file-20181203-194922-1iay0s8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=110%2C343%2C2825%2C1945&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The USS Arizona sunk after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>December 7, 1941. A date which will live in infamy. The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Thus began President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s <a href="http://time.com/4593483/pearl-harbor-franklin-roosevelt-infamy-speech-attack/">speech declaring war against Japan</a>. On the 77th anniversary of Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, we do well to revisit these words, for they claim “casus belli”: provocation where <a href="http://www.willamette.edu/law/resources/journals/review//pdf/volume-50/50-3-nafziger.pdf">war is a justified response</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lK8gYGg0dkE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares war on Japan the day after American naval and military forces were attacked at Pearl Harbor.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Churchill had begged Roosevelt to enter the war against the Axis (Japan, Germany, Italy) for months, but without casus belli, the American President refused. The US had a tradition of “non-interventionism” in European affairs, and its Congress had passed Neutrality Acts in the 1930s to prevent US entanglement in the power politics of the old world that might lead to war. The attack on Pearl Harbor marked a violent end to this era, and the beginning of America’s rise to the centre of world power.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-attack-on-pearl-harbor-shaped-americas-role-in-the-world-69963">How the attack on Pearl Harbor shaped America's role in the world</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Narrative of redemption</h2>
<p>Psychologist <a href="https://www.psychology.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/core/profiles/dan-mcadams.html">Dan McAdams</a> writes that the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15427609.2006.9683363">narrative of redemption</a> - a story turning from bad to good - is fundamental to the American national identity and character. Roosevelt cast his declaration of war just so: after recounting Japan’s military deeds, he says: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the case of Pearl Harbor, history vindicated Roosevelt’s claim. There is consensus that America’s entry into the war was justified, in the <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2015/ga11641.doc.htm">United Nations</a> and in <a href="https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2014/06/06/70-years-d-day">American public opinion</a>. Consensus is crucial to the force and magnitude of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022022109335557">collective remembering</a>. More than this, the consequences of American entry into the theatre of war warrants a redemption narrative casting the USA as a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1348/014466605X27162">heroic nation in the making of modernity</a>. </p>
<p>The Axis was responsible for the deaths of more than 20 million civilians worldwide (about half in Asia, half in Europe). American entry into the conflict coupled with Russians’ heroic defence of their motherland turned the tide against that brutality.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248387/original/file-20181203-194922-119p72b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248387/original/file-20181203-194922-119p72b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248387/original/file-20181203-194922-119p72b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248387/original/file-20181203-194922-119p72b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248387/original/file-20181203-194922-119p72b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1094&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248387/original/file-20181203-194922-119p72b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1094&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248387/original/file-20181203-194922-119p72b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1094&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Visitors at the National World War II Memorial.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Matthew Cavanaugh</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Truth and facts</h2>
<p>Narrative configures facts as “food for thought” in the greater meaning underlying its surface words. Because Stalin was a brutal dictator, and because Western democracies were going to enter into a half century of Cold War with the Communists over whose system would dominate, Russian heroism in WWII is less celebrated in the world’s collective remembering than American. </p>
<p>Churchill once quipped: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>History shall be kind to me, for I intend to write it. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Winners write widely accepted history as part of their story of why they have the right to rule. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2928520.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Losers’ versions of history are frequently forgotten</a>, along with the facts that supported them.</p>
<p>Misquoting <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/france/alexis-de-tocqueville">Alexis de Toqueville</a> in 1983, President Ronald Reagan said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>America is good. If America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Reagan <a href="http://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/reagan-evil-empire-speech-text/">invented this quote</a> to argue that the “shrewdest of all observers of America” attributed its greatness to church-going. He contrasted this with the godlessness of their great rival, the Soviet Union: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>While they preach the supremacy of the State, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>History as soft power</h2>
