February 13, 2017 • 35 mins
Roughly 122,000 Japanese immigrants and American citizens of Japanese ancestry were removed from their homes on the West Coast and incarcerated for much of the U.S. involvement in WWII. About two-thirds of them were U.S. citizens.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to steph you missed in history class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. This week's
episodes have been on our to do list basically since
(00:21):
Holly and I joined this podcast in uh it's been
there for a while. It's Executive Order nineties sixty six
and the removal of Japanese Americans to camps that followed
it during World War Two. Executive Order six was signed
on February ninety two, so we are coming up immediately
(00:43):
on the seventy five anniversary that will be These podcasts
are coming out on Wednesday, Monday, and Wednesday, and then
this weekend is when that anniversary takes place. These events
are most associated with Japanese nationals and Japanese American citizens,
and Executive Order ninety sixty six was framed specifically to
(01:04):
target Japanese immigrants and their citizen children, although it did
not specifically mention any nationality. At the same time, about
three thousand Italians and about eleven thousand Germans were also incarcerated,
but this was actually under the terms of the Alien
and Sedition Acts, which were a whole different set of
(01:24):
laws and much much older, as in hundreds of years older.
UH and these were in facilities that were overseen by
the Department of Justice rather than the UH the Japanese removal,
which was overseen by the Department of War. Most of
the Italians and Germans who were incarcerated were citizens of
Italy or Germany and were classified as enemy aliens, but
(01:45):
some were also US citizens, including family members. Uh and
a lot of times evidence used to justify this incarceration
was little to non existent or even made up. Roughly
a hundred and need two thousand Japanese immigrants and American
citizens of Japanese ancestry were removed from their homes on
(02:07):
the West Coast and incarcerated for much of the United
States involvement in World War Two. This is roughly two
thirds of them were United States citizens, and this was
effectively the whole Japanese population west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains,
with the exception of Hawaii. We are going to tackle
the story in two parts, as I alluded to earlier
(02:28):
in today's episode. We're going to talk about the historical context,
including an overview of the history of immigration to the
United States from Japan, and how the United States government
decided that interning people based on their nationality was in
the country's best interests. Then next time we will get
into the details of the incarcerations themselves, and then how
(02:48):
they were challenged at the time, and what happened when
they were over. Discussions of Executive Order nine zero six
six and the resulting incarcerations often start with the bombing
of the U. S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
by the Japanese Empire, which launched the United States entry
into World War Two. That attack came on December seventh
(03:09):
of ninety one, which was a Sunday morning, and many
of the military personnel stationed there were at church, leaving
the base short staff to muster a defense. Although it
had seemed quite likely that some kind of attack was eminent,
what actually did happen still caught the nation completely off guard.
It was terrifying and stunning. More than two thousand Americans
(03:33):
were killed in a surprise attack, and more than a
thousand more were injured. The nation's Pacific fleet was almost destroyed.
The following day, a joint session of Congress approved a
resolution declaring more on Japan Japanese nationals in the United States,
and American citizens of Japanese descent who had already been
(03:53):
subject to prejudice and discrimination, soon fell under enormous suspicion.
So a lot of times basically described as Japan bombed
Pearl Harbor and then the United States intern Japanese people.
But the events that led to this order go way
back farther than Pearl Harbor, and they're tied to the
overall history of Japanese immigration to the United States. In
(04:15):
the middle of the seventeenth century, the nation of Japan
was ruled by the Tokugawa shogun it and it adopted
isolationist policies and had very little contact with Europe or
European colonies for more than two centuries. That changed in
eighteen fifty three, when commodore Matthew Perry and his fleet
arrived in Tokyo Harbor and essentially forced Japan to begin
(04:36):
trading with the United States. The next few years brought
massive changes to Japan. Its agreement to trade with the
United States had been reluctant and under duress, but that
agreement opened the door to trade with other nations as well.
A newly introduced stream of goods and cultural influences from
the West brought rapid changes to Japan, ultimately contributing to
(04:59):
a revolution that ended the feudal shogunate and returned imperial rule.
This return to imperial governance, known as the Meiji Restoration,
took place in eighteen sixty eight. After the Meiji Restoration,
life in Japan continued to change incredibly rapidly, with urbanization
and then industrialization, leading to job and income loss, especially
(05:20):
among agricultural workers. A newfound stream of foreign imports also
meant that Japan's laborers and craftspeople they were facing increasing
competition for work. At first, the Japanese government restricted immigration
out of the country, especially after the illegal recruitment of
one hundred and fifty Japanese citizens to work as laborers
(05:41):
on an American owned sugar plantation in the then independent
nation of Hawaii. But in eighteen eighty five, the Japanese
government started actively working with other nations, including Hawaii, to
send Japanese citizens to work as contract laborers. Initially, they
would work abroad for a few years before return home
to Japan. Some went abroad again on another contract after
(06:04):
returning home from their first one. At About this same time,
United States immigration law changed in such a way that
recruiting labor from Japan became a much higher priority. Until
the late nineteenth century, the United States had very few
laws governing immigration. For the most part, if you could
get to the United States or its territory, you could stay.
(06:26):
But that changed in two just fourteen years after the
Meiji Restoration, with the Chinese Exclusion Act. Although other acts
with a narrower focus came before it, the Chinese Exclusion
Act was the nation's first major law significantly restricting immigration.
It was signed into law by President Chester A. Arthur, and,
(06:46):
as its name suggests, it banned all immigration from China
to the United States. It also prohibited Chinese people that
were in the United States from becoming citizens. This act
came about in part because of high rates of employment
and low wages. Chinese labor had been a really important
part of the Gold Rush of eighteen forty nine and
(07:06):
the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, But once the rush
was over and the railroad was complete, the Chinese community
started taking the blame for a job shortage in low pay,
particularly in the Western and Northwest States. Additionally, Chinese people
were viewed as undesirable by the white community, and at
least some proponents of the exclusion law were motivated by
(07:29):
a perceived threat to their racial purity. To put it
in context, it was also in this same general time
period that many U s States were passing increasingly strict
anti missgenation laws outlawing interracial marriage. Even though Chinese immigrants
had become economic scapegoats, banning immigration from China cut off
(07:50):
an actually needed source of labor, and one way to
bridge that gap was with immigrants from Japan who were
not subject to the Chinese Exclusion Act. So just as
the United States began to need additional workers, Japan also
began to view working in the United States as an
opportunity for wealth and status. And we're about to talk
(08:11):
about what happened when Japanese immigration to the US started
in earnest But before we get into that, we're gonna
take a little break and pause for a word from
one of our fantastic sponsors. After about eighteen sixty one,
roughly two hundred seventy five thousand people immigrated from Japan
(08:32):
to the United States. As we said before the break,
at first, many of these arrivals arrivals were temporary laborers,
but eventually some did begin to make the United States
their home. Many worked in agriculture and in railroad construction,
particularly in the Pacific Northwest, or started businesses catering to
the Japanese community. By law, although Japanese people could come
(08:54):
to the United States legally, they along with all other Asians,
could not become citizens. Most of these Japanese immigrants arrived
between eighteen ninety eight and nineteen twenty four, during which
time the US passed a number of other immigration laws
along with the so called Gentleman's Agreement with Japan. Japanese
immigrants had started to face the same prejudice as Chinese
(09:16):
immigrants had before them, and the Gentleman's Agreement was meant
to reduce the number of Japanese people coming to the
United States. It limited entry to people who had already
been in the United States before, and to the families
of Japanese nationals currently living in the United States. The
reason Japanese immigrants effectively stopped coming in nineteen twenty four
(09:37):
was the Johnson Read Act, also known as the Immigration
Act of nineteen twenty four. This act capped the number
of new immigrants from each nation at two percent of
the people from that nation who were already living in
the United States as of the eighteen nineties census. It
also specified that any group prohibited from becoming citizens also
(09:59):
could not to the United States, and that meant that
Japanese immigrants who had been exempt from prior immigration laws
that targeted other Asians could no longer immigrate to the
United States because they were legally ineligible to become citizens.
