Preface and Acknowledgments i

Serving Our Country

ii Preface and Acknowledgments
 Preface and Acknowledgments iii

Serving
Our Country
Japanese American Women
in the Military during
World War II
BRENDA L. MOORE

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS

New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London
iv Preface and Acknowledgments

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Moore, Brenda L., 1950–

Serving our country : Japanese American women in the military during
World War II / Brenda L. Moore.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–8135–3277–9 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 0–8135–3278–7
(pbk. : alk. paper)
1. United States. Army Women’s Army Corps—History. 2. World War,
1939–1945—Participation, Japanese American. 3. Japanese-American
women—History. 4. Women soldiers—United States. 5. United States—
Ethnic relations. I. Title.
UA565.W6 M66 2003
940.54’04—dc21
2002015875

British Cataloging-in-Publication information is available from the British Library.

Copyright © 2003 by Brenda L. Moore

All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 100
Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ 08854–8099. The only exception to this
prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law.

Manufactured in the United States of America

 Preface and Acknowledgments v

This book is dedicated to the memory of my parents,

Hester W. Moore, December 12, 1929–February 9, 2002
Albert Moore, October 12, 1926–December 10, 1968
vi Preface and Acknowledgments
 Preface and Acknowledgments vii

Contents

List of Tables ix
Preface and Acknowledgments xi

Chapter 1 Introduction 1
Chapter 2 Before the War 31
Chapter 3 Contradictions and Paradoxes 60
Chapter 4 Women’s Army Corps Recruitment of Nisei Women 88
Chapter 5 Service in the Women’s Army Corps 106
Chapter 6 Commissions in the Army Medical Corps 135
Chapter 7 The Postwar Years 148
Appendix: Wacs Who Entered the Army from
Hawaii, December 1944 167

Notes 169
Glossary 191
Bibliography 195
Index 203

vii
viii Preface and Acknowledgments
 Preface and Acknowledgments ix

Tables

1. Occupations of Nisei Women, 1943 18

2. Specified Quotas for the Enrollment of Nisei Women into the WAC by Service
Command 19
3. War Relocation Authority Internment Camps 73
4. Military Intelligence Service Language School Courses 120

ix
x Preface and Acknowledgments
 Preface and Acknowledgments xi

Preface and Acknowledgments

Y EARS OF STRAINED RELATIONS between the United States and Japan reached
a climax on the morning of December 7, 1941, when Japan launched a suc-
cessful air attack on Pearl Harbor and other nearby military installations in
Hawaii, including Ewa, Kaneohe Bay, and Bellows, Hickam, and Wheeler
Fields.1 This attack left the American government in a state of shock: four
U.S. battleships, three destroyers, and four small ships were obliterated. Some
288 American aircraft were damaged, and more than twenty-four hundred
American lives were lost. By contrast, only the crew members of twenty-nine
Japanese planes suffered casualties.2
On December 8, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt went before a joint
session of Congress and called for a declaration of war against Japan. Radio
stations throughout the country broadcast the stirring words of the American
president as he called December 7 “a day that would live in infamy.” For Ameri-
cans, the war was defined as a struggle against the governments of Axis na-
tions—a battle against fascism, Nazism, and totalitarianism. But the war was
also an event that would expose the paradox of American democracy and the
injustices of American racism, and thereby lead to social change.
Virtually all Americans held the ideal of democracy in high esteem. There-
fore it is not surprising that, as the United States prepared for combat, men
and women of all racial and ethnic backgrounds answered the War Department’s
call to military service. Ironically, some of the people who supported the
nation’s war efforts were denied the very rights they were willing to fight and
die for. Nonetheless, they contributed to the nation’s war effort, in the hope
of removing barriers to inclusion.
Today the World War II service of racial minorities and of women in the
U.S. military has almost been forgotten. A number of scholarly works in re-
cent years recall the contributions made by African American men and women
to the U.S. war effort. Scholarly books, articles, and documentaries about the
Tuskegee Airmen, the 6888th Central Postal Battalion, the Triple Nickles, and

xi
xii Preface and Acknowledgments

the Buffalo Soldiers were released as recently as the late 1980s and the1990s,3
telling of these service members who struggled for a “double V”—victory
abroad as well as victory over racism at home. Still, these studies are too few.
Similarly, not until recently have we begun to hear about the brave Japa-
nese American men who participated in the war effort as members of Military
Service Intelligence. These men engaged in battlefield intelligence, translated
strategic documents, and interrogated the “enemy” in the Pacific Theater. Six
thousand Nisei (children of Japanese immigrants, born in the United States)
reportedly trained to serve with the Allied Forces in the Pacific; 3,700 served
in combat areas.4 In addition, the 100th Infantry Battalion, later united with
the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT), fought gallantly in Italy and in
France.5 History reveals that Japanese Americans sacrificed their lives in com-
paratively large numbers during the war.6 Perhaps the greatest number of ca-
sualties occurred in October 1944, when the 442nd was sent on a mission to
rescue the 36th Division’s 141st Infantry Regiment, more commonly known
as “the Lost Battalion.” A reported 800 members of the 442nd RCT were ei-
ther killed or wounded in the Vosges Mountains while rescuing 220 members
of the Lost Battalion.7
Far less is known about the Nisei women who served in the United States
military, most as members of the Women’s Army Corps but some as nurses
and doctors in the Army Medical Corps. The purpose of this book is to docu-
ment the stories of Nisei women who served in the military during World War
II, and to analyze the events that helped to shape their lives. What were their
lives like before they entered the military? What motivated them to join the
active armed services? What effect did military service have on their lives in
subsequent years? These and other questions are explored.
Although the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (the precursor to the
Women’s Army Corps) had been in existence since July 1942, Nisei women
initially were denied entry.8 The first Nisei woman was not inducted until
November 1943. By December, five Nisei women had completed basic train-
ing at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. The Army Medical Corps, which included the
Army Nurse Corps, opened to Nisei women in February 1943. Mary Yamada,
a former member of the ANC, was among the women interviewed for this
study; Yamada speaks about her experiences in applying for, and eventually
serving in, the ANC.
The analysis presented here relies on both primary and secondary sources.
I located and interviewed some of the Japanese American women who served
in either the Women’s Army Corps or the Army Nurse Corps (ANC). Of the
fourteen Nisei women I contacted, twelve had served in the WAC and two
had been ANC nurses. Nine agreed to participate in this study; five declined.
 Preface and Acknowledgments xiii

Eight of my nine informants had been Wacs, and one a member of the ANC.
Four of these participants had been inducted into the service from the U.S.
mainland; five had entered the military from Hawaii. Also included are ex-
cerpts from two interviews conducted by the National Japanese American His-
torical Society (NJAHS), the first with Cherry Shiozawa, a former Wac, and
the other with Yoshiye Togasaki, a medical doctor. Togasaki joined the United
Nations Rehabilitation and Relief Association (UNRRA) in 1945 to admin-
ister medical services at refugee camps in Europe; while applying, she learned
that, because she would be serving in a war zone, she was required to become
a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army. She revealed this experience in an
oral history interview conducted by the NJAHS; with the permission of the
NJAHS, excerpts from that interview are cited.
All names in this study are real except those of the four Nisei women
who entered the military from the mainland; at their request, I refer to them
throughout by pseudonyms. Using a life course perspective, I include firsthand
accounts of these women’s lives before and during military service. I also dis-
cuss at length the effect of military service on the women’s later lives.
In addition, I examined thousands of pages of archival documents, as well
as War Department and other government papers, on the sociopolitical sta-
tus of Japanese Americans during World War II. I obtained these official
records from sources including the National Archives in Washington, D.C.,
and in Suitland and College Park, Maryland; the Japanese American Histori-
cal Society in San Francisco and in Chicago; the National Japanese Ameri-
can Museum in Los Angeles; the Kroch Collection at Cornell University,
Ithaca, N.Y.; the Department of Defense Language School in Monterey, Cali-
fornia; the Romanzo Adams Social Research Laboratory at the University of
Hawaii, Honolulu; and the U.S. Army Museum of Hawaii at Fort Shafter, Ha-
waii. Holdings at each facility revealed a different aspect of the lives of Japa-
nese American women in general, and of Nisei military women in particular.
The voices of the nine women I interviewed are supplemented by those
of the many Nisei servicewomen cited in newspapers during the war. In addi-
tion, they are supplemented by information found in nontechnical literature
such as personal diaries and biographies.
Some of the photographs and military documents used here were provided
by the estate of former Wac Florence Kanashiro Kahapea.
A former Nisei Wac stated in a letter to me, “You would need to do con-
siderable research to reach even a partial understanding of the trauma suf-
fered by the Nisei incarcerated without due process and the soul-searching
motivation that led to our volunteering [for military service].” I hope that Serv-
ing Our Country will illuminate not only the military experiences of the Nisei
xiv Preface and Acknowledgments

women who volunteered, but also the historical, social, economic, and po-
litical factors that surrounded their lives during a period of mass upheaval.
Documenting these women’s military experiences as seen through their own
eyes contributes greatly to our understanding of the role played by Japanese
American women in national defense, and of their contribution to the country’s
progress toward the ideal of democracy.
This book has been the destination of a long, interesting journey. Many
persons and organizations have given help along the way. I received grant sup-
port from the Ford Foundation, the State University of New York (SUNY) at
Buffalo School of Law (Baldy Center), and SUNY at Buffalo College of Arts
and Sciences Publication Subvention Fund. I am grateful to colleagues, anony-
mous reviewers, and the editorial staff at Rutgers University Press for their
helpful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. I owe a debt of grati-
tude to the many archivists who assisted me in locating archival documents.
I am thankful to the women who were kind enough to share their stories with
me. Finally, I am deeply indebted to my family members and friends for their
unyielding support.
Preface and Acknowledgments xv

Serving Our Country

xvi Preface and Acknowledgments
 Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Introduction
We have lived long enough in America to appreciate
liberty and justice. We cannot tolerate the attempt of a
few to dominate the world. We have faith in free
institutions, of individual freedom, and we have courage
of our convictions to back up our words with deeds of
loyalty to the United States government! . . . Fellow
Americans, give us a chance to do our share to make this
world a better place to live in.
—Editorial published in
Japanese American newspaper1

S INCE THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, the concept of the citizen soldier has ex-
isted in the United States. Historically, racial and ethnic minorities were af-
forded no more rights than noncitizens; many served in the armed services
with the expectation of attaining the citizenship rights denied them. Partici-
pation in the American armed services has always been viewed as an obliga-
tion of male citizens—free, white men. In the words of the late sociologist
Morris Janowitz, “Military service emerged as the hallmark of citizenship and
citizenship as the hallmark of a political democracy.”2 For minorities, mili-
tary service was viewed as an avenue of upward mobility.3
Although U.S. citizenship initially was reserved for native-born white
males, the shortage of white manpower during wars often led to the recruit-
ment of racial minorities, particularly African Americans but also Americans
of Hispanic and Native (American Indian) descent. In addition, European
and Asian immigrants were recruited. The U.S. government offered citizen-
ship rights to men of racial minority (citizens) and immigrant groups (aliens)
in exchange for military service, yet the European male immigrants usually

1
2 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

indeed received citizenship in return for their service, the military achieve-
ments of racial minorities were quickly forgotten after the war.
The African American male soldier is a case in point. After World War
I, African Americans were still denied civil liberties even though more than
fifty thousand black men had served in Europe as stevedores, engineers, and
laborers, as well as infantrymen in the acclaimed 369th, 370th, 371st, and
372nd all-black infantry units. Less than a year after World War I, seventy
African American men were lynched in the United States; ten were soldiers
in uniform.4 These men died at the hands of angry mobs, for alleged crimes,
without the court trial guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Moreover, in most
southern states, African Americans were denied the right to vote, to hold jobs
commensurate with their education and skills, or to purchase homes outside
black neighborhoods.
These conditions would begin to change in the years following World War
II, when the United States began addressing structural inequality against
blacks. The contradiction between the American creed of democracy and the
practice of racial discrimination directed against nonwhites came under se-
vere attack during World War II; at its close, male military veterans of all ra-
cial backgrounds would begin reaping some of the benefits provided their white
male counterparts. With the passage of the GI Bill (the Servicemen’s Read-
justment Act of 1944), military service enhanced opportunities for minority
males to obtain higher education after the war and eventually compete more
effectively for higher paying jobs.5
To encourage women to serve, the U.S. government emphasized the need
to relieve men in support positions to take part in direct combat. American
women had always been employed by the army as civilian nurses, clerks, laun-
dresses, and telephone operators. Unlike white male immigrants, however,
women were not offered citizenship rights in exchange. Moreover, they were
not eligible to use military facilities, to receive government life insurance, or
to be awarded military burial if killed while performing military service. This
situation would also change during World War II, when servicewomen began
to receive the same military benefits as men.
The social, political, and economic statuses of Nisei women who served
in the military during World War II changed as well. Their lives are the sub-
ject of this book. Until now, the military contribution of Nisei women has
received little or no attention in scholarly writings. With the exception of
Stacey Hirose’s M.A. thesis, “Japanese American Women and the Women’s
Army Corps, 1935–1950,” and two chapters written on the topic, no study
has been published about the contributions made to America’s war efforts by
Nisei military women.6 This study documents the broad contributions made
 Introduction 3

by Nisei women on active duty during World War II. In addition, I analyze
the effects of military service on the women’s subsequent lives. Historical facts,
as well as the perceptions of Nisei women about their lives before, during,
and after the war, are illuminated. Both macro and micro perspectives are em-
ployed as I explore how changes in the society in general, and in military ser-
vice in particular, helped to shape the lives of these women.
In this chapter, I provide an overview of the issues to be discussed. I ex-
amine when Nisei women were inducted into the military and some of the
circumstances that led the War Department to accept them, as well as the
factors that motivated Nisei women to join the military. Finally, I examine
the degree to which the family and friends of these women were supportive
of their decision to put on the uniform.
Before World War II, women’s service in the U.S. military was limited to
the Army Nurse Corps (ANC). There is no record of Japanese American
women serving in the ANC at that time. On the other hand, historical docu-
ments reveal that an estimated five thousand Nisei men were on active duty
before the United States declared war on Japan.7 To understand the social
and political circumstances leading to military enrollment of Nisei women
during World War II, we must first examine military policies governing the
assignment of white women, as well as directives on how Japanese American
men were to be utilized. At this intersection of race and gender, the story of
Nisei women in the U.S. military begins to unfold.

Policies of Racial Exclusion

In the United States, race has been constructed on an axis between the two
poles, black and white. The former represents racial oppression and exclusion,
the latter symbolizes power and privilege. Historically, scholars have placed
Japanese Americans somewhere between black and white in the racial hier-
archy. At times Japanese Americans have been classified as being “near
whites”; at other times they have been viewed as “just like blacks.” 8 How-
ever, in recent years scholars have argued that the black/white paradigm falls
short in identifying issues specific to non-white and non-black racial groups.9
As argued by Angelo Ancheta:
The racial experiences of Asian Americans . . . diverge fundamentally
from the experiences of blacks. Subordination falls along a separate
axis. . . . The axis is not white versus black, but American versus
foreigner. . . . [T]he color dichotomy that operates to cast blacks as
inferior to whites differs from the citizenship dichotomy that operates
to cast all Asian Americans . . . as foreign-born outsiders.10
4 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

At no time in American history has this divergence been more apparent

than during World War II. Japanese Americans occupied an ambiguous posi-
tion in the racial landscape, neither black nor white. This racially obscure
position made it difficult for the U.S. War Department to classify Japanese
American soldiers. Prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the War Depart-
ment assigned Japanese American men to white units. These men were drafted
to serve in the United States military under the Selective Service and Train-
ing Act of 1940, which stipulated that draftees and volunteers for military ser-
vice would not be discriminated against because of race or color; they served
in units with white soldiers, such as the 298th and 299th Infantry Regiments
and the 7th Infantry Division, 6th Army. African American men, by contrast,
were restricted by a seven-point policy implemented by the War Department:
specifying, among other things, that they would serve exclusively in racially
segregated (all-black) units.11 (At this time, the active armed services were
closed to women.)
The status of the Nisei soldier changed abruptly following the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor. Shortly after the United States declared war on Ja-
pan, Nisei soldiers were discharged from their military units, and the induc-
tion of Japanese American men into the U.S. military was discontinued by
an informal agreement between the War Department and the Selective Ser-
vice System.12 Ken Tagami, a Nisei soldier, was drafted into the U.S. Army
in February 1941 and assigned to the 7th Infantry Division, 6th Army, under
the command of General Joseph Stilwell. In a published interview, Tagami
recalled that most Nisei in the 6th Army were eventually shipped out to Camp
Crowder, a military installation in Missouri.13 Tagami was ordered to surren-
der his weapon in February 1942, and subsequently was reassigned to the Mili-
tary Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS), composed mostly of
Japanese Americans.
Treated as foreigners, many Nisei soldiers were stripped of their weapons
after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. In their publication on Japanese Americans
serving in the military intelligence, Clifford Uyeda and Barry Saiki revealed
that some Nisei were even forced into prison compounds surrounded by ma-
chine guns. According to one study, these soldiers were discharged from the
military and eventually were reclassified as “enemy aliens,” undesirable for
service:

Many Nisei, inducted before Pearl Harbor, had been given honorable
discharges, after the war began, with no specification of cause of
dismissal. In March, 1942, potential Nisei inductees were arbitrarily
assigned to IV-F, the category previously reserved for persons ineligible
for service because of physical defects; and on September 1, 1942, this
 Introduction 5

classification had been changed to IV-C, the category ordinarily used

for enemy alien. 14

Allan Beekman reported that, in Hawaii, “[t]he draft status of the Nikkei
(American of Japanese descent) was changed to 4-C, enemy alien, making
them undraftable and unacceptable. At Schofield Barracks, 1,564 Nikkei sol-
diers were stripped of their weapons and demoted to work detail. On January
19, 1942, the Territorial Guard of Hawaii would brusquely dismiss its Nikkei
members.”15
An exception was made for Nisei men assigned to the MISLS, as well as
those assigned to the 100th Battalion (a unit that evolved from the Hawaii
National Guard). During the fall of 1942 the army policy was modified, per-
mitting Nisei men skilled in the Japanese language to serve as teachers at
MISLS. Some Nisei soldiers, such as Ken Tagami, were reassigned to MISLS
after being discharged from their former units. Without the knowledge of the
American public, several of these Nisei soldiers served as military translators,
interrogators, and spies in the early phase of American involvement in the
war. A few thousand, it is reported, served actively in the Pacific Theater of
Operation, translating captured documents and monitoring radio traffic.16
Some served in headquarters units, others with combat units. Members of the
100th Battalion were sent to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, in June 1942, and
later were assigned to Camp Shelby, Mississippi, before deployment to North
Africa.
Most Japanese American men, however, were temporarily denied citizen-
ship rights and the duty to serve in the military, until February 1, 1943. The
suspension of Japanese Americans from military service was partly attribut-
able to wartime exacerbation of the fear, hysteria, and discrimination so of-
ten present in societies intolerant of racial and ethnic differences. Although
Japanese Americans were neither black nor white, before December 7, 1941,
they were more closely aligned in the social landscape with whites than with
blacks. They occupied the position of a middleman minority: relatively small-
scale business people serving both the dominant white class and subordinate
groups in the society.17 When the United States declared war on Japan, the
position of Japanese Americans changed, and it may appear, because of the
extreme form of racial oppression they were subjected to, as though this posi-
tion shifted toward that of blacks. Upon close inspection, however, it becomes
evident that Japanese Americans became racialized during World War II, oc-
cupying a racial identity separate from that of whites or blacks. (I return to
this subject in chapter 3.)
Surely anti-Japanese sentiments existed in the United States before World
War II. Historian Roger Daniels asserts that the anti-Japanese movement in
6 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

California dates back to the late nineteenth century, when middle-class poli-
ticians and the National American Federation of Labor (NAFL) took a stand
against all Asian immigration. Daniels identifies labor leaders such as Dennis
Kearney, and politicians who fancied themselves progressive, as the leaders of
this early anti-Japanese crusade. Still, although Japanese Americans suffered
the effects of racial stereotyping before World War II, they experienced more
severe forms of discrimination after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.18
Some Nisei servicewomen remembered vividly growing up in an America
that treated Japanese Americans differently than whites. Mary Yamada, a
former member of the Army Nurse Corps, recalled a great deal of discrimina-
tion against Japanese Americans living in Los Angeles before the war. She
described the situation of the Los Angeles Nisei during the Great Depression:
I always knew that the Japanese were being discriminated against for
one reason or another. I remember as a child, when I was working in
our store, we used to have telephone poles in those days, and I
remember seeing placards [saying] . . . “Japs Get Out.” . . . Of course
there was a lot of discrimination in Los Angeles, and I guess that was
why I decided I would become a doctor. . . . But that was during the
depression years, when I was at the university and many of the [Nisei]
men were working at a fruit market; apparently they couldn’t get
jobs. . . . They had their degrees, but they couldn’t get jobs.
Differential and inferior treatment of Japanese Americans was exacerbated
after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Irene Nishikaichi (a pseudonym), a former
Nisei Wac, recalled that severe restrictions were imposed on Japanese Ameri-
cans in California shortly after the Japanese air strikes: “Even before evacua-
tion, I couldn’t cross the street to go to school. This was around February
whenever the presidential proclamation was issued. I could go up one side of
the street, but I couldn’t cross the street to go to school. So I had to drop
out.”
Japanese Americans became scapegoats for many Americans’ desire for
revenge on Japan. The hatred expressed against them was fueled by the fear
and helplessness felt by non-Japanese Americans as they witnessed several
military victories by Japan during this early phase of the war. In the words of
tenBroek and Matson:
Before they could recover from the initial shock, West Coast residents
were confronted with more bad news. Coincident with the Pearl
Harbor attack enemy forces had struck with disastrous effect at Hong
Kong, Manila, Thailand, Singapore, Midway, Wake, and Guam.
Japanese bombers had at a single blow destroyed the air defense of
Hong Kong, and within a few days occupied Kowloon peninsula and
 Introduction 7

placed the British crown colony in jeopardy. On December 10 the

“impregnable” British warships Repulse and Prince of Wales were sunk
by Japanese planes, thus upsetting the balance of naval power in the
far Pacific.19

Groundless talk of Japanese Americans aiding Japan by working as sabo-

teurs spread throughout the United States. Issei farmers were accused of smug-
gling poison into vegetables bound for market and of growing flowers in a way
that gave signals to enemy war planes.20 Editors of a popular Japanese Ameri-
can newspaper published in Los Angeles responded in the following editorial:
Rumors are always a nuisance to everyone. Loose talk, never substan-
tiated, has resulted in untold grief, in great tragedies and irreparable
damage. . . . Ever since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, rumors
were given out by responsible persons that a sabotage by resident
Japanese was largely responsible for the success of Japan’s initial
attack. . . . Contrary to rumors, there was no sabotage in Honolulu on
Dec. 7 when Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and there has been none
since.21
As victims of racial antagonism, Japanese Americans living on the main-
land (both Issei and Nisei) lost civil service jobs. In many cases, businesses
were lost and professional careers were disrupted.22 Grace Harada (a pseud-
onym), a former Nisei Wac, explained that her father lost his job and the fam-
ily home in Idaho:
My father worked for the railroad and when the war broke out, . . .
because of his being of Oriental ancestry, they made him quit his
job. . . . We didn’t have to evacuate, but at the time [we] lived in a
house the railroad owned because [my father] was a foreman, and [we]
were entitled to live there. But then we had to vacate the house and
move away.

Another former Nisei Wac, Ellen Fuchida (a pseudonym), described how

her neighborhood in Utah changed after the Japanese air strikes at Pearl Har-
bor: “I had all these [Caucasian] friends I’d grown up with all my life and the
only time we really felt different is when the war broke out. About three cus-
tomers who had been purchasing things from my mother’s grocery store for
years and years stopped.”
Distorted images of Japanese Americans were presented in the American
press. These distortions were too often internalized by impressionable Ameri-
cans, many of whom were either immigrants or offspring of immigrants them-
selves. Racist comments were made by some public officials, such as Lieutenant
General John L. DeWitt, Commanding General of the Western Defense
8 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

Command. In public statements, DeWitt declared that the Japanese “race”

was an enemy “race” and, even though second- and third-generation Japa-
nese were born on United States soil, possessed U.S. citizenship, and had be-
come “Americanized,” the “racial strains” were undiluted.23 Similarly, California’s
attorney general, Earl Warren, and California Governor Culbert L. Olson de-
picted American Japanese as a threat to U. S. security.24
Public statements such as these, along with erroneous stories printed in
the news media, helped to ignite the distrust, fear, and hysteria directed against
Japanese Americans. Similarly to the way African Americans had been vic-
tims of dehumanization since the institution of American slavery, the Nisei
were now being socially constructed as belonging to another human species,
incapable of being loyal citizens of the United States. In metropolitan areas
of West Coast states, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officials began to
round up Japanese nationals (Issei) thought to be a threat to the U.S. war
effort. The country’s borders were closed to all persons of Japanese ancestry;
they were not permitted to leave or enter the country.
The anti-Japanese campaign was not confined to the West Coast; these
negative sentiments were held nationwide. As one observer wrote:
Life became terrifying for [Japanese-Americans] on the run. They
found signs in barbershop windows reading JAPS SHAVED. NOT
RESPONSIBLE FOR ACCIDENTS, or in restaurant windows, THIS
MANAGEMENT POISONS BOTH RATS AND JAPS. Gas stations
refused them gas. They couldn’t get water, or even the use of public
toilets. Five Nisei reached New Jersey and were hired by a farmer; a
vigilante committee put the farmer’s barn to torch and threatened to
kill his youngest child. In Denver, where a Nisei girl found a job, she
tried to attend church. The minister himself blocked the way. He
asked, “Wouldn’t you feel more at home in your own church?”25
Even so, expressions of anti-Japanese sentiment in the eastern United States,
severe as they were, were comparatively isolated incidents. Most acts of overt
discrimination against Japanese Americans during the war occurred on the
West Coast, where the largest proportion lived.
The fact that Japanese Americans were able to relocate to the eastern
and southwestern regions of the United States during the war suggests that
racial antagonism against them was less severe in these areas than on the West
Coast. Again, an analogy can be drawn between the experiences of African
Americans and those of Japanese Americans. That is, the acts of racism ex-
perienced by Japanese Americans on the West Coast during the war are simi-
lar to the overt acts of violence perpetrated by whites against blacks in the
southern United States before the civil rights movement. In addition, the treat-
 Introduction 9

ment of Japanese Americans on the East Coast during the war resembled the
covert (and somewhat more “benign”) acts of discrimination that blacks in
the North encountered during the same time. For each group, racism was prac-
ticed in its most severe form where large numbers of group members lived.
Unlike African Americans, however, who were relegated to an inferior social
position in the United States through Jim Crow laws and practices, Ameri-
cans of Asian descent were commonly viewed as aliens—even the Nisei, who
were American citizens by birth.
The bombing of Pearl Harbor was the catalyst for the incarceration of
innocent people who had always been viewed as foreigners by mainstream
America. On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order
9066, authorizing mass evacuation of Japanese Americans.26 On the follow-
ing day, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson authorized Lieutenant General
DeWitt to determine which areas on the West Coast would be off-limits to
Japanese Americans. Initially, those living in geographical areas designated
off-limits were given the opportunity to move voluntarily wherever they chose
outside the prohibited zones. Many of these found refuge in the homes of rela-
tives and friends.
Former Wac Miwako Rosenthal (a pseudonym) and her family were living
in California during this time; they were among these volunteer-evacuees:

I was born in California but we were moved to Texas when the war
broke out; my brother was in practice there. He was a doctor . . . a
practicing pediatrician. When the war broke out we were in
California. . . . My father had big holdings in California; he owned a
farm and a trucking business that took all the vegetables to the
market. We weren’t poor. My father and mother were both well-to-do.
That was all vested in my brother because they couldn’t own land
because of the alien land law, so [my brother] was the owner.

Japanese Americans who did not leave the Western Region by March 29,
1942, were forced to leave their homes and move into assembly centers. Even-
tually these forced evacuees were assigned to one of ten detention camps,
which were regulated by the War Relocation Authority (WRA). Yoshiye
Togasaki, a physician in the army during World War II, is a case in point.
She was born in San Francisco on January 3, 1904. After graduating from the
University of California at Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree in public health,
she attended Johns Hopkins Medical School and graduated with a degree in
medicine. Togasaki started a private practice in Los Angeles in 1941; a year
later she was evacuated to Manzanar Relocation Camp.27 Similarly, Nishikaichi
was evacuated from her home in Los Angeles along with her parents; they
10 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

were sent to Poston Relocation Center in west central Arizona. In the end, a
reported 109,650 persons of Japanese descent were forcibly removed from Cali-
fornia, Washington (state), Oregon, and Arizona. Approximately eighty thou-
sand of these evacuees were born in the United States, either children (Nisei)
or grandchildren (Sansei) of Japanese immigrants (Issei).28 These events
changed the lives of Nisei servicewomen, and were among the factors that
most considered in making the decision to enter the military. (See chapter 3.)
From several studies, including the published works of Roger Daniels and
Personal Justice Denied, the 1992 report of the Commission on Wartime Relo-
cation and Internment of Civilians, we now know that Japanese Americans
posed virtually no threat to national security during the war. According to
Daniels, Naval Intelligence Officer Kenneth D. Ringle reported in 1941 that
more than 90 percent of the Nisei and 75 percent of the Issei were completely
loyal to the United States. Daniels cited the following statement by Ringle
in 1941: “[A]fter careful investigations on both the west coast and Hawaii,
there was never a shred of evidence found of sabotage, subversive acts, spying,
or fifth column activity on the part of the Nisei or long-time local residents.”29
Fifty-one years after Ringle’s report, the Commission on Wartime Relo-
cation and Internment of Civilians reported similar findings exonerating Japa-
nese Americans in the aggregate from the large-scale acts of treason they
allegedly had committed. Part of the report reads as follows:

It was common wisdom that the Nazi invasions of Norway and

Western Europe had been aided by agents and sympathizers within
the country under attack—the so called fifth column—and the same
approach should be anticipated from Japan. . . . For this reason
intelligence was developed on Axis saboteurs and potential fifth
columnists as well as espionage agents. This work had been assigned
to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Navy Department but
not to the War Department. The President had developed his own
informal intelligence system through John Franklin Carter, a journal-
ist, who helped Roosevelt obtain information and estimates by
exploiting sources outside the government. . . . Each of these sources
saw only a very limited security risk from ethnic Japanese; none
recommended a mass exclusion or detention of all people of Japanese
ancestry.30

Policies of Gender Inclusion

For Nisei women, the right to serve in the military was contingent on laws
governing the enlistment of white women. Previous studies have shown that
 Introduction 11

war affects gender relations by changing the role of women.31 Such was the
case during World War II. With the United States actively involved in the
war, discussions about the need for a women’s corps to serve with the army
became part of the political agenda. Stereotypes of women were perhaps the
greatest obstacle to be overcome for women to be permitted to take a place
in the war effort. The ideology of paternalism, which prevailed in the United
States, defined women as less capable than men and in need of protection.
Feminists advocated women’s participation in the war effort, viewing it as a
right of citizenship; as early as 1940, the War Department received pressure
from organized women’s groups to enroll women in the army. Interest in a
women’s corps accelerated after the United States declared war on Japan.
Among the organizations lobbying for such a corps were the Women’s League
of Defense in Chicago, the Women’s Ambulance and Defense Corps of Los
Angeles, and the Toledo unit of the Willys-Overland Women’s Motor Defense
Corps, which proposed to train women for military service.
The subject of women in the armed services generated heated political
debate, even though women had participated in previous years. Women served
in an all-female nurse corps that Congress had established in 1901; in later
years they received various entitlements, such as relative rank and retirement
pensions. During World War I, the Navy enlisted thirteen thousand women
as “yeomanettes” to serve as clerks, and the War Department also hired women
telephone operators and clerks as civilian workers with the American Expe-
ditionary Forces in France. Still, the idea of women serving in the army dur-
ing World War II met strong opposition, particularly in Congress. As recorded
in the official history of the Women’s Army Corps, “Opposition was felt more
on the floor of the House, and in the cloakrooms, than in the Committees
on Military Affairs.”32 At least part of the explanation for the services’ sup-
port is that military officials had witnessed competent performance by women,
not only in the U.S. military during World War I, but also in the British and
Canadian forces.
General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff to the Secretary of War, ar-
gued strongly for the establishment of a women’s corps. Marshall realized that
women would be needed in the military if the War Department experienced
personnel shortages. In 1941 he stated: “While the United States is not faced
with an acute shortage of manpower such as has forced England to make such
an extensive use of its women, it is realized that we must plan for every pos-
sible contingency, and certainly must provide some outlet for the patriotic de-
sires of our women.”33 General Marshall knew that with the greater application
of technology, a second world war would rely heavily on administrative and
technical support. He also believed that women were more adept than men
12 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

at clerical and administrative work. In a published interview, his successor,

Colonel John H. Hildring, recalled, “General Marshall asked me why we
should try to train men in a specialty such as typing or telephone work which
in civilian life has been taken over completely by women; this he felt was
uneconomical and a waste of time which we didn’t have.”34
Additional pressure to include women in the military surfaced in May
1941, when Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers introduced a bill for a Women’s
Army Auxiliary Corps. The possibility of establishing a women’s corps raised
a number of questions in Congress: What would the women’s status be? What
type of military jobs would women fill? Should women be granted disability
pensions and veterans’ benefits? Some members of Congress objected strongly
to women serving in the military, viewing such service as men’s duty. Others,
although not totally against the idea, were opposed to authorizing military ben-
efits for women.35
After long and arduous debate, the bill passed Congress. On May 15, 1942,
President Roosevelt signed Public Law 77–554, establishing a Women’s Army
Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) for service with the U.S. Army.36 The primary rea-
son for the establishment of the WAAC was to release servicemen from clerical
positions to serve in combat. The army was authorized to enroll up to 150
thousand women to serve as noncombatants at both the officer and the en-
listed levels. The ranking of Waacs (members of the WAAC) differed from
that of their male counterparts, as illustrated by military historian Bettie
Morden:

Women officers received appointments in the Women’s Army

Auxiliary Corps in the created grades of third officer, second officer,
first officer, field director, assistant director, and director—comparable
to the army’s grades of second lieutenant through colonel. Enlisted
women held the grades of auxiliary, junior leader, leader, staff leader,
technical leader, first leader, and chief leader—comparable to the
army’s enlisted grades of private through master sergeant.37

Oveta Culp Hobby, a former member of the Texas legislature, newspaper

and radio executive, publisher, lawyer, writer, president of the Texas League
of Women Voters, civic worker, and the wife of former Governor William
Hobby of Texas, was appointed as the WAAC director, and later was given
the rank of colonel. Initially, African American activists protested Hobby’s
appointment, fearing that her southern background would cause her to dis-
criminate against African American women. Black opposition to Hobby’s ap-
pointment subsided, however, after she appointed forty African American
women among the first officer trainees.38 The WAAC followed the War
 Introduction 13

Department’s policy on race: African Americans were to serve in segregated

units, and Japanese Americans were barred from service from January 1942
until February 1943.39
Hundreds of American women applied for service in the U. S. military.
The successful candidates, including African American women, began train-
ing for the WAAC at Fort Des Moines, Iowa on July 2, 1942. Again, Nisei
women were not part of this group; they were categorically disqualified until
the following year.
Although Waacs received military pay, food, housing, and medical care,
they did not have military status. As mentioned above, Waacs were paid less
than male soldiers in equivalent grades until November 1942. The fact that
women were not part of the army created logistical difficulties. These prob-
lems had been anticipated by Congresswoman Rogers, who, after a strenuous
battle with Congress, settled for an auxiliary status for the Corps. She made
the following remarks in the Congressional Record: “In the beginning, I wanted
very much to have these women taken in as a part of the Army. . . . I wanted
them to have the same rate of pension and disability allowance. I . . . realized
that I could not secure that. The War Department was very unwilling to have
these women as a part of the Army.”40
Consequently Waacs did not fall under the army’s jurisdiction for pro-
motions or punishment. Instead the WAAC director was forced to devise sepa-
rate regulations for women. Most rules governing Waacs were similar to those
imposed on men in the army, but differences existed, particularly in regard to
overseas duty. As Morden stated, “Unlike servicemen, the auxiliaries could
not receive overseas pay or government life insurance. If they became sick or
were wounded, they would not receive veterans’ hospitalization. If they were
killed, their parents would receive no death gratuity. And, if they were cap-
tured, they would have no protection under existing international agreements
covering prisoners of war.”41 Similarly, female nurses were not accorded mili-
tary benefits, and female physicians were barred from entering the Army Medi-
cal Corps.
This auxiliary status of women was later challenged and changed, as was
the War Department’s policy of excluding women physicians from the Medi-
cal Corps. Toward the end of 1942, WAAC Director Hobby and Congress-
woman Rogers drafted a bill to integrate women into the army. The bill was
approved by Chief of Staff Marshall and was introduced to Congress in Janu-
ary 1943. In March the Seventy-eighth Congress also began hearing testimo-
nies on appointing female physicians to the Medical Corps. Following a long
debate, the WAC bill was approved by the House of Representatives and the
Senate, and was signed by President Roosevelt on July 1, 1943. Public Law
14 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

78–110 established the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), thereby integrating

women into the army. By the time the first Nisei woman was inducted into
the military, members of the WAC held the same military rank as service-
men, received the same pay, allowances, benefits, and privileges, and were sub-
ject to the same disciplinary code. A year later, on June 22, 1944, Congress
granted army nurses temporary commissions and the full pay and privileges of
the grades second lieutenant through colonel. Female physicians were admit-
ted to the Army Medical Corps during the spring of 1943.

Dismantling Racial Barriers, Inducting Japanese Americans

In the same year that the WAC was established, the War Relocation Author-
ity (WRA) began permitting larger numbers of Japanese Americans to leave
internment camps and return to the larger society. Evacuees were eligible for
leave permits if they fulfilled three prerequisites: they must have found em-
ployment in either the midwestern or the eastern region of the United States;
they must have indicated on a loyalty questionnaire (discussed in chapter 3)
that they were loyal to the United States and supported its war effort; and
they were required to agree not to “affiliate” with fellow Japanese Americans.42
Irene Nishikaichi was at Poston for a year and a half before she left for
New York City. In an effort to regain control of her life, she obtained a train
ticket and fifty dollars from the War Relocation Authority, and set out to work
in the home of a Columbia University professor “who wanted someone to look
after a child.”

I thought I could go to night school and continue my legal secretarial

course. I learned, after I arrived, that there were three children and I
was supposed to share a bedroom room with them. One of the
children had encephalitis; I guess that was the reason they wanted
someone in the home. When I found out there were a couple of other
kids, and I had to share the room with the kids, I said, “No way.” I
didn’t know how I was going to study. I walked in and I walked out;
no place to stay, no job, no nothing.

The War Relocation Authority had offices throughout the nation;

Nishikaichi was able to find employment at one such office in New York City:
I went to a WRA office which had already been established in New
York City, and they needed a secretary. They referred me to an
apartment that was willing to take Japanese Americans. I had to take
a civil service exam. I was there in September and didn’t get the civil
service job until around November or December. In the meantime,
 Introduction 15

my mother, Nina, a midwife in the prenatal and postnatal clinics,

visited mothers after their births. And one of the families . . . that had
just had a child was a Baptist minister and his wife. And my mother,
although she opposed my going to New York, got a [point of contact]
for me at the American Baptist Society in New York. I had been going
to a Christian church, but I was not a regular churchgoer. So in the
meantime, while I was waiting for this civil service job, I went to the
Baptist headquarters and was offered a temporary job with their
foreign missionary society, paying fifty cents an hour. Some weeks I
only made sixteen dollars.

When the WRA began accelerating the process of releasing evacuees, the
U.S. War Department was experiencing a severe manpower shortage. In the
spring of 1942, the army suffered one of the biggest defeats in U.S. military
history: approximately seventy-six thousand American men surrendered to Ja-
pan in Bataan on April 9. That summer, Japan invaded the Aleutian Islands.
In November 1942, the Japanese American Citizenship League (JACL) peti-
tioned the president of the United States to reinstate the draft for Nisei men.43
In addition, some private citizens complained to the War Department that
Japanese Americans should fulfill their obligation as citizens and should par-
ticipate in the war effort. One Lilliebell Falck urged the War Department to
enlist Japanese Americans, because she felt that they too had a duty to de-
fend the nation. Falck’s letter was written on the letterhead of the Daughters
of the American Revolution (DAR), Golden Spike Chapter, Ogden, Utah.
All DAR members are descendants of persons who helped to win American
independence; Falck’s grandparents had served in the Revolutionary War.44
In her letter to Secretary of War Stimson, dated January 29, 1943, Falck
stated:
Our American children of 18 . . . and 19 years are taken out of school,
and put into the service of our country. Morale is considered an
essential to boys and parents. Beside our American boys, in college
and universities, are Japanese boys. Our boys are taken into the
military, while the Japanese students are permitted to continue their
studies and professions. . . . Wherein is justice . . . ? In the demand for
production, why this sort of action?45
More important, it was also becoming evident to the War Department
that the services of all eligible persons, including Japanese Americans, were
vital to the war effort, given that so many active-duty men were losing their
lives in both the European and the Pacific. Thus on January 28, 1943, Secretary
of War Stimson announced, “It is the inherent right of every faithful citizen,
regardless of ancestry, to bear arms in the nation’s battle.” Still, concern
16 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

remained about the loyalty of Americans of Japanese descent. In an attempt

to determine which Japanese Americans were loyal to the United States, the
War Department in collaboration with the WRA conducted a program of reg-
istering all Japanese Americans age seventeen and older. The program was to
fulfill the dual purpose of recruiting Nisei men and women for military ser-
vice and clearing loyal Issei and Nisei for resettlement in civilian communities.
For these reasons, a controversial loyalty questionnaire was administered
in January 1943.46 Item 27 asked about the respondent’s willingness to serve
in the military. Item 28 asked: “Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the
United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any
or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance
or obedience to the Japanese Emperor, or any other foreign government, power,
or organization?” It is beyond the scope of this study to detail all nuances as-
sociated with the loyalty questionnaire. Essentially, if a person answered “yes”
to both questions, he or she was assumed loyal to the United States. Con-
versely, if a respondent answered “no” to one or both questions, he or she was
considered disloyal.
The questionnaire created political controversy and confusion among
many Japanese Americans, especially the Issei, in part because the same ques-
tionnaire that the War Department used for recruiting was used by the War
Relocation Authority to resettle evacuees in the broader society. Nonethe-
less, the War Department allowed Japanese American men to volunteer for
military service and began to make plans for inducting Nisei in accord with
the questionnaire results. The Nisei men and women who volunteered to serve
in the armed services swore unqualified allegiance to the United States.
The opening of military doors to Nisei men was a precursor to the ad-
mittance of Nisei women, and subsequently to the induction of Issei men. In
January 1944, the War Department’s policy was modified further: the Selec-
tive Service was authorized to draft all Japanese American men on the con-
dition that they were cleared individually for service. In September, Japanese
“aliens” (Issei) were allowed to volunteer for military service on the condi-
tion that they filed Selective Service forms DSS 219 and 165 with their local
board and all were cleared for service by the Provost Marshal.47

A Need for Nisei Servicewomen

As the loyalty questionnaire was being administered, memos were circulated
within the War Department requesting the recruitment of women linguists.
Specifically, the Chief Recruiting Branch, Personnel Division, requested that
some method be devised to recruit linguists for the WAAC to work in cryp-
 Introduction 17

tography and communications, and as interpreters. Japanese was one of the

languages sought.48 During the same period, War Relocation Authority Di-
rector Dillon S. Myer met with Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy to
discuss the induction of Nisei women into the WAAC.49
During the last week of January 1943, the War Department held a series
of conferences investigating the possibility of procuring Nisei men and women
for voluntary induction into the army. In February the policy of excluding Japa-
nese Americans from the army changed: Nisei men could volunteer to serve
in segregated combat units if cleared by the assistant chief of staff.50 In April,
Nisei women were approved for service by the Military Intelligence Division.
Toward the end of 1943, a new image of Japanese Americans was being
constructed in the media. Newspaper articles began to portray them as pos-
ing little or no threat to national security. As stated in the November 3 issue
of the New York Times, “Fewer than half of a per cent of the 938 persons classed
as enemy aliens in this country have been interned as potentially dangerous.”51
Hence the message to the American public was that the overwhelming ma-
jority of ethnic Japanese were harmless and therefore should be reintegrated
into the larger society. This theme was strengthened by the induction of Nisei
men into the military, although they served in a segregated unit, and later by
the induction of Nisei women, who served in racially integrated units with
Caucasian Wacs.
As early as January 1943, Director Hobby began collecting information
on Japanese American women living in War Relocation Centers. According
to a letter she received from the War Relocation Authority, 11,040 of these
women between ages 18 and 45 were married, and 10,374 were single. The
report also listed the occupations held by some; the majority were clerical
workers (see Table 1).
Although the War Department had already begun a paper trail on the
issue of enlisting Nisei women into the WAAC, officers were not sent out
into the field to conduct interviews until spring 1943. In March 1943, WAAC
officers began visiting the relocation camps to talk with Nisei women; during
these meetings, the women expressed curiosity about the WAAC. Second Of-
ficer Manice M. Hill, for example, spoke with Nisei women at the Rohwer
Relocation Center. She reported that although these women expressed an in-
terest in joining the WAAC, they indicated that their families would have to
approve such enlistment. Hill added that the Nisei women opposed any plan
of segregation and felt that the segregated combat units, the 100th and 442nd,
resulted from acts of racial discrimination.52 (Additional reports that resulted
from this recruitment effort are discussed in chapter 4.)
On February 21, 1943, the Office of the Surgeon General received
18 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

Table 1
Occupations of Nisei Women, 1943
Occupation Number Reported
Editors and reporters 13
Pharmacists 12
Physicians and surgeons 6
Teachers 228
Trained nurses and students 124
Managers 129
Clerical workers 2,541
Stenographers and typists 254
Chemist 1
College teacher 4
Dentist 1
Lawyer 1
Social workers 13
Librarians 4
Draftsperson 1
Optometrists 3
Laboratory technicians 8
Religious workers 30

Source: Letter from War Relocation Authority to Colonel Oveta Hobby,

January 26, 1943, RG, SPWA 291.2, National Archives, College Park, Md.

authorization to assign qualified Japanese Americans to the Army Nurse Corps.

Approximately two months later, the Military Intelligence Division approved
Nisei women for military service in the WAC (which had succeeded the
WAAC). In June, the Military Personnel Division announced that Nisei
women would be accorded the same treatment and assignment as other women
and would not be racially segregated. It was further announced that all inves-
tigations of Nisei women, before and after induction, would be conducted by
the Provost Marshal General’s Office.53 Finally, on July 23, Director Hobby
circulated a letter to each service command announcing that women of Japa-
nese ancestry would be accepted into the WAC. The letter stated that physi-
cal standards would be the same as for other applicants except that the
minimum height would be fifty-seven inches and the minimum weight ninety-
five pounds. Applicants were to be proficient in both written and spoken En-
glish.54 Hobby also announced that the quota for Nisei Wacs was set at five
hundred, and specified how this quota was to be distributed throughout the
commands (see Table 2). No quota was set for Nisei nurses; also, unlike the
WAAC, the Army Nurse Corps did not make any special effort to recruit from
the Japanese American community.
Several structural factors help to explain why Nisei women were permit-
 Introduction 19

Table 2
Specified Quotas for the Enrollment of Nisei Women into the WAC by
Service Command
Quota Service Command States
10 First Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
Rhode Island, and Vermont
30 Second Delaware, New York, and New Jersey
10 Third Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia (except Alex-
andria and Arlington, Va.)
10 Fourth Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina,
South Carolina, and Tennessee
20 Fifth Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia
30 Sixth Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin
65 Seventh Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Ne-
braska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyo-
ming
60 Eighth Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and
Texas
250 Ninth Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and
Washington
15 Tenth Alexandria, Virginia; Arlington, Virginia; and Wash-
ington, D.C.

Sources: AR 170–10, August 1942, Service Commands and Departments, U.S. Army Center of Military
History, Washington, D.C.; “Enlistment in WAC of Women Citizens of U.S. of Japanese Ancestry,” 23
July 1943, RG 407, Decimal File 1940–1945, Box 4300, Folder 341.1, 342.05 WAC, National
Archives, Washington, D.C.

ted to enroll in the Army Nurse Corps and finally were recruited into the
WAC. The same factors help to clarify why Nisei servicewomen served in ra-
cially integrated units.
The primary catalyst for the induction of Nisei women into the ANC
and the WAC was the difficulty that these organizations were experiencing
in recruiting. This problem was exacerbated for the WAAC/WAC by a slan-
der campaign against servicewomen that began during the spring of 1943: ru-
mors that women in the military were of low moral character spread
throughout the nation; and the news media depicted Waacs as sexually pro-
miscuous.55 Mattie Treadwell reported that an FBI investigation revealed these
allegations were false. FBI agents also found that these slanders originated with
army servicemen who had negative attitudes toward the WAAC.56 Although
WAAC Director Hobby worked hard to counter the slander campaign, it cre-
ated a tremendous barrier to recruitment.
The Women’s Army Corps needed all the qualified women willing to en-
roll, and Nisei women were among the most highly educated in the United
States. Segregating Nisei women in the WAC was less of an issue at this time
20 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

than convincing them to enlist. Of the two million military job openings in
the army, the War Department estimated that six hundred thousand could
“more efficiently be done by Waacs.”57 From the perspective of the War De-
partment, women were needed to fill jobs in the rear, thereby enabling more
men to be assigned to the battlefields, and many Nisei women were qualified
to fill these skilled occupational positions.
Initially, serious consideration was given to recruiting Nisei women to
serve in racially segregated WAAC companies, and it was further recom-
mended that they be recruited and trained in time to replace members of the
442nd as these men deployed overseas;58 this plan never materialized, how-
ever, as much controversy surrounded the question of segregating Nisei women.
Indeed, for Nisei women interested in joining the armed services, racial inte-
gration was a serious issue. In an effort to acquire citizenship rights, these women
positioned themselves as “honorary whites” rather than “constructive blacks.”59
On their loyalty questionnaire, several indicated that they would be willing
to serve in the WAAC if given the opportunity, but would not serve in segre-
gated companies. In addition, Secretary of War Stimson received letters from
private citizens urging that Nisei women be able to serve in racially integrated
units. One such letter was written by Allen C. Blaisdell, director of Interna-
tional House at the University of California at Berkeley. After expressing ap-
preciation for the opening of military doors to Japanese American men,
Blaisdell wrote:
May I make two suggestions which are, no doubt, also in your mind:
(1) That the young [Japanese American] women be accorded oppor-
tunities for enlistment in the women’s branches of the armed forces.
There are many of them well-trained in office skills and medical and
technical professions who could be of great service in this way and
should be granted opportunities for enlistment on a basis of equality
with young men of their race. (2) I hope as wisdom and experience
dictate that the policy of segregation can give way to the integration
of these young men and women into the regularly established branches
of the armed forces. They need to learn the techniques of integration
and all Americans need the broadening and socially constructive
experience of interrelationship. Our armed forces can thus become
the training ground for the sincere democracy of the future.60

While the War Department had already begun conducting a study on enlist-
ing Nisei women in the WAAC, letters received from private citizens such as
Professor Blaisdell facilitated the process.
WAAC Director Hobby and other War Department officials agreed that
there was no need to segregate Nisei Waacs. One reason was that the num-
 Introduction 21

ber of Nisei women enlisting into the military would be small and therefore
“easily integrated” with white WAACS.61 Another part of the rationale was
that segregation “would increase racial friction and complicate administra-
tion.”62 Moreover, by the time Nisei women were being considered for induc-
tion, the War Department’s policy of racial segregation had been criticized
severely by the African American community. Colonel Don Faith, the com-
mandant of the WAAC Training Center, received much correspondence from
black organizations and the black press, protesting segregation in the WAAC.63
Segregation had been a long-standing cause of dispute between the War De-
partment and the African American community. The segregation of Nisei men
was also a controversial issue for the War Department; now Nisei women were
challenging the idea, too, as were some white citizens, such as Blaisdell, on
behalf of the Nisei.
Officially, military doors opened to Nisei women in April 1943. The first
Nisei woman was not inducted until November, however. As mentioned
above, the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps had, by that time, become the
Women’s Army Corps, and its members had army status. Wacs, now part of
the army rather than mere auxiliaries, received the same pay, medical ben-
efits, and other allowances as men.64 Hence, Nisei women entered the mili-
tary just when women were accorded the same military benefits as men; they
were dispersed throughout the integrated WAC and served mostly in the con-
tiguous United States.
Some of the Nisei Wacs were trained as linguists at the Military Intelli-
gence Service Language School at Fort Snelling, Minnesota. Most, however,
received training in clerical, medical, supply, and other military support posi-
tions. Ruth Fujii, a Hawaiian Nisei, had the distinction of being the only
woman of Japanese ancestry to serve in the Pacific Theater of Operations
(Philippines and China) during the war.
Some Nisei women, such as Iris Watanabe, entered the military directly
from internment camps. Stories about their induction ceremonies were fea-
tured in Japanese newspaper articles like this:
A twenty-year-old California girl of Japanese ancestry on December
13 became the first evacuee to take the oath of service in the
Women’s Army Corps in the office of Colorado’s Governor Vivian.
Miss Iris Watanabe of Santa Cruz, California was one of 17 young
women sworn in at the ceremony. Two of the others are also of
Japanese ancestry but are not evacuees.65
Watanabe’s induction drew considerable attention, for she was the first
woman evacuee to enroll in the WAC. Reporter Harry Tarvin attempted,
though without success, to interview her for an article in a mainstream news-
22 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

paper. A Lieutenant S.O. Reed, commanding officer of the WAC recruiting

office in Denver, forbade the interview, stating that Watanabe’s induction
might have a negative effect on the recruitment of white women.66 Tarvin
then went to Governor John Vivian’s office, where the induction was taking
place; he was accompanied by Tom Parker, then head of the WRA photo-
graphic section, and Pat Coffey, then a photographer for Life magazine. They
were met by a Lieutenant Stanley, in charge of inductees, who advised them
not to take any pictures of Watanabe on the grounds that such a picture would
jeopardize recruitment of white women. Nonetheless, Tarvin asked Governor
Vivian for permission to take photographs of him, first with Watanabe and
then with two other Nisei women, who were attending the ceremony but not
being inducted. (See illustrations 1 and 2.)
The Japanese American press applauded the War Department’s decision
to open its doors to Nisei women. An editorial published in the Pacific Citi-
zen stated that opening the Women’s Army Corps to Japanese American
women was “a signal example of democracy, for it showed once again that
the army of our country must and will include persons of all races, even those
of enemy extraction.”67 The article listed the advantages of joining the WAC.
First there were the training and work experience, which would be useful af-
ter military service. In addition, military veterans would receive preference
for employment after the war, in the form of civil service points. Of particu-
lar interest to Japanese Americans was the fact that members of the WAC
were free to move about anywhere in the United States: Wacs were assigned
to duty in all regions of the country, and there was no policy of segregating
Nisei women. (See chapter 4.)
Upon joining the WAC, the Nisei women received varying responses from
significant others. Many met strong opposition from family and friends, not
only because the military was a male-dominated organization, but also because
the Japanese American community was divided over the issue of loyalty to
the United States. On March 7, 1943, for example, Headquarters Ninth Com-
mand, WAAC Branch, in Washington, D.C., received a letter from Second
Officer Henrietta Horak of the WAAC Recruiting Office in Los Angeles, re-
garding the survey she had administered at Tule Lake Relocation Center.
Horak reported that the fifteen, thousand Japanese Americans at the loca-
tion center were being registered, and she described the camp’s atmosphere
as one of “hate, fear, suspicion, and violence.” She stated that, “74 Kebeis
[have] just been jailed. [There have been] numerous beatings among the three
Japanese factions (Issei, Nisei, and Kebei). One Nisei woman was beaten, al-
legedly because she had expressed a desire to be a WAAC.”68
 Introduction 23

There was a great deal of dissent in the Japanese American community

over the issue of military service; Nisei servicewomen often found themselves
at the crossroad of this controversy. Issei parents, particularly those who were
interned, often objected to their children’s volunteering for service. In the
words of Thomas and Nishimoto, “Those who had decided that there was no
longer a place for them in America were determined that this country would
not rob them of their children as it had taken their possessions. There began
a campaign to prevail upon the children 17 years of age and over to say no to
their loyalty question.”69 Certainly, some Nisei were embittered and disillu-
sioned with the United States for abrogating their rights as citizens. Many
young Japanese Americans who had advocated cultural assimilation before the
war, had now become racialized; many of these men and women identified
strongly with their parents’ losses and suffering, and honored their wishes not
to serve in the military.
On the other hand, a great many Nisei felt allegiance to their country of
birth. Leaders of the Japanese American Citizenship League (JACL) encour-
aged Nisei men and women to volunteer for the armed services. Some family
members of Nisei Wacs supported the women’s decision to join the military;
others had mixed feelings. Irene Nishikaichi recalled her parents’ ambivalence:

I knew that I would have trouble [getting parental consent] so I didn’t

sign up or volunteer until I was twenty-one. I . . . chuckled because
my parents were kind of opposed to my going into the military. . . . I
was talking about going into the service and my mother said that
between the two [choices] she would rather have me leave camp [and
go into service]. Other [Issei] parents were opposed to her thinking
because they thought their daughters might want to follow my
example. My mother wasn’t exactly happy about my going into
service, but later she sen[t] to me two brand new dictionaries,
Japanese-English, [and] English-Japanese [which demonstrated her
support].

Grace Harada also stated that her parents objected to her decision to en-
ter the WAC. For Harada’s parents and most of their Issei friends, military
service was inappropriate for Nisei women:

They just felt that I shouldn’t be doing something like that, and going
so far away from home. But I told them that I just couldn’t stay home
and do housework. I wasn’t accomplishing anything I said. [Harada’s
brother had already joined the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.] I
said [to my parents] “There is a war going on and he can’t do it
24 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

alone.” . . . I said what I would be doing is replacing all these men to

help end the war. I tried to talk my parents into letting me go, and
finally they released me and signed the consent for me to go in.

