1. The incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II was a grave denial of civil rights that had a huge psychological, political, social and economic impact on individuals, families, and communities. And yet, scholars have found that gender role changes and opportunities for education and employment made World War II a watershed for Japanese American women alongside these hardships. What changes did you note in Matsumoto’s article? How do the oral history interviews add to the story?
In Valerie Matsumoto’s piece on Japanese internment during WW2 she focuses on gender role differences between first and second generation Japanese citizens. The issei were first generation, the Nisei were second generation. The woman in the Nisei generation had grown up or lived the U.S. prior to internment. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. implement a law based on paranoia and racism. All Japanese citizens on the west coast were taken to internment camps such as Manzanar, in northern california.
Matsumoto writes that Nisei women experienced internment in coming-of-age manner while the Issei women clung to traditional Japanese communication and customs. She states that the Issei were forced to protect themselves and their family, writing ” The Issei were strict and not inclined to open displays of affection towards their children, but the Nisei were conscious of their parents’ concern for them and for the family.” In some ways the Great Depression had prepared them for the injustice and turbulence they encountered whilst interned.
The rough conditions included a lack of food and everyday necessities that many took for granted prior internment. Matsumoto cites the Heart Mountain women to describe a first hand account of how inhumane life had become, she states “Family unity deteriorated in the crude communal facilities and cramped barracks.” Tradition and family values saw camp life hurl physical and emotional chaos for those who were interned. Traditional Issei marriage during and after this era. The western ways of love influenced the Nisei to reject the arranged marriages of the Issei. The camp life played a large role in causing the tradition to dissipate. Despite internment, the Nisei saw themselves as American and created communities of support for one another during and after internment.
Dating during and after the internment for the Nisei meant that relationships were more based on coming together willingly to create a foundation of love. The Issei women had only known love out of cultural coercion. Matsumoto concludes that “Nisei women drew not only upon the disciplined strength inculcated by their Issei parents but also upon firmly rooted support networks and the greater measure of self-reliance and independence that they developed during the crucible of the war years.” Through reading this article by Matsumoto and Farewell To Manzanar this semester, I think women had an experience that forced them to go into survival mode. They saw that even being a man in this racist era could not save you. Women of internment banded together to help each other and their families. Tradition was not eradicated but compartmentalized in order to survive. Times like this forced women to adapt and change how they communicated amongst themselves and with their spouses and family members. Maybe the western ways of courtship eroded the valuable approaches from the Issei but in this case it was the strong and necessary move to make during and after the war years. The oral histories give us a sense of how bad conditions and experiences were, this means that tradition and customs of honor could not be prioritized as usual. Life after the war and camp life served as constant reminder yet the women who are interviewed do not project hate but acknowledge that in a post-war era they do sense “scrutinizing Caucasian eyes”. The exclusion to certain types of labor before and after the war was a hardship most women note in their accounts yet they mostly seem to have had made their lives bearable. I see this piece as a testament to the strength that people in a horrific situation can find within themselves during and after the hardship that may never completely end.
Works Cited:
Matsumoto, Valerie. “JAPANESE-AMERICAN WOMEN DURING WORLD WAR II.” In The American West: The Reader, edited by WALTER NUGENT and MARTIN RIDGE, 255–73. Indiana University Press, 1999. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt200604c.21Links to an external site.
2. From the sources on the 6888th website, and the Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter, what conclusions do you draw about military service in the WACS for African American and Mexican American women? Describe and discuss evidence from a video oral history or photographs in your answer.
African American women constantly had to overcome various obstacles placed in front of them while serving in the military in the WACS. On the 6888th website, it describes how white women were the first allowed to serve in Europe in the WAC, but African Americans had to advocate and protest for to be allowed to serve overseas as well. Even while overseas, the women of the 6888th battalion continued to face discrimination when they were not permitted entrance into a club run by the American Red Cross. As a response, they protested the “alternative” facilities that would allow African American women and ended up running “their own mess hall, hair salon, refreshment bar, and other recreational facilities” (“6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion”). Even women of color in industrial trades faced discrimination because of their gender and race. According to the Life and Times of Rose the Riveter video, there were cases when women were being paid five cents less than white women and were excluded from job “benefits” like showers and childcare. Many of the Black women who were interviewed in the video discuss how they had to leave their children or send them to stay with a relative because they wouldn’t be able to take care of them when they were working. One woman discusses how she had to leave her daughter with her mother because she moved to a different city for work and ended up being separated from her daughter for nearly 5 years. Yet, the video also plays a commercial or ad showing white women dropping their children off at a daycare connected to their job site.
Sources:
The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter. Emeryville, Calif: A Clarity Production with the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, 1980.
“6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion.” Women of the 6888th: Central Postal Directory Battalion. https://www.womenofthe6888th.org/the-6888thLinks to an external site.