Published in Korean in May 2012 in the conference proceedings of the conference 3rd Incheon Asia, Africa, Latin America Literature Forum: Finding the Global in the Local
Ignacio López-Calvo
University of California, Merced
For a published translation to Korean of this essay, click here
Anthropologists have
praised how the flexible transnationalism of “nomadic” or multiply displaced
subjects allows them to elude repressive state structures and state
disciplining. Aihwa Ong states that “‘Flexible citizenship’ refers to the
cultural logics of capital accumulation, travel, and displacement that induce
subjects to respond fluidly and opportunistically to changing
political-economic conditions. In their quest to accumulate capital and social
prestige in the global arena, subjects emphasize, and are regulated by,
practices favoring flexibility, mobility, and repositioning in relation to
markets, governments, and cultural regimes” (6). However, global conflicts have
added nuances of victimhood to the purported liberatory benefits of the
flexibility of transnational ethnicities. Under certain circumstances, the same
deterritorialization and freedom of spatial constraints that can liberate
subjects from oppression in their home nation-state can also lead to cultural
othering and to the biggest spatial constraint of them all: imprisonment. From this perspective, I shall discuss issues
of citizenship, national identity, and racial anxiety as they are affected by
foreign wartime propaganda and represented in Adiós to Tears: The Memoirs of a Japanese-Peruvian Internee in U.S.
Concentration Camps (2000) (Namida no Adiósu, 1981). This testimonial was originally written in
Japanese by Seiichi Higashide (1909-1997), an Issei born in the Japanese island of Hokkaido who migrated to Peru in
1930. Following in the footsteps of other successful Japanese immigrants, he soon
became owner of several stores and the president of the Japanese
Association in Ica. Yet his dream would be cut short when the US
State Department reached an agreement with the Peruvian government to arrest
Japanese Peruvians and deport them to internment camps in the US in order to
use them as pawns in the exchange of prisoners of war with Japan. Higashide
managed to escape recruitment for the mandatory military service in Japan while
he was living in Peru, but this host nation was more successful in locating and
arresting him. Considering that the dark chapter of the deportation of Japanese
Latin Americans to U.S. concentration camps had not received much scholarly
attention until recently, the publication and translation of Adiós to Tears is an invaluable landmark
that allows us to hear the story from the victims’ perspective.
The
narration of this betrayal by the Peruvian government is precisely what makes Adiós to Tears a testimonial account:
the first-person narrator goes from an explanation of his individual trials to
become the synecdochical voice of all members of the Japanese Peruvian
community during the Pacific War. As is typical of the Latin American testimonio, Adiós to Tears was the first work published by the testimonialist,
who was not a professional author but just a witness and victim of
international repression. Likewise, Higashide’s main goal is not of an
aesthetic nature; rather, his writing responds to a twofold commitment. First, his desire to
inform the historical memory and conscience of Peru, the US, and Japan gives
his book pedagogical overtones. Secondly, ethical concerns are at the core of
most arguments: he denounces sociopolitical injustice and
corruption, moves the reader to collective political action, and demands a
public apology from the U.S. government as well as redress for the Latin
American Nikkei deported to U.S.
concentration camps. He also exposes the shortcomings of the Japanese Peruvian
community. In all, the testimonialist hopes that his voice will provide
formerly interned Japanese Latin Americans with political agency and, what is
equally important, with a page in the history of the Pacific War. For this
reason, from the onset of the narrative he states his claim to historical
truth.
His
book is part of a wider effort that expanded throughout his life in the US to
seek justice and
redress for his fellow Japanese Latin Americans whose civil rights were
flagrantly violated during World War II. When Higashide and his peers found out
that the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians created
by the U.S. Congress in 1981 was focusing solely on the abuses committed
against 110,000 Japanese Americans, they decided that this commission also had
to hear the voice of former Japanese Latin American internees. Throughout the
account of this sadly bizarre chapter in wartime history, the testimonialist
affirms the authority of his voice as an eyewitness and as one of the victims
who lived those tragic events. Of course, readers have to take into account the
input of editors and others who glossed his text. Moreover, as any
autobiographical text, Adiós to Tears
is, by definition, subjective and it goes through a process of selection of
memories that can lead to modifications or exaggerations of actual events.
However, the veracity of Higashide’s perspective can be corroborated by
contrasting it to historical studies such as Gardiner’s Pawns in a Triangle of Hate, Barnhart’s
“Japanese internees from Peru,” and Emmerson’s “Japanese and Americans in Peru.”
Higashide’s
autobiographic, historical, and testimonial account provides a revealing
insight into the influence of wartime foreign political propaganda on the
formation of nativism, nationalistic xenophobia, and racial anxiety. More
specifically, it exposes the manipulation by U.S. intelligence agencies of
public opinion about the Nikkei
community in Peru. Adiós to Tears is
also an important document to understand the perception and
self-perception of the Japanese diaspora in Peru as well as its significance
for the formation of Peruvian national identity.