Miwako Rosenthal was finishing her sophomore year in college when she
learned that she had been accepted into the WAC. She had filed the form
necessary for all U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry who were volunteering for
military service (DSS Form 304A) before she began her studies. Like so many
other parents, Rosenthal’s mother and father objected to her entering the
military.
Rosenthal had applied for entry into the WAAC in 1942; it was two years
later when she finally received word that her application was approved. In
her words, “I was surprised because I had been waiting for a couple of years,
since I volunteered, and nothing was said so I figured they didn’t want me or
that I didn’t pass or something. Now all of a sudden they said they can induct
me. I was inducted at Fort Bliss.” To avoid controversy with her parents about
her induction, Rosenthal resorted to subterfuge:

The War Department called me up at Fort Bliss and said, “You’re

registered, you can be inducted now.” I didn’t tell my parents or
anything. I said I was going to go visit one of my student friends, but I
went to Fort Bliss. It was at Christmastime, and they called me while I
was on semester break. I went in January of 1945.

In contrast, Ellen Fuchida’s family was very supportive when she decided
to join the military. Her father had died, leaving her mother a widow with
four children. She recalled,

I was twenty-four when I entered service at Fort Douglas, Utah. Most

of my family was behind me [but] my brother, who was overseas [with
the 442nd], was ready to shoot me. He didn’t count because he was
overseas. . . . My friends were shocked, but they were supportive. . . . My
mother said, “Okay, if that’s what you want to do, go do it and do the
best you can.” . . . But she sure had a hard time explaining [Fuchida’s
going into the military] to the Issei community of Salt Lake.

Fuchida added that other Issei parents feared that her personal decision to
join the military might influence other Nisei.
It is important to note that not all Nisei were willing to serve. Initially
military service was voluntary for both Nisei men and women; eventually, how-
ever, Nisei men were required to register for the draft. Suffice it to mention
that a few Nisei men who were inducted into the military displayed serious
disciplinary problems and engaged in several acts of disruption. Such was the
 Introduction 25

case with the demoralized unit that Tomotsu Shibutani discusses in The Der-
elicts of Company K.70 The War Department faced a major challenge in at-
tempting to enforce the policy of obligatory military service, with some Nisei
men, who had no desire to enter the armed services, or, as law professor Eric
Muller discovered, resisted the draft as a form of protest against mass evacua-
tion.71 In February 1944, the Denson Tribune, an internment camp paper, pub-
lished the following alert:

All Nisei men of military age who are not certain that they listed
complete information concerning local Selective Service Boards at
the time of registration early in 1943 are required to send name, number
and address of their boards to the Relocation Planning Division,
Washington, D.C. . . . A man who cannot be located and notified to
appear for pre-induction physical examination when his order number
appears will be reported as delinquent and is liable to severe penalties
provided under the Selective Training and Service Act.72

For the next few months, Japanese American newspapers published no-
tices of the arrest of Nisei men who refused to take their pre-induction physi-
cals. (Examples of such articles appear in chapter 3.) Many of these men were
so embittered by the unconstitutional act of mass evacuation that they re-
nounced their American citizenship. Some internees felt that “their present
situation represented a denial of their rights, and that enlistment in the Army,
under these conditions, was not a privilege but an unbearable sacrifice.”73 In
an attempt to avoid military service, some of the men applied for expatria-
tion with the WRA Internal Security Division;74 they were the exception,
however.
In contrast, at the same time, Japanese American newspapers were filled
with stories of Nisei women being inducted into the WAC, as in this example
from the Pacific Citizen:

Three women of Japanese ancestry were among a large group of

newly-enlisted Women’s Army Corps members to leave Salt Lake
City last week for training in the WAC at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. . . .
At Des Moines, the women will receive five weeks of basic training,
they may be sent to one of the WAC specialist schools or to direct
assignment to a non-combat job at an Army post. The three women
were given an enthusiastic send-off by their families and friends who
showered the new Wacs with many gifts. Speaking for the Japanese-
American Wacs, Private Mukai declared, “We are thrilled to be able
to serve in the Women’s Army Corps.”75

In another article published in the Pacific Citizen, Iris Watanabe, scheduled

26 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

to be inducted into the WACs on December 7, 1943, was quoted, “I hope to

make the land of my ancestors pay for its unwarranted attack on my coun-
try.”76 Three weeks later, the Denson Tribune cited Watanabe, “I am delighted
to be in the WACS. It is an honor not only to me but to other Japanese Ameri-
cans, and I shall be conscious of that all the time. I have always hated the
militaristic clique in Japan and I resolved that I would do everything in my
power to fight it, not only for myself but for my native land.”77
Juxtaposing newspaper articles about Nisei male draft dodgers with those
about Nisei female enlistees may give the false impression that Nisei women
were more patriotic toward the United States than were Nisei men. In fact,
however, Nisei women were no more highly motivated than their male coun-
terparts to enter the military—in fact, probably less so, given the social stigma
placed on women who went into the military. Just as some Nisei men refused
to support the U.S. war effort, some Nisei women objected as well. Yet be-
cause service was not obligatory for women, the press reported only positive
stories of Nisei women’s induction; those who were not interested in joining
the WAC did not make headline news. And the Nisei Wacs interviewed for
newspaper articles were enthusiastic about joining, and it is worth noting that
the women interviewed for this study expressed excitement about entering the
military.
Nisei women of Hawaii, not subjected to the direct effects of mass evacu-
ation, may have felt less ambivalence than many in the contiguous states about
joining the WAC. Alice Kono of Molokai recalled that her parents were not
upset when she announced that she wanted to join: “I think my dad didn’t
think they would take me because I was so short; so he said, ‘Oh go ahead.’ . . . My
mother wasn’t sure.” Hisako Yamashita of Kauai felt independent, since her
mother was deceased, and she did not ask her father’s permission to join: “It
was really my own decision. . . . I was very independent and I didn’t even ask.
I just joined. Later I heard family members say, ‘Oh dear, look what she did,’
but they never came out in front of me and asked why I did it.”
Similarly, Ruth Fujii’s father was deceased and her oldest brother was the
decision maker for her family in Kauai. She had been emancipated from her
home for several years and was working as a high school secretary in Hono-
lulu when she decided to go into the military:

Sunday morning the paper was delivered and in it said that they were
recruiting girls and they were giving silk stockings away. . . . So
Monday we [Fujii and a friend] went down and registered. I didn’t tell
anybody, not even my boss or my family. . . . And then when [the]
paperwork was done I told my boss, and he said that was okay; that
 Introduction 27

they were proud that I’d made up my mind. I didn’t tell my brother
until I passed the physical. I guess [my family] was shocked, but they
accepted it. . . . They couldn’t do anything because they knew that it
was my own life.

Often these women either were the target of blatant racial discrimina-
tion, in the continental United States, or were relegated to a lower social sta-
tus, in the Territory of Hawaii. Thus it seems almost counterintuitive that they
should want to join the American armed services. What motivated them? Each
of my informants indicated that she felt a great need to show loyalty to the
United States—a desire reflected in the following statement by a Nisei woman
(interviewed for an earlier study):
I was getting sick and tired of doing domestic work all the time and
wanted a change. I wanted to do something more directly related with
the war effort. I felt that I would not feel so restless if I got into the
WACs. . . . I thought that if I joined the WACs, I would be better
fitted to get a job afterward. . . . I felt that the Nisei had to do more
than give lip service to the United States, and by joining the WACs I
could prove my sincerity. . . . Now I can go into the WACs and be on
an equal footing with everybody else, and this has given me quite a
mental lift. I also feel that I am contributing something toward the
real achievement of democracy.78

Irene Nishikaichi had read an article about the WAC, and felt that she
had a special skill to share. She said:
I saw this article in the Pacific Citizen [announcing that the War
Department] was seeking Japanese, Nisei women for the language
school. And since I had graduated the 12th grade level of Japanese
school in Los Angeles, and had considered volunteering [for the
military] before, I thought it was almost fate that this information
should come out the month that I was turning twenty-one. I thought
translating Japanese was something specific that I could do that very
few women could do. If I volunteer for secretarial work, lots of others
could do that. But as far as language, I thought there would be very
few people to qualify. So, since I had a very specialized service that I
could give my country, I felt that I should volunteer and really go
through with it. I went to basic [training at Fort Des Moines], and
then I went to the Military Intelligence Service Language School.

Similar reasons for joining were given by Fujiko Kutaka, Hisako Yama-
shita, Alice Kono, and Ruth Fujii. All were inducted in Hawaii, and all stated
that they joined for patriotic reasons. As Yamashita noted, “We joined the
28 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

WAC to show that we [were] patriotic. . . . And once [the United States] won,
at least we could say we didn’t shy away from fighting Japan.” She explained
further that she became interested in the WAC during a conversation with
her women friends about proving that they were Americans:
That was the first time [the War Department] was forming a women’s
unit from Hawaii. I was at the University of Hawaii, and some [Nisei
women] friends were talking. We said, “You know, the war started, the
men . . . volunteered, . . . and why don’t Japanese women join in
because that would be something we’d be doing for the country. And
although the enemy was Japanese and we’re Japanese, . . . we’re not
the same people . . . we’re Americans and they’re from Japan, and
there was a difference. . . . [We agreed] to prove that we [were]
American, and to prove it we would join the army like a man. That’s
how it started. I said, “I’m gonna join,” and I did. . . . I was the only
one [from that group] who did.

Mary Yamada, the only nurse interviewed for this study, stated that she
felt it her responsibility as a nurse to serve in the military and to help admin-
ister treatment to the wounded. She stated, “I just expected that if there ever
was a war, that as part of my nursing career I would report for military duty. I
expected to go to England with the Bellevue unit because that’s where they
were stationed during World War II.” The same professional, moral, and ethical
sentiment was echoed in the testimony of the physician Yoshiye Togasaki, who
stated that her experiences in practicing medicine (outside as well as inside
the internment camps) made her better equipped to treat casualties of war
than doctors just completing formal training.79
Surely, many other reasons influenced these women’s decision. Some
women I interviewed were drawn by the excitement associated with travel;
others were attracted by educational benefits associated with the GI Bill. Ellen
Fuchida, for example, entered the military from Utah in 1944, where her family
owned a grocery store. She had completed high school before studying to be
a beautician, and had opened a beauty shop the day after Pearl Harbor. As
stated above, her father was deceased, and her oldest brother had volunteered
for the 442nd. Fuchida was searching for change:
I joined the military mostly because I had never been out of Utah,
and to do beauty work at a time like that [during the war] was useless.
Most of the beauticians were going into defense force work. So I
talked to my mother; I knew she was alone with four children left,
but . . . we were doing all right. I was doing my beauty work in this
small town, and my twenty-one-year-old sister was co-owner of a
restaurant, and then my mother had the grocery business. We were so
 Introduction 29

busy and working so hard that I’d put my customer under a dryer and
then run up to the grocery store [and] put up some groceries. And
then at night, when everything was finished, we’d clean the restau-
rant. I thought I was going to drop dead. So finally I said, “I’m going
off.”

And Grace Harada recalled:

I had just graduated high school and I wanted to become a nurse

[when] the war broke out. . . . At that time. . . . we couldn’t even get a
decent job. . . . I had some clerical work in high school and was trying
to get some kind of office work, but because of [my] Japanese ancestry,
there was nothing [available]. I was employed as a maid, doing
housework. That was all we could do because there was so much
[racial] discrimination. So both my sister and I worked in homes for
five dollars a week, room and board.

Finally, Harada decided to go into the military because:

I was so frustrated; I wasn’t happy doing housework, . . . and I couldn’t
go to school. I wasn’t making enough, so I couldn’t go on to college,
and there wasn’t much I could do staying there [in Pocatello]. So I
decided to join the military. At the time they wouldn’t accept Nisei in
any of the other [military] organizations except the WAC. I tried the
Marines, the Air Force, the Navy, but none of them would take the
Japanese. So I finally went into the Army.

Rosenthal welcomed the opportunity to serve in the military, largely be-

cause of the educational benefits:

I went to the College of Mines and Metallurgy in El Paso. . . . Since I

was in college, I thought . . . if I could get into service, that would be
great because then I could get an education without worrying [how I
was going to pay for it]. It wasn’t easy to go to college [during the war].
Japanese couldn’t get jobs or anything. [Japanese Americans] couldn’t
even work on the farm for ten cents an hour.

The exact number of Japanese American women who served in the WAC
is unknown, although evidence (discussed in chapters 4 and 5) suggests that
they never reached their quota of five hundred. Twenty-five Nisei women en-
tered in a contingent of sixty-two Wacs from the Hawaiian Islands (see ap-
pendix). They were assigned as clerks, interpreters, and other roles.
The need for nurses during World War II was also great—so great that
the ANC had to engage in a massive buildup. According to registered nurse
and retired U.S. Army Colonel Mary Sarnecky:
30 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

By the end of calendar year 1941, just after the bombing of Pearl
Harbor, the authorized strength of the Army Nurse Corps was 8,237,
while the actual strength was 7,043. At the same time in 1942, the
authorized strength was 25,005, while actual strength was 19,194. In
December 1944, authorized and actual strength figures were 50,000
and 42,248 respectively. In June 1945 after V-E day, the balance
finally shifted. At that time, the authorized strength of the Army
Nurse Corps was 53,000 and actual strength was more, 54,291.80

By the end of the war, some fifty-seven thousand nurses would have served in
the ANC; the number of Nisei nurses in this group is unknown. Unlike the
WAC, the ANC did not recruit Nisei nurses separately. Additionally, the num-
ber of Nisei nurses was so small that segregation never emerged as a real issue.
The Nisei women documented in this book broke with subcultural norms
as well as traditional gender norms of the broader society. The testimonies
related above illustrate that many were motivated by a desire to demonstrate
loyalty to the United States and to prove their worthiness of first-class citi-
zenship for themselves and their families. Others indicated that they volun-
teered because they possessed skills much needed in time of war; they believed
volunteering was the responsible thing for them, as members of society, to do.
Still others wanted an opportunity to travel and see the world.
Like other women of their cohort who entered the armed services, Nisei
servicewomen chose to enter a male domain, and, as discussed above, because
of traditional gender norms, women in the military were often a target of slan-
der. Unlike other women, however, the Nisei servicewoman had to complete
a loyalty questionnaire. Moreover, at times, she was admonished for choosing
to serve in the U.S. military and accused of betraying her race. This was es-
pecially true of Nisei servicewomen who were living in internment camps,
where bitter riots broke out over the issue of serving in the military. As men-
tioned above, Second Officer Horak reported that a Nisei woman was beaten
at Tule Lake for merely expressing a desire to join the WAAC. (The intra-
racial conflict among Japanese Americans over the issue of military service is
further discussed in chapter 3.)
In the following chapters, Nisei servicewomen talk about their lives be-
fore, during, and after World War II.
 Before the War 31

Chapter 2 Before the War

When you’re in your teens, you’re not interested in
history. You’re not interested in what your parents did or
what they thought. It’s only when you get into your
fifties or possibly into your sixties [that your curiosity is
aroused]. And by then, because my parents were older
than most when they married and had children, they
were gone.
—Irene Nishikaichi

T HROUGHOUT THE HISTORY of the United States, women of color have shared
not only the experiences of gender inequality but also discrimination based
on race and ethnicity. At the most basic level, these experiences appear to have
been the same: all women of color have suffered some degree of gender and
racial/ethnic oppression. On close inspection, however, their social, economic,
and political realities have varied with regard to race/ethnicity and class; it is
too imprecise to lump all women of color into one category and label it
“minority.”
An examination of Japanese American women’s historical roots, family
and community roles, and educational and occupational access over the last
century helps to locate them in American society. Nisei servicewomen were
not a monolithic group. They were from families of differing socioeconomic
statuses, and had differing educational backgrounds and work experiences. In
this chapter, I explore this context in an effort to understand more fully the
realities of Nisei women who served in the American armed services during
World War II. Who were their parents, and why did these parents immigrate
to the United States? What type of households did these women grow up in?

31
32 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

What were their educational achievements? What were their occupational as-
pirations? How did they resolve the conflict of dual citizenship, Japanese and
American?

Parents: The Issei

The immigration pattern of Issei women to the United States differed from
that of other women of color, such as Chinese, African, and Mexican Ameri-
cans. Chinese women began immigrating in the 1850s; Issei women did not
enter the United States until after the Civil War. African women immigrated
to North America involuntarily as slaves; Issei women came voluntarily in
the hopes of finding greater economic opportunities for themselves and their
families. Mexican women entered American society through the direct con-
quest of their homeland, which bordered on the United States; Japanese
women traveled thousands of miles from their country of origin to settle in a
country completely foreign to them.
Japanese immigration to the United States dates back to1868, during the
reign of Japan’s Emperor Meiji (1868–1912). This period marked the begin-
ning of the modern era in Japan, the start of Japan’s industrial and military
development.1 American capitalists began traveling to Japan in search of an
outlet for surplus goods, and apparently they were successful: sociologist Ronald
Takaki reported that American exports to Japan increased from $3.9 million
in 1894 to $13 million in 1897.2 The Japanese government invited foreign
technicians to assist in efforts to modernize the country. Much of the revenue
for modernizing was obtained through a heavy tax placed on Japanese farm-
ers, causing 367 thousand of them to lose their land for failure to pay taxes.
In 1884, the Japanese government permitted thousands of these farmers to
emigrate to Hawaii to work on sugar plantations.3
The new imperial regime sent Japanese students abroad to study in prepa-
ration for newly developed government positions. Virtually all students sent
to the United States under Japanese government sponsorship were chosen from
the elite class, and emigrated before 1891.4 Many studied at eastern universi-
ties such as Harvard, Yale, and Rutgers. Other student immigrants financed
their education by working as laborers after arriving in the United States.5
Some Japanese students emigrated from their country to avoid mandatory mili-
tary service.6 A few student laborers left Japan as political exiles, fleeing the
restrictions the Meiji government placed on individual rights.7 In all, the num-
ber of student laborers was small; they settled mostly in San Francisco, where
the majority of Japanese in the U.S. mainland lived until the late 1890s.8
Former U.S. Army doctor Yoshiye Togasaki revealed that her father was
 Before the War 33

among the government-sponsored student immigrants. Both her parents im-

migrated to the United States in the 1880s: “My father came here as a stu-
dent who had . . . graduated law school at the Imperial University.”9 Togasaki’s
father was en route to Europe as a government-sponsored student but trav-
eled to the United States instead: “He was on his way to England and France
for further training in French and English law, particularly in French, because
his professor was interested in that. Apparently the government wanted him
for future use in their structure.”10 Rather than returning to Japan, however,
Togasaki’s father remained in the United States.
Many push and pull factors help to explain, as they do for other groups
that came to America, why Japanese men and women immigrated. Although
economic hardship played a major role, it was not the only reason. Former
Nisei Wac Miwako Rosenthal stated that her father emigrated from Japan to
escape a Buddhist temple. As a second son, he was not eligible to inherit his
family’s property: it was customary for the oldest son to inherit the family’s
wealth. To his chagrin, he was sent to a Buddhist temple to prepare for priest-
hood. When he was sixteen, he rebelled and asked his uncle to give him money
to study in the United States. In Rosenthal’s words:

In the late nineteenth century a lot of [Japanese] men came over as

laborers, . . . much like immigrants from Mexico today. . . . They
didn’t have wives and they just settled in the community and worked
where there were a lot of sugar beets, and lima beans, and big farming.
My father escaped from the temple with his uncle’s help and came to
the United States and settled in Ventura County. And since he was a
learned man, could read and write Japanese, he became the foreman,
overseeing guys that lived in the boarding houses. And then he got
elected to City Hall as a representative of the Japanese community in
California, where we have our holdings; in Oxnard, Ventura County.
It’s a small community and they had a big sugar beet factory there. To
get to Los Angeles from Santa Barbara County you have to go
through Ventura County. And Oxnard is right there where the secret
POE, Port of Embarkation, called Wynamie, was located during
World War II. There are a lot of old Indian reservations there.

These early Japanese immigrants to the United States were a diverse

group. Among them were members of the elite, skilled crafts workers, and
menial servants; some of the latter were hired by Westerners visiting Japan,
and later were brought to the United States.11 Most early Japanese immigrants,
however, were men, unskilled sojourners who intended to labor for money
in the United States and eventually return to Japan. As expressed by the Issei
34 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

women of Oregon interviewed by Linda Tamura, many Japanese viewed the

United States as a place where they could travel and “get rich quick.”12
Few women were among these pioneers. As with the first wave of Chi-
nese immigrants, many Japanese women who immigrated during the nine-
teenth century were prostitutes who settled on the West Coast. The demand
for Asian prostitutes was great, given the restrictions placed on immigration
to the United States from Asia and the anti-miscegenation laws forbidding
interracial marriage. In The Issei, Yuji Ichioka reported that most of these pros-
titutes were brought to the United States by Japanese men who transported
them across the Pacific under false pretenses. Ichioka cites the stories of sev-
eral Japanese women who were lured into prostitution in the 1890s. These
women were often lied to and abducted from their homes, and found them-
selves in the United States working in brothels owned by Japanese men.13 A
similar tale of the involuntary prostitution of Chinese women is told in Arthur
Golden’s recent novel, Memoirs of a Geisha.14
During the late nineteenth century, several Christian institutions were
established in the Japanese American community. The Japanese American
Gospel Society was founded on October 6, 1877, and the First Japanese Pres-
byterian Church of San Francisco was inaugurated in May 1885. In 1886 the
Japanese Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) was organized. Yoshiye
Togasaki’s mother was part of a Christian initiative to provide a support net-
work in the United States for single Japanese women. Togasaki’s mother, the
daughter of a merchant in Tokyo, and another Japanese woman, Kaji Yajiima,
“were the co-founders of [a Christian organization known as] the WCTU in
Japan. . . . The Christian missionary revival hit Japan just about that time.”15
Togasaki recalled, “My mother also used to preach on the street corners . . .
here in San Francisco.”16 She explained:
My mother’s name was Shige Kushida. Her mother was already a
widow at that time, and I would say quite progressive in the sense that
my mother had been educated, but not given any degree, at the
university there in Tokyo because no woman could ever be given a
degree in those days, but my mother completed the classical education
there. Then she came over. . . . [My mother and others] were con-
cerned because there were so many single women here who had been
persuaded to come under various pretexts or inducements and were
having problems taking care of themselves.17
Togasaki’s mother was sent to the United States by the WCTU specifically
to serve as a missionary for single Japanese women who had immigrated to
America “and to help protect them from moral corruption.”18
The early phase of Japanese immigration to North America, from 1868
 Before the War 35

to 1900, was concentrated in Hawaii, where these immigrants worked as low-

wage agricultural laborers.19 Contract laborers, known as gannen mono, arrived
in Hawaii from Japan in 1868 to work on the sugar cane plantations. Their
numbers were few, and the demand for field laborers was great. Hawaii, then
still an independent kingdom, entered into a treaty with Japan in 1871 al-
lowing unrestricted immigration of laborers from Japan. Japanese immigration
to Hawaii did not increase, however, until 1885, when Japan faced political
turmoil and economic instability. Between 1885 and 1894, twenty-eight thou-
sand Japanese immigrants arrived in Hawaii to work as plantation laborers;
most remained after their contracts expired.20
Concomitant with the Organic Act, which established the Territory of
Hawaii, was the outlawing of labor contracts. Japanese laborers were thus freed
to travel. Some returned to Japan, while others went to the U.S. mainland.
By 1900, when Hawaii became a United States territory, sixty-one thousand
persons of Japanese heritage were living there.21 Indeed, the Japanese pres-
ence in Hawaii was prominent; a Japanese community emerged, with a Bud-
dhist temple that had been established in Honolulu in 1898. Japanese-language
schools for the six-thousand-plus Nisei children in Hawaii were operated by
Christian churches. Japanese-language newspapers also developed.22
Japanese immigration to California increased sharply in 1900, when the
bubonic plague in Hawaii caused ships bound for Honolulu to detour to San
Francisco. Over the next few years, Japanese immigration increased on the
West Coast in response to a labor shortage; approximately 150,000 Japanese
immigrants (Issei) entered the United States before 1908.23 The number of
Japanese immigrants was curtailed in 1908, following the enactment of the
“Gentlemen’s Agreement”; Japanese immigration declined from 10,000 in
1907–1908 to 2,500 in 1908–1909.24 One provision of the Gentlemen’s Agree-
ment was that Japanese immigrants could bring their families to the United
States; thus by 1910 Japanese immigration to the United States began to in-
crease again, reflecting a large proportion of women and children. Thousands
of Japanese women immigrated to the United States as “picture brides,” women
married in Japan by proxy to Japanese men already living in the United States.
Miwako Rosenthal’s father was one of the Japanese immigrants who mar-
ried a picture bride. He traveled to the United States at age sixteen on a visa,
and established himself in a small business before writing home for a wife. Ac-
cording to Rosenthal:
His uncle happened to be the husband of one of my mother’s sisters.
And so they told my mother that they had a nephew living in the
United States and that it would be good for them to get married. My
mother was excellent; she was good, very smart, intelligent, and very
36 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

talented. . . . My mother was a maverick for her generation. She went

to college in Japan and studied how to be a good housewife. That’s the
way the education system was for women in those days. They just
learned the art of being a good housewife. They had to be socially
acceptable in all forms of the cultural arts like tea ceremony, and
playing . . . Japanese instruments, and knowing how to do calligraphy,
and all those things. My mother was cultured. She was much more
cultured than the average first-generation women that came over as
picture brides.

Rosenthal’s description of education for women in Japan is consistent with

other accounts in the social science literature. For example, anthropologist
Ruth Benedict reported that the prescribed courses for women in Japan were
“heavily loaded with instruction in etiquette and bodily movement.”25 Seri-
ous intellectual pursuits were reserved for the men. This gender stratification
in education was, as is well known, common throughout the world in the nine-
teenth century.
Although picture brides were of varied social standings in Japan, they
shared the experience of traveling to a foreign country to meet bridegrooms
they had never seen. Harry Kitano described the “imported Japanese bride”
as either “extraordinarily adaptable or extraordinarily dutiful.”26 By Ameri-
can standards, it must have been very stressful for the Issei picture bride to
leave the security of her family and travel thousands of miles to be the wife
of a man she had never met. Yet this may not have been so difficult for Issei
women used to Japanese standards; these women were accustomed to arranged
marriages.
Kitano argued that Japanese picture brides looked forward to the change
that this trip would offer: “they felt liberated from former family ties.” Still,
like other nineteenth-century immigrants, they faced a less romantic aspect
of travel to the United States: upon arrival, they were disrobed, bathed, fu-
migated, and given complete physical examinations. Their “bridegrooms were
waiting for them on the docks, pictures in hand.”27 In her study of the Issei
living in Hood Valley, Oregon, Linda Tamura learned that picture brides were
often surprised to find husbands looked nothing like their photographs; middle-
aged men often sent more youthful pictures of themselves.28 Historian Eileen
Tamura states that some picture brides were so disappointed they ran away
from their new husbands; the Susannah Wesley Home in Honolulu provided
shelter for some of these women.29 For the most part, however, picture brides
adjusted to their new home in America.
Rather than arranging for a picture bride to meet them in the United
States, some Japanese male immigrants went back to Japan to be married. Ellen
 Before the War 37

Fuchida’s father, for example, returned from the United States to find a wife.
Fuchida stated that her parents’ marriage was arranged after her father returned
to Japan. Like many male immigrants to the United States, Fuchida’s father
promised her mother “streets of gold and brought her to mud.” Recounting
her mother’s experience as a new bride in the United States, Fuchida stated:

She cried for six months, but she was a very strong woman. She
decided to make the best of it after she found out she was pregnant.
She worked hard all of her life. . . . There were six of us: I was the
oldest girl, then I had three sisters and two brothers. . . . We had a
little corner grocery store. . . . My father borrowed money to start this
business. . . . My mother ran the store. . . . My mother was the
backbone of the family, and my father tended to be drinking most of
the time. . . . She’d open the store about seven in the morning and
we’d finish about seven at night. And then she would go home and
sew for the family. . . . Everything we wore up until the time we left
home, she made for us.

Both of Yoshiye Togasaki’s parents were already living in the United

States. Togasaki said they met each other in San Francisco “and decided to
go back to Japan to get family approval [for marriage].” However, both her
father’s and her mother’s family refused to grant permission for the marriage:

Both sides completely refused. [My parents] had to be adopted, as the

custom was in those days, in order to have their marriage on
record. . . . So the Asada family of Tokyo, who were also Christians,
adopted both my mother and [my] father . . . they then had a legal
record and were properly married, and quickly came back to the
United States.30

Japanese immigrants to the continental United States settled mostly in

California. The proportion of alien Japanese living in the state rose from 42
percent of all Japanese immigrants in the continental United States, in 1900,
to 63 percent in 1920, and to almost 75 percent in 1940.31 Although very
few Japanese immigrated to the United States after World War I, the crude
birth rate (the number of live births per thousand persons in the total popu-
lation) of Japanese Americans rose sharply. Sociologist Dorothy Swaine Tho-
mas asserted that the fertility of Japanese Americans in the early 1920s was
extraordinarily high when compared with that of women in Japan as well as
with that of white women on the West Coast.32 It was widely feared that
American-born Japanese in California eventually would outnumber white
people.33 However, in the final analysis, the long-range birthrate of Japanese
38 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

immigrants was only slightly higher than that of white citizens living in
California, and lower than that of European immigrants. By 1940 the birth-
rate of Japanese immigrants living on the West Coast was discovered to be
lower than the birthrate of the general population.34
Still, the perception of a dramatic increase in the number of children born
in the United States to these immigrants, helped to fuel existing anti-Asian
sentiments in California, leading to a series of exclusionary laws. In 1922 the
Supreme Court decided in Ozawa v. United States that only immigrants of
white or African origin could become U.S. citizens. The 1922 Cable Act stipu-
lated that any woman citizen of the United States who married an Asian in-
eligible for citizenship would lose her own citizenship. The 1924 Immigration
Act prohibited all Japanese immigration to the United States. Not until 1952,
with passage of the McCarran-Walter Act, could Japanese immigrants become
naturalized U.S. citizens. Some would argue that this cessation of Japanese
immigration to the United States had the long-term advantage of facilitating
the group’s economic development.35
Although Asian immigrants could not become naturalized citizens, the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provided that their
children born in the United States or Hawaii were citizens. Before 1924, many
Nisei children held dual citizenship; they were automatically citizens of Ja-
pan unless their parents completed documents with the Japanese consulate,
rejecting Japanese citizenship on the child’s behalf. After 1924, Japanese citi-
zenship was granted to Nisei children only if the parents registered the child’s
birth with the Japanese consulate.36
Matters often were complicated for Nisei who had dual citizenship, espe-
cially after World War II broke out. Ruth Fujii learned about her dual citi-
zenship from her uncle who lived in Japan:
My uncle is the one who told me we had dual citizenship: Japanese
registered in Japan and here [in Hawaii]. That was in the thirties: I’m
a 1933 high school graduate. My uncle wrote and said that if we [Fujii
and her siblings] wanted to come to Japan, we were welcomed. But he
also said, “If you are not coming to Japan and you’re going to stay in
America, that is your country; you cut off your dual citizenship.”. . .
Before I graduated from high school I had cut my dual citizenship. . . .
When I graduated . . . I had a chance to take the civil service test, and
I couldn’t take it if I had dual citizenship.

Most Nisei changed their dual citizenship to American citizenship. Those Nisei
women who entered the armed services changed their dual citizenship status
before induction.
 Before the War 39

Family and Community

Upon arrival in the United States, Japanese immigrants retained many val-
ues and norms of their homeland; these values were based on Confucianism
and Buddhism.37 The hierarchical structure of the traditional Japanese family
was based on generation, and on age within generation, as well as on gender.
Everyone played a vital role in the family’s functioning. Grandparents taught
young children the rituals of Japanese life. The Japanese wife controlled house-
hold affairs such as shopping and overseeing servants, and had much to say
in her children’s marriages (which were arranged by the families). Also preva-
lent were the concepts of on (deep obligation to superiors) and filial piety,
best described, in the words of Kitano, as “a reciprocal obligation from parent
to child and child to parent.”38
In addition, family cohesion and harmony were valued over individual
achievement. Interaction among family members was relatively impersonal,
with an emphasis on duty and obligation over affection. Kitano asserted that
there was “seldom any demonstration of affection between husband and wife
or to their children. But they provided the functions of a solid family—fam-
ily meals, family outings, get-togethers with other Japanese families, and an
emphasis on the importance of the family name.”39
The ideal-typical family household in Japan was both extended and pa-
triarchal, consisting of a male head, his wife and unmarried children, his mar-
ried sons, and their wives and children.40 Wives deferred to husbands, children
deferred to fathers, younger brothers deferred to older brothers, and sisters de-
ferred to all brothers regardless of age.41 According to sociologist Minako
Maykovich, “as a rehearsal of the establishment of the patriarch’s power, the
male child was permitted to vent his hostilities upon the female members of
his family.”42 The father was served first at meals, was given the choicest food,
went first to the family bath, and received deep bows from the other family
members to show respect. The eldest son was heir to the family’s wealth, and
shared in the father’s prerogatives.43 In return, it was the heir’s responsibility
to provide for his parents when they retired.44 Non-heirs were socialized dif-
ferently from heirs and often developed an entrepreneurial attitude.45
The Issei women interviewed by Linda Tamura spoke about the cultural
norm of deferring to husbands. With reference to the “three obediences” speci-
fied in the Confucian-based treatise Onna Daigaku, Tamura explained that
Japanese women were instructed to “obey their fathers when unmarried; their
husbands when married; and their sons when widowed.”46 Tamura’s Issei in-
formants also said that they walked behind their husbands when they arrived
in the United States, because that was the custom in Japan. These women
40 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

were surprised at what seemed to be the elevated status of white women in

their new country. Somewhat in awe, they observed white men opening doors
for their wives and catering in other ways to the wants, needs, and desires
of white women. To the Issei women, white women in the United States were
appreciated, and appeared to be in a much more privileged position than them-
selves. They did not recognize the dehumanizing effects that often accompa-
nied the pedestal on which middle-class white women were placed.
These Issei women were observing the new middle-class Victorian role
for women in the United States, a role that prevailed during the nineteenth
century. Marriage was defined as an alternative to work, and husbands used
their wives to show off economic success. The Issei women quoted in Tamura’s
book did not observe the dissatisfaction of many middle-class white women
with their position in society. The middle-class Victorian woman was expected
to be uninterested in sex except as a marital duty. According to popular myth,
she was delicate, but powerful through her virtue and righteousness. As wives,
Victorian women were financially dependent on their husbands; as mothers,
their primary role was to perpetuate human life. Many disgruntled white
middle-class American women compared their situation with that of slaves,
and felt an affinity with black men and women.47
The Victorian role imposed on middle-class white women in the United
States was somewhat similar to that of the wealthy Chinese immigrant wives
discussed by Louise Littleton, in an article originally published in the San Fran-
cisco Chronicle in 1893. Littleton described these wives as confined to the house
and bored. It was the Chinese custom to restrict the natural growth of girls’
feet by binding them, to make the girls more attractive, when they reached
marriageable age, to wealthy men. According to Littleton, a small-footed Chi-
nese woman was not expected to do anything but look stunning. Littleton
wrote, about the Chinese women who immigrated to California in the late
nineteenth century to join their wealthy husbands, “A wealthy man buys a
small-foot wife; she comes over the seas to California as a first-class cabin pas-
senger; when she leaves the vessel she is carried in a closely-curtained car-
riage to her new home, and from the day she enters it [she] is practically
entombed alive.”48
By contrast, most Japanese women immigrants to the United States were
expected to work. Many found employment as domestic workers, a subject dis-
cussed at length in Evelyn Nakano Glenn’s book, Issei, Nisei, War Bride.49
Some worked in family-owned businesses where their labor was unpaid, but
critical to the formation of a successful economic enclave that later would
develop on the United States mainland, especially in California. One aspect
of traditional Japanese culture that almost invariably was observed by Japa-
 Before the War 41

nese American families was the emphasis on laboring collectively for the family
unit, and Issei women often labored with their husbands in the fields during
the day and cooked, cleaned, and kept house at night. This pattern held in
Hawaii as well as in the continental United States. Children also were em-
ployed as unpaid laborers in family businesses, on family farms, on the main-
land, and on the plantations of Hawaii.
Hisako Yamashita recalled that while she was growing up on the island
of Kauai, her entire family worked:

Actually, I was born in a pseudo-plantation town called Cape Kakaha.

I grew up and went to grammar school and high school in Kauai.
[Kauai] was agricultural, [producing] sugar cane and pineapple. . . . My
father worked in the plantation, making only forty dollars a month.
He couldn’t support the family on just forty dollars . . . so he started a
poultry farm. My mother took care of the . . . farm, and we all pitched
in and helped. When I was a little kid I had to change the water; my
sister had to feed the chickens. That’s how we were brought up.

Similarly, Grace Kutaka, a former corporal in the WAC, had been reared in
Kapohi, Kauai; there she lived on a plantation with her parents, who were
laborers, and seven brothers and sisters. Kutaka and her siblings worked on
the plantation without pay. Both Yamshita and Kutaka stated that they la-
bored not for themselves as individuals, but for their family units.
According to Eileen Tamura, Japanese laborers were the fifth major eth-
nic group immigrating to Hawaii, preceded by the Chinese, Portuguese, Nor-
wegians, and Germans.50 Most Japanese immigrants were initially poor, starting
at the bottom of the economic pyramid. At the top of the Hawaiian class struc-
ture was a small white elite, and underneath them was a middle class com-
posed of mostly Caucasian artisans and small-business people. The lowest
economic stratum was composed mainly of Asians who worked in unskilled
and semiskilled jobs.51 Andrew Lind’s study of Hawaiian Japanese reveals that
the majority of the Japanese immigrants spent their first few years in Hawaii
on a sugar plantation; he asserted that “most of their Island-born children have
lived for some years in the plantation environment.”52
Hisako Yamashita, born in 1923, was always aware of the hierarchical
structure of Hawaii’s plantation economy:

In our area, which was a dry area, there was sugar cane. . . . Asians
worked in the fields. And, of course, the people who ran the planta-
tions were all white— Norwegians mostly. The Spanish and Portu-
guese worked in the fields as overseers. They felt that they were above
us, but not quite elite. . . . There was a definite cleavage between the
42 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

ruling class and the workers. . . . The top people who ruled the roost
and ran the plantations were all white. We were always aware of that.
The only way our parents said we could get out of this kind of thing
was to get educated. . . . Japanese stress education a great deal, and so
we were determined to go to high school and college, and become
professionals.

Even so, Hawaii’s Japanese had opportunities to advance economically.

According to Lind, shopkeeping provided the Issei with “the most accessible
stepping stones to economic security. By 1930 the Japanese were operating
49 percent of the retail stores.”53 As early as 1905, they also had “secured a
strong foothold in such fields as carpentry, plumbing, tailoring, barbering, fish-
ing, and independent farming.”54
Alice Kono grew up on the island of Molokai, where her father worked
as a carpenter: “My mom was a housewife and my dad was a carpenter. . . I
had a sister and two brothers. We were all working, some of us in the office
and others in the field; I worked in the office.” Like the other women in this
study, Kono described her family as close. As in other Japanese American fami-
lies, each member worked cooperatively for the good of the whole family: “We
knew what we had to do and we all did things together. There were no
squabbles.”
Because so many of the Japanese families in Hawaii were large and poor,
children sometimes were taken into white professionals’ households to live,
with white professionals assuming custody of the child. Such was the case for
Ruth Fujii, who would later become a Wac; she grew up in Kauai, where her
mother was a widow with six children:
Mother became a widow when my oldest brother was only twelve, and
a baby came after my dad died. And so we had to be on our own. . . .
We all worked together; we lived at home but we did our jobs. [In]
those days we didn’t have social security or anything like that. We
lived on a sugar plantation on Kauai, . . . we all went to school, . . . we
all had part-time jobs. . . . When I was in elementary school I started
babysitting from when I was about eight. The doctor’s wife had a little
girl, and whenever she had to go anyplace she took me. I got twenty-
five cents for that afternoon. . . . Whatever we earned, we took home
and gave it to my mother. We were fortunate—we had our own
garden, and we had our own chickens. . . . So [with] the chicken and
the eggs, and all the vegetables you could think of, we never starved.

Fujii’s mother was a housewife until her husband’s death. “After he died,”
Fujii explained, “My mother did laundry, ironing, and stuff like that for the
men in the plantation.” In an effort to support the family, Fujii’s brother left
 Before the War 43

school in the eighth grade and started working on the plantation “with the
grown-ups.”
Not long after Fujii’s father’s death, her elementary school principal (a
Caucasian woman named Mrs. Coby) was transferred from a school in Kauai
to one in Honolulu. Fujii explained, “[Mrs. Coby] didn’t want me to stay on
Kauai and just be like the other girls, just graduate and get married. . . . She
wanted me to go to school. So she offered to take me to live with her. She
was a widow and she had a little girl.” Thus Fujii left home when she was still
in elementary school to live with her principal in Honolulu:
We had only one high school on Kauai, and we lived on the west side,
a ways from where the high school was. And you had to pay three
dollars a month for transportation. We didn’t have that kind of
money. So [my mother and brother] weren’t going to send me to
school. . . . Mrs. Coby said, “I’m taking her home to Honolulu.” My
brother said “all right” because [previously], when a doctor’s mother-
in-law visited his family in Kauai, she wanted to take me back to live
with her in Seattle. My brother said, “No, that’s too far away.” But
when the second opportunity came, he said I could go. . . . Mrs. Coby
had a two-bedroom cottage. She had a cleaning lady come once a
week, but then I kept everything up. The laundry was sent out, but I
washed and ironed our clothes. . . . I mowed the lawn and kept the
hedge trimmed. And there were pods on the trees. I would cut them
off. . . . She sent me to school, and after I graduated [from] McKinley
High School, I took the civil service test and I got to be the first
secretary at McKinley.

Therefore, part of Fujii’s childhood was spent living in a household headed

by a Caucasian woman. At the very least, this event helped to shape her out-
look on life, and it may even account for the independence she displayed in
stating that her family could not do anything about her decision to join the
military “because they knew that it was my own life.”
Family life in the continental United States differed somewhat from that
on Hawaii; the degree to which the women in this study were exposed to tra-
ditional family norms varyied. Some Nisei servicewomen grew up in predomi-
nantly Japanese neighborhoods; Sue Kato, for example, was born in a Japanese
farming area of North Platte, Nebraska.55 Similarly, Irene Nishikaichi, who
grew up in Los Angeles, lived in a racially segregated community:
Until the war broke out, I wasn’t really conscious of being Japanese
and being American, . . . I was just myself. It wasn’t until the war
broke out that I would get on the bus and people would look at me,
and I finally became aware that I looked different to other people. . . .
44 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

While I was in Los Angeles, except for that period after the war, I
never realized [racial] differences, because for a couple of years I lived
in Little Tokyo. And in a public school, 99.9 percent of the student
body was Japanese American. There might have been one or two
Mexicans, maybe one or two Chinese. The rest were all Japanese
American. We lived in ghettos, just like the blacks; very few Japanese
Americans were even allowed to buy homes. And even if you could
afford to, you could only live or buy in certain areas. So we had
Japanese churches, Japanese schools, and we associated only with other
Japanese Americans or Japanese like our parents and their friends.

Nishikaichi’s account of the Japanese American ghetto where she grew

up is similar to that of Noel Campbell Mitchell, an African American woman
who served in the WAC during the same period. In a published interview,
Mitchell said that, before entering the military, “I had never been around white
people. . . . I didn’t know too much about segregation because I’d only been
around blacks all of my life.” As in Mitchell’s case, the ghetto community in
which Nishikaichi was reared insulated her from the dehumanizing influences
of racism.56
Yoshiye Togasaki had exposure to the Japanese American as well as the
white community. She recalled that both her parents were very active in com-
munity affairs: her mother helped to care for community women during child-
bearing and illness, and her parents cared for people in her neighborhood
during an influenza epidemic. At other times, as well, her family donated their
services to the community.
One of Togasaki’s contributions was interpreting for community members.
She recalled that women in San Francisco were highly organized and provided
strong role models. Describing how she became interested in practicing medi-
cine, Togasaki stated:

We were sent after school hours to interpret for women as they visited
doctors’ offices. I was sent to hospitals where women had had their
surgery . . . so they would have someone who understood their
language. I would get the nurse for them, ask for them the things they
needed, then come on home. With this much exposure, you automati-
cally go into medicine because you are aware of needs, you are aware
of what the potential is. In addition . . . , we had in San Francisco a
group of women who were well organized and who were very good
role models for other women. . . . Children’s Hospital for women and
children was established by women, for women, so there would be a
place for internship and residency. . . . This is how I happened to go
into medicine.57
 Before the War 45

Some Nisei servicewomen grew up in predominantly white neighborhoods

but were encouraged by their parents to maintain Japanese culture. Miwako
Rosenthal remained in the United States with her parents and received all of
her childhood education in California, but her parents wanted her to retain
her Japanese cultural roots:

My parents didn’t like me associating with Caucasians. . . . I had no

qualms about prejudice or anything because most of my life was spent
with Caucasians in spite of the fact that there were other Japanese
children around. I don’t know why, but [Nisei children] never
[accepted] me among them. I was usually the only Japanese in the
class, so I had no qualms about being . . . different, and I was always
[accepted]. The only time that I was discriminated against was when I
was number one in the spelling bee in the eighth grade. And at that
time they didn’t let me become the representative in the spelling bee.
They let [a Caucasian] girl do it. Everybody said that I should have
gotten it.

Rosenthal was not discouraged by this blatant act of inequality. Discrimi-

nation began to lessen when she went to high school:

My brother was valedictorian, and everybody said “They’ll never give

it to a Jap.” But he got it, and the teacher that gave it to him was a
civics teacher. She was so good to me, too, when I went to high
school. Then, when I became valedictorian, they gave it to me. And
then my sister followed and she got it too. So the three of us got it
from the same high school. The teachers . . . were all good to us. I
never felt any discrimination or feeling that I was any different.

Mary Yamada was born in Los Angeles. She lived in a racially mixed
neighborhood, growing up with children of Mexican and Jewish descent.
Yamada, whose biological father had died when she was just two years old,
reflected on her family:
My stepfather died when I was fourteen. . . . He really wanted us to go
to college; he was interested in our getting education. He didn’t
encourage us to speak Japanese and I didn’t live among the Japanese. I
lived more among the Mexicans and the Jews; they were my
friends. . . . I would say we were always poor as far as I can remem-
ber . . . We were in a little township, I guess you would call it, ’cause I
remember we had a constable who had his office across from where we
lived. . . . We had a grocery store. My mother was a midwife, and my
father wasn’t home much. . . . I still have letters he wrote me to take
care of mama, to pay the telephone bill, to pay this and do that, you
46 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

know. And my sister was older but she was more of a social butterfly, I
would say. She was very good in athletics too.

The Yamadas’ Los Angeles home was very modest, with just two rooms. They
lived in back of the family’s grocery store:

There was a screen door separating the store from our living quarters,
if you could call it that, and the living quarters was the kitchen. The
kitchen was our living room. That’s where I took my bath, and I had
to throw the water out in the back yard. I did my washing using that
galvanized tub, and that washing I did outside. . . . And I remember,
we had one bedroom for the five of us, with no wallpaper or anything,
just rough wood. And then we had an outhouse.

Yamada grew up with responsibilities. She and her sister opened the family’s
grocery store when her mother was out making house calls as a midwife:

Whenever we came home and our store was closed, we knew that
Mama had gone out on a call . . . as a midwife. And we never knew
when she was going to come back. Sometimes she wouldn’t come
back ’til the following day. But we opened the store—that is—my
sister and I. My brother was about two years younger, so he didn’t do
anything with us, really. . . . I remember opening the store in the
morning and moving those heavy wooden crates of milk that [was] in
glass bottles, pints and quarts. . . . I had to lift that up from the ground
level up to the top of the box to take [them] inside the store to put in
our refrigerator. Now we did that about seven in the morning, and
then we would go to school.

Most of the women in this study grew up in less traditional households;

some observed their mothers serving as providers for the family and struggling
for a more egalitarian status with their husbands. Hisako Yamashita’s mother,
for example, although not the primary breadwinner, was in partnership with
her husband:

It always seems like the men are running the family but I remember
my mother being very strong. . . . She was running the poultry farm
and she handled all of the business with the stores. They’d order eggs
from her and she’d have all the dozens ready for them. She handled
that part, and she’d get money for our family. And so she would tell
my father, “You can’t tell me what to do,” because she felt she was
doing her part. And so the women became very strong too, and the
kids [saw] all of this. . . . So now women are just as strong . . . .We
didn’t grow up meek.
 Before the War 47

Nishikaichi revealed that her father had worked in various jobs: “He had
a laundry, he had a restaurant, and so forth. . . . My mother was a midwife and
for most of my life she was the principal breadwinner.” And, indeed, some
Japanese American families depended solely on the leadership of the Issei wife
and mother. In some cases, the husbands were deceased; in other cases, they
were physically or mentally disabled. Ellen Fuchida’s mother was the “back-
bone of the family” because the father was an alcoholic.
Fuchida’s mother bought a house for her family:
She was one of the first Isseis to ever own a house in Utah. It was a
medium house with two baths, two bedrooms, . . . a full porch that
was enclosed, where extra beds were. . . . Later on, as we grew up, that
house became like a meeting place for all after I joined the JACL
[Japanese American Citizenship League]. [S]he was a terrible house-
keeper, so the girls all learned how. I was the cook. I had a sister that
washed and ironed like a professional. I had another sister that
cleaned house like a professional. And the other sister was a babysitter
for my brother. We all had our jobs.

Nisei children’s exposure to the Japanese culture varied. Some attended

Japanese language school and were exposed to the Japanese culture by their
parents; others had only limited knowledge of the Japanese culture and iden-
tified more fully with the American way of life. For example, Fuchida said
that she had difficulties in relating to more traditional Nisei: “They all thought
I was weird and I thought they were weird. They just seemed to be apologetic
for even living at times. . . . ” As indicated above, many Nisei children were
sent to Christian churches for Sunday school; others were active in organiza-
tions such as the Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts. Although many Issei parents had
little contact with Caucasians, they encouraged their children to acculturate
to American society and to be “good Americans.”
Grace Harada was born on a farm in Ucon, Idaho, on December 27, 1921.
Her father died when she was only nine months old:
My mother married my dad’s cousin because that’s what [my dad]
asked her to do, so that my sister and I wouldn’t have to go to
Japan. . . . [We] could stay in the United States. . . . There was me and
my older sister. After my mother remarried, I had three brothers and
then a younger sister. We moved to Pocatello, Idaho. There weren’t
very many Japanese within the Pocatello area.
Fuchida also grew up in a predominantly white area. She described her
mother as an atypical Issei, modern and with no desire to return to Japan.
When her father died, her mother’s oldest brother asked her to return to Japan
with her six children, and he offered to take care of them. Her mother refused
48 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

the offer saying, “No, my children would never fit into the Japanese way of
life. And I can raise them myself.”
Remembering how her mother was different from most other Issei, Fuchida
noted, “She didn’t really run around very much with the Issei in Salt Lake
because we were too far out at the time. And I remember watching her put-
ting on her hat and gloves and getting all dressed up on a Friday to go to Salt
Lake with her three Caucasian friends for lunch and shopping . . . and she
spoke all English.”
Fuchida and her five siblings grew up acculturated to the Euro-American
lifestyle:

We all graduated from the same high school. And then, when I was
about sixteen, . . . I met some of the Nisei from Salt Lake and . . .
finally learned that I was a Nisei. It was kind of strange because I
really didn’t know any Japanese at all. [My siblings and I] went to
Japanese-language school over by the Great Salt Lake, but we would
cut classes and play around because it really didn’t mean that much to
us. I’m sorry now. . . . One time, when we were growing up, . . . when I
was about a junior in high school, . . . I wondered why we were so
different, because until then I had never known I was different. And
[my mother] said, “Don’t say anything.” Just consider yourself very
fortunate.” And I asked: “Why?” She said, “Because you have two
cultures to choose from. You have two different kinds of food you can
eat.” And after that I was perfectly satisfied being what I was.

Former Wac Cherry Shiozawa was a twin and one of nine children born
and reared in Oakland, California. She lived in an integrated, low-income
neighborhood, in which her father was very active. Looking back on her child-
hood, Shiozawa stated that she was “very Americanized; . . . captain of a bas-
ketball championship team in high school, and a member of the crew team.”58
Shiozawa’s father worked as a tailor while her mother stayed at home caring
for the children.
Almost all of the women interviewed grew up in households that prac-
ticed the traditional values of collective effort. To a lesser degree, some infor-
mants spoke of growing up in a traditional patriarchal household, with male
dominance and privilege.59 Ruth Fujii, for example, in describing her family’s
household in Hawaii, said that her eldest brother was twelve years old when
their father died, and became head of the household. He inherited the family’s
house and was responsible for their mother’s well-being:
My brother’s wife-to-be was told that my mother was going to live
with my brother forever because he’s the oldest. So he kept her [Fujii’s
 Before the War 49

mother] and she kept the house, and then, when the kids came along,
she dressed them, and put them on the school bus . . . [and] when they
came home, she had goodies ready for them. My brother’s wife was
able to work [outside the home].

Research also reveals that Japanese families were able to retain some as-
pects of a patriarchal structure even while adapting to American life. Accord-
ing to a previous study, the Japanese American family was more patriarchal
than the white Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASP) family in the years preced-
ing World War II.60 In the Japanese American families, young Nisei women
were reared to be caretakers of the home. They learned majime (to be serious
and honest), and sunao (to be gentle, and obedient), and to observe oyakookoo
(filial piety).61
This vertical family structure, however, was modified in response to the
conditions in the United States. The Issei father’s authority was undermined
because he knew less about the American culture than his Nisei son. Further,
the Nisei son was a citizen with rights denied to his father. In addition, the
grandparents, who taught the young about the rituals of Japanese life, were
not available to many young Nisei; most had remained in Japan. To fill this
void, community groups sponsored Japanese schools to teach Nisei children
the Japanese language and traditional, ethnic values. Not all Nisei children
attended these schools, however; and among those who did, many left un-
able to speak Japanese, and forgot the moral lessons.62 Hence, traditional Japa-
nese family structure began to decline even before the United States entered
the war, and was almost obliterated as a result of the mass evacuation and
internment. For the most part, Nisei servicewomen growing up in the U.S.
mainland were absorbing more mainstream American than Japanese culture,
and identified themselves as American.
Conflicting identity was more of an issue for the Kibei, American-born
children of Japanese descent who lived and received part or all of their edu-
cation in Japan; they were often ridiculed by their peers for not understand-
ing the American ways. Many Issei parents sent their children to Japan; given
their sojourner status, the Issei generally did not sever ties with their house-
holds of origin. Evelyn Nakano Glenn has shown that immigration often was
a family strategy allowing the Issei to work, make money, and contribute to
the financial support of the kin in Japan:

Even those who formed conjugal families abroad still retained

obligations to kin in Japan and were expected to provide for parents
and other relatives there. . . In return, the relatives at home could be
called upon to perform services for the immigrants. . . . [C]hildren
50 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

were sometimes left behind or sent back by parents who were working
in America. An Issei’s parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, and uncles
might be called upon to take them in and raise them for years at a
time. Immigrants who became too old to work or who needed medical
attention also returned and were cared for by relatives.63

Togasaki and one of her sisters were sent to Tokyo to live with her grand-
mother:

This was partly to help my mother so she would not have her hands
full with so many children, and also to provide company for my
grandmother, who was getting more and more lonely because her
daughter and then her only son had . . . come over by then to the
United States. . . . When my grandmother died . . . we were sent to
my paternal grandmother’s for six months, then came back to the
United States in April of 1910. At that time I entered school, not
knowing a word of English, of course, but quickly picked it up because
the teachers were patient. . . . and they would concentrate and drill
you for pronunciation and diction.64

However, Togasaki probably would not be considered a Kibei, since she only
lived in Japan for a few years and received all of her formal education in the
United States.
In contrast, Kibei spent many years living in Japan and received at least
a good portion of their formal education there. The Kibei was deeply immersed
in the Japanese culture. In 1934 an estimated 13 percent of the Nisei chil-
dren lived and attended school in Japan.65 Rosenthal had two brothers, both
Kibei:
My mother took them back to Japan when they were small because
she didn’t want to raise her sons in the United States. And she was
thinking that eventually [she and my father] would make a fortune, go
back to Japan, and live very affluently. Like all the Japanese immi-
grants, they came here to build a fortune and then go back. My
mother didn’t want to stay here, so she talked my father into letting
her go back for a visit, but her real intention was to return to Japan.

A study published by the War Relocation Authority in 1944 cited sev-

eral reasons why Issei parents sent their children to Japan. Some parents sim-
ply felt that their children should know the customs of Japan; others wanted
their relatives to know their children. Nisei girls sometimes were sent to Ja-
pan because there was a wider pool of eligible bachelors. For some parents,
economics was the primary motive. American money had a high exchange
value in Japan; parents worked and sent money back to Japan while relatives
 Before the War 51

cared for their children. Other parents, however, believed that economic op-
portunities were scarce in the United States; they felt that exposure to both
Japanese and American education would afford their sons an opportunity to
work in Japan.
The Kibei faced the challenge of fitting into neither Japanese nor Ameri-
can society. Those sent to Japan during their adolescent years spoke Japanese
with an American accent, and their American upbringing made them notice-
ably different from Japanese youths. Similarly, when the Kibei returned to the
United States, they were often viewed as strange by Nisei who had not trav-
eled to Japan. In the 1944 study, the War Relocation Authority referred to
the Kibei as “a new immigrant group . . . a minority group within a minor-
ity.”66 Theirs was a conflict of identity, especially after Japan bombed Pearl
Harbor. Yet, many were recruited by the War Department and served in the
MISLS.
In sum, the breakdown of the traditional Japanese family structure made
it easier for Nisei servicewomen to break with subcultural norms. For the most
part, they had been reared in the Western culture and identified strongly with
being American. For many of them, having to choose between Japan and the
United States was not a great source of anxiety. The Nisei woman who iden-
tified strongly with the Japanese culture during World War II—and there were
some—did not don the uniform. The decision to join the military would have
caused more mental anguish for the Kibei; still, some were inducted into the
American armed services and served with distinction.

