Japs: a disorganised history
by Maki Morita
Jap noun
Disparaging + offensive
: Japanese[1]
My mother peels Jap pumpkin with a shiny knife. Speckled skin falls off in ribbons, blade sweeping past her thumb, each swipe a near fatality.
I wish they’d call it ‘Japanese pumpkin’.
It’s just an abbreviation, isn’t it?
She shakes her head, chopping sunset flesh into neat little squares.
History doesn’t remember it as ‘just an abbreviation’, Maki chan.
7 December 1941
183 aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the United States Naval base at Pearl Harbour in Oahu, Hawaii.
The US declared formal entry into World War II the next day.[2]
February 1942
President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, ordering the internment of Japanese Americans. The military was authorised to round up all persons of Japanese descent living in America for relocation, whether foreign born (issei) or American citizens (nissei).[3]
“A Jap’s a Jap. It makes no difference whether the Jap is a citizen or not.” [4] General John L. DeWitt, Western Defense Command, 1942
“I am determined that if they have one drop of Japanese blood in them, they must go to camp.” [5] Colonel Karl Bendetsen, Wartime Civil Control Administration, 1942
We watch Snow Falling on Cedars in year seven history class.
Ethan Hawke lamenting for his childhood sweetheart, Japanese-Americans in headscarves being shipped off to internment camps.
“What did you think?”, classmates ask me afterwards. In a dusty drawer is my Japanese passport stamped with a golden sakura flower and an American passport, two-year old me beaming a gap-toothed smile. But the coldness of snow seems far away, cedars a novelty in this arid country.
It was interesting, I shrug.
It’s just another story, a moment in time.
December 1941
A Japanese-American man unfurled a banner in Oakland, California the day after the Pearl Harbour attack. It read ‘I AM AN AMERICAN’.[6]
I’m from Australia, I insist, in kaleidoscopic markets and cramped hostel rooms on my travels across Spain and Morocco. I’m eighteen and the freedom of walking around on the other side of the earth, alone, is hampered by endless konichiwas and nihaos. I AM FROM AUSTRALIA, I repeat like a mantra, as I haul my dusty backpack onto night buses and airplane cabins. It’s where I’ve lived since I was three years old. The only place that seems fitting when asked: Where are you from?
March 20, 1942
The American Congress passed Public Law 503, making the violation of Executive Order 9066 a misdemeanour punishable by up to one year in prison and a $5000 fine. It becomes a crime to refuse internment as a Japanese-American.[7]
Anti-Japanese sentiment increased in the US. Signs were placed in businesses bearing proclamations like “We don’t want any Japs back here… ever!” denying service to people of Japanese descent.[8]
Literature prizes offer $1000, $5000, $10,000 to First Nations writers and writers of colour.
At university there’s one white guy in our cohort. In class, we joke about white male privilege. He hangs his head low.
People complain that People of Colour get more opportunities now, that tick-box diversity has run rampant. You’re a Young Female Asian writer, which is a hot commodity in the arts industry these days, I’m told.
The YFA: it might just rival an MFA.
Money flows in a different direction, but for what? People ask.
Have we forgotten about the past, that the current once ran upstream?
Throughout World War II, 112,000 Japanese civilians were interned in the United States. 22,000 were interned in Canada. 4301 were interned in Australia.
Australia interned 16,700 people, mainly of German, Italian and Japanese descent. They were associated with the Axis powers, thus classified as ‘enemy aliens’. [9]
In year eight PE, a classmate points at my monolid eyes.
They’re so weird! She exclaims. Soon enough a gang of girls are towering over, frowning, laughing, and prodding at me.
I feel like an exotic animal at a zoo, an alien.
That afternoon I come home from school, toss my backpack off in the hallway and stare at myself in the mirror. I tug at the folds clouding my eyes, stretching skin around to form an acceptable shape.
Wide-eyed and unblinking with my eyeballs jutting out. Perfect. But when I release, I’m my normal self again – the whole experiment in vain.