From the start of Japanese immigration to the United States
to the Immigration Act of nineteen four, most Japanese immigrants
(10:21):
settled in the West Coast or in Hawaii. Hawaii had
been an independent nation at the start of Japanese immigration,
but became a US territory in eight after United States
business interests, aided by American military, overthrew its monarchy in
eighteen ninety three. That sentence made you go, I'm sorry,
what code too missed in history dot com slash tags
(10:44):
slash Hawaii. Following the same pattern as other immigrant groups,
Japanese people generally settled together and formed communities. But it
wasn't just a matter of shared connections culturally or wanting
to live near other people who spoke the same language.
Though in many cases discriminatory housing and landing policies forced
Japanese immigrants to find homes and to start businesses only
(11:07):
in specific neighborhoods. In some cases, laws prevented anyone who
was not eligible to become a citizen, which Japanese immigrants
could not do from buying property. And if you want
to learn more about that, you can go to miss
in history dot com slash tag slash redlining. So by
the beginning of World War Two, the West Coast of
(11:27):
the United States was dotted with Japanese communities, with their
own schools and houses of worship and successful businesses owned
and run by Japanese proprietors. Since the Johnson Redact had
cut off immigration from Japan in nine Japanese immigrants to
the United States had generally been in the nation for
more than fifteen years. Hawaii also had a large Japanese population,
(11:50):
larger in fact, than the sum total of all of
the Japanese population on the entire West Coast. Many of
these communities were socially and economically thriving. For example, about
half of the Japanese residents of the West Coast were farmers.
Japanese owned farms made up about four percent of California's farmland,
but they produced more than ten percent of the total
(12:12):
value of the state's farm industry and forty of its
produce production. Although Japanese immigrants had been legally prohibited from
becoming citizens, birthrights citizenship meant that their children born in
the US were citizens automatically, so by one these neighborhoods
tended to be a combination of issay, or first generation
(12:33):
immigrants born in Japan, and nissa who had been born
to Japanese immigrants but were American citizens by birth. Included
among the niss a were key Bay who were born
in the United States but had been educated in Japan.
All of this finally brings us to the United States
response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the entire run
up to World War Two, and the US involvement, and
(12:56):
it could be at least an episode all of its own,
possibly more than one. So incredibly, incredibly briefly, on July seventh,
nineteen thirty seven, Japan invaded China, and on September one,
nine thirty nine, Germany, under the rule of Adolf Hitler
invaded Poland, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany
on September the third of that year, and then over
(13:18):
the next year, more and more nations either invaded or
declared war again. This is not a remotely comprehensive sum
up of the beginning of World War two, and although
the United States had offered weapons an aid to Britain
and other allies, it had also tried to not get
directly involved with the conflict. As a general trend, the
(13:39):
public both wanted Britain and its allies to win the war,
but did not want American troops being deployed to foreign
soil to fight on behalf of other nations. A number
of organizations stridently advocated for staying out of the conflict,
including the America First Committee, which was motivated both by
isolationism and at least by some of its members anti Semitism.
(14:02):
Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was an attempt to destroy
United States military forces in the Pacific, with the hope
that doing so would prevent the United States from intervening
against Japan in Asia and the Pacific Islands. While the
attack did do significant damage to the United States Pacific Fleet,
so it accomplished that part of the objective. It was
(14:24):
also what finally prompted the United States to enter the war,
which was not really a surprise, but the distraction of
the fleet had not been total enough to actually keep
the United States from then intervening in Asia and the
Pacific Pacific. While initial reports of the bombing in the
US were often horrified and angry at first, there were
(14:45):
also a number of appeals for calm. First, Lady Eleanor
Roosevelt went to Los Angeles on December eleven to meet
with Japanese American women, and upon returning to Washington on
December six, she wrote the following in her syndicated column,
which was called My day quote. Perhaps it is the
test which is going to show whether the United States
can furnish a pattern for the rest of the world,
(15:06):
for our future. Our citizens come from all the nations
of the world. Some of us have said from time
to time that we were the only proof that different
nationalities could live together in peace and understanding, each bringing
his own contribution, different though it may be, to the
final unity, which is the United States. She went on
to write that the United States needed to quote furnish
(15:28):
the pattern for the rest of the world living together
in peace and to say that if the United States
could not guarantee the freedoms of the Bill of Rights
to all of its people, keeping in check anti Semitic,
anti racial, and anti religious feelings, then quote, we shall
have removed from the world the one real hope for
the future on which all humanity must now rely. Meanwhile,
(15:52):
the Japanese American community was on the whole vocally supportive
of the United States and spoke out stridently against the attack.
In Rafu Shimpo, the largest Japanese language newspaper in the
United States, an editorial published in its first issue after
Pearl Harbor spoke against the Japanese Empire and its actions.
(16:13):
Japan started this war, it read, and it is now
up to the United States to end the war by
crushing the Japanese Empire and her ruthless barbaric leaders. However,
this appeal for calm and acceptance overall did not last
for very long, and we will talk about the first
actions against Japanese Americans after another quick sponsor break. In
(16:39):
spite of the initial appeals not to blame Japanese Americans
for the actions of the Japanese Empire, the United States
government took immediate action against the number of people who
were believed to be a threat, and the first few
days after Pearl Harbor, about three thousand foreign nationals were
arrested under suspicion of being dangerous enemy alien, and a
(17:00):
lot of these arrests were based on lists that had
already been compiled through census records and the FBI. About
half of the people in this first wave of arrests
were Japanese immigrants. They were sent to prisons, camps, and
jails around the United States, and in general, their families
had no idea where they had been taken enemy aliens.