Education
Historical studies have shown that, on the U.S. mainland, Issei parents sent
their children to school more often than any other ethnic group. In addition,
Nisei children stayed in school longer, and were more likely to graduate and
attend college than other immigrants’ children.67 The Nisei child was encour-
aged to do well in school by parents, teachers, and other community mem-
bers. Formal education reinforced social conformity; as Harry Kitano observed,
every element of the Nisei child’s environment “sanctioned conforming be-
havior and school success.”68 Consequently Nisei children often were high
academic achievers. According to Richard Bell’s study, published in 1935, Nisei
students’ academic achievement and intelligence level were equal to those of
Caucasian students in 1930.69 Citing studies conducted at Stanford Univer-
sity in the 1920s and 1930s, Roger Daniels claims that “in both attitude and
achievement, Nisei pupils were well above the norm.”70
This is true of the women in this study. Yoshiye Togasaki, who graduated
52 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

from the University of California at Berkeley in 1929, spoke of her father’s

commitment to educating all of his children well:
My father’s principle was “I will not leave you any money, I will not
leave you any wealth, but I will give you any education you wish to
aspire to, and no questions asked.” I originally entered as pre-med, but
shifted over into the so-called Bachelor of Public Health. . . . There
were about eleven or twelve Nisei women graduating [from] Berkeley
that year and about twice as many Nisei men. . . . By the time I was
going to medical school, in 1931, things were pretty tight. . . . I went
to my father and said I wanted to go to medical school. He said,
“Well, how do you think you are going to do it?” I said, “I have some
money saved.” . . . He said, “If you give me what you have, I will help
you and I’ll take care of it for you.”71

Togasaki attended and graduated from the Johns Hopkins University School
of Medicine and started a private practice in Los Angeles in 1941. In regard
to her sisters, who had also become physicians, Togasaki stated: “My older sister
Kazue finished [medical school] in 1934, and after her internship, she opened
her office in San Francisco in 1935. My other sister finished [medical school]
also . . . she practiced in Sacramento. She was younger than I.”72
Miwako Rosenthal’s parents consistently emphasized high educational at-
tainment. Her brother studied medicine and became a pediatrician; as she
stated, “My sisters were also professionals. They went to nursing school and
so forth. One of them went to the University of Chicago; another one went
to St. Mary’s College to study nursing, and then . . . to the University of Min-
nesota. When we moved to Texas, I went to the College of Mines and Metal-
lurgy. It’s one of the branches of the University of Texas; it was an engineering
school.”
Mary Yamada attended elementary, junior high, and high school in Los
Angeles. After graduating from high school, she attended the University of
Southern California until the cost became prohibitive. She attempted to find
employment as a domestic worker to finance her college education:
I was at the University of Southern California through half of my
junior year, and not having a father, . . . we didn’t have much money,
and I tried to work my way through college. . . . It was quite an
adventure; at that time I was seventeen years old, . . . a sophomore
trying to work my way through college. . . . I walked from Los Angeles
to Hanford, from Hanford to Fresno and Sacramento and all these
other places up to Oakland, and up as far as San Francisco. . . .
Anyway, I covered about thirteen cities and towns during the summer
when I was trying to earn money.
 Before the War 53

Yamada found it difficult to get work, even as a domestic: “I thought anybody

could be hired as a domestic but even then you needed references. . . . I was
sixteen when I entered the university as a freshman and I had no references.”
Unable to find a job in California, Yamada moved to New York City and
enrolled in a nursing program at Bellevue Hospital: “I was taking a pre-med
course at Southern Cal and . . . I couldn’t afford to study medicine at
Berkeley. . . . So I thought [that] by becoming a nurse, I could earn money to
continue my education. At Bellevue, after eight months they gave us a sti-
pend, twenty dollars or something like that.” Yamada remained at Bellevue
Hospital and worked her way into advanced positions:

I stayed at Bellevue for three years and then became a ward instructor,
and then after ward instructor I was an assistant supervisor in surgery,
and then after that I became chief, supervising pediatrics. At that
time I happened to be going to Columbia University to finish my
education. I had over fifty credits, so I got my bachelor’s degree. . . at
Teacher’s College of Columbia . . . in 1939, and then I got my master’s
in [1942].

Irene Nishikaichi had aspired to become an attorney, but her family’s eco-
nomic position forced her to enroll in secretarial school instead. Nishikaichi
altered her educational plans out of concern for her parent’s welfare:
I decided my parents were so much older [than I] that [I’d] better start
earning a living. And so I went into legal stenography. When I got
into City College, the person who was teaching shorthand said that
she was planning to become a secretary before she got talked into
becoming a teacher. I learned that at L.A. City College I could take
what was called a semiprofessional course and an academic course. So
I combined typing and shorthand with a regular academic course.

The emphasis on educational attainment also prevailed among the Nisei

living in Hawaii. Hisako Yamashita explained that her parents, and other Is-
sei parents she knew, stressed education:
In grammar school [we] worked hard and studied hard, and then [we]
were supposed to go to college to be a teacher. That’s what [our
parents] always said to us. . . . I was second to the last in a family of
nine. [Education] was put in my mind so much that I said, “I’m going
to college and I’m going to be a teacher.” . . . And a lot of [us] became
teachers. Three-fourths of the teachers for Hawaii were of Japanese
[descent]. . . . and then they became doctors, dentists, and social
workers before the war. . . . and the family stressed all these things . . .
all of the time.
54 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

However, in Hawaii educational opportunities for the Nisei children were

sometimes limited, because they lived in rural areas far from schools. In addi-
tion, the burden of such family responsibilities as caring for siblings or work-
ing to contribute to the family’s income often stood between the Nisei and
formal education. In the words of Eileen Tamura: “Despite the Japanese in-
terest in education, continuing in school (in Hawaii) during the first three
decades of the twentieth century was difficult because most Nisei youths had
to help their families make ends meet.”73 Tamura further asserted that the loss
of potential earnings was but one issue facing Issei parents; the extra expenses
incurred by parents to pay for school fees, books, and sometimes boarding was
yet another burden.74
On the other hand, Nisei men and women living in Hawaii had greater
opportunities for occupational mobility in the years preceding World War II
than those living on the U. S. mainland. Although mainland Nisei students
excelled in college before and after the United States declared war on Japan,
they were seldom able to find employment commensurate with their educa-
tion. This was due in part to the relatively small population of Japanese Ameri-
cans in the continental United States, and in part to the virulent racism
practiced on the mainland. Despite their educational achievement, Nisei men
and women often fell prey to racial discrimination excluding them from oc-
cupations for which they were trained. Togasaki recalled her difficulty in find-
ing employment after she completed medical school:
While I was in Los Angeles in my residency I was taking all kinds of
examinations for the State of California, or cities, or counties. I was
interested in public health work. . . . I was informed, “Sorry, we would
like to employ you, but other members of the staff and the community
will not accept you.” . . . And then, finally, to cap it, the chairman of
Maternal and Child Health, State of California, came down to Los
Angeles while I was working there at the county hospital to interview
me. He said, “Miss Togasaki, would you please take your name off the
Civil Service list because we are in the position where we cannot
employ another person with your name there.” I said, “That’s too
bad.”75

Anthropologist Lane Ryo Hirabayashi wrote a similar account of Rich-

ard Nishimoto, who graduated from Stanford University with an engineering
degree:
In 1929, when Nishimoto graduated in engineering, it was already the
custom for businesses and corporations to come to Stanford to
interview members of the senior class. One associate of Nishimoto’s
 Before the War 55

recalled that all of the class members received job offers after inter-
views except for Nishimoto. When he asked the reason, he was
reportedly told: “Look at your face. It’s Oriental. No one will hire
you.”76
These acts of discrimination, however demoralizing they may have been,
did not appear to alter the Issei parent’s position on education. Nisei children
still were expected to attain and maintain high levels of academic achievement.
The educational achievement on the part of Nisei women helps to account
for their recruitment by the War Department and assignment to military in-
telligence and to administrative positions in other units. Being encouraged
to excel in school, and having access to quality education, provided Nisei
women the educational aptitude and achievement to qualify for military
service.

Occupational Niche
Like the Hawaiian Japanese, most Issei immigrating to the continental United
States during the nineteenth century entered the rural labor force, in this case
in the Pacific Coast and the intermountain states. In some cases they replaced
Chinese laborers on the railroads, in the mines, and in the lumber industry.
Immigrants to urban areas worked mostly as domestic servants. According to
historian Sucheng Chan, there were three types of Japanese domestics, “school
boys,” “day workers,” and those who found long-term domestic work.77 Chan
describes “school boy domestics” as young men from poor families who worked
as live-in servants while attending school. “Day workers,” according to Chan,
performed domestic tasks for a daily wage while living in Japanese-operated
boarding houses.78 Long-term domestic workers usually filled permanent po-
sitions in restaurants or in Japanese-owned companies.
By 1908 the Issei had established themselves in all areas of California’s
agriculture, had secured tenancy and sharecropping arrangements, and were
supplying most of the state’s seasonal labor. Roger Daniels estimates that Japa-
nese Americans controlled about 1 percent of California’s agricultural land,
but controlled, through their intensive labor, about 10 percent of California’s
crops, valuing approximately 67 million.
One way Japanese American landowners profited was by leasing land to
tenant farmers. As described by demographer Dorothy Swaine Thomas:
Japanese tenants . . . cleared, drained, and leveled waste land and
reduced it to cultivation. They installed pumping plants and intro-
duced irrigation systems. They transformed land from extensive
farming to more profitable intensive cultivation of vegetables, berries
56 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

and fruits, and they pioneered in developing new crops. They

accepted inferior housing, . . . Above all, they paid high rents.79

Japanese landowners found it more profitable, Thomas argues, to lease

the land to tenant farmers than to farm it themselves. To increase their prof-
its, the Issei usually conducted specialized types of farming that required little
capital investment.80 Tenancy continued to increase profitability until the 1913
passage of the California Alien Land Law, prohibiting Issei from owning agri-
cultural land. (The Issei could own urban real estate, however; that right was
protected by a Japanese-American commercial treaty.) Yet the Alien Land Law
was often ineffective; Japanese immigrants could work around it by purchas-
ing land in the name of their American-born children and retaining control
as legal guardians. This law also permitted leasing and sharecropping contracts,
a loophole designed to protect the interests of white landowners who leased
land to Issei.
The 1920 amendment to the 1913 Alien Land Law was far more devas-
tating to Japanese farmers. It prohibited Japanese immigrants from purchas-
ing or leasing agricultural land, holding stock in agricultural landholder
companies, transferring or selling agricultural land to one another, or being
appointed guardians of minors who had title to such land.81 Nonetheless, as
Daniels indicates in one of his many studies on the subject, Issei farmers could
evade this law through legal methods such as forming corporations, which
could hold land while the Issei farmers held the stock. Therefore it is not sur-
prising that, just before the United States entered World War II, Japanese
Americans retained a strong hold on West Coast agriculture.
Japanese immigrants also owned and operated highly competitive busi-
nesses in the continental United States. Among the more common Japanese-
owned enterprises in the early 1900s were hotels, restaurants, barbershops, shoe
shops, supply stores, and laundries. By 1929, Los Angeles had the largest Japa-
nese population on the West Coast, 30 percent of whom were engaged in ur-
ban trade.82 Bloom and Riemer found that in 1941 approximately 36 percent
of all employed Japanese in Los Angeles were self-employed.83 The older and
more established a Japanese American man was, the more likely he was to be
self-employed.
Much of the Japanese Americans’ success with their small businesses is
attributable to some continuity in the traditional Japanese household struc-
ture. This was evident in Hawaii as well as the continental United States.
Japanese Americans did not separate work from family life: wives and chil-
dren worked for no additional income. The traditional Japanese cultural val-
ues of diligence, frugality, and commitment to long-term goals also facilitated
 Before the War 57

the Issei efforts to attain economic success in the U.S. In addition, Japanese
Americans’ exclusion, regardless of qualifications, from mainstream occupa-
tions helps to explain why they devoted so much energy to their small busi-
nesses; many such businesses were established by well-educated Issei unable
to find employment in their professions. Yoshiye Togasaki’s father, for example,
had graduated from the law school at the Imperial University before he im-
migrated to the United States. He went into the import business, dealing in
“retail foods . . . canned and dried foods, Japanese foods, Oriental foods, . . . soy
sauce, . . . tea, et cetera” to support his family. Similarly, engineering gradu-
ate Richard Nishimoto owned and operated a fruit-and-vegetable market in
Gardena, California.
Further, the rise in self-employment among Japanese Americans on the
West Coast is explicable in part by the cooperation among community mem-
bers. Bonacich and Modell have identified several elements of Japanese-style
cooperation that help to explain how the Issei were able to advance from la-
borers to farm owners and entrepreneurs. First, Japanese immigrants developed
capital through partnerships; with this capital they formed tanomoshi, or ro-
tating credit associations. Second, they could make use of cheap labor from
within their ethnic group by recruiting through communal channels. In addi-
tion, they exercised a labor paternalism that allowed workers to accept low
wages and long hours, knowing that the employers would provide for their
basic needs. Finally, Japanese entrepreneurs trained workers through an ap-
prenticeship program.84
This Japanese system of employment allowed Issei business owners to com-
pete with rivals by charging lower prices in the open market and offering higher
bids on purchases and rentals. Japanese underbid white barbers, restaurant op-
erators, and laundromat owners. Issei businesses were able to expand rapidly,
and in some economic spheres these businesses could monopolize the mar-
ket. The highly educated Nisei living on the mainland were, like well-educated
Issei, excluded from occupations for which they were trained; often they
worked in family businesses or on family farms. By 1942, many Nisei had de-
veloped small businesses on the West Coast, primarily in produce retailing,
as successful as those of their parents.
Ellen Fuchida worked in her parents’ grocery store along with her sib-
lings when they were growing up:
This was a family business, and everyone was expected to do their
part. From the time we were ten we were expected to put in hours at
the store, either putting things on the shelf, or wiping the shelf off.
And after we got out of school we had to give at least two years [of
service] before we went off onto a life of our own. . . . We were paid,
58 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

but not regular wages. We just got paid whatever we needed, a pair of
shoes or whatever, and whatever spending money we wanted. We
[didn’t get] . . . a regular salary; it was family work.

When they were older, Fuchida and her sister opened successful businesses of
their own. As mentioned earlier, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Fuchida
owned and was operating a beauty salon in her family’s house. Her mother
still ran the family’s grocery store, and one of her sisters owned a restaurant.
Before she joined the WAC, Fuchida worked in all three family entreprises:
“We were going night and day. . . . We were making money hand over fist.”
Indeed, Japanese Americans made economic gains early in their years in
the United States. Euro-American small farmers, large corporate farmers, and
small businesses felt the pinch of Japanese American competition. Conse-
quently, Japanese American restaurants were picketed in San Francisco in
1906, and anti–Japanese-laundry leagues were formed in several cities by em-
ployees of white-owned laundries.85 Bonacich and Modell argue that business
and labor united temporarily in a movement to destroy the ethnic-Japanese
economy,86 and that the evacuation of Japanese Americans was a result of the
threat of successful small Issei businesses felt by business and labor. Accord-
ing to Bonacich and Modell, the Japanese Americans’ peculiar position in
American society as a “middleman minority” caused them to be economically
concentrated and socially isolated, and thereby vulnerable to racist attack dur-
ing World War II.87
Historian Roger Daniels published statistics showing that Japanese Ameri-
can employment in 1940 was concentrated mostly in agriculture (51%), fol-
lowed by wholesale and retail trade (24%) and service (17%). Although most
of the businesses were small fruit and vegetable stands, Daniels asserted that
a few of the larger businesses grossed $1 million or more annually. Also ac-
cording to Daniels, first-generation families owned farms and businesses to a
greater degree than did the general population.88 Bonocich and Modell, as
well as Daniels, argue that the success enjoyed by Japanese American busi-
nesses intensified negative sentiments toward them during World War II. Trade
unions and professional organizations refused membership to Japanese Ameri-
cans, forcing them to form their own. Consequently, Japanese Americans de-
veloped ethnic solidarity in racially isolated communities.89
As illustrated in these studies, the Japanese American community had
advanced to the stratum of lower middle class within one generation. Eco-
nomic competition, combined with ethnocentrism and political dominance
on the part of the white power structure, thus certainly helps to explain why
Japanese Americans were evacuated from their homes and incarcerated.
 Before the War 59

In contrast to those who settled on the mainland, Japanese immigrants

to Hawaii were able to protect their economic interests through political in-
volvement. Japanese laborers who remained in Hawaii after 1900 were able
to strike for better working conditions and higher wages, because the National
Labor Relations Board services in Hawaii were free of racial bias. Labor orga-
nizers recruited Hawaiian Japanese workers to demonstrate for labor rights,
and the Hawaiian Japanese responded enthusiastically. This was clearly the
case in 1943, when a unionized transportation slowdown took place, involv-
ing five hundred bus drivers, 65 percent of whom were of Japanese descent.90
Several white Hawaiians expressed concern about the potential political
and economic power of the Hawaiian Japanese, who held jobs important to
the city’s day-to-day activities. This scenario was much different from that of
the Japanese immigrants living on the mainland, forced to work in an ethnic
enclave and excluded from mainstream occupations. Largely through their
strong representation, Nisei men and women living in Hawaii had begun the
process of occupational assimilation before World War II.
Still, whether in an ethnic enclave or an occupation in the mainstream
labor force, Nisei men and women were gainfully employed before the war,
and they were well educated. They were the sons and daughters of parents
who had immigrated to the United States freely and opted to stay. African
Americans by contrast had very little access to economic institutions, were
forced to attend racially segregated schools that were below the national stan-
dards, and were excluded from the political process. They were descendants
of black slaves who had been victims of internal colonialism, forcibly severed
from their countries of origin.91 Unlike the economic frailty suffered by most
African American communities, Japanese American communities were eco-
nomically sound. In the aggregate, Japanese Americans controlled 10 percent
of California’s agriculture, held stocks in corporations they themselves formed,
and owned competitive businesses. It is not unreasonable to speculate that,
had Japan not bombed Pearl Harbor and had the United States not declared
war on Japan, the Nisei might not have struggled so hard to be a part of the
U.S. war effort. However, Japan did bomb Pearl Harbor, and the United States
did declare war on Japan. These events, as well as Executive Order 9066, cre-
ated an environment of urgency, forcing the Nisei to choose unequivocally
between their citizenships—Japanese and American—and between the cul-
ture of their parents and that of America.
60 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

Contradictions
Chapter 3 and Paradoxes
It is our duty to obey the laws and regulations of this
country and to cooperate in all war tasks, especially in
respect to food production with all our might. We are
with our younger generation who are American by birth
here and we have an obligation to bring them up. Many
of them are serving in the United States Army and
performing other services wherever they may be fitted.
We are here with you, ready to do our part and we
hereby pledge ourselves to do whatever we are permitted
to do.
—Japanese American residents, Brawley-
Westmorland District, Imperial Valley1

W HY WERE JAPANESE AMERICANS treated so inhumanely during World War

II, and what effect did this treatment have on the political attitude of the
Nisei? In this chapter, I discuss events that led to the United States involve-
ment in World War II, and the reactions of the Nisei to the United States
declaration of war on Japan. In addition, I examine racial antagonism in the
United States, and discuss how Japanese Americans were treated by the U.S.
government, as compared with other racial/ethnic groups. Last, I explore the
consequences of the internment camps on the political attitudes of Japanese
Americans, and how these attitudes influenced some Nisei women to join the
military.
The events that led to the United States’ involvement in World War II
stemmed from a long history of tense relations with Japan. Political friction
between these two nations dated back to the late nineteenth century, when
the United States acquired territory in the Central Pacific and East Asia as a

60
 Contradictions and Paradoxes 61

result of the Spanish-American War. The acquisition of the Philippines gave

the United States access to Chinese markets, protected by the U.S.’s newly
formed Open Door policy.2
Part of the growing fear of Japanese Americans in the United States be-
fore and during World War II was that Japan had a strong military. Japan was
not viewed as a threat to U.S. commercial and political interests until it de-
feated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. This event was fol-
lowed by a series of other Japanese military victories: the acquisition of the
Caroline, Mariana, and Marshall Islands from Germany in World War I; the
conquest of Manchuria in 1931; and the invasion of mainland China in 1937.
The United States was concerned that Japanese control of the East would im-
pede American trade in the region and would deny Americans access to natural
resources such as oil, tin, rubber, and bauxite, which were abundant in south-
east Asia.
The United States became even more alarmed when Japan entered an
agreement with Germany and Italy to provide mutual political, economic, and
military assistance if one of these nations was attacked by a power not involved
in the European war or the Chinese-Japanese conflict; this agreement was
known as the Tripartite Pact.3 Historians agree that diplomatic relations be-
tween Japan and America worsened when Japan signed the Tripartite Pact,
on September 27, 1940.4 In retaliation, President Franklin D. Roosevelt im-
posed economic restrictions on Japan, freezing all Japanese assets in America
on July 23, 1941, and placing an embargo on the export of oil and gasoline to
Japan the following month. American citizens then living in Japan were urged
to return to the United States, because of strained relations between the two
countries and the threat of war.5
In October 1941, Japan sought diplomatic talks with the United States,
proposing that Premier Fumimaro Konoye meet with President Roosevelt im-
mediately to discuss the U.S. relaxation of the trade embargo.6 In return, Ja-
pan was willing to withdraw its troops from Indochina at the close of the war
with China. The United States stipulated that it was interested in negotia-
tions only after Japan had clarified its obligations under the Tripartite Pact
and indicated that Japanese troops would be withdrawn from China as well
as from Indochina.7 The two countries did not reach a resolution in October,
or in November. By 7 December 1941, the United States and Japan were at
war.
In the years preceding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the political
mood of the United States was isolationist. In a somewhat pacifistic climate,
American foreign policy in 1938 tended to support the status quo. Historian
Stephen Ambrose remarks that the United States, anxious as it was to put an
62 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

end to Japanese aggression in China, “did not have the military muscle to fight
even a one-front war.”8 After December 7, 1941, however, the country’s po-
litical attitude changed dramatically.

A Blatant Violation of Civil Rights

According to Roger Daniels, the anti-Japanese movement in the United States
actually began in 1892 with labor leaders and was expanded by middle-class
politicians: “the three major California political parties—Republican, Demo-
crat, and Populist—took a stand against all Asiatic immigration in 1900, as
did the National American Federation of Labor.”9 Daniels argues that this anti-
Japanese movement did not exert much influence beyond the Far West until
1905: at that time the national media characterized Japanese immigration to
the United States as an invasion.
In the previous chapter, I discussed the laws enacted to prohibit Japanese
immigrants from owning agricultural land. These acts of racial antagonism were
rooted in efforts to exclude Japanese immigrants from receiving the economic
rewards associated with hard work in America. Sociologist Edna Bonacich has
appropriately explained this racial antagonism in terms of split labor markets,
which were and still are characteristic of the United States.10 Whereas Afri-
can immigrants had already been relegated to a socially inferior position
through chattel slavery, followed by the implementation of a caste-like sys-
tem known as Jim Crow, efforts were made to fully exclude the Japanese im-
migrants from the American economic and political process.
Several accounts describe racial discrimination against Japanese Ameri-
cans before the 1940s. The occupational discrimination faced by Yoshiye
Togasaki and Richard Nishimoto was discussed in chapter 2. Similarly, former
Wac Haruko Sugi Hurt expressed the frustration associated with trying to find
adequate employment even before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. In a Rafu
Shimpo newspaper article, Hurt was quoted that her life before the war “was
very bad, depressing, with one menial job after another.”11 In the same ar-
ticle, former Wac Miwako Yanamoto revealed that Americans of Japanese heri-
tage were treated like “second-class citizens, even before the war. . . . Japanese
[Americans] couldn’t go to a lot of places then. There was the Alien Land
Law which kept Issei from buying land—my parents couldn’t buy a house.”12
The stereotypical images of Japanese Americans were only worsened by
the war. Almost immediately after the attack, Japanese Americans were de-
monized. White Americans stopped doing business with the Japanese-owned
stores they had patronized previously. Except for Japanese farmers, who helped
supply food to the War Department, Japanese businesses such as nurseries,
 Contradictions and Paradoxes 63

florists, and stores dependent on patronage from outside the Japanese com-
munity suffered great losses. Because of the social stigma associated with be-
ing of the same ethnicity as the enemy, Japanese Americans became outcasts
not only to Euro-Americans but to other minority groups as well. This was
particularly noticeable in the fear of mistaken identity exhibited by other Asian
Americans. To avoid being taken as persons of Japanese heritage, Americans
of Chinese, Korean, and Filipino descent began wearing identification badges.
These acts of discrimination against Japanese Americans cannot be ex-
plained solely in terms of enemy alien status. The United States was at war
with Germany and Italy also: four days after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Ger-
many declared war on the United States. Yet Italian and German Americans
were not subjected to the same degree of ethnic antagonism as the Issei and
the Nisei during World War II. Furthermore, although the so-called “alien”
segment of the Italian and German American population was targeted for scru-
tiny and for possible evacuation, American citizens of Italian and German de-
scent were not.
Anti-German sentiment did exist. The growth of pro-Nazi German or-
ganizations in the United States, which began as early as 1923, fueled Ameri-
can resentment toward the German American community during both world
wars. Kurt Georg Wilhelm Ludecke visited the United States in the early 1920s
to recruit German nationals for a proposed Nazi party in Germany.13 Pro-Nazi
organizations such as the Friends of New Germany and the German-American
Bund sprang up in the 1930s. Whether or not these organizations were en-
gaged in illegal activities, they helped to stigmatize the German American
community as a whole. In the words of Timothy Holian, a scholar in German
American studies, the existence of these organizations “helped to create an
hysterical fear of Nazis in the United States, which in turn placed other
uninvolved German-Americans in the position of also being cast into suspi-
cion.”14
Anti-German sentiment also was attributable to the destruction of Ameri-
can ships by German U-boats in the first six months of the war. In 1992 the
Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians reported
that, from January through June 1942, German submarines destroyed thou-
sands of tons of American ships along the eastern coast of the United States.
As reported by the commission, “This devastating warfare often came alarm-
ingly close to shore. Sinkings could be watched from Florida resorts and, on
June 15, two American ships were torpedoed in full view of bathers and pic-
nickers at Virginia Beach.”15 According to Samuel Morison, the destruction
caused by German U-boats on the Atlantic Ocean was far more devastating
than the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
64 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

Yet Japanese Americans were treated far more severely by the American
government and the American people, during this historical era, than any
other ethnic group.16 The treatment of Japanese Americans during World War
II is more analogous to that of German Americans during World War I.
Though the treatment of the two groups differed markedly, some parallels can
be drawn. During World War I, the U.S. government imposed an array of re-
strictive measures on German “aliens” that resembled those placed on Issei
and Nisei during World War II. These restrictions included exclusion from
sensitive military areas, the need for government permission to change resi-
dence, and internment for minor violations of these regulations.17 Historian
Frederick Luebke wrote:
At the beginning of the war, the President had acted under the
ancient Alien and Sedition Act of 1798 to restrict their activities.
Later, as spy hysteria intensified in the fall of 1917, Wilson issued new
orders requiring all German aliens fourteen years and older to register
with the government. On the assumption that all were potential
enemy agents, they were barred from the vicinity of places deemed to
have military importance, such as wharves, canals, and railroad
depots. Moreover, they were expelled from the District of Columbia,
required to get permission to travel within the country or to change
their place of residence, and forbidden access to all ships and boats
except public ferries.18

In some states, German nationals were disenfranchised and lost their voting
privileges, privileges that the Issei did not have.19 These restrictions were im-
posed on German nationals and usually did not apply to their American-born
children. During World War II, by contrast, restrictions were placed on Japa-
nese immigrants as well as on their children born in the United States.
This is not to understate the severity of discrimination against German
Americans during World War I. Anti-German sentiments permeated Ameri-
can cultural institutions, affecting the lives not only of German nationals but
of all Americans. The United States engaged in a form of ethnic cleansing.
For example, in an effort to rid the United States of German cultural influ-
ences, the playing of music by Bach and Beethoven was banned, and Ger-
man books were burned.20 Several states outlawed instruction in the German
language and prohibited citizens from speaking German in public.21 German
Americans became pariahs in the United States during World War I, just as
Japanese Americans would, two decades later.
Although the U.S. government and private citizens sometimes infringed
on the civil liberties of German and Italian Americans during World War II,
these infractions did not approach the magnitude of the mass evacuation
 Contradictions and Paradoxes 65

suffered by Issei and Nisei during the same period. The Alien Registration
Act of 1940 required European nationals and other noncitizens to register at
their local post office, where they completed a questionnaire and were finger-
printed. However, as Timothy Holian observed in his study of German Ameri-
cans, “registration of German legal resident aliens took a low profile as focus
shifted to the increasingly hostile positions of the U.S. and Japanese govern-
ments. Issues concerning Japanese Americans and Japanese aliens replaced a
preoccupation with German and other European aliens during mid- to late
1941.”22 Even after Hitler declared war on the United States, German Ameri-
cans were not subjected to the same injustices as were Japanese Americans.
In regard to Italian Americans, historian George Pozzetta has pointed out that
only in very rare cases did government regulations force unnaturalized Italian
residents to move out of family homes and evacuate restricted zones.23
Some scholars argue that the evacuation of some 120,000 Japanese Ameri-
cans during World War II was racially motivated.24 Surely, at some level this
mass evacuation can be connected to such racist acts as the dispossession of
Native Americans, the enslavement of African Americans, and the mistreat-
ment of Mexican Americans. Racism, however is an incomplete explanation
for this event. Overt acts of anti-Asian discrimination during World War II
were directed specifically toward Japanese Americans. Because China and
Korea were allies of the United States, and the Philippines was a U.S. terri-
tory, the status of Americans of Chinese, Korean, and Filipino descent actu-
ally improved during the war. The U.S. government viewed other Asian groups
as victims of Japan, similar to the United States.
Approximately seven hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japan
bombed the Philippines. This act strengthened political ties between the
United States and the Philippines, and in turn improved the sociopolitical
image of Filipino Americans. Forty percent of the male Filipinos living in Cali-
fornia registered for the draft in 1942. As reported in a recent U.S. Depart-
ment of Defense document:

In 1942, the First Filipino Infantry Regiment and the Second Filipino
Infantry Regiment were formed. As members of the Armed Forces,
Filipinos were allowed to become citizens, and on February 20, 1943,
1,200 Filipino soldiers stood proudly in “V” formation at the parade
ground of Camp Beale as citizenship was conferred on them.25

Similarly, Chinese Americans were accepted into the armed services and
served in racially integrated units. Chinese Americans’ loyalty was unques-
tionable, as the Republic of China also declared war on Japan the day after
the attack on Pearl Harbor.
66 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

The U.S. military welcomed the service of Korean Americans. Korea had
become a Japanese protectorate in 1905, and Korean Americans hoped that
the destruction of Japan would lead to the restoration of Korean independence.
Thus Korean Americans strongly supported the U.S. war effort against Japan.
Some Korean Americans knew the Japanese language and were enlisted by
the War Department to work in intelligence. Korean American women served
predominantly in the American Red Cross, while the men were concentrated
heavily in the National Guard. As reported by the U.S. Department of De-
fense, 109 Americans of Korean descent formed the Tiger Brigade of the Cali-
fornia National Guard. “On August 29, 1943, Korean National Flag Day, the
Los Angeles mayor raised the Korean flag to honor the men of the Tiger Bri-
gade as they marched past City Hall.”26
The racial climate was quite different for Japanese Americans, who not
only were excluded from military service during the first year of the war, but
also were ostracized in their civilian communities. Former Wac Grace Harada
recounts the hardships that she and her family endured as they were forced
out of their community. She had just graduated from high school in Pocatello
when the war broke out, and aspired to attend nursing school. Harada dis-
covered that she would not be able to attend nursing school because her fa-
ther had lost his job, and she was unable to find gainful employment:

My father worked for the railroad. And when the war broke out, he
had worked [there] for almost thirty years. . . . Oriental [Japanese
American] workers were all forced to quit their jobs and were more or
less left on their own. . . . We went to Pocatello because my sister and
some of my parents’ friends were there. We had no place else to go; we
weren’t going to camp and we weren’t accepted anywhere else.

Surely racism partly explains the severe treatment suffered by Japanese Ameri-
cans in the United States before and during World War II, but it does not
explain why the sociopolitical status of other Asian American groups improved
as their countries of origin allied themselves with the United States. The ill
treatment Japanese Americans were subjected to during World War II was not
comparable to that accorded other racial/ethnic groups in the United States;
rather, members of other Asian American groups were treated favorably, as
were German and Italian Americans.
The extreme form of racial antagonism faced by Japanese Americans dur-
ing World War II was multifactored. Indeed, race was one factor. Economic
achievements that Japanese Americans had made before the war was another
factor. These achievements, as noted in the previous chapter, were made in
spite of legislation imposed by the U.S. government to impede Japanese Ameri-
 Contradictions and Paradoxes 67

cans’ efforts, and reflect the enormous capacity of the Japanese immigrant to
adapt to the American economic system. Adaptive capacities, in the words
of Charles Wagley and Marvin Harris:
are those elements of a minority’s cultural heritage which provide it
with a basis for competing more or less effectively with the dominant
group, which afford protection against exploitation, which stimulate
or retard its adaptation to the total social environment, and which
facilitate or hinder its upward advance through the socioeconomic
hierarchy.27

In theory, an ethnic group with the greater adaptive capacity is likely to emerge
as the dominant group in society.28 It follows that, due to their economic
achievements, Japanese Americans were viewed as a threat to the Anglo-
dominated power structure. The military strength of the Japanese government
was another factor, with fears in the dominant society exacerbated by Japan’s
military victories.
The oppression experienced by Japanese Americans in the continental
United States was less widespread in Hawaii. Although the bombing of Pearl
Harbor brought their lives to a temporary standstill, the Nisei in Hawaii were
not ostracized. The women interviewed for this study indicated that they re-
mained part of their Hawaiian communities even after the bombing. Former Wac
Hisako Yamashita, for example, was in her last year of high school in Kauai when
Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. She recalled, “school stopped completely. We didn’t
go back to school but they said we all graduated. So we all graduated the follow-
ing year.” Yamashita and other Japanese Americans did not experience the same
racial intimidation as those living on the mainland. Yamashita stated just the
opposite: “We felt very secure, to tell you the truth. . . . We were known as the
dominant group. . . . We didn’t have this feeling of minority [suffered by] the
Japanese in California.”
A similar account was given by former Wac Ruth Fujii, who was living
in a racially integrated dwelling in Honolulu during the Japanese attack. On
the day of the bombing, she reported,
I was living in a cottage with a bunch of girls. . . . We already had first
aid training, and I had a first aid certificate. . . . I was going out to a
drug store around the corner to buy some Christmas paper when the
girls next door said, “Where are you going, Ruth?” And I said, “I’m
running to the drug store.” They said, “No, don’t.” So I went back in,
and that’s when I found out about the bombing. The first thing we did
was get our first [aid kits. We] ran to the school, and we volunteered.

In contrast to the immediate isolation of Nisei living on the mainland, the

68 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

Nisei of Hawaii were only one of many ethnic groups working side by side in
the rescue and recovery efforts after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Therefore
it was not surprising that Fujii’s first response to the attack was to aid in the
rescue efforts along with her Caucasian housemates. Unlike those on the main-
land, citizens in Hawaii were initially unified by this catastrophic act rather
than separating along ethnic lines.
Certainly, there were some private expressions of hostility against Japa-
nese Americans in Hawaii after the bombing. Lieutenant Commander Cecil
Coggins, stationed there before and during World War II, observed that, af-
ter Pearl Harbor, negative attitudes toward Hawaiian Japanese began to de-
velop: “Plantation overseers who for years had called their workmen friends
suddenly recalled that they never ‘trusted those damned Japs.’”29
Similarly, newspaper articles reported an upsurge of anti-Japanese feeling
in Hawaii. Much of the hostility stemmed from the fact that Japanese Ameri-
cans in Hawaii were exercising their citizenship rights. One newspaper article
in particular summarized the concerns:
Anti-Japanese feeling in Hawaii had been noted by military and
civilian agencies. Among the most important charges are that
Japanese in Hawaii [were] becoming “too important,” “too compla-
cent,” and “too independent.” Racial harmony in Hawaii was
dependent on maintenance of economic and social balance which has
been upset by the war. The acute manpower shortage, emphasis on
the American principles of equality, gradual elimination of old
country attitudes of humility and obedience, and unionization of labor
in Hawaii were major influences leading Japanese to a new apprecia-
tion of their rights and privileges under the U.S. flag, and a new
willingness to demand those rights. As a consequence, many Japanese
Americans were no longer willing to accept a dual standard in wages
or the traditional principle of benevolent paternalism.30

Still, these expressions of individual racism were never institutionalized in

Hawaii as they were in the continental United States.

Nisei Demonstration of Allegiance to Their Homeland

Nisei living on the mainland responded to the Japanese attack and the ostra-
cism that followed by emphasizing their American citizenship. Frustrated by
stereotypes and prejudices, some Nisei became enraged when their national
identity was questioned. Ellen Fuchida stated that her brother was extremely
offended when Caucasian customers visiting the family’s grocery store chal-
lenged his loyalty to the United States. The store was located near their home
 Contradictions and Paradoxes 69

in a predominantly white neighborhood. Before the war, said Fuchida, white

customers were “friendly.” During the war, some customers picked fights. Fuchida
said, “When [Caucasian] males called [my brother] a ‘Jap,’ he would say, ‘Step
outside,’ . . . And then he would hit them . . . , call up the sheriff, and ask them
to come and pick up the body.”
In an editorial published in the Rafu Shimpo on December 22, 1941,
American Japanese were encouraged to forget their racial identity and iden-
tify with being American: “It behooves us to reason that the idea of stressing
racial identity in this country does not conform to the democratic principles.
People from all parts of the world came to this country to lose their racial
identity, to become Americans. . . . We want everyone to forget his racial iden-
tity in order to fight enemies of America.”31
This reaction by Nisei was like that of German Americans, particularly
during World War I, when many of their ethnic organizations either disap-
peared or were Americanized.32 Unlike Japanese Americans, however, many
German Americans anglicized their surnames to assimilate into the mainstream
of American society. U.S. Army General John J. Pershing, for example, changed
his name from Pfoerschin.33 Japanese Americans, by contrast, remained an
identifiable minority.
Another dissimilarity between European and Japanese immigrants dur-
ing World War II is that the former had the privilege of becoming natural-
ized citizens. Italian Americans are a case in point. At the beginning of World
War II, the United States government declared that all unnaturalized Ital-
ians were “alien enemies.” This designation called for registration, and im-
posed limitations on travel and property ownership. Consequently, Italian
aliens became naturalized citizens at an accelerated rate. As revealed in George
Pozzetta’s study on Italian Americans, “during the period 1940–1945, some
281,354 Italian aliens became naturalized. . . . In 1944 alone, 106,626 became
citizens, the largest single-year figure in American history.”34
Issei had no opportunity to become naturalized citizens until 1952. Yet,
although they were denied U.S. citizenship, they encouraged their children
to take pride in their American heritage. Before the mass evacuation, Issei
parents helped to instill nationalism in their children by enrolling them in
civic organizations such as the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts. Some of these
organizations gave moral support to their Nisei members when the question
of Nisei loyalty surfaced. Boy Scout Troop 379, for example, was composed of
Nisei boys of the Daishi Mission in California. In December 1941, just days
before the United States declared war on Japan, these boys were selected as
Troop of the Month. In recognition of the patriotic deeds performed by these
Nisei boys, and in support of the boys and their communities, Scout Executive
70 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

Ernest E. Voss of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area Council publicly com-
mended them in a statement published in Rafu Shimpo:

Those of us who know the Japanese for what they are know that they
are not in sympathy with the military and naval clique which has
brought about the present state of affairs. All of our Scouts and
Scouters join with me in expressing to you and your boys our appre-
ciation of your true worth as patriotic fellow Americans. None of us
condemn you or your ancestors. We want you to wear your uniform
with pleasure and honor to yourselves and to the Scout Movement.
We want you to participate in our common understanding which will
help contribute to victory.35

In spite of the racial discrimination confronting Japanese Americans, the

Nisei made an organized effort to acculturate to white America. This move-
ment is discussed in the following editorial by Warren Tsuneishi, published
in a Japanese newspaper in 1941:

The greatest single failure of Americans of Japanese ancestry is that

they don’t participate enough in the affairs of their own community.
They stick too closely among others of the Japanese race. . . . We have
arrived at this conclusion also and have acted accordingly, refusing to
join the Japanese Student Club on the [University of California at
Berkeley] campus (a small gesture on our part, to be sure), in the
belief that this group, among others, offers too good an “excuse” for
NOT JOINING the activities in the wider campus community. . . . Very
undiplomatically, we have voiced our opinion, attacking the J.S.C.
[Japanese Student Club], and other groups as well; the Berkeley
Fellowship (the “largest Nisei group on the Pacific Coast which meets
regularly”), exclusive Nisei churches, Nisei clubs, and the Nisei
Citizens League. And finally, we have begun to question the Nisei
press which we feel “exclusivizes” the Nisei and cuts down his social
horizon.36

Many Nisei viewed the United States’ declaration of war against Japan
as a crucial test for demonstrating their patriotism.37 Shortly after a state of
war was formally declared, representatives from the Southern District Coun-
cil of the Japanese American Citizenship League (JACL) met to repudiate Ja-
pan and to offer services to the United States. Leaders of this civic organization,
all Nisei, formed an “Anti-Axis Committee” to affirm their citizenship and
express loyalty to the United States. Their stated objectives were to cooper-
ate with all national, state, and local government agencies; to coordinate ac-
tivities of all Americans of Japanese descent as well as of Japanese “aliens”
 Contradictions and Paradoxes 71

(immigrants); and to secure national unity by fair treatment of “loyal

Americans.”38
The committee went on to take charge of all press releases, and instructed
Japanese Americans in appropriate individual and group conduct. Members
of the Japanese community were urged, through newspapers, to condemn their
ancestral country; they were told that “blood ties mean nothing now.”39 The
following passage from a Japanese American newspaper summarizes this
sentiment:

We have lived long enough in America to appreciate liberty and

justice. We cannot tolerate the attempt of a few to dominate the
world. We have faith in free institutions, in individual freedom, and
we have the courage of our convictions to back up our words with
deeds of loyalty to the United States government! . . . Fellow Ameri-
cans, give us a chance to do our share to make this world a better
place to live in!40

Similar positions were taken by Japanese Americans in other parts of the

country. In New York City, for example, the 150 Nisei members of the Japa-
nese American Committee for Democracy condemned the history of Japanese
aggression and pledged their efforts and strength to the successful defense of
America.41
Individuals of Japanese heritage expressed loyalty to the United States
in many ways. In Santa Barbara, a Japanese mother was applauded for show-
ing patriotism to the United States when she wrote a letter to her daughter’s
school asking for the exclusion of a Japanese dance routine that her daughter
was to perform in a school program. The letter stated, “At this unhappy time,
I’d like to keep all things Japanese as foreign to my children as is humanly
possible so that in spite of their physical make-up, I can instill in them the
fact that they are truly American.”42
Several Euro-Americans rushed to the aid of Japanese Americans. One
such individual, writer and philosopher Donald Culcross Peattle, spoke at a
Santa Barbara JACL meeting, broadcast live on December 7, 1941, by radio
station KTMS. He urged the white citizens of Santa Barbara not to penalize
loyal American citizens of Japanese descent. Addressing the Japanese-
American community in the same talk, however, he stated that (white) Ameri-
cans had a right to ask that Americans of Japanese descent “prove their loyalty
to the hilt. They more than any others . . . must show unfailing support to the
United States government in its fight against Japanese military aggression.”43
Japanese Americans indeed showed that they were loyal citizens of the United
States; however, the government began to isolate them.
72 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

On December 11, 1941, the Rafu Shimpo informed the Japanese commu-
nity that property owned by Issei would not be transferable, according to a
ruling by the Federal Reserve Branch. In addition, small Japanese foodstuff-
handling businesses with no more than ten workers would be allowed to op-
erate only on a cash basis. Four days later, the Rafu Shimpo published Attorney
General Francis Biddle’s announcement: “[The] presidential proclamation is-
sued under Section 21, Title 50, United States Code, provides that in the event
of a declaration of war, or when an invasion or predatory incursion is perpetu-
ated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by
any foreign nation or government . . . nationals of the hostile nation shall be
liable to apprehension as alien enemies.” It was reported that the expected
proclamation would contain regulations for the conduct of all such aliens.
Among the restrictions, those called enemy aliens would be forbidden to use
or possess firearms, to travel by airplane unless authorized by the attorney gen-
eral or the secretary of war, and to enter military areas such as power plants,
vessels, piers, factories, and foundries.
It was also reported that enemy aliens deemed dangerous by the attorney
general or the secretary of state would be held in the custody of the Immigra-
tion and Naturalization Service, pending review of their cases by review boards.
Permanent detention would follow the review when detainees posed a strong
threat to the country’s internal security. Enemy aliens could not leave or en-
ter the United States unless authorized by the president, and could not change
their workplace unless granted permission by the attorney general.

The United States Evacuation of Japanese Americans

On February 20, 1942, the Secretary of War authorized Lieutenant General
John L. DeWitt, Commanding General, Western Defense Command, to es-
tablish military areas within his command “as the situation required.” Gen-
eral DeWitt established his first two military areas in the following month:
Military Area No. 1 consisted of the western halves of Washington, Oregon,
and California, and the southern half of Arizona; Military Area No. 2 included
the remaining territory of those states. This action imposed travel restrictions
on all enemy aliens and all persons of Japanese ancestry in these areas; any
change of residence had to be reported in advance.
Later the War Department decided that all persons of Japanese ancestry
were to be evacuated from critical areas on the West Coast. Among the stated
reasons was that the country’s most important shipbuilding and aircraft plants
were located in these areas, as were the vital port installations of San Fran-
cisco and the air fuel resources of the California oilfields. Although War
 Contradictions and Paradoxes 73

Table 3
War Relocation Authority Internment Camps
Name of Camp Location
Central Utah (also known as Topaz) West central Utah
Colorado River (also known as Poston) West central Arizona
Gila River (also known as Rivers) East central Arizona
Granada (Amache) Southeastern Colorado
Heart Mountain Northwestern Wyoming
Jerome (also known as Denson) Southeastern Arkansas
Manzanar East central California
Minidoka (also known as Hunt) Southeastern Idaho
Rohwer (also known as McGee) Southeastern Arkansas
Tule Lake (also known as Newell) Northern California

Department officials realized that the majority of the evacuees were U.S. citi-
zens, they claimed that, if Japan dropped parachutists in civilian clothing
among the Japanese civilian population, the result would be mass hysteria and
violent acts against innocent people. Consequently persons of Japanese an-
cestry were evacuated from the western half of Washington, the western half
of Oregon, the southern half of Arizona, and the entire state of California,
allegedly for their own protection.
As stated above, mass evacuation was first conducted on a voluntary ba-
sis. This was followed by a mandate that all people of Japanese ancestry liv-
ing in restricted areas must evacuate to army-operated assembly centers, which
would provide temporary shelter for evacuees until they were transferred to
internment camps (see Table 3). On March 18, 1942, the War Relocation
Authority (WRA) was established by Executive Order 9102 to assist in the
supervision and maintenance of evacuees, and to manage the ten relocation
centers where the evacuees were to be settled.
By November 1942, all of the Japanese evacuees had been transferred from
assembly centers to relocation camps. In general, the relocation centers were
communities with many of the same institutions as in the larger society:
schools, libraries, hospitals, newspapers, churches, a governing body, and the
like. Living facilities were poor; family quarters had no running water and few
items of furniture beyond the army cots provided by the WRA. Everyone ate
in the mess hall; children tended to eat with their friends rather than with
their families.
Cherry Shiozawa recalled that, when the evacuation orders came, she and
her family stored their personal items in the basement of their house. “At one
point we thought of selling our home and moving east, but Father and I were
against that idea. A black painter checked on our house periodically. While
74 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

we were in camp, people tried to break in to get [our] washer.” Shiozawa and
her family were evacuated to Topaz relocation center, where she worked as a
recreation leader. She said, “The worst thing about camp life was the lack of
privacy.”44
When Mary Yamada’s family was evacuated from Los Angeles, she was
already living in New York. She visited her family at the internment camp
on two occasions:

I was in New York and my family went to Heart Mountain, Wyo-

ming. . . . I went to visit them twice. . . . I went when my sister was
being married, and at that time they were beginning to give them
three-day passes from the camp. . . . We were able to go to Billings,
Montana, and she was married in a Methodist church in Billings. . . .
The other time I went was after I was accepted by the Army. I then
went to Heart Mountain to get my mother out, to bring her to New
York. . . . And by then my sister and brother-in-law were here so she
stayed with them. . . . They moved into the apartment where I used to
live.

Irene Nishikaichi was living in Los Angeles with her parents at the time
of evacuation. She was still enrolled at Los Angeles City College when Japan
bombed Pearl Harbor. Nishikaichi described how she and her family felt when
they were evacuated to Poston, the WRA camp in west central Arizona; she
was nineteen years old at the time.
We went on the bus to Poston, Arizona. It was stressful when we first
went into camp. We were wondering how long the war was going to
last. [We would ask ourselves,] “Are we going to be here for five years,
ten years, the rest of our lives?” and “You know, they’re talking about
sending us back to Japan.” “What’s going to happen to us?” I went to
work within the first weeks.

Poston, also known as the Colorado River War Relocation Center, was
the second largest of the ten WRA camps. It was located on the Colorado
Indian Reservation, and until December 1943 was managed by the Office of
Indian Affairs (OIA) under contract with the WRA. According to anthro-
pologist Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, the camp housed almost eighteen thousand
residents at its peak, and existed from May 1942 through November 1945.45
Most of the water in the camp came from the Colorado River. The land was
desert, and the temperatures ranged from 20 degrees in the winter to125 de-
grees in the summer.46
Hirabayashi characterized Poston as unparalleled among internment
camps, in that its key administrator emphasized limited self-governance among
 Contradictions and Paradoxes 75

residents. In compliance with the WRA policy banning Issei from holding
elective office (because of their status as Japanese nationals), only Nisei men
could serve as community leaders. This practice created dissension between
the first and the second generations, as it stripped the Issei of the leadership
role they had enjoyed in the prewar Japanese American community. The is-
sue was resolved when the WRA gave the Issei residents power to hire and
fire community leaders through advisory boards.47
The WRA provided work for willing adults. As Japanese Americans en-
tered Poston, they were required to sign an oath that they would be produc-
tive members of the community.48 The occupational opportunities provided
were open to women as well as men. Harry Kitano observed that, among the
negative consequences of mass evacuation, there was one positive aspect: for
the first time, Nisei could fill a variety of social roles. The best jobs often were
assigned to Nisei who had arrived early at the camp.49 Nishikaichi remem-
bered her work assignment at Poston:

Since I was the first [employee] in the office, I was [made] the office
manager over six secretaries. I enjoyed the work; we had wonderful
attorneys to work with. One of them became a California appellate
judge later. I was doing the kind of work that I was trained for, and
enjoying it. The other secretaries and I are still in touch with each
other, especially the ones who are in this area. And, as I say, the
attorneys were wonderful people.

One consequence of the internment camps was that Japanese American

men lost their position as primary providers for their families. This role was
taken over by the federal government, since it provided for the residents’ ba-
sic needs. Salaries for internees were relatively low; sometimes WRA officials
refused to pay them at all. Japanese Americans felt resentment when Euro-
American staff members earned much higher salaries for the same work; this
friction sometimes resulted in protest by internees in the form of work slow-
downs.
Another major consequence of the internment was that it racialized Japa-
nese Americans.50 Prior to the mass evacuation, Japanese Americans did not
identify themselves as a racial group. The event of mass evacuation forced them
all into one category regardless of social, economic, or political background.
In the words of Lane Ryo Hirabayashi:
All pre–World War II distinctions—whether of region, occupation,
class, religion, or creed—were essentially erased because all persons
of Japanese descent, whether or not they were U.S. citizens, were
subject to basically the same regulations that characterized their
76 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

institutionalization in a racially segregated setting operated by

agencies of the federal government.51

The process of becoming racially distinct resulted in a bifurcation in the Japa-

nese American community, a bifurcation that erupted when the loyalty ques-
tionnaire was administered. (See below.)
It is important, at this point, to reiterate that the treatment of Japanese
Americans on the U.S. mainland differed from that of Japanese Americans
in Hawaii. The Hawaiian Japanese were not subject to mass evacuation. This
is not to say that Japanese Americans were not interned in Hawaii; rather,
the internment of Hawaiian Japanese was limited to known enemy agents and
others considered potentially dangerous to U.S. military interests. Ruth Fujii
recalled that the FBI searched the homes of some Japanese Americans living
in Hawaii at the time of the bombing: “I knew that they [the FBI] were going
around to the Japanese homes . . . so people burned a lot of precious things. . . .
My brother hid my father’s picture because he was on a horse [in a] military
outfit.” Similarly, Hisako Yamashita reported that Japanese schoolteachers and
principals were taken into custody: “I know Mr. Kaluta, the principal of the
Japanese school I was going to was taken right away. And the . . . Buddhist
ministers, and the leaders of the community, they all disappeared.”
Among the Hawaiian Japanese targeted for detention were representa-
tives of the Japanese government, the consular agents, Shinto priests, Bud-
dhist priests and priestesses, Issei language school teachers and principals,
organizational leaders, and fishermen.52 Andrew Lind has explained that
Shinto priests were suspect because “they were active exponents of the divin-
ity of the Japanese emperor and of Japanese nationalism.”53 Buddhist priests
and priestesses, as well as Issei language school teachers, were recent products
of the educational system and were viewed as “sympathetic to the ideals of
the military regime in Japan.”54 Fishermen were considered a threat to Ameri-
can security because they were knowledgeable about the ocean and could aid
the enemy in the event of an actual invasion. In all, fewer than 1,500 Japa-
nese Americans were detained by the FBI in Hawaii during the entire war
period; 879 of these were Issei and 534 were American citizens.55
Unlike the mainland, however, Hawaii was placed under martial law af-
ter the Japanese air strikes. Among other inconveniences, a curfew was im-
posed on all residents, public establishments were closed, and mail was
censored. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox made more than one request to
remove Japanese Americans from Oahu. The Commanding General of Ha-
waii, Delos Emmons, replied that such an evacuation would be dangerous and
impracticable. Emmons asserted that “large quantities of building materials
would be needed at a time when construction and shipping were already taxed
 Contradictions and Paradoxes 77

to the limit.” Further, additional troops would be necessary to guard the

evacuees.
Another major factor why Japanese Americans in Hawaii were not evacu-
ated en masse is that they made up a large proportion of the Hawaiian popu-
lation and were indispensable to the economy. Japanese Americans living on
the mainland accounted for approximately 3 percent of the population; those
living in Hawaii made up 35 percent. The Commission on Wartime Reloca-
tion and Internment of Civilians reported in 1992 that of the 158,000 ethnic
Japanese living in Hawaii when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, fewer than 2,000
were taken into custody. By the end of the war, 1,875 Hawaiian residents of
Japanese descent had been evacuated to the mainland, “1,118 to WRA camps
and the remainder to Justice Department camps.” These numbers are extremely
low in proportion to the relatively large population of Japanese Americans in
Hawaii, and when we consider that some 120,000 Japanese Americans were
interned on the mainland.
The Commission reported that part of the reason for the difference in
treatment of ethnic Japanese in Hawaii was the approach taken by General
Emmons in diffusing political pressure:

The commanding general in Hawaii, Delos Emmons, restrained plans

to take radical measures, raising practical problems of labor shortages
and transportation until pressure to evacuate the Hawaiian Islands
subsided. . . . [H]e appeared to have argued quietly but consistently for
treating the ethnic Japanese as loyal to the United States, absent
evidence to the contrary.56

Hawaii also was more ethnically diverse than the mainland. Ethnic dif-
ferences were tolerated more, because Hawaii had not been “infected with the
same virulent antagonism” found on the West Coast.57 For example, Ruth
Fujii’s friends were of many ethnic backgrounds: “I had friends of Japanese de-
scent, but there were other friends of mine of other nationalities except colored
[African Americans], because we didn’t have any colored people here then.”

Registration or Renunciation?
In February and March 1943, the War Relocation Authority administered a
controversial questionnaire to all Issei and Nisei age seventeen and older liv-
ing in the relocation camps. The purpose was to register all evacuees of Japa-
nese descent and to determine who was loyal and who was disloyal to the
United States war effort. The WRA used questionnaire results to facilitate
the release of loyal evacuees from the internment camps. Although the
78 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

questionnaire was titled “War Relocation Authority Application for Leave

Clearance,” it was almost identical to an earlier form prepared by the War
Department for Nisei men of military age, “Selective Service System: State-
ment of United States Citizens of Japanese Ancestry,” used to recruit for mili-
tary service.
The questions creating the controversy were worded as follows:

27. If the opportunity presents itself and you are found qualified,
would you be willing to volunteer for the Army Nurse Corps or the
WAAC (Women’s Army Auxiliary Corp)?

28. Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of

America and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the
Japanese Emperor, or any other foreign government, power or
organization?