<p>Reagan understood that victory in WWII provided both the US and the Soviet Union with soft and hard power. Even he practised military buildup, he negotiated for arms control, but ultimately undermined the soft power of the Soviets with speeches like this. </p>
<p>It was soft, not hard power that brought about the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYD6ouVHXbo&feature=youtu.be">collapse of the Soviet Union</a>. This required Soviet leader Gorbachev to buy into the story of <a href="http://www.coldwar.org/articles/80s/glasnostandperestroika.asp">glasnost</a> (openness), which was most assuredly keyed to major themes in Western, not Soviet narratives (or its constitution).</p>
<p>The power of narrative is extraordinary, and not as well understood as hard power (e.g. armies). Stories about people like Hitler, the <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0115641">most evil man in the history of the world</a> according to young people today, have the power to cast people and peoples as heroes and villains. These augment or undermine hard power. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/08/04/the-legacy-of-world-war-two-still-evident-in-german-and-japanese-public-opinion-and-relevant-today-in-dealing-with-russia-and-china/">burden of history for the Axis nations</a> Germany and Japan, cast as the villains of WWII, crippled their ability to assert global political power through the latter half of the 20th century, even though they were among the most powerful economies in the world. </p>
<p>The formation of the European Union was assisted by two <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/135017699343504">complementary forces in terms of soft power</a>: Germans needing a positive (superordinate) identity after the war, and French identity becoming more Europeanised as a way to bolster French power. While the signing of treaties forming the European Economic Community and then the European Union may have been decisive, historians assisted by developing more consensual accounts of the past that allowed <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Valerie_Rosoux/publication/233628896_National_Identity_in_France_and_Germany_From_Mutual_Exclusion_to_Negotiation/links/59e26752aca2724cbfe0142a/National-Identity-in-France-and-Germany-From-Mutual-Exclusion-to-Negotiation.pdf">new identities to emerge</a>, ending more than a century of competition and revenge-based warfare between these two states. </p>
<p>By contrast, Japan’s <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2008-02216-018">inability to come to a consensus</a> about the meaning of WWII with its neighbours has rendered Asia incapable of gaining the level of agreement necessary for an “Asian Union”.</p>
<p>The relevance of these collective memories may be fading as a focus of world attention with the rise of China. China’s rise is not a direct consequence of WWII, but the work of two to three generations following in its wake. History is a moving feast of lessons and identity positions that thrives as communicative or “<a href="http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/propylaeumdok/1774/1/Assmann_Communicative_and_cultural_memory_2008.pdf">living memory</a>” of generations alive communicating to one another the stories of their lives. </p>
<p>The bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the heroism of the United States in response provided America with an unparalleled position of soft and hard power following WWII: a narrative of redemption. The near dismemberment of China and its suffering at the hands of Japan provided China with a different identity position and different lesson. As WWII fades from living memory, and new crises emerge to challenge our world, what new lessons and identity positions will the new century carve out?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107698/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James H. Liu has received funding from Victoria University of Wellington and the Chiang Ching Guo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange that partially supported some of the research presented in this article</span></em></p>On the 77th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, it is worth remembering how it provided America with an unparalleled position of power following the second world war.James H. Liu, Professor of Psychology, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/902732018-01-17T18:30:49Z2018-01-17T18:30:49ZLife, death and politics in Hawaii: 125 years of colonial rule<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202326/original/file-20180117-53295-100482p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The fear and distress caused by a false missile alarm last week on Jan. 13 in Hawaii is part of the 125 year legacy of American occupation. Here, cars drive past a highway sign: "Missile alert in error. There is no threat" on the H-1 Freeway in Honolulu. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Cory Lum/Civil Beat via AP)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The effects of a political overthrow that happened 125 years ago in Hawaii could not have been felt more vividly this month. The fear and distress that cast a shadow over the Hawaiian islands on Saturday morning during a false missile alert is part of the legacy of American occupation. </p>
<p>No one should have received that abrupt notice that their lives would end in roughly 12 minutes, the time it takes a missile to travel from North Korea to the islands. Least of all the people whose land, food, culture, and traditions have been under siege for a century and a quarter.</p>
