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Representatives from the Jerome Relocation Commission in Arkansas

Descriptive

TitleInfo
Title
Representatives from the Jerome Relocation Commission in Arkansas
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Sasaki
NamePart (type = given)
Fuju
Role
RoleTerm (authority = marcrelator); (type = text)
Depicted
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Nakamura
NamePart (type = given)
Ellen Noguchi
Role
RoleTerm (authority = marcrelator); (type = text)
Depicted
Name (type = personal)
NamePart (type = family)
Ouchida
NamePart (type = given)
Harold
Role
RoleTerm (authority = marcrelator); (type = text)
Depicted
TypeOfResource
StillImage
Genre (authority = AAT)
photographs
OriginInfo
DateCreated (encoding = w3cdtf); (keyDate = yes); (point = start); (qualifier = approximate)
1941
DateCreated (encoding = w3cdtf); (keyDate = no); (point = end); (qualifier = approximate)
1949
PhysicalDescription
Form (authority = RULIB)
InternetMediaType
application/pdf
InternetMediaType
image/jpeg
Extent
1 image
Subject (authority = LCSH)
Topic
World War, 1939-1945
Subject (authority = LCSH)
Topic
Japanese Americans
Subject (authority = LCSH)
Topic
Immigrants
Subject (authority = NJCCS)
Temporal
The Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945)
Subject
HierarchicalGeographic
Country
UNITED STATES
State
New Jersey
County
Cumberland County
City
Seabrook Farms (Seabrook, N.J.)
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Seabrook Farms
Identifier (type = local)
SBFarms
Identifier (type = hdl)
http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.3/SBFarms.Photograph.10350
Identifier (type = doi)
doi:10.7282/T38P611M
Location
PhysicalLocation (authority = marcorg); (displayLabel = Seabrook Educational and Cultural Center)
NjSaECC
Extension
DescriptiveEvent
Type
Digital exhibition
AssociatedObject
Type
Exhibition section
Detail
The anti-Japanese sentiment that led to internment did not appear overnight. Since the nineteenth century, white Americans had made reference to the “Yellow peril,” which characterized Asian immigrants as invaders who came to take jobs and were unassimilable to “American” values. This discourse conflated Asian ancestry with perpetual foreignness. With the 1870 Naturalization Act, the 1907 “Gentlemen’s Agreement” between the United States and Japan, and the 1913 California Alien Land Law Act, as well as other federal and state legislation, Japanese immigrants faced legal barriers to citizenship, immigration, and property ownership respectively. In the late-1930s, representations of Japanese “otherness” fueled sensationalist journalism and stoked fears about espionage as tensions between the United States and Japan increased. Newspapers and magazines, especially on the West Coast, argued that Japanese Americans were to be seen as enemies if war broke out.

Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor provided the immediate justification for the internment of more than 120,000 Issei and Nisei. On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, giving military authorities the power to forcibly evacuate Japanese families from their homes on the West Coast for “national security” purposes. Under the auspices of defense, the Western Defense Command (the branch of the War Department responsible for the Pacific Coast) detained American citizens without any concrete evidence – a violation of their constitutional right to individual due process. After putting Issei and Nisei through what future Seabrook resident Iddy Asada called “the horrible stages of the evacuation bit” – a process in which nearly 75 percent of incarcerated families lost all of their assets, often to neighbors – the military sent detainees to internment camps farther inland. The policy of Japanese internment spread throughout the Western hemisphere. The Justice Department coordinated with countries such as Panama and Peru the incarceration of more than two thousand Latin Americans of Japanese ancestry as “enemy aliens,” who were then sent to the United States and stripped of their rights, property, and legal documents.