The “Application for Leave Clearance” form was administered to Nisei women
living in WRA camps, and to Issei men and women. Nisei men were admin-
istered the “Selective Service System: Statement of United States Citizens of
Japanese Ancestry”; the only difference in the two questionnaires is that ques-
tion 27 for men read, “Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the
United States on combat duty, wherever ordered?” The awkward wording of
questions 27 and 28 created a great deal of confusion for the Issei. Both ques-
tions were inappropriate for the Issei, who were denied citizenship in the
United States, but at the same time were being asked to renounce their alle-
giance to Japan.
The Japanese American community was divided over the issue of serv-
ing in the military. The majority, however, were in favor, arguing that by shar-
ing the burden of defense, the community was assuring that future generations
of Japanese descent would have equal citizenship rights. This sentiment was
similar to that expressed by African American leaders throughout American
history. During World War I, for example, W.E.B. Du Bois declared, “If the
black man could fight to defeat the Kaiser . . . he could later present a bill for
payment due to a grateful white America.”58 Similarly, during World War II,
Representative Adam Clayton Powell and educator Mary McLeod Bethune
advocated that African Americans serve in the military to demonstrate pa-
triotism and later to reap the benefits of full citizenship. Some Nisei, too, hoped
to use the military as a vehicle for social change.
Still, evacuees expressed widespread resistance to registering. Nisei in-
terned at Topaz Relocation Center in Utah sent a petition to the War De-
partment requesting full restoration of civil rights and assurance of protection
 Contradictions and Paradoxes 79

for their families as a prerequisite to proceeding with the registration.59 They

later acquiesced and issued a statement accepting the registration as an indi-
cation of the government’s good faith.60 Other Japanese Americans were re-
lentless in their opposition to serving in the military. They felt that they, as a
people, had already demonstrated their patriotism by showing no resistance
to evacuation from their homes. Further, they viewed mass evacuation as a
curtailment of their citizenship rights; to serve in the military under such con-
ditions was “not a privilege but an unbearable sacrifice.”61 In an attempt to
avoid the military draft, some of these Nisei men and women answered “no”
to questions 27 and 28 on the questionnaire. Some applied for expatriation
(a matter discussed in greater detail below).
The primary opponents of military service were the parents of the Nisei
and the Kibei. Issei parents objected because they depended on their children
to provide for them; many felt that their families’ security would be further
jeopardized if their children were to enlist in the military. They were also wor-
ried about being forced to return to a hostile civilian society after losing all
of their assets; if they were categorized as “disloyal,” they would not be forced
to leave the WRA camps and resettle. Some Issei opted to repatriate to Japan.
Pressure was placed on the WRA by Congress, the War Department, and
the press to segregate all persons of Japanese ancestry who were “disloyal” to
the United States. (Later this pressure was relieved by the Senate.) On July
15, 1943, the WRA designated Tule Lake Relocation Center for “disloyals”;
the “loyal” evacuees at Tule Lake were to be transferred to one of the other
WRA camps before resettlement in a civilian community.
Many “loyal” evacuees, however, remained at Tule Lake after the arrival
of “disloyals”; they are referred to in the social science literature as “Old
Tuleans.” Many had no desire to relocate; they were the most firmly established
of Tule Lake evacuees, occupying the best jobs and the most desirable living quar-
ters. Among those transferred to Tule Lake were evacuees who had requested to
leave the United States and go to Japan, who had answered questions 27 and 28
in the negative or not at all, who had been denied leave clearances, or who
had been recommended by the Department of Justice for detention.62 In addi-
tion, some of the family members of these individuals were also transferred to
Tule Lake. Surely not all of these transferees (known as “newcomers”) were
disloyal to the U.S. war effort. Some of the “newcomers” transferred to Tule
Lake not for political reasons, but solely to stay with members of their imme-
diate family. Many scholars argue that the inaccurate labeling of “loyal” Japa-
nese Americans as “disloyal” stemmed from a poorly implemented registration
program.63 In 1946 the WRA published statistics showing that of the 18,422
persons segregated at Tule Lake, 12,489 were Nisei and 5,933 were Issei.64
80 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

Among these so-called “segregants” were persons who were genuinely loyal
to the United States, those who were genuinely disloyal, and those who had
mixed feelings about supporting the United States.
Several disloyal segregants belonged to a pro-Japanese militant group.
These individuals felt that Tule Lake was exclusively for evacuees who wished
to pursue the Japanese way of life. The camp administrators allowed mem-
bers of this group to establish Japanese language schools and to observe some
cultural customs and activities. The administrators felt that in this way the
evacuees were preparing themselves for their future life in Japan.
A problem developed when the pro-Japanese forced other evacuees to sup-
port their segregation efforts. Using terrorist tactics, such as threatening lives,
and beating up their opponents, the pro-Japanese internees prevented loyal
evacuees from registering and forbade them to volunteer for military service.
Due to the resulting turmoil, Tule Lake was placed under martial law on No-
vember 13, 1943. Members of the militant pro-Japanese group continued to
apply pressure to all Nisei residents to renounce their U.S. citizenship. These
efforts were facilitated by the rescinding of Executive Order 9066 on Decem-
ber 17, 1944, and by the announcement that all WRA camps would be closed
within a year.
Anxieties about resettling in a hostile civilian society and fear of enter-
ing the military encouraged the undecided Nisei to renounce American citi-
zenship. A few thousand Nisei reportedly did so during the war. Joseph
Yoshisuke Kurihara, a Hawaiian-born Nisei, is a case in point; his life history
is published in The Spoilage, Dorothy Swaine Thomas and Richard Nishimoto’s
study on the evacuation and resettlement of Japanese Americans during World
War II. Kurihara had moved to California in 1915 and had worked as a fruit
picker in Sacramento. He migrated to Michigan in 1917 and entered the army,
eventually receiving an honorable discharge. Later he returned to Los Ange-
les, California, where he earned an accounting degree from Southwestern
University and opened an accounting firm. Kurihara was a successful business-
man when, in 1942, he was evacuated to Manzanar. He became active in anti-
administration and anti-JACL movements before renouncing his American
citizenship and sailing to Japan in 1946.65
Although none of the Nisei Wacs were among those labeled disloyal, some
had “disloyal” family members. One of Hisako Yamashita’s older brothers had
moved from Hawaii to California while she was still a child; while growing
up in Kauai she only knew of him at a distance. After the United States de-
clared war on Japan, the brother and his family were forcefully evacuated and
interned. Yamashita remembered her brother’s rage: “He had five kids and he
was so mad that they were interning him that he opted for Tule Lake. My
 Contradictions and Paradoxes 81

family was very unhappy at that point. They wrote to him and said, ‘Send
your kids to Hawaii,’ and they would bring them up. No, he wouldn’t. . . . The
first ship that went back to Japan, they were on it.”
Yamashita, who served in the WAC from December 1944 to October
1946, had an opportunity to visit Japan in 1961. There she learned of her
brother’s difficulties in adjusting to Japanese life:

I visited Japan because my father had gone there to retire. And when
I finally saw my brother’s family, and talked with the kids, one of the
girls said, “When my father first stepped foot in Japan he hated it.” He
regretted his decision to renounce his citizenship but at that point
they couldn’t do anything. And his children grew up in Japan. . . .
After the war the Nisei in California challenged the loss of citizenship
and took it up with the Supreme Court and got the citizenship back.
And so all of those kids, my nieces and nephews, got their citizenship
back and they all live in California now. . . . My brother died while he
was in Japan.

In some cases, Nisei men renounced their U.S. citizenship in an effort to

avoid military service. For example, a Nasumi Tokeuchi wrote a letter to the
president of the United States, dated August 20, 1944. She stated that her
husband, Ryoichi Yamaguchi Takeuchi, had just passed the pre-induction
physical and soon would be sent to the army. She claimed that he had dual
citizenship and was more willing to give up American citizenship than Japa-
nese. Mrs. Tokeuchi explained that she and her husband had been mistreated
by the American public, and requested that he be discharged from the mili-
tary even if it meant that he would be sent to a concentration camp. This
letter and others like it were sent to the War Department and placed in a
category labeled “Japanese American Enlisted Men Who Make Disloyal State-
ments in Order to Avoid Overseas Combat Duty.” In this case, the letter was
forwarded to the commanding officer of the army reception center in which
Takeuchi was to be processed, for action.66
Historian Donald Collins estimated that eight thousand people of Japa-
nese heritage left the United States for Japan during and immediately after
the war. In his study of those who renounced U.S. citizenship and expatri-
ated to Japan, Collins found that both the Issei and the Nisei had difficulty
in adjusting to their new life:
Japan had just lost the war. Houses, buildings, and factories had been
devastated. Food had to be supplied from outside the islands. Every
major city except Kyoto had been subjected to the American bomb-
ing and fire raids. Because of the severe food shortage, the Japanese
82 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

government continued wartime rationing which allowed each person

one-third the calories served as a minimum to American soldiers.
Unemployment was also widespread.67

Perhaps even more so than the Issei, who were born in Japan, and the Kibei,
who had attended school there, the Nisei expatriates suffered culture shock, for
they had been socialized in the American culture. As in the case of Yamashita’s
brother, many Nisei who left the United States for Japan wanted to return
home.
Most of the renunciants still waiting to be deported to Japan when the
war ended changed their minds and filed lawsuits to cancel their renuncia-
tion of citizenship. San Francisco civil liberties attorney Wayne M. Collins
represented the renunciants, arguing in court that they had been victims of
duress by the United States government. After years of litigation, Collins suc-
ceeded in helping most of these renunciants to restore their United States
citizenship by the mid- to late 1950s.68

Picking Up the Pieces: Nisei Reclamation of Citizenship

Roger Daniels reported that the process of leaving the concentration camps
began in the summer of 1942 and continued even as more evacuees were en-
tering. He described four categories of inmates who were qualified for release
from the camps: college students, agricultural workers, Japanese linguists, and
Japanese diplomats, who were sent back to Japan in exchange for American
diplomats.69
After spending a year and a half at Poston, Nishikaichi was released un-
der the War Relocation Authority’s indefinite leave program. As described in
chapter 1, she traveled to New York City to work as a nanny for a Columbia
University professor with three children, and hoped to continue her legal sec-
retarial studies at night. Finding herself in an impossible situation, however,
Nisikaichi “walked in and walked out,” and subsequently interviewed for a
job with the WRA in New York City:

When I went for the interview, I met a girl that I [had known] at City
College. She was a member of a Japanese American males’ and
females’ social club. (From high school days, we [Japanese American
girls] had these clubs. We would have socials and would invite the
boys’ clubs. Even after we left high school we would have socials.) She
invited me to go home with her that night. She informed me that a
friend of hers, [whom] I knew through a social club in L.A., was
coming to New York and needed a roommate. So [her friend] and I
 Contradictions and Paradoxes 83

roomed together, and our rent was fifty dollars a month. The subway
in New York was a nickel. At sixteen dollars a week, toward the end
of the week if you [bought] a candy bar, you were not going to have
the nickel to go to work to pick up your paycheck for Friday.

From New York City Nishikaichi transferred to the WRA office in Roches-
ter, hoping that she could persuade her parents to leave the internment camp
and join her: “Since my father was a cook, I thought possibly they could get a
domestic job. I was in Rochester for a whole year but I couldn’t persuade my
parents to leave the camp.”
Some evacuees, particularly the Issei, who had lost their homes and their
businesses, felt secure in the internment camps. They were reluctant to leave
even when the War Relocation Authority announced that the camps would
be closed on or before January 2, 1946. Former internee Richard Nishimoto
has written that many evacuees at Poston reacted negatively to that news,
“varying from being violently vociferous to being passively defiant.”70 Of
evacuees at Tule Lake, Donald Collins has written: “Faced with prospects of
violence and economic impoverishment in West Coast communities, the resi-
dents of Tule Lake fought to remain within the security of their concentra-
tion home.”71 Nishimoto and Dorothy Swaine Thomas have published the
words of some evacuees at Tule Lake: “We’d like to sit in Tule Lake for a while.
We don’t want to relocate. The discrimination is too bad. I see letters from
people on the outside. There are fellows in Chicago who want to come back
[to camp] but who are not allowed.”72 Japanese American Citizenship League
officials opposed the closing of the internment camps because they felt that
many evacuees had been so impaired by captivity and the loss of their assets
that they would not be able to live on their own.73
Although policies excluding Japanese Americans from the armed services
had been rescinded, and although the all-Japanese American 442nd Regimen-
tal Combat Team received favorable publicity in the media, prejudice against
the group persisted. This was especially true in California, where many evacu-
ees feared returning home because of reported incidents of anti-Japanese
crimes. (Some of these reports appeared in the February 1945 issues of the
Los Angeles Times.)74 The U.S. government was faced with the task of
rearticulating the image of Japanese Americans; from that of enemy alien to
that of innocuous citizen.
Another major barrier to resettlement in the border states was white busi-
ness owners’ fear of Japanese American economic competition. This issue was
described in a commentary by Larry Tajiri, published in the Pacific Citizen,
July 22, 1944:
84 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

It appears that some of the people who have profited from the
evacuation of persons of Japanese ancestry from the west coast are
having cold chills over the prospect that evacuees may return in the
not too distant future. This may account for the frenzied attempts on
the part of California race-baiters to forestall, if not prevent perma-
nently, the return of the evacuees to the homes, businesses and lands
they have tilled and developed for two generations.75

In the article, Tajiri alleged that the American League of California, an orga-
nized group of produce dealers and wholesale florists, was interested in keep-
ing Japanese Americans from reestablishing themselves in these businesses.
Indeed the wholesale distribution of farm produce and floricultural products
had (as noted in chapter 2) been an economic mainstay of Japanese Ameri-
cans in southern California before the mass evacuation. Tajiri claimed that, in
the year preceding the evacuation, “wholesale produce dealers of Japanese an-
cestry in Los Angeles did business in the extent of $26,000,00. And it has
been estimated in Los Angeles that in the year after the evacuation Los An-
geles consumers paid $20,000,000 more for 10,000 carloads less of farm prod-
ucts.”76 This industry, Tajiri argued, was cause for the antagonistic sentiment
promoted on the West Coast against Japanese Americans: white agricultur-
ists were acting in their own economic interest.
The U.S. government banned the resettlement of Japanese Americans
in California, parts of Washington, Oregon, and Arizona until a December
1944 Supreme Court decision to lift the ban for Nisei not charged with dis-
loyalty.77 Several organizations worked against the resettlement of Japanese
Americans on the West Coast, such as the No Japs, Inc., the American Fed-
eration, the Japanese Exclusion Association, and the Japanese Problem League.
Aware of these organizations, the War Relocation Authority concentrated its
resettlement efforts in communities in the midwestern and eastern regions of
the country.78 Relocation offices were established in cities such as Chicago,
New York, and Milwaukee, and collaborated with humanitarian organizations
to foster community acceptance of the resettling Japanese.
Sometimes the problem of resettlement was exacerbated by Niseis’ desire
to assimilate into white America and to distance themselves from blacks. Some
refused to live in neighborhoods where African Americans resided. In her study
of the Nisei generation in Hawaii, Eileen Tamura claimed that the Japanese
ideas about skin color were formed long before they came in contact with
Westerners; “Japanese saw themselves as white-skinned, which they consid-
ered beautiful; they viewed black skin as ugly.”79 In an editorial published in
the Pacific Citizen in January 1944, Marie Harlow Pulley, a Chicago woman
advocating the elimination of racial segregation in the United States, warned
 Contradictions and Paradoxes 85

that the Nisei resettlement program “may be endangered by their anti-black

sentiment.”80 She declared that the liberal groups working for the Nisei were
the same groups that had been working on the “Negro problem” for years. Pul-
ley offered to rent part of her home to four Nisei; her house was located in an
old Chicago neighborhood that included both white and black homeowners.
Pulley determined that Nisei harbored an extremely rigid, strongly developed
prejudice against African Americans. She said that when they saw children
of “Negro professional people playing quietly in some of the yards, the Nisei
were not interested in leasing the house.”
The Nisei have been quick to pick up America’s superficial qualities,
and it followed that they easily accepted the undemocratic and truly
un-American aspect of prejudice toward Negroes. . . . Nisei stand at
the crossroads with the two counts of color and identity against them.
They are alienating the energies and interests of the only really
friendly group in this country.81

To help eliminate the problems associated with resettlement, relocation

officers served as liaisons between the resettling evacuees and the communi-
ties where they settled. Jobs were offered to Japanese evacuees through the
relocation offices; most numerous were war plant positions and domestic work.
The United States Department of Interior reported the efforts as successful:
As a means of affecting community attitudes, relocation officers gave
talks to business, professional, social, civic, church and fraternal
groups, met with employers individually and in groups, enlisted the
aid of unions when possible, and spoke to employees in plants where
employment of Japanese was contemplated. Newspapers were provided
with information in regard to the [resettlement] program. This public
relations program was sufficiently successful so that in most communi-
ties opposition did not crystalize or become organized movements.82

The news media wrote articles in support of the reintegration of Japa-

nese Americans into the overall society. Referring to Asian students who at-
tended a local college, the Chicago Tribune stated in May 1944, “Oriental faces
are all that set those students aside from any others on the campus. They take
the same courses, make good grades, and participate in campus activities.”83
Similarly, in an editorial in the Pacific Citizen on January 13, 1945, Larry Tajiri
claimed that the evacuees returning home were well received by their Cau-
casian neighbors: In Fowler, California, “an ex-serviceman returned with his
wife and children a day or two before Christmas and neighboring families
brought gifts for the children.” Similarly, a Methodist church located in south-
ern California reportedly welcomed its Japanese American neighbors.
86 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

Many Americans were beginning to feel that, although some people

voiced opposition to the resettlement of Japanese Americans on the West
Coast, anti-Orientalism in California was largely a dead issue. As Tajiri stated:

There has been a vocal opposition to the return of the evacuees, but
daily it becomes more apparent that these oppositionists consist
largely of the lunatic fringe of West Coast reaction, who are reminis-
cent of the Ku Klux Klan of another day. The people who came down
to the evacuation trains to see the evacuees off to their assembly
centers and relocation camps, the women who wept with evacuee
women when the trains pulled out, are welcoming their friends home
again.84

Surely the evacuees mentioned by Tajiri were families who had retained
their homes. The majority of the evacuees, however, had lost the homes, busi-
nesses, and employment they had possessed before evacuation. Moreover, as
Tajiri observed, many of the Japanese Americans who still owned their homes
found that, during the resettlement, “many of these homes were occupied by
war workers, largely of minority groups, who found that the homes left va-
cant by the evacuees were the only ones available. In many cases commercial
buildings left empty by the evacuation have been cheaply converted into
dwellings where slum conditions prevail.”85 Tajiri was referring to African
Americans and Mexican Americans who leased houses owned by Japanese
Americans from the local government in California’s urban areas. He stated,
however, that the growing antagonism between Japanese Americans and other
racial minorities was being ameliorated by African American leadership: “Ne-
gro leaders on the west coast already have taken the lead in recommending
Federal interracial housing. The tightness of the housing situation in urban
areas can be relieved through large-scale Federal programs.”86
While the mass evacuation of Japanese Americans by the United States
government was unconscionable, the internment camps were not analogous
to the concentration camps in Germany where Jews were executed during the
war. In the words of a former Nisei Wac:

[Japanese Americans] talk about being incarcerated and all that, but I
don’t think one should say that, because they don’t know the true
value of that word. By saying incarcerated, [one implies that Japanese
Americans] were treated like what you see in the movies, where the
Jews were just killed off, exterminated. Internment camps were
nothing like that. [Japanese Americans] had a free choice of moving
to camps if they wanted to, or going to other places. . . . And for me [a
Japanese American] to say that may [make me sound] like a traitor.
 Contradictions and Paradoxes 87

On the other hand, this mass evacuation, which had been commonly re-
ferred to as “internment,” is perhaps more appropriately labeled “incarcera-
tion,” as it often is in contemporary literature on this topic, because “internment”
can legally be applied only to aliens. During World War II, the United States
government confined American citizens of Japanese descent, as well as their
Issei parents. Unlike German and Italian evacuees, Nisei were confined with-
out a hearing; mass incarceration was based simply on ethnic origin and geo-
graphic location. This act of mass evacuation was later found to be unjustified,
as “there were no documented acts of espionage, sabotage, or fifth column ac-
tivity committed by Japanese Americans.”87
Several scholars assert that relocation camps had a liberating effect on
the lives of Japanese American women.88 Daisuke Kitagawa characterized life
in relocation camps as “really and truly a well-earned and highly deserved
holiday” for Issei women.89 Similarly, Dorothy Swaine Thomas and Richard
Nishimoto observed that “Issei women found pleasure in the new leisure, free-
dom from the burdens of cooking and the worries of providing for a family.
And they spent much time at knitting, sewing, handicraft, and English
classes.”90 According to Valerie Matsumoto, living in relocation camps resulted
in “more leisure for older women, equal pay with men for working women,
and disintegration of traditional patterns of arranged marriages.”91
Nisei women living in internment camps were viewed by the War De-
partment as potential recruits, as these women were often seeking shelter and
employment in an effort to resettle in the civilian community. Indeed, these
events of World War II spurred feelings of what Leslie Ito has referred to as
“super-patriotism” among the Nisei.92 Not only did the bombing of Pearl Har-
bor, and the ensuing mass evacuation, alter the lives of those who became
Nisei servicewomen, but these events served as driving forces for their
enlistment.
88 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

Women’s Army
Corps Recruitment
Chapter 4 of Nisei Women
It’s a wonderful opportunity for my people to participate
actively in the greatest battle for democracy the world has
ever known. By serving in the WAC, I’ve found the true
meaning of democracy—the principle of share and share
alike. I’m sure that Japanese American girls who join the
WAC will develop, as I have, a broader outlook and an
increased pride in their native land. Before I joined up I
felt useless and restless because I wanted to do something
for my country. I wouldn’t exchange for anything the
experience I’ve gained in the WAC.
—Pvt. Chizuko Shinagawa1

A LTHOUGH THE WOMEN’S Army Auxiliary Corps had existed since July 1942,
the first Nisei woman was not inducted until November 1943. By contrast,
American women of German or Italian descent were eligible to join the
WAAC/WAC without any restrictions. Even though the United States was
at war with Germany and Italy, women whose parents were natives of these
countries were not subjected to the same scrutiny as Nisei women. Euro-
American women of all ethnic backgrounds blended into the socially con-
structed category labeled “white,” and their assignments in WAAC/WAC units
were based almost exclusively on level of skills.
The scenario was different for Nisei women. This chapter discusses the
procedures used by the War Department to recruit and induct Nisei women
into the WAC, and highlights the biographies and personal statements of sev-
eral women who joined.

88
 WAC Recruitment of Nisei Women 89

Determining Loyalty, Determining Interest

As mentioned in the previous chapter, Nisei women were required to dem-
onstrate their loyalty to the United States before they could volunteer for the
WAAC/WAC. Early in January 1943, the War Department announced that
a special effort would be made to recruit linguists for the WAAC. Although
these recruits would also perform other, related duties, their primary respon-
sibility would be to work in cryptography and communications. Japanese was
among the eight languages specified for such work in a memorandum sent from
the WAAC’s Chief Recruiting Branch, Personnel Division.2
Later that month, the War Department formed operating teams to recruit
Nisei women from internment camps. Each team consisted of one member
from the War Relocation Center, one military officer, two sergeants of the
loyalty investigative branch of the combined service commands, and one
American male soldier of Japanese ancestry. The objective of these recruiting
teams was to determine if Japanese American women supported the U.S. war
effort and whether they would serve in the military if given the opportunity.
Also in that month, while loyalty questionnaires were being administered
at internment camps, WAC Director Hobby began examining statistics, on
Nisei women, received from the War Relocation Authority. WAC headquar-
ters had requested this information to help in deciding whether to induct Nisei
women and in determining what occupations to assign them to if accepted.
In compliance with Hobby’s request, the WRA compiled occupational statis-
tics from the 1940 census, revealing the occupational distribution of Nisei
women as follows: 2,541 clerical workers, 254 stenographers and typists, 228
teachers, 129 managers, 124 trained nurses, 30 religious workers, 13 editors
and reporters, 13 social workers, 12 pharmacists, 8 laboratory technicians, 6
physicians and surgeons, 4 librarians, 4 college teachers, 3 optometrists, 1
chemist, 1 dentist, 1 draftsperson, and 1 lawyer.3 These statistics showed that
Nisei women were well educated and skilled in the occupational fields neces-
sary to the military.
As the Women’s Army Corps was moving from a policy of excluding Nisei
women to one of inclusion, the civilian population expressed support for Nisei
women’s service in the WAC. Several people wrote Secretary of War Stimson
urging him to recruit Japanese American women. One such letter, written by
DAR member Lilliebell Falck, who claimed to be a friend and advisor to Japa-
nese Americans, stated, “while American boys are taken out of . . . universities
to serve in the military, Japanese students are permitted to continue their stud-
ies and professions.” Falck protested the exclusion of Nisei men and women
from military service, not knowing that the process of inducting them was well
90 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

under way. Shortly after her letter was received in January 1943 by the War
Department, Nisei men were authorized to serve in a combat battalion.
Among the many letters sent to the War Department about the exclu-
sion of Nisei women from military service was one by Henry C. Blaisdell in
January 1943. Blaisdell was then director of the International House at the
University of California at Berkeley. He expressed his “hearty and apprecia-
tive approval” of Stimson’s announcement that Nisei men had been “accorded
the privilege of enlistment in the American army,” then requested that Nisei
women be accorded the same opportunity to prove their loyalty to the coun-
try, and to do so in nonsegregated units. Secretary Stimson replied informing
Blaisdell that enlistment of Nisei women in the WAC was “presently being
studied.”4
In the U.S. military, policies on the utilization of women of any ethnic
group were contingent upon those governing the utilization of men of that
group. Hence, before a Woman’s Army Corps was formed, there were army
corps consisting solely of men. Before African American women were inducted
into the WAC, African American men were inducted into the army. Thus,
before Nisei women were inducted into the WAC, Nisei men would be
reinducted into the army. On February 1, 1943, President Roosevelt informed
Secretary Stimson that he fully approved the War Department’s proposal to
organize a combat team consisting of loyal American citizens of Japanese de-
scent.5 Fifteen hundred Nisei men were taken from among Hawaiian volun-
teers, and several thousand were inducted from War Relocation Centers (first
as volunteers and later as draftees); this Nisei combat team, later known as
the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, would consist of infantry, artillery, en-
gineers, and medical personnel.
On the day that President Roosevelt approved the formation of the Nisei
combat regiment, an interoffice memorandum was sent to WAAC Director
Hobby, recommending that plans be made for recruiting Nisei women. It was
recommended that two to four WAAC companies be composed entirely of
Japanese Americans. It was further recommended that the Nisei women be
trained at Fort Des Moines, and that they be recruited and trained so as to be
ready for duty soon after male Nisei units were in the field.6 A few weeks later,
a letter was sent to the War Department from Sergeant Kenneth Uni, assigned
to recruitment duty at the Manzanar Relocation Center, further encouraging
the induction of Nisei women; Sergeant Uni stated that Nisei men were re-
luctant to join the military because they felt that Nisei women also should be
allowed to.
In finally sending WAAC officers to relocation centers, War Department
officials accelerated the recruitment of Nisei women. These officers were
 WAC Recruitment of Nisei Women 91

charged with investigating Nisei women’s attitudes toward joining the WAAC.
Nisei women were told that no decision had been made by the War Depart-
ment as to their possible enlistment, and that the decision depended partially
on their desire to serve. Each officer subsequently submitted reports of her find-
ings, similar to the report of Second Officer Manice M. Hill (in chapter 1).
Hill reported that Nisei women at the Rohwer Relocation Center expressed
a great deal of interest in serving in the WAAC but indicated that their fami-
lies would have to approve; such concern about families’ approval, Hill stated,
was natural to Nisei under normal conditions, but was even stronger during
the war years: feelings of responsibility toward parents were even more pro-
nounced for Nisei during that time because the parents were aliens in an uncer-
tain and insecure position. Hill noted further that, because the sons of the
interned Issei were likely to be drafted, the daughters were more reluctant to join
a military organization and leave their parents alone in the relocation center.
Still, Nisei women at Rohwer wished, according to the report, to learn
more about the WAAC and indicated that they would possibly serve in the
military; military service was of particular interest to those who had business
training, had been employed outside the home, or had been in college before
the evacuation. Hill emphasized that Nisei women opposed any segregation:
they viewed the formation of an all-Japanese combat unit for Japanese men
as an act of racial discrimination.
Similarly, on March 6, 1943, Third Officer Emily Miller surveyed Nisei
women at Camp Jerome in Arkansas. Her scheduled meeting had been an-
nounced in the camp’s newspaper, and women from age 21 to 45 were en-
couraged to attend. Miller reported that the women of Camp Jerome were
intelligent, interested in the WAAC, and responsive, and that there were ap-
proximately fifteen hundred Nisei women in the camp in the 21–to–45 age
bracket. Most were married and thus, according to their values, ineligible to
join. Several single women expressed enthusiasm about joining, but they stated
emphatically that they would not serve in an all-Japanese American unit.
Some women were concerned about provisions for practicing their religion,
Buddhism. Caucasian personnel at Camp Jerome expressed great admiration
for the Nisei and told Miller that they would have no objections in being as-
signed to units with them. Finally, Miller noted that most of the Nisei women
were below five feet tall, the lower limit for women recruits, with an average
height of about 4’10”.
On March 7, 1943, a letter to Headquarters Ninth Command, WAAC
Branch, in Washington, D.C., was received from Second Officer Henrietta
Horak of the WAAC Recruiting Office in Los Angeles. Horak had
administered the survey at Tule Lake Relocation Center; she reported that
92 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

all information on the WAAC was administered during group interviews and
at open meetings, to which parents and Kibei were also invited. Officer Horak
stated that six “exceptionally intelligent” women, three of whom had been
trying to join the WAAC ever since it had been organized, appointed them-
selves as “constructive rumor spreaders.”7 In a few hours they had posted in-
formation folders about the WAAC in forty mess halls, a fact that contributed
to the large turnout.
During her two-day stay, Officer Horak spoke with 217 Nisei women; 30
indicated that they were ready to join the WAAC immediately, and claimed
that they already had obtained parental consent. Many women interviewed
by Horak mentioned that Issei sometimes obstructed what Horak termed the
practice of good American citizenship: military service, for example, would
conflict with their parents’ wishes. Some of the women requested that they
be given special consideration regarding height, weight, and eyesight; Horak
observed that some of the most desirable applicants were “two inches under
five feet, as is characteristic of the race.”
After administering a total of three hundred questionnaires to Nisei
women at Tule Lake, Horak summarized and tallied them. Among the women
surveyed, 218 said they would swear allegiance to the U.S., and 82 said they
would not, nor would they forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to
the Japanese emperor or other foreign government, power, or organization.
When asked whether they would serve in the WAAC, 125 said they would
do so if the opportunity presented itself; 175 said they would not.
Horak also interviewed approximately 217 Nisei women at the Manzanar
Relocation Camp in east central California. From the responses she received
at both relocation centers, she concluded that many women there were pre-
pared to enlist immediately.8 Horak claimed that the women interviewed at
Manzanar represented the “highest type” at any relocation center; the major-
ity were college graduates or had college training. Several of these women had
been requested by Colonel Rasmussen, of the Military Intelligence Service
Language School, to apply for teaching positions. Others, according to Of-
ficer Horak, were well trained in office work, classifications, physical educa-
tion, and other occupations.9 Indeed, these women were strongly sought by
the WAAC.
One stated reason why some of these women would not serve was that
they were applying for repatriation to Japan. Others said they had invalid
parents to care for. Still others said they did not know English well enough.
Other reasons given included pregnancy, poor health, marriage, and parental
objection.10
Third Officer Margaret E. Deane of Headquarters Utah surveyed Nisei
 WAC Recruitment of Nisei Women 93

women at Topaz Relocation Center in west central Utah. In an effort to

present the corps in the most favorable light, she first met with fifty Nisei
women project leaders to inform them of the purpose of her visit and to so-
licit their cooperation. She held another meeting with all English-speaking
female residents, at which she explained the WAAC program and answered
questions about the possibility of Nisei women enlisting.
Deane reported that approximately two-thirds of the women eligible for
the WAAC indicated willingness to join. Like other WAAC officers survey-
ing Nisei women, she found that they were not willing to serve in segregated
units. These women wanted to assimilate into the mainstream population; they
stated that at home, in the San Francisco Bay area, they were dispersed
throughout the white population. They feared that they would encounter ra-
cial discrimination if assigned to segregated units. Nisei women also were quick
to assert that racial integration was in keeping with democracy, the very rea-
son the war was being fought.11
The War Department scheduled several other visits to internment camps.
Officer Deane was sent to interview women at Hunt Relocation Center in
Idaho, where she found 37 Nisei women, out of 58, eligible and seriously in-
terested in enlisting in the WAAC. Similarly, when Second Officer Joyce Bur-
ton interviewed Nisei women interned at the Heart Mountain Relocation
Center in northwestern Wyoming, many stated they were interested in serv-
ing if granted the “privilege.” Like other Nisei women who expressed a desire
to serve, these women said they were loyal citizens of the United States. They
welcomed an opportunity to serve in the WAAC to prove their loyalty.
Most of the Nisei women interviewed on these visits were more inter-
ested in joining the army than in working in civilian jobs: they perceived that
the army would offer more protection and more physical security, as well as
the assurance of fifty dollars per month. Most of the women prided themselves
on being “modern American women who had outgrown oriental ideas.”12
Some feared that their living in internment camps placed them at risk of re-
verting to traditional “Oriental” ideas because they were forced to live in such
close contact with the “old Japanese school.”13
This last wave of loyalty investigations had two objectives. First, the War
Department sought to determine the loyalty of Nisei women; second, it wished
to ascertain whether these women would be willing to serve in the WAAC
or the Army Nurse Corps if given the opportunity. Largely influenced by the
sentiments expressed by Nisei women in these official reports, WAAC Direc-
tor Hobby recommended that Nisei women be accepted for enrollment and
service in the WAAC, subject to all rules and regulations governing the
enrollment of white women.14 She further recommended that the surgeon
94 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

general issue special weight and height requirements applicable only to women
of Japanese descent. Finally, Hobby recommended that Nisei women, unlike
Nisei servicemen and African American servicemen and women, serve in ra-
cially integrated units.
Subsequently, Assistant Secretary of Defense Lt. Gen. Joseph D. Hughes
proposed that Japanese Americans be permitted to serve in the WAAC. In a
letter dated April 7, 1943, Hobby acknowledged receipt of Hughes’s letter,
and assured him that integrating Nisei and Caucasian women in the corps
required no special planning. The Military Intelligence Division approved this
action the following week. In June, the War Department Personnel Division
approved acceptance of Japanese Americans into the WAAC. The War De-
partment further decided that loyalty investigations of Japanese Americans
were to be conducted at the Office of the Provost Marshal rather than that
of the Military Intelligence Division.
All Nisei women inducted into the WAC during World War II had indi-
cated on their loyalty questionnaires that they were loyal and supportive of
the U.S. war effort. If they had indicated that they were not loyal to this ef-
fort, or that they were not willing to serve in the military, they would not
have been inducted. This screening process was more complicated for Nisei
men because they were obligated to serve in the military when the draft was
reinstated for them in 1943; consequently some Nisei men who indicated on
their questionnaire that they were not loyal to the U.S. war effort were drafted,
anyway. But, because women were never drafted and entered the military only
on a voluntary basis, they underwent a more thorough screening.

Induction into the WAC from the Continental United States

The process of joining the WAC was cumbersome: Nisei women had to fill
out volumes of paperwork before they could be accepted. This could take sev-
eral months. Irene Nishikaichi had left Poston and was living in New Jersey
when she entered the WAC. She described the lengthiness of the process:

I volunteered in September of ’44. I didn’t get inducted until April of

’45. I would keep going to the recruiting offices and asking what
happened. The recruiter would say, “You just have to wait.” So finally
I couldn’t wait anymore and I had the WRA person look into it. In
the meantime, the [West] Coast was opened for [Japanese Americans]
to return [to their homes] and so all the records were sent from
Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles and my records got lost some-
where. It took six months to get the paperwork straightened out, and I
had to take the army physical twice because it’s only good for 90 days.
 WAC Recruitment of Nisei Women 95

I finally got inducted in April. [President] Roosevelt had died and I

was inducted under [President] Truman.

The first Nisei woman to become a member of the WAC was Frances
Iritani, who was inducted on November 10, 1943, in Denver. Twenty-year-
old Iris Watanabe was the first Nisei evacuee to join the WAC; she and two
other Nisei women (Bette Nishimura of Rocky Ford, Colorado, and Sue Ogata
of LaSalle) were inducted on December 13, 1943, in the office of Colorado
Governor John F. Vivian. Watanabe had been a resident of Santa Cruz, Cali-
fornia, until March 1942, when she was evacuated. She had been sent to the
Salinas assembly center in California before being transferred to the Poston
Relocation Center in Arizona. After living at Poston for nine months, Watanabe
was transferred to Amache Relocation Center in Colorado. She left Amache
to take a job in Chicago, where she was notified that she had been accepted
into the WAC. Her mother and younger sister were still interned at Amache
when Watanabe was inducted.
By December 23, the first group of Nisei Wacs began their training at
Fort Des Moines. The five women, who ranged in age from twenty to twenty-
four, were Iritani, Watanabe, Nishimura, Ogata, and Fukuoka. Fukuoka pre-
viously had been an evacuee at the Manzanar Relocation Camp. She stated
in a newspaper interview that she joined the WAC because “I wanted to serve
my country. I also thought that all Japanese Americans might find it easier to
return to a normal way of life after the war if we did our share during the
war.”15 Irene Tanigaki, of the Colorado River Relocation Center and subse-
quently Chicago, entered in January 1944. In February, Kay Keiko Nishiguchi
of Garland, Michiyo Mukai, the daughter of an Ogden, Utah, restaurant owner,
and Priscilla Yasuda of Provo were inducted in Salt Lake City. These three
women received an enthusiastic send-off from their families and friends.
Mukai is cited as saying, “We are thrilled to be able to serve in the Women’s
Army Corps.”16 After basic training, Mukai was stationed at Wright Field,
Ohio, where she was appointed associate editor of the Wright WAC news-
paper.17
A few weeks later, Florence Y. Kato, formerly of Los Angeles, was inducted
in southeastern Colorado, where she lived with her parents at the Grenada
Relocation Center. Dr. Masako Moriya, formerly a dentist at Gila Rivers Re-
location Center in east central Arizona, also joined. She had received her B.S.
degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and practiced dentistry
in San Francisco until she was evacuated; she volunteered for the WAC on
January 10, 1944. Diane Moriguchi, originally from Gardena, California,
worked as a pharmacist at the Gila Rivers community hospital and hoped to
be assigned to a WAC medical detachment. Toyome Murakami of Idaho was
96 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

the twentieth member of the Pocatello Japanese American Citizenship League

(JACL) to join the WAC. Mary Ryuko Uyesaki, a former evacuee, was work-
ing as a secretary in the Catholic Rural Life Office in Des Moines when she
volunteered. When asked by a newspaper reporter what she felt about the
WAC, Uyesaki said, “It’s grand and in this way I feel I am doing something.”18
Although Nisei women initially showed a great deal of enthusiasm about
enlistment, they entered the WAC at a very slow rate. By February 17, 1944,
only thirteen had enlisted.19 The Japanese American press encouraged Nisei
women to join the WAC, emphasizing the benefits of military service, as in
the following excerpt from the Pacific Citizen:
WAC requirements are not hard. . . . Age 20–49. Citizenship of
course. Marriage, either married or single. Dependents, no children
under 14. Character must be good. Education, two years of high
school and a satisfactory aptitude rating. High school requirement
waived when aptitude shows equivalent ability. Health good. . . .
Because so many Nisei girls in the WAC are crack secretaries they
have been given that type of work. But there are exactly 155 Army
jobs that the WACs handle. They need women for jobs such as
technicians, public relation experts, chemists, photographers,
interpreters and translators, librarians, draftsmen, radio operators,
airplane mechanics, accountants, chauffeurs, dieticians, and stock
clerks. . . . The WAC has specialist schools for enlisted women. They
include the administrative specialist school, the cooks and bakers
school, and the motor transport school. In addition, army schools give
special courses in photo lab work, coding and decoding, finance,
medical and surgical, dental and X-ray technique. In other words, you
can start training now for that after-the-war job. . . . There are a dozen
good reasons for joining the WAC . . . there is no segregation in the
WAC. You will bunk with, train and live with hundreds of girls from
all over the country. It will prove an educational, inspiring and
broadening experience unlike any other. It will enliven your personal-
ity and broaden your horizon. . . . This is a way to back up your
brothers and husbands now overseas or at Shelby or any other Army
camp. The Nisei Wac will be further testimony to the faith and
loyalty of all Japanese Americans.20
In an effort to increase the enrollment of Nisei women, the War Depart-
ment assigned Nisei Wacs to recruiting duty. Private Chizuko Shinagawa, who
was inducted on August 16, 1943, was sent to Denver in May 1944 to urge
Nisei women to enlist. In a press release, Shinagawa stated:
It’s a wonderful opportunity for my people to participate actively in
the greatest battle for democracy the world has ever known. By
 WAC Recruitment of Nisei Women 97

serving in the WAC, I’ve found the true meaning of democracy—the

principle of share and share alike. I’m sure that Japanese American
girls who join the WAC will develop, as I have, a broader outlook and
an increased pride in their native land. Before I joined up, I felt
useless and restless because I wanted to do something for my country. I
wouldn’t exchange for anything the experience I’ve gained in the
WAC. All Americans, whatever their ancestry, must remember that
they will be judged in the future by the part they play now. If we shirk
our plain duty to our country in a time of its greatest need, we must be
prepared to have our loyalty questioned. Indeed, I think it should be
questioned.21

Other Nisei women began to register, as the WAC increased its recruit-
ment efforts, and some of their names appeared in Japanese American news-
papers in the following months. On March 17, 1944, two Nisei sisters,
originally from Kent, Washington, and living in Chicago, joined the WAC.
Alice Miyoko and Neba Fumi, daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Kihachi Shimoyama
of Minidoka Relocation Center in southeastern Idaho, enlisted in Palatine,
Illinois; they had one brother already in the army.22 Kathleen Iseri, a former
evacuee of the Gila River Relocation Center, was employed as a secretary in
the local WRA office in New York. She was also enrolled in the evening di-
vision of New York University, studying English literature.
Iseri entered the WAC exactly one year after she left the internment
camp. She stated in a newspaper interview that she was proud to be an Ameri-
can citizen:
I have volunteered for the Women’s Army Corps because I am proud
that I am an American citizen. I firmly believe in her institutions,
ideals, and traditions. True, I had to leave my home on the West
Coast at the onset of the war and live in a relocation center. But
would Hitler or Tojo have given me the opportunity to leave such a
camp—to help establish new homes for the other Americans of
Japanese ancestry, who like myself, were evacuated from the West
Coast? . . . I hardly think so. . . . There are thousands of American
boys of Japanese ancestry serving in our armed forces, . . . and it is in
the tradition which they have set that I, as a soldier of the United
States Army, Women’s Army Corps, shall proudly serve my country.23
Mary Arakawa of Cheyenne was the first Japanese American woman to
enter from Wyoming. She had lived in Los Angeles before being moved to
the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in northwestern Wyoming; she left
the center to work as a nurse’s aide in the home of Dr. and Mrs. H. L. Goff in
Cheyenne. At the time of her enlistment, she had three brothers serving in
98 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

the United States Army.24 Anna Takano, a dictaphone operator in Philadel-

phia, left her job to start basic training at Fort Oglethorpe in September 1944;
Takano, an evacuee, had been affiliated with the American Friends Service
Committee.25 Mary Yamagiwa of Barrington, Illinois, volunteered for the WAC
in October 1944. Kathryn Tanaka, formerly of Pismo Beach, California, was
the first Nisei to enlist in Michigan; Tanaka, who came to Detroit from the
Gila River Relocation Center, was sworn in on December 7. She had worked
as a secretary in the Michigan office of the YWCA; at the time of her induc-
tion, she had a brother in the army and two sisters working in Detroit.26
Cherry Shiozawa, who volunteered for the WAC in 1944, married a sol-
dier before joining the military. She explained, “Francis [my husband] was
drafted into the army, and we got married when he got leave.” Shiozawa said
that she volunteered because her husband was on orders to go overseas; “We
were able to get together on furloughs.” She went to Fort Oglethorpe for ba-
sic training and then to permanent duty in Ohio.27
Private Iritani, the first Nisei woman to join the WAC from an intern-
ment camp, appeared on a radio program, “WAC of the Week,” which was
broadcast live from Tyndall Field, Florida. In a broadcast in August 1944,
Iritani, a former evacuee, stated:

I am proud of my American citizenship. I have a brother fighting with

the infantry somewhere in Italy. Both of us feel we are fortunate to
have this chance to fight for our country. Being of Japanese parentage
in this country has given us both full advantages of American youth.
Everything I have came as a result of being an American. More than
anything else, I want the children that I may have to enjoy the
privilege of American rights. I want to be assured that when they read
in their history books of the attack on Pearl Harbor, they need not be
ashamed. They will have the right to be proud of their citizenship.28

Shizuo Yagi was the first Nisei women inducted in Milwaukee, where she
settled after leaving the Gila River Relocation Camp. She was sworn into the
WAC on September 30, 1944, and started her basic training at Fort Des
Moines on October 11.29 Three months later it was reported that a second
Nisei woman from Milwaukee, Toshiko Nancy Etow, had joined the WAC;
Etow, originally from Watsonville, California, also was living at Gila River
when she was inducted. Her parents were interned at the Colorado River Cen-
ter in Poston, Arizona; her brother had joined the army and was waiting to
be called. Etow, who was to be assigned as a medical technician in the WAC,
was cited in a Japanese American newspaper, “I thought I could best utilize
 WAC Recruitment of Nisei Women 99

the nurses’ aide training I had at the Colorado Project in service for my country
by becoming a medical aide in the WAC.”30 On October 26, 1944, Aiko Nelly
Sasuga became the sixth woman from Poston to join.31 Takako Taxie Kusanoki
joined the WAC from the Granada Relocation Center, where she had writ-
ten for the camp’s newspaper, The Granada Pioneer.32
Some Nisei WAC inductees were college graduates. Kumi Matsusaki en-
tered in January 1945. She had graduated from high school in Las Cruces,
New Mexico—where her parents were living at the time of her induction—
and received a degree in pharmaceutical science from the University of Colo-
rado in 1940. Matsusaki is cited, “I wanted to be a doctor, but it was too long
and costly a proposition, so I settled for pharmacy and worked my way through
college as a waitress and typist on the campus.”33 Upon completing her stud-
ies, Matsusaki worked at Beth-El Hospital in Colorado Springs, and then at
St. Luke’s Hospital in Denver. She considered joining the military, at her
father’s suggestion. Referring to her father, Matsusaki stated, “He’s such a
staunch patriot that he was actually unhappy over having no sons to lend to
the war effort.”34 Tamie Tsuchiyama graduated from the University of Hawaii
and studied at the University of California at Berkeley before the mass evacu-
ation. She spoke several languages and was a reader in the anthropology de-
partment at the University of Chicago when she volunteered for the WAC.
She expressed no preference regarding military assignment, declaring that she
just wanted to do her “bit.”35
In March 1945, the Pacific Citizen published an announcement that six
Nisei women had volunteered for the WAC, with an interest in working as
hospital technicians. The women, all in basic training at Fort Des Moines
when the article was written, were Kisa Noguchi, Tsuruko Mizusawa, Marga-
ret Uemura, Yaye Furutani, Amy Okada, and Haruko Sugi. All had been em-
ployed before their induction.
Twenty-five-year-old Noguchi was working with the field staff of the
Carnegie Institute in Boulder, Colorado, when she decided to join. She was a
graduate of the University of Colorado, and was studying for her master’s de-
gree when she joined the Carnegie staff. At the Carnegie Institute, she was
responsible for making archaeological drawings for a study on Central Ameri-
can pottery. One of Noguchi’s sisters was already in the WAC, stationed near
Tampa, Florida.36
Mizusawa, a former evacuee at Poston Relocation Center, came originally
from Garden Grove, California. Before joining the WAC, she was living
in Minneapolis, where she held a job as a bindery apprentice. She had a
brother who was stationed at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, when she was inducted.
100 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

Uemura, born in Spokane, Washington, had traveled to Denver for college.

At the time of her induction, she was working as an assistant laboratory tech-
nician at Colorado General Hospital of the University of Colorado at Denver.
Furutani, born in Oxnard, California, studied art in Santa Barbara for
three years before attending a private art school in Tokyo. Shortly after she
returned to California, Furutani traveled to Hawaii and married Brownie
Furutani, a newspaperman. The following year they returned to California,
and were planning to go back to Hawaii when Pearl Harbor was bombed.
Furutani applied for military service with her husband in El Paso. He was re-
jected for army service and returned to Hawaii; she joined the WAC. Furutani’s
parents were living in El Paso at the time of her induction. A sister, Peggy
Tokuyama, a registered nurse in Rochester, Minnesota, also volunteered for
military service; two brothers-in-law also were in the service.37
Okada studied nursing for a year in Seattle before being evacuated to
Minidoka Relocation Center in southeastern Idaho. After leaving the center,
she lived in Salt Lake City; she moved to Chicago and finally to Indianapolis
before entering the WAC. Her fiancé, Frank Hidaka, and one of her broth-
ers, Frank, were in France when she was inducted. Okada had another brother
who already had received an honorable discharge from the army.
Sugi, a native Californian, worked as a saleswoman and dressmaker in
Los Angeles before the war. She and her family were evacuated to the Jerome
Relocation Center in southeastern Arkansas after the United States entered
the war. Sugi’s brother, Yoshitsugi, was in the army and was stationed at Fort
Knox, Kentucky, with an armored replacement division. Sugi was fluent in
Japanese and hoped to be assigned where she could use her linguistic ability.38
Two additional Nisei Wacs featured in the Japanese American newspa-
pers were Julie Tanaka and Miwako Yanamoto. Tanaka joined the WAC after
relocating to Des Moines in June 1945. Before the evacuation, she lived with
her family in Los Angeles. She and her family were evacuated to the Manzanar
Relocation Center, where Tanaka worked in the Caucasian mess hall. Her
mother, younger sister, and a brother had resettled in Denver at the time of
Tanaka’s induction. Tanaka had another brother, who was in the Merchant
Marines.39
Yanamoto, twenty-one years of age, left Rochester, New York, on April
30, 1945, for basic training at Fort Des Moines. Born in Los Angeles, she was
a student at Los Angeles City College at the time of the mass evacuation.
She and her parents were relocated to Poston; Yanamoto worked as a secre-
tary in the law department while there. In September 1943 she left the in-
ternment camp and settled in New York City, where she worked in a WRA
 WAC Recruitment of Nisei Women 101

office. Later she transferred to the WRA office in Rochester. Yanamoto said,
“I am very happy to be accepted into the WAC and to have the opportunity
to take a more active part in the war effort.”40
Finally, Mimi Asakura of Santa Barbara, and later of the Gila River Re-
location Center, was inducted into the WAC in August 1945. Before her in-
duction, she had been a secretary at the Indianola Methodist Church office
in Columbus, Ohio.41
These Nisei women of the continental U.S. were from different walks of
life. Some had been interned; some had not. They were all well educated. They
lived in different regions of the country. Regardless of their differences, these
women all had a strong desire to demonstrate their loyalty. They volunteered
to play an active role in the war effort.

The Hawaiian Contingent

Women living in the U.S. territory of Hawaii were not recruited into the WAC
until October 1944. On October 3, the Honolulu Advertiser published an ar-
ticle indicating that women living in Hawaii were enthusiastic about joining
the WAC:
More than 50 Island girls with ambitions to trade the hibiscus in their
hair for khaki-colored Wac hats kept a staff of male recruiters busy at
the Armory yesterday as the Women’s Army Corps opened its first
enlistment campaign in the Territory. . . . Opening day of the
enlistment program saw a constant line of applicants passing shyly,
resolutely or thoughtfully among the desks of the recruiting headquar-
ters. . . . Most of them were in their early twenties, but a few were not
much under the 40-year limit, and recruiting officials hope there will
be more of the older ones as the campaign gets underway.42

One of the reasons these women gave for wanting to join the WAC was a
desire to travel to the continental United States. As one enlistee said, “I’ve
always wanted to go to the States, and this way I could do something for the
war and have my expenses paid too.”43 Some of the women had husbands or
other relatives in the armed services and had been waiting for the day when
they too could wear the uniform. Grace Kutaka, a teletype operator at the
Honolulu Advertiser at the time of her enlistment, stated, “I have two broth-
ers in the army, one overseas. I want them to know that I am doing my part.”44
Michic Yagami, a cashier with a life insurance company, said, “I want to serve
the country.”45 May Fukagawa, a switchboard operator at the USO (United
Service Organizations) Army and Navy Club, said simply, “I want to be in
102 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

the service.”46 Atsumi Miyashiro, a clerk for a manufacturers’ agent, stated,

“I have always wanted to be in the WACs.”47 Elaine Oda, employed at a Ho-
nolulu department store, said, “I want to do something for my country.”48
There was a political controversy over whether WAC recruitment in Ha-
waii would deprive the workforce of women when there was a critical need
for labor. James Blaisdell, then president of the Hawaii Employers’ Council,
expressed this concern: “We are opposed to taking women needed in essen-
tial employment in Hawaii for shipment to the Mainland when they will have
to be replaced by other women shipped from the Mainland.”49 Newton
Holcomb, territorial director of Hawaii’s War Manpower Commission, pro-
posed that only women not employed at their maximum skills in essential in-
dustries be eligible to enlist in the WAC. The War Department, however,
maintained that the women of Hawaii should not be discriminated against in
any way, and should have the same opportunity to serve as women in other
parts of the United States.
By December 1944, sixty-two women from Hawaii had been inducted into
the Corps, entering from the islands of Oahu, Kauai, Maui, and Molokai (see
the appendix for the women’s names and serial numbers). These women were
of various ethnic backgrounds: German, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Fili-
pino, Irish, English Portuguese, and German Chinese, as well as Nisei.50 Most,
however, were of Japanese descent, and their military experience did not dif-
fer from that of Japanese American women who had entered from the main-
land. A newspaper article reported that all of the women were well educated,
having completed at least two years of high school. Some had postgraduate
college education. All spoke fluent English in addition to their parents’ na-
tive tongues.
Some military officials expressed concern as to where the Hawaiian
women would receive their basic training. This concern was reflected in a let-
ter, dated December 9, 1944, from Colonel O. N. Thompson, commanding
general of the headquarters of U.S. Army Forces, Pacific Ocean Areas, to the
adjutant general of the War Department. Thompson requested that WAC in-
ductees from the Hawaiian Islands be given their basic training in southern
states. His rationale was that the change in climate would be less severe there
than in the north. A transmittal sheet dated December 18, 1944, signed by a
Major C. W. Ardery, authorized the Hawaiian Wacs to receive basic training
at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, provided that they arrived at the training cen-
ter before February 7, 1945.
Implicit in Thompson’s request was the stereotypical notion that women
were frail and needed protection from the cold environment. This seemingly
special provision was challenged by the acting assistant chief of staff, Briga-
 WAC Recruitment of Nisei Women 103

dier General W. W. Irvine, on January 2, 1945. In a letter addressed to the

director of training, Irvine stated that military necessity made consideration
of climatic conditions unfeasible in assigning personnel for training or per-
manent duty. The issue was put to rest on January 11 by Colonel Vance L.
Sailor, chief of the War Department’s Appointment and Induction Branch;
Sailor confirmed that fifty-eight Wacs had been recruited from Hawaii and
shipped to Fort Oglethorpe. He added that the recruiting program had been
terminated and there would only be one shipment of Hawaiian Wacs to the
training center.51
The newly formed Hawaiian WAC unit was led by three Caucasian Wacs,
who were assigned to the Air Transport Command. These Wacs were in charge
from the time the women were inducted in Honolulu until they arrived at
their basic training unit at Fort Oglethorpe. Captain Margaret Steele, formerly
of Albany, New York, was the company officer in charge. The noncommis-
sioned officers were Sergeant Maxine Sharp, from Grand Junction, Colorado,
and Corporal Bobbie Mahler, from Long Island, New York. Before leaving
Hawaii for the mainland, Captain Steele issued a press release about the Ha-
waiian Wacs:
The Wacs already have developed remarkable morale and efficiency.
Their drilling after 12 days is equal to any other Wacs I have seen
after five weeks. . . . They kept their barracks at Fort Ruger beautifully
and we left it in completely GI condition despite this morning’s
excitement and rush. . . . We have two softball teams and two
dodgeball teams, and the girls weren’t in camp 24 hours before they
were planning a company party. . . . I don’t think we’ll have any tears
today, even when that ship finally puts out to sea. . . . I think the girls
are well adjusted now to the Army and to each other.52
One of the Hawaiian Wacs, Lillian Mott-Smith, was a well-known edu-
cator on the island of Maui. She was born in England and had lived in Ha-
waii for twenty-two years when she was inducted. (Her son later graduated
from the U.S. Naval Academy.) From the time the Hawaiian Wacs were in-
ducted until the end of the war, Mott-Smith wrote articles about the women’s
assignments and about other events for the Honolulu Star Bulletin.
The Wacs sailed from Hawaii to California and stayed four days at Fort
Stoneman. Much of this time they spent in washing, ironing, drilling, attend-
ing church, and writing letters. On the fourth day, the Wacs boarded a train
for Fort Oglethorpe. They had two cars to themselves; many rode in “deluxe
compartments used only for peacetime luxury travel.” Mott-Smith described
the days on the train as filled with “card games, map and route markings, group
singing and hulas.” She described the dining cars’ large windows that revealed
104 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

such beautiful scenery as “snow-capped hills covered with symmetrical pines

and snow carpeted earth.” The Wacs made several stopovers where they pur-
chased souvenirs, some from Native American shops.
The women also visited the USOs in many cities en route to Georgia.53
During a travel delay in Amarillo, Texas, they visited the local USO and were
greeted by the director, E. D. Frederick. Frederick formerly had served as USO
director on the island of Oahu. Three Hawaiian Wacs, Privates Johnson, Yang,
and Kim, had been junior hostesses at that USO and had worked for Frederick.
In the article “Hawaiian WACs Find a Friend Between Trains in Amarillo”
the Amarillo Daily News announced that the three members of the company
and Frederick spent an hour “talking over old acquaintance and renewing
friendships.”54
On the trip to Fort Oglethorpe, the women’s loyalty and patriotism were
not questioned by the public. The following statement, published in the Ama-
rillo Daily News, seems to capture the general sentiment about the Hawaiian
Wacs’ war experience: “They all know what war is about. Nearly all were at
Honolulu, Dec. 7, 1941, and saw the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. One
of the girls who is a practical nurse spent three weeks at a tuna canning fac-
tory where she helped treat the wounded and injured.”55
Wherever the Wacs stopped, they were well received. Some of the more
musically talented entertained male soldiers stationed in the areas they passed,
at the local USOs. On January 19 the Wacs stopped in Memphis, where they
visited the USO and “entertained servicemen with Hawaii’s favorite songs and
dances.”56
The travelers were met by heavy fog when they arrived in Chattanooga.
There they transferred to trucks, which transported them to their final desti-
nation, Fort Oglethorpe, the Third WAAC/WAC Training Center.57

Nisei Air Wacs

Most WACs were assigned to either the Army Ground Forces or the Army
Service Forces, but a large proportion, approximately 40 percent, were assigned
to the Army Air Forces (AAF). As men were transferred from the air forces
to the ground forces, particularly during 1944, Wacs were recruited to replace
them. Most of the AAF Wacs were sent to air bases directly from basic train-
ing, to work in jobs for which they already possessed skills. A smaller number
(approximately two thousand) were sent to AAF technical schools and as-
signed in military occupations such as weather observers, weather forecasters,
electrical specialists, cryptographers, bombsight maintenance specialists, and
other technical and mechanical jobs considered atypical for women. Army
 WAC Recruitment of Nisei Women 105

historian Mattie Treadwell has reported that opportunities for technical jobs
in the AAF increased for women toward the end of the war because men less
often met the aptitude requirement.58
Approximately 50 percent of AAF Wacs held administrative or office jobs;
only a small fraction were assigned to flying duty. The first two “flying Wacs”
were assigned to Mitchell Field in Montgomery, Alabama, as radio operators,
participating in B–17 training flights. A few additional WAC radio operators,
mechanics, and photographers were assigned to flight duty, in the United
States and overseas; some received Air Medals.59
Nisei women were among those accepted for duty with the Army Air
Force; they were assigned upon completion of basic training. Cherry Nakagawara,
formerly an Oakland, California, resident, and wife of a Nisei soldier stationed
at Camp Bowie, was accepted for the AAF in January 1944.60 Air Wac Tamako
Irene Izumi was inducted in Texas; her husband, Sergeant Heiharchiro Izumi,
had been stationed at Forth Worth for three years.61 Shizue Sue Shinagawa,
formerly a schoolteacher, left the Poston Relocation Center, where she lived
with her parents, to be inducted into the WAC and report for duty with the
Air WAC upon completion of basic training at Fort Des Moines.62 Chidori
Ogawa, a clerk in a Minneapolis store, was accepted into the Air WAC in
May 1944. She was born in Honolulu, graduated from the University of Ha-
waii, and migrated to San Francisco in 1935; later she was forced to evacu-
ate. Forced to leave San Francisco during the mass evacuation, Ogawa moved
to Minneapolis.63
The induction of Nisei Wacs into the AAF was particularly newsworthy
because this unit was completely closed to Nisei men. In an article published
on January 15, 1944, the Pacific Citizen applauded the Women’s Army Corps
for assigning Nisei women to all units, including the AAF. The article, which
highlighted Cherry Nakagawara’s induction, stated, “[N]isei women are eli-
gible to serve in all units of the WAC as attested to by the acceptance of a
[N]isei, Mrs. Cherry Nakagawara, for duty with the [A]ir [C]orps, a unit so far
closed to men of Japanese ancestry.”64
The recruitment process attracted many skilled, enthusiastic Nisei women
to the WAC. The realities of training and duty followed enlistment. The mili-
tary experiences of Nisei women had similarities as well as differences from
those of other women of color.
106 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

Service in the
Chapter 5 Women’s Army Corps
I was on KP Duty when I received a message to report to
headquarters. After I walked over to headquarters, I was
told to go to the barracks and pack, “We’re taking you to
the train station.” So I packed, not knowing where I was
going. I later learned that MacArthur had requested
fourteen Wacs to do secretarial work. I was sent to the
Philippines.
—Ruth Fujii

Basic Training
The rigorous schedule of WAC basic training began at 5:30 A.M., when the
women prepared to fall into formation for 6:00 A.M. reveille. After reveille
they cleaned and tidied their personal areas, picked up cigarette butts and other
trash outside their quarters, marched to breakfast, and then began classes. The
women studied military first aid, personal hygiene, military customs and cour-
tesy, map reading, defense against chemical and air attack, supply, organiza-
tion of the army, and other subjects. They broke at midday for lunch and
resumed classes until supper. They also drilled and participated in ceremonies
and parades. After supper the Wacs were required to study and prepare their
uniforms for the following day.1
This schedule was the same for all members of the WAC, regardless of
racial or ethnic background. African American Wacs, who served in racially
segregated units, described the same routine.2
Miwako Rosenthal recalled:

106
 Service in the Women’s Army Corps 107

They sent me to the First WAC Training Center at Fort Des Moines. I
was the only Japanese American in the company. The sergeant and
high-ranking officers were very good to me. There were . . . other
Japanese Americans from other states that were assigned to different
WAC detachments at the time. . . . [W]hen I got to Fort Des Moines
it was bitterly cold and snowy, and I got so excited with the snow that
I ran outside, skidded on the ice, and broke my rib. They sent me to
sick call and then they just put a bandage around it and relieved me
from doing all this KP stuff because I couldn’t lift those big pots. They
were surprised to see an Oriental, you know? And this little tiny one
at that; I wasn’t big, I’m not quite five feet. They received me
perfectly fine.

