Eastward Pioneers: Japanese American Resettlement during World War II and the Contested Meaning of Exile and Incarceration

ALLAN W. AUSTIN

IN 1982-1983, THE COMMISSION on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians [CWRIC] issued Personal Justice Denied, its history of the exile and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. The report included a chapter that examined the "high psychic price" paid by Japanese Americans [or Nikkei] for their wartime experiences. Secondgeneration Japanese Americans [or Nisei], the CWRIC suggested, had coped with their mistreatment in negative ways by ignoring the past, losing faith in "white America," blaming themselves, or "[i]dentifying with the aggressor by refusing to associate with other Japanese Americans and proudly proclaiming ignorance of Japan, its language and culture." Such reactions are not surprising given the government's goals for resettlement from the camps that encouraged widespread dispersal of the Nikkei community designed to promote individual assimilation.