Internment proved controversial, from both a legal and propaganda standpoint, with the United States fighting a global campaign against fascism. Liberal and leftist Americans decried and protested the policy as an abject and unprecedented violation of the civil liberties of citizens, as did certain Protestant religious organizations. Moreover, the growing need for workers in the wartime economy prompted the government officials to question whether Issei and Nisei labor was being wasted as a wartime resource. From 1943 until the end of the war, the War Relocation Authority, the federal agency created to administer internment, gradually began a process of releasing internees. After swearing “unqualified allegiance to the United States” in a loyalty questionnaire, Issei and Nisei became eligible for supervised work release to locations east of the Mississippi River. (Nisei also became eligible for conscription.) The relocation of more than 2,500 internees to Seabrook Farms was supervised by the WRA’s Philadelphia office, who worked with already released individuals like Ellen Nakamura, to expand recruitment.

Even though released detainees were thoroughly vetted by both the WRA and the military through the loyalty questionnaire, paroled internees continued to encounter racism and suspicion. At Great Meadows in Warren County, New Jersey, local residents protested after farmer George Kowalick agreed to accept five Japanese American laborers from the WRA and, as the Newark Evening News reported in 1943, formed a “secret and self-styled ‘reception committee’ dedicated to keeping the Japs out.” After a barn on his property suspiciously went up in flames, Kowalick asked the WRA to take the laborers back. The mayor of Great Meadows, John Kane, blamed the parolees themselves for the unrest: “We have no objection to the nationality of these men, but we do object to their character if they instigate animosity or infringe upon law and order.”
Relationship
Forms part of
Name
Internment and Paroled Work Release
AssociatedObject
Type
Exhibition caption
Relationship
Forms part of
Name
Representatives from the Jerome Relocation Commission in Arkansas
Detail
Ellen Nakamura, featured in the center of this photograph. The brick buildings and greenery of Seabrook Farms presented a sharp contrast to the barracks and desert-like conditions of the internment camps.

Seabrook Educational and Cultural Center, New Jersey Digital Highway
AssociatedObject
Type
Placement in digital exhibition
Relationship
Forms part of
Name
34
DateTime (encoding = w3cdtf)
2016
Label
Invisible Restraints: Life and Labor at Seabrook Farms
Note
Representatives from the Jerome Relocation Commission in Arkansas invited to find jobs and available houses for those still in camps in response to invitation from "CF" Seabrook. They not only checked out work and housing availability, but also visited the merchants in Bridgeton to determine the attitude of the local residents. Pictured: Fuju Sasaki, Ellen Nakamura, Harold Ouchida. Picture taken during the the 1940s.
Abstract (type = description)
Ellen Nakamura, featured in the center of this photograph. The brick buildings and greenery of Seabrook Farms presented a sharp contrast to the barracks and desert-like conditions of the internment camps.
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Rights

RightsDeclaration (AUTHORITY = NJDH); (ID = rulibRdec0001)
This resource may be copyright protected. You may make use of this resource, with proper attribution, for educational and other non-commercial uses only. Contact the contributing organization to obtain permission for reproduction, publication, and commercial use.
Copyright
Status
Copyright protected
Availability
Status
Open
Reason
Permission or license
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Source

LocalBibID (DATE = ); (TYPE = )
Seabrook, John M. 006 - Arch 2
Shelving
Locator (TYPE = Other)
Seabrook, John M. 006 - Arch 2
SourceTechnical (TYPE = Photographic)
Format (TYPE = )
Photoprint (direct positive)
Color
Black and white
Image
Shape
Rectangle
Orientation
Landscape
Condition
Rating
Good (stable, very usable)
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Technical

Format (TYPE = mime); (VERSION = )
application/x-tar
FileSize (UNIT = bytes)
9223680
Checksum (METHOD = SHA1)
bbf0fd6581a7d599dd57561b55309defed269dd8
ContentModel
Photograph
PreservationLevel
High
DateCreated
2006-06-04
CompressionScheme
Uncompressed
ColorSpace
BlackisZero
CreatingApplication (DATECREATED = 2006-06-04); (VERSION = CS2)
Adobe Photoshop
OperatingSystem (VERSION = 5.1.2600)
Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Orientation
ImageOrientation
Normal
DisplayOrientation
Landscape
Sampling
SamplingSize
600
SamplingUnit
inch
Storage
Medium
Hard Disk
Format (TYPE = mime); (VERSION = NULL)
image/tiff
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