Although most of the interviewees stated that basic training was stressful and
somewhat unpleasant, Rosenthal enjoyed it: “I had a wonderful time.” She
said that she would never forget one incident in particular:

I was short, and the first dress parade we had, they arranged us by
size . . . I was on the tail end of this company. I was running like the
dickens to keep up. My officer saw me doing that and had empathy for
me. The next time we had to march in a dress parade, she had me put
in charge of quarters. So I stayed in the office while the rest of the
company did their marching. I didn’t have to be in the parade because
it would have ruined the whole parade with me running like crazy to
keep up with the rest of four hundred Wacs marching in dress
formation.

Rosenthal accepted charge-of-quarters duty because she did not want to dis-
rupt the parade. She did not perceive this assignment as an act of racial dis-
crimination, even though she was receiving differential treatment: “I understood
that I wouldn’t be able to march because they were really tall people.”
Like Rosenthal, most women interviewed for this study were the only
Nisei in their basic training companies. Ellen Fuchida recalled, “Fort Des
Moines was for WACs only; there were no men there at all. I was the only
Nisei in this whole group [WAC company] of mine. There was a WAC con-
tingent from Hawaii, but I never saw them.”
All of the interviewees stated that they were not treated any differently
than Caucasian Wacs. They thus gave a far different account of the racial cli-
mate at Fort Des Moines than did African American Waacs/Wacs, who were
assigned to racially segregated companies. In 1944, for example, African
American Wacs alleged that they were forced to billet in crowded quarters,
were subjected to racial slurs, and were not permitted to charge books out of
Service Club “[N]umber 1.”3 No such allegations were made by Nisei Wacs.
108 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

Unlike the African Americans, the Nisei were not forced to house, socialize,
and eat in facilities separate from white Wacs. Except for exclusion from the
WAC officer corps, Nisei women were fully incorporated into the WAC. In
contrast, African American women were trained as officers but were segre-
gated and restricted from leading white Wacs.
Basic training lasted about six weeks. Grace Harada stated: “There were
only women at Des Moines, just hundreds and hundreds of women. We trained
from five in the morning until evening. We had physical exercise, marching,
and all these different things that you do in the military, learning discipline.
I was the only Oriental [in my basic training company]. We didn’t have any
problems at all.”
Irene Nishikaichi was also the only Nisei woman in her company; she
too speaks of being treated no differently than the other women:

I didn’t notice any difference. I didn’t feel any animosity or hostility

or anything. I was the only Japanese American in my company. There
was one other Japanese American from Poston assigned at Fort Des
Moines. Her mother and my mother were friends, and so my mother
sent me her address at Fort Des Moines. But she had already gone
through basic, and was actually assigned there for permanent duty. I
looked her up and I saw her once during the time that I was at Fort
Des Moines. She was the only other Nisei American that I saw during
that period. After basic I went to the language school.

Rosenthal, too, said she did not experience racial discrimination while
in basic training. She felt that she was accepted by Caucasian Wacs largely
because of her personality: “I have that kind of personality. If somebody doesn’t
like me I make it a point to find out why . . . and make him like me.” Fur-
ther, Rosenthal felt that being the only Nisei in her basic training unit meant
she did not suffer discrimination: “I think I was more privileged being Japa-
nese American than being white because I was the only one. I wasn’t discrimi-
nated against because I was the only one.”
All members of the multiracial Hawaiian Wac contingent were assigned
to the same company, which also included some Caucasians from the main-
land. Unlike other Nisei Wacs, those who traveled with the Hawaiian con-
tingent were assigned together. They were not racially segregated; as mentioned
above, the group represented members of all racial and ethnic backgrounds
(except African descent). They went through basic training as a unit, for
convenience.
Ruth Fujii, a secretary in the WAC, recalled that the Wac officers, al-
though they did not treat Nisei and Caucasian Wacs differently, commented
on the mannerisms they observed in the Nisei women, “We’re different, and
 Service in the Women’s Army Corps 109

so the officers were surprised that when we had inspections we never got ner-
vous. . . . So one Caucasian girl told me that the commanding officer of the
Fort wanted to know how come we were so poised.”
Grace Kutaka remembered that the Japanese Americans in the Hawai-
ian contingent were not treated differently than Caucasians. She stated, in a
letter about basic training, published in the Honolulu Advertiser in April 1945:

We were like sisters, and we shared everything that we had. . . . Before

leaving basic we had a party, with some of the Hawaii girls doing the
hula and the Mainland girls putting on a skit. It was swell and one of
the C.O.s said she never did see any group of girls who cooperated
better. She was quite amazed at how we all worked together.4

The Hawaiians arrived at Fort Oglethorpe on the morning of January 22,

1945, in time for breakfast. Their accounts of basic training reflect good hu-
mor and jocularity. One of the women interviewed by Lillian Mott-Smith at
Fort Oglethorpe described the first two days of basic training:

Army food is good, contrary to all reports. . . . It’s heavy and starchy,
but we enjoyed it . . . many of us had gained weight, which wasn’t too
complimentary to our stock uniforms, which had been made for us in
Hawaii. After breakfast we were taken to our barracks . . . The bunks
were a problem. They were hard to make, and bumped heads were the
results of absentmindedly forgetting that there was another one
above. . . . We rose by way of flashing lights being unceremoniously
turned on at six in the morning. (To many of us, this was the middle
of the night.) We were given a half hour to dress, make our bunks,
clean our areas and report for inspection. . . . Then we stood in line . . .
for breakfast, which was served on aluminum trays, cafeteria style. . . .
After mess we often had extra duties, such as latrine cleaning,
classroom dusting, yard KP. Everything was rush, rush, rush.5

Like all Wacs during that time, these women learned military customs and
courtesies, hygiene, map reading, and military drill. They also had daily physi-
cal training (PT). One of the Wacs described the exercises they were required
to do as “stunning blows to flabby muscles.” They were convinced that “death
was sweeter than the complete dip.”6
Three of the women I interviewed were inducted into the WAC from
Hawaii. Alice Kono remembered that all of the trainees and cadre (instruc-
tors) at her basic training installation were women: “I don’t remember seeing
any men there.” Kono recalled how demanding the drilling and the classes
were, as were the additional duties required of Wacs in basic training. Through
all of the stress, these women seemed to retain their good humor. It was not
110 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

unusual for them to poke fun at each other. One of the Hawaiian Wacs de-
scribed Kono performing additional duty during the first week of basic train-
ing: “More duties confronted us at four-thirty each day. One of the funniest
sights I ever saw was small Alice Kono from Molokai carrying mop, broom,
and bucket going to clean the theater. She was in a PT dress much too big
for her and she looked like a miniature chimney sweep.”
The Hawaiian Wacs had been at Camp Oglethorpe for a little over a
month when an Earl Finch of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, arranged for ten of the
women to have dinner with GI musicians of the 171st Infantry Battalion, a
unit of Nisei male soldiers stationed at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. The men
were on their way to Nothington General Hospital in Tuscaloosa, Alabama,
to entertain wounded combat veterans of the 100th Battalion and the 442nd
RCT. One of the members of the 171st, Technician Fourth Class Robert
Terauchi, described the meeting:

Although the Wacs were restricted from passes since they were new
arrivals, Mr. Finch arranged to have ten of the girls have supper with
us at the hotel, the choice being left to lady luck and a lottery system.
The girls were already seated when we entered the dining room, as we
were a little late. What a racket we made when we met for the first
time!—a typical Hawaiian greeting. . . . Knowing we like sashimi (raw
fish), Mr. Finch had some prepared for us, and everything was just
perfect. . . . After supper we went to the Fort to meet the rest of the
girls. The first word we heard as we entered the service club was
“Aloha”. . . All of the girls were asking which islands we were from
and if we knew certain people back home. . . . A program for the
evening was pre-arranged and the girls started the show with their
vocal and hula numbers as we accompanied them with the musical
background. It was like being home again. . . . The show being an
informal one, we spoke in Hapakanaka (Pidgin English) all the way,
and the Haole (white) audience had a hard time trying to understand
the lingo. S./Sgt. Ken Okamoto did a hula duet with Evelina
Gunderson, one of the Wacs from Hawaii. The dance was a sensation
and they made a wonderful team.7

Immediately after the social gathering, the soldiers of the 171st left for
Nothington General Hospital.
Despite their good humor and graciousness, some of the Hawaiian Wacs
found basic training unfulfilling: It was not socially or culturally stimulating
enough. Although they did not express regret for having served, they rarely
looked back with pleasure. Consider this statement by Hisako Yamashita:
 Service in the Women’s Army Corps 111

Most of the time we were in the fort training. . . . On weekends, we

could go to Chattanooga for a day and come back. That was all. . . . I
think it was a restricted life. Life in the barracks was dreary. It seemed
secure and yet so barren to me. . . . There was nothing that would
enlighten me, or make me think really hard on anything other than
just living from day to day. And that, to me, made it an unpleasant
experience even though I was in for patriotic . . . duty. I’m glad I did it
and it’s over.

Grace Kutaka, on the other hand, had nothing but praise for her experi-
ence, as in this letter to the Honolulu Advertiser:

I always think I’m a lucky girl to have had the opportunity to join the
Wacs. You learn a lot of things, and you learn to conserve time too. I
know what some people think of us, but I’m proud of myself and the
uniform. I found out now that it is up to the individual to [retain the
lessons learned]. . . . By the time we get back to civilian life, we will
bring the GI ways with us. . . . Miss all of you at the Advertiser. . . . Miss
also the lovely Hawaiian music. Oh—last night there was a boy with a
guitar, and boy! Did I feel lonesome! Take care of Hawaii for us till we
come back.8

Permanent Duty Assignments

Wacs were assigned to their duty stations by a process known as the bulk al-
lotment system.9 Under this system, tables of allotment (TA), sometimes
known as manning documents or tables of distribution (TD), showed mili-
tary positions by grade, title, military occupational specialty, and branch.10
Commanders received a quota of WAC spaces by grade, and then submitted
requisitions for Wacs with specific skills. Women were allowed to fill any non-
combatant position they were fit to perform. The military occupations in which
women were authorized to serve included (among others) clerical, adminis-
trative, mechanics, radio operators, intelligence analysts, photographers, car-
penters, painters, parachute riggers, and postal workers.11
Nisei women filled a variety of military occupations in the WAC. Pri-
vate Lillian Higashi was assigned as a chaplain’s assistant at Fort Knox. She
was studying to be a language teacher, specializing in French and Spanish,
when she joined the service. Higashi was responsible for counseling military
men who were in trouble, performing a stenographer’s duties, driving the
chaplain’s car, and projecting motion pictures. In a newspaper article she stated,
“I like my people, and I love my work.”12 Dorothy Nakasato of Honolulu was
a clerical worker in the discharge section of Camp Kilmer, New Jersey.13
112 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

Private Kumi Matsusaki had a degree and work experience in pharma-

ceutical science. After basic training she was stationed at Nichols General
Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, as a technician. Comparing her military du-
ties with those required previously in her civilian jobs, Matsusaki stated, “I
was already accustomed to handling war time pharmaceuticals like penicillin
and sulfa derivatives; they were in use at St. Luke’s. But it’s something new to
be compounding and dispensing drugs in bulk, not by prescription.”14
Mitsue Houchi of Wailuku, Maui, also entered the WAC with previous
medical training. After basic training she was assigned to the Beaumont School
for medical technicians in El Paso, Texas. She received an additional month
of training at the Army Service Force (ASF) Regional Hospital at Camp
Crowder, Missouri, before being assigned to the Army General Hospital at
Camp Carson, Colorado, for permanent duty in the dermatology section.
Houchi later was assigned as a medical Wac at the Separation Center at Fort
Des Moines, where female military personnel received medical examinations
when returning to the United States from overseas areas for discharge.15
Katherine Tanaka, mentioned above, also was assigned to the medical
field. She had attended a dental technician course at the Fitzsimmons Gen-
eral Hospital in Denver, Colorado, before joining the WAC. After basic train-
ing, she was permanently assigned to Camp Polk, Pennsylvania, as a laboratory
technician. Corporal Kay Keiko Ogura, formerly of the Manzanar Relocation
Center, worked as a surgical technician at Camp Joseph Robinson, Arkansas.
Private Miyoko Sadahiro of Layton, Utah, is of particular interest. Before
the United States entered the war, Sadahiro had been a student at the Women’s
College in Hiroshima. She studied there for fourteen months and was a pas-
senger on one of the last ships to leave Japan for the United States before
Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Sadahiro was assigned with the WAC medical
detachment, and worked as an assistant in an army hospital laboratory.16
Although a variety of military occupations were open to Nisei Wacs, the
War Department wished to utilize the women primarily in clerical positions.
In the words of a War Department memorandum dated January 30, 1945:
Japanese American women who apply for enlistment in the Women’s
Army Corps will be encouraged to enlist for general assignment in
the clerical field in order that Military Intelligence may have full
opportunity to utilize their services in Japanese language work, and
that those not used by Military Intelligence may be assigned to the
largest extent practicable to administrative and clerical duties.17

The memo stated further that no recruiting effort would be directed toward
enlisting Japanese American women in the WAC for duty with the Medical
 Service in the Women’s Army Corps 113

Department. Authorization was given for women, like Kumi Matsusaki, who
already had the requisite qualifications and wished to enlist for direct assign-
ment to an army general hospital. The number of Nisei women in the medi-
cal field, however, was not to exceed the authorized quota.
The women I interviewed served mostly in clerical positions. A few
worked in intelligence, translating war documents. One of the interviewees
actually taught Japanese at the Military Intelligence Service Language School
(MISLS—see below). Some were sent, after basic tranining, to advanced train-
ing before reporting to their permanent duty stations. Fuchida, for example,
completed basic training and stayed at Des Moines to complete clerical school;
then she was assigned to Dugway Proving Ground, a military facility in Utah
established to test biological warfare. According to Mattie Treadwell’s official
history of women in the WAC, written in 1954, Wacs were first assigned to
the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) at Dugway in April 1943. There they
served as laboratory technicians and draftspersons, and were “trained to par-
ticipate in field observation during the mortar and rocket shoots, noting wind
direction and air temperature.”18 Fuchida was assigned clerical duties at
Dugway, and worked for a doctor:
At that time, Okinawa was the main battle front and the terrain at
Dugway was just like Okinawa. There were caves all over, and in
these caves they would put three goats; one with a Japanese gas mask,
one with an American gas mask and one with no gas mask. They’d all
three come out dead and then they would be taken to my boss’s office
to be looked at. I had to record whatever he wanted recorded—
clerical work.

Although she met “a lot of nice people” at Dugway, Fuchida did not enjoy
her assignment: “It was horrible. I didn’t know there was a place like that in
Utah. It was ninety miles from nowhere into the desert.” What Fuchida dis-
liked most was the location:
It really wasn’t that bad of an assignment, but I felt that there must be
more to going into service [than] being assigned to a place worse than
where I left. It was so isolated, you had to make your own enjoyment.
I think I did fairly well at nearly all the assigned tasks that I had. I did
what I was supposed to and I was promoted to PFC. I seemed to be
accepted. There were quite a few men and women at Dugway Proving
Ground, and a lot of them were doctors and professional people.
Everybody seemed to be enjoying what they were doing out there.

Although there were social activities on the installation, Fuchida went home
most weekends. “It would take me hours to get home. . . . I just lived for the
114 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

weekends.” Although Fuchida did not attend the weekend dances, she had
many friends at Dugway with whom she stayed in touch for many years after
service. From Dugway, Fuchida was assigned to the Military Intelligence Ser-
vice Language School at Fort Snelling, Minnesota.
Some of the Wacs were assigned directly to a permanent duty station from
basic training. Harada was sent to Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, to work
in the ordnance department:
There were all these vehicles at Fort Benjamin Harrison, being sent
overseas. And we were getting them ready and in good condition to
be used. I helped with supplying parts. It was warehouse-type of work:
if they needed certain parts for these vehicles, I would have to make
sure that everything was accounted for as it went out. Fort Benjamin
Harrison was a very nice place; there was only one WAC detach-
ment. . . . I enjoyed it there; I didn’t have any difficulties. We all were
doing clerical work. I was a little unhappy because I wanted to get
into medical work, and my heart was on becoming a nurse. I thought
if I went into the military maybe they might train me enough so that I
could do work in the medical field. But since I had already had some
typing, clerical, bookkeeping, and shorthand in high school, [the War
Department] naturally just put me into clerical work. Well, I did get
one promotion there, so I guess I was doing all right.

Harada was at Fort Benjamin Harrison only a few months before she was re-
assigned to the Military Intelligence Service Language School at Fort Snelling.
Rosenthal left basic training for Camp Polk, Louisiana, where the army
had weapon carriers. There she was assigned to the dispatcher’s office, and
also worked as a chauffeur for one of the male officers. Rosenthal lived in the
WAC detachment at Lake Pontratrain, New Orleans, while working at Camp
Polk, Louisiana. Many African American civilians were working on base:

That was a tremendous place to work. There was nothing but black
civilians coming around for jobs every morning. . . . They would
congregate there to see what jobs I could give them. They were
civilians because they didn’t have enough military men to do that
kind of work on the post. Blacks were hired as wage board [workers].
Wage board was their Government Service rating; they were like the
janitors and the custodial help, those jobs that you don’t have to have
a degree for. Wage board workers have even numbers: . . . two and
four and six and eight, like that. And Government Service profes-
sional ratings go from odd numbers: [they] start from five and go up to
GS 15, which is high-ranking, equivalent to a general, I guess.
Figure 1. Iris Watanabe being inducted into the WAC in the office of Colorado’s gov-
ernor, John Vivian. Watanabe is shown with Governor Vivian. December 1943. RG
165, Box 49, National Archives.

Figure 2. Iris Watanabe (left) being inducted into the WAC in the office of Colorado’s
governor, John Vivian. Watanabe is shown with two other Nisei women, who are at-
tending the ceremony but not being inducted, and Governor Vivian. December 1943.
RG 165, Box 49, National Archives.
Figure 3. Two Japanese American sisters, Emiki (left), 24, and Rose Tanada, 21, view-
ing a poster of the Women’s Army Corps in which they enlisted. They were residents
of Chicago. Photo taken 23 January 1945. RG 208, Box 106, National Archives.

Figure 4. Anna Takano (left), being sworn into the Women’s Army Corps by Lieu-
tenant Jane Gillespie in front of the Liberty Bell, during a ceremony in Philadelphia,
12 May 1944. RG 208, Box 106, National Archives.
 Figure 5. Mrs. Tamako Irene
Izumi, being weighed for induc-
tion into the Air-Wacs (Army
Air Force). Her husband, Ser-
geant Heihachiro Izumi, had
been serving in the Army Air
Force for nearly three years. RG
208, Box 106, National Archives.

Figure 6. Florence Kanashiro Kahapea (right) in front of the Treasury Department,

Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Washington, D.C., 1946. Courtesy of Kahapea’s daugh-
ter, Coralynn Jackson.
Figure 7. Florence Kanashiro Kahapea (left), 1946. Courtesy of Kahapea’s daughter,
Coralynn Jackson.

Figure 8. Tosuko Alice Kono

of Molokai, Hawaii, in the
mess hall, Fort Oglethorpe,
28 March 1945. Courtesy of
the U.S. Army Women’s Mu-
seum, Fort Lee, Virginia.
Figure 9. Eleven Nisei Wacs, one Caucasian Wac, and one Chinese American Wac
are ready to board a Tran-Pacific plane to Japan. All were graduates of the Military
Intelligence Service Language School at Fort Snelling, Minnesota. January 1946. Cour-
tesy of the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, Monterey, California.

Figure 10. Second Lieuten-

ant Mary Yamada (right),
Army Nurse Corps, Prince-
ton, New Jersey, 24 Septem-
ber 1946. Courtesy of Mary
Yamada.
Figure 11. Second Lieutenant Mary
Yamada, Army Nurse Corps, Fort
Hamilton, New York, 12 May 1947.
Courtesy of Mary Yamada.

Figure 12. Second Lieutenant Mary

Yamada, Fort Dix, New Jersey, dur-
ing basic training for the Army
Nurse Corps. May 1945. Courtesy of
Mary Yamada.
Figure 13. Nisei Wac graduates of the Military Intelligence Service Language School
at Fort Snelling, Minnesota. They are leaving for Camp Ritchie, Maryland. To the
right is their commanding officer, Captain Nestor. 1945. Courtesy of the Defense Lan-
guage Institute Foreign Language Center, Monterey, California.

Figure 14. Nisei Wac section

of the soprano and alto de-
partments of the choir, shown
singing at Fort Snelling, Min-
nesota. 1945. Courtesy of the
Defense Language Institute For-
eign Language Center, Monterey,
California.
Figure 15. Florence Kana-
shiro Kahapea at Camp
Ritchie, Maryland, 20 Feb-
ruary 1946. Courtesy of Ka-
hapea’s daughter, Coralynn
Jackson.

Figure 16. Florence Kanashiro Kahapea (right). Courtesy of Kahapea’s daughter, Coralynn
Jackson.
 Service in the Women’s Army Corps 115

Rosenthal noted that she had no difficulties in doing her job. She felt
that she was able to communicate well with the African American workers
“because I am Japanese, and they didn’t treat me like a white.” According to
Rosenthal, African American civilian workers had a difficult time working
with white soldiers because the latter were condescending:
If you’ve had any experience with blacks or any nationality like
Hispanics or anything, they’ve got a chip on their shoulder if you treat
them like they’re lower than yourself. They get defensive. They
weren’t defensive with me because I was a minority. I didn’t order
them; I asked them. And they were all willing to do what I asked
because they wanted to get paid. They wanted to get a job. There
were more guys there than there were jobs. And every morning they
would try to get there first so that they’d be first in line to get the job.
I was a PFC when I went there, but then I got promoted to a corporal.
And then . . . I left for the Military Intelligence Service Language
School.

Like other Nisei Wacs, those from Hawaii filled a variety of military oc-
cupations after completing basic training. Some of the Hawaiian Nisei were
the only women of Asian descent in their assignments. Grace Kutaka served
at Mason General Hospital in Brentwood, on Long Island, before being trans-
ferred to duty at Hickam Field as a teletype operator: “When I saw the sky-
scrapers my mouth flew open! New York was exciting and the girls there were
friendly. Spring in New York was lovely, with the green grass and pretty
flowers.”
From basic training, Ruth Fujii went to advanced training in clerical work
at Fort Des Moines. Later she was assigned as a secretary to an executive of-
ficer at Camp Hood, Texas. Fujii did not like her assignment:
It was miserable at Camp Hood. . . . no ocean, no mountains. I was so
uncomfortable and it wasn’t pleasant in the office. . . . That’s the only
time I faced some racial discrimination. I don’t know [if it was
because] I was a Wac or because I was Japanese. . . . But the colonel I
was assigned to had just come back from Europe and then I replaced
this man’s secretary. And so he made it rough for me, but I didn’t say
anything. He called me in for dictation so I went in with my pad. . . .
He used all the big words that others [other secretaries] wouldn’t
understand, but I took it all. . . . And then I sat down and ran it off.
And then I gave it to the office manager . . . and covered my type-
writer. I walked out, back to my barracks. I didn’t say goodbye or
anything. . . . Later the office manager called me and said the colonel
116 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

wanted to see me. So I said “Okay, I’ll come over after I take a
shower. . . . ” So I took a shower and I went in and you know what he
asked me? “Where did you learn English?”

Fujii did not bother to explain to the colonel that English was the primary
language in Hawaiian schools. She resented his ignorance.
In March 1945, the first Wacs arrived in Manila. After serving only a
few months at Camp Hood, Fujii applied for overseas duty and was stationed
there, in the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA):

I got assigned to General Marshall’s group. . . . There were about nine

of us girls. It was a small outfit they used to call MAGIC—Military
Advisory Group In China. . . . I was a secretary to four colonels . . .
[and] each had locked files. I had four files: personnel, intelligence,
training and plants with pits, and supply . . . and had to memorize all
four.

Fujii explained that the office in which she worked was under heavy security:
“Nobody was supposed to go behind the railing in our office. . . . They could
sit outside but could not cross the bar.”
During our interview, Fujii recalled that an officer from Japan with the
same last name as hers was on trial while she was stationed in the Philippines:
Being of Japanese parentage and bearing a typical Japanese name, I
was certain that I would be attacked because the Filipino people
despised the Japanese. And I didn’t blame them. But a Filipino boy
said to me, “You’re Japanese, but from Hawaii. That’s different.” He
and I were good friends after that.

U.S. military officials saw to it that Fujii was protected with a bodyguard: “Ev-
erybody took precautions and made sure that I had an escort wherever I
went. . . . When I went to town or anyplace, to the opera or anything, [there]
was [always a male soldier] sitting in a jeep with a gun. . . . If I was called at
night to take dictation, they’d send a jeep over to pick me up and take me
wherever I was supposed to go. . . . I’d have a jeep driver and a soldier sitting
in front with a gun.”
On February 12, 1946, after spending eleven months in the Philippines,
Fujii received orders to report to the China theater. She spent two weeks in
Shanghai before traveling with a special group of Wacs assigned to Nanking.
Everyone she was assigned with in Asia seemed to get along: “Everybody
treated me well. My officers and fellow servicemen and women, we always
did things together; I got to go all over the place.” The living conditions in
the Philippines, however, were somewhat less than desirable: “We had no
 Service in the Women’s Army Corps 117

sheets; only army cots, army blankets, and that’s it. . . . And then when I went
to China, it was different. We had service—linen tablecloths, . . . and all be-
cause the Wacs were living in the same building as the [male] officers, only
on a different floor.”
The other two Hawaiian Nisei women I interviewed, Alice Kono and
Hisako Yamashita, had attended clerk school at Fort Des Moinet| as Fujii did.
Unlike Fujii, however, they were assigned to the Military Intelligence Ser-
vice Language School at Fort Snelling for training in the Japanese language.
In contrast to other military installations where Wacs were assigned, Fort
Snelling had a majority of Nisei among its Wacs.
From Fort Snelling, Kono and Yamashita were sent to Camp Ritchie,
Maryland, to translate Japanese documents confiscated by American soldiers.
Yamashita recalled:
Camp Ritchie was where all the captured manuscripts were. There
was a Japanese document center and a German document center
too . . . I met some of the fellas that were doing German
transcribing. . . . I remember that the Japanese were building air-
planes. They weren’t getting resources, so they were using
wood. . . . The wings were wood instead of metal, the way American
[planes] were, because we had all of the iron needed to build planes;
they didn’t. And so these manuscripts were telling about these
things. . . . These were important things for Americans to find out.

The Military Intelligence Service Language School

The Military Intelligence Service Japanese Language School (MISJLS), the
precursor to the MISLS, was established to train military men in Japanese lan-
guage and culture. As early as spring 1941, U.S. military officials viewed war
with Japan as imminent. They were concerned that there would not be a suf-
ficient number of Japanese linguists to meet the army’s needs in the event of
war. On April 15, 1941, in responding to this need, the United States Army
began planning for a Japanese-language school to train Japanese Americans
as translators, interpreters, and interrogators in the field. Seven months later,
fifty-nine Nisei men and one Caucasian began instruction in Japanese at the
Fourth Army Intelligence School, at the Presidio of San Francisco.
As mentioned in chapter 1, the War Department’s need for Japanese lin-
guists superseded its policy of excluding Japanese Americans from military ser-
vice. Five months after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, thirty-six enlisted men
and two officers were graduated; all but ten enlisted men were deployed in
small teams to combat zones. These ten men, all Kibei, “were kept as instruc-
118 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

tors at Camp Savage, Minnesota, where the school was forced to relocate
because of exclusion orders prohibiting Nisei to remain on the West Coast.”19
Clifford Uyeda and Barry Saiki reported that the other Nisei graduates were
shipped overseas: “[T]eam leader Yoshio Hotta led five Nisei linguists to Alaska.
Team leader Mac Nagata and five others were sent to New Caledonia . . . Eight
Nisei left for Australia.”20 Unbeknown to many, these Nisei soldiers were as-
signed military intelligence duties as early as May 1942, eight months before
the War Department officially reinstated Nisei men to military service.
The army expanded the school’s program in April 1942. As noted above,
limited facilities at the Presidio and the evacuation of Japanese Americans
forced the school to relocate to Camp Savage, Minnesota, (and later to Fort
Snelling, Minnesota). During this time, the name was changed from the Mili-
tary Intelligence Service Japanese Language School (MISJLS) to the Military
Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS). On June 1, 1942, 193 Nisei
men and seven Caucasians were enrolled. By December 15, 1942, the num-
ber of men enrolled had increased to 434, and the faculty was expanded to
15 civilians and 30 enlisted instructors. The civilian instructors were selected
from among evacuees interned at relocation centers.
Given the urgent need for officers, a preparatory course for qualified Cau-
casian personnel was established at the University of Michigan in October
1942.21 According to Colonel Kai Rasmussen’s report, the school was given
wide publicity and received many applicants; 148 of the best qualified were
selected and were inducted voluntarily into the army with cadet status. By
May 29, 1944, 34 officers and 234 enlisted men were enrolled in this inten-
sive Japanese-language program under the supervision of Professor Joseph K.
Yamagiwa of the University of Michigan and a staff of 35 Nisei assistants.
As noted above, in January 1943 the War Department began to seek quali-
fied Nisei women to serve as linguists. A series of conferences was held from
January 25 to January 30 to discuss the possibilities of procuring Nisei women
for voluntary induction into the army.22 Subsequently, WAAC officers were
sent to the ten internment camps (in Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming,
California, Idaho, and Arkansas) to ascertain Nisei women’s interest in serv-
ing; several WAAC officers reported back that the Nisei women were enthu-
siastic about such service.
In June 1944 the War Department began making arrangements to replace
trained Nisei males with Nisei Wacs at MISLS. The first Nisei Wacs were as-
signed to the MISLS at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, on November 8, 1944. Eight
were attached to Headquarters Company and assigned clerical duties. A former
hospital building was used as a WAC barracks, providing sleeping quarters, a
day room, and a laundry room equipped with an electric washer and drying
 Service in the Women’s Army Corps 119

space. The number of women increased to 48 in May 1945; at that time, two
WAC academic sections were activated to train women as translators and in-
terpreters. Shortly thereafter the peak strength of 51 women was reached, con-
sisting of three Caucasians, one Chinese American, 18 Japanese Americans
from Hawaii, and 29 Nisei women from the mainland; some of the latter had
been recruited from internment camps.23
These Wacs learned to read, write, translate, and interpret heigo (Japa-
nese military and technical terms). They also learned Japanese geography and
map reading, along with the sociopolitical and cultural background of Japan.
In addition, sosho (Japanese cursive writing) and instructions on the battle
order of the Japanese Army were part of the curriculum. The first three months
of training consisted of Japanese grammar, reading, writing, and simple trans-
lations. In the fourth month and the first half of the fifth month, students
learned military terminology, military interpreting, geography, translation of
newspapers, and Japanese writing style. In the latter half of the fifth month,
lectures were given on Japanese history, politics, culture, and the military. Stu-
dents also were instructed in Japanese operations and tactics and in Ameri-
can military tactics. Finally, in the sixth month, the entire class was separated
into translating and interpreting teams for practical exercises. Table 4 displays
the MISLS curriculum.
Nishikaichi recalls that, although she spoke Japanese at home with her
parents, there was much about the language that she did not know before
studying at the MISLS. For example, she learned words for “parts of a plane
and the Japanese vocabulary for army [organizational] terms like commander
and battalion.” The study of geography, according to Nishikaichi, did not in-
volve “the tourist places that we heard about. [It consisted of] naval bases and
so forth. . . . We were being trained to be translators.” Florence Toshiko
Kaneshiro of Hawaii, described the work at MISLS as “confining,” and as re-
quiring “long hours of study.”24
The language school was separated according to proficiency level: begin-
ning, intermediate, and advanced. Like the other students, Nishikaichi was
required to take an entrance examination to determine the level to which
she would be assigned:

I didn’t think I would even pass the exam, but I found myself in the
top class. And when I got into class, they had been in session for
several weeks. I looked at the books, and I said, “oh my God!” The
only language I used with my parents was Japanese, and I could not
believe that I had forgotten that much Japanese in less than a year.
They taught us Japanese vocabulary for military terms . . . the
breakdown of how the army is set up . . . where the naval bases
120 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

Table 4
Military Intelligence Service Language School Courses
Course Title Content
Naganuma reader Reading and translation
Heigo (military) readers Introductory course
Sakuson Yomurei (field service reg.) Reading and translation
Cyo Senjutso (applied tactics) Reading and translation
Interrogation and interpretation Military procedures
Captured documents Military procedures
Grammar, Japanese Colloquial
Grammar, Japanese Literary
Grammar, English Basic course for those requiring it
Sosho (Japanese fluid grass writing) A form of shorthand
Kanji Characters and dictation
Japanese geography Basic geography
Heigo (military) Lectures in English and Japanese
American military terms Reading and interpretation
Conversation, Japanese Basic course for those requiring it
Japanese-English and English- Reading and translation
Japanese translation
Radio monitoring Military procedures
Interception of messages Military procedures
Lectures on Japanese society History, politics, military, etc.

Source: Report by Colonel Kai E. Rasmussen, “History and Description of the Military Intelligence
Service Language School,” RG 319, Box 1 of 1, Ft. Snelling, Minn., National Archives, College Park,
Md.

were. . . . The people in the lowest level could hardly say “How are
you?” One of the girls in the lowest class was told by a faculty member,
“Your mother’s going to be sad. She’s going to cry.” And he was saying
it in Japanese, but the girl didn’t understand a word he was saying. I’m
sure her parents never spoke to her in Japanese.

Nishikaichi did well at the MISLS, receiving a promotion at the end of each
semester: “ I was a private when I first got there, after a couple weeks I was
already a PFC, and then the next semester I was a corporal.” When she gradu-
ated, Nishikaichi had attained the rank of staff sergeant and was retained at
the school to teach.
As noted earlier, Nishikaichi entered the WAC purposely to attend the
MISLS. She realized that many people did not have the ability to serve as a
linguist and that she possessed a much-needed skill. Yet although Nishikaichi
was proficient in the Japanese language and also was motivated to work as a
linguist, she knew that her military assignment would be limited because of
her gender: “After I graduated they assigned me to the faculty. . . . I was teach-
ing the beginners’ class of the Wacs. . . . Most of us did very little as far as
military intelligence is concerned because we were allowed into the service
 Service in the Women’s Army Corps 121

so late.” More than half of the Wacs graduating from language school went
to the East Coast; the rest remained at Fort Snelling. Nishikaichi was among
those who stayed behind: “I was assigned to the faculty . . . I also did typing,
and as soon as the war was over the faculty was assigned to translate the civil
service code.”
Harada, assigned as a clerk at Fort Benjamin Harrison before attending
the MISLS, described the school as very challenging:

The classes at Fort Snelling started at 9 A.M. and lasted until four in
the afternoon; but we had to get up at 5 A.M. to do our exercises and
clean our barracks for inspection. And then we had to go across a big
field to have our meals with a [male] company that we were attached
to. And then we would have to go back to our barracks, get into
formation, and march to classes by nine. We’d study until four, and
then marched back to our barracks. We had dinner at five and then
had to go back to classes from seven until nine at night. And then we
studied until lights out, which was 11 P.M.

The weekends were reserved for chores. “On Friday nights,” said Harada, “we
cleaned up the whole barracks for Saturday morning’s white-glove inspection.
After the inspection was over . . . and if we passed, we had the weekend off.
If we didn’t, . . . we were confined to the barracks.”
The men assigned to the MISLS were mostly of Japanese descent. As
Harada observed, “There were a few Caucasians, but they had to be quite flu-
ent in Japanese to be there.” Initially the women were not accepted by their
male counterparts. When Harada and the other women first arrived, “the men
thought we were terrible to even go into the military.” However, as Harada
later observed, the more men and women of the school came into contact
with each other, the more they learned to respect each other: “Since we had
to all study and work together we just got along fine there.”
The men and women assigned to the school had plenty of opportunities
to socialize after work. As Harada recalled:

There was a club where we could go in the evenings for dancing and
to socialize. It wasn’t far from our detachment. That’s where I met my
husband—at a dance in the so-called “field house,” a big auditorium.
We were married before he was shipped overseas. I was very reluctant
because I hadn’t known him very long. But we talked to my parents
and they just thought that he was a wonderful person and that I
shouldn’t let him go. I suggested that we just become engaged, but
they said no. We went ahead and got married in a very short while
because he had already received orders to go overseas.
122 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

Although the men and women at the school generally got along fairly
well, there was a noticeable double standard, not only in occupational assign-
ments but also in social privileges. The men assigned to MISLS had company
dances, said Nishikaichi, “in which a fellow could bring in two and three girls,
but we couldn’t take in two men.” This double standard caused some friction
between the servicemen and the Wacs: “We put up a big fuss about [gender]
discrimination” explained Nishikaichi. “If the guys could bring in more than
one date, why couldn’t the girls bring in more than one date?” This double
standard was more or less accepted by the women, however, and did not af-
fect their morale.
Rosenthal did well in her studies at the MISLS. “I don’t know how I ever
got into the top of the class,” she said, “but I think it was because of my pro-
ficiency in English. I could write very well.” She was given an entrance exam-
ination that required her to translate Japanese into English: “I knew enough
Japanese characters to fudge it. Just like taking French—if you know the Latin
of it, you can kind of guess it out.” Rosenthal liked her assignment at the MISLS:
I enjoyed it all the time I was there. I didn’t have to do KP, and we
didn’t have to cook or anything. I didn’t buzz around with Japanese
American men like the rest of the Japanese American women. My
friends were white. I remember one fellow; he was white, and he was
an officer. I told him, “You’re not supposed to associate with me
because you’re white and you’re an officer.” He said, “I’ll just come
and pick you up, and who’s gonna know what we do off post?” The
only reason I went with him anywhere was that I had just got there
and he was leaving in about a week and a half. He had graduated and
was being sent overseas. I felt sorry for him, I guess, so I went out with
him. Japanese men never knew who I dated or whether I dated. And
they said that I was a “kutonk”—you know, a snob; a mainland snob. I
never dated Japanese guys.

During an interview, Lieutenant Colonel Marion Nestor, the former WAC

commander at the MISLS, told me that WAC commander was an additional
duty; her primary duty was as the intelligence officer for the school, “and . . . I
only had a total of 53 women, of which two were Caucasian and one was Chi-
nese, and the rest were Japanese Americans.” Nestor recalled, “The school
started in San Francisco before we even got into the war. It started to train
Japanese Americans in the techniques of interrogation and translation of mili-
tary information.” Nestor was assigned to the school in September 1943: “I
was with the school when it moved from Fort Savage to Fort Snelling, and
from Fort Snelling to Monterey. . . . My whole career during the war was with
the school.”25
 Service in the Women’s Army Corps 123

Colonel Nestor viewed the Nisei Wacs in her command as remarkable:

“The Japanese Americans were in a terrible position; their whole families were
in concentration camps. And . . . not only that, but the women had to fight
the Japanese male macho, if I can use the word macho with the Japanese
Americans. So for [these women] to come into the military was a double-barrel
thing.” According to Nestor, the Nisei Wacs at the MISLS were an outstand-
ing group: “I was their commanding officer for not quite two years, and I never
had a disciplinary problem. There might have been a few little things happen
that eventually I heard of, but they took care of it; they didn’t let anybody
get out of line. . . . They were at school and then they had compulsory study
hall at night. They didn’t have too much time to get into trouble.”26
Thirty-four Wacs were graduated from the regular course on November
17, 1945. Three of these women remained at the school as instructors, Staff
Sergeants Isonaga!±nd Segawa of Hawaii, and Yanomoto of Los Angeles. In
January 1946, for the first time in the history of the MISLS, Wacs—these
Wacs—began teaching Japanese to male soldiers, most of Japanese descent.
Most of the other women who demonstrated proficiency in the Japanese
language were assigned first to Camp Ritchie, Maryland, at the Pacific Mili-
tary Intelligence Research Section (PACMIRS), and later to a document cen-
ter in Washington, D.C. These women worked with translators from allied
countries (Britain, Australia, and Canada), translating Japanese diaries, jour-
nals, manuals, and books. Some were assigned to nonlanguage duties at the
headquarters of the MISLS.
Some Nisei women attending MISLS were proficient in Japanese, others
not. This was attributable to the variations in exposure of these women to
the Japanese culture while growing up. Fuchida’s parents had sent her and her
siblings to Japanese-language school, “but we didn’t take it seriously. We would
cut classes, go to the lake, and play around because it really didn’t mean that
much to us. I’m sorry now.” Women who had lived and studied in Japan (Kibei)
and those from Hawaii were usually the most proficient in Japanese language
and culture, and were most often assigned to the advanced tier.
Still, every woman I interviewed stated that the MISLS was difficult and
challenging—even the Nisei Wacs from Hawaii, who allegedly had more
knowledge of the Japanese language than had those from the mainland. Kono,
who grew up in Molokai, found the school particularly tough. Although flu-
ent in Japanese, she knew nothing about Japanese military language before
studying it at Fort Snelling. Hisako Yamashita, who grew up on the island of
Kauai, stated that the MISLS “was challenging, all right.” Both Kono and
Yamashita were stationed at Camp Ritchie after completing language school.
Yamashita said, “We translated captured military documents. There were bags
124 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

and bags of them for us to translate. I wasn’t terribly good so I didn’t get the
very important ones.”
As for morale, all of my informants expressed sentiments similar to
Nishikaichi’s:
I think our morale was good because as a group we got along well. I
think we had a pretty good idea that we were all in there for honor-
able reasons. So we respected each other, and we enjoyed each other’s
company. And we all worked hard and studied hard. We tried to do
our best, and I think that in that sense our morale was high. The war
ended while we were still in classes, and then we graduated. About
two-thirds of us went back to the East Coast; the rest of us just
remained there. Some of us were assigned to the faculty; those at the
bottom of the class were assigned to clerical work, typing duties, and
things like that

Still, regardless of a Wac’s skills and achievements in the MISLS, her race
as well as her gender put limitations on what she could do after she completed
language training. As Irene Nishikaichi stated, “Most of us did very little as
far as military intelligence is concerned because we were [not] allowed into
the service [until] ’forty-three when they finally opened up to Nisei women.”

Serving in Japan
After the war, in January 1946, thirteen Wacs left Fort Snelling for Japan.
They were among the first class of women to graduate from the Military In-
telligence Service Language School, and were assigned to work with Allied
Forces as clerks, secretaries, and translators. Eleven were Nisei, and four of
these were from Hawaii: T5 Harriett Hirakowa, Sgt. Funiko Segawa, T5
Matsuko Kido, and Sgt. Chito Isonaga. The other Nisei Wacs were from the
mainland: Pfc. Michkey Minata, T5 Toyome Nakanishi, T5 Edith Kodama,
T5 Shizuko Shinagawa, Sgt. Miwako Yanamoto, T5 Mary Nakamura, and Sgt.
Atsuko Moriuchi. One Caucasian Wac, Sgt. Rhoda Knudsen, and a Wac of
Chinese descent, Bertha Chin, also were assigned with the group. Chin was
from Seattle and had stopped briefly in Japan on her way to Hong Kong be-
fore the war. Knudsen had been born in Tokyo to missionary parents and had
graduated from a Japanese-American school there. According to newspaper
articles, the women would be discharged from the army upon arrival in Ja-
pan, and would become civilian workers.
The Wacs were thrilled to go to Japan; most reported that their families
were equally excited. Nishikaichi’s mother had cautioned her not to volun-
teer for overseas duty when she joined the WAC, but was excited that she
 Service in the Women’s Army Corps 125

was being deployed to Japan: “When we finally got our orders to go overseas,
right away she wanted me to look up this relative and that relative and so
forth.” In a newspaper interview Knudsen stated: “I have a long list of Japa-
nese Christians to contact . . . That is my extra-curricular work. I will keep
the Lutheran Board of Foreign Missions informed of those whom I meet. This
may help them to plan the future mission program.”27 A Wac named Marie
Minata stated that she looked forward to seeing her uncle, a practicing physi-
cian in Japan. Minata revealed that her uncle had been imprisoned during
the war for not supporting the imperial conquest efforts.28 Harada’s husband
was already serving with the U.S. intelligence service in Tokyo, and she was
eager to reunite with him.
Many Nisei Wacs viewed themselves as ambassadors for democracy; this
theme is best exemplified in an article written by Kathy Gorman for the St.
Paul Dispatch. The headline included the words “Nisei to be Mannequins of
Democracy.” Gorman wrote, “To model feminine Americanism in the land
of their ancestors 12 Nisei WACs will leave . . . for Japan. . . . These manne-
quins for democracy will be the first American born Japanese WACs to put
their feet on Japan. And part of their job will be to show the Japanese how be-
coming to women the garb of Americanism can be.”29 Gorman cited one of the
Nisei Wacs as declaring, “We have Japanese faces, but we are Americans. . . . By
our example we will have to show them [the Japanese] what a woman of Japa-
nese background can be like—how she acts—when she has lived in a demo-
cratic country and had the advantages offered by such a country. It’s going to
be a big job—but we all know it and we are going to do our best to be suc-
cessful at it.”30 Similarly, the Advertiser, a Honolulu newspaper, contrasted the
Wacs with the Issei women immigrants: “Eleven Japanese-American women,
including four from Hawaii, arrived by Air Transport Command plane yester-
day en route to the land of their ancestors—but in a totally different role than
that of the traditionally down-trodden women of Nippon.”31
Because so many military people were traveling during this period, it took
the women a few weeks to fly to their destination. Nishikaichi recalled, “We
went from Minneapolis to San Francisco, Hamilton Field. We were there about
a week or ten days before we could catch a flight to go to Honolulu. We were
in Honolulu for about twelve days because we were flying with low priority.
We were at the bottom of the totem pole, and kept getting bumped.” Many
of the Wacs took leave in Hawaii. This was the first such opportunity for the
Hawaiian Wacs traveling with the group; they had not been home since their
induction. Two of the women were from islands other than Oahu; Florence
Segawa was from Hilo, and Chito Koloa was from Kauai. They were given
sufficient leave time to go home. From Hawaii the Wacs flew to Guam, where
126 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

they remained for six days, having arrived, according to Nishikaichi, too late for
the army to fly them to Tokyo, and finally were flown to Japan by the navy.
Although there were (white) women officers already in Japan on tempo-
rary duty (TDY), Japanese American Wacs were the first enlisted women to
arrive.32 When they finally reached Tokyo, the exhausted women were in-
formed that they would have to travel to the Philippines and be discharged
in Manila. According to Nishikaichi, “We were all the way across the ocean,
and then they said they were going to send us to the Philippines to get dis-
charged because they didn’t have facilities to do that.” To the women’s de-
light, the plans were changed, and the Wacs were taken by car about forty
miles from Tokyo, to Zama, where they were discharged. They were told that,
if they did not want to stay, they could return to the States, but all opted to
remain and work as civil servants. Harada recalled, “We had to sign up for
one year in order to get our transportation back to the States paid for. So the
original contract was for a year.”
The women were immediately assigned as civil servants for the Allied
Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS) of the U.S. Army.33 Harada ex-
plained, “We were working for General MacArthur. Some of these women
were doing translation work because they were getting an awful lot of docu-
ments at that time; and the war trials were going on. We were all . . . doing
different things, but mostly clerical work.” Each woman was tested to deter-
mine her occupational assignment. Nishikaichi qualified as a translator, with
a civil service rank of CAF–7, and was indeed assigned to do translation. She
described her co-workers as members of a team.
Even though she had little difficulty translating printed words, Nishikaichi
found handwritten material challenging. “If you cannot read a character, you
count the strokes, and you look it up in one dictionary to find out how it’s
read. Then you go to the other dictionary to get the meaning. But if it’s hand-
written—you know how illegible handwriting can be—then how many strokes
are there? . . . Did [the writer] drop a dot or something? Where I was working
there were native Japanese, so I’d ask them to translate written words.” On
the other hand, Nishikaichi stated, there were Kibei working in her depart-
ment who needed assistance with English and were stronger in Japanese than
in English. Therefore, the translators worked in teams consisting of Kibei and
Nisei. The Kibei could read the Japanese but their translation was sometimes
faulty; the Nisei, often college-educated, would translate this translation into
standard English.
Nishikaichi believed that she did “as well as could be expected,” given
the materials; she and her fellow workers translated war diary entries taken
from a period of years:
 Service in the Women’s Army Corps 127

You’d finish one day, . . . like January 4, 1933, and then hand that in.
The next day you’d be given something like December 6, 1940. It was
not continuous; there was no connection between the two dates. You
could have one day, and when you got through with that section, you
might be given a diary for three months later. So what happened in
between, . . . especially when you don’t know the recent history of
Japan? These were political documents. I had a vague idea of what the
Japanese political system was, but it was very, very vague. We were
not trained in that. . . . We were doing translation in something we
were not trained in. We didn’t even know how many representatives
[there were], how they were elected or anything. And we were
translating the diary of someone who was in a position like . . .
Kissinger or somebody like that. . . . [I]f you knew absolutely nothing
about the American political system or Congress, you’d have diffi-
culty. And . . . someone eventually had to put it all together. I read
somewhere that somebody in Washington had to redo all of our work.
But I think that for the training we had and for the knowledge we
had, we did the best that we could under the circumstances.

Harada, on the other hand, had very limited knowledge of the Japanese
language:

I wasn’t very strong in Japanese, coming from an area [Idaho] where

there were no Orientals. We just didn’t speak the language. . . . And so,
when we were sent to Japan, I had an awful hard time working with
[Japanese] military terms. . . . Some of the girls from Hawaii used to
work as radio announcers in Japanese. They had a lot more training
and they could read and write [Japanese] fluently. At Fort Snelling, I
was in one of the lowest classes, just learning the basics of Japanese.

Harada was assigned clerical duties and worked in general headquarters

(GHQ). She explained, “That’s where General MacArthur was. That was the
Daitchi Building: Daitchi means number one.” Fuchida also knew very little
Japanese. She was assigned to work for a lieutenant colonel who was research-
ing Japanese history and had lived in Japan for many years. She recalled sit-
ting in a room with the other Wacs when the lieutenant colonel announced
that he needed a bilingual secretary:
I wasn’t bilingual by a long shot and I wasn’t a secretary . . . he looked
at me and said, “What do you do?” And I said, “Not much of any-
thing.” And he said, “Well, then, I’ll take you.” So this is how I met
this Colonel Davis, who gave me away when I was married; he
became sort of a pseudo father to me.
Although it was not a major problem, some difficulties arose because the
128 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

women were civil servants rather than Wacs. Wearing the U.S. military uni-
form, which they did while at work, reduced confusion about their national
origin. Nishikaichi dated a Caucasian soldier while in civilian clothes, and
was stopped by the military police (MPs) as well as Japanese police. In retro-
spect she stated, “I would have been better off if I spoke English. Whenever I
tried to explain something, I would start out in Japanese and then naturally
all the more they thought I was Japanese. . . . There was one incident when I
got really fired up and went to the MP station and blew my top. The insinua-
tion was that I was Japanese and shouldn’t be with a Caucasian soldier.”
In some ways, the American uniform was a shield against racial antago-
nism by white male soldiers. Nishikaichi also remembered difficulties with
some white male soldiers stationed in Japan:
In the beginning, we were in uniform, and then later we changed to
civilian clothes, and some of the white soldiers thought we were
Japanese. . . . At the very beginning, we would go to the Red Cross in
uniform, and talk to men who were in combat with the Japanese. And
they would talk to us and treat us like we were Americans. But the
men who came later, who had not been in combat, and who had not
been overseas during the war years, caused problems. They made
racial slurs, especially if they were drinking in bars. In the bars we
were more likely to experience those kinds of incidents. These were
white soldiers; I don’t recall running into too many of the black
soldiers because I think they were more in supply [occupations]; they
were much more segregated in World War II.

Nishikaichi added, however, that these racial incidents were isolated cases;
most of her experiences “even with Caucasian GIs were very pleasant.”
Because problems of identity were anticipated, the women were required
to wear their uniforms to work. Harada said that, although they had been dis-
charged from the WAC, they were not allowed to wear civilian clothing on
duty: “We had to take everything off of our WAC uniforms, all the insignia
and everything, and that’s what we wore to work.” The women had very little
contact with natives, other than the native Japanese they worked with, in
Tokyo. They worked in a secluded area of the city and billeted exclusively
with Americans. Fuchida found that, when she did come into contact with
Tokyo natives, “they just stared at us.” She bought candy and other items from
the post exchange and took them to church on Sundays so that they could
be distributed to the native residents. “To watch the children scavenging in
the garbage cans was . . . so hard. That part was hard.”
According to Harada, “Japan was so wartorn that anything we could do
was a help to [the native Japanese]. I was happy to be [in Tokyo] because I could
 Service in the Women’s Army Corps 129

see my husband. But I think overall it was sad because we never experienced
anything like this, and no matter which way you turned there was war rav-
age; and there was nothing you could really do to help.” The women described
their encounters with children on the streets of Tokyo begging for something
to eat. All of the interviewees stated that they always carried candy or other
edibles in their pockets to give to these hungry children. As Harada remem-
bered, “Even if you gave them one little piece of candy, why, you made some-
body happy.”
The women were welcomed by the few adults they encountered. Accord-
ing to Harada, “We were very welcomed there because we could speak the
language. They would come to us and ask little questions, or they would ask
for candy, or gum, or help with this and that. It was right after the war, and it
is so hard to describe. They didn’t have food, and everything was so wartorn
that it was just a pathetic sight.” Harada stayed in Japan with her husband
and witnessed the beginning of reconstruction. She recalled, “As they began
to build and as we stayed, because of my husband’s work, the people of Tokyo
started inviting us to their homes. They were mainly the more influential
people of Japan, who had beautiful homes. They were much wealthier, and
were in a better position to entertain.”
Some of the women were able to visit family members in Japan.
Nishikaichi had met all of her relatives before the war, having been in Japan
as a child: “I was there for about two months. I was only seven, so I don’t
remember that much of it. But this particular uncle, my mother’s brother, they
corresponded until my mother died.” Nishikaichi visited her uncle while in
Japan: “Where my uncle lived was hard to get to. I had to ask one of the GIs
to drive me out there; it was quite a trip. . . . I only visited him twice. One
time I took a train and then I had to take a bus, and, it was very, very diffi-
cult.” Transportation in Japan was limited after the war, and Americans were
not familiar with the transportation system. Nishikaichi also spoke with a
cousin while in Japan: “I don’t think she knew my father, but my father be-
fore he married, had been sending money to her family. She told me that her
younger brothers and sisters would not have any feelings or any memory of it
but she remembered. She said that anytime they had problems and were in
trouble, my father came through for them.”
Fuchida, too, visited her uncle while in Japan: “I went to see my relatives
down in Beppu. My mother’s older brother and family were [there]. . . . We
met all of her family that was left.” Harada, on the other hand, was unable to
visit her family on her initial tour in Japan, since her relatives lived in south-
ern Japan; “At the time, we weren’t allowed to travel that far.” In later years,
Harada’s husband was stationed in Japan, and, Harada said “my uncle, my
130 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

mother’s youngest brother, came to see us in Tokyo, so he was the only one
that I had met.”
For the most part, the women I interviewed remembered that the cordial
atmosphere of the military community made up for the challenges of living
in wartorn Tokyo. The women lived in hotels with maid service; because they
were somewhat secluded, they found ways of entertaining themselves. “We
used to have our own private parties. At the beginning, some enlisted men’s
group might have a dance or something and invite civilian women or some-
thing like that. But, later on it was mostly private parties.”
The women appreciated their overseas assignment. Fuchida, for example,
enjoyed her work and the military community in Tokyo. She met her future
husband, also a MISLS graduate, in General MacArthur’s headquarters.

