Japanese Internment

Prior to the Second World War the Fillmore district of San Francisco had a thriving Japanese-American community. That all changed after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. As with any war, during World War II the American government and media painted the enemy as less than human. This war propaganda fueled already existing racism and led to the internment of thousands of Japanese and Japanese-Americans all along the West coast of the United States. Anyone of Japanese origin was forced into camps in the center of the country. The majority of the internees were American citizens. This anti-Japanese hysteria was so rampant that Latin American countries shipped over two thousand ethnic Japanese to be interned in the United States.

The openly racist justifications for this internment ranged from white farmers fearing competition to a fear of war sabotage by ethnically Japanese citizens. In San Francisco one newspaper article warned that Japanese Americans may unite with black Americans over the discrimination both groups faced and attempt to overthrow America.

Some - like the governor of California - were concerned about the influx of black and Mexican laborers that would most likely arrive on the West Coast if all ethnically Japanese individuals were removed. However, in the end elected officials almost unanimously supported the internment.

Unions were split on the issue. The AFL leadership supported japanese internment, going so far as to calling on the US to keep Japanese out of her borders after the war. The California CIO on the other hand came out against stripping japanese of their property and imprisoning them in internment camps.

After being placed into these camps, eligible Japanese-Americans were asked to fight for the American military in the war. Many did so while their families lived on in the internment camps. Others refused to do so unless their civil liberties were restored. They organized under the name The Fair Play Committee. They were tried and convicted in the largest trial of draft resisting in US history. Others renounced their US citizenship in protest. There were conflicts within the camps, at times violent, between supporters of The Fair Play Committee and the more conservative Japanese American Citizens League. The Japanese American Citizens League was and continues to be the largest Japanese-American organization in the United States. During the internment it urged the internees to prove their loyalty by joining the war effort.

After the forced removal of all ethnic Japanese, the Fillmore District went from a community to a ghost town. City planners attempted to come up with a solution for the vacant area. During the war the district was resettled by an influx of black maritime workers. In the following years the district was dubbed the Harlem of the west. After the release of the internees, many returned to San Francisco only to find their old homes occupied by others. Today's Japanetown is a small section of San Francisco with only about 4% of the cities ethnically Japanese population living there.

The US government has since apologized for the internment and paid a monetary sum to those who were sent to the camps. A memorial called The Garden of Remembrance on the campus of San Francisco State University was dedicated in 2002. It honors the 19 former SF State students who were pulled from their classes and sent to the internment camps.

The city of San Jose, at 2nd street at the federal building, has a double sided bronze memorial depicting the internment and other Japanese-American experiences. It was created by artist Ruth Asawa, who was also a survivor of the internment camps. During her family's internment, she was separated from her father for six years. She is also responsible for creating a number of fountains in San Francisco, including: the mermaid fountain at Ghirardelli Square, the Hyatt on Union Square Fountain, the Buchanan Mall fountain in Japantown and the origami-inspired fountain on the San Francisco waterfront.