(17:21):
Bank accounts were also frozen, and in many areas, travel
restrictions and curfews were implemented. And it's kind of a
side note, an enemy alien is just a person living
in a nation that's at war with their actual nation
of citizenship. Overwhelmingly, the people caught up in this first
sweep had done absolutely nothing wrong. They were religious or
(17:43):
civic leaders in the Japanese community, including priests, teachers, and
leaders of organizations like the Japanese American Citizens League. Some
just owned a boat or a radio and or had
donated to a Japanese community organization in the weeks after Pearl,
where public opinion turned increasingly against Japanese Americans. Fear of
(18:04):
a fifth column of Japanese Americans lying in wait to
secretly work against American interests swept through the government and
the population at large, and the government became increasingly focused
on how to handle this perceived threat. This is really widespread.
Theodore Geistl better known as Dr Seuss, drew anti Japanese
and anti German cartoons during the war, including one that
(18:27):
showed throngs of offensively caricatured Japanese people picking up blocks
of TNT at a little hut marked honorable fifth Column
under a caption quote waiting for the signal from home.
And it wasn't just Japanese immigrants who were the target,
it was their children born in the US as well.
(18:47):
An editorial in the l A Times summed up what
was the increasingly prevailing view quote, A viper is nonetheless
a viper wherever the egg is hatched, So a Japanese
American born of jet Banese parents grows up to be
a Japanese, not an American. Within the government, there was
general agreement that at least some people of Japanese ancestry
(19:11):
were dangerous and needed to be incarcerated, although there were
both voices both for and against doing this on a
massive scale. Curtis B. Munson, who was one of President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's spies, wrote a report to the President
that between ninety and of niss were completely loyal to
the United States, with the exception of those who had
(19:33):
been educated in Japan. Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Ringele of the
Office of Naval Intelligence had uncovered real Japanese espionage efforts,
but his recommendation was also that not all Japanese Americans
should be targeted. His estimate was that at least three
quarters of second generation Japanese Americans were actively loyal to
the United States, and that most of their parents were
(19:55):
passively loyal. The only group he advocated investigating on man
Us where the Key Bay who had returned to Japan
for their education. Especially at first, the Justice Department was
generally opposed to the idea of a mass incarceration on
the grounds that it was unconstitutional. There are many, many,
many parts of the Constitution that this did directly violate,
(20:17):
so this is not an unreasonable suspicion. This included Edward J. Ennis,
a lawyer with the Justice Department, the FBI's j Edgar Hoover,
and Attorney at General Francis Biddle. Battle not only thought
the incarceration of citizens without cause was unconstitutional, but he
also thought a much bigger threat was German and Italian
(20:38):
nationals on the East Coast, especially given threats to American
shipping and passenger lanes in the Atlantic. One of the
loudest voices in favor of a mass incarceration was Lieutenant
General John L. DeWitt of the U. S Army. He
was at the time headquartered in San Francisco. In his
office sent seemingly continual reports of aggressive Japanese activity. In
(21:02):
the days after December seven. There were reports of bombings,
sightings of entire Japanese fleets, air raids, Japanese American farmers
plowing signals into their fields, signal flares at sea, mystery
radar echoes, strange radio transmissions, on and on, and none
of these turned out to be legitimate. Another voice in
(21:24):
favor of a mass incarceration was Earl Lawren, who was
at the time California's Attorney General, and his support for
a mass removal would ultimately help him win the governorship.
As a side note, he would also later become the
chief Justice of an incredibly civil rights minded Supreme Court
that ruled on things like Brown versus Board and Loving
(21:46):
versus Virginia. And he never spoke about this during his lifetime,
but a number of biographers and historians and me feel
like the incredibly progressive stance that his Supreme Court took,
especially in terms of things like civil rights and civil liberties,
(22:09):
was atonement for this. Like he wrote one sentence about
it in his autobiography or his memoir or or whatever
you want to call it, that was just basically expressing remorse.
And during an oral history project he broke down so
hard when asked about it that like they had to
stop the interview. And to me, it is a completely
(22:29):
logical step from there that like all the work that
the Warren uh that the Warren Court did when he
was the Chief Justice, was like to make up for
having supported this. Yeah, it's certainly, I mean, it's not
like a big leap of logic. It it makes a
lot of sense given his behavior in those moments. Uh.
And as time passed, public and political opinion turned increasingly
(22:52):
in favor of amass incarceration of Japanese Americans. Some of
this was fueled by the media more than once. For example,
American planes and ships spotted from a distance were mistaken
for a Japanese attack fleet, and newspapers reported on them
before it became clear that there was absolutely no threat,
because of inaccurate news reports and a generally heightened sense
(23:15):
of panic. By the time a Japanese submarine really did
torpedo and sink the U S S. Montebello, which was
a Union well tanker, on December twenty three, non Japanese Americans,
particularly on the West Coast, had already felt like they
had been under attack by japan for weeks. The Coast
Guards censored the news of this and two other actually
(23:37):
for real torpedoed American vessels, but officials knew that if
word got out there would be a huge outcry and
possibly violence against the Japanese community. Gradually, the US government
and law enforcement stepped up its targeting of Japanese Americans.
Arrests became more widespread, and law enforcement started reporting that
(23:57):
they had confiscated huge numbers of weapons from Japanese residents.
Leaving out the fact that most of these had come
from Japanese owned sporting goods stores. On January four, two,
the play Serville Times published the first public call for
Japanese Americans to be placed in concentration camps. Today, the
(24:18):
term concentration camp has become nearly synonymous with the Holocaust,
but camps like Auschwitz and Treblinka, which were built for
the purpose of killing the people in prison there are
more properly called death camps or extermination camps. The word
concentration camp, on the other hand, was coined in eighteen
ninety seven, and it comes from the Cuban War of Independence.
(24:39):
It simply means a camp where a large number of people,
particularly political prisoners or racial or ethnic minorities, are to
be imprisoned, often without adequate facilities, and sometimes also being
forced into labor, generally during wartime. So the camps that
soon came into existence in the United States, which are
euphemistically called relocal Haitian centers or internment camps, were by
(25:03):
definition much more properly called concentration camps. Other newspapers soon
followed with a call for concentration camps, Comparing Japanese Americans
two rats and other vermin and portraying them as thieves
and spies waiting to rise up and overthrow the whole
of the West Coast. Soon, public sentiment was overwhelmingly in
(25:24):
favor of a mass removal of all Japanese Americans from
the West Coast to be incarcerated for the duration of
the war. Finally, the United States government did plan a
massive removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast and
construction of camps where they would be incarcerated, which is
where we will pick up next time. Okay, Tracy, So
(25:46):
we're headed into very depressing territory next time. But do you,
in the meantime have listener mail? Do you have listener mail?