I think I worked a lot better in Tokyo than anywhere else because it

was so interesting—looking up things in the file and running all over
the place. The servicemen were so happy to see all of us who could
speak English. . . . I had this Japanese face, and a serviceman would
bring out a picture of a blonde and say, “Oh, you remind me of my
wife.” They were really good to us. There was dancing every night in
the officers’ billets, and the Red Cross would have dances. They later
started up a Japanese theater, ballet. All of this started up while we
were there, and very early. I went over in 1946 and stayed two years. I
loved it because everybody was so nice.

Harada was happy to be assigned to Japan, because her husband was stationed
there.

My husband was working in Nigata, which is quite a distance from

Tokyo. Eventually he was transferred to the counterintelligence unit
in Tokyo, and so he was there . . . we could see each other, but we
couldn’t live together at first because they didn’t have living quarters
for dependents. So he lived over there in the men’s quarters and I
lived in the women’s quarters, and we would get together for dinner
and little chats in the evenings. But most of the time we were pretty
busy day and night. We received an apartment about a year after I
arrived there. Our oldest son was born in Tokyo on April 7, 1947.

Although Nishikaichi had no regrets about serving in Japan, and stated

that she “would not have traded that experience for anything,” she felt anx-
ious for most of her tour. Nishikaichi’s parents had only recently been resettled
after their stay in an internment camp, and she was concerned about them:
“I didn’t know what was going on with my parents. Mail service was very, very
bad. They were working as domestics, and I did not get any letters from them
 Service in the Women’s Army Corps 131

for weeks. Being an only child, I had no other way of getting information as
to how they [were], so my morale in that sense was very poor.”

Similarities and Differences:

Nisei Women and Other Women of Color
Up to this point, I have made comparisons between the military experiences
of Nisei women and those of Nisei men and white women. Here, I focus on
how their experiences of joining and serving in the military compare with
those of other women of color.
African American women were the largest and arguably the most stig-
matized racial minority in the United States before and during World War II.
They were inducted into the WAAC at its inception, largely as a result of
previous political struggle. African Americans campaigned for expanded op-
portunities in the U.S. military through the black press, letters to government
officials, and political rallies. While the WAAC was still in its proposal stage,
black political organizations requested that a nondiscriminatory clause be writ-
ten into the resulting law. According to historian Ulysses Lee, “such an amend-
ment was proposed in the Senate . . . and accepted.”34 The War Department,
however, refused this amendment, arguing that black units in fact would be
formed in the WAAC and that an amendment to include a nondiscrimina-
tory clause was unnecessary. Similarly, black political organizations initially
objected to Olveta Culp Hobby’s appointment as director of the WAAC. The
black community felt that Hobby, a Texan, would discriminate against Afri-
can Americans. The political pressure ceased after Hobby appointed forty Af-
rican American women as officer candidates in the first WAAC officer training
class.
Although War Department officials opened the WAAC to African Ameri-
can women from the beginning, it imposed a racial quota of 10 percent and
rigidly enforced a policy of racial segregation. African American women were
forced to serve in segregated units. Accordingly, among the 440 women se-
lected to attend officer training at Fort Des Moines in July 1942, 40 were Af-
rican American. These women were segregated into an all-black platoon; they
trained, dined, socialized, and were billeted in areas separate from their white
counterparts. Many of these women were well educated and entered the mili-
tary with professional skills. Yet, due to the stigma placed on their race, they
were often assigned menial work.
For example, all of the African American enlisted women stationed at
Camp Breckenridge, Kentucky, initially were assigned to clean and do laundry,
simply because they were black. After these women rebelled, and a request
132 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

was made that the commander of the WAAC Training Command launch an
inspection, the women were reassigned according to their skills.35
Similarly, in 1945, four African American Wacs were court-martialed,
convicted, and dishonorably discharged for refusing to obey a direct order to
do orderly work at Lovell General Hospital, Fort Devens.36 The court-martial
was voided after Congressmen Emanuel Celler, Vito Marcantonio, and Adam
Clayton Powell launched an investigation. Referring to the African Ameri-
can Wacs in this case, an article in the Washington Post stated:
They felt, and with some justification, that they had been made
victims of racial discrimination. They had been assigned to menial
work as hospital orderlies. A colonel, one of them testified, had
refused to let them perform more advanced duties to which white
Wacs were assigned because “I don’t want black Wacs as medical
technicians in this hospital. I want them to scrub and do the dirty
work.” When along with 50 other colored girls, they refused to carry
on their duties, General Miles personally ordered them back to their
jobs. It was for refusal to obey this order that the four girls brought
before the court-martial were sentenced to a year at hard labor and
dishonorable discharge from the Army. . . . The disobedience in this
instance stemmed from considerations involving the essential self-
respect and human dignity of the four girls concerned.37

It was further stated in the article that morale in the Women’s Army Corps
would be strengthened “by a thorough investigation of the charges made
against the colonel in command of the hospital at which the four Wacs served.
There is no room for racial discrimination among the men and women who
wear the uniform of the United States.”38
The institutional racism directed against blacks in the military, such as
the policy of racial segregation, created an atmosphere that encouraged indi-
vidual acts of racial discrimination. The personal racism of the colonel at
Lovell General Hospital in the incident described above is one of many docu-
mented examples of racism in the WAC during World War II.39 Such ex-
amples were not the case for Nisei Wacs, because they were assigned to
integrated units according to skill. This racially integrated military environ-
ment fostered equality of treatment.
To be sure, there were isolated acts of racism directed against Nisei Wacs.
Among the women I interviewed, Ruth Fujii was discriminated against by the
colonel she worked for at Camp Hood. In addition, Stacey Hirose documented
that Sue Ogata Kato was a target of hostility by a Euro-American Wac whose
brother died in combat against Japan. Further, Hirose documented that, dur-
ing basic training, a Nisei woman was severely beaten by a group of women
 Service in the Women’s Army Corps 133

because of her Japanese heritage.40 However, according to the statements of

the women I interviewed, these isolated cases were the exception and not the
norm.
The racial segregation policy in the WAAC/WAC was directed exclu-
sively at African Americans. All other minority women, including Native
American women and other women of Asian descent, were scattered through
ordinary WAC units according to skill.41 The only exception was a group of
Puerto Ricbæ Wacs who were enlisted, trained, and assigned as a unit because
they did not speak English. In Puerto Rico, the WAC was authorized to en-
list up to two hundred women. On October 6, 1944, fifty-one enlisted Puerto
Rican women traveled from the island to Miami, and were then transported
to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, for basic training;42 two weeks later, a second
shipment of fifty Wacs from Puerto Rico traveled to the mainland. All other
women of Hispanic descent, however, according to army historian Mattie
Treadwell, served in racially integrated units with white Wacs.43
Although Nisei women were at first barred from serving in the U.S. mili-
tary, such restrictions were not placed on women of other Asian groups. As
mentioned above, the social status of other Asian Americans improved dur-
ing World War II as Asian countries became allies of the United States. Some
Chinese American women, such as Marietta (Chong) Eng, and Nymphia
(Yok) Taliaferro, served in the navy as WAVES.44 Japanese American women,
by contrast, were not accepted into the navy at all during World War II. Af-
rican American women were not accepted into the WAVES until November
1944, after political protest by blacks. By 1945, two African American offic-
ers and seventy-two enlisted women had joined the WAVES.45
Before the first Nisei woman was inducted into the WAC, Chinese Ameri-
can women such as Corporal Helen M. Lee, who joined in August 1943, served
as Chinese translators at Lowry Army Air Field in California. Helen (Toy)
Nakashima and Jit Wong served with the Army Air Force. At least two
Chinese American women, Maggie Gee and Hazel (Ying) Lee, served as mem-
bers of the Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASP), ferrying planes from
factories to air bases.46 Neither Japanese nor African American women were
ever accepted into the WASP.
Filipino American women worked with the indigenous underground re-
sistance movement to assist American forces in the Philippines throughout
the war. They smuggled food and medicine to American prisoners of war, and
provided intelligence to both the Filipino and the American forces.47 Among
these women was Florence (Ebersole) Smith Finch, who worked with the un-
derground movement and was arrested and tortured by Japanese soldiers. She
returned to the United States after being liberated by American forces, and
134 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

joined the Coast Guard SPAR. Finch was the first SPAR to receive the Asian-
Pacific Campaign ribbon, which she received for her service in the Philip-
pines; after the war she was awarded the civilian United States Medal of
Freedom. Another Filipino American woman, Josefina V. Geurrero, worked
with the underground movement and also received a Medal of Freedom after
the war.
Even though other Asian American women were not denied entry into
the armed services, their representation in the active-duty armed services was
low. There is no available documentation that reveals just how many Chi-
nese, Korean, and Filipino women served in the military. At this point, one
can only hypothesize that, given the burning desire to prove their loyalty to
the United States, Japanese American women served in greater numbers than
women of Chinese, Korean, or Filipino descent.
All Japanese American women serving in the WAC were of enlisted ranks;
there were no officers among them. There is no historical document that re-
veals why this was the case. However, given the racial climate of the time,
one can speculate that the War Department did not want to place Nisei Wacs
in positions superordinate to white Wacs. By contrast, there were African
American Wac officers specifically to lead black segregated units.
The only Nisei women officers in the military during World War II served
in the Army Medical Corps.
 Commissions in the Army Medical Corps 135

Commissions in the
Chapter 6 Army Medical Corps
The Army’s obligation to care for the civilian populations
caught up in the aftermath of the fighting was a new
dimension of warfare. . . . They needed a medical team
whose scientific specialty officers not only supported
soldiers in combat but could enable the United States to
prosecute the peace. Those officers were indispensable in
providing medical support for refugees uprooted by
combat action and for people in areas liberated from the
Axis Powers.
—The History of the U.S.
Army Medical Service Corps1

W OMEN WHO SERVED as army nurses and physicians differed from those who
served in the WAC: they were college graduates, entering the military from
established civilian professions. All nurses and eventually all physicians re-
ceived commissions (officer status) upon entering the armed services. Most
American women serving in the medical field were nurses; in the 1940s few
entered as doctors. Service as a military doctor during World War II was even
more of a rarity for U.S. women. According to the Bureau of the Census, in
1940 there were approximately 165 thousand physicians and surgeons in the
United States; only seven thousand (or 4.6 percent) were women.2 Although
some nine female physicians were serving with the WAAC in March 1943,
women were not commissioned as medical doctors in the Army Medical Corps
until April of that year.
The initial gender restriction on the assignment of female physicians and

135
136 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

surgeons was heavily challenged, because women doctors were called to serve
with military units without adequate compensation. Two bills were introduced
in the House of Representatives to address this issue. New York Congressman
Emanuel Celler introduced H.R. 824 to amend Public Law 252 with regard
to the temporary appointment of officers in the army. Public Law 252 was a
bill to authorize temporary appointments of officers in the Army of the United
States. The War Department had interpreted the words person and persons in
Public Law 252 to refer only to men. H.R. 824 proposed to change the words
person and persons, wherever they appeared in the statute, to read man and
woman and men and women, thereby authorizing the War Department to ap-
point female physicians as officers.
While H.R. 824 was being introduced, Alabama Congressman John J.
Sparkman introduced H.R. 1857, proposing that licensed women physicians
and surgeons be appointed in the medical departments of the army and navy.
The Sparkman Bill proposed further that:

Those appointments shall be commissioned in the Army of the

United States or the Naval Reserve, and shall receive the same pay
and allowances and be entitled to the same rights, privileges, and
benefits as members of the Officers’ Reserve Corps of the Army and
the Naval Reserve of the Navy with the same grade and length of
service: Provided, That female physicians and surgeons appointed
under this Act shall only be assigned to duty in hospitals or other
stations where female nurses are employed.3

In March 1943, the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Military

Affairs held three days of hearings on these proposed bills. Among those who
testified was a War Department official, Lieutenant Colonel C. J. Hauck of
the Legislative and Liaison Division. Hauck testified that the War Depart-
ment had no objections to assigning a woman physician to any duty for which
she was professionally qualified. For administrative purposes, however, the War
Department assigned those women to the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps
(WAAC). Hauck stated that the nine women physicians serving in the mili-
tary were accepted to work as contract surgeons before they were appointed
to the WAAC. They had completed WAAC training at Fort Des Moines and
subsequently were commissioned in the WAAC.
Many other points were made at the congressional hearings. Commission
in the WAAC did not give a woman physician wartime rating. Additionally,
in March 1943, female physicians employed by the U.S. military were not as-
signed to the Medical Corps and were not given the same classification as
their male counterparts. Several testimonies illustrated the negative conse-
 Commissions in the Army Medical Corps 137

quences of thus excluding female physicians. Congressman Celler pointed out

that the niece of the Secretary of War, Dr. Barbara Stimson, was a distinguished
physician whose application for commission as a doctor in the U.S. military
was rejected because of the narrow interpretation of Public Law 252. Conse-
quently she went to Great Britain, was accepted into the British armed ser-
vices as a physician, and at the time of the hearings, was a major in the British
army.
Dr. Emily Dunning Barringer was a fellow of the American College of
Surgeons, a member of the House of Delegates of the American Medical As-
sociation, and chairperson of a special committee of the American Medical
Women’s Association, which was organized specifically to secure commissions
for women physicians in the army and navy. In her sworn statement before
the House subcommittee, Dr. Barringer spoke of a woman physician who had
trained as an anesthetist and had been in practice for fifteen years before she
was called by the War Department to work in a military camp (because there
was a shortage of anesthetists at this camp). Dr. Barringer stated:
In one of the military camps there was a shortage of anesthetists, and
this physician was asked to give anesthesia. She was employed on a
non–civil service basis, and was not even offered a contract surgeon
appointment, but was classified as a special technician. . . . [She
worked] a 48-hour week with a salary of $150 a month, out of which
she must pay her own living expenses. She was allowed to buy her
own gasoline at Army prices and pay for her own lunches in the
officers’ mess hall at 22 cents a day. In addition to giving anesthesia to
the military patients, she was instructor to groups of corpsmen, who
take a three months course in anesthesia. . . . As to insurance, she
received only compensation insurance while on the grounds. She
wears no uniform and has no rank. . . . If this woman physician were a
member of the Medical Corps, she would undoubtedly be a major.4
Dr. Barringer stated further that female physicians did not receive any of the
military benefits that their male counterparts enjoyed. Unlike male physicians
assigned to the Army Medical Corps, female physicians working in the mili-
tary did not receive military quarters, food, or medical benefits.
Dr. Frank Howard Lahey, chairman of the procurement and assignment
division of the War Manpower Commission, was one of many to testify at these
hearings. His agency was responsible for obtaining medical personnel for the
armed forces. Dr. Lahey illustrated that women physicians, surgeons, and vet-
erinarians were critically needed in the military:
There are . . . 43,000 doctors in the Army now. . . . If we continue
according to the Army tables of organization, which are one and
138 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

one-half doctors per thousand, one and one-half dentists, and 0.75
veterinarians, we would about use up our supply of active doctors. It
seems to me that we will need women doctors, and we will need them,
I believe, very seriously. We will get to a place where, I believe, if this
goes on 2 or 3 years longer, we will really literally be scraping the
bottom of the barrel for doctors.5

Shortly after these hearings, there was a change in the policy of exclud-
ing female physicians and surgeons from the medical corps. According to the
U.S. Congressional Record, H.R. Bill 1857, the act providing for the appoint-
ment of female physicians and surgeons in the medical corps, reached joint
resolution and became Public Law 38 on April 16, 1943. This law approved
the appointment of female physicians in the Army and Navy Medical Corps
for the duration of the war plus six months.6 Dr. Margaret Craighill, dean of
the Woman’s Medical College in Philadelphia, was awarded the rank of ma-
jor and became the first female officer in the Army Medical Corps.7 Accord-
ing to an article published in the July 1943 issue of The Military Surgeon, Dr.
Craighill was assigned to the Surgeon General’s office with the responsibility
of supervising the health care administered to the WAAC.8
As recorded in the notes of Surgeon General Raymond Bliss, and later
in the journal Military Medicine, some 75 women physicians were serving with
the Army Medical Corps before the end of the war.9 This estimate is lower
than that of Esther Lovejoy, who in 1957 documented that 180 female doc-
tors served as officers in the Medical Corps of the United States Army and
Navy, and more than 20 in the Public Health Service during the war. In any
case, the representation of women in the Medical Corps was low.
These women physicians ranged in rank from first lieutenant to lieuten-
ant colonel.10 Four were assigned to the 239th General Hospital, an infec-
tious hepatitis center in France, from 1944 to 1945. Captain Jessie Reid of
New Jersey was the hospital’s chief of general surgery. Captain Bronislava
Reznik of Chicago worked in otolaryngology. A Captain Seno, a graduate of
Wisconsin Medical Center without a specialty, was assigned to general ward
duty. Lieutenant Colonel Clara Raven was assigned as chief of laboratory
service.11
The massive mobilization by the United States for World War II placed
an unprecedented demand on the army’s medical department. Documents from
the Center of Military History reveal that more than 11 million men and
women served in the army during the war, with a peak of 8.3 million in 1945.
Army personnel served in eleven theaters of operation, and often were ex-
posed to disorders unknown to medical professionals in the United States. Dis-
eases such as malaria, typhoid, jungle rot, hookworm, typhus, dysentery,
 Commissions in the Army Medical Corps 139

smallpox, meningitis, tuberculosis, dengue fever, and Japanese encephalitis

were breaking out in epidemic proportions. To meet the increasing medical
needs, the Army Medical Department expanded its military and civilian per-
sonnel to approximately 800 thousand.12
Army nurses and physicians were among the medical professionals in-
tensely sought by the War Department. Still, in spite of the shortage of per-
sonnel in these occupations, racial and gender restrictions placed limits on
the involvement of Nisei women. During the first two years of the war, Nisei
medical professionals were denied entry.

The Army Nurse Corps

The Army Nurse Corps (ANC) became a permanent part of the Medical De-
partment under the Army Reorganization Act, passed by Congress in 1901.
It reached its all-time peak strength of fifty-two thousand during World War
II, while Colonel Florence A. Blanchfield was superintendent.13 Although
nurses were appointed in the regular army, they were given only relative rank—
that is, they were not actually commissioned as army officers. They wore the
insignia of their grade, but they were denied the pay associated with that grade,
a decision made by the comptroller general—until 1944.14
Like the WAAC, the ANC segregated African American women, inte-
grated most Asian American women, and temporarily excluded Nisei women.
The ANC was still closed to African American women applicants in 1940;
the few African American women who had served in the ANC during World
War I were released immediately after the war. When questioned about the
omission of African American nurses in 1940, Surgeon General of the U.S.
Army Medical Corps James C. Magee stated that it was “impracticable” to
employ them in time of peace.15
This sentiment was challenged politically by the National Association
of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN). Political pressure, coupled with the
growing need for African American nurses to staff racially segregated wards
in military hospitals, forced the ANC to recruit African American women.16
By the summer of 1941, twenty-two African American women had become
members of the corps. They served in racially segregated wards at Fort Bragg,
North Carolina; Camp Livingston, Louisiana; and Fort Huachuca, Arizona.
Some of these women were deployed overseas. Prudence Burns Burrell
was assigned to the all-black 268th Station Hospital at Fort Huachuca, Ari-
zona, and later was deployed to Australia with 14 other African American
nurses. In a published interview, Burrell stated: “We sailed from San Francisco
on the SS Monterey on October 15, 1943, without a convoy. For two days we
140 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

were escorted by a Navy blimp and destroyer. After zig-zagging across the Pa-
cific, we arrived in Sidney, Australia, eighteen days later. After orientations,
the nurses were sent by train to a women’s staging area (WACO) in Brisbane,
while construction was underway on our hospital in Milne Bay, New Guinea.”17
Thirty African American nurses also were deployed to Liberia in 1943, to treat
the African American male troops stationed there. The following year, some
63 African American nurses were assigned to the 168th Station Hospital in
Warrington, England, and later to the 10th Station Hospital, where German
prisoners of war were treated; Mary L. Petty of Chicago, who served at Fort
Huachuca, Fort Bragg, and Tuskegee, Alabama, before being deployed to En-
gland, was the nurses’ supervisor.18 By August 1945, the number of African
American nurses had increased to 479, or 1 percent of the entire ANC.19
In contrast to African American women, Chinese American women,
though few in number, were eligible for appointment in the ANC without
racial restrictions. Helen Pon Onyett, for example, a Chinese American
woman from Connecticut, served in North Africa during the war.20 The bar-
ring of Nisei women at the onset of the war, however, meant that those Nisei
women who volunteered for the ANC in 1942 were rejected.
Mary Yamada is a case in point. After the United States declared war on
Japan, she applied for the Army Nurse Corps. When she tried to join with
the Bellevue group, she was rejected:

I was serving as an afternoon supervisor of the entire building, and I

was listening to what was happening in Pearl Harbor. . . . The
following day I went to my alumni association office to volunteer.
And that is when the whole thing started that I was not going to be
joining the Bellevue group. . . . I never had any question in my mind;
I just expected [that] if there was a war, that was part of my nursing
career to serve and report for duty . . . I expected to go with the
Bellevue unit to England, ’cause that was where they were stationed
for World War II. . . . But I was still trying to get in [the ANC] when
volunteers were [returning home from overseas duty].

In September 1942, Yamada wrote to the Office of the Surgeon General re-
questing admittance to the Army Nurse Corps. A few days later she received
the following letter, signed by ANC superintendent Blanchfield, denying her
entry:

In reply to your letter of September 3, you are advised that we are

sorry to inform you that nurses of Japanese parentage are not eligible
for assignment with the Army Nurse Corps. Although your individual
loyalty to the United States is not questioned, the War Department
 Commissions in the Army Medical Corps 141

does not permit a deviation from this policy. Your tender of service is
sincerely appreciated, and it is regretted that circumstances preclude a
more favorable reply.21

Thus Yamada initially was denied entry into the ANC solely because of
her racial identity. Not accepting “no” for an answer:
I kept writing . . . The day after Pearl Harbor I expressed my desire to
become a member of the Bellevue Hospital unit for overseas duty. It
took over three years after that before I was commissioned a second
lieutenant in the Army of the United States for assignment to the
Army Nurse Corps. And during that time I wrote many letters to
many people in offices. [After a negative reply] I wrote again, and to
my letter of February 5, 1943, I received a letter dated February 11.
“We regret very much that we have not received authority to assign
nurses of Japanese heritage to duty in the Army Nurse Corps and we
have placed your name on file and plan on if, . . . ” and blah, blah like
that.

On February 21, 1943, the Office of the Surgeon General informed

Yamada that she was now eligible to apply for duty in the Army Nurse Corps.
The letter, signed by Captain Pearl C. Fisher, stated:
Today we have received authority to assign qualified Japanese nurses
who hold American Citizenship to duty in the Army Nurse Corps.
We are enclosing the necessary blanks. Please fill them out very
carefully and send them to the American Red Cross as instructed.22
Although Yamada had received authorization to apply to the ANC, she
had not been scheduled to take a physical examination. “At that time” she
said, “I was able to contact someone in the personnel division in New York
City, and she gave me a letter of authority for a physical examination.” Fi-
nally, on June 18, 1943, Yamada took her physical, but, as she explained, “I
had to keep contacting different people to see where I stood. . . . I think it
pays to do things because I noticed [that] when I had written something, about
two weeks later I would get a reply.”
At last, on February 12, 1945, Yamada received a letter from the Army
Service Forces stating:
The report of your recent physical examination has been reviewed
and although you have been found physically qualified for appoint-
ment to the Army Nurse Corps, an administrative delay in final
processing is anticipated since certification of your professional
qualifications has not as yet been received from the American Red
Cross. Upon receipt of clearance by the American Red Cross, the
142 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

form for your oath of office will be mailed to you and when it is
returned to this office completely executed, the official notification of
your appointment will be sent to you and orders placing you on active
duty, on or about the date you have specified, will be issued.

Yamada remained vigilant and completed all of the forms necessary for her
oath after she received clearance by the American Red Cross. As instructed,
she returned all of the forms to the Army Service Forces on Governors Is-
land, and awaited a reply. In March, just five months before the end of the
war, she received notification that she had been appointed and commissioned
a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps:

By direction of the President you are temporarily appointed and

commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Army of the United States,
effective this date [March 27, 1945] for assignment to the Army Nurse
Corps. . . . This commission will continue in force during the pleasure
of the President of the United States for the time being, and for the
duration of the war and six months thereafter unless sooner termi-
nated. This letter should be retained by you as evidence of your
appointment as no commissions will be issued during the war. By
command of Major General Terry.23

“On March 28,” Yamada recalled, “I received a telephone call to report

to Whitehall Street in New York to take the oath. I was sworn in on March
30, 1945, and a press conference was arranged for April 5. . . . And so I fi-
nally got in. I went into the Army on May 1.”
Yamada went to basic training at Tilton General Hospital at Fort Dix,
New Jersey. Independent of the Women’s Army Corps, the Army Nurse Corps
established centers in which new army nurses were oriented to the military.
The entire training lasted approximately four weeks and consisted of 144 hours
of instruction. Like Wacs, army nurses were taught military customs and
courtesy, and the care of military equipment and uniforms. Also like Wacs,
army nurses were drilled and underwent physical training. In addition, they
received training in military sanitation and ward management. A former army
nurse, Retired Colonel Mary Sarnecky, reported that the training course later
was expanded to include defense against chemical, air, parachute, and mecha-
nized attacks. Army nurses also were eventually trained to “dig a fox hole,
use camouflage, read maps, pitch tents, and advance under a barrage of enemy
shell fire.”24
After completing basic training, Yamada was assigned to Halloran Gen-
eral Hospital on Staten Island for permanent duty. She wanted to serve over-
seas, however:
 Commissions in the Army Medical Corps 143

Every time a piece of paper went up on the wall requesting volunteers

for overseas duty, I signed up ’cause I wanted to go overseas. It didn’t
matter to me where I was going to go, I just wanted to go overseas. It
just didn’t seem fair to me that my friends could go from Hawaii to the
U.S. [mainland] . . . and the furthest I got was to Staten Island.

Although few Nisei nurses were serving in the ANC, Yamada learned that
another Nisei nurse was stationed at Halloran Hospital while she was there:

I was at Little Brook General Hospital. I went there after my basic

training; at that time it was called Halloran General Hospital. I was
on day duty, and there was a Japanese [American] nurse who was the
night nurse. I don’t remember the first thing about her because we
had no time to talk. . . . I didn’t see any Japanese outside of this
person. Her name was Toshito Hirata. I was there on day duty, she was
on night duty, so I didn’t see her.

On January 22, 1946, Yamada was promoted to first lieutenant and was trans-
ferred from Halloran Hospital back to Fort Dix, where she had received her
basic training a few months earlier.

I was an instructor in the medical training school. And at that time, I

met another Japanese [American] nurse. . . . We were both teaching
in the medical training school. Her name was Yae Togasaki, and then
she married a Mr. Breightenbach. I remember that her family had
many doctors. Her sister was a practicing physician.

After serving as an instructor at the medical technical training school,

Yamada was assigned as the assistant director of the U.S. Senior Cadet Nurse
School. The Cadet Nurse Corps had been organized in June 1943 in an effort
to provide more nurses for the war effort. Frances Payne Bolton, congress-
woman from Ohio, introduced the legislation authorizing the corps; President
Roosevelt signed the bill into law on June 15, 1943.25 The U.S. Public Health
Service subsidized the educational expenses of enrolled student nurses, who
in return made a nonbinding promise to serve in a military or civilian nurs-
ing role for the duration of the war.26
There were some Nisei women among the cadet nurses. Ruth Tanaka,
for example, entered cadet training after leaving the Manzanar Relocation
Center and received her initial training at Children’s Hospital in Denver; in
September 1945, she was assigned to Glockner Hospital in Colorado Springs.27
In the final analysis, Yamada stated, she did not go into the military for
material gain. She was motivated by knowing that she was rendering a neces-
sary service:
144 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

I went in with nothing special in mind—what this [was] going to do

for me. I wasn’t interested in promotions or ranks or anything like
that. I didn’t know the first thing about that. But looking over my
records today, I notice what the colonel had written [then]. . . . He
wrote that my abilities were excellent and whatever I did was
excellent. So I know I did all right.

Yamada added that she went into the ANC “because to me it was just an ex-
tension of what I was doing every day. I never gave a second thought about
going in. I went because I wanted to go.”
One regret Yamada expressed about her active duty in the military is that
she was not accepted for service earlier:

I’m sorry that I couldn’t have gotten in earlier. I don’t know who I
might have helped. I remember talking with certain young men; one
man had to have surgery. He had to have an amputation and he didn’t
want to. I remember consoling him, and thought that if I had been in
service sooner I could have consoled more people maybe, or just
listened to them if nothing else.

Perhaps another disappointment for Yamada was that she never received the
overseas assignment she had hoped for:
I never got to go overseas. . . . I stayed at Fort Dix and was charge
nurse of the medical ward. I was also assistant to the chief nurse, and I
would make my rounds at Tilton General as well as at the hospital
annex. . . . When we served night duty we served from seven to seven,
thirty-one nights with no days off. So that was all I did during the war.
I was still there at Fort Dix during VJ Day.

Although the exact number of Nisei women in the ANC is unknown,

only a few served during the war. Like their Chinese American counterparts,
Nisei women served in units with white nurses.

A Nisei Woman Physician Who Became a U.S. Army Captain

When Dr. Yoshike Togasaki set out to join the United Nations Relief and Re-
habilitation Administration (UNRRA) toward the end of the war, she had
no idea that she would soon become a captain in the U.S. Army. In an inter-
view conducted by the Japanese American Historical Society in 1985, Togasaki
stated:
I volunteered to go to the Rehabilitation Program for Refugees on the
basis that with my experience of medical [practice], as well as with
 Commissions in the Army Medical Corps 145

persons in camps, I would be more effective and more useful to the

refugees there than another person just plucked out of a university
and sent over there, directly out of a middle class environment. . . .
When I went to Washington to volunteer, I didn’t expect to be in
uniform because this is a civilian organization, but it seems that all
the medical staff from the United States specifically had to be military
or they could not serve.

The UNRRA was an international agency established in November 1943

to administer aid to populations in countries devastated by the war.28 Mil-
lions of people throughout Europe and Asia had been displaced as war vic-
tims. Representatives of forty-four united and associated nations met at the
White House and signed an agreement to contribute funds and services to
the relief effort in Europe, China, other Far Eastern countries, and the islands
of the Pacific. The scope and functions of the agency were outlined as follows:
UNRRA is a service agency, which is authorized by the member
nations to operate during the military period specifically at the
request of the military and when the military period is over, at the
request of, and in agreement with, the national authorities of liber-
ated nations. . . . All members whether or not they have been
invaded, will contribute, in varying degree, to the administrative
expenses of the organization.29

The UNRRA provided relief in the form of money, food, clothing and tex-
tiles, agricultural rehabilitation, medical supplies and services, and other
welfare services. Among the administration’s many health services, an epi-
demiological center was established to assist the health services of liberated na-
tions to prevent the spread of epidemics aggravated by the movement of
displaced persons back to their homelands.
The UNRRA Training Center was located on the campus of the Uni-
versity of Maryland at College Park. The basic training program was approxi-
mately six weeks long and was followed by an advanced program. The training
consisted of intensive work in language, regional study, UNRRA organization
and policy, policies and procedures in the field, and field planning and field
operation. A special orientation program was designed for thirty-five Chinese
technical experts selected by the U.S. government to work toward rehabili-
tating China by employing modern techniques in medicine, flood control, ag-
riculture, and welfare.30 Frances Berkeley Floore, a dietician at the UNRRA
Training Center in 1944, described her experience:
I was the only dietician at the UNRRA Training Center although
there were many nurses, doctors, engineers, sanitarians, and countless
146 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

numbers of welfare workers. The scope of our UNRRA work was far
more challenging than any of us had realized. There were twelve
million refugees to be fed, housed, clothed, and later resettled or
repatriated in whatever was left of their former homeland. Our
indoctrination, which had an intensity and seriousness never before
encountered in any classes I had attended, made us thoroughly
cognizant of the devastating aftermath of war. . . . It was a disquieting
experience, geared to take away any self-complacency we might have
felt and to weed out any who doubted their ability to withstand the
pressure.31

Togasaki was commissioned with the rank of captain before deploying to

Italy, where she served as a medical doctor in refugee camps with the UNRRA.
“By the time I left for Italy,” she said, “Governor [Herbert] Lehman [of New
York] had finished his term and was the governor-general for UNRRA.” The
agreement signed by the nations establishing the UNRRA called for a gov-
erning council. On November 11, 1943, the council opened its first session
in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Lehman was elected director general of the coun-
cil and assumed office. Togasaki added, “Because the war was still going on
and we were going into war territory. . . . I had to accept a commission in the
United States Public Health Service . . . [W]ithin six weeks or so, that shifted
from U.S. Public Health Service into full Army, and so I was commissioned
as a captain in the U.S. Army and then sent over[seas].”32
Togasaki was deployed to Europe in a Liberty Ship convoy, which took
twenty-eight days to reach Italy:
Just about the time we passed Gibraltar, V-E Day was declared. And so
when we landed in Naples, the European war was over. . . . There was
no longer any activity of war in Italy. . . They were rapidly dissolving
prisoner of war camps, especially in south Italy, and using the facilities
for the refugees. . . . They were housing these people in what is known
as villas that the Italians had down in these little seaside resorts.”

Togasaki recalled further:

By the time I was there the group known as the Southern Italian
group consisted of six different displaced persons camps with head-
quarters in this province of Lecce, which was the southernmost
province in the heel of Italy, across from Greece and Albania,
Yugoslavia, etc. At the beginning there were all varieties of refugees—
Yugoslavs, Hungarians, Austrians, etc. Very quickly the various
nationals were sent back to their homes as they requested, and what
was left were central European refugees who were from Poland,
Germany, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and there were Jewish
 Commissions in the Army Medical Corps 147

[refugees]. . . . Later on, within two or three months, carloads . . . of

concentration camp people were sent down to us.33

At the beginning of her tour, Togasaki was a medical officer, assistant to the
chief. There were only two American medical doctors and a few American
nurses, as well as doctors and nurses from other countries. According to
Togasaki, “It was a polygot, I assure you. You couldn’t even have a staff meet-
ing because it was a matter of eight or nine languages.” Togasaki revealed that
one of the European doctors:
was so offended that a woman was in charge that he refused to make
rounds when I got there. I decided, when you get these macho men,
it’s no use to argue with them, they are going to retaliate in one form
or another. The more you do, the more they do. The best thing to do
is to ignore them, so I would go around and see the patients to make
sure everything was okay.34

Togasaki also spoke of a shortage of qualified physicians. A Belgian psy-

chiatrist was working in one of the refugee camps, which was directed by an
American sergeant:
The sergeant was excellent, but . . . this guy . . . was a psychiatrist, and
he was giving psychiatric therapy, which was extremely necessary, very
helpful, but [when] a little baby [was] dying of diarrhea, dehydrated, it
[psychiatry] was no use. Or to a young girl . . . [whose lungs were
filling up with fluid], also no good. The parents would worry all
night. . . . and I would see these problems. When [I was] there, it was
fine. But I would get into those camps at the most three times a
week. . . . So when the chief colonel came down from Rome I said,
“Look, I understand why you people send these medical directors
down to these places, but I can’t be responsible for the patients if
these are the kinds of people you send me.” Lo and behold, on his
next visit, [he fired the psychiatrist]. I was getting it in the neck from
the population because this wonderful psychiatrist was no longer
there.35

Togasaki left Italy at the end of October, 1945, and reached California in No-
vember: “I went down to the State Department of Public Health, and I was
offered a job then and there to start the next day.”
Togasaki was one of the most senior ranking Nisei woman in uniform at
that time. None of the Nisei Wacs were officers, and Nisei nurses were as-
signed the rank of lieutenant. The highest-ranking Nisei women in uniform
were medical doctors, but the number of Nisei women who served in this ca-
pacity during the war remains unknown.
148 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

Chapter 7 The Postwar Years

After I got out of the military I went back to work at Del
Monte; they gave me leave while I was in the service.
When I returned, my boss told me that he needed a
secretary and told me to get a degree. I went to business
school in Honolulu, got a degree, and worked at Del
Monte for twenty-nine and a half years.
—Alice Kono

I N THEORY, war has the ability to reorder society. Cynthia Enloe argued that,
during periods of war, nations often call upon the services of groups ordinarily
excluded from full participation in society due to ethnic difference.1 In a simi-
lar way, war affects gender relations by changing the role of women.2 In their
article “The Social Impact of War,” John Modell and Timothy Haggerty as-
serted that service in World War II provided many soldiers with the basis for
transforming their civilian roles, by providing large numbers with experiences
in organizational roles they otherwise would not have:3
Not only must new members for the military (with particular skills or
capacities) be secured from the civilian population, but new . . . paths
must be devised within the military for filling critical roles that
cannot be filled laterally from the civilian population. Recruitment,
training, transfer, and promotion within the military, as well as
changes in war itself, are highly consequential for the structuring of
military forces and military careers, and thus for the impact war will
have when hostilities are over.4

148
 The Postwar Years 149

Throughout this book, I have discussed the implications of historical

events on the lives of Nisei servicewomen. In this chapter, I focus on the ef-
fects on their lives of military service. I employ a life course analysis, more
specifically the concept of “subjective turning points,” to guide my discussion.5
Glen Elder Jr., Cynthia Gimbel, and Rachel Ivie have defined turning points
in the following way: “Dramatic changes in life histories represent turning
points that separate the past from the future; people refer to themselves in
terms of who they were before and after the event.”6 These authors have listed
ten reasons that military service was a turning point for men in their study.
In order of nomination frequency, these reasons were: maturity, education,
travel and adventure, independence, altered view of life, life disruption, [meet-
ing of] spouse, altered view of death, career, and leadership.7
What were some global changes in society following World War II, and
how did these changes affect Nisei servicewomen? Did military service help
the Nisei to achieve citizenship rights? Do Nisei women veterans now per-
ceive the military to have been a turning point in their lives? If so, are the
reasons they give similar to those found by the men in Elder, Gimbel, and
Ivie’s study? These questions are addressed below.

Race and Gender Changes Affecting

the Lives of Nisei Women Veterans
No discussion about the effects of military service on Nisei women’s postwar
lives would be complete without considering the changes taking place in
America’s gender and racial climate at the time; just as in the prewar years,
Nisei women’s life chances were affected by both gender and racial trends.
For women, the wartime emergency lowered traditional barriers and altered
their role as homemaker. Women, including many who were married, found
themselves outside the home, working in heavy manufacturing plants, earn-
ing more money, and exercising more freedom than in the past. Although most
of these female beneficiaries of higher wages were Caucasian, some African
American women were able to enter jobs in manufacturing for the first time.
Still, as Maureen Honey observed, “women found themselves at the end
of the war in nearly the same discriminatory situation they had faced prior
to Pearl Harbor.”8 Thousands of civilian women who had made enormous
occupational gains during the wartime labor shortage were laid off after the
war.
As men retired their uniforms and returned to their civilian occupations,
women were expected to relinquish these jobs willingly and return to their
previous lives as mothers and housewives. Federally funded daycare facilities
150 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

were discontinued, as were the grocery stores, beauty shops, and shoe repair
facilities that some employers had established for the convenience of their
women workers.9 Women who remained in the workforce were forced to ex-
change their nontraditional roles in industry, construction work, and shipbuild-
ing for lower-paying female-dominated jobs. Many of these women expressed
dissatisfaction with being laid off.10
The loss in occupational opportunity experienced by women working in
war industry, however, does not generally reflect the occupational changes ex-
perienced by military women in the postwar years. I would argue that the sce-
nario was somewhat different for the women veterans, particularly those of
color. Unlike women who had remained on the homefront and had worked
in jobs traditionally held by men, most women in the armed services were
assigned to female-dominated occupations. Thus at the end of the war, when
many civilian working women found their occupational gains dismantled, mili-
tary women entering the postwar labor force were being hired (and in some
cases rehired) in occupations that had always been dominated by women.
Postwar changes in race relations are also important in explaining the
opportunities that surfaced for Nisei women veterans. If Caucasian women’s
roles were disrupted by the wartime emergency, the roles of Japanese Ameri-
can women as wife, worker, and mother were upset even more seriously by
mass evacuation. Nisei women could not gain entry into industrial plants dur-
ing the war. Many welcomed the opportunity to enter female-dominated oc-
cupational positions after the war because such jobs often had been closed to
them before. As mentioned in some of the testimonies above, domestic work
was virtually the only job that Nisei women could find during the war. Grace
Harada, for example, joined the WAC because she was tired of working as a
domestic. Therefore, Nisei women veterans often viewed traditional female
occupations as jobs with status.
The postwar years introduced an entirely new economic, social, and po-
litical context for the Nisei. Although some Japanese American stores, res-
taurants, and professionals catered to the Japanese American community, there
was no longer the strong network of Japanese Americans working in agricul-
ture or other services that had existed on the West Coast during the prewar
years.11 Many Japanese American farmers had lost their land during the mass
evacuation; as a result wholesale and retail operations declined after the war.
Not only did Japanese Americans’ farm ownership decrease; so did their
workforce, especially the unpaid family labor in which many Nisei women were
employed before the war. Thus, in the years following World War II, Nisei
women and men who had worked before the war in Japanese American–owned
businesses began to move into skilled and semiskilled occupations in the
 The Postwar Years 151

general economy; they were absorbed by private as well as public agencies,

particularly in civil service positions.12
In addition, the military services of both Nisei women and Nisei men
helped to reduce the prejudice, stereotypes, and racial antagonism directed
toward them in previous years. Postwar economic prosperity provided Nisei
women veterans with occupational, educational, and family choices that had
not existed for them before. A salient theme that runs through all of these
women’s testimonies is that their military service facilitated their goal of at-
taining the American dream. As was true of other racial and ethnic minori-
ties of the postwar era, Nisei women veterans wanted to be a part of the
American mainstream; some remained in the military after the war; most, how-
ever, reentered civilian society to pursue education, career goals, or marriage.

Moving toward Mainstream America

EDUCATION
Miwako Rosenthal left the military after she graduated from the Military In-
telligence Service Language School. She immediately took advantage of the
GI Bill and eventually earned bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in bio-
chemistry and microbiology from the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT).
While studying at IIT, Rosenthal met her husband, a Jewish student who later
became a physician engaged in medical research. Although she had always
been an excellent student, she found physical chemistry quite challenging:
I was number three in science. I went to school with five thousand
[students]; most of them were veterans. I was the only girl, but [the
male students] treated me just like one of them. It was tough, I tell
you . . . I would have failed P Chem [physical chemistry] if my
husband wasn’t there to tutor me because I’d never had that kind of
math. It’s beyond organic chemistry; physical chemistry is very
hard . . . you have to know calculus. I never had calculus, so I was
getting tutored by my husband on calculus and all the problems and
everything. It’s all calculus. I don’t know how I ever got through it.

Irene Nishikaichi used the GI Bill for advanced education immediately

after returning to the United States from Japan; she enrolled in advanced secre-
tarial studies and completed training as a stenotype reporter. Later, Nishikaichi
secured a job as a court reporter. She explained that her military experience
was indeed a crucial point in her life: “The military was a turning point in
my life because it enabled me to get my training as a reporter on the GI Bill.
I don’t think I could have afforded that, especially with the evacuation and
all that. And as a reporter, I was able to make more money than I would have
152 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

simply as a secretary, even a legal secretary. [The military] helped me to do

better economically.”
Similarly, Cherry Shiozawa claimed that her military service “was the best
thing I ever did. . . . Later I made use of California’s veterans loans, and the
GI Bill for education.”13 Shiozawa enrolled in the social service program at
the University of California at Berkeley and received a certificate qualifying
her for employment in the social services department as a counselor.
Hisako Yamashita also took advantage of the educational benefits offered
by the GI Bill:
I enrolled in Columbia University and graduated with a four year
degree. I [did] substitute teaching after I graduated college. . . . and
then I signed up to be a teacher for a year. I taught courses in English
[and] history for seventh and eighth graders and hated it; I had no free
time. . . . I said, “This isn’t for me.” Then I remembered that I had an
English professor at the university. She liked me and my friends and
used to invite us to her home, and talked to us about doing library
work. . . . After deciding that I didn’t like teaching, I decided to enroll
in Columbia’s graduate program to become a librarian. I used the GI
Bill to get my master’s; that’s how I became a librarian.

Each of these women was able to advance economically through the use
of the GI Bill. Indirectly, the U.S. military was an avenue of upward mobility
for them. For those who had attained high levels of education before the war,
there was now the opportunity to work in occupations commensurate with
their education.

WORK
Some of the women interviewed for this study went directly into the labor
force after completing their military commitments. Many who entered the
military from Hawaii returned to the jobs they had held before being inducted.
Alice Kono resumed her employment at Del Monte, a manufacturing com-
pany in Hawaii. She stated, “They gave me leave while I was in the service,
so I came back and continued working for them.” The company needed a sec-
retary and gave Kono additional leave to attend business school under the
GI Bill in Honolulu. Later, she was transferred to San Francisco and worked
there for Del Monte for nearly thirty years, until she retired.
Similarly, Ruth Fujii’s secretarial position at the McKinley School in
Honolulu was held for her while she served in the WAC. She never used the
GI Bill, “because I had to go back to work.” Fujii worked at the school for
slightly over two years before being transferred to the office of the state
superintendent of education.
 The Postwar Years 153

This was not the case on the United States mainland, where Nisei women
veterans usually started new careers after the war. Mary Yamada, who had been
commissioned in the Army as a nurse, abandoned her hopes of becoming a
physician when she returned to civilian society:
I got my appointment with the Board of Education here [in New York
City.] I had my mother then, and I had to spend months trying to find
an apartment for us, I couldn’t go in the direction I was chiefly
interested in. . . . so that was what happened to me. I got out of the
Army and then I wrote my letter of resignation to the Department of
Hospitals and accepted the assignment to the Board of Educa-
tion. . . . That was in teaching. The examination for guidance
counselor came up later. I got my second master’s in 1962, twenty
years after my first one. . . . I took the examination and passed it and
became a guidance counselor.

Dr. Yoshiye Togasaki returned to California in October 1945: “I went to

the State Department of Public Health and was offered a job then and there.”
She worked as a medical officer establishing maternal and child care services.
Later, Togasaki attended Harvard University and earned an advanced degree
in public health. She was subsequently assigned to maternal and child health
care services in Contra Costa County, California. Reflecting on her postwar
work experiences, she concluded:
Everything went smoothly because professionals are professionals;
they are doing their work. So many of the people I worked closely
with were classmates of my sisters or myself and friends of previous
years—enough of a nucleus to support me as I was going through.
Interns that I had trained in Los Angeles were in practice up there in
Chico and Oroville. . . . There was no outspoken antagonism at the
time, and yet I knew all along that around Loomis and Penryn and
throughout that area, there were a lot of strong [anti-Japanese]
expressions, such as burning of barns and throwing of incendiary
bombs into houses . . . of servicemen who had returned. . . . All of
these outlying areas were terribly in need of [health] service. The
nurses and the families were very happy to have me. I didn’t do the
service myself— the specialists did—but I was responsible to see that
things were moving. With it all we managed very well.14
Some Nisei women attributed their success in finding jobs directly to their
military veteran status. Irene Nishikaichi, for example, claimed that her ser-
vice facilitated her efforts in securing employment, not only because she was
able to use the GI Bill to finance her education (see above), but also because
she was able to use the veteran “point” system:
154 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

My veteran’s points helped me to get the job. Veteran points, both

with the city and the state, made a big difference. I trained, and then I
took the civil service exam. Eventually, many years after that, I
obtained a license as a CSR: certified shorthand reporter. I had been
working for quite a number of years before I got that. It wasn’t
necessary for the jobs that I got. If I went into the courts, it would
have been necessary.

Nishikaichi worked for the Los Angeles Police Department for fourteen years
before moving to the State Unemployment Insurance Board; there she worked
for nineteen years as a court reporter: “With the police department I was also
taking statements of witnesses, suspects and victims and . . . other things like
that.” Nishikaichi worked as a state employee until she retired.
Similarly, Cherry Shiozawa secured gainful employment in addition to
educational benefits. She worked in the welfare department of Highland Hos-
pital, Oakland, California, before moving on to supervise a children’s program.
In 1989, when Shiozawa was interviewed by the National Japanese Ameri-
can Historical Society, she claimed that she was enjoying the life of a retiree.
She was involved in a senior citizens’ companion program, and was still liv-
ing in a house purchased with her veteran’s home loan.

FAMILY
For the majority of American women in the 1940s, family roles were central:
“more of them married, they married at younger ages, and they had more chil-
dren [than women in the previous decade].”15 As historian D’Ann Campbell
stated accurately in Women at War with America, “The housewife, not the Wac
or the riveter, was the modal woman.”16 Citing statistics from the Roper-
Fortune Poll, collected in 1943 in Williamstown, Massachusetts, Campbell
reported that 75 percent of American women “preferred the [role of]
housewife . . . over being single with a successful career (6.5 percent) or com-
bining marriage and career (19 percent).”17 Indeed, the average American
woman of the 1940s identified strongly with the roles accompanying marriage
and family.
Some of the Nisei Wacs married soldiers while still on active duty, and
announcements of their wedding vows were published in local newspapers.
Corporal Mildred Tamashiro, for example, married Corporal Steve Uetake
while both were stationed in Minnesota. Tamashiro was a student at the
MISLS; Uetake was an instructor there. After exchanging vows in Septem-
ber 1945, they honeymooned in Chicago for a week and then returned to Fort
Snelling for duty.18 An announcement of their marriage was published in the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Similarly, in December 1945 the Honolulu Star-Bulletin
 The Postwar Years 155

announced the engagement of Corporal Misue Nouichi, a medical Wac sta-

tioned at Fort Des Moines, to Walter Kitagawa of Honolulu, who recently had
been discharged from the 100th infantry.19
Some of the women I interviewed also married while on active duty or
shortly thereafter. After completing her tour with the WAC, Grace Kutaka
married a Nisei serviceman assigned to the 442nd RCT. They subsequently
had three daughters, one of whom served in the U.S. Air Force for four years.
Similarly, Grace Harada and her husband were both assigned to the MISLS
when they married; Harada was a student at the school; her husband was a
Nisei officer assigned there. After the war, both were assigned to duty in Japan.
Ellen Fuchida and her husband, also a Nisei officer, were married in Tokyo.
Both Harada and Fuchida married career army officers and spent most of
their adult years as wives of active-duty officers. Fuchida’s husband was as-
signed to the military intelligence office in Tokyo, where the couple lived for
three tours. Fuchida worked part-time while living in Japan: “The first time I
went [to Japan], I was a civil service worker. The second time we went to To-
kyo, I worked in the security group, G–2. And at that time they asked me to
look at the newspapers every day and cut out articles for the analysts and look
in the file for different things that they needed. It was an interesting job, and
I was promoted to a GS–7.”
Fuchida and her husband started their family in Japan: “I had three chil-
dren over there on three different tours of duty with my husband. Before we
left from there the first time, I had my first daughter. And then I went back
the second time and I had a son. Then I went back the third time and had a
daughter. And then I went back the fourth time and came home with no
more.” Fuchida did not have an opportunity to take advantage of the GI Bill:
“I never had time to go back to school because I was so busy having babies.”
Her husband was on active duty for twenty-six years, and she recalled that
the role of an officer’s wife was very demanding:

I had to entertain a lot most of the time at the house. There would
usually be about thirty or forty people. I’ve done a lot of volunteer
work, mostly in the Red Cross. And I worked in a hospital unit at
Camp Drake [in Japan] during the Vietnam War. I worked with the
Girl Scouts, the Boy Scouts, and all that sort of thing. I went through
the Brownie course twice, with my oldest and my youngest. Then I
had the Cub Scouts in Hawaii, when we were stationed in Hawaii
after my husband got out of the service. He was still working with the
Army, with the same group. . . . I started up my own Girl Scout troop
because I heard that Hawaii is supposed to be a melting pot. But it
really isn’t because all the Japanese are here, and all the Chinese are
156 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

here, and all the Portuguese are here, and all the Caucasians are here.
So I decided to start my own troop and [ethnically] mix up the whole
bunch. I was only there for three years.

Harada’s husband, too, was an officer assigned to the military intelligence

office in Japan. Harada returned to the United States in February 1951, two
years after her oldest son was born, only to return to Japan just months later.
Harada suffered a miscarriage during her second pregnancy and returned home
to the United States during her third: “During my third pregnancy the Ko-
rean War broke out and the doctors were busy and couldn’t care for the de-
pendents anymore. They suggested that I go home.”
Like Fuchida, Harada did not take advantage of the GI Bill; she was “busy
raising a family and being a serviceman’s wife.” Also like Fuchida, she recalled
that the role of a military wife was a major commitment:

I had too many military duties. My husband being an officer, required

me to do certain things. I had to join the women’s club and had to
carry on certain duties. I never worked [outside the home] because,
trying to take care of a family and getting involved in all this other
work, I didn’t have time. I did an awful lot of volunteer work. I did a
lot of Red Cross work in the hospital. I was determined to get into the
medical field, so I worked for seven or eight years doing volunteer
work at a hospital.

Both of Harada’s sons completed college; her older son also served in Viet-
nam. “As a matter of fact,” said Harada, “my husband and son both were over
there at the same time.” Harada’s younger son owns a business in Houston;
he received his B.A. from San Francisco State University and then went on
to Purdue University for his master’s degree.
Fuchida and Harada personified the military wife as described in the so-
cial science literature. Sociologist Morris Janowitz has observed that the mili-
tary wife of the World War II era had duties far beyond child rearing. She
was responsible for participating in the welfare and recreational activities of
the military community.20 As stated by Janowitz:

Many of the welfare and recreational activities of the military

community—to assist newcomers, to help sick wives and children,
etc.—involved active participation of the military wife. She had a
role outside of the household, short of employment in the labor
market. The role may have been limited, formalized, and dull by
standards of “gracious living,” but it was a recognized and accepted
part of the military style of life.21
 The Postwar Years 157

Doreen Drewry Lehr has described the roles of military wives as part of
“the gendered pattern of U.S. military culture” fostering a double standard.22
She argues that the labor of wives has been exploited by the military:
The public’s lack of knowledge about military culture allowed the
military to maintain the traditional role of the military wife well
beyond the time when women in the larger society were expanding
their professional horizons. From the 1960s to the 1990s, while their
civilian sisters were renegotiating their gender roles, relationships,
and boundaries, military wives were providing volunteer labor for the
benefit of the military, frequently against their will.23

To some degree the sentiments articulated by Lehr are reflected in

Harada’s statement, “I had too many military duties.” Both Fuchida and Harada
described their family roles as extending beyond their individual households.
However, they accepted these roles as their duty as wives of military officers.
These women may well have even internalized the values of military honor
and have helped to transmit the military tradition to their children. This seems
particularly likely when we consider that Fuchida’s oldest daughter married a
military man, and Harada’s oldest son served on active duty in Vietnam at
the same time as her husband.
Miwako Rosenthal also married a military man; they lived in Chicago
for many years. In contrast to Fuchida and Harada, Rosenthal herself was a
professional. She worked with the army as a civilian, while her husband was
a regular army officer. (“He was a doctor and I went with him to a lot of con-
ferences.”) Both Rosenthal and her husband were veterans who had gone on
reserve duty. After completing medical school, her husband returned to ac-
tive duty and was stationed at Walter Reed Hospital. During this time,
Rosenthal worked on military projects: “I did projects at Fort Dedrich, which
is Camp David now.”
Rosenthal was temporarily assigned after the war to work in Tokyo on a
scientific mission: “I went to Hiroshima after the bombing as a DAC or de-
fined army civilian, and my husband was regular Army. He was consultant to
the surgeon general. . . . We rode pretty high in the scientific circles, and of
course I still am involved with that. In a couple of weeks I have to go to San
Diego: I have to present an award for a society that is doing critical research
in nutrition that I sponsored about ten or thirteen years ago.”
Rosenthal’s husband died in the 1970s. “We had no children and he has
no family,” she noted. “And I have just my brother and sister, but I don’t have
much to do with them, since we lived such different lives. I’ve been taking
care of all the things that we had. So, everything is geared to the Army for
me still.”
158 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

Unlike my other informants, Rosenthal married interracially. Speaking

about her husband, she stated :

I didn’t know what a Jew was until I went to school in Chicago and
met my husband. He was Jewish. I never had experience with Jews my
whole life. I have a lot of interesting tales about our relationship and
all the things that he and I had to put up with, all the things I
learned. The biggest compliment I got was when one of the judges’
wives said to me, “You’re one of us.” And then another compliment I
got was when I had my Hanukkah dinner and was told that I was a
“fantastic Jewish cook.”

Although Ruth Fujii never married and did not have any children of her
own, she feels that family was a big part of her life in the postwar years. In
those years, Fujii spent much time caring for family members, and was involved
in extended-family activities:

When my kid sister got sick, we decided that I would take care of her.
She was a sophomore in college. She got tuberculosis and had to be
put in a sanitarium. I had to take care of all of her needs . . . and when
she died I was there in the hospital. . . . And then my mother got bad
and my sister called me. . . . I was there the last two weeks of her days
on earth. She was almost 97 when she died. . . . And the lady who
brought me up [Mrs. Coby] lived alone. She said she couldn’t manage
and asked me if I would come home. So I went back and stayed with
her until she died.

