Reddit Reddit reviews Letters from the 442nd: The World War II Correspondence of a Japanese American Medic (Scott and Laurie Oki Series in Asian American Studies)

We found 3 Reddit comments about Letters from the 442nd: The World War II Correspondence of a Japanese American Medic (Scott and Laurie Oki Series in Asian American Studies). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Letters from the 442nd: The World War II Correspondence of a Japanese American Medic (Scott and Laurie Oki Series in Asian American Studies)
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3 Reddit comments about Letters from the 442nd: The World War II Correspondence of a Japanese American Medic (Scott and Laurie Oki Series in Asian American Studies):

u/effortlessnetinho · 105 pointsr/hapas

Estelle and Arthur met at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles during the 1920s, where she studied illustration. Arthur, a second generation Nisei born in San Francisco, studied theater and had moved to Southern California starstruck and had dreams of becoming a movie star... which ironically might have been easier for someone of Asian descent back then compared to now, since Sessue Hayakawa was one of the biggest movie stars in silent movies at the time. Our aspiring actor worked as a chauffeur to support himself and his artist girlfriend.

In 1929 they married in Mexico since it was illegal in California at the time for an asian man to marry a white woman. After which Estelle was disowned by her very well-to-do upper-class parents from the Bay Area, Estelle's mother was a concert singer and her father was a portrait and landscape artist.

Here is their marriage certificate (in Spanish): http://media.discovernikkei.org/articles/4279/ishigo1.jpg

They made their home in the Japanese-American community of Los Angeles until the December of 1941. The day after Pearl Harbor, Arthur was fired from his job at Paramount Studios and two weeks later Estelle was also fired from her own job teaching at the Hollywood Art Center because she was married to a Japanese man, and most damningly had taken his Japanese last name.

On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed into law Executive Order 9066, and the Government forced all people of Japanese racial descent, regardless of citizenship, on the west coast to leave their homes and lives behind to be placed into "protective custody." More than 110,000 Japanese-Americans including the Ishigos were commanded to report to various "Assembly Centers," where they were ordered to await transportation to Japanese internment camps further inland.

Here is a correspondence from one of Estelle's friends:

https://i.imgur.com/quoJOcQ.png

In Estelle's memoirs she recounts a young Japanese American girl experiencing a "heart attack" amidst the fear, chaos and uncertainty at the center, the girl's parents were allowed to return to the city to seek medical help for their daughter, who died shortly after. The couple were ordered back to the Assembly Center.

Estelle writes: “Some have wondered why I went to that camp with my husband and also what it was like being married to a Japanese before the war and in the camp. In a time of hostility and danger, if one is in love the greatest desire is to stay close to one’s own.”

Many Japanese women who had married white men and had taken on their husbands surnames could claim that they were of a non-Japanese Asian descent and many were simply overlooked for internment. Not a single Japanese woman with an American surname has ever been recorded as interned in any these camps.

No such internment policy exists for Americans of German or Italian descent.

And of course, my dear hafu's, there were many hapas amongst the interned, as those with as a little as 1/16 Japanese ancestry would be placed in the camps. Colonel Karl Bendetsen, who despite being of Jewish ancestry, would become the architect of the Japanese Concentration Camps, going on to say in 1942: "I am determined that if they have one drop of Japanese blood in them, they must go to camp."

To this day, this remains the singular piece of American legislation that targets a racial ethnic group regardless of citizenship. With many official documents denoting the "ethnic Japanese" as "totally unassimilable."

General John L Dewitt states: "A Jap's a Jap. It makes no difference whether the Jap is a citizen or not."

And in the August of 1942, Estelle and Arthur were put on a train and took the 1,000 mile trip to the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming, beneath the imposing edifice of Heart Mountain, the camp was especially desolate and had "one of the harshest living environments of all the camps, especially for those who had come from the California coastal areas."

Estelle, now the only white prisoner among twelve thousand Asians, wrote, I think quite stirringly: "We were gathered close into ourselves and imprisoned at the foot of the mountain as it towered in silence over the barren waste, we searched its gaunt face for the mysteries of our destiny: and some spoke its name with the same ancient reverence..."