<p>Since moving to Honolulu five years ago to begin a position as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/milk-a-symbol-of-neo-nazi-hate-83292">professor at the University of Hawaii law school</a>, I have felt ambivalent at best about my place here. Outsiders meet this ambivalence with disbelief. They think I live in paradise. What they are missing is how it feels, and what it means, to know that my life here arises from and relies upon the oppression of the people whose land I live, work and play on.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202332/original/file-20180117-53307-1lcgalp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202332/original/file-20180117-53307-1lcgalp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202332/original/file-20180117-53307-1lcgalp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202332/original/file-20180117-53307-1lcgalp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202332/original/file-20180117-53307-1lcgalp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202332/original/file-20180117-53307-1lcgalp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202332/original/file-20180117-53307-1lcgalp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">On Jan. 17, 1893, Hawaii’s monarchy was overthrown when a group of businessmen and sugar planters forced Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/jan-17-1893-hawaiian-monarchy-overthrown-by-america-backed-businessmen/">In 1893, American businessmen overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy</a> to avoid taxes on their sugar imports to the United States. In the name of profit, they worked tirelessly to eradicate Hawaiian culture and language — everything that could make Hawaiian resistance stronger. </p>
<p>Their efforts did not succeed. Resistance is as strong as ever. On the anniversary of Queen Liliukalani’s forced abdication, thousands march in peace to protest the illegal overthrow, honour the Hawaiian monarchs and celebrate Hawaiian culture and traditions.</p>
<p>Ongoing U.S. occupation and militarization of the islands puts Hawaiians in perpetual peril. Pearl Harbor brought this danger tragically to life. Saturday’s missile alert represented the culmination of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-and-north-korea-military-action-will-be-a-disaster-so-a-more-patient-thoughtful-solution-is-required-76318">chain of irresponsible exchanges between U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un</a>, leader of the Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK). </p>
<p>During the same time period, Trump has repeatedly <a href="https://theconversation.com/shithole-countries-trump-uses-the-rhetoric-of-dictators-89850">made his disdain for Black and brown people clear</a>. He is more than willing to sacrifice lives he does not value to prove he has a bigger button or to distract from disastrous domestic policies. He can tolerate the casualties of some whites and soldiers when the majority of the hurt will fall upon <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-lies-are-white-nationalist-gospel-90089">people historically subject to American policies of hatred and exclusion</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202324/original/file-20180117-53324-1nx6irh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202324/original/file-20180117-53324-1nx6irh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202324/original/file-20180117-53324-1nx6irh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202324/original/file-20180117-53324-1nx6irh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1065&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202324/original/file-20180117-53324-1nx6irh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1338&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202324/original/file-20180117-53324-1nx6irh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202324/original/file-20180117-53324-1nx6irh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1338&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The missile alarm was loud.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A loud alarm</h2>
<p>On Saturday, I was talking and playing with my eight-year-old twins in bed when my phone gave off a loud alarm, the one that usually signals a flash flood. It was a clear, sunny day. I picked up the phone and read the message: “Ballistic missile threat incoming to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter.” Then the five words that made it real: “This is not a drill.” </p>
<p>In that split second, fears of nuclear devastation that I had harboured since I was a young child in Toronto flared up. I quickly pushed down the guilt I felt at moving my children to a military target. At not moving them away when the danger first arose, and as it built. </p>
<p>Only the day before, in the midst of talks of possible reconciliation, <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/trump-officials-mull-north-korea-strike-bloody-nose.html">Trump threatened to give North Korea a “bloody nose.”</a> Military analysts <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-case-for-using-military-force-against-north-korea-89747">wrote that a nuclear strike would be a logical response</a> to this threat, providing the only opportunity to take out the U.S. Pacific Command, located at Pearl Harbor. I had no reason not to take the warning seriously. And there was no time to think. I had to move.</p>
<p>I threw on clothes and told the kids to do the same. I told them why. I did not have the energy or forethought to lie. I did not have an emergency kit. I grabbed onto their hands and ran across the street to Safeway. </p>
<p>I thought it would have an enclosed, safe room. It didn’t. We went into the bathroom. One of my children was so brave. She stood close to me, silently. The other couldn’t stop crying because we were about to die. I held them both and told them to be positive, to think that everything would be alright. We waited. </p>
<p>Eventually, news of a false alert appeared on my phone, but I didn’t know what to believe. Someone knocked on the bathroom door. He confirmed the rumours of a false alert, but still there was no all-clear. It didn’t come until 10 minutes later. Then I could allow myself to feel again. But the feelings are too painful to hold for very long.</p>
<p>My mind understands that a <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42677604">state employee made an error</a>, in the context of a flawed system, that created unnecessary panic. My heart stands ready for the next alert, when I may not be lucky enough to hold my kids in our last moments. It hurts now to let them out of my sight.</p>
<p>Some of my friends reacted completely differently. They had no desire to survive a nuclear blast. When the alert came, they went outside and looked to the west, where they would see the blast and die quickly and peacefully. </p>
