Kuichi or Comrades? Japanese American Views of Jews in the World War II Era

West Coast Japanese Americans, both aliens and citizens, expressed complex and ambivalent attitudes in regard to Jews in Europe and America during the World War II era. A review of the Japanese vernacular press, plus other writings, reveals currents of both sympathy and hostility.

Jews remained largely absent in the West Coast Japanese press before 1938. However, several short stories and news reports portrayed “the Jew” negatively, as a pawnbroker or a dishonest businessmen. Following the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938 and the Nazi invasion of Poland, ethnic Japanese newspapers reported Nazi persecution of European Jews, and featured photos of Jews in ghettoes wearing yellow stars. Several commentators deplored the discrimination, which they compared to the situation of Japanese in America. However, their rhetorical sympathy for the Jews was tempered by agreement that the American government should not admit any Jewish refugees. Pro-Japanese propagandists, meanwhile, lauded Tokyo’s enlightened policy toward Jews, and complained of Jewish attacks on Japan as a fascist nation. 

The wartime confinement of Japanese Americans triggered the coming to prominence of Nisei liberals such as Larry Tajiri and Mary Oyama, who forthrightly denounced anti-Semitism in America and expressed their solidarity with Jews. Nevertheless, numerous Japanese Americans scapegoated Jews as scavengers who bought their belongings cheaply at the time of evacuation. One letter writer to a camp newspaper was rebuked by officials for an anti-Semitic reference. The end of the war brought renewed sympathy for Jews in the Japanese American press. Larry Tajiri and Bill Hosokawa reported pointedly on the concentration camp at Maidenek as a warning about the evils of racial and religious prejudice. Nevertheless, into the postwar years Japanese Americans continued to express hostile attitudes towards Jews as selfish and power-hungry.