Fujii also helped care for her brother’s children and one of her sister’s chil-
dren, who she says were like her own children. She spoke of a family life with
her nieces and nephews:
I have a nephew here. When he was a little boy, nine years old, I used
to take him out to school during the summer. And then he would stay
with me all day. And I used to take him to all of the ball games. Well,
he finished college, got a good job and all, and now he has retired. He
buys season tickets for the university games, picks me up, takes me to
dinner, and takes me to the game. I’m really glad; all of the kids are
like that. My nephews and nieces and grandnieces and nephews are
taking good care of me. Most of them live on the mainland. And
when I had my cancer problem, about three years ago, they used to
come down and they’d call me and I’d say, “I’m fine.” And they’d say,
“No, no, we gotta see ya.” And they would come to Hawaii—fly over,
stay with me, and then go back. . . . Even to this day I get calls from
them.
 The Postwar Years 159

Military Service and Citizenship Rights

As stated in chapter 1, since the Revolutionary War, military service has been
certification of citizenship in the United States. The United States’ defini-
tion of citizenship is rooted in the English notion of obligations as well as
rights.24 The concept of citizenship, as it is used here, is taken from the writ-
ings of T. H. Marshall, who separated the definition of citizenship into three
conceptual parts: civil, political, and social. “The civil element is composed
of the rights necessary for individual freedom—liberty of the person, freedom
of speech, thought and faith, the right to own property and to conclude valid
contracts, and the right to justice.”25 By the political element Marshall meant
“the right to participate in the exercise of political power, as a member of a
body invested with political authority or as an elector of the members of such
a body.”26 Finally, Marshall defined the social element as the range of social
liberties including “a modicum of economic welfare and security” and living
the “life of a civilized being according to the standards prevailing in the
society.”27
Two of the women interviewed for this study claimed that service in the
Women’s Army Corps helped to pave the way for full citizenship rights for
Japanese Americans. Irene Nishikaichi, for example, stated that her military
service helped to legitimize the right of her parents and other Issei to become
naturalized citizens. Nishikaichi told of her mother declaring, “My daughter
went into the service, I gave a child to the service, and certainly we’re going
to become citizens.” Unfortunately her mother died of cancer before she could
even apply for citizenship. Nishikaichi’s father, on the other hand, went
through the entire process and indeed became an American citizen. Nishikaichi
recalled, “He was a very conscientious citizen, and voted in every election.”
Similarly, Hisako Yamashita felt that her military service weighed posi-
tively in the federal government’s decision to convert Hawaii from a U.S. ter-
ritory to a state:

After the war there began lobbying [on behalf of the residents of
Hawaii] for statehood. . . . I went before a congressional commission
that was in Hawaii at the time interviewing the public on the matter.
My friends thought that since I was an ex-Wac I should make an
impression on the commission, so I went and I said, “I want state-
hood.” I said I was a Wac and I served the country. And they were
impressed. I said, “I just wanted to put that in to be sure that we get
statehood.” And we got statehood.

For racial minorities and women, citizenship rights have come as a result
of a process of removing social, economic, and political barriers. The Nisei
160 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

servicewoman’s military service helped to remove some of these barriers for

Japanese Americans. The legislative process of removing such barriers for Japa-
nese Americans began after World War II. In 1948 the Evacuation Claims
Act was passed, awarding Japanese American internees approximately $37
million as restitution for their losses during the mass evacuation.28 In 1988,
Congress passed a bill stating that both citizens and resident aliens of Japa-
nese ancestry were gravely mistreated during the war. The bill further stated
that the mass evacuation of Japanese Americans was a result of “racial preju-
dice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership,”29 and provided
for a tax-free payment of twenty thousand dollars to each of the more than
sixty thousand surviving detainees. As a result of an individual action, Gor-
don Hirabayashi won a court case in 1986 in which the court ruled false the
government’s claim that people of Japanese ancestry had been a threat to na-
tional security.30 These political gains, as insufficient as they may be, are none-
theless steps in the direction of positive social change.

Reflections
Most of the women interviewed for this study believed that their military ser-
vice contributed to their upward mobility in the postwar years. Miwako
Rosenthal stated that the military was the turning point in her life because,
ever since she joined the WAC, she had known nothing but the army; being
a veteran, she said:

has wonderful benefits for me, even now. We never have to stand in
line; we can always say we’re veterans and be first in line. And we
don’t have to pay for admittance to museums or the California
Academy of Sciences [where she was also a trustee]. I belong to the
American Legion, and . . . the WAC Veterans Association. I belong
to the officers’ clubs and I get discounts.

Ellen Fuchida said she would not have traded her experiences for anything:
“I just enjoyed meeting all the people.” She viewed her experience in the mili-
tary and as an officer’s wife as positive:
I met people from all over, and in that way I think it’s been good. And
it has been good for my children. My oldest daughter went to about
fifteen to seventeen schools before she graduated because we moved
so much. She’s able to get out and meet everybody. And they’re doing
very well now. My oldest daughter is married to a retired military
man . . . and she’s working for a packaging engineer and doing really
well. I have a son that is working with the Corps of Engineers up in
 The Postwar Years 161

Oregon, and he’s one of the top civilians up there. . . . And then my
youngest daughter is working in Texas as a computer analyst.

Ruth Fujii stated that her military service did not help her so much in
her career as a secretary; she had obtained that position before entering the
Women’s Army Corps. For her, the greatest advantage of military service was
the opportunity to “meet so many wonderful people, and . . . to see the world.
I wouldn’t have been able to travel that much if I had not gone into the mili-
tary.” Fujii added that she could think of no real disadvantages of military ser-
vice: “Not having sheets to sleep on, and not having enough water to take a
shower in the Philippines you take with the circumstances; these inconve-
niences were just part of the territory.” Fujii reflected:

My oldest brother used to call me an old maid ever since I was a kid. I
had to have things just so. And I never griped if I didn’t get anything.
And whatever I got all my life I earned it. And maybe that’s the reason
why I’m doing okay. . . . I belong to the WIMSA [Women in Military
Service for America] and the Women’s Army Corp Veterans Association.

Alice Kono said that her military service did not much help her advance
economically, “but when I look back, I think it was great.” Kono said that, in
addition to the GI Bill, which she used for advanced education, she had the
benefit of traveling in the military; “I guess I got my travel bug from being in
service.” She joined the American Legion after she left the WAC, and was
an active member for six years.
Irene Nishikaichi spoke about long-lasting friendships: “The friendships
I made in the service mean a great deal to me and have influenced the kind
of person I am now. . . . Just to be able to say that I am a veteran, that I was
in the service during World War II, gives me more . . . self-confidence.”
Although the women in this study made gains probably unthinkable for
their mothers, they acknowledged that these positions were not in the same
league as those of women in military service today. Nishikaichi gives much
credit to women in today’s armed services for “doing things almost the same
as the men. . . . We were never expected to do what the women do today. The
physical demand on the women now is more than double. Those of us who
were in the service then had a piece of cake compared to what they do now.”
Similarly, Fuchida recognized that her military experience during World
War II was quite different from that of women who served later:

At the time that I was a WAC we weren’t expected to go out and bear
arms or anything. It was quite a sheltered vocation really. All we were
supposed to do was take the jobs of the men so they could be freed for
162 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

frontline duty. That’s what [the War Department officials] were telling
us. [Women in today’s military] probably wouldn’t be satisfied with
the kind of existence we had at that time because they want to be at
the forefront. We weren’t so liberated, and so I think we were very
satisfied with where they put us.

For Grace Harada, the personal benefits of joining the WAC surfaced im-
mediately after she was inducted:
I was very, very unhappy before I went into the service because there
was so much discrimination. We couldn’t do anything; we couldn’t
even walk the streets, and when my father lost his job with the
railroad nobody would rent us a home. And my parents had to live in
a car for almost a month. Some lady introduced them to some Greek
family with a little house, and they rented a house to my parents.

Life as a member of the WAC was dramatically different; in Harada’s words:

In the military, I felt so much happier because I could do more as I
pleased . . . we could talk more freely and express our opinions and
have friends. My morale was always high in the military. I got along
all right with everybody and always kept myself busy and found
everything interesting because it was my first time away from home. I
just wanted to know a little bit more about everybody and everything.
Grace Kutaka stated that to this day she is proud of her military service.
Above all, she said, “I am so proud to be an American.”

Striving to Assimilate
Echoed in the statements throughout this book is an assimilation theme, the
adaptation of an ethnic group to the values and norms of the dominant core
group in society at the expense of the ethnic group’s cultural distinctiveness.
Like white racial minorities in the United States during the World War II
era, the Nisei strove to assimilate in American society, and to be absorbed
into the mainstream, as assimilation was a prerequisite for citizenship rights.
For racial/ethnic groups that could not blend into the proverbial “melting pot,”
the penalties were great: unemployment, social isolation, and the resultant
hunger, family disruption, and lack of medical care.
According to Milton Gordon’s conceptual framework, assimilation occurs
in seven stages: cultural, structural, marital, identificational, attitude
receptional, behavior receptional, and civic.31 Using Gordon’s theory, several
studies have shown that during and immediately following World War II,
Japanese Americans were assimilating culturally, structurally (penetrating
 The Postwar Years 163

cliques and associations of the core society at the primary-group level), in terms
of intermarriage, and identificationally.32 Analyzing data from the Japanese
American Research Project (JARP) and the U.S. Bureau of the Census be-
fore and after World War II, Eric Woodrum found that, in the years following
the war: significantly fewer Issei and Nisei lived in mostly Japanese Ameri-
can neighborhoods; three times as many Nisei (as their parents) identified with
Judeo-Christian religions; and Nisei had fewer arranged marriages.33 Similarly,
while the Issei rarely had white friends or belonged to primarily white volun-
teer organizations, the Nisei began integrating at the friendship and organi-
zational level, and the majority of their children (the Sansei) reported friends
and membership in predominantly non-Japanese American voluntary orga-
nizations.34 Many studies have confirmed that the rate of interracial marriage
among Japanese Americans, primarily with Caucasians, has increased signifi-
cantly in the postwar years.35
The Nisei’s movement toward full assimilation into American society was
accelerated by the events of World War II; indeed, this movement was nur-
tured by the patriotic fervor of the time. However, the cost of assimilation
was great, creating a generational cleavage between the Nisei and their par-
ents, a growing issue among some Nisei even before the war ended. A vivid
account of the Nisei/Issei relationship was offered by Corporal George
Morimitsu in an editorial, “These Are Our Parents,” published in internment
camp newspapers in 1944.36 Morimitsu described how the Issei sweated and
slaved with Oriental stoicism to give their children a better than adequate
American education, and how that education widened the gap between the
two generations “to the point where Nisei looked with disdain upon their [par-
ents’] Japanese ways.” Morimitsu said he knew little of his parents’ past:
My only connecting link with it would be through the language we
supposedly speak in common. But this we lack and have always lacked
since we children started learning English in grade school. The
culture of my parents’ homeland ended with the songs we heard and
the foods we ate and the holidays my parents observed.37

This concern is also reflected in the following statement by Miwako

Rosenthal regarding World War II veterans (Nisei) and their children (Sansei):
The Japanese people don’t tell their children anything they did.
Children don’t even know what their parents did in the war. . . . I
have five nephews . . . [four] married to Caucasians and one . . .
married to a Japanese girl, and that’s because of their parents. . . .
Their children are a mixture of Japanese and Caucasian, right? And if
the wife is Caucasian and they have girls, they’re going to lose their
164 SERVING OUR COUNTRY

Japanese identity because they’ll marry into another Caucasian

name. . . . The only person [to carry on the heritage] will be the
son . . . he will bear the Japanese name, but he will be half and
half. . . . My nephews’ children don’t look Japanese at all. . . . One of
them graduated from the University of Minnesota. He opted to go
into the Army. . . . He’s six feet tall. . . . He doesn’t look Japanese at
all. His mother is Caucasian.

Similarly, Mary Yamada stated that she never identified with her Japa-
nese heritage, yet she displays mixed feelings about not knowing the Japanese
language:
I know I’m a Japanese [American] and I’ll support the Japanese
Americans, but I really don’t have many Japanese [American]
friends . . . so I never thought of myself as being with them or not
with them. . . . I always felt that I was more on the periphery when it
came to the Japanese because I wasn’t living among them. . . . I don’t
seem to feel that close to Japan. I’m not ashamed that I’m a Japanese.
I know a little bit about Japan, and I still don’t know the language. I
feel that, if I knew language, I would know more about the coun-
try. . . . But I’m an American, as my father said. . . . So we never spoke
Japanese in the house, we spoke English. . . . I think maybe in a way it
was wiser for those parents who would not let their children speak
English in the home. They had to speak Japanese, so they ended up
knowing both Japanese and English. . . I didn’t learn [any Japanese]
and I don’t remember my father ever speaking Japanese to us.

What Morimitsu and so many others observed during World War II, and
Rosenthal, Yamada, and so many others observe today, is a process of assimi-
lation—a break from the Japanese culture and absorption into the American
way of life.
In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in Japanese culture,
particularly among the Sansei; while there is some evidence of a persistent
ethnic culture, the evidence of assimilation is far more compelling. Given the
increasing trend of outmarriage among the Sansei, it remains to be seen
whether the Japanese American ethnic community will be maintained in fu-
ture generations.

Conclusion
The military was a turning point in the lives of many servicewomen, as it
helped to redefine their social, economic, and political roles in society.
Certainly, some of the changes in race and gender relations in the United
 The Postwar Years 165

States following the war were global, affecting military veterans and civilians
alike. However, as indicated by the above statements, the military service also
represented subjective turning points in the lives of Nisei servicewomen. Like
those of military veterans in Elder, Gimbel, and Ivie’s study “Turning Points
in Life: The Case of Military Service and War,” the lives of Nisei servicewomen
were enhanced by travel, education, independence, and marriage.
The Japanese American women interviewed for this study revealed that
their military service benefited them socially, economically, and politically in
later years. Further, their voices help to dispel the nativistic view of Japanese
Americans as foreigners to the United States, and challenge the race and gen-
der stereotypes of Japanese American women. Contrary to the docile, subser-
vient image portrayed in the media, the women interviewed for this study were
both assertive and determined to take charge of their lives. Serving on active
duty facilitated their objective to be recognized as American citizens, and pro-
vided them the benefits to achieve personal goals.
Through their service, Nisei women helped to lay the foundation for the
journey toward full citizenship rights for Japanese American men and women,
and, while full rights have not yet been achieved, there has been considerable
progress. By supporting the American ideal of democracy, Nisei servicewomen
helped to secure the social, political, and economic status enjoyed by Japa-
nese Americans today.
166 SERVING OUR COUNTRY
 Appendix 167

Wacs Who Entered

the Army from Hawaii,
Appendix December 1944

HEADQUARTERS CENTRAL PACIFIC BASE COMMAND

Office of the Commanding General
APO 958
AG 326.22 18 December 1944

SUBJECT: Orders to report for Active Duty.

TO: Women’s Army Corps Recruits.

1. The following named enlisted women /ERC are recalled to active duty
and will report to the CO Casual WAC Detachment, Territorial Guard
Armory, South Hotel and Miller Sts., Honolulu, T. H. by 1100 27 De-
cember 1944:

Pvt. Marian H. Rapoza, A-50-000 Pvt. Julia Larm, A-50-040

Pvt. Haruko Oda, A-50-001 Pvt. Tetsuko Kono, A-50-041
Pvt. Unoyo Kojima, A-50-002 Pvt. Harriet K. H. Lum, A-50-042
Pvt. Frances E. Alsebrook, A-50-003 Pvt. Chito Isonaga, A-50-043
Pvt. Bernalda N. Paragoso, A-50-004 Pvt. Mitsue Nouchi, A-50-044
Pvt. Hannah M. Kawaihau, A-50-005 Pvt. Bernice Naukana, A-50-045
Pvt. Helen A. Bechert, A-50-006 Pvt. Kyu Sung L. Jones, A-50-046
Pvt. Hideko Kanda, A-50-007 Pvt. Hatsu S. Kitayama, A-50-047
Pvt. Shizuye Furuheshi, A-50-008 Pvt. Reiko Hanashiro, A-50-048
Pvt. Rectina D. Eilers, A-50-009 Pvt. Veronica E. Smith, A-50-049
Pvt. Yacko Misawa, A-50-010 Pvt. Iwa M. Hussey, A-50-050
Pvt. Julie H.K. Maertens, A-50-011 Pvt. Fumiko Segawa, A-50-051
Pvt. Edwina C. Cluney, A-50-012 Pvt. Rachel E. Holloway, A-50-060
Pvt. OK Yum Shinn, A-50-013 Pvt. Hattie C.H. Pang, A-50-061
Pvt. Hung Ngow Choy, A-50-014 Pvt. Lillian G. Mott-Smith, A-50-062
Pvt. Toshiko Kanashiro, A-50-015 Pvt. Marion E. King, A-50-063

167
168 Appendix

Pvt. Laurentia R. Torres, A-50-016 Pvt. Hisako Yamashita, A-50-064

Pvt. Matsuko Kido, A-50-017 Pvt. Emma L. Drake, A-50-065
Pvt. Evaline R. Gunderson, A-50-018 Pvt. Beatrice Bender, A-50-066
Pvt. Eunice K. Kapuniai, A-50-019 Pvt. Dorothy Yamagami, A-50-067
Pvt. Toshiko Nakasato, A-50-020 Pvt. Alice W. H. Chow, A-50-068
Pvt. Maude E. Conant, A-50-021 Pvt. Marjorie Y. Hade, A-50-070
Pvt. Emily J. Kaalehua, A-50-022 Pvt. Charlotte Chow, A-50-031
Pvt. Emily B. Johnson, A-50-023 Pvt. Agnes L. Wilhelm, A-50-032
Pvt. Linda Y. Tanaka, A-50-024 Pvt. Genevieve M. L. Hoe, A-50-033
Pvt. Ruth Y. Fujii, A-50-025 Pvt. Hisako Hirakawa, A-50-034
Pvt. Fujiko (Grace) Kutaka, Pvt. Eileen K. Malterre, A-50-035
Pvt. Irma P. Cosca, A-50-027 Pvt. Jeanne C. Stevens, A-50-036
Pvt. Tamayo Tamashiro, A-50-028 Pvt. Margaret K. C. Yang, A-50-037
Pvt. Mitsuyo Oshiro, A-50-029 Pvt. Anna Kim, A-50-038
Pvt. Sachiko Shichina, A-50-030 Pvt. Toshiko Kawamura, A-50-039

2. Equipment for travel will be accordance with information sheets furnished

you at time of enlistment.
3. Air Transportation authorized, where necessary.
By command of Major General BURGIN:

HARRY L. EHRENERG,
Captain, A. G. D.,
Ass’t. Adjutant Gen.
Notes

Preface and Acknowledgments

1. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Japanese Imperial Navy,
planned the surprise aerial attack.
2. See Michael J. Lyons, World War II: A Short History (1989; reprint, Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1994), 147–149.
3. See for example, Thomas St. John Arnold, Buffalo Soldiers: The 92nd Division and
Reinforcements in World War II, 1942–1945 (Manhattan, Kans.: Sunflower Uni-
versity Press, 1990); Bradley Biggs, The Triple Nickles: America’s First All-Black Para-
troop Unit (Hamden, Conn: Archon Books, 1986); Martha Putney, When the
Nation Was in Need: Blacks in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II
(Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1992); Brenda L. Moore, To Serve My Coun-
try, To Serve My Race: The Story of the Only African American Wacs Stationed Over-
seas during World War II (New York: New York University Press, 1996).
4. Bill Hosokawa, Nisei: The Quiet Americans (New York: William Morrow and Co.,
1969), 398.
5. See Masayo Umezawa Duss, Unlikely Liberators: The Men of the 100th and 442nd,
translated by Peter Duus (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987); see also
Donald Teruo Hata, Dominguez Hills, and Nadine Ishitani Hata, Japanese Ameri-
cans and World War II (Wheeling, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 1995).
6. Members of the most decorated unit in U.S. military history, the 442nd, initially
were awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor (MOH), 52 Distinguished Ser-
vice Crosses, 342 Silver Stars, 810 Bronze Stars, and 3,000 Purple Hearts, with
500 Oak Leaf Clusters. In April 2000, the Military Intelligence Service received
a Presidential Unit Citation for extraordinary heroism in military operations
against an armed enemy (from May 1, 1942, to September 2, 1946). In May 2000,
twelve former members of the 442nd RCT and seven former members of the 100th
Battalion were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor; most of these awards
were given posthumously.
7. See U.S. Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. Personal Justice Denied (Wash-
ington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992), 258; Hosokawa, Nisei, 405.
8. In July 1943, the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) was converted to
the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) through Public Law 78–110. Under this new
law, members of the WAC would receive the same benefits and pay allowances
as men in equivalent ranks, and were subject to the same disciplinary code. See
Bettie Morden, The Women’s Army Corps, 1945–1978 (Washington, D.C.: Cen-
ter of Military History, United States Army, 1990), 12–13; also Mattie Treadwell,

169
170 Notes to Pages xii–3

United States Army in World War II: Special Studies: The Women’s Army Corps
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1954), 220–221.

Chapter 1 Introduction
1. “All-Out Victory,” The Rafu Shimpo, Los Angeles, 10 December 1941, p. 1.
2. Morris Janowitz, “The All-Volunteer Military as a Sociopolitical Problem,” So-
cial Problems 22 (February 1975): 435.
3. See David Segal, Recruiting for Uncle Sam: Citizenship and Military Manpower Policy
(Lawrence, Ks.: University Press of Kansas, 1989), 108.
4. John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans, 6th
ed. (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1988), 310–313.
5. President Roosevelt signed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act into law in 1944.
For a thorough discussion of the bill, see Keith W. Olson, The G.I. Bill, the Veter-
ans, and the Colleges (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1974). Several so-
ciological studies have found that, since World War II, military service has
increased the earning potential of racial-minority males. Some have argued that
the military provides a “bridging” environment, enhancing the human capital of
minorities. See, for example: Harley Browning, Sally Lopreato, and Dudley Poston,
“Income and Veterans Status: Variation among Mexican Americans, Blacks, and
Anglos,” American Sociological Review 38 (1973): 74–85; see also Sally Lopreato
and Dudley Poston, “Differences in Earnings and Earnings Ability between Black
Veterans and Nonveterans in the United States,” Social Science Quarterly 57
(1977): 750–766. Others emphasize that the military provides a level playing field
which virtually eliminates social barriers to upward mobility. See Charles C.
Moskos, “From Citizens’ Army to Social Laboratory,” Wilson Quarterly 27 (1993):
83–94; Charles Moskos and John Butler, All That We Can Be: Black Leadership
and Racial Integration the Army Way (New York: Basic Books, 1996), 73–74.
6. See Stacey Yukari Hirose, “Japanese American Women and the Women’s Army
Corps, 1935–1950” (M.A. thesis, University of California Los Angeles, 1993);
Cynthia Neverton-Morton, “Securing the ‘Double V’: African-American and Japa-
nese-American Women in the Military during World War II,” A Woman’s War
Too: U.S. Women in the Military in World War II, ed. Paula Nassen Poulos (Wash-
ington, D.C.: National Archives and Record Administration, 1996), 327–354;
Brenda L. Moore, “Reflections of Society: The Intersection of Race and Gender
in the U.S. Army in World War II,” in Beyond Zero Tolerance: Discrimination in
Military Culture, ed. Mary Fainsod Katzenstein and Judith Reppy (Boulder, Colo.:
Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), 125–142.
7. Clifford Uyeda and Barry Saiki, eds., The Pacific War and Peace: Americans of Japa-
nese Ancestry in Military Intelligence Service, 1941 to 1952 (San Francisco.: Na-
tional Japanese American Historical Society, 1991), 13.
8. This nomenclature has been used by scholars to locate Asian Americans in the
black/white paradigm. See Gary Y. Okihiro, Margins and Mainstreams: Asians in
American History and Culture (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994), 33.
See also James W. Loewen, The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971).
9. See Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: From
the 1960s to the 1990s (New York: Routledge, 1994); Juan Perea, “The Black/White
Binary Paradigm of Race: The Normal Science of American Racial Thought,”
California Law Review 85 (1997): 1213, 1215; Robert Chang, “Toward an Asian
American Legal Scholarship: Critical Race Theory, Post-Structuralism, and Nar-
rative Space,” Asian Law Review 1 (1994): 27.
 Notes to Pages 3–9 171

10. Angelo N. Ancheta, Race, Rights, and the Asian American Experience (New
Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1998), 64.
11. See Ulysses Lee, United States Army in World War II: Special Studies: The Employ-
ment of Negro Troops (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966),
73–76; Brenda L. Moore, To Serve My Country, To Serve My Race: The Story of
the Only African American Wacs Stationed Overseas during World War II (New York:
New York University Press, 1996), 29.
12. That informal agreement was confirmed by a letter from the Secretary of War,
dated 17 June 1942 and addressed to General Hershey, then director of the Se-
lective Service System. See memorandum for the Assistant Chief of Staff, 31 July
1945, RG 165, Box 441, Folder 291.2, National Archives, College Park, Md..
13. Hawaii Nikkei History Editorial Board, Japanese Eyes, American Heart: Personal
Reflections of Hawaii’s World War II Nisei Soldiers (Honolulu: Tendai Educational
Foundation, 1998), 315–320.
14. Dorothy Thomas and Richard Nishimoto, The Spoilage: Japanese-American Evacu-
ation and Resettlement during World War II (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of California Press, 1969), 56 n.6.
15. Allan Beekman, The Niihau Incident (Detroit: Harlo Press, 1982), 77.
16. See Uyeda and Saiki, The Pacific War and Peace, 13; Bill Hosokawa, Nisei: The
Quiet Americans (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1969), 398.
17. Edna Bonacich and John Modell, The Economic Basis of Ethnic Solidarity: Small
Business in the Japanese American Community (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1980).
18. Historian Roger Daniels links discrimination against Japanese Americans to the
“anti-Orientalism” that surfaced in 1849 when Chinese immigration to the United
States began. See Roger Daniels, Concentration Camps: North America (Malabar,
Fla.: Krieger Publishing Co., 1981), 2.
19. Jacobus tenBroek, Edward N. Barnhart, and Floyd Matson, Prejudice, War, and
the Constitution: Causes and Consequences of the Evacuation of the Japanese Ameri-
cans in World War II (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1954), 69.
20. Ibid., 70.
21. The Rafu Shimpo, Los Angeles, editorial comment “Rumors, Rumors . . . ” 28
March 1942, p.1.
22. William Manchester, The Glory and the Dream: A Narrative History of America,
1932–1972, (New York: Bantam Books, 1973), 297; U.S. Commission on War-
time Relocation and Internment of Civilians Report, Personal Justice Denied
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, March 1992), 117.
23. Dennis M. Ogawa, From Japs to Japanese (Berkeley, Calif.: McCutchan, 1971),
11.
24. Manchester, The Glory and the Dream, 297.
25. Ibid., 298.
26. Executive Order 9066 was ambiguous and left the decision of mass evacuation to
the discretion of the secretary of war and his designated commander. The order
authorized the secretary of war and designated commanders to prescribe military
areas from which any or all persons might be excluded, and with respect to which
the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave would be subject to what-
ever restriction the secretary “or appropriate Military Commander may impose
in his discretion.” See Thomas and Nishimoto, The Spoilage, 9.
27. Yoshiye Togasaki, unpublished interview, National Japanese American Histori-
cal Society, San Francisco, 10 August 1985.
172 Notes to Pages 10–16

28. These statistics are reported in Thomas and Nishimoto, The Spoilage, 13.
29. Roger Daniels, Prisoners without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II (New
York: Hill and Wang, 1993), 26.
30. U.S. Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians Report,
Personal Justice Denied (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office,
March 1992), 51. The Commission was citing from a brief for the United States,
Hirabayashi v. United States, No. 870, Oct. Term 1942, pp. 16–17, as well as from
a proposal for coordination of the FBI, ONI, and MID, June 5, 1940, approved
and signed by Louis Johnson, Acting Secretary of War, on June 28, 1940.
31. See Mady Wechsler Segal, “Women’s Military Roles Cross-Nationally: Past,
Present, and Future.” Gender and Society 9 (1995): 757–775; Margaret Higonnet,
Jane Jenson, Sonya Michel, and Margaret Weitz, Behind the Lines: Gender and the
Two World Wars (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987); D’Ann
Campbell, Women at War with America: Private Lives in a Patriotic Era (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press).
32. Mattie Treadwell, United States Army in World War II: Special Studies: The Women’s
Army Corps (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1954), 24.
33. Ibid., 16.
34. Ibid., 20.
35. For more details about the 1942 congressional debate over whether women should
serve in the military, see Treadwell, The Women’s Army Corps, chapters 1 and 2;
Bettie J. Morden, The Women’s Army Corps, 1945–1978 (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1990), chapter 1; Leisa D. Meyer, Creating GI Jane:
Sexuality and Power in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1996), 11–16.
36. The Rogers bill was approved by the Senate, 38–27, on May 14, 1942, and the
president of the United States signed Public Law 554 the following day. See
Treadwell, Women’s Army Corps, 45.
37. Morden, Women’s Army Corps 1945–1978, 5.
38. Moore, To Serve My Country; Lee, The Employment of Negro Troops.
39. For a detailed discussion about African American Waacs/Wacs, see Moore, To
Serve My Country; Martha Putney, When the Nation Was in Need: Blacks in the
Women’s Army Corps during World War II (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1992);
and Charity Adams Earley, One Woman’s Army: A Black Officer Remembers the
WAC (College Station, Tex.: Texas A & M University Press, 1989).
40. Treadwell, The Women’s Army Corps, 18.
41. Morden, Women’s Army Corps, 1945–1978,12.
42. Richard Nishimoto, Lane Ryo Hirabayashi (eds.), Inside an American Concentra-
tion Camp: Japanese American Resistance at Poston (Tucson: University of Arizona
Press, 1995), 235.
43. Personal Justice Denied, 188; Donald E. Collins, Native American Aliens: Disloyalty
and the Renunciation of Citizenship by Japanese Americans during World War II
(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985), 23; Bill Hosokawa, JACL: In Quest
of Justice (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1982), 197–201, 209–211.
44. The Daughters of the American Revolution was founded on October 11, 1890,
and was incorporated by an act of Congress in 1896.
45. See letter to Secretary of War Stimson from Mrs. Lilliebell Falck of the Daugh-
ters of the American Revolution, Golden Spike Chapter, Ogden, Utah, RG 407,
Box 4282, Folder 291.3, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
46. Two registration forms were prepared in Washington, D.C. to be administered to
persons age seventeen or older of Japanese ancestry: one for Japanese-American
 Notes to Pages 16–21 173

male citizens (Nisei), the other for Nisei women and Issei men and women. See
Thomas and Nishimoto, The Spoilage, 57–59.
47. Before a Japanese American or a Japanese national was cleared for induction, the
provost marshal reviewed files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Office
of Naval Intelligence Service, the War Department General Staff, the Japanese
American Branch of the Provost Marshal General’s Office, and the Civil Affairs
Division of the Western Defense Command.
48. See: Memorandum for the Adjutant General, Appointment and Induction Branch,
Attention Colonel Sailor, 5 January 1943, signed by Martha E. Eskridge, Second
Officer, WAAC, Chief Recruiting Branch, Personnel Division, RG 407, Army
AG Project, Decimal File 1940–1945, Box 4297, Folder 341, National Archives,
Washington, D.C.
49. See transcribed conversation between the WAAC director, Oveta Culp Hobby,
and Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, RG 407, Army AG Project, Deci-
mal File 1940–45, Box 4297, Folder 341, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
50. On July 25, 1944, the pre-induction screening function, until then performed by
the assistant chief of staff, G–2, was transferred to the provost marshal general,
Army Service Forces. See Memorandum for the Assistant Chief of Staff, RG 165,
Box 441, Folder 291.2, National Archives, College Park, Md.
51. “Only 3,771 Enemy Aliens Interned in U.S. Camps,” New York Times, 3 Novem-
ber 1943, p.1.
52. See letter to: Commanding General of the Eighth Service Command, from Manice
M. Hill, Second Officer, WAAC, Subject: “Investigation of Attitude of Women
in Rohwer Relocation Center toward the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps,” 4
March 1943, RG 407, Box 4282, Folder 291.3, National Archives, Washington,
D.C.
53. See letter to: Assistant Chief of Staff, G–2, from Brigadier General Hayes A. Kro-
ner, Chief, Military Intelligence Service, 14 April 1943, RG 165, Box 441, Folder
291.2, National Archives, College Park, Md.
54. See letter to commanding generals: from Oveta Culp Hobby, Director of WAC:
“Enlistment in WAC of Women Citizens of U.S. of Japanese Ancestry,” 23 July
1943, RG 407, File 1940–1945, Box 4300, Folder 341.1, 342.05, National Ar-
chives, Washington, D.C.
55. John O’Donnell, “Capitol Stuff,” New York Daily News, 8 June1943.
56. Treadwell, The Women’s Army Corps, 191–217; Morden, Women’s Army Corps,
1945–1978, 10–11. For a graphic account of slander against Wacs in the media,
see Meyer, Creating GI Jane, 47–51.
57. Treadwell, Women’s Army Corps, 231.
58. See intra-office Memorandum to WAAC director: “Enrollment of American
Women of Japanese Extraction,” with a report of T. O. Busse attached, 1 Febru-
ary 1943, RG 165, Box 441, Folder 291.2, National Archives, College Park, Md.
59. Frank Wu speaks of racial groups being conceived as “white, black, honorary
whites, or constructive blacks.” For Wu, honorary connotes privilege and con-
structive connotes oppression. See Frank Wu, “Neither Black nor White: Asian
Americans and Affirmative Action,” Boston College Third World Law Journal 15
(summer 1995): 225, 226.
60. See letter: to Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War, from Allen C. Blaisdell, Di-
rector of the International House at the University of California at Berkeley, 28
January 1943, RG 407, Box 4282, Folder 291.3, National Archives, Washington,
D.C.
61. See memorandum prepared for: Assistant Secretary of War, attention Lieutenant
174 Notes to Pages 21–30

Joseph D. Hughes, March 12, 1943, RG 165, Box 441, folder 291.2, National Ar-
chives, College Park, Md.
62. See: Memorandum to the Assistant Secretary of War from Oveta Culp Hoby, 7
April 1943; and Memorandum to the Assistant Chief of Staff, G–1: “Admission
of Female Citizens of Japanese Ancestry into the WAAC,” 10 April 1943, both
documents in RG 165, Box 441, Folder 291.2, National Archives, College Park,
Md.
63. Moore, To Serve My Country, chapters 3 and 4.
64. This is not to suggest that there were not gender differences and dual standards.
There still existed a double standard in occupational assignment, promotion, and
rank. Norms of sexuality also differed for servicewomen and men. It has been re-
ported that unlike their male counterparts, servicewomen who contracted vene-
real disease were often found guilty of “conduct unbecoming” or of “reflecting
discredit on the Corps.” Meyer in Creating GI Jane discusses the double standard
in how the army defined sexual misconduct during World War II.
65. “Three Japanese Americans Inducted into Women’s Army,” Pacific Citizen, 18
December 1943.
66. See letter to Dillon S. Myer, Director of the War Relocation Authority, from Harry
Tarvin, 13 December 1943, RG 165, Box 441, Folder 291.2, National Archives,
College Park, Md.
67. “Nisei Girls and WACs,” Pacific Citizen, 13 November 1943.
68. See letter to Headquarters Ninth Command, WAAC Branch, Washington, D.C.,
from Henriette Horak, Second Officer of the WAAC Recruiting Office, Los An-
geles, 7 March 1943, RG 165, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
69. Thomas and Nishimoto, Spoilage, 70.
70. Tomotsu Shibutani, The Derelicts of Company K: A Sociological Study of Demoral-
ization (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978).
71. Eric L. Muller, Free to Die for Their Country: The Story of the Japanese American
Draft Resisters in World War II (Chicago: University of Chicago, Press, 2001); see
also John Okada, NO-NO BOY (Seattle and London: University of Washington
Press, 1976).
72. Denson (Ark.) Tribune, vol. 2, no. 10, 4 February 1944, p. 1, found in Wason Film
8676, Japanese Camp Papers, Reels 1–5, Kroch Library, Cornell University, Ithaca,
N.Y.
73. Thomas and Nishimoto, Spoilage, 68.
74. Ibid.
75. Pacific Citizen, “Three Utah Nisei Girls Train for Wacs at Des Moines: Get Send-
Off from Friends, Relatives in Salt Lake City,” 19 February 1944, p. 3.
76. Pacific Citizen, “Japanese American Girl Will Be Inducted in Wac,” 4 December
1943.
77. Denson (Ark.) Tribune, vol. 1, no. 85, found in Wason Film 8676, Japanese Camp
Papers, Reels 1–5, Kroch Library, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 21 December
1943, pp. 1, 6.
78. This is an excerpt from an interview conducted in September 1943 as part of the
Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study; see Dorothy Swaine Tho-
mas, The Salvage (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1952),
318–320.
79. Yoshiye Togasaki, unpublished interview, 10 August 1985.
80. Mary T. Sarnecky, A History of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps (Philadelphia: Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 270; Pauline E. Maxwell, History of the Army
Nurse Corps (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Center of Military History, 1976), 26.
 Notes to Pages 32–36 175

Chapter 2 Before the War

1. Ruth Benedict highlights the Meiji reform in Japan in The Chrysanthemum and
the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture (1946; reprint, New York: New America
Library, 1974), 76–97.
2. Ronald Takaki, Iron Cages: Race and Culture in Nineteenth Century America (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 258.
3. Eileen H. Tamura, Americanization, Acculturation, and Ethnic Identity: The Nisei
Generation in Hawaii (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994),
9–21.
4. Yuji Ichioka, The Issei: The World of the First Generation Japanese Immigrants, 1885–
1924 (New York: Free Press, 1988); Robert A. Wilson and Bill Hosokawa, East
to America: A History of the Japanese in the United States (New York: William Mor-
row and Co., 1980).
5. Ichioka, The Issei.
6. According to a Japanese law first enacted in 1873, men aged seventeen to forty
were eligible for the military draft. Deferments were granted to students studying
abroad. See Ichioka, The Issei, 13.
7. In exile these Japanese immigrants enjoyed freedom of speech, assembly, and press.
See Ichioka, The Issei, 16.
8. Ibid.
9. Yoshiye Togasaki, unpublished interview, National Japanese American Histori-
cal Society, San Francisco, 10 August 1985.
10. Ibid.
11. Ichioka, The Issei.
12. Linda Tamura, The Hood River Issei: An Oral History of Japanese Settlers in Oregon’s
Hood River Valley (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 19.
13. Ichioka, The Issei, 28–39.
14. Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997).
15. Ibid.
16. Yoshiye Togasaki, interview, 10 August 1985.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Hawaii was discovered in 1778 by Captain James Cook, who named it the Sand-
wich Islands in honor of his patron, the Earl of Sandwich. It was ruled by native
monarchs until 1898, when it was ceded to the United States.
20. Wilson and Hosokawa, East to America, 141.
21. Ibid., 143.
22. Ibid., 153.
23. This figure is taken from Joe R. Feagin and Clairece Booher Feagin, Racial and
Ethnic Relations, 6th ed. (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1999), 383.
24. In 1907, the Japanese government agreed with the United States to end direct
immigration of Japanese laborers to the United States under the so-called
“Gentlemen’s Agreement.” This agreement provided that Japan would issue pass-
ports only to nonlaborers, laborers who sought to join a close relative in the United
States, or persons who had already engaged in a farming enterprise located in the
United States. See Ichioka, The Issei, 71–72. These figures are taken from Tho-
mas, The Salvage, 7.
25. Ruth Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, 53–54.
26. Harry H. L. Kitano, Japanese Americans: The Evolution of a Subculture (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1969), 63.
176 Notes to Pages 36–40

27. Kitano, Japanese Americans, 63.

28. Tamura, The Hood River Issei, 46.
29. Tamura, Americanization, Acculturation, and Ethnic Identity, 25.
30. Yoshiye Togasaki, interview, 10 August 1985.
31. Thomas, The Salvage, 9.
32. Ibid., 13.
33. J. S. Chambers, “The Japanese Invasion,” Annals of the American Academy of Po-
litical and Social Science (January 1921): 36.
34. U.S. Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Personal Justice Denied (Wash-
ington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992), 38.
35. Stanley Lieberson, A Piece of the Pie: Black and White Immigrants since 1880 (Berke-
ley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980), 380–381.
36. Donald E. Collins, Native American Aliens: Disloyalty and Renunciation of Citizen-
ship by Japanese Americans during World War II (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,
1985), 72, 151.
37. For a thorough discussion of Japanese culture, see Minako K. Maykovich, Japa-
nese American Identity Dilemma (Tokyo: Waseda University Press, 1972), 25–40.
38. Kitano, Japanese Americans, 66.
39. Kerrily J. Kitano and Harry H. L. Kitano, “The Japanese-American Family,” Eth-
nic Families in America: Patterns and Variations, 4th ed., ed. Charles Mindel, Rob-
ert Habenstein, and Roosevelt Wright Jr. (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall,
1998), 312.
40. Mei Nakano, Japanese American Women: Three Generations, 1890–1990 (Berke-
ley, Calif.: Mina Press, 1990), 33.
41. Japan is still a male-dominated society. The recent trial of Mitsuko Yamada, who
admitted to killing another woman’s two-year-old daughter, raises questions about
Japan’s patriarchal society. According to an article published by the Associated
Press in Tokyo, the trial suggests that Japanese housewives “are trapped in dull
routines and overly preoccupied with the achievements of their children.” See
The Honolulu Advertiser, “Tot’s Murder Shifts Focus onto Japan Wives,” 7 March
2000, p. A8.
42. As part of this socialization process, according to Maykovich, a male child was
“even permitted to attack and beat his mother.” See Maykovich, Japanese Ameri-
can Identity Dilemma, 30–31.
43. Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, 51–53.
44. See John W. Connor, “Acculturation and Family Continuities in Three Genera-
tions of Japanese Americans,” Journal of Marriage and the Family (February 1974):
159–165.
45. Erwin Johnson, “The Emergence of a Self-Conscious Entrepreneurial Class in
Rural Japan,” in Japanese Culture: Its Development and Characteristics, ed. Robert
J. Smith and Richard K. Beardsley (Chicago: Aldine, 1962), 91–99.
46. Tamura, Hood River Issei, 97.
47. Angela Y. Davis, Women, Race, and Class (New York: Random House, 1981);
Alfreda M. Duster, Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells (Chi-
cago: University o f Chicago Press, 1970).
48. Louise Littleton, “Worse Than Slaves,” San Francisco Chronicle, 1 October 1893,
p. 2. Reprinted in Judy Yung, Unbound Voices: A Documentary History of Chinese
Women in San Francisco (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1999), 164–170.
49. See Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Issei, Nisei, War Bride: Three Generations of Japanese
American Women in Domestic Service (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
1986), 109–122.
 Notes to Pages 41–56 177

50. Tamura, Americanization, Acculturation, and Ethnic Identity, 3.

51. Ibid., 4.
52. Andrew Lind, Hawaii’s Japanese: An Experiment in Democracy (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1946), 11.
53. Ibid., 17.
54. Ibid., 12.
55. See Rafu Shimpo, 18 December 1993, p. 12.
56. Moore, To Serve My Country, 94.
57. Ibid.
58. Cherry Shiozawa, unpublished interview by Chizu Iiyama, tape recording, Japa-
nese National American Historical Society, 21 February 1989, San Francisco.
59. Nakano, Japanese American Women.
60. Kitano, Japanese Americans, 65–66.
61. Nakano, Japanese American Women, 105, 198
62. Kitano, Japanese Americans, 66.
63. Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Issei, Nisei, War Bride: Three Generations of Japanese Ameri-
can Women in Domestic Service (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986), 205.
64. Yoshiye Togasaki, interview, 10 August 1985.
65. Edward K. Strong, The Second-Generation Japanese Problem (Stanford, Calif.:
Stanford University Press, 1934), 207. For a detailed discussion on the Kibei, see
Minoru Kiyota, Beyond Loyalty: The Story of a Kibei (Honolulu: University of Ha-
waii Press, 1997).
66. War Relocation Authority, Japanese Americans Educated in Japan (Community
Analysis Section Report No. 8, 28 January 1944), Confidential files, A1989:006,
Box 12, fd. 8, University of Hawaii, Romanzo Adams Social Research Labora-
tory.
67. See John Modell, “Tradition and Opportunity: The Japanese Immigrant in
America,” Pacific Historical Review 40 (May 1971): 163–182.
68. Kitano, Japanese Americans, 25.
69. Richard Bell, Public School Education of Second Generation Japanese in California
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1935).
70. Roger Daniels, Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II (New
York: Hill and Wang, 1993), 19.
71. Yoshiye Togasaki, interview, 10 August 1985.
72. Ibid.
73. Tamura, Americanization, Acculturation, and Ethnic Identity, 101.
74. Ibid.
75. Ibid.
76. See Lane Ryo Hirabayashi’s introduction of Richard S. Nishimoto, Inside an Ameri-
can Concentration Camp (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995), xxxi.
77. Sucheng Chan, Asian Americans: An Interpretive History (New York: Twayne Pub-
lishers, 1991), 39.
78. Ibid.
79. Thomas, The Salvage, 23.
80. Ibid.
81. Wilson and Hosokawa, East to America, 224.
82. Edna Bonacich and John Modell, The Economic Basis of Ethnic Solidarity: Small
Business in Japanese American Community (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of California Press, 1980), 38; W. T. Kataoka, “Occupation of Japanese in Los
Angeles,” Sociology and Social Research 14 (September–October 1929): 53–58.
83. Leonard Bloom and Ruth Riemer, Removal and Return: The Socio-Economic Effects
178 Notes to Pages 56–63

of the War on Japanese Americans (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1949).
84. Bonacich and Modell, The Economic Basis of Ethnic Solidarity, 67.
85. Ibid.; H. A. Millis, The Japanese Problem in the United States (New York: Macmillan,
1915); Jacobus ten Broek, Edward Barnhart, and Floyd W. Matson, Prejudice, War,
and the Constitution (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1954).
86. Bonacich and Modell, The Economic Basis of Ethnic Solidarity, 65.
87. Ibid., 78.
88. Daniels, Prisoners without Trial.
89. Ibid.; Bonacich and Modell, The Economic Basis of Ethnic Solidarity.
90. This work stoppage resulted from a disagreement between the Honolulu Rapid
Transit Company and the Amalgamated Association of Street, Electric Railway,
and Motor Coach Employees of American, Local 1,173. See William Norwood,
“Racial Issues in Hawaii Stirred by Unions’ Drive,” Christian Science Monitor, 21
August 1943.
91. For a discussion about the theory of internal colonialism, see Robert [Bob] Blauner,
Still the Big News: Racial Oppression in America (Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 2001); Racial Oppression in America (New York: Harper and Row, 1972).

Chapter 3 Contradictions and Paradoxes

1. “Editorial,” Rafu Shimpo, 18 December 1941, p. 5.
2. In 1899 Secretary of State John Hay formulated the Open Door Policy to pro-
tect United States access to the China market.
3. For a detailed discussion of the Tripartite Pact and its effects on relations between
the United States and Japan, see William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason, The
Undeclared War, 1940–1941 (New York: Harper, 1953), 1–33.
4. Allan Beekman, The Niihau Incident (Honolulu: Heritage Press of the Pacific,
1982); Stephen Ambrose, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy since 1938
(New York: Penguin, 1983).
5. Ambrose, Rise to Globalism, 40–42; Robert A. Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and
American Policy, 1932–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979).
6. Japan expected these negotiations to lead to a resolution before October 15.
Fumimaro Konoye resigned as premier on that date after negotiations failed, and
was replaced by General Hideki Tojo. Japan set a new deadline of November 29
to reach an agreement with the United States. See Michael J. Lyons, World War
II: A Short History (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1994), 143–147.
7. Langer and Gleason, The Undeclared War.
8. Ambrose, Rise to Globalism, 40
9. Roger Daniels, Prisoners without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II (New
York: Hill and Wang, 1993), 10.
10. Edna Bonacich, “A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism: The Split Labor Market,”
American Sociological Review 47 (1972): 547–559.
11. Takeshi Nakayama, “Mama Wore Combat Boots: Nisei women joined WACs to
help shorten World War II,” Rafu Shimpo, 18 December 1993, A14.
12. Ibid., A13.
13. Timothy Holian reports that Ludecke was sent personally to the United States
by Adolf Hitler. See Timothy Holian, The German-Americans and World War II:
An Ethnic Experience (New York: P. Lang, 1966), 17.
14. Ibid., 53.
 Notes to Pages 63–71 179

15. U.S. Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians Report,

Personal Justice Denied (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office,
March 1992), 283; Samuel Eliot Morison, The Battle of the Atlantic, (Boston: Little,
Brown and Co., 1947), 131–135.
16. Morison, Battle of the Atlantic, 131–35.
17. U.S. Commission on Wartime Relocation, Personal Justice Denied, 290.
18. Frederick C. Luebke, Bonds of Loyalty: German-Americans and World War I (De
Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1974), 255.
19. Ibid., 290.
20. Ibid., 291.
21. Ibid.
22. Holian, The German-Americans and World War II, 96.
23. George E. Pozzetta, “My Children Are My Jewels: Italian-American Generations
during World War II,” The Home-Front War: World War II and American Society,
ed. Kenneth Paul O’Brien and Lynn Hudson Parsons (Westport, Conn.: Green-
wood Press, 1995), 67.
24. This is a salient theme in the writings of Roger Daniels. See, for example, Prison-
ers Without Trial and Concentration Camps. This argument is also made by Donald
Collins in Native American Aliens: Disloyalty and Renunciation of Citizenship by Japa-
nese Americans during World War II (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985).
25. U.S. Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute. Asian and Pacific Islander–
American Heritage Month 2000 (Patrick Air Force Base, Fla: Defense Equal Op-
portunity Management Institute, 2000), 16.
26. Ibid., 17.
27. See Charles Wagley and Marvin Harris, Minorities in the New World (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1958), 256–263.
28. Ibid.; see also Donald Noel, “A Theory of the Origin of Ethnic Stratification,”
Social Problems 16 (fall 1968): 161.
29. Cecil Hengy Coggins, “Japanese Americans in Hawaii,” Harper’s Magazine, Pasa-
dena, Calif., July 1943.
30. William Norwood, “Anti-Japanese Upsurge Now Evident in Hawaii,” In Chris-
tian Science Monitor, 20 August 1943.
31. Editorial, “Racial Identity,” Rafu Shimpo, 22 December 1941, p.1.
32. Commission on Wartime Relocation, Personal Justice Denied, 292.
33. Ibid., 292.
34. Pozzetta, “My Children Are My Jewels,” 78 n.19; the Naturalization Act of 1790
provided for naturalization of any free white person. After the Civil War, in the
1878 decision by Circuit Judge Sawyer, the Naturalization Act prohibited Chi-
nese immigrants from becoming American citizens. Finally, the 1922 Supreme
Court ruling in Ozawa v. United States found the statute prohibited the natural-
ization of anyone of Asian descent.
35. See “Fellow American Scouts,” Rafu Shimpo, 21 December 1941, p. 3.
36. Warren Tsuneishi, “Nisei’s Greatest Failure,” Rafu Shimpo 21 December 1941, pp.
10, 14.
37. The U.S. Senate’s vote in favor of war was unanimous (82–0), and the House of
Representatives voted 338–1; the only dissenting vote was cast by Representa-
tive Jeanne Rankin (R) of Montana.
38. Rafu Shimpo, 9 December 1941, pp.1–4; see also excerpts of Saburo Kido’s speech
to JACL in Bill Hosokawa, JACL: In Quest of Justice (New York: William and
Morrow, 1982), 155–156.
39. Rafu Shimpo, 10 December 1941, p. 1.
180 Notes to Pages 71–83

40. Ibid.
41. Ibid., 19 December 1941, p.1.
42. Ibid., 17 December 1941, p.1.
43. Ibid., 11 December 1941, p.5.
44. Cherry Shiozawa, interview by Chizu Iiyama, tape recording, Japanese National
American Historical Society 21 February 1989, San Francisco.
45. Richard Nishimoto, Inside an American Concentration Camp: Japanese American
Resistance at Poston, ed. Lane Ryo Hirabayashi (Tucson: University of Arizona
Press, 1995).
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid.
50. For a conceptualization of word racialization, see Michael Omi and Howard
Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1980s (New
York: Routledge, 1986), 64.
51. Nishimoto, Inside an American Concentration Camp, xxvi–xxvii.
52. Andrew W. Lind, Hawaii’s Japanese: An Experiment in Democracy (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1946), 73.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid., 74.
56. Commission on Wartime Relocation, Personal Justice Denied, 17.
57. Ibid., 16.
58. Stephen E. Ambrose, “Blacks in the Army in Two World Wars,” The Military in
American Society, ed. Stephen E. Ambrose and James A. Barber Jr. (N.Y.: Free
Press, 1972), 178–179.
59. Dorothy S. Thomas and Richard Nishimoto, The Spoilage: Japanese American
Evacuation and Resettlement during World War II (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1969), 64.
60. Ibid., 65.
61. Ibid., 68.
62. Collins, Native American Aliens, 32.
63. See Thomas and Nishimoto, The Spoilage, 84–112; Collins, Native American Aliens,
23–34; Dorothy Swaine Thomas, Charles Kikuchi, and James Sakoda, The Sal-
vage: Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1952), 93–94.
64. United States Department of the Interior, War Relocation Authority, The Evacu-
ated People: A Quantitative Description (U.S. Government Printing Office, Wash-
ington, D.C. 1946), 169.
65. Thomas and Nishimoto, The Spoilage, 363–365.
66. See Nasumi Tokeuchi’s letter to the President of the United States, 6 September
1944, RG 165, Box 444, Folder 291.2, Japanese 1 September 1944 to 31 Decem-
ber 1944, National Archives, College Park, Md.
67. Collins, Native American Aliens, 121.
68. Ibid.
69. Daniels, Prisoners without Trial, 77.
70. Nishimoto, Inside an American Concentration Camp, 171.
71. Collins, Native American Aliens, 84.
72. Thomas and Nishimoto, The Spoilage, 93; The authors obtained this information
from the War Relocation Authority, Community Analysis Section.
 Notes to Pages 83–90 181

73. Daniels, Prisoners without Trial, 86.

74. Nishimoto, Inside an American Concentration Camp,179–181.
75. See Larry Tajiri, “The Profits in Racism,” The Pacific Citizen, 22 July 1944, p. 4.
76. Ibid.
77. This was the Supreme Court ruling in the Endo case. See Commission on War-
time Relocation, Personal Justice Denied, 231; Daniels, Prisoners without Trial, 81.
78. United States Department of the Interior, The Relocation Program (New York:
AMS Press, 1975 [reprint of the 1946 edition published by the U.S. Government
Printing Office, Washington.])
79. Eileen H. Tamura, Americanization, Acculturation, and Ethnic Identity: The Nisei
Generation in Hawaii (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994),
188.
80. This editorial, “Jim Crow Deplored,” was published in the Pacific Citizen and re-
printed in the Gila (Ariz.) News-Courier, Arizona, 8 January 1944, p. 2.
81. Ibid.
82. Department of the Interior. The Relocation Program, 21.
83. See “Japanese in College Accepted as Americans,” Chicago Sunday Tribune, re-
printed in Gila (Ariz.) News-Courier, 23 May 1944, p. 4.
84. Larry Tajiri, “Undoing the Evacuation,” Pacific Citizen, 13 January 1945, p. 4.
85. Ibid.
86. Ibid.
87. Commission on Wartime Relocation, Personal Justice Denied, 3.
88. See Yen Le Espirutu, Asian American Women and Men (Thousand Oaks: Sage Pub-
lications, 1997); Harry Kitano, Japanese Americans: The Evolution of a Subculture
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall).
89. Daisuke Kitagawa, Issei and Nisei: The Internment Years (New York: Seabury Press,
1967), 89.
90. Thomas and Nishimoto, The Spoilage, 39.
91. See Valerie Matsumoto, “Japanese American Women during World War II,” Fron-
tiers 8 (1984): 1.
92. Leslie Ito, “Japanese American Women and the Student Relocation Movement,
1942–1945,” Frontiers 21 (2000): 12.

