Loading...
NEGOTIATING A HYBRID JAPANESE AMERICAN IDENTITY: AN ANALYSIS OF CULTURAL CELEBRATIONS IN INTERNMENT CAMP NEWSPAPERS
Schumaker, Nataley R.
Schumaker, Nataley R.
Citations
Altmetric:
Abstract
On February 19, 1942, two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the forced removal of people of Japanese descent from their homes along the West Coast to internment camps located further inland. Scholars estimate the United States incarcerated approximately 120,000 from 1942 to 1945. In 1942 the War Relocation Authority (WRA) was established to run the internment camps and regulate daily life within the camps. Specifically, the WRA required the internment camps to publish a newspaper publication that detailed news directly from the WRA but was also used to spread information about upcoming events to the community. I investigated the newspapers from three camps: Rohwer in McGehee, Arkansas; Granada in Amache, Colorado; and Topaz in Topaz, Utah. Japanese American editors published news articles of cultural events, celebrations, and festivals throughout their internment. During their internment, Japanese Americans demonstrated their loyalty as people of Japanese descent in the United States. Yet, at the same time, they found ways to celebrate their Japanese identity. I argue that Japanese Americans in internment camps strategically used both Japanese and American forms of cultural celebration to assert their right to a hybrid identity, despite government attempts to question their loyalty. My primary source research and analysis fills a gap in scholarly work on Japanese American internment camps by using direct examples of celebrations from the newspapers and addressing a Japanese American hybrid identity that was solidified during internment.
Description
Submitted to the Department of History of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for departmental honors
Date
2025-05-02
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Department of History, University of Kansas