Here she is with the camp and the distinctive mountain peak in the background:
https://i.imgur.com/s7vnegt.jpg

http://www.javadc.org/heart_mountain_relocation_center.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjJ2Q2PnlSg

These are also the very same concentration camps from which many men of the 442nd Infantry Regiment would hail from. Despite them and their families being interned by the very government they sought to serve, many Japanese Americans whether through sheer patriotic instinct or in an attempt to prove their loyalty or American-ness perhaps would go on to form the almost entirely Japanese American Regimental Combat Team, which would become "the most decorated unit for its size and length of service in the history of American warfare."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)

In fact there was a little TIL thread on the reddit front page this morning detailing the heroic exploits of Daniel Inouye who served in the 442nd, which was the actual impetus for me to do this little write up for y'all in the first place.

https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/7w4gy5/til_while_attacking_a_series_of_machine_gun_nests/

This small regiment which was self sufficient consisted of 3 infantry battalions, an engineer company, an anti tank company, a artillery support company, service, medical attachment, headquarters company, as well as an Army Band.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/442nd_Regimental_Combat_Team_Organizational_Chart_%E7%AC%AC442%E9%80%A3%E9%9A%8A%E6%88%A6%E9%97%98%E5%9B%A3%E7%B7%A8%E5%88%B6%E5%9B%B3_%28ja%29.svg

Originally it totaled about 4000 Japanese Americans from Hawaii and the Internment camps and would be deployed to the European theater seeing extensive action in France, Italy and Germany, The small fighting force was often pushed into the front-lines where the fighting was fiercest, many times leading the assault uphill against fortified machine gun positions, in the end accruing a total of 9,486 Purple Hearts, 8 Presidential Unit Citations and twenty one Medals of Honor. The unit would have to be reinforced nearly 2 times over (read: they got shot the fuck up) by the end of the war, despite their original number of 4,000, over 14,000 Japanese American men will have fought, bled and died for the very same country where they are being rounded up into Concentration Camps and in which their own families would remain in captivity during their service. And despite their heroism and sacrifices, they were not allowed to celebrate with the other companies after Italy was liberated, the Japanese-American soldiers were ordered to garrison the surrounding region, while the companies of white men paraded into Rome to the sterling plaudits of a very grateful Italian populace.

https://i.imgur.com/oXDiwH2.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/K3vL4Vy.jpg

https://www.amazon.com/Letters-442nd-Correspondence-Japanese-American/dp/0295987456

u/WorkingHapa · 31 pointsr/hapas

(All courtesy of u/effortlessnetinho)

Estelle and Arthur met at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles during the 1920s, where she studied illustration. Arthur, a second generation Nisei born in San Francisco, studied theater and had moved to Southern California starstruck and had dreams of becoming a movie star... which ironically might have been easier for someone of Asian descent back then compared to now, since Sessue Hayakawa was one of the biggest movie stars in silent movies at the time. Our aspiring actor worked as a chauffeur to support himself and his artist girlfriend.

In 1929 they married in Mexico since it was illegal in California at the time for an asian man to marry a white woman. After which Estelle was disowned by her very well-to-do upper-class parents from the Bay Area, Estelle's mother was a concert singer and her father was a portrait and landscape artist.

Here is their marriage certificate (in Spanish): http://media.discovernikkei.org/articles/4279/ishigo1.jpg

They made their home in the Japanese-American community of Los Angeles until the December of 1941. The day after Pearl Harbor, Arthur was fired from his job at Paramount Studios and two weeks later Estelle was also fired from her own job teaching at the Hollywood Art Center because she was married to a Japanese man, and most damningly had taken his Japanese last name.

On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed into law Executive Order 9066, and the Government forced all people of Japanese racial descent, regardless of citizenship, on the west coast to leave their homes and lives behind to be placed into "protective custody." More than 110,000 Japanese-Americans including the Ishigos were commanded to report to various "Assembly Centers," where they were ordered to await transportation to Japanese internment camps further inland.

Here is a correspondence from one of Estelle's friends:

https://i.imgur.com/quoJOcQ.png

In Estelle's memoirs she recounts a young Japanese American girl experiencing a "heart attack" amidst the fear, chaos and uncertainty at the center, the girl's parents were allowed to return to the city to seek medical help for their daughter, who died shortly after. The couple were ordered back to the Assembly Center.

Estelle writes: “Some have wondered why I went to that camp with my husband and also what it was like being married to a Japanese before the war and in the camp. In a time of hostility and danger, if one is in love the greatest desire is to stay close to one’s own.”

