September 2024 | Goods From Japan

Japan Book Review: Christianity, Social Justice, and the Japanese American Incarceration during World War II

Christianity, Social Justice, and the Japanese American Incarceration during World War II

ISBN: 978-1-4696-2920-9
The University of North Carolina Press, 2016
282pp; paperback

Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was one of the most famous, and infamous, executive orders in American history. The order forced 120,000 mainly West Coast Japanese-Americans, many of whom were born as U.S. citizens, into relocation camps, starting about 10 weeks after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941.

Of course, many books have been written about this dark period of history, many of them "going inside" the camps and telling of the detainees' stories. Anne M. Blankenship's book has a different take. It discusses the reactions of American Christian Churches to Order 9066, which was signed on February 19, 1942. As readers can probably guess, some churches reacted more lovingly and, well, Christian than other churches.

Leading the way, without a doubt were the Quakers (also known as The Society of Friends). They showed the most love and the most courage. Catholics also show fairly well in the book, with Protestants, depending on denomination, running the gamut from nearing Quaker-levels of help to being too afraid of the government to help much at all, or, in a few cases, doing nothing.

Christianity, Social Justice, and the Japanese American Incarceration during World War II

The Quakers quickly answered the calls from the War Relocation Authority (WRA) for teachers to teach in the camps, although other Quakers opposed this because, "That's helping the government and you ought to resist."

The book focuses on five main areas; the backstory which led to the formation of the camps, the organization of the Christian aid before and during the incarcerations, the building of churches in the camps, the experiences in those churches and, finally, what happened when the Japanese were released.

There was quite a battle and quite the infighting as to whether Japanese Christians should go back to their ethnic enclave churches after their release or try to mix with other churches. The congregants, their pastors, the (mostly) white pastors of their former churches and, unfortunately, even the government had their own ideas.

With so much research done on the book - there are 50 pages of notes to go through at the end - there are bound to be some new insights, conceivably even for those who went through the internment. There are likely thousands of the detainees still living, although the youngest of those would be around 80 years old today. I myself have met dozens of the detainees over the years and have friends whose parents were in the camps.

Blankenship's work cannot possibly be called a "light read" and there are no useless tangents, but those interested in this historical chapter of American history will find the book thorough, thought-provoking, educational, if perhaps a little melancholic. Kudos to the author, by the way, for not injecting her opinions into the book. At no point do readers feel they are being proselytized. Readers cannot discern Blankenship's personal viewpoints, whatever they may be.

Review by Marshall Hughes.

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