Formosans and South Koreans were arrested by Australia as ‘Japanese’ POW. Around 600 Formosans were interned, but the number of South Koreans is unclear as they used Japanese names.[10]
To this day, many ethnic North and South Koreans in Japan (known as Zainichi) use a Japanese ‘pass name’. This is legally approved, where two names can be registered on their drivers’ license. The government maintains that using Japanese names will help Zainichi Koreans avoid discrimination.[11]
Maki – how do I pronounce that?
Teachers hesitate when they see it on the roll call, people ask if I’m named after sushi.
Cathy, Tom, Karen. Some friends with migrant parents have common names because it’s easier that way, less burdensome.
I wonder if there are Zainichi Koreans in Japan that go by ‘Maki’ for the same reason.
The Australian government adopted a policy of selective interment for Italians and Germans, excluding those over 70 and who had lived in Australia for more than 20 years. The same exclusions did not apply to the Japanese. 98 per cent of Japanese males were interned, compared to 32 per cent of Italian and German males.[12]
Propaganda posters encouraged anti-Japanese sentiment, such as one that states “We shall throw the Japanese back where they belong,” and “We’ve always despised them – Now we must smash them!”[13]
My mother only makes Japanese friends in sun-soaked Sydney suburbia. There are three Japanese mothers in my year, and she befriends them all. They share tips on rice cookers and Japanese hairdressers, the best Saturday school to send us to.
I guess the familiarity is easy, something safe to cling to.
Katie, Emily, Anna, Jessica. They all have mothers that make pancakes on Sunday mornings, that hang out at sleepovers and warn us about boys. They have light-filled, modern homes sprinkled with sand and rinsed with sea salt.
I wish my mother could be more like them. But in the presence of their easy laughter, she shrinks.
Of the 1.74 million military deaths in Japan between 1941 to 1945, as many as 1 million were due to starvation.
Rations mostly consisted of ‘Five Colour Rice’; a mix of white rice, stale yellow rice, dried green beans, red grains, and brown insects. Children brought home-cooked lunches to school which commonly consisted of rice, pickles, and if they were lucky, a sprinkle of bonito flakes. Many children constantly suffered from runny noses due to their inadequate diet.[14]
Ojiisan often sighs after ban gohan – it’s such a wonderful feeling, to feel full – back slouched into his chair and hands cradled over belly.
Ban gohan: ‘evening rice’. Because rice is at the heart of any Japanese meal.
You wouldn’t understand, your generation. You’re lucky in that way.
My recess is usually salty chips and shiny wheels of cheese, but on one occasion Mum packs me prawn-flavoured crackers that Obaachan sent from Kyushu. My friend is disgusted by it, and because I’m ‘lucky’ I throw it straight in the bin.
28 January 1943
Secretary of War Stimson announced that an All-Nissei Combat team would be created, composed of volunteer Japanese-Americans.
Male Nissei aged 17 years or over were given the option to stay in relocation centers or volunteer for service in the US army. A questionnaire was sent out to test their loyalty to the United States.[15]
Are you going to become an Australian? Obaachan often asks me.
They’re so tall, aren’t they. And with long pointy noses. Maybe if you live there long enough you’ll end up looking like that too.
But Japan is nice too, you know? You should move here… then you can come visit me all the time, she says wistfully.
I AM FROM AUSTRALIA: my insistent mantra. But sunburnt necks and footy feel far away, the concept of beer, barbeques and mates something novelty, foreign.
Australian, Japanese, American – labels that float around but don’t quite stick.
1104 Japanese were held in No 12 Prisoner of War (POW) camp in Cowra.
5th August 1944
After careful planning, they set fire to their huts and attempted to break out of the compound en masse. They flung themselves across the prison wire armed with weapons including knives, baseball bats, clubs, and garrotting cords.[16]
Australian guards responded by shooting the escapees. 234 Japanese POWs died and 108 were wounded.[17]
In year five I’m drowning. I wear an oversized school shirt my mother bought me, which I still haven’t grown into.
We’re allocated seats in class, and across from me is George. Always George, big and bulging out of his school shirt.
It’s a maths class. I complete timetables and fractions as George drums his pencil on the desk, beads of sweat on his forehead. He squints at me while balancing a ruler before his eyes, trying to catch my attention.
Your eyes are so small I bet you can’t see past this ruler, he taunts.