It is from Emily and it is based on or
in response to our Edmonia Lewis episode, which you actually
researched and I wanted to read it after having a
conversation on Twitter with a listener named Margaret on a
(26:07):
very similar like train of thought. Uh. And Emily says,
my name is Emily and I am an artist and
art student in Toronto, Canada. I'm currently finishing my undergraduate
thesis with a particular emphasis on queer art. History. I
just wanted to say I love the podcast and really
enjoy hearing about all areas of history, but especially love
(26:28):
the art historical episodes. I'm writing this email because I
really appreciate that you mentioned the consideration, however vague, of
Ammonia Lewis's sexuality. I know you said a lot of
lgbt Q groups claim her as a queer historical figure
without any real evidence or expression on her part. I
understand this is not the usual historical practice, but thought
(26:50):
that from an LGBTQ and art perspective, I might be
able to shed some light on the idea. In queer history,
we're often working with very little information on whether or
not to include a figure into queer history. I find
this issue is sometimes more difficult and queer art history
because many historians and academics actively avoid the subject or
(27:11):
work to make excuses against queer themes and artwork or
events in the artist's life. However, I've been working for
the last three years on ideas of queering art history. However,
most historical figures there is no obvious label for exact
historical record of their own identity, so we often describe
what we can about them and Admonia Lewis's case, she
(27:31):
was a woman and an artist who lived outside of
the confines of the role of women in her day.
She did not marry, she had her own successful career
and made a name for herself in a time when
women were not expected to be independent. She also lived
and worked alongside other women who were artists, creating a
community for themselves. All these things I would consider, and
(27:52):
so would queer theory. A queer act and Monia Lewis
lived outside heteronormativity, so despite her ambiguous sexuality, she will
always be a queer artist. As a queer artist myself,
I always hope for undeniable proof of queer people in history,
but those moments are rare and highly debated, so over
time I've come to accept that those who led queer
(28:13):
lives are in many ways enough representation. Thank you for
all your work, Emily. Please feel free to share this
email on the podcast if you like. Uh we are
indeed sharing this email on the podcast. Thank you so much, Emily, UM,
and thank you also, Margaret, who talked to me on Twitter.
Weird so I feel like Emily and we were saying
(28:35):
the same basic thing, but not in the same words
at all. Uh. You and I have talked about before
on the show in prior episodes about how important it
is to both of us to have representation of people
from all across the spectrum of human experience. Uh. And
we are resistant to labeling people with like a specific
(28:58):
orientation when there are things that are unclear here for
a lot of different reasons, and one of them is
that the language people have used to talk about their
own identity has changed radically, just in yours, in my lifetime,
just in the last decade. Yeah, so, like I know,
when I was twenty, uh, the way people framed their
(29:22):
own experience in the world, especially regarding gender and sexual orientation,
was incredibly different from how people do now. And I
really think this will continue to be the case, especially
if the ark of society keeps bending toward more acceptance
of people like all across the spectrum. So it's really
important to both of us to talk about and acknowledge,
(29:45):
um the nuances of people's lives, and also important not
to like give someone a specific label when we don't
know how they would have describe themselves, which was the
case with Edmonia Lewis. UM. I do like the fact
that Emily wrote to us herself to talk about queer
(30:05):
art theory because when I was in college, queer theory
was really in its infancy, total infancy um. And I
think has become a much broader, uh set of ideas
and a more widely accepted term. But it's not a
term we have used on the podcast a lot because
(30:27):
it is brand new to a lot of people who
are not like within that community. Yes, and I will
admit there is also a certain degree to which when
we're talking about people that perhaps would fit into different
categories now that didn't even exist. Then I also wonder
if in five years whatever we were to say on
(30:50):
the podcast now would also seem completely like incorrect and
out of step as we continue to rapidly evolve. And
so I that's part of my reluctance is that I
don't you're in a shifting linguistic landscape at the moment.
It When I think about the first episodes of trans
(31:11):
History that we did, which like I did talk to
trans people in my life about while trying to figure
out how to best make decisions about how to discuss
people's lives, there are things I absolutely would never have
said or gotten into if we were redoing those episodes
now and that was only three years ago. Yeah, well,
(31:33):
and I mean, I know those are discussions that having
nothing to do with anything made for public consumption, like
a podcast that happened among my friends just casually, where
it's like, man, we never would have talked about this
this way if if we were having this conversation now
that we had like at that party or in that
(31:53):
class or in so I mean, it's it's we're all
evolving understandings the realest in very rapidly in terms of
all of our understandings of UH, gender and sexual orientation.
I say all of our in a very welcoming way.
I know there are folks who resist the idea that
that there is fluidity and gender and sexual orientation, but
(32:14):
like from our point of view as a podcast, there
is a whole, huge spectrum UH to talk about that
does not a lot of times not easily pigeonholed into
a particular UM label. Yeah. And when I talk about, like,
you know, within my friend group having those discussions, I'm
talking about a pretty diverse friend group in terms of
(32:35):
gender and sexuality. Like there are people that identify in
ways that they acknowledge didn't exist several years ago, even
or they identified in a way several years ago that
they now feel is not a smart way to identify,
or that it's you know, not an accurate representation of them. So,
(32:55):
I mean, I think we are all having this conversation
and it moves very quickly, and so I'm always part
of it too, is that I'm always keenly aware of
my ability to put my foot in my mouth. You know,
I certainly don't want to ever, you know, make anyone
feel like their situation is degraded or look down upon
(33:15):
or not respected, even on the most basic level. So
that's that's part of why we don't tend to start
assigning things to decease to people who cannot be part
of this conversation. Yeah, And in my Twitter conversation with Margaret,
one of the things I talked about was how I
I I like words like like queer that are more
broadly inclusive of more different types of orientations and genders
(33:40):
and all of that. But I also feel like the
world the word queer as a word is still like
very early in its life of being reclaimed from being
sure an active slur to a word that is okay
for people to use in a non slur context um,
which is one of the reasons that I've been reluctant
(34:01):
to just put that out there on the podcast. So anyway,
thank you so so so much, Emily, Thank you so
so much, Margaret for talking to me on Twitter. Thank
you to the folks who have written in with various
thoughts about Edmonia Lewis. We definitely do know that she
was a Google doodle. We know it a lot of time. Uh.
(34:23):
I don't know about you, but my homepage is Google
because I use it so much in my work. Uh
So I generally see Google doodles right away. Anyway, if
you would like to write to us about this or
any other podcast, where History podcasts at how stuff works
dot com. We're also on Facebook at Facebook dot com
slash miss in history and on Twitter at missing history
or tumbler missing history dot tumbler dot com. We're also
(34:45):
on Pinterest at pinterest dot com slash missed in history.