<p>Some of my neighbours who, like me, came to this island to take jobs that should never have been theirs, for a university that has reneged time and again on its promise to be a Hawaiian place of learning, contemplated arming themselves. They want guns to protect themselves in case chaos erupts next time we get the alert. </p>
<p>The “peaceful” overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom has been anything but, even 125 years later.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90273/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Freeman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The fear and distress caused by a false missile alarm last week in Hawaii is part of the 125- year legacy of American occupation.Andrea Freeman, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Hawaii William S. Richardson School of Law, University of HawaiiLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/871132017-11-24T09:21:44Z2017-11-24T09:21:44ZYou must remember this: Casablanca at 75 – still a classic of WWII propaganda<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196176/original/file-20171123-17985-salw1e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Casablanca trailer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Casablanca, which brought together the combined star-power of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, remains one of the best-loved movies ever produced in Hollywood. But the film, which hit the silver screen on November 26 1942, is more than just a love story set in Morocco. Released in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor – which propelled a reluctant United States to enter World War II – the film was actually a classic piece of propaganda cinema masquerading as popular entertainment. </p>
<p>When war broke out in Europe in September 1939, the United States was the only major power with <a href="https://fas.org/irp/ops/ci/docs/ci2/2ch3_a.htm">neither an intelligence nor a propaganda agency</a>. But this all changed after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Just as intelligence would be essential for shaping and directing political and military objectives in Europe and Asia as the conflict spread, propaganda would be vital for supporting the American war effort by shaping and directing American ideas and beliefs in relation to the conflict. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194227/original/file-20171112-29328-4j10u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194227/original/file-20171112-29328-4j10u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194227/original/file-20171112-29328-4j10u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=880&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194227/original/file-20171112-29328-4j10u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=880&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194227/original/file-20171112-29328-4j10u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=880&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194227/original/file-20171112-29328-4j10u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194227/original/file-20171112-29328-4j10u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194227/original/file-20171112-29328-4j10u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A theatrical poster for Casablanca.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CasablancaPoster-Gold.jpg">Wikimedia/Warner Bros</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In June 1942, the office of war information (OWI) <a href="http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/wwii/jb_wwii_owi_1.html">was set up</a> to promote the war effort and was given the task of developing campaigns to enhance public understanding of the war at home and abroad. A key element of this was the co-ordination of government information activities, as well as liaising with the press, radio, and – crucially – motion pictures. </p>
<p>In effect, the OWI was charged with selling the war. After experimenting with propaganda in the form of posters and documentaries, the OWI turned to more imaginative sources. Its director, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elmer-Davis">Elmer Davis</a> – formerly a reporter with the New York Times and CBS – made this key observation:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people’s minds is to let it go in through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realise they are being propagandised. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hollywood would play a significant role in this. For box office reasons as much as political ones, Hollywood was eager to harness the medium of entertainment to support the war effort. And so several popular films made at this time – including <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035093/">Mrs Miniver</a> (1942), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036172/">The More the Merrier</a> (1943), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036430/">This is the Army</a> (1943), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037280/">Since You Went Away</a> (1944) – combined traditional artistic and entertainment concerns with a <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1888275">purposeful political dimension</a>. </p>
<p>The agency issued specific guidelines, as well as reviewing scripts and early cuts of films, making suggestions for insertions or deletions. It required film makers to consider seven questions before producing a movie: </p>
<ol>
<li>Will this picture help win the war? </li>
<li>What war information problem does it seek to clarify, dramatise, or interpret? </li>
<li>If it is an “escape” picture, will it harm the war effort by creating a false picture of America, her allies, or the world we live in? </li>
<li>Does it merely use the war as the basis for a profitable picture, contributing nothing of real significance to the war effort and possibly lessening the effect of other pictures of more importance? </li>
<li>Does it contribute something new to our understanding of the world conflict and the various forces involved, or has the subject already been adequately </li>