I glance at him before diving back to the timetables, the certainty of numbers comforting. But I feel like I’m going to wretch, bile swimming up my throat.
Mr. Graham, I need to go to the bathroom, I tell Mr. Graham.
He nods without bothering to look up at me. Of course Maki.
I run to the bathroom and vomit gushes out. I flick away tears running hot down my cheeks as I sink into the toilet seat.
I need to escape from this place.
I check in the scratchy mirror that the redness has dissipated, then trudge back down the school’s concrete corridors.
Mr. Graham I think I need to go home, I feel sick, I report back at Mr. Graham’s desk.
He peers at me over his square spectacles. You do look quite pale… here I’ll call your Mum and she can come pick you up, okay?
Okay.
George sniggers as Mr. Graham leads me out the classroom.
In the car ride home I don’t tell Mum anything. I simply say I feel sick, then we listen to the Kyle and Jackie O show in silence all the way back.
July 1945
President Harry S. Truman authorised the use of the world’s first atomic bomb.[18]
6 August 1945
In a presidential address, Truman reports on the dropping of an atomic bomb in Hiroshima – an important Japanese Army base. He described it as “a harnessing of the basic power of the universe,” and “a powerful and forceful influence towards the maintenance of world peace.”[19]
30 June 1946
A US government report is released, which states:
‘The most striking result of the atomic bombs was the great number of casualties… estimates of casualties have generally ranged between 100,000 and 180,000 for Hiroshima, and between 50,000 and 100,000 for Nagasaki.’[20]
In year four, we read Sadako and The Thousand Paper Cranes. The sky explodes into blinding white, birds melt off trees, flesh hangs off debris – burnt and indistinguishable.
It’s all so sad, so terrible, classmates whisper to each other. Furtive glances are made in my direction.
But this isn’t my story. I grew up practicing demi plies by the ballet barre and spotting dolphins at Maroubra Beach. The most of my worries is what costume I should wear for Halloween, how to win over my latest celebrity crush who doesn’t even know I exist.
Japan grew out of nothing, like a beautiful flower in the middle of a wasteland, Mum always says. Everyone was so poor after the war… so poor. But look at Japan now; it’s overflowing, abundant.
Like the matsutake; a rare mushroom that flourishes in industrialised forests and razed war zones. It was supposedly the first thing to grow out of Hiroshima’s rubble… the mushroom at the end of the world.[21]
September 2, 1945
Japan surrendered from the war.[22]
November 1945
The Australian government stated its policy for the repatriation of civilian internees. All Japanese nationals were to be formally repatriated unless they were Australian-born, had an Australian-born spouse, or were medically certified as unfit to travel.[23]
Many elderly internees were long-time residents of Australia, and expressed their desire to remain by writing letters of appeal to the Minister for the External Affairs. In one such letter, 85 year-old Chotaro Sugie wrote:
I have nobody in Japan and have no intention to go back to Japan. My second homeland, Australia, is the only place for me to live in future. [24]
He was deported.
I’m twenty-something and have moved out of home. My parents call me out of the blue and ask me – we want to move back to Japan, is that okay with you? There’s nothing keeping us here anymore.
Of course, I offer. How can I say no?
Will you be alright?
Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.
My parents – always worrying.
So with my blessing, the separation of states widens to the separation of countries, hundreds of latitudes north. Our new house near Tokyo will have a spare room just for you, they assure me. A room that remains empty for the most part.
In the end, this is where we want to be, they explain to me on Facetime. This is our home. They’ve never looked happier.
Yet I can’t imagine following suit. Japan is a place where I know next to nobody, where words struggle to fall off my tongue and kanji are meaningless shapes. To live there would submerge me underwater; wading around to form nothing but bubbles.
Home lies scattered, like fragments of memory.
But if we can’t breathe here, we’ll grow gills.
Maki Morita is a writer and performance-maker living and working on unceded Wurundjeri country. She is currently putting together her production Trash Pop Butterflies, Dance Dance Paradise (Midsumma Festival 2022) and is collaborating as dramaturg for Club Nite (Midsumma Festival 2022). Her short film Mirage was selected for the Melbourne Women in Film Festival 2020 and the Setting Sun Film Festival 2020. Maki has spoken at Feminist Book Week, and is editor of the youth blog Rosie.
