Neighbors and Activists: The Shared Lives and Protests of Japanese and Jewish Americans in Postwar California

Since World War II, Jewish and Japanese Americans have followed trajectories of socioeconomic mobility, political incorporation, and cultural visibility that invite historical scrutiny.  Why have these ethnic groups enjoyed privileges still withheld from other minorities? To what extent have they crossed paths, pursued similar strategies, even explicitly referenced one another or collaborated? I propose a paper that finds answers to these questions in the local, civil rights activism of Japanese and Jewish Californians during the 1940s and 1950s.  Mobilized by everyday interactions in shared, diverse communities of California, the traumatic events of World War II, and a new, national dedication to anti-racism, Japanese and Jewish neighbors joined with other minorities to challenge social injustices.  Their sometimes overlapping, sometimes adversarial attempts to undo discriminations in housing, marriage, education, employment, education, and immigration policy made possible the relative integration of Jews and Japanese in American society through the later half of the 20^th century.