Comments on: Asian History Carnival #11

By: Jonathan Dresner

Jonathan Dresner — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 09:16:38 +0000

Penny: I usually just keep stuff in bloglines until the carnival date approaches. On the other hand, if I know someone else is hosting, I’ll submit all kinds of stuff via blogcarnival.com. Nobody except carnival hosts and spammers seem to use it, though, some months.

Konrad: Actually, there were some internments from the Hawaiian Japanese community. I don’t have the figures at hand, but it was about 4%, more than the German and Italian internees, but based on the same principles; a lot less, obviously, than the mainland Japanese community. The Niihau incident itself got very little attention, as far as I know, either in the press or in the security analyses; much less than Japanese language schools and newspapers, imported nationalistic Nichiren priests, kibei educational returnees and other community ties to Japan.

It is, however, a decisive event for those arguing in defense of the internment, because it’s pretty much the only actual incident in which an America-based Japanese did something questionable.

By: Penny

Penny — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 04:47:31 +0000

Um, when I host the Disability Blog Carnival, I actually do submit stuff to myself–I send myself the links through blogcarnival.com, collect them in an email file, etc. It’s a habit. I’d hate to break stride just because I’m the next host.

By: K. M. Lawson

K. M. Lawson — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 18:41:14 +0000

I was interested that the article on the Niihau incident repeats the claim, made elsewhere, that the traitorous behavior of the Japanese-Americans in the incident had a decisive influence on the decision to intern Japanese-Americans. While I don’t know much about the policy debates and chain of events leading up to internment, a Washington Post article which briefly mentions the same claim in another context makes a pretty good point:

“Had the Niihau incident been significant, then Japanese Americans in the Hawaiian Islands would have been interned. Unlike their counterparts on the West Coast, they never were.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9796-2004May7.html

Jonathan, as someone who has done a lot on Japanese immigration to the US, and who is in Hawaii, do you have any thoughts on this?

Another article online which hints at the impact of the event is here

But it also gets taken up in a great post and discussion that follows over at Is That Legal, here, where Jonathan also made a nice intervention.