Chapter 4 Women’s Army Corps Recruitment of Nisei Women

1. “Urge Japanese American Girls to Join Women’s Army Corps: Pvt. Shinagawa
Recruits Nisei Volunteers in Denver Area,” Pacific Citizen, 27 May 1944, p. 3.
2. The languages were listed in order of the number of translators needed: Spanish,
Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, French, German, and Italian. See WAAC
memo to commands from Martha E. Eskridge, Second Officer, 5 January 1943,
RG 407, File 1940–1945, Box 4297, Folder 341, National Archives, College Park,
Md.
3. See letter to Oveta Culp Hobby from E. M. Rovall, Acting Director of the War
Relocation Authority, 26 January 1943, RG 165, SPWA 291.2, National Archives,
Washington, D.C.
4. See letter to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson from Allen C. Blaisdale, 28 Janu-
ary 1943, RG 407, Folder 291.3, Box 4282, National Archives, Washington, D.C..
5. See letter to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson from President of the United
States Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1 February 1943, RG 389, Box 1728, National Ar-
chives, Washington, D.C.
6. See War Department intra-office memorandum to WAAC Director Oveta Culp
182 Notes to Pages 90–98

Hobby, initialed H. P. T., including a report by Third Officer Busse on a series of

conferences that she and Second Officer Ruth Fowler attended to investigate the
possibility of procuring six thousand Nisei men for voluntary induction into the
army, 1 February 1943, SPWA 291.2, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
7. See letter to Headquarters Ninth Command, WAAC Branch, Washington, D.C.,
from Henriette Horak, Second Officer, of the WAAC Recruiting Office, Los An-
geles, 7 March 1943, RG 165, National Archives, Washington, D.C..
8. Officer Horak recommended that enrollment of Japanese women should begin
quickly, because many of the women had job clearances. She reported that in re-
sponses made by 258 Nisei women on the WRA–126 Rev (War Relocation Au-
thority, Application for Leave Clearance), 29 percent answered that they were
willing to serve in the Army Nurse Corps or the WAAC if the opportunity pre-
sented itself (question 27). Most of these women were between twenty-one and
thirty years of age and had no dependents. See letter to Headquarters Ninth Com-
mand, WAAC Branch, Washington, D.C., from Henriette Horak, Second Of-
ficer, of the WAAC Recruiting Office, Los Angeles, 11 March 1943, RG 165,
National Archives, Washington, D.C..
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. See letter to Commanding General, Ninth Command, Fort Douglas, Utah, from
Margaret E. Deane, Third Officer, WAAC, Headquarters Utah Recruiting and
Induction District, Salt Lake, Utah, 8 March 1943, RG 165, National Archives,
Washington, D.C..
12. See letter to Commanding General, Ninth Service Command, Fort Douglas, Utah,
from Joyce Burton, Second Officer, WAAC, of Headquarters Montana Recruit-
ing and Induction District, 11 March 1943, RG 165, National Archives, Wash-
ington, D.C..
13. Ibid.
14. The WAC Bill passed the Senate on 28 June 1943 and was signed into law by
the president of the United States on 1 July 1943. The law gave the Army ninety
days to dissolve the WAAC. By September 30, the WAAC ceased to exist.
15. “First Group of Nisei WACS Enter Training at Des Moines,” Pacific Citizen, vol.
17, no. 26, 1 January 1944, p.8.
16. “Three Utah Nisei Girls Train for WACs at Des Moines: Get Send-off from
Friends, Relatives in Salt Lake City,” Pacific Citizen, vol. 18, no. 7, 19 February
1944, p. 3.
17. “Pvt. Michiyo Mukai Named Editor of WAC Newspaper,” Pacific Citizen, vol. 19,
no. 1, 8 July 1944, p. 1.
18. “Former Welfare Girl WAC,” Poston Chronicle, vol. 17, no. 4, Poston, Arizona, 9
March 1944, p. 1.
19. See letter to Secretary of War from Oveta Culp Hobby on the enlistment of Japa-
nese American Women in the Women’s Army Corps, National Archives, RG 165,
SPWA 291.2 File, 17 February 1944, College Park, Md..
20. See “Women’s Army Corps Offers Opportunity for Nisei Girls,” Pacific Citizen,
19 February 1944, p. 7.
21. “Urge Japanese American Girls to Join Women’s Army Corps: Pvt. Shinagawa
Recruits Nisei Volunteers in Denver Area,” Pacific Citizen, 27 May 1944, p.3.
22. “Nisei Sisters Become WACs in Illinois,” Pacific Citizen, 1 April 1944, p.1.
23. “Nisei Girl Leaves WRA Job to Enlist in Women’s Army,” Pacific Citizen, 1 April
1, 1944, p. 3.
24. “First Nisei Girl from Wyoming Enlists In WAC,” Pacific Citizen, 8 April 1944, p. 1.
 Notes to Pages 98–104 183

25. “Philadelphia Girl Leaves for Training In Women’s Army,” Pacific Citizen, 14 Oc-
tober 1944, p. 3.
26. “Pismo Beach Girl Enlists in WACs,” Pacific Citizen, 28 December 1944, p.16.
27. Cherry Shiozawa, interview by Chizu Iiyama, tape recording, Japanese National
American Historical Society, San Francisco, 21 February 1989.
28. “Nisei Wac Pays Tribute to U.S. Citizenship Rights,” Pacific Citizen, 26 August
1944, p. 2.
29. “Yagi Nisei Girl Becomes WAC,” Gila (Ariz.) News-Courier, 7 October 1944.
30. “Nisei Girl Joins WAC,” Gila (Ariz.) News-Courier, 27 January 1945, p. 4.
31. “Sixth Nisei Girl From Poston Joins Women’s Army Corps,” Pacific Citizen, 11
November 1944, p. 2.
32. “Newswriter Joins Women’s Army Corps,” Pacific Citizen, 2 December 1944.
33. “Vest-Pocket Nisei WAC Joins Pharmacy Staff of Army Hospital,” Pacific Citi-
zen, 10 February 1945, p. 3.
34. Ibid.
35. “Nisei Anthropologist Volunteers for Service in WAC,” Pacific Citizen, 18 No-
vember 1944, p. 7.
36. “Nisei Wacs Start Training as Army Hospital Technicians,” Pacific Citizen, 10
March 1945, p. 5.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. “Tanaka Joins Wacs in Des Moines, Ia.,” Manzanar Free Press, 9 June 1945, p. 4.
40. “Nisei in Rochester WRA Office Leaves for WAC Training,” Pacific Citizen, 12
May 1945, p. 6.
41. “Former Gilan Becomes WAC,” Gila (Ariz.) News-Courier, 22 August 1945, p. 2.
42. Laurie Johnston, “Isle Girls Answer Call to Arms; Would-be GI Janes Entangled
in Manpower Red Tape,” Honolulu Advertiser, 3 October 1944.
43. Ibid.
44. Marion Narvis, “Hawaii Women Line up in Armory as Applicants for Duty with
WACs,” Honolulu Advertiser, 3 October 1944
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid.
49. Johnston, “Isle Girls Answer Call to Arms.”
50. “First Hawaii WACs Are Honored at Review before Going to Mainland,” Hono-
lulu Star-Bulletin, 1 January 1945.
51. See letter from commanding general of Headquarters U.S. Army Forces, Pacific
Ocean Areas, and replies, 9 December 1944, RG 407, Army AG Project, Deci-
mal File 1940–45, Folder 353 WAC Training, Box 4302, National Archives, Col-
lege Park, Md..
52. “Hawaii’s WAC, Carrying Ukes, Head Overseas for Mainland,” Honolulu Star-
Bulletin, 2 January 1945.
53. The United Service Organization was founded on February 4, 1941, to serve mem-
bers of the armed forces and defense industries. In 1942 the USO began to spon-
sor entertainment tours for celebrities to visit and entertain U.S. soldiers all over
the world. Among the many celebrities who entertained with these touring com-
panies were Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Jack Benny, and Josephine Baker.
54. “Hawaiian WACs Find a Friend between Trains in Amarillo,” Amarillo Daily News,
January 1945.
55. Ibid.
184 Notes to Pages 104–112

56. See article in Memphis newspaper [title unknown], “Hawaii’s WACs Hula Their
Way to Memphis,” 20 January 1945.
57. There were five WAAC/WAC basic training centers during World War II. The
first was at Fort Des Moines, Iowa; the second in Daytona Beach, Florida; the
third at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia (activated on January 1, 1943); the fourth at
Fort Devens, Massachusetts; and the fifth with three locations at Camp
Monticello, Arkansas, Camp Polk, Louisiana, and Camp Ruston, Louisiana.
58. Women met the prerequisite for technical jobs in the AAF because they usually
scored higher on the aptitude test (AGCT) than did men. See Mattie Treadwell,
United States Army in World War II: Special Studies: The Women’s Army Corps
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1954), p. 289.
59. Treadwell, The Women’s Army Corps, 281–295.
60. “Nakagawara Nisei Girl Now Air WAC,” Gila News-Courier, 22 January 1944, p. 1.
61. “Girl Inducted into Air-WACs,” Pacific Citizen, 5 February 1944, p. 3.
62. “Poston Girl Joins Air WAC,” Poston Chronicle, 26 February 1944, p. 1.
63. “First Hawaii-Born Nisei Girl Joins Air Corps WACs,” Pacific Citizen, 6 May 1944,
p. 1.
64. “WACs Unsegregated,” Pacific Citizen, 15 January 1944, p. 4.

Chapter 5 Service in the Women’s Army Corps

1. Mattie Treadwell, United States Army in World War II: Special Studies: The Women’s
Army Corps (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1954), 66;
Bettie Morden, The Women’s Army Corps, 1945–1978 (Washington, D.C.: Cen-
ter of Military History, United States Army, 1990), 8.
2. Brenda L. Moore, To Serve My Country, To Serve My Race: The Story of the Only
African American Wacs Stationed Overseas during World War II (New York: New
York University Press, 1996).
3. “Number 1” was the War Department’s code for Caucasian. Moore, To Serve My
Country, 75.
4. Laurie Johnson, “I’m Coming Back, Is Message of Island Wac,” Honolulu Adver-
tiser, 18 April 1945, p.1.
5. Lillian Mott-Smith, “Island Girl Describes Assignment in Georgia,” Honolulu Star
Bulletin, January 1945.
6. Ibid.
7. “Hawaiian Nisei Soldiers Meet New Wacs from Home Islands: Earl Finch Throws
Party for Hawaiian Trainees in Deep South,” Pacific Citizen, 3 March 1945, p. 6.
8. Editorial, Honolulu Advertiser, 18 April 1945, p. 4.
9. Treadwell, The Women’s Army Corps, 41, 147, 148; Morden, The Women’s Army
Corps, 1945–1978, 18–19.
10. A manning document for a combat or combat-related unit was called a table of
organization. Women were assigned only as noncombatants during World War
II.
11. Morden, Women’s Army Corps, 1945–1978, 19.
12. “Japanese American WAC Aids Chaplain at Kentucky Camp,” Pacific Citizen, 17
February 1945, p. 2.
13. Editorial, Honolulu Star Bulletin, 5 November 1945.
14. “Vest-Pocket Nisei WAC Joins Pharmacy Staff of Army Hospital,” Pacific Citi-
zen, 10 February 1945, p. 3.
15. See Lillian Mott-Smith, “Hawaii WAC, Mitsue Nouichi, Is Engaged to Walter
Kitagawa,” Honolulu Star Bulletin, 24 December 1945.
 Notes to Pages 112–132 185

16. “Nisei WAC Talks on Japan before Hospital Group,” Pacific Citizen, 4 November
1944, p. 6
17. See “Enlistment of Japanese-American Women for Duty with the Medical De-
partment,” in Army AG, Project Decimal File, 1940–45, Box 4292, Memo 30
Jan 45, National Archives, College Park, Md..
18. Treadwell, The Women’s Army Corps, 325.
19. Clifford Uyeda and Barry Saiki, The Pacific War and Peace: Americans of Japanese
Ancestry in Military Intelligence Service, 1941 to 1952 (San Francisco: National Japa-
nese Historical Society, 1991), 17.
20. Ibid.
21. The course was known as the Army Intensive Japanese Language Course. Those
accepted into the program were Caucasian officers who possessed some knowl-
edge of Japanese or who demonstrated general linguistic ability. Subsequently the
school became even more selective: candidates were required to have six months
of academic training in Japanese, or the equivalent. See Colonel Kai E. Rasmussen,
“History and Description of the Military Intelligence Service Language School,” RG
319, Box 1 of 1, Ft. Snelling, Minnesota, National Archives, College Park, Md.
22. Memorandum to Commanding General, “Enrollment of linguists in WAAC,” 7
January 1943, RG 407, Box 4297, Folder 341, National Archives, College Park,
Md.
23. Uyeda and Saiki, The Pacific War and Peace, 23.
24. Lillian Mott-Smith, “With Hawaii WACS,” Honolulu Star Bulletin, 11 Septem-
ber 1945.
25. Marion Nestor, interview by Brenda L. Moore, 6 April 1995.
26. Ibid.
27. “WACs Bound for Tokyo Include 4 from Territory,” Honolulu Star Bulletin, 29 Janu-
ary 1946.
28. “11 Nisei WACs Leave for Tokyo,” Rafu Shimpo, 23 January 1946, p. 1.
29. Kathy Gorman, “Yank WAC, 12 of Nippon Descent to Leave for Japan—Nisei
to Be Mannequins of Democracy,” St. Paul Dispatch, 18 January 1946, pp.1, 2.
30. Ibid., 2; one of the Wacs deployed with the group was Sgt. Rhoda Knudsen, a
Caucasian woman who was born in Japan of missionary parents and lived in To-
kyo until she was almost eighteen years old.
31. “Nisei Wacs Stop Here en Route to Japan for Interpreter Duty,” Honolulu Adver-
tiser, 29 January 1946.
32. Two WAC detachments were activated in Japan during 1946; the 8000th WAC
Battalion in Yokohama, and the 8225th WAC Battalion in Tokyo. The former
consisted of approximately 150 women who worked in the offices of Headquar-
ters, 8th Army, and lived in a quonset hut compound. The latter comprised of
four hundred enlisted women who worked in General Headquarters (GHQ), U.S.
Army Forces, Far East, (USAFFE), and lived in a multistory converted office build-
ing formerly owned by the Mitsubishi Corporation; see Morden, Women’s Army
Corps, 1945–1978, 47.
33. Uyeda and Saiki, Pacific War and Peace, 23.
34. See Ulysses Lee, United States Army in World War II: Special Studies: The Employ-
ment of Negro Troops (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966),
422.
35. Moore, To Serve My Country, To Serve My Race, 20–21.
36. “4 Negro Wacs Convicted—NAACP Calls It Fair,” New York Post, 21 March
1945; “Army Court Convicts 4 Negro Wacs of Disobeying Superior,” Washington
Post, 21 March 1945; “3 Congressmen Ask Probe of Wac Trials,” Washington Post,
23 March 1945.
186 Notes to Pages 132–138

37. “Negro Wacs,” Washington Post, 12 April 1945.

38. Ibid.
39. See Moore, To Serve My Country.
40. See Stacey Yukari Hirose, Japanese American Women and the Women’s Army Corps,
1935–1950, M.A. thesis (Los Angeles: University of California Los Angeles,
1993), 44.
41. Treadwell, The Women’s Army Corps, 589.
42. See letter to Commanding General, Fourth Service Command, on the shipment
of women enlisted in the WAC in the Antilles Department, 14 October 1944,
WAC File, National Archives, College Park, Md.
43. Treadwell, The Women’s Army Corps, 589.
44. WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) was the Navy’s ser-
vice organization for women.
45. Judy Barrett Litof and David C. Smith, “The Wartime History of the WAVES,
SPARS, Women Marines, Army and Navy Nurses, and WASPS,” A Woman’s War,
Too: U.S. Women in the Military in World War II, ed. Paula Nassen Poulos (Wash-
ington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1996), 56.
46. Hazel Lee was one of thirty-eight WASPs to die in the line of duty. She and an-
other pilot received identical instructions from an air traffic controller on their
approach to Great Falls Air Force Base in Montana and consequently crashed.
See Judy Yung, Chinese Women of America: A Pictorial History (Seattle: Univer-
sity of Washington Press, 1986); Judith Bellafaire, Asian-Pacific American
Servicewomen in Defense of a Nation (Arlington, Va.: Women In Military Service
for America Memorial, 1999).
47. Bellafaire, Asian-Pacific American Servicewomen.

Chapter 6 Commissions in the Army Medical Corps

1. Richard V. N. Ginn, The History of the U.S. Army Medical Service Corps (Wash-
ington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1997), 186.
2. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the
United States, 1949 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949),
Table 210.
3. Hearings before Subcommittee No. 3 of the Committee on Military Affairs, House
of Representatives, Seventy-Eighth Congress, Appointment of Female Physicians
and Surgeons in the Medical Corps of the Army and Navy (Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943), 2.
4. Ibid., 18.
5. Ibid., 48.
6. “Commissioning of Female Doctors, U.S. Army,” Army Medical Bulletin 68 (July
1943): 217; Mary T. Sarnecky, “Women, Medicine, and War,” A Woman’s War,
Too: U.S. Women in the Military in World War II, ed. Paula Nassen Poulos (Wash-
ington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1996), 71–81.
7. Esther P. Lovejoy, Women Doctors of the World (New York: Macmillan, 1957), 366;
The Military Surgeon: Journal of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United
States 93 (1943): 91 and (July 1943): 99; Sarnecky. “Women, Medicine, and War,”
71–81.
8. The Military Surgeon (July 1943): 99
9. Brig. Gen. Raymond W. Bliss, MC, a physician who served as chief of operations
under Surgeon General Norman T. Kirk, and would later (from 1947–1951) suc-
ceed Kirk as surgeon general. See Ginn. History of the U.S. Army Medical Service
 Notes to Pages 138–146 187

Corps, 121–122, 191 n.37, 199; Clara Raven, “Achievements of Women in Medi-
cine, Past and Present–Women in the Medical Corps of the Army,” Military Medi-
cine: Official Publication of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States
125 (February 1960): 105–111.
10. Lovejoy, Women Doctors of the World, 367.
11. Raven, “Achievements of Women in Medicine, Past and Present,” 109
12. Ginn, History of the U.S. Army Medical Service Corps, 119.
13. Colonel Julia O. Flikke, superintendent of the corps from June 1937 to June 1943,
was succeeded by Colonel Florence A. Blanchfield, who held the position from
July 1943 to December 1947.
14. Carolyn M. Feller and Deborah R. Cox, eds., Highlights in the History of the Army
Nurse Corps (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2001).
15. Barbara Brooks Tomblin, G.I. Nightingales: The Army Nurse Corps in World War
II (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996), 11; Darlene Clark-Hine, Black
Women in White: Racial Conflict and Cooperation in the Nursing Profession, 1890–
1950 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 170.
16. Clark-Hine. Black Women in White, 171.
17. Prudence Burns Burrell, “Serving My Country,” in Negro History Bulletin 51–57
(1993): 47–50.
18. Pittsburgh Courier. “Commander Lauds Skill of Our Nurses in ETO.” (Pittsburgh,
Pa.: 1944).
19. Sarnecky, A History of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1999) 171–76; U.S. Department of Defense, Black Americans
in Defense of Our Nation (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1985),
101; Tomblin. G.I. Nightingales, 11, 21.
20. Judy Yung, Chinese Women of America: A Pictorial History. (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1986), 66.
21. Letter from the War Department, Services of Supply, Office of the Surgeon Gen-
eral, Washington, D.C., addressed to Miss Masako Mary Yamado, 21 February
1943. From the private collection of Masako Mara Yamada, New York, N.Y.
22. Letter from the War Department, Services of Supply, Office of the Surgeon Gen-
eral, Washington, D.C., addressed to Miss Masaka Mary Yamada, 21February 1943.
From the private collection of Masako Mary Yamada, New York, N.Y.
23. Letter from Army Service Forces, Governors Island, New York, addressed to Sec-
ond Lieutenant. Masako M. Yamada, ANC, 27 March 1945. From the private
collection of Masako Mary Yamada, New York, N.Y.
24. Sarnecky, A History of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, 275.
25. Ibid., 270–71.
26. Ibid.
27. Manzanar Free Press (Manzanar, Calif., 1 September 1945), 2. In the Wason col-
lection, Film 8676, Japanese Camp Papers, Reel 10, Kroch Library, Cornell Uni-
versity, Ithaca, N.Y.
28. For detailed information about the UNRRA, see United Nations Relief and Re-
habilitation Administration; UNRRA: Organization Aims Progress (Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1945).
29. Ibid., 3, 7.
30. Ibid., 22.
31. Frances Berkeley Floore, The Bread of the Oppressed: An American Woman’s Experi-
ences in War-Disrupted Countries (Hicksville, N.Y.: Exposition Press, 1975), 27–28.
32. Yoshiye Togasaki, unpublished audiotaped interview, National Japanese Ameri-
can Historical Society, San Francisco, 10 August 1985, [transcript page] 46.
188 Notes to Pages 147–151

33. Ibid., 47.

34. Ibid., 48.
35. Ibid., 48.

Chapter 7 The Postwar Years

1. Cynthia Enloe, Ethnic Soldiers: State Security in Divided Societies (Athens: Univer-
sity of Georgia Press, 1980).
2. Margaret Higonnet, Jane Jenson, Sonya Michel, and Margaret Weitz, Behind the
Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
1987); D’Ann Campbell, Women at War with America: Private Lives in a Patriotic
Era (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984).
3. John Modell and Timothy Haggerty, “The Social Impact of War,” Annual Review
of Sociology 17 (1991): 205–224.
4. Ibid., 220.
5. The life course perspective is a major paradigm in the study of human lives and a
changing society. Among the numerous contributions to life course studies are
these works of Glen H. Elder Jr.: “Time, Human Agency, and Social Change: Per-
spectives on the Life Course,” Social Psychology Quarterly 57 (1994): 4–15; “War
Mobilization and the Life Course: A Cohort of World War II Veterans,” Socio-
logical Forum 2 (1987): 449–472; Life Course Dynamics: Trajectories and Transitions,
1968–1980 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985); Children of the Great
Depression: Social Change in Life Experience (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1974).
Other major contributions include: Glen H. Elder Jr. and Janet Z. Giele, Methods
of Life Course Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (Thousand Oaks,
Calif.: Sage, 1998); John Modell, Marc Goulden, and Sigurdur Magnusson, “World
War II in the Lives of Black Americans: Some Findings and an Interpretation,”
Journal of American History 76 (1989): 830–848.
6. See Glen H. Elder Jr., Cynthia Gimbel, and Rachel Ivie, “Turning Points in Life:
The Case of Military Service and War,” Military Psychology 3 (1991): 215–231.
7. Ibid., 223.
8. Maureen Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter: Class, Gender, and Propaganda during
World War II (Amherst, Mass.: University of Massacusetts Press, 1984), 23.
9. Kay Deaux and Joseph C. Ullman, Women of Steel: Female Blue-Collar Workers in
the Basic Steel Industry (New York: Praeger, 1983), 1–10.
10. Deaux and Ullman cite an intensive study conducted by the Women’s Bureau of
the U.S. Department of Labor in 1944–1945. The study revealed that 75 percent
of the women who had been working during World War II expected to continue
to work, and most wanted to continue in the nontraditional jobs they were fill-
ing during the war rather than return to jobs held before the war. See Deaux and
Ullman, Women of Steel, 9; the same study is cited in Maureen Honey. Honey
also cited another study published by the Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Depart-
ment of Labor, A Preview as to Women Workers in Transition from War to Peace, as
evidence of dissatisfaction among women being laid off. See Honey, Creating Rosie
the Riveter, 23, 227.
11. Edward H. Spicer, Aseal T. Hansen, Katherine Luomala, and Marvin K. Opler,
Impounded People (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1969).
12. Leonard Bloom and Ruth Riemer, Removal and Return: The Socio-Economic Ef-
fects of the War on Japanese Americans (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1949); U.S. War Agency Liquidation Unit, People in Motion: The
 Notes to Pages 151–163 189

Postwar Adjustment of Evacuated Japanese Americans (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Gov-

ernment Printing Office, 1947).
13. Cherry Shiozawa, interview by Chizu Iiyama, tape recording, Japanese National
American Historical Society, San Francisco, 21 February 1989, [transcript page]
50.
14. Yoshiye Togasaki, audio-taped interview, National Japanese American Historical
Society, San Francisco, 10 August 1985, 46.
15. D’Ann Campbell, Women at War with America, 225.
16. Ibid., 224.
17. Ibid., 225.
18. Lillian G. Mott-Smith, “Hawaii Interpreter Weds Hawaii WAC at Fort Snelling,
Minnesota,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin (November 1945).
19. Lillian G. Mott-Smith, “Hawaii WAC, Mitsue Nouichi, Is Engaged to Walter
Kitagawa,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin (24 December 1945).
20. Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (New York:
Free Press, 1971), 189.
21. Ibid., 189.
22. Doreen Drewry Lehr, “Military Wives: Breaking the Silence,” in Gender Camou-
flage: Women and the U.S. Military, ed. Francine D’Amico and Laurie Weinstein.
(New York: New York University Press, 1999), 117.
23. Ibid., 125.
24. Morris Janowitz, Reconstruction of Patriotism: Education for Civic Consciousness (Chi-
cago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 1–3; David R. Segal, Recruiting for Uncle
Sam: Citizenship and Military Manpower Policy (Lawrence: University Press of Kan-
sas, 1989), 97–99.
25. T. H. Marshall, Class, Citizenship, and Social Development (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1963), 78.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. See Sandra C. Taylor, “Evacuation and Economic Loss: Questions and Perspec-
tives,” Japanese Americans: From Relocation to Redress, ed. Roger Daniels, Sandra
C. Taylor, and Harry H. Kitano (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991),
163–167.
29. Daniels, Taylor, and Kitano, Japanese Americans, 226.
30. U.S. Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians Report,
Personal Justice Denied (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office,
March 1992), 7.
31. Milton M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Race, Religion, and
National Origin (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), 70–71.
32. See for example Eileen Tamura, Americanization, Acculturation, and Ethnic Iden-
tity: The Nisei Generation in Hawaii (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois
Press, 1994); Edna Bonacich and John Modell, The Economic Basis of Ethnic Soli-
darity: Small Business in the Japanese American Community (Berkeley and Los An-
geles: University of California Press, 1980); Harry H. L. Kitano, Japanese
Americans: The Evolution of a Subculture (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall,
1969).
33. Eric Woodrum, “An Assessment of Japanese American Assimilation, Pluralism,
and Subordination,” American Journal of Sociology 87 (1981), 157–169.
34. Ibid., 160.
35. For example, see John N. Tinker, “Intermarriage and Ethnic Boundaries: The
190 Notes to Page 163

Japanese American Case,” Journal of Social Issues 29 (1973), 49–66, and Akemi
Kikumura and Harry Kitano, “Interracial Marriage: A Picture of the Japanese
Americans,” Journal of Social Issues 29 (1973), 67–81.
36. See “Nisei Writes of Issei Parents,” Gila (Ariz.) News Courier, 24 February 1944,
2. Found in Wason Film 8676, Japanese Camp Papers, Reel 8, Kroch Library,
Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
37. Ibid.
 Glossary 191

Glossary

ANC: Army Nurse Corps

ASF: Army Service Forces

commission: Officer status in the armed services. Commissioned officers may

be viewed as the managers.

crude birth rate: The number of live births in a given year for each thousand
persons in an entire population. It is calculated by dividing the number
of live births in a year by a society’s total population and multiplying the
results by one thousand. It is an indicator of a society’s overall fertility.

DAC: Defined Army Civilian

enlisted: members of the armed services who are subordinate to officers. En-
listed members may be viewed as the workers.

ethnic group: Narrowly defined in sociology as one distinguished primarily

on the basis of cultural or natural-origin characteristics

gannen mono: Japanese contract laborers

heigo: Japanese military and technical terms

ideal-type: A sociological term referring to an analytical construct that al-

lows social scientists to measure similarities and differences in concrete
cases; it is an abstract of the essential characteristics of any social phe-
nomenon. The term was coined by the prominent German scholar Max
Weber.

191
192 Glossary

issei: the first generation of Japanese immigrants, having immigrated to the

United States

JACL: Japanese American Citizens League

kibei: a Nisei sent by his or her parents at a young age to be educated in Japan

Meiji Era: the period 1868 to1912, when Emperor Meiji ruled. This period
designates the end of the feudal era and the beginning of the modern era
in Japan.

MISLS: Military Intelligence Service Language School

nisei: a child of Issei, born in the United States; second-generation Japanese

American

PACMIRS: Pacific Military Intelligence Research Section

on: Deep obligation to superiors

racial group: Narrowly defined in sociology as a group composed of persons

who share biologically transmitted traits considered by societal members
to be socially significant

racism: Defined in sociology as a belief that one racial category is innately

superior or inferior to another

RCT: Regimental Combat Team

sansei: third generation Japanese American

sosho: Japanese cursive writing

SPAR: women in the Coast Guard. The term is taken from the Coast Guard
motto, Semper Paratus (always ready)

SWPA: Southwest Pacific Area

tanomoshi: rotating credit associations

 Glossary 193

TDY: temporary duty

WAAC: Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps

Waac: member of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps

WAC: Women’s Army Corps

Wac: member of the Women’s Army Corps

WAVES: Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, the Navy or-
ganization for women

WCCA: Wartime Civil Control Authority, a unit created within the West-
ern Defense Command to take charge of civilian affairs. The WCCA was
in charge of the forced evacuation of Japanese Americans.
194 Glossary
 Bibliography 195

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202 Bibliography
 Index 203

Index

acculturation, 48, 70. See also Asian Americans, 3, 63, 65–66, 133–
assimilation 134. See also Japanese Americans
Africa, 5, 140 assimilation, 59, 93, 162–164. See also
African Americans, 3, 38, 77, 86; acculturation
civilian, 114–115; discrimination Australia, 118, 139–140
against, 5, 8, 62, 65, 84–85; and the
military, 1–2, 4, 44, 78, 90, 94, 106, Barringer, Emily Dunning, 137
107–108, 128, 140; segregation of, 4, basic training, 102, 106–111, 142,
13, 21, 59, 94, 106, 107–108, 139 184n57
African American women, 32, 149; and Beekman, Allan, 5
the military, 12, 44, 94, 106, 107– Bell, Richard, 51
108, 131–134, 139–140 Benedict, Ruth, 36
aliens, enemy, 4–5, 63, 65, 69, 83 Biddle, Francis, 72
Ambrose, Stephen, 61–62 birth rates, 37–38
Ancheta, Angelo, 3 Blaisdell, Allen C., 20, 21
anti-African American sentiment, 84– Blaisdell, Henry C., 90
85 Blaisdell, James, 102
anti-Asian sentiment, 38, 86, 171n18 Blanchfield, Florence A., 139, 140
anti-immigration movement, 6, 62, Bolton, Frances Payne, 143
171n18 Bonacich, Edna, 57, 58, 62
anti-Japanese sentiment, 5–6, 62–68, Buddhism, Buddhists, 33, 39, 76, 91
86, 153 Burrell, Prudence Burns, 139–140
Arakawa, Mary, 97–98 Burton, Joyce, 93
Arizona, 10, 72–73, 74, 84, 139
Arkansas, 73, 91 California, 6, 9–10, 45, 48, 52, 67, 71,
Army, U.S., 12, 15, 60, 74, 90, 98, 126, 81; economy of, 40, 84; evacuation
144, 146, 157; Air Forces (AAF), from, 72–73; immigration to, 35, 37;
104–105, 133; Service Forces, 104, jobs in, 152, 153; resettlement in,
141–142 85–86. See also Los Angeles; San
Army Medical Corps, 13–14, 134–139 Francisco
Army Nurse Corps (ANC), 3, 6, 11, 18, Campbell, D’Ann, 154
19, 29–30, 78, 93, 139–144 Camp Breckenridge, 131–132
arrests, 25, 133 Camp Hood, 115–116
Asakura, Mimi, 101 Camp Ritchie, 117, 123

203
204 Index

Caucasians. See whites 164; norms of, 30, 39, 43, 162. See
Celler, Emanuel, 132, 136, 137 also values
Chan, Sucheng, 55
children, 35, 38, 64, 96, 129, 154, 155– Daniels, Roger, 5–6, 10, 51, 55–56, 58,
156, 176n41; adult, 156, 157, 160– 62, 82, 171n18
161; caring for, 43, 49–50, 149–150; Deane, Margaret E., 92
labor of, 41, 42 democracy, 1, 2, 22, 27, 88, 93, 96–97,
Chin, Bertha, 124 125, 165
China, 61–62, 65, 116–117, 145 Denson Tribune, 25, 26
Chinese Americans, 41, 44, 63, 155, DeWitt, John L., 7–8, 9, 72
179n34; in the ANC, 140, 144; in discrimination, 6, 59, 67, 84, 153,
the military, 65, 134, 186n46; in the 171n18; citizenship, 1–2, 5, 69;
WAC, 119, 122, 124, 133 employment, 29, 54–55, 57, 62, 66,
Christianity, Christians, 34–35, 44, 47, 115–116, 122, 131–132; against
85, 125, 163 Issei, 7, 8, 62–65, 69, 75–76; racial
citizenship, 2, 3, 30, 65, 70, 82, 96, 98; and ethnic, 17, 27, 31, 38, 44, 45,
denial of, 5, 69, 78, 179n34; dual, 70, 93, 139, 162; sex, 13, 36, 38, 122,
38, 59, 81; renunciation of, 25, 80– 135–137, 139, 147, 174n64; wage,
81; rights of, 1, 20, 68, 79, 92, 141, 68, 75, 136, 139, 150. See also
149, 159–160, 162, 165. See also African Americans: discrimination
Japanese American Citizenship against; prejudice; racism;
League segregation; stereotypes
civilians, 114–115, 118, 135, 148–150, disloyalty, 79–81, 84
165 doctors, 13–14, 28, 52, 135–139, 145,
civil liberties, 2, 64 147
civil servants, 126–131, 151, 154, 155 Dugway Proving Ground, 113–114
class, 31, 36, 40, 41, 58, 75
Coggins, Cecil, 68 East Coast, 9, 124
college education, 92, 99, 135, 148, economics, 6, 31, 50, 62, 66–67, 77,
151–152, 156. See also education 150–151, 159, 164–165; in
Collins, Donald, 81–82, 83 California, 40, 84, 152, 153
Collins, Wayne M., 82 education, 45, 50–55, 101; higher, 2, 29,
Commission on Wartime Relocation 34, 36, 42, 46, 52–53, 151–152, 163,
and Internment of Civilians, 10, 63, 165. See also college education; GI
77 Bill; schools; students
community, 44, 63, 84; Japanese Elder, Glen Jr., 149, 165
American, 22, 34, 43–44, 57, 59, 75– elite, the, 33, 40, 41
76 Emmons, Delos, 76–77
competition, 58, 83 employment, 14–15, 56–58, 82, 85, 86;
Congress, U.S., 11, 12, 13–14, 79, 131, discrimination in, 29, 54–55, 57, 62,
136–138, 139, 160 66, 115–116, 122, 131–132. See also
court cases, 38, 81–82, 84, 126, 132, jobs; labor; workers
160, 179n34 Enloe, Cynthia, 148
Craighill, Margaret, 138 Etow, Toshiko Nancy, 98–99
culture, 162; Euro-American, 48, 49, 59, Europe, 33, 145, 146
70, 82, 93; Japanese, 40–41, 45, 47– European Americans, 49, 58, 69, 71, 75,
51, 59, 82, 93, 117, 119, 123, 163– 132. See also culture: Euro-American
 Index 205

evacuation, 9–10, 25, 58, 64, 72–75, 79, Furutani, Yaye, 99, 100
86–87, 118, 171n26; results of, 49,
75, 150, 160. See also internment; gender inequality, 30, 31, 36, 39, 123,
internment camps 125, 157
evacuees, 15, 118, 160; resettlement of, gender relations, 148, 149, 165
14–15, 16, 80, 83–87, 130; in the German Americans, 63–64, 69, 88
WAC, 95, 96, 98 German nationals, 63–64, 65, 87
Germany, 61, 63, 86, 117
Falck, Lilliebell, 15, 89–90 Geurrero, Josefina V., 134
family, 39–51, 79, 91, 95, 100–101, GI Bill, 2, 151–152, 153, 161
154–158; businesses, 37, 40–41, 42, Gila River Relocation Center, 95, 97,
56–58, 62–63, 86, 150; collective 98, 101
labor of, 41–43, 46, 150; and culture, Gimbel, Cynthia, 149, 165
40–41, 45, 47, 50; extended, 49–50, Glenn, Evelyn Nakano, 40, 49
125, 129–130, 158; grandparents, 39, Gordon, Milton, 162–163
49, 50; parents, 23–24, 32–38, 83, Gorman, Kathy, 125
92, 130–131, 159, 163; patriarchy of, Granada (Amache) Relocation Center,
39, 48–49, 176nn41–42; siblings, 43, 73, 95, 99
54, 158. See also children; Sansei Great Britain, 7, 33, 137, 140
farming, 33, 35, 41, 46, 47, 55–58, 62, Gunderson, Evelina, 110
82, 150
FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), Haggerty, Timothy, 148–149
8, 10, 19, 76, 173n47 Harada, Grace, 7, 23, 29, 47, 66, 150,
fear, 5, 6, 22, 61, 67, 160 157; in Japan, 126, 127, 128–130,
Filipino Americans, 63, 65, 133–134 155, 156; in the WAC, 108, 114,
Finch, Florence (Ebersole) Smith, 133– 121, 125, 155, 162
134 Harris, Marvin, 67
Floore, Frances Berkeley, 145–146 Hauck, C. J., 136
Fort Des Moines, 107–108, 112, 115, Hawaii, 5, 26–28, 29, 38, 48, 155, 158,
117, 131, 136 159; education in, 53–54; Honolulu,
Fort Oglethorpe, 102, 103, 104, 109– 36, 43, 67, 148, 152; immigration to,
110 32, 35; politics in, 59, 67–68, 76–77,
Frederick, E. D., 104 84; work in, 41–43, 56. See also Pearl
friends, 77, 95, 114, 122, 161, 162, 163 Harbor, attack on
Fuchida, Ellen, 7, 29; family of, 28, 36– Hawaii, military personnel from, 90,
37, 47–48, 57–58, 68–69, 157, 160– 119, 123, 143, 152; in Japan, 124,
161; in Japan, 127, 128, 129, 130; 125, 127; in the WAC, 101–104,
and the military, 24, 28, 107, 113– 107, 108–110, 115, 117
114, 123, 155, 161–162 health, public, 138–139, 143, 145, 146,
Fujii, Ruth, 21, 67–68, 76, 77, 152; 153
family of, 26–27, 38, 42–43, 48–49, health care, 44, 45–46, 47, 50, 92, 138.
158; in the WAC, 108, 115–116, See also Army Medical Corps; Army
132, 161 Nurse Corps; doctors; hospitals;
Fukagawa, May, 101 nurses
Fukuoka, Private, 95 Heart Mountain Relocation Center, 73,
Fumi, Neba, 97 74, 93, 97
Furutani, Brownie, 100 Higashi, Lillian, 111
206 Index

Hildring, John H., 12 against, 7, 8, 62–65, 69, 75, 76; in

Hill, Manice M., 17, 91 Japan, 81–82; and loyalty, 16, 77–79;
Hirabayashi, Gordon, 160 and opposition to serving, 22–24, 79,
Hirabayashi, Lane Ryo, 54, 74, 75–76 92; women, 32–37, 39–41, 125
Hirakowa, Harriett, 124 Issei, The (Ichioka), 34
Hirata, Toshito, 143 Italian Americans, 63, 65, 69, 87, 88
Hirose, Stacey, 2, 132–133 Italy, 61, 98, 146
Hobby, Oveta Culp, 12, 13, 17–18, 20, Ito, Leslie, 87
89, 90, 93–94, 131 Ivie, Rachel, 149, 165
Holian, Timothy, 63, 65 Izumi, Tamako Irene, 105
Honey, Maureen, 149
Hong Kong, 6–7 Janowitz, Morris, 1, 156
Honolulu Advertiser, 101, 109, 111, 125 Japan, 36, 80–82, 119, 127, 164;
Honolulu Star Bulletin, 103, 154–155 government of, 32, 61–62, 67, 76,
Horak, Henrietta, 22, 30, 91–92 133; Wacs in, 124–131, 155, 185n32.
hospitals, 44, 53, 112, 136, 138, 139– See also Tokyo
140, 141, 142, 143, 144 Japanese American Citizenship League
Hotta, Yoshio, 118 (JACL), 15, 23, 47, 70, 71, 80, 83,
Houchi, Mitsue, 112 96
housing, 43–44, 45–46, 47, 56, 62, 69, Japanese Americans, 4, 89–90, 123,
84–85, 86, 116–117 144, 154; expatriation and
Hughes, Joseph D., 94 repatriation of, 79, 81, 92, 146;
Hunt (Minidoka) Relocation Center, registration of, 16, 65, 77–79, 172–
73, 93, 97, 100 173n46. See also aliens, enemy;
Hurt, Haruko Sugi, 62 community: Japanese American;
culture: Japanese; evacuation; family;
Ichioka, Yuji, 34 internment; internment camps; Issei;
Idaho, 7, 47, 73, 93 Kibei; newspapers: Japanese
identity, 5, 49, 51, 63, 69, 128, 162–163, American; Nisei; Nisei women;
164 Sansei; Wacs/Waacs, Japanese
immigrants, 1, 7, 32–38, 51, 69, 72, 125 American
integration, 48, 67, 163; in the military, Jerome Relocation Center, 91, 100
18–21, 65, 90, 93–94, 96, 108, 132– jobs, 7, 93, 104–105, 149–150, 152,
133, 139, 144. See also segregation 153, 184n58, 188n10. See also
internment, 9, 49, 64, 72, 87 employment; labor; occupations;
internment camps, 9, 73–80, 83, 86–87, workers
100; leaving, 14, 82; and military Johnson, Emily B., 104
service, 17, 21, 89–93, 118, 119; Judaism, Jews, 45, 86, 146–147, 158,
violence in, 22, 30. See also names of 163
individual camps
interpreters, 17, 44, 117, 119 Kaneshiro, Florence Toshiko, 119
Iritani, Frances, 95, 98 Kato, Florence Y., 95
Irvine, W. W., 103 Kato, Sue Ogata, 43, 132
Iseri, Kathleen, 97 Kibei (Kebei), 22, 49–51, 82, 92, 117,
Isonaga, Chito, 123, 124 123, 126
Issei, 50, 159, 163, 172–173n46; in Kido, Matsuko, 124
camps, 83, 87, 91; discrimination Kim, Anna, 104
 Index 207

Kitagawa, Daisuke, 87 Luebke, Frederick, 64

Kitano, Harry, 36, 39, 51, 75
Knudsen, Rhoda, 124, 185n30 MacArthur, Douglas, 106, 126
Kodama, Edith, 124 Mahler, Bobbie, 103
Koloa, Chito, 125 Manzanar Relocation Center, 90, 92,
Kono, Alice, 26, 27, 42, 109–110, 117, 95, 100, 143
123, 148, 152, 161 Marcantonio, Vito, 132
Konoye, Fumimaro, 61 marriage, 40, 91, 92, 154–158, 162–164,
Korean Americans, 63, 66, 134 165; arranged, 36–37, 39, 87, 163
Kurihara, Joseph Yoshisuke, 80 married couples, 121, 125, 129, 130, 151
Kusanoki, Takako Taxie, 99 Marshall, George C., 11–12, 13
Kushida, Shige, 34 Marshall, T. H., 159
Kutaka, Fujiko (Grace), 27, 41, 101, Matson, Floyd, 6–7
109, 111, 115, 155, 162 Matsumoto, Valerie, 87
Matsusaki, Kumi, 99, 112, 113
labor, 6, 52, 56, 62, 68, 75, 102, 131, Maykovich, Minako, 39
188n10; collective, 41–43, 46, 48, media, 22, 62, 83; African American,
54, 57–58, 150; domestic, 2, 9, 27, 21, 131; Japanese American, 22, 70,
29, 40–41, 43, 47, 55, 85, 131, 150; 96. See also newspapers
skilled, 150–151; unpaid, 40–41, men: African American, 4, 90, 140;
150, 157; unskilled, 33, 41; and the Japanese American, 4, 16, 89, 90,
War Department, 11, 15, 20, 112, 123; Korean American, 66; in the
118, 137. See also employment; jobs; military, 94, 104, 128, 130, 149;
occupations; workers
minority, 159, 170n5; in the MISLS,
Lahey, Frank Howard, 137–138
117–118, 121, 122–123. See also
language, 69, 92, 107, 128, 133, 145;
family; officers: male
English, 50, 87, 116, 126, 163, 164;
men, Nisei, 25, 26, 75, 81, 90, 172–
Japanese, 66, 100, 112, 126–127,
173n46; in the military, 3, 15–17,
129, 164, 181n2, 185n21. See also
94, 105, 110
interpreters; linguists; Military
Mexican Americans, 32, 44, 45, 65
Intelligence Service Language
military, U.S., 66; and African
School; schools: Japanese-language;
translators Americans, 1–2, 4, 44, 78, 90, 94,
lawsuits. See court cases 106, 107–108, 128, 140; and African
Lee, Ulysses, 131 American women, 12, 44, 94, 106,
Lehr, Doreen Drewry, 157 107–108, 131–134, 139–140; and
Lind, Andrew, 41, 42, 76 benefits, 2, 11, 21, 29, 96, 137;
linguists, 16–17, 21, 82, 89, 117, 118, discharge from, 4–5, 124, 126, 132;
120 and the draft, 4, 15, 16, 24, 79, 91,
Littleton, Louise, 40 94, 98; effects of service in, 149–158;
Los Angeles, 6, 9, 43–44, 45–46, 52, 54, and integration, 18–21, 65, 90, 93–
56, 70, 74, 154 94, 96, 108, 132–133, 139, 144;
Lovejoy, Esther, 138 intelligence service, 112, 120, 123,
loyalty: of Japanese Americans, 16, 22, 133, 155, 156; and internment
68–71, 77–80, 134, 140; of Nisei camps, 17, 21, 89–93, 118, 119; and
Wacs, 30, 89, 93–94, 96–97, 101, men, 94, 104, 128, 130, 149; and
104; questionnaires about, 14, 15, military camps, 4, 137; morale in,
30, 76, 89 122, 124, 131, 132, 162; and Nisei
208 Index

military (continued) Nazis, 10, 63

men, 3, 15–17, 94, 105, 110; Nisei Nestor, Marion, 122–123
women in, 6, 10, 14, 16–17, 19, 38; newspapers, 17, 40, 68, 85, 104, 124–
opposition to service in, 79, 92; 125, 132; internment camp, 25, 26,
promotions in, 114, 120, 143, 148, 99; Japanese American, 7, 35, 70,
155; rank in, 11, 12, 137, 138, 147, 91, 97, 98–99, 100, 163. See also
174n64; recruitment for, 1, 16–17, Honolulu Advertiser; Honolulu Star
19, 51, 55, 78, 88, 90–94, 139, 148; Bulletin; Pacific Citizen; Rafu Shimpo
segregation in, 4, 13, 17, 20, 21, 106, New York City, 14, 53, 71, 84
107–108, 128, 131–134, 139; whites Nisei (Nikkei), 5, 16; in Japan, 81–82,
in, 4, 10, 17, 94, 103, 110, 115, 144. 124
See also Army, U.S.; Army Medical Nisei women, 18, 78, 172–173n46;
Corps; Army Nurse Corps; GI Bill; exclusion of, 139–141; interviews
Hawaii, military personnel from; with, 92–93, 97, 109; in the military,
Navy, U.S.; WAAC; WAC; Wacs/ 2–3, 6, 10, 14, 16–17, 19, 25, 38,
Waacs; names of individual camps and 115–116; surveys of, 91–93. See also
forts Army Nurse Corps; WAAC; WAC;
Military Intelligence Service Language Wacs/Waacs
School (MISLS), 4, 27, 51, 92, 108, Nishiguchi, Kay Keiko, 95
113, 114, 117–124, 185n21 Nishikaichi, Irene, 6, 14–15, 43–44, 82,
Miller, Emily, 91 151–152, 153–154; family of, 23, 47,
Minata, Michkey (Marie), 124, 125 53, 83, 159; internment of, 9–10, 74,
Mitchell, Noel Campbell, 44 75; in Japan, 128, 129, 130; at the
Miyashiro, Atsumi, 102 MISLS, 27, 119–120, 124; in the
Miyoko, Alice, 97 WAC, 94–95, 108, 124–126, 161
Mizusawa, Tsuruko, 99 Nishimoto, Richard S., 23, 54–55, 57,
Modell, John, 57, 58, 148–149 80, 83, 87
morality, 28, 34, 49 Nishimura, Bette, 95
Morden, Bettie, 12, 13 Noguchi, Kisa, 99
Moriguchi, Diane, 95 Nouichi, Misue, 155
Morimitsu, George, 163, 164 nurses, 2, 14, 28, 100, 135, 136, 139–
Moriuchi, Atsuko, 124 140, 145, 147, 153. See also Army
Moriya, Masako, 95 Nurse Corps
Mott-Smith, Lillian, 103–104, 109
Mukai, Michiyo, 25, 95 occupations, 18, 42, 55–59, 89, 97–100,
Murakami, Toyome, 95–96 111, 151–154. See also civil servants;
doctors; farming; nurses; shops;
Nakagawara, Cherry, 105 teachers
Nakamura, Mary, 124 Oda, Elaine, 102
Nakanishi, Toyome, 124 officers, 22, 89, 102, 107, 135, 154;
Nakasato, Dorothy, 111 female, 29–30, 126, 134, 136, 138,
nationalism, 69, 76 141; male, 4, 7–8, 10, 17, 21, 69, 72,
National Japanese American Historical 76, 117, 127; WAAC, 91–94, 118;
Society, 144, 154 WAC, 103, 108–109
Native Americans, 65, 133 Ogata, Sue, 95
Navy, U.S., 10, 11, 76, 126, 136, 137, Ogawa, Chidori, 105
138, 140 Ogura, Kay Keiko, 112
 Index 209

Okada, Amy, 99, 100 Rohwer Relocation Center, 73, 91

Onyett, Helen Pon, 140 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 9, 10, 12, 13,
Oregon, 10, 34, 36, 72–73, 84 61, 90, 95, 143
Rosenthal, Miwako, 9, 122, 160, 163–
Pacific Citizen (newspaper), 22, 25–26, 164; and education, 45, 52, 151;
83–84, 85, 96, 99, 105 family of, 33, 35–36, 50, 157; in the
patriotism, 27–28, 69–71, 78–79, 87, WAC, 24, 106–107, 108, 114–115
99, 111, 163
pay, 59, 93; discrimination in, 68, 75, Sadahiro, Miyoko, 112
136, 139, 150; higher, 14, 21, 87, Saiki, Barry, 4, 118
149, 151–152; lower, 13, 15, 57, 150 Sailor, Vance L., 103
Pearl Harbor, attack on, 4, 6, 7, 28, 51, San Francisco, 32, 34, 35, 37, 44, 58,
59, 67–68, 87, 98 72, 93, 152
Peattle, Donald Culcross, 71 Sansei, 10, 163–164
Petty, Mary L., 140 Sarnecky, Mary, 29–30, 142
Philippines, the, 106, 116, 133 Sasuga, Aiko Nelly, 99
plantations, 35, 41, 42, 43 schools, 96, 112, 124, 143, 152;
politics, politicians, 6, 8, 35, 60, 62, Japanese-language, 35, 44, 47, 48,
131, 133, 139, 150, 159–160, 164– 49, 76, 123. See also education
165 Segawa, Funiko (Florence), 123, 124,
Poston (Colorado River) Relocation 125
Center, 73, 74, 75, 82, 83, 95, 98–99, segregation, 30, 76, 100; of African
100, 105 Americans, 4, 13, 21, 59, 94, 106,
poverty, 33, 41, 42, 83, 129 107–108, 139; in housing, 43–44,
Powell, Adam Clayton, 78, 132 84–85; in the military, 4, 13, 17, 20,
Pozzetta, George, 65, 69 21, 106, 107–108, 128, 131–134,
prejudice, 83, 151, 160. See also 139; opposition to, 21, 91, 93. See
discrimination; racism; stereotypes also integration
Pulley, Marie Harlow, 84–85 sexuality, 19, 34, 174n64
Shibutani, Tomotsu, 25
quotas, 18–19, 29, 113 Shinagawa, Chizuko (Shizuko), 88, 96–
97, 124
race, 5, 69, 75–76, 92, 149, 150, 158, Shinagawa, Shizue Sue, 105
164, 165, 173n59 Shiozawa, Cherry, 48, 73–74, 98, 152,
racism, 7–8, 44, 54, 58, 62, 65–66, 68, 154
131–132, 134, 151; verbal, 107, 128; shops, 42, 45–46, 63, 150
and violence, 8, 83, 133. See also social change, 149, 150, 160
discrimination; prejudice; social events, 110, 121, 122, 130, 155
segregation Sparkman, John J., 136
Rafu Shimpo (newspaper), 62, 69, 70, 72 status, 31, 46, 150, 153, 165; social, 40,
Rasmussen, Kai, 92, 118, 120 46, 133, 165
Red Cross, 66, 128, 130, 141–142, 155, Steele, Margaret, 103
156 stereotypes, 6, 11, 62, 68, 102, 151, 165
refugees, 135, 144–145, 146–147 Stimson, Barbara, 137
resistance movement, 133–134 Stimson, Henry L., 9, 15, 20, 89–90
Ringle, Kenneth D., 10 students, 32–33, 82, 85, 89, 97, 143. See
Rogers, Edith Nourse, 12, 13 also education; schools
210 Index

Sugi, Haruko, 99, 100 10, 17, 72, 155, 160; Surgeon
General of, 17–18, 94, 138, 139,
Tagami, Ken, 4–5 140–141, 157. See also Congress,
Tajiri, Larry, 83–84, 85 U.S.; FBI; military, U.S.; War
Takano, Anna, 98 Department, U.S.
Takeuchi, Ryoichi Yamaguchi, 81 upward mobility, 1, 152, 160
Taliaferro, Nymphia (Yok), 133 USOs (United Service Organizations),
Tamashiro, Mildred, 154 104, 183n53
Tamura, Eileen, 36, 41, 54, 84 Utah, 7, 24, 28, 47, 73, 78, 113
Tamura, Linda, 34, 36, 39–40 Uyeda, Clifford, 4, 118
Tanaka, Julie, 100 Uyesaki, Mary Ryuko, 96
Tanaka, Katherine (Kathryn), 98, 112
Tanaka, Ruth, 143 values, 39, 48, 49, 162
Tanigaki, Irene, 95 violence, 8, 22, 30, 34, 83, 133
Tarvin, Harry, 21–22 Voss, Ernest E., 70
teachers, 113, 118, 120–121, 123, 124,
137, 143, 152, 153 WAAC (Women’s Army Auxiliary
tenBroek, Jacobus, 6–7 Corps), 12, 22, 24, 88, 135–136;
Terauchi, Robert, 110 recruitment for, 16–17, 78, 90–94,
Thomas, Dorothy Swaine, 23, 37, 55– 118, 182n8; segregation in, 13, 20,
56, 80, 83, 87 94
Thompson, O. N., 102 WAC (Women’s Army Corps), 11, 21,
Togasaki, Yae, 143 23, 29, 108, 115, 132, 159; creation
Togasaki, Yoshiye, 9, 44, 50, 51–52, 54, of, 14, 182n14; desire to join, 24,
153; family of, 32–33, 34, 37, 44, 50, 27–28; induction into, 25–26, 88,
52; and the military, 28, 144–145, 90, 94–103, 105, 109; integration in,
146–147 18–19; in Japan, 124–131, 155,
Tokeuchi, Nasumi, 81 185n32; and loyalty, 30, 89, 93–94,
Tokuyama, Peggy, 100 96–97, 101, 104; recruitment for,
Tokyo, 34, 37, 50, 125, 126, 128–129, 88–91, 96, 102–103, 105; surveys for,
130, 155, 157 91–93
Topaz Relocation Center, 73, 74, 78, 93 Wacs/Waacs: African American, 12, 90,
translators, 5, 27, 113, 117, 119, 123– 131–133; basic training of, 102, 106–
124, 126–127, 133 111, 142, 184n57; Chinese
Treadwell, Mattie, 19, 105, 113, 133 American, 119, 122, 124, 133;
Tsuchiyama, Tamie, 99 evacuees, 95, 96, 98; at the MISLS,
Tsuneishi, Warren, 70 118–124; white, 103, 108–109, 133,
Tule Lake Relocation Center, 22, 73, 134
79, 83, 92 Wacs/Waacs, Japanese American, 24,
94–95, 106–107, 108–111, 114–117,
Uemura, Margaret, 99–100 121, 124–126, 155, 159, 161–162;
Uni, Kenneth, 90 Hawaiian, 27–28, 101–104, 107,
United Nations, 144–146 108–111, 115–117, 132, 159, 161
United States: government departments Wagley, Charles, 67
and agencies of, 65, 66, 72, 74, 77, War Department, U.S., 4, 13, 62, 117,
85; and relations with Japan, 35, 60– 136; and the ANC, 140–141; and
61, 70, 175n24, 178n6; security of, 8, evacuation, 72–73; and integration,
 Index 211

20–21; and labor, 11, 15, 20, 112, 37, 92, 156; roles of, 148, 149; single,
118, 137; and loyalty, 79, 81, 93; and 34, 91, 96; violence against, 22, 34;
racism, 131, 134; and recruitment, white, 10, 17, 40, 94, 103, 122, 126,
17, 78, 87, 89–91, 96, 102–103, 139; 149, 150. See also African American
and registration, 16, 78–79 women; discrimination: sex; family;
War Relocation Authority (WRA), 25, marriage; officers: female
50, 83, 97, 100; and internment, 9, Woodrum, Eric, 163
72–73, 74–75, 80; and loyalty, 16, workers, 57, 59, 178n90, 188n10;
77–79; and resettlement, 14–15, 84 agricultural, 35, 41, 55, 58, 82;
Washington State, 10, 72, 73, 84 clerical, 111, 112–113, 114, 115,
Watanabe, Iris, 21–22, 25–26, 95 118, 124, 126, 127; domestic, 2, 9,
West Coast, 8, 9, 35, 38, 55–57, 72, 77, 33, 43, 52, 55, 131; medical, 44, 53,
83–84, 86, 94 112, 153; menial, 131–132;
whites, 37–38, 40, 71, 91, 128, 149, secretarial, 106, 108, 115, 124, 148,
150, 156; discrimination by, 8, 59, 151–152, 161. See also employment;
62–63, 68–69, 84; dominance of, 3, jobs; labor; occupations
5, 41–42, 56, 58, 163–164; in the World War I, 2, 11, 64, 69, 78, 139
military, 4, 10, 17, 94, 103, 110, 115, Wyoming, 73, 93, 97
126, 144; in the MISLS, 117–118,
119, 121, 122, 185n21; Yagami, Michic, 101
neighborhoods of, 45, 47, 69, 84, 85; Yagi, Shizuo, 98
and Nisei children, 42–43; in the Yajiima, Kaji, 34
WAC, 103, 108–109, 133, 134 Yamada, Mary, 6, 28, 45–46, 52–53, 74,
women, 42, 46, 66, 150, 159, 188n10; 140–144, 153, 164
Chinese American, 119, 122, 133, Yamagiwa, Mary, 98
134, 140, 144, 186n46; of color, 133, Yamashita, Hisako, 67, 76, 152; family
150, 159; housewives, 39, 149, 154, of, 26, 41, 46, 53, 80–81; at the
155–157, 160; during internment, MISLS, 123–124; and the WAC,
75, 78, 87, 118; Issei, 32–37, 39–41, 27–28, 110–111, 117, 159
125; married, 91, 96, 121, 125, 129, Yanamoto, Miwako, 62, 100–101, 124
130, 149, 151, 154–158; Nisei, 2–3, Yang, Margaret K. C., 104
18, 25, 78, 172–173n46; pregnant, Yasuda, Priscilla, 95
212 Index
 Index 213

About the Author

Brenda L. Moore is an associate professor of sociology at the State University

of New York at Buffalo. She specializes in race and ethnic relations and in
military sociology. She is the author of To Serve My Country, To Serve My
Race: The Story of the Only African American WACs Stationed Overseas during
World War II. She has published a number of scholarly articles in refereed jour-
nals, chapters in anthologies, and conference papers on the subject of minori-
ties and women in the military.
She served six years on active duty, 1973–1979, and was a presidential
appointee to the American Battle Monuments Commission during the Clinton
administration. In 1995 she served as a subject expert with the Women in
International Securities delegation at the World’s Women’s Conference in
Beijing.