<li>When the picture reaches its maximum circulation on the screen, will it reflect conditions as they are and fill a need current at that time, or will it be out-dated? </li>
<li>Does the picture tell the truth or will the young people of today have reason to say they were misled by propaganda?</li>
</ol>
<h2>A beautiful friendship</h2>
<p>At the heart of Casablanca is a concern with the implications of American isolationism in the context of the threat posed to Europe by Nazism. </p>
<figure>
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<p>Elements of the dialogue between characters in the film echo and then argue with contemporary American foreign policy attitudes – offering reasons to engage. Bogart is perfectly cast as cynical bar owner Rick, an American formerly living in Paris who has fled the German occupation to open his Café Americain, which has become a melting pot of wartime nationalities. Rick advances what had traditionally been a popular American justification for isolationism:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I stick my neck out for nobody. The problems of this world are not in my department. I’m a saloon keeper.“</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But for Roosevelt’s administration – and for increasing numbers of Americans – the attack on Pearl Harbor had shattered any lingering illusions that America might turn its back on the world. From this perspective the story of Casablanca is the story of Rick’s transition from aloof to engaged. This is made explicit by the owner of the Blue Parrot cafe, Signor Ferrari (Sydney Greenstreet), who tells Rick:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My dear Rick, when will you realise that in the world today, isolationism is no longer a practical policy? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But more dynamic than these relatively subtle pieces of dialogue is the famous scene where Rick clearly takes sides, showing the audience who he believes are the heroes and the villains of the European conflict. </p>
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<p>A contingent of German officers is singing nationalist songs. Victor Lazlo (Paul Heinreid), a heroic resistance fighter who represents the nobility and sacrifice of the oppressed Europeans, demands that the band play La Marseillaise, the French national anthem. The band look to Rick, who nods assent and in that nod he relinquishes his isolationism. The anthem is rousingly played and the Nazis, who initially try to sing more loudly, are drowned out by the patrons singing in unison and they give up. By identifying with Rick, moviegoers were encouraged to make the same choice. </p>
<p>Casablanca is a dramatic, heartbreaking movie, an unsurpassed classic from Hollywood’s golden era. But it is also an extremely effective piece of propaganda cinema, persuading an American audience reluctant to commit to another European conflict to set aside its isolationism simply by dramatising the heroism of the European resistance to Nazi Germany.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87113/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen McVeigh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>More than just a romance, Casablanca was an overt call to arms for the US public.Stephen McVeigh, Associate Professor in War and Society, Swansea UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/701032016-12-26T08:24:58Z2016-12-26T08:24:58ZShinzo Abe visits Pearl Harbour just as the spectre of internment returns<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150179/original/image-20161214-2517-1ypkt2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Japanese-American internees.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Japanese_internment_detainees.jpg">US Department of the Interior via Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Japanese prime minster, Shinzo Abe, is set to visit Pearl Harbour just after the 75th anniversary of the surprise attack that brought the US into the World War II. Abe is only the <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/12/08/national/history/abe-predecessor-visited-pearl-harbor-1951/#.WFBqcFxW4fR">second Japanese premier</a> to visit Pearl Harbour, and will be the first to visit the USS Arizona Memorial. </p>
<p>But while everyone is familiar with the most obvious consequence of the Pearl Harbour attack, the assault kicked off a number of events in the US itself that still resonate today – none more so than the policy of <a href="https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/japanese-relocation">internment</a>, which involved the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans.</p>
<p>As soon as the US declared war on Japan (and thereafter Germany and Italy), citizens of <a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199695669.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199695669-e-26">Axis</a> nations living in America became enemy aliens. Germans, Austrians, Italians and Japanese were all subject to harassment and abuse – not all that unlike the sort of hatred <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-37945386">many Americans have encountered</a> since the election of Donald Trump. </p>
<p>This recent abuse has in many ways been encouraged by the campaign. President-elect Donald Trump and his supporters have been vocal in their support for policies such as building a wall along the <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/12/05/how-trump-could-get-mexicans-to-pay-for-the-wall/#4ec2f31e6863">US-Mexico border</a>, their feelings towards <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-racist-examples_us_56d47177e4b03260bf777e83">minorities</a>, and the idea of creating a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/11/20/donald-trump-says-hed-absolutely-require-muslims-to-register/?_r=1">Muslim registry</a>. The message both then and now is clear – those who look or sound different to mainstream America are easy targets for hate.</p>
<p>Since Trump won the election, some of these ideas have been discussed more than others. But in November 2016, a prominent Trump supporter, former Navy SEAL <a href="https://twitter.com/carlhigbie?lang=en">Carl Higbie</a>, said on FOX news that he believed the mass internment of people of Japanese ancestry was a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/11/17/japanese-internment-is-precedent-for-national-muslim-registry-prominent-trump-backer-says/?utm_term=.4ac1fad5b5f5">valid precedent</a> for a registry of immigrants from Muslim countries. </p>