Many Japanese women who had married white men and had taken on their husbands surnames could claim that they were of a non-Japanese Asian descent and many were simply overlooked for internment. Not a single Japanese woman with an American surname has ever been recorded as interned in any these camps.

No such internment policy exists for Americans of German or Italian descent.

And of course, my dear hafu's, there were many hapas amongst the interned, as those with as a little as 1/16 Japanese ancestry would be placed in the camps. Colonel Karl Bendetsen, who despite being of Jewish ancestry, would become the architect of the Japanese Concentration Camps, going on to say in 1942: "I am determined that if they have one drop of Japanese blood in them, they must go to camp."

To this day, this remains the singular piece of American legislation that targets a racial ethnic group regardless of citizenship. With many official documents denoting the "ethnic Japanese" as "totally unassimilable."

General John L Dewitt states: "A Jap's a Jap. It makes no difference whether the Jap is a citizen or not."

And in the August of 1942, Estelle and Arthur were put on a train and took the 1,000 mile trip to the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming, beneath the imposing edifice of Heart Mountain, the camp was especially desolate and had "one of the harshest living environments of all the camps, especially for those who had come from the California coastal areas."

Estelle, now the only white prisoner among twelve thousand Asians, wrote, I think quite stirringly: "We were gathered close into ourselves and imprisoned at the foot of the mountain as it towered in silence over the barren waste, we searched its gaunt face for the mysteries of our destiny: and some spoke its name with the same ancient reverence..."

Here she is with the camp and the distinctive mountain peak in the background: https://i.imgur.com/s7vnegt.jpg

http://www.javadc.org/heart_mountain_relocation_center.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjJ2Q2PnlSg

These are also the very same concentration camps from which many men of the 442nd Infantry Regiment would hail from. Despite them and their families being interned by the very government they sought to serve, many Japanese Americans whether through sheer patriotic instinct or in an attempt to prove their loyalty or American-ness perhaps would go on to form the almost entirely Japanese American Regimental Combat Team, which would become "the most decorated unit for its size and length of service in the history of American warfare."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)

In fact there was a little TIL thread on the reddit front page this morning detailing the heroic exploits of Daniel Inouye who served in the 442nd, which was the actual impetus for me to do this little write up for y'all in the first place.

https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/7w4gy5/til_while_attacking_a_series_of_machine_gun_nests/

This small regiment which was self sufficient consisted of 3 infantry battalions, an engineer company, an anti tank company, a artillery support company, service, medical attachment, headquarters company, as well as an Army Band.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/442nd_Regimental_Combat_Team_Organizational_Chart_%E7%AC%AC442%E9%80%A3%E9%9A%8A%E6%88%A6%E9%97%98%E5%9B%A3%E7%B7%A8%E5%88%B6%E5%9B%B3_%28ja%29.svg

Originally it totaled about 4000 Japanese Americans from Hawaii and the Internment camps and would be deployed to the European theater seeing extensive action in France, Italy and Germany, The small fighting force was often pushed into the front-lines where the fighting was fiercest, many times leading the assault uphill against fortified machine gun positions, in the end accruing a total of 9,486 Purple Hearts, 8 Presidential Unit Citations and twenty one Medals of Honor. The unit would have to be reinforced nearly 2 times over (read: they got shot the fuck up) by the end of the war, despite their original number of 4,000, over 14,000 Japanese American men will have fought, bled and died for the very same country where they are being rounded up into Concentration Camps and in which their own families would remain in captivity during their service. And despite their heroism and sacrifices, they were not allowed to celebrate with the other companies after Italy was liberated, the Japanese-American soldiers were ordered to garrison the surrounding region, while the companies of white men paraded into Rome to the sterling plaudits of a very grateful Italian populace.

https://i.imgur.com/oXDiwH2.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/K3vL4Vy.jpg

https://www.amazon.com/Letters-442nd-Correspondence-Japanese-American/dp/0295987456

u/bad-monkey · 3 pointsr/todayilearned

I really enjoyed this one. It was originally released as a serial article in one of Japan's larger newspapers, later turned into a book. It's a pretty good start to finish narrative that starts before 12/7/41 and takes them through their epic story.

https://muse.jhu.edu/book/8273

This is a more personal foray into the minds of these men. Intimate and a really unique look into the minds of Hawaiian-Japanese Americans:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0295987456/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1