The history of the United States’ incarceration of Japanese Americans is known as one of the darkest chapters of American history. But there is another story of how the U.S. also orchestrated and financed the mass roundup of innocent men, women and children of Japanese descent in 12 Latin American countries, citing “hemispheric security”.
This story begins long before Pearl Harbor, when Japanese immigrants had been the targets of some of America’s most virulent and violent xenophobia, purportedly in defense of an “America for Americans”.
Isamu “Art” Shibayama was 13 years old and living comfortably in Lima, Peru, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Although the attack occurred in the United States and Peru was a noncombatant during the war, he and other Japanese Peruvians were frightened. As rumors began circulating in Japanese Peruvian communities, the Shibayama family stayed glued to the radio and waited for news.
Their worst fears came true when they were rounded up by Peruvian police, turned over to American troops, forcibly removed from Peru on U.S. transport ships, and sent to American prison camps in Crystal City, Texas. They would remain incarcerated as “enemy aliens” in the U.S. until 1944.
The Shibayamas were among the 1,800 Japanese Peruvians who suffered this fate. They were not the only ones. By the time the program ended in 1944, a total of 2,264 Japanese Latin Americans, including citizens and permanent residents of 12 Latin American countries, had been incarcerated in the United States. Nearly 900 of them were exchanged for American civilians in Japan.
The officially stated goal of this program was to make the nation’s southern border safe from infiltration or attack by the Japanese enemy, including Japanese-descended people in Latin America who had been in the region for generations. To achieve this, the U.S. government forged an agreement with 15 Latin American governments to remove potentially dangerous Axis sympathizers from the Western Hemisphere. This ill-conceived plan led to 2,264 Japanese from Latin America, mostly Peruvians, being seized and shipped to America.
After World War II ended, another 1,000 Japanese Latin Americans were deported to Japan after their Latin American home countries refused to take them back.
In recent times, Japanese Americans and other Asian Americans have emerged as prominent critics of current policies, such as the 2017 travel ban that restricted immigration from six predominantly Muslim nations. These advocates perceive these measures as reminiscent of the state-sanctioned discrimination that their communities endured during World War II.
Relevant articles:
– What Happened to Japanese Latin Americans After Pearl Harbor – TIME
– The Gripsholm WWII Exchanges | Densho Encyclopedia
– The Japanese-Peruvians interned in the US during WW2 – BBC News