Our Instagram is at miss in history. How to stop
and think about it for a minute. You can come
to our parent companies website, which is how stuff Works
dot com. You will find all kinds of information about
whatever your heart desires. And you can also come to
our website which is missed in history dot com, and
you will find show notes for all the episodes of
(35:06):
Holly and I have ever worked on, and an archive
of every single episode. Ever. You will find episodes talking
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a whole lot more at how stuff works dot com
or missed some history dot com For more on this
(35:30):
and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works
dot com
Welcome to steph you missed in history class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. This week's
episodes have been on our to do list basically since
(00:21):
Holly and I joined this podcast in uh it's been
there for a while. It's Executive Order nineties sixty six
and the removal of Japanese Americans to camps that followed
it during World War Two. Executive Order six was signed
on February ninety two, so we are coming up immediately
(00:43):
on the seventy five anniversary that will be These podcasts
are coming out on Wednesday, Monday, and Wednesday, and then
this weekend is when that anniversary takes place. These events
are most associated with Japanese nationals and Japanese American citizens,
and Executive Order ninety sixty six was framed specifically to
(01:04):
target Japanese immigrants and their citizen children, although it did
not specifically mention any nationality. At the same time, about
three thousand Italians and about eleven thousand Germans were also incarcerated,
but this was actually under the terms of the Alien
and Sedition Acts, which were a whole different set of
(01:24):
laws and much much older, as in hundreds of years older.
UH and these were in facilities that were overseen by
the Department of Justice rather than the UH the Japanese removal,
which was overseen by the Department of War. Most of
the Italians and Germans who were incarcerated were citizens of
Italy or Germany and were classified as enemy aliens, but
(01:45):
some were also US citizens, including family members. Uh and
a lot of times evidence used to justify this incarceration
was little to non existent or even made up. Roughly
a hundred and need two thousand Japanese immigrants and American
citizens of Japanese ancestry were removed from their homes on
(02:07):
the West Coast and incarcerated for much of the United
States involvement in World War Two. This is roughly two
thirds of them were United States citizens, and this was
effectively the whole Japanese population west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains,
with the exception of Hawaii. We are going to tackle
the story in two parts, as I alluded to earlier
(02:28):
in today's episode. We're going to talk about the historical context,
including an overview of the history of immigration to the
United States from Japan, and how the United States government
decided that interning people based on their nationality was in
the country's best interests. Then next time we will get
into the details of the incarcerations themselves, and then how
(02:48):
they were challenged at the time, and what happened when
they were over. Discussions of Executive Order nine zero six
six and the resulting incarcerations often start with the bombing
of the U. S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
by the Japanese Empire, which launched the United States entry
into World War Two. That attack came on December seventh
(03:09):
of ninety one, which was a Sunday morning, and many
of the military personnel stationed there were at church, leaving
the base short staff to muster a defense. Although it
had seemed quite likely that some kind of attack was eminent,
what actually did happen still caught the nation completely off guard.
It was terrifying and stunning. More than two thousand Americans
(03:33):
were killed in a surprise attack, and more than a
thousand more were injured. The nation's Pacific fleet was almost destroyed.
The following day, a joint session of Congress approved a
resolution declaring more on Japan Japanese nationals in the United States,
and American citizens of Japanese descent who had already been
(03:53):
subject to prejudice and discrimination, soon fell under enormous suspicion.
So a lot of times basically described as Japan bombed
Pearl Harbor and then the United States intern Japanese people.
But the events that led to this order go way
back farther than Pearl Harbor, and they're tied to the
overall history of Japanese immigration to the United States. In
(04:15):
the middle of the seventeenth century, the nation of Japan
was ruled by the Tokugawa shogun it and it adopted
isolationist policies and had very little contact with Europe or
European colonies for more than two centuries. That changed in
eighteen fifty three, when commodore Matthew Perry and his fleet
arrived in Tokyo Harbor and essentially forced Japan to begin
(04:36):
trading with the United States. The next few years brought
massive changes to Japan. Its agreement to trade with the
United States had been reluctant and under duress, but that
agreement opened the door to trade with other nations as well.
A newly introduced stream of goods and cultural influences from
the West brought rapid changes to Japan, ultimately contributing to
(04:59):
a revolution that ended the feudal shogunate and returned imperial rule.
This return to imperial governance, known as the Meiji Restoration,
took place in eighteen sixty eight. After the Meiji Restoration,
life in Japan continued to change incredibly rapidly, with urbanization
and then industrialization, leading to job and income loss, especially
(05:20):
among agricultural workers. A newfound stream of foreign imports also
meant that Japan's laborers and craftspeople they were facing increasing
competition for work. At first, the Japanese government restricted immigration
out of the country, especially after the illegal recruitment of
one hundred and fifty Japanese citizens to work as laborers
(05:41):
on an American owned sugar plantation in the then independent
nation of Hawaii. But in eighteen eighty five, the Japanese
government started actively working with other nations, including Hawaii, to
send Japanese citizens to work as contract laborers. Initially, they
would work abroad for a few years before return home
to Japan. Some went abroad again on another contract after
(06:04):
returning home from their first one. At About this same time,
United States immigration law changed in such a way that
recruiting labor from Japan became a much higher priority. Until
the late nineteenth century, the United States had very few
laws governing immigration. For the most part, if you could
get to the United States or its territory, you could stay.
(06:26):
But that changed in two just fourteen years after the
Meiji Restoration, with the Chinese Exclusion Act. Although other acts
with a narrower focus came before it, the Chinese Exclusion
Act was the nation's first major law significantly restricting immigration.
It was signed into law by President Chester A. Arthur, and,
(06:46):
as its name suggests, it banned all immigration from China
to the United States. It also prohibited Chinese people that
were in the United States from becoming citizens. This act
came about in part because of high rates of employment
and low wages. Chinese labor had been a really important
part of the Gold Rush of eighteen forty nine and
(07:06):
the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, But once the rush
was over and the railroad was complete, the Chinese community
started taking the blame for a job shortage in low pay,
particularly in the Western and Northwest States. Additionally, Chinese people
were viewed as undesirable by the white community, and at
least some proponents of the exclusion law were motivated by
(07:29):
a perceived threat to their racial purity. To put it
in context, it was also in this same general time
period that many U s States were passing increasingly strict
anti missgenation laws outlawing interracial marriage. Even though Chinese immigrants
had become economic scapegoats, banning immigration from China cut off
(07:50):
an actually needed source of labor, and one way to
bridge that gap was with immigrants from Japan who were
not subject to the Chinese Exclusion Act. So just as
the United States began to need additional workers, Japan also
began to view working in the United States as an
opportunity for wealth and status. And we're about to talk
(08:11):
about what happened when Japanese immigration to the US started
in earnest But before we get into that, we're gonna
take a little break and pause for a word from
one of our fantastic sponsors. After about eighteen sixty one,
roughly two hundred seventy five thousand people immigrated from Japan
(08:32):
to the United States. As we said before the break,
at first, many of these arrivals arrivals were temporary laborers,
but eventually some did begin to make the United States
their home. Many worked in agriculture and in railroad construction,
particularly in the Pacific Northwest, or started businesses catering to
the Japanese community. By law, although Japanese people could come
(08:54):
to the United States legally, they along with all other Asians,
could not become citizens. Most of these Japanese immigrants arrived
between eighteen ninety eight and nineteen twenty four, during which
time the US passed a number of other immigration laws
along with the so called Gentleman's Agreement with Japan. Japanese
immigrants had started to face the same prejudice as Chinese
(09:16):
immigrants had before them, and the Gentleman's Agreement was meant
to reduce the number of Japanese people coming to the
United States. It limited entry to people who had already
been in the United States before, and to the families
of Japanese nationals currently living in the United States. The
reason Japanese immigrants effectively stopped coming in nineteen twenty four
(09:37):
was the Johnson Read Act, also known as the Immigration
Act of nineteen twenty four. This act capped the number
of new immigrants from each nation at two percent of
the people from that nation who were already living in
the United States as of the eighteen nineties census. It
also specified that any group prohibited from becoming citizens also
(09:59):
could not to the United States, and that meant that
Japanese immigrants who had been exempt from prior immigration laws
that targeted other Asians could no longer immigrate to the
United States because they were legally ineligible to become citizens.