<p>The Japanese American community – and scholars of Japanese American internment – have been quick to point out that trying that trying to claim internment as precedent for registering Muslims is <a href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/opinion/why-korematsu-is-not-a-precedent.html">bad legal history</a>. More than that, it represents a fundamental misinterpretation of history that puts everyone’s constitutional rights at risk. </p>
<h2>Taking names</h2>
<p>The idea that a government can or should register members of a group believed to be a threat to national security is hardly new. During times of war, it’s often expected that enemy aliens will be monitored by the authorities, subject to curfews and other restrictions, and in some cases be interned. </p>
<p>During the World War II, for example, German, Austrian, and Italian citizens who lived in the US went before tribunals that would decide whether or not they constituted a threat to national security – those judged to be dangerous were interned. In the case of those of Japanese ancestry, however, they were rounded up en masse as a racial group – and a significant proportion of those interned were children. To highlight the similarities between then and now, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Smithsonian/videos/10154351069869574">a film has been produced</a> in which contemporary Muslim children read letters written by Japanese American children who were interned. Even after 75 years, their hopes and fears are depressingly familiar.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150530/original/image-20161216-26137-1udbp8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150530/original/image-20161216-26137-1udbp8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150530/original/image-20161216-26137-1udbp8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150530/original/image-20161216-26137-1udbp8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150530/original/image-20161216-26137-1udbp8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150530/original/image-20161216-26137-1udbp8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150530/original/image-20161216-26137-1udbp8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Bush-era Department of Homeland Security had its overreaches as well.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DHS_appropriations_signing.jpg">Tina Hager/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More recently, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US implemented a highly controversial immigration programme called the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/18/politics/nseers-muslim-database-qa-trnd/">National Security Entry-Exit System</a> (NSEER), which targeted men travelling to the US from predominantly Muslim countries. A huge number of people were targeted because of their background or religion, rather than specific ties to criminal or terrorist activity. While the policy was <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/dhs-announces-end-controversial-post-911-immigrant-registration-and-tracking-program">not considered unconstitutional</a>, it was still highly controversial and in 2011 it was discontinued – its impact and usefulness are still hotly debated today. </p>
<p>Calls for a Muslim registry, then, are simply the latest manifestation of a mindset that has guided policy for decades and longer. When asked whether there were differences between Muslims being forced to register in the US and how Jews were forcibly identified in the 1930s, Trump responded: “<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/donald-trump-silent-on-muslim-register-comparison-with-nazi-treatment-of-jews-a6741446.html">You tell me</a>”. </p>
<p>Essentially, this would both revive and extend of the NSEER approach, which after all was legally found to be constitutional. But that doesn’t explain why Trump supporters are so eager to cite Japanese American internment as a constitutionally and morally valid precedent. This is a particularly disturbing misrepresentation of both history and legal thinking: the 1944 Supreme Court case on which Higbie and his supporters rest their defence of internment, <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/personality/landmark_korematsu.html">Korematsu v. US</a>, is a reminder of how dangerous these policies can be.</p>
<p>The judgment remains on the statute books, but when it was <a href="https://casetext.com/case/korematsu-v-united-states">reassessed by the Supreme Court</a> in 1984, the judge ruled that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As historical precedent it stands as a constant caution that in times of war or declared military necessity our institutions must be vigilant in protecting constitutional guarantees. It stands as a caution that in times of distress the shield of military necessity and national security must not be used to protect governmental actions from close scrutiny and accountability. It stands as a caution that in times of international hostility and antagonisms our institutions, legislative, executive and judicial, must be prepared to exercise their authority to protect all citizens from the petty fears and prejudices that are so easily aroused.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, really, Korematsu proves precisely why a Muslim registry is a flawed premise, and demonstrates how carefully history should be read if we want to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70103/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Pistol does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The idea of an American Muslim registry has gained traction in some circles, but the historical precedents are shaky at best.Rachel Pistol, Associate Research Fellow, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/699632016-12-06T21:09:55Z2016-12-06T21:09:55ZHow the attack on Pearl Harbor shaped America’s role in the world<p>The bombing of Pearl Harbor was a pivotal moment in U.S. and world history. The attack thrust the U.S. into World War II and set in motion a series of events that would transform the country into a global superpower and guardian of international order. Seventy-six years later, this legacy of Pearl Harbor now faces perhaps its biggest challenge.</p>
