Democratizing the enemy : the Japanese American internment / Brian Masaru Hayashi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hayashi, Brian Masaru, 1955-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Japanese Americans--Forced removal and internment, 1942-1945.

Japanese Americans.

Physical Description:

xviii, 319 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, [2004]

Summary:

During World War II some 120,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from their homes and detained in concentration camps in several states. These Japanese Americans lost millions of dollars in property and were forced to live in so-called "assembly centers" surrounded by barbed wire fences and armed sentries. In this insightful and ground-breaking work, Brian Hayashi reevaluates the three-year ordeal of incarcerated Japanese Americans. Using previously undiscovered documents, he examines the forces behind the U.S. government's decision to establish internment camps. His conclusion: the motives of government officials and top military brass likely transcended the standard explanations of racism, wartime hysteria, and leadership failure. Among the other surprising factors that played into the decision, Hayashi writes, were land development in the American West and plans for the American occupation of Japan. What was the long-term impact of America's actions? While many historians have explored that question, Hayashi takes a fresh look at how U.S. concentration camps affected not only their victims and American civil liberties, but also people living in locations as diverse as American Indian reservations and northeast Thailand.

Contents:

Prologue: Beyond Civil Rights 13

1 Governors and Their Advisers, 1918-1942 16

2 The Governed: Japanese Americans and Politics, 1880-1942 40

3 Establishing the Structures of Internment, from Limited to Mass Internment, 1942-1943 76

4 The Liberal Democratic Way of Management, 1942-1943 107

5 "Why Awake a Sleeping Lion?" Governance during the Quiet Period, 1943-1944 148

6 "Taking Away the Candy": Relocation, the Twilight of the Japanese Empire, and Japanese American Politics, 1944-1945 180

7 The Long Shadow of Internment 207

Epilogue: Toward Human Rights 219.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [223]-303) and index.

ISBN:

0691009457

OCLC:

52631404