Japanese American Internment and the Loyalty Questionnaire

With a discussion to follow on DEMOCRACY BETRAYED, THEN & NOW

Wednesday, February 24, 2021 – 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Questions 27 and 28 of the Loyalty Questionnaire that was administered to Japanese Americans in internment camps in 1943 are infamous since they demanded that all internees, regardless of citizenship status, declare their loyalty to the United States and disavow their loyalty to the Japanese emperor. Never before or since has an entire group of the U.S. population categorized by race, religion, or national origin been required to pass such a test of loyalty. Based upon documents examined in the U.S. National Archives, this presentation will discuss the War Department’s and the War Relocation Authority’s goals in developing these questionnaires and the processes by which they administered them. The speaker will also show how internees responded to the questions, sometimes in ingenious ways, even turning the tables on their interrogators and questioning the right of the government to ask such questions. Further, the presentation will analyze the numerous other questions on the form (beginning with “name”) since those who assessed the seemingly innocuous answers to these queries considered them vital in determining loyalty. Finally, the talk will consider the significance of these questionnaires in understanding our current moment. 

Takashi Fujitani holds the Dr. David Chu Chair in Asia Pacific Studies at the University of Toronto, where he is also Professor of History and Director of the Dr. David Chu Program in Asia-Pacific Studies. His major works include:  Splendid Monarchy (UC Press, translated into Japanese and Korean); Race for Empire: Koreans as Japanese and Japanese as Americans During WWII (UC Press, translated into Korean with Japanese translation forthcoming); and Perilous Memories: The Asia Pacific War(s) (co-edited, Duke U. Press). He is editor of the book series Asia Pacific Modern (UC Press) and has held numerous grants and fellowships, including from the John S. Guggenheim Foundation, American Council of Learned Societies, Stanford Humanities Center, Institute for Research in Humanities at Kyoto U, Humanities Research Institute at UC Irvine, and Social Science Research Council. His latest book, Race for Empire, was runner-up for the John Hope Franklin Prize in American Studies (best book in American Studies). During the spring quarter 2019, he was the Paul I. Terasaki Chair in US-Japan Relations and Japanese Studies at UCLA. He is currently working on several books: Whose ‘Good War’? a Postnationalist History of WWII in the Asia-Pacific; Sovereign Remains: the Japanese Emperor and Questions of Sovereignty in the Long Twentieth Century; and Cold War Clint: Asians, “Indians” and Others in an American Political Unconscious.