From the start of Japanese immigration to the United States
to the Immigration Act of nineteen four, most Japanese immigrants
(10:21):
settled in the West Coast or in Hawaii. Hawaii had
been an independent nation at the start of Japanese immigration,
but became a US territory in eight after United States
business interests, aided by American military, overthrew its monarchy in
eighteen ninety three. That sentence made you go, I'm sorry,
what code too missed in history dot com slash tags
(10:44):
slash Hawaii. Following the same pattern as other immigrant groups,
Japanese people generally settled together and formed communities. But it
wasn't just a matter of shared connections culturally or wanting
to live near other people who spoke the same language.
Though in many cases discriminatory housing and landing policies forced
Japanese immigrants to find homes and to start businesses only
(11:07):
in specific neighborhoods. In some cases, laws prevented anyone who
was not eligible to become a citizen, which Japanese immigrants
could not do from buying property. And if you want
to learn more about that, you can go to miss
in history dot com slash tag slash redlining. So by
the beginning of World War Two, the West Coast of
(11:27):
the United States was dotted with Japanese communities, with their
own schools and houses of worship and successful businesses owned
and run by Japanese proprietors. Since the Johnson Redact had
cut off immigration from Japan in nine Japanese immigrants to
the United States had generally been in the nation for
more than fifteen years. Hawaii also had a large Japanese population,
(11:50):
larger in fact, than the sum total of all of
the Japanese population on the entire West Coast. Many of
these communities were socially and economically thriving. For example, about
half of the Japanese residents of the West Coast were farmers.
Japanese owned farms made up about four percent of California's farmland,
but they produced more than ten percent of the total
(12:12):
value of the state's farm industry and forty of its
produce production. Although Japanese immigrants had been legally prohibited from
becoming citizens, birthrights citizenship meant that their children born in
the US were citizens automatically, so by one these neighborhoods
tended to be a combination of issay, or first generation
(12:33):
immigrants born in Japan, and nissa who had been born
to Japanese immigrants but were American citizens by birth. Included
among the niss a were key Bay who were born
in the United States but had been educated in Japan.
All of this finally brings us to the United States
response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the entire run
up to World War Two, and the US involvement, and
(12:56):
it could be at least an episode all of its own,
possibly more than one. So incredibly, incredibly briefly, on July seventh,
nineteen thirty seven, Japan invaded China, and on September one,
nine thirty nine, Germany, under the rule of Adolf Hitler
invaded Poland, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany
on September the third of that year, and then over
(13:18):
the next year, more and more nations either invaded or
declared war again. This is not a remotely comprehensive sum
up of the beginning of World War two, and although
the United States had offered weapons an aid to Britain
and other allies, it had also tried to not get
directly involved with the conflict. As a general trend, the
(13:39):
public both wanted Britain and its allies to win the war,
but did not want American troops being deployed to foreign
soil to fight on behalf of other nations. A number
of organizations stridently advocated for staying out of the conflict,
including the America First Committee, which was motivated both by
isolationism and at least by some of its members anti Semitism.
(14:02):
Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was an attempt to destroy
United States military forces in the Pacific, with the hope
that doing so would prevent the United States from intervening
against Japan in Asia and the Pacific Islands. While the
attack did do significant damage to the United States Pacific Fleet,
so it accomplished that part of the objective. It was
(14:24):
also what finally prompted the United States to enter the war,
which was not really a surprise, but the distraction of
the fleet had not been total enough to actually keep
the United States from then intervening in Asia and the
Pacific Pacific. While initial reports of the bombing in the
US were often horrified and angry at first, there were
(14:45):
also a number of appeals for calm. First, Lady Eleanor
Roosevelt went to Los Angeles on December eleven to meet
with Japanese American women, and upon returning to Washington on
December six, she wrote the following in her syndicated column,
which was called My day quote. Perhaps it is the
test which is going to show whether the United States
can furnish a pattern for the rest of the world,
(15:06):
for our future. Our citizens come from all the nations
of the world. Some of us have said from time
to time that we were the only proof that different
nationalities could live together in peace and understanding, each bringing
his own contribution, different though it may be, to the
final unity, which is the United States. She went on
to write that the United States needed to quote furnish
(15:28):
the pattern for the rest of the world living together
in peace and to say that if the United States
could not guarantee the freedoms of the Bill of Rights
to all of its people, keeping in check anti Semitic,
anti racial, and anti religious feelings, then quote, we shall
have removed from the world the one real hope for
the future on which all humanity must now rely. Meanwhile,
(15:52):
the Japanese American community was on the whole vocally supportive
of the United States and spoke out stridently against the attack.
In Rafu Shimpo, the largest Japanese language newspaper in the
United States, an editorial published in its first issue after
Pearl Harbor spoke against the Japanese Empire and its actions.
(16:13):
Japan started this war, it read, and it is now
up to the United States to end the war by
crushing the Japanese Empire and her ruthless barbaric leaders. However,
this appeal for calm and acceptance overall did not last
for very long, and we will talk about the first
actions against Japanese Americans after another quick sponsor break. In
(16:39):
spite of the initial appeals not to blame Japanese Americans
for the actions of the Japanese Empire, the United States
government took immediate action against the number of people who
were believed to be a threat, and the first few
days after Pearl Harbor, about three thousand foreign nationals were
arrested under suspicion of being dangerous enemy alien, and a
(17:00):
lot of these arrests were based on lists that had
already been compiled through census records and the FBI. About
half of the people in this first wave of arrests
were Japanese immigrants. They were sent to prisons, camps, and
jails around the United States, and in general, their families
had no idea where they had been taken enemy aliens.