<p>Japan killed <a href="https://visitpearlharbor.org/how-many-pearl-harbor-deaths-were-there/">2,403 Americans</a> on Dec. 7, 1941. More than <a href="http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-students/ww2-history/ww2-by-the-numbers/world-wide-deaths.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/">400,000</a> U.S. soldiers would die in the four years that followed. Their blood helped purchase the defeat of fascism in Europe and Asia and laid the foundation for a post-war international order made in America’s image.</p>
<p>Whether the U.S. would have entered World War II absent Pearl Harbor is a matter of some debate. Scholars such as John Schuessler of Texas A&M <a href="http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/isec.2010.34.4.133">argue</a> that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had long been angling for U.S. intervention. From this view, FDR was very much aware that Japanese expansionism in Asia and German aggrandizement in Europe meant trouble for America.</p>
<p>Yet anti-war sentiment at home meant that FDR had to tread carefully. A succession of <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/neutrality-acts">Neutrality Acts</a> restricted the kinds of assistance that could be rendered to the Chinese, French and British governments, while anti-war groups such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-america-first-echoes-from-1940s-59579">America First</a> boasted hundreds of thousands of members.</p>
<p>We will never know if FDR would have succeeded in maneuvering the U.S. into open hostilities with the fascist powers. Pearl Harbor gave him more than enough cause to declare war on Japan and its allies in Europe. But viewed in historical perspective, it is clear that Pearl Harbor was more than just the gateway to America’s entry into World War II. </p>
<p>Rather, the attack constituted a critical juncture in the history of U.S. foreign relations, sidelining isolationism as a powerful force in domestic politics and making overseas engagement the accepted norm.</p>
<h2>Expanding overseas commitments</h2>
<p>The war effort required a massive mobilization of the U.S. economy and society. By the time of its conclusion in 1945, the U.S. had built for itself the largest <a href="http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-students/ww2-history/ww2-by-the-numbers/us-military.html">fighting force</a> in its history, with a military basing structure that spanned the globe. Japan and large parts of Germany were under U.S. occupation.</p>
<p>After victory, President Truman showed an initial inclination to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=PTEV0CPuhRcC&pg=PA574&lpg=PA574&dq=truman+four+policemen&source=bl&ots=noapJ0a9xc&sig=qXilBoOmvjzkY0lI_xCddOGTaiY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjCiYGA9t3QAhVnslQKHQPBA3U4ChDoAQgaMAA#v=onepage&q=truman%20four%20policemen&f=false">share responsibility</a> for global order with the country’s wartime allies: Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the nationalist government of China. But extricating the U.S. from world affairs proved difficult, and Truman’s presidency would instead see a marked expansion of America’s overseas commitments.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DoSGzXQln_oC&lpg=PP1&dq=Iron%20Curtain%3A%20The%20Crushing%20of%20Eastern%20Europe%2C%201944-1956&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">Eastern Europe</a>, the Soviets began to establish political control over the countries that they occupied, like <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ZU4EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA98&dq=poland%20election%201947%20fraudulent&pg=PA98#v=onepage&q=poland%20election%201947%20fraudulent&f=false">Poland</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=qBBcqDludakC&lpg=PA135&dq=czech%20coup%201948&pg=PA135#v=onepage&q=czech%20coup%201948&f=false">Czechoslovakia</a>. These actions fueled <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/1947-07-01/sources-soviet-conduct">consternation</a> in the U.S. that Moscow was not a responsible partner but rather was bent on further expansion, perhaps across <a href="http://dh.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/3/399.short">Western Europe</a> or into the <a href="http://dh.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/3/383.short">Middle East</a>. Fear of communism appeared to be vindicated when, in 1950, North Korean forces <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/coldwar/korea_hickey_01.shtml">crossed the 38th parallel</a> intent on forcibly unifying the Korean Peninsula under communist rule. This act of aggression <a href="http://jcr.sagepub.com/content/24/4/563.abstract">catalyzed</a> a massive military buildup by the Truman administration.</p>
<p>Containment of communism became the organizing principle of U.S. foreign policy for the next four decades, benefiting from broad bipartisanship consensus on the question. What began after Pearl Harbor as an attempt to defeat fascism had morphed by 1950 into an all-out global struggle to resist communism and maintain the independence of nations in the so-called “Free World.”</p>
<p>Ignoring Thomas Jefferson’s <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jefinau1.asp">advice</a> on the perils of “entangling alliances,” the U.S. offered security guarantees – formal and informal – to a host of nations in Europe, Asia and elsewhere. U.S. forces were involved in toppling governments from <a href="http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/">Guatemala</a> to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/19/cia-admits-role-1953-iranian-coup">Iran</a> to <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=82588">Chile</a>. And of course, a costly <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-choice-lbjs-decision-to-go-to-war-in-vietnam-38410">war of choice</a> was waged in Vietnam.</p>