Maki studied the Master of Theatre (writing) at the Victorian College of the Arts, where she was awarded the Portland House Theatre Outreach scholarship. She also has a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree from The University of Melbourne. Outside of all this, Maki enjoys singing her heart out at karaoke, whizzing around on her bike, and watching bad movies with good friends. She loves cats, but is sadly allergic.
[1] Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “Jap,” accessed June 16, 2021, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Jap.
[2] “What Happened at Pearl Harbour?”, Imperial War Museums, accessed June 18, 2021, https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-happened-at-pearl-harbor.
[3] Executive Order No. 9066, February 19, 1942, General Records of the United States Government, Record Group 11, National Archives.
[4] “Removal”, A More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans & the U.S. Constitution, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, https://amhistory.si.edu/perfectunion/non-flash/removal_process.html.
[5] Ibid.
[6] As captured in a photograph by Dorothea Lange, 1942. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004665381/.
[7] Japanese Internment Bill, 20 March 1942, History, Art & Archives, U.S. House of Representatives, https://history.house.gov/Records-and-Research/Listing/lfp_004/.
[8] As stated by a sign in a barber shop in Kent, Washington, 2 March 1944, HMLSC_JA_f14, Japanese Americans in World War II Collection, California State University Japanese American Digitization Project, California State University, Fresno, http://digitalcollections.archives.csudh.edu/digital/collection/p16855coll4/id/11493/.
[9] Yuriko Nagata, “Japanese Internment in Australia during World War II,” (PhD thesis, University of Adelaide, 1993), 1-3.
[10] Ibid., 2.
[11] Soo im Lee, “Diversity of Zainichi Koreans and Their Ties to Japan and Korea,” Afrasian Research Centre Working Paper Series: Studies on Multicultural Societies no. 8, 2012, 1.
[12] Christine Piper, “Japanese internment a dark chapter of Australian history,” Sydney Morning Herald, August 14, 2014, 8:06 p.m., https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/japanese-internment-a-dark-chapter-of-australian-history-20140813-103ldy.html.
[13] Anti-Japan World War II propaganda poster – Now we must smash them!, 1942, Commonwealth Advertising Division, Sydney, C934, 91, National Archives of Australia, https://www.naa.gov.au/learn/learning-resources/learning-resource-themes/war/world-war-ii/anti-japan-world-war-ii-propaganda-poster-now-we-must-smash-them.
[14] Layla Eplett, “How the Japanese diet became the Japanese diet,” Scientific Americian, March 3, 2016, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/food-matters/how-the-japanese-diet-became-the-japanese-diet/.
[15] Report, Army and Leave Clearance Registration at War Relocation Centers, June 1943, Papers of Philleo Nash, The War Relocation Authority & the Incarceration of Japanese-Americans During World War II, Harry S. Truman Library & Museum, 6.
[16] G. Long, “Appendix 5 – The Prison Break at Cowra, August 1944”, in Volume VII – The Final Campaigns, (Australian War Memorial: Digitised collection, 1963), 623-624.
[17] Ibid., 624.
[18] Correspondence from General Thomas T. Handy to General Carl Spaatz authorising the dropping of the first atomic bomb, 25 July 1945, Fold3 2021, Records of U.S. Air force Commands, Activities, and Organizations, 1900-2003, National Archives, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/204836292.
[19] Statement by the President announcing the use of the A-bomb at Hiroshima, 6 August 1945, National Archives, https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/august-6-1945-statement-president-announcing-use-bomb.
[20] The US Government Printing Office, "The United States Strategic Bombing Survey: The Effects of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, June 30, 1946" (1946), RWU E-Books, 5.
[21] Anna Lowenhaupt-Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 40.
[22] Nagata, “Japanese Internment,” 227.
[23] Report on the Directorate of POW and Internees, 1951, 780/1/6, 54 series, Australian War Memorial, 96.
[24] Over 60 similar letters can be found in file A 1066, 45/1/11/5, National Archives of Australia.