In this collection, the primary source of data is material from the War Relocation Authority, a government agency that advocated for Japanese American “internment, resettlement, and enlistment in the armed forces…”, which can immediately be identified as an institution that is/was invested in maintaining narratives of Japanese internment as being justified. As such, those particular sources are likely to minimize, justify, or avoid discussing the losses and troubles of Japanese Americans who were interned.
However, it is somewhat assuaged by the other boxes, which include information from the perspective of Japanese American individuals who were interned, or who served in the military. These cover some issues such as facing racism in the armed forces, the anti-Japanese sentiment of the time, troubles with reintegration into their previous communities, and conditions within the camps themselves.
There are certain potential problems with these accounts as well. While not unilaterally so, there is a culture of shame and silence surrounding Japanese American internment, characterized by the phrase “shikata ga nai”, roughly translating to “there’s nothing to be done”. Values in the Japanese American community often privilege silence and a determined acceptance of unfair conditions, rather than advocacy or an attempt to raise complaints. There are many narratives from individuals whose parents or grandparents continue to refuse to even talk about the experience, let alone attempt to remedy them.
This presents a unique challenge to researchers in that, in many ways, neither party wishes to actually confront the facts of what happened in the Japanese American Internment Camps, and it would require deep, complex ties and sensitivity to the community to adequately understand and shape this narrative.
Thanks for this, Eric. I think you’re right that silence and shame is a big problem. I wonder if oral histories might be a way to fill in some of the holes this leaves in the historical record.
I think some of the deep cultural points you bring up are so interesting, because these are more than just records for scholars to study, but rather people’s real, difficult life stories. This idea of sensitivity is so crucial, because one has to be sensitive if the Japanese American community does not want to discuss internment, but at the same time, without these accounts, historians will not be able to understand the gravity of their experiences. This is a very intriguing idea of balance, and definitely does not have any definitive answer.
Dear Tang,
As always, thank you for taking the time to think critically about the material and provide a complicating narrative that penetrates beyond the surface of merely listed archived materials. However, I was left curious to know what types of documents were exactly being stored in this finding aid (for example, audio recordings, interviews, War Relocation Authority papers, etc). While I understand that I may find that answer exhaustively listed by other students who worked with this finding aid, I find it useful to cover all your bases in an analysis and provide at least one sentence to describe such things.