(17:21):
Bank accounts were also frozen, and in many areas, travel
restrictions and curfews were implemented. And it's kind of a
side note, an enemy alien is just a person living
in a nation that's at war with their actual nation
of citizenship. Overwhelmingly, the people caught up in this first
sweep had done absolutely nothing wrong. They were religious or
(17:43):
civic leaders in the Japanese community, including priests, teachers, and
leaders of organizations like the Japanese American Citizens League. Some
just owned a boat or a radio and or had
donated to a Japanese community organization in the weeks after Pearl,
where public opinion turned increasingly against Japanese Americans. Fear of
(18:04):
a fifth column of Japanese Americans lying in wait to
secretly work against American interests swept through the government and
the population at large, and the government became increasingly focused
on how to handle this perceived threat. This is really widespread.
Theodore Geistl better known as Dr Seuss, drew anti Japanese
and anti German cartoons during the war, including one that
(18:27):
showed throngs of offensively caricatured Japanese people picking up blocks
of TNT at a little hut marked honorable fifth Column
under a caption quote waiting for the signal from home.
And it wasn't just Japanese immigrants who were the target,
it was their children born in the US as well.
(18:47):
An editorial in the l A Times summed up what
was the increasingly prevailing view quote, A viper is nonetheless
a viper wherever the egg is hatched, So a Japanese
American born of jet Banese parents grows up to be
a Japanese, not an American. Within the government, there was
general agreement that at least some people of Japanese ancestry
(19:11):
were dangerous and needed to be incarcerated, although there were
both voices both for and against doing this on a
massive scale. Curtis B. Munson, who was one of President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's spies, wrote a report to the President
that between ninety and of niss were completely loyal to
the United States, with the exception of those who had
(19:33):
been educated in Japan. Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Ringele of the
Office of Naval Intelligence had uncovered real Japanese espionage efforts,
but his recommendation was also that not all Japanese Americans
should be targeted. His estimate was that at least three
quarters of second generation Japanese Americans were actively loyal to
the United States, and that most of their parents were
(19:55):
passively loyal. The only group he advocated investigating on man
Us where the Key Bay who had returned to Japan
for their education. Especially at first, the Justice Department was
generally opposed to the idea of a mass incarceration on
the grounds that it was unconstitutional. There are many, many,
many parts of the Constitution that this did directly violate,
(20:17):
so this is not an unreasonable suspicion. This included Edward J. Ennis,
a lawyer with the Justice Department, the FBI's j Edgar Hoover,
and Attorney at General Francis Biddle. Battle not only thought
the incarceration of citizens without cause was unconstitutional, but he
also thought a much bigger threat was German and Italian
(20:38):
nationals on the East Coast, especially given threats to American
shipping and passenger lanes in the Atlantic. One of the
loudest voices in favor of a mass incarceration was Lieutenant
General John L. DeWitt of the U. S Army. He
was at the time headquartered in San Francisco. In his
office sent seemingly continual reports of aggressive Japanese activity. In
(21:02):
the days after December seven. There were reports of bombings,
sightings of entire Japanese fleets, air raids, Japanese American farmers
plowing signals into their fields, signal flares at sea, mystery
radar echoes, strange radio transmissions, on and on, and none
of these turned out to be legitimate. Another voice in
(21:24):
favor of a mass incarceration was Earl Lawren, who was
at the time California's Attorney General, and his support for
a mass removal would ultimately help him win the governorship.
As a side note, he would also later become the
chief Justice of an incredibly civil rights minded Supreme Court
that ruled on things like Brown versus Board and Loving
(21:46):
versus Virginia. And he never spoke about this during his lifetime,
but a number of biographers and historians and me feel
like the incredibly progressive stance that his Supreme Court took,
especially in terms of things like civil rights and civil liberties,
(22:09):
was atonement for this. Like he wrote one sentence about
it in his autobiography or his memoir or or whatever
you want to call it, that was just basically expressing remorse.
And during an oral history project he broke down so
hard when asked about it that like they had to
stop the interview. And to me, it is a completely
(22:29):
logical step from there that like all the work that
the Warren uh that the Warren Court did when he
was the Chief Justice, was like to make up for
having supported this. Yeah, it's certainly, I mean, it's not
like a big leap of logic. It it makes a
lot of sense given his behavior in those moments. Uh.
And as time passed, public and political opinion turned increasingly
(22:52):
in favor of amass incarceration of Japanese Americans. Some of
this was fueled by the media more than once. For example,
American planes and ships spotted from a distance were mistaken
for a Japanese attack fleet, and newspapers reported on them
before it became clear that there was absolutely no threat,
because of inaccurate news reports and a generally heightened sense
(23:15):
of panic. By the time a Japanese submarine really did
torpedo and sink the U S S. Montebello, which was
a Union well tanker, on December twenty three, non Japanese Americans,
particularly on the West Coast, had already felt like they
had been under attack by japan for weeks. The Coast
Guards censored the news of this and two other actually
(23:37):
for real torpedoed American vessels, but officials knew that if
word got out there would be a huge outcry and
possibly violence against the Japanese community. Gradually, the US government
and law enforcement stepped up its targeting of Japanese Americans.
Arrests became more widespread, and law enforcement started reporting that
(23:57):
they had confiscated huge numbers of weapons from Japanese residents.
Leaving out the fact that most of these had come
from Japanese owned sporting goods stores. On January four, two,
the play Serville Times published the first public call for
Japanese Americans to be placed in concentration camps. Today, the
(24:18):
term concentration camp has become nearly synonymous with the Holocaust,
but camps like Auschwitz and Treblinka, which were built for
the purpose of killing the people in prison there are
more properly called death camps or extermination camps. The word
concentration camp, on the other hand, was coined in eighteen
ninety seven, and it comes from the Cuban War of Independence.
(24:39):
It simply means a camp where a large number of people,
particularly political prisoners or racial or ethnic minorities, are to
be imprisoned, often without adequate facilities, and sometimes also being
forced into labor, generally during wartime. So the camps that
soon came into existence in the United States, which are
euphemistically called relocal Haitian centers or internment camps, were by
(25:03):
definition much more properly called concentration camps. Other newspapers soon
followed with a call for concentration camps, Comparing Japanese Americans
two rats and other vermin and portraying them as thieves
and spies waiting to rise up and overthrow the whole
of the West Coast. Soon, public sentiment was overwhelmingly in
(25:24):
favor of a mass removal of all Japanese Americans from
the West Coast to be incarcerated for the duration of
the war. Finally, the United States government did plan a
massive removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast and
construction of camps where they would be incarcerated, which is
where we will pick up next time. Okay, Tracy, So
(25:46):
we're headed into very depressing territory next time. But do you,
in the meantime have listener mail? Do you have listener mail?