<p>In concert with its allies, the U.S. set about building a liberal international order that would embed international cooperation and create safe spaces for capitalist economies to flourish. The <a href="http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/2005/08/art-320747/">Bretton Woods financial institutions</a>, the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/sections/history/history-united-nations/">United Nations</a> and the <a href="https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/minist_e/min96_e/chrono.htm">General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade</a> (now the World Trade Organization) all can be considered part of this ambitious order-building project.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148939/original/image-20161206-25749-2rcwo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148939/original/image-20161206-25749-2rcwo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148939/original/image-20161206-25749-2rcwo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148939/original/image-20161206-25749-2rcwo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148939/original/image-20161206-25749-2rcwo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148939/original/image-20161206-25749-2rcwo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148939/original/image-20161206-25749-2rcwo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148939/original/image-20161206-25749-2rcwo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Monetary Conference at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire in July 1944, attended by representatives of 44 nations, including M.S. Stepanov of Russia, Lord John Maynard Keynes and Vladimir Rybar of Yugoslavia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The U.S. used its power to shape and reshape the world during the decades that followed 1945. But it is now <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/25/newsid_2542000/2542749.stm">25 years</a> since the Soviet Union voted itself out of existence, and America’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Base-Nation-Military-America-American/dp/1627791698?tag=quartz07-20">global footprint</a> remains substantial.</p>
<p>Why has America maintained its deep engagement overseas? Why have its leaders still not seen fit to return U.S. foreign policy to a pre-Pearl Harbor footing?</p>
<h2>Trade and security concerns</h2>
<p>One reason is that the U.S. economy – or, at least, a large segment of it – has <a href="https://ustr.gov/about-us/benefits-trade">benefited</a> enormously from a liberal international architecture that might collapse without the application of U.S. power to keep trade routes open, energy sources flowing and anti-capitalist forces at bay.</p>
<p>Another explanation is that successive presidents have concurred with FDR that national security cannot be divorced from international security. From defeating the Axis powers to containing the Soviet Union to tackling “rogue states” and terrorist organizations, it has appeared more attractive to fight America’s enemies overseas rather than risk another Pearl Harbor.</p>
<p>For 76 years, such arguments for U.S. internationalism have more or less held sway in Washington. Today, however, they are increasingly falling upon deaf ears.</p>
<p>President-elect Donald Trump puts little stock in the open international economy, accusing foreign entities of cheating American workers. He has promised to <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/06/28/donald_trumps_seven-point_plan_to_reform_nafta_and_wto_cheaters.html">renegotiate</a> trade deals and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-threatens-consequences-for-us-firms-that-relocate-offshore/2016/12/01/a2429330-b7e4-11e6-959c-172c82123976_story.html">punish</a> businesses for investing overseas. Trump purports to represent not those who have become rich from global capitalism, but those whose livelihoods have been lost to the vicissitudes of foreign competition.</p>
<p>Nor does Trump see the international environment as posing many bona fide security threats. Trump has promised to forge <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2016/12/05/how-trump-putin-alliance-would-change-world/WRBbyzjIfHCs4xYOyKv7wL/story.html">friendly relations</a> with Russia, for example, and hopes to encourage Moscow to shoulder the burden of defeating the Islamic State. He does not seem to lose sleep over the possibility of conflict with China, baiting the Beijing government over <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/05/donald-trump-insults-china-with-taiwan-phone-call-and-tweets-on-trade-south-china-sea.html">Twitter</a>. Trump has questioned cornerstones of U.S. defense policy such as <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/07/trump-nato/492341/">NATO</a>, and has suggested that U.S. allies can look after themselves, perhaps with the aid of their own <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/what-does-donald-trump-really-think-about-using-nuclear-weapons-n655536">nuclear arsenals</a>.</p>
<p>For better or worse, the post-Pearl Harbor world has been one in which the U.S. always has faced compelling incentives to remain preponderant in international affairs. But there was never anything inevitable or immovable about this internationalist consensus. As the conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1991-02-01/unipolar-moment">noted</a> at the end of the Cold War, isolationist tendencies on both the right and left of U.S. politics were bound to resurface eventually.</p>
<p>With Trump’s election, Krauthammer’s prophecy is perhaps finally coming to pass. With an avowedly “America First” president occupying the White House, what the attack on Pearl Harbor had banished from American public life will, at last, be mainstream once more.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69963/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Harris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Japanese attack on a US naval base on Dec. 7, 1941 set in motion a series of events that transformed the United States into a global superpower. Will Donald Trump bring that era to an end?Peter Harris, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.