Imprisoned Apart: The World War II Correspondence of an Issei Couple

2. Listening to the Sound of Shoes

I II !Il lIall III TWO JJdJl11l1flf1l1 milll t : 11111 II tII Listening to the Sound of Shoes The time has come For my arrest This dark rainy night. I calm myselfand listen To the sound of the shoes. -Sojin Takei1 M ATSUSHITA HAD LONG AGO abandoned his plan to return toJapan to teach English language and literature. Because there was no actual need now to enroll at the University of Washington, he sought other employment. The job market for kaisha, or"corporation," workers, however , had shrunk by the autumn of 1940 as a result ofincreasingly strained relations between the United States and Japan. Finding the equivalent of the job he had left was impossible. Instead, in October the Seattle Japanese Chamber of Commerce hired him to compile trade statistics for the benefit of the American public. The chamber of commerce, a loose association of Seattle businesses, aimed at maintaining positive trade relations with Japan. Although well qualified for this line of work, Matsushita held a rather lowly status within the organization, in both responsibilities and salary ($150 per month), and thejob, with its emphasis on statistics, must have been dulling to his creative leanings. Unknown to Matsushita and other chamber of commerce employees throughout the country, statistics ofanother kind were quietly being collected by the FBI and the Office ofNaval Intelligence (aNI) in preparation for a possible Pacific war. As early as 1932, mainland U.S. residentJapanese with suspected close ties toJapan, or whose high regard for her culture was 27 publicly known, came under surveillance as potential saboteurs.2 Included were members of scores ofJapanese clubs and organizations in the U.S. promoting cultural and business ties with Japan, as well as the various Japanese chambers of commerce throughout the country. By mid-1939 the government's need for a sophisticated informationgathering capability had increased significantly, but because of agency competition and a lack of coordinated effort, intelligence operations were inefficient and inadequate. Thus, on the eve of the outbreak of World War II in Europe, President Franklin Roosevelt assigned control of all espionage, counterespionage, and sabotage investigations to the FBI, which was part of the Justice Department, the Military Intelligence Division of the War Department, and the Office of Naval Intelligence. All investigations involving civilians in the United States and its territories fell to the FBI a year later.3 Along with this reorganization came the Alien Registration Act, passed by Congress in 1940, authorizing collection of background information on nearly five million aliens from all countries ofthe world living within U.S. borders. Data gathering on citizenship status, organizational affiliations ,4 and "activities" such as employment was designed to ease the FBI'S task of monitoring more than one million alien Japanese, Germans, and Italians who would be proclaimed "enemy aliens" by December 8 ofthe following year. Resident aliens were required to report changes ofaddress within five days of a move, and all aliens temporarily in the country had to report every three months, regardless of residency status. In 1940 Matsushita dutifully registered his residence, his recent change of employment, and other background information on him and Hanaye. These data were mingled with those on 47,305 foreign-born Japanese falling under the authority of this legislation.5 Whether an undifferentiated mass ofdata collected in an era preceding powerful mainframe computers was ofactual use to the FBI is questionable. Nevertheless, the FBI began building dossiers onJapanese residents in the country and, by early 1941, had created personnel flies for more than two thousand individuals, most of whom were male community leaders perceived as a potential threat to the nation's security. Individuals were assigned to three hierarchical categories according to this perception. The 28 first category, Group A, included suspects "known dangerous" and who had been the subject of individual investigations. Because these persons were influential within the Japanese American community or had jobs that placed them in strategic locations or situations in which espionage or sabotage was likely, they required continuing, intense observation. Thus, fishermen, produce distributors, Shinto and Buddhist priests, farmers, influential businessmen, and members of the Japanese Consulate were listed as Group A suspects. Group B suspects were presumed to be "potentially dangerous" but had not yet been fully investigated. OtherJapanese, because oftheir proJapanese leanings and propagandist activities, made the C list. Among the Band C listees were Japanese-language teachers, the Kibei (Nisei who received a part of their education...