It is from Emily and it is based on or
in response to our Edmonia Lewis episode, which you actually
researched and I wanted to read it after having a
conversation on Twitter with a listener named Margaret on a
(26:07):
very similar like train of thought. Uh. And Emily says,
my name is Emily and I am an artist and
art student in Toronto, Canada. I'm currently finishing my undergraduate
thesis with a particular emphasis on queer art. History. I
just wanted to say I love the podcast and really
enjoy hearing about all areas of history, but especially love
(26:28):
the art historical episodes. I'm writing this email because I
really appreciate that you mentioned the consideration, however vague, of
Ammonia Lewis's sexuality. I know you said a lot of
lgbt Q groups claim her as a queer historical figure
without any real evidence or expression on her part. I
understand this is not the usual historical practice, but thought
(26:50):
that from an LGBTQ and art perspective, I might be
able to shed some light on the idea. In queer history,
we're often working with very little information on whether or
not to include a figure into queer history. I find
this issue is sometimes more difficult and queer art history
because many historians and academics actively avoid the subject or
(27:11):
work to make excuses against queer themes and artwork or
events in the artist's life. However, I've been working for
the last three years on ideas of queering art history. However,
most historical figures there is no obvious label for exact
historical record of their own identity, so we often describe
what we can about them and Admonia Lewis's case, she
(27:31):
was a woman and an artist who lived outside of
the confines of the role of women in her day.
She did not marry, she had her own successful career
and made a name for herself in a time when
women were not expected to be independent. She also lived
and worked alongside other women who were artists, creating a
community for themselves. All these things I would consider, and
(27:52):
so would queer theory. A queer act and Monia Lewis
lived outside heteronormativity, so despite her ambiguous sexuality, she will
always be a queer artist. As a queer artist myself,
I always hope for undeniable proof of queer people in history,
but those moments are rare and highly debated, so over
time I've come to accept that those who led queer
(28:13):
lives are in many ways enough representation. Thank you for
all your work, Emily. Please feel free to share this
email on the podcast if you like. Uh we are
indeed sharing this email on the podcast. Thank you so much, Emily, UM,
and thank you also, Margaret, who talked to me on Twitter.
Weird so I feel like Emily and we were saying
(28:35):
the same basic thing, but not in the same words
at all. Uh. You and I have talked about before
on the show in prior episodes about how important it
is to both of us to have representation of people
from all across the spectrum of human experience. Uh. And
we are resistant to labeling people with like a specific
(28:58):
orientation when there are things that are unclear here for
a lot of different reasons, and one of them is
that the language people have used to talk about their
own identity has changed radically, just in yours, in my lifetime,
just in the last decade. Yeah, so, like I know,
when I was twenty, uh, the way people framed their
(29:22):
own experience in the world, especially regarding gender and sexual orientation,
was incredibly different from how people do now. And I
really think this will continue to be the case, especially
if the ark of society keeps bending toward more acceptance
of people like all across the spectrum. So it's really
important to both of us to talk about and acknowledge,
(29:45):
um the nuances of people's lives, and also important not
to like give someone a specific label when we don't
know how they would have describe themselves, which was the
case with Edmonia Lewis. UM. I do like the fact
that Emily wrote to us herself to talk about queer
(30:05):
art theory because when I was in college, queer theory
was really in its infancy, total infancy um. And I
think has become a much broader, uh set of ideas
and a more widely accepted term. But it's not a
term we have used on the podcast a lot because
(30:27):
it is brand new to a lot of people who
are not like within that community. Yes, and I will
admit there is also a certain degree to which when
we're talking about people that perhaps would fit into different
categories now that didn't even exist. Then I also wonder
if in five years whatever we were to say on
(30:50):
the podcast now would also seem completely like incorrect and
out of step as we continue to rapidly evolve. And
so I that's part of my reluctance is that I
don't you're in a shifting linguistic landscape at the moment.
It When I think about the first episodes of trans
(31:11):
History that we did, which like I did talk to
trans people in my life about while trying to figure
out how to best make decisions about how to discuss
people's lives, there are things I absolutely would never have
said or gotten into if we were redoing those episodes
now and that was only three years ago. Yeah, well,
(31:33):
and I mean, I know those are discussions that having
nothing to do with anything made for public consumption, like
a podcast that happened among my friends just casually, where
it's like, man, we never would have talked about this
this way if if we were having this conversation now
that we had like at that party or in that
(31:53):
class or in so I mean, it's it's we're all
evolving understandings the realest in very rapidly in terms of
all of our understandings of UH, gender and sexual orientation.
I say all of our in a very welcoming way.
I know there are folks who resist the idea that
that there is fluidity and gender and sexual orientation, but
(32:14):
like from our point of view as a podcast, there
is a whole, huge spectrum UH to talk about that
does not a lot of times not easily pigeonholed into
a particular UM label. Yeah. And when I talk about, like,
you know, within my friend group having those discussions, I'm
talking about a pretty diverse friend group in terms of
(32:35):
gender and sexuality. Like there are people that identify in
ways that they acknowledge didn't exist several years ago, even
or they identified in a way several years ago that
they now feel is not a smart way to identify,
or that it's you know, not an accurate representation of them. So,
(32:55):
I mean, I think we are all having this conversation
and it moves very quickly, and so I'm always part
of it too, is that I'm always keenly aware of
my ability to put my foot in my mouth. You know,
I certainly don't want to ever, you know, make anyone
feel like their situation is degraded or look down upon
(33:15):
or not respected, even on the most basic level. So
that's that's part of why we don't tend to start
assigning things to decease to people who cannot be part
of this conversation. Yeah, And in my Twitter conversation with Margaret,
one of the things I talked about was how I
I I like words like like queer that are more
broadly inclusive of more different types of orientations and genders
(33:40):
and all of that. But I also feel like the
world the word queer as a word is still like
very early in its life of being reclaimed from being
sure an active slur to a word that is okay
for people to use in a non slur context um,
which is one of the reasons that I've been reluctant
(34:01):
to just put that out there on the podcast. So anyway,
thank you so so so much, Emily, Thank you so
so much, Margaret for talking to me on Twitter. Thank
you to the folks who have written in with various
thoughts about Edmonia Lewis. We definitely do know that she
was a Google doodle. We know it a lot of time. Uh.
(34:23):
I don't know about you, but my homepage is Google
because I use it so much in my work. Uh
So I generally see Google doodles right away. Anyway, if
you would like to write to us about this or
any other podcast, where History podcasts at how stuff works
dot com. We're also on Facebook at Facebook dot com
slash miss in history and on Twitter at missing history
or tumbler missing history dot tumbler dot com. We're also
(34:45):
on Pinterest at pinterest dot com slash missed in history.
Our Instagram is at miss in history. How to stop
and think about it for a minute. You can come
to our parent companies website, which is how stuff Works
dot com. You will find all kinds of information about
whatever your heart desires. And you can also come to
our website which is missed in history dot com, and
you will find show notes for all the episodes of
(35:06):
Holly and I have ever worked on, and an archive
of every single episode. Ever. You will find episodes talking
about that time that American business interest over through the
Hawaiian monarchy, for example. You can do all that and
a whole lot more at how stuff works dot com
or missed some history dot com For more on this
(35:30):
and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works
dot com
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Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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