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CHAPTER 2 Nisei Wartime Citizenship O N A SATURDAY MORNING in California only a few months after Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, a young Nisei boy heard a knock at his door. When he opened the door, he found a police officer standing on the porch. The officer could sense the boy’s fear and began joking around to put him at ease. The child’s father joined them. They were both relieved that the policeman had not come to take the father away. The FBI had taken many other fathers from their homes in the hours and days following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. This policeman explained that he was inspecting the homes of Japanese families to search for firearms that he needed to confiscate . The man had one gun that had been given to him as a gift, but which he had never fired. The policeman told him that if he had a son that was of age, the father could turn the firearm over to this son, but because the man did not, the policeman had to take it.1 It is ironic that the policeman would have been satisfied leaving a gun in the home of an Issei, an enemy alien, if he could have turned the gun over to his citizen son. Most historians interpret such stories as the beginning of a transfer of power from Issei to Nisei.2 Often overlooked is the confidence many Americans had in the power of citizenship at the beginning of the war. Historian Alice Yang Murray emphasizes this early confidence in the protections of Nisei citizenship, even pointing out statements made by Gen. John L. DeWitt very early in 1942 that indicated that he believed Nisei had certain rights that could not be violated.3 From a Nisei perspective, it was not a foregone conclusion that they would end the year locked up in camps under government control . Even as rumors spread of an evacuation of Japanese Americans from the West Coast, government officials, Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) leaders, and private individuals debated the extent to which Nisei rights should or could be proscribed based on exaggerated and often misleading notions of military necessity. 46 CHAPTER 2 When World War II began, Nisei had little reason to renegotiate their relationship with the state as citizens. Then the state changed the rules of citizenship , recasting Nisei as nonaliens or as enemy aliens. This chapter explains the crisis regarding Nisei citizenship as it evolved early in the war. When conflicts arise, where is citizenship decided? The courts do not have sole claim to the question, even though we continue to rely on the courts for definitive answers. Do the individuals themselves choose their citizenship through declarations of loyalty and patriotism? Is citizenship then a matter of the heart and mind? Does the federal government decide, or do the states? During the first year of the war, Nisei lost many of their most basic rights of citizenship. This chapter also discusses various responses to these attacks on Nisei citizenship by the courts; by the federal, state, and local governments; by private race-baiting organizations; and by Japanese Americans themselves. The outcome of these debates redefined Nisei citizenship in the context of war. Japanese Americans clearly did not remain silent as their citizenship came under attack. Leaders of the JACL, proclaiming themselves spokesmen for all Japanese American citizens, reenacted conversations about loyalty and Americanism that they had with congressional investigation committees in 1920, when the country was faced with the immediate post–World War I crisis over immigration. The younger generation of Nisei just coming of age during World War II were left frustrated by debates over loyalty, patriotism, and 100 percent American citizenship. JACL accommodation was not a popular choice with the majority of Japanese Americans. The bulk of Nisei, born between the early 1920s and early 1930s, had learned in school that their birth in the United States gave them 100 percent American citizenship. When faced with an erosion of that citizenship, though, few dared to resist immediately. The few who did resist, most notably Minoru Yasui and Gordon Hirabayashi, initiated test cases that would demonstrate how far the courts would bow to military authority and wartime hysteria to justify restricted citizenship for suspect dual nationals. Most Nisei waited and watched as events beyond their control eroded their standing in the nation and recast them as suspect citizens at best and enemy aliens in the extreme. This chapter...

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