As Higashide explains, of
the 2,118 persons of Japanese descent deported from thirteen
Latin American countries, 84 percent came from Peru and 1,094 were family
members. Only
79 persons of Japanese descent were allowed to return to
Peru after the war was over. That the Peruvian government refused to accept the
re-entry of deported Japanese alien residents after the end of the Pacific War
proves that it had seen the armed conflict as an excellent opportunity to get
rid of the unwanted Japanese presence in the country. We find additional
evidence of Peruvian authorities’ aversion for Peruvian Nikkei in the fact that they demanded a selective repatriation
policy that “would be lenient for Germans and highly restrictive for Japanese,”
even though the latter were considered harmless by Washington and the former,
dangerous (Gardiner 132).
In
most cases, Peruvian Nikkei were
arrested without evidence of illegal activity and when no charge had been made;
afterward, no hearings were considered necessary and their assets in Peru were
expropriated before they were embarked to an unknown destination. The deported
Japanese Latin Americans were initially relocated in some of the ten internment
camps administered by the War Relocation Authority, where they lived alongside
the 110,000 Japanese Americans expelled from Hawaii and the west coast of the US.
Some time later, however, they were lodged in Kenedy and Crystal City, two
detention camps in Texas, and in one in Santa Fe, New Mexico. To Higashide’s
dismay, among the one thousand Japanese Peruvians corralled and deported in the
name of the Western Hemisphere’s security were not only resident aliens, but
also native-born Peruvians and naturalized citizens (although some had been
denationalized by a measure targeted at persons who supported the Axis powers
and Nisei who had received their
formal education in Japan). When Japanese Peruvians and their friends
protested, regional and governmental officials would refuse admitting any
responsibility by stating: “The American Government has given us orders”
(Gardiner 91).
After the end of the war,
considering that neither Peru nor the US would accept them, over 700 Japanese
Peruvian men and over 1000 family members chose transportation to Japan
(Barnhart 174). Other 300 remained in a legal no man’s land as “stateless”
refugees in
the US. In September of 1946, they were offered “parole” relocation in a
farming community in Seabrook, New Jersey and 209 of them agreed to moving
there as parolees. In spite of having been forcibly and illegally transferred
by the U.S. government, Latin American Japanese were now considered “illegal
aliens on conditional release” (Higashide 8). This strange situation, which had
been designed to justify a second deportation or repatriation to Japan, would
continue until 1954, when they were finally given entry visas.
Many Peruvians
willingly collaborated with Peruvian and American officials’ political designs
and, according to Higashide, Chinese shopkeepers were also suspect of
collaboration with American instigators. He considers business competition and
the Japanese invasion of China as plausible incentives. In any case, the FBI’s
tactics would soon yield the expected results:
In 1939, outrageous rumors began
flying about, and disquieting developments were reported from various parts of
Peru. Completely unsubstantiated reports that the Japanese in Peru had organized
a “fifth column,” that they had secretly built a military base, that they had
landed large shipments of arms and ammunition somewhere in South America, etc.,
came to be rumored as if completely true. (Higashide 103)
During the following months, public
opinion about Peruvian Nikkei gradually
shifted from indifference to radical distrust and animosity. As to Peruvian
officials and the government, they capitalized on this historic event to rid
themselves of a social group they obviously despised.
In addition to
spreading false rumors, another tactic used by U.S. intelligence agents was the
creation of a blacklist of dangerous Axis nationals known as the Proclaimed
List of Certain Blocked Nationals:
It was December 24, 1941. On that
unforgettable day, two major Peruvian newspapers, El Commercio [sic] and La
Prensa, published a lista negra,
a “blacklist” of approximately 30 “dangerous Axis nationals” residing in Peru.
Of the 30, approximately 10 were Japanese.
Shivers passed
through me. “Can this really be true?” I thought. My name was included in the
list. We learned that the list had been leaked to reporters by a local U.S.
agency. (Higashide 114)
The Peruvian print media was quick
to collaborate with an American propaganda machine designed to create distrust
among the local population, to dishearten and bankrupt citizens from Germany,
Japan, and Italy, and to expel the leaders of their communities.
Higashide provides
one last example of anti-Japanese inflammatory propaganda in Peru. In the last
days of 1942, the FBI noticed a new fashion trend among Japanese Peruvians and
managed to turn it into the so-called “people’s uniform incident”: a tailor in
Lima, inspired by the latest fashion in Japan, had decided to use khaki-colored
cloth to make what the FBI inaccurately claimed were “military uniforms.” The
tailor’s claim that the uniforms were simply a way to save money in wartime was
found unconvincing. Immediately following the FBI’s reports, twenty employees
of the tailor shops and the people who had placed orders were arrested and
deported to a concentration camp in Panama, leaving their families behind.
Along
the same lines, following unsubstantiated rumors about a potential landing of
the Imperial Japanese Army in Peru and about the accumulation of weapons by
Japanese residents, many were inhumanely removed from coastal areas or given
only three days to move elsewhere: “In order to enforce the expulsion order,
the governor of Ancash Province went out himself, snapping a bullwhip, to force
out local Japanese” (Higashide 127). Higashide denounces other unjust practices
such as sending government auditors to Japanese-owned shops to confiscate the profits
from daily sales, leaving only a prescribed amount for the owner’s daily
expenses. Soon, all large Japanese-owned businesses were harassed by this
economic warfare into closing or were simply ordered to close.
While the
strategic use of false rumors was designed to turn Peruvian public opinion
against the Axis powers and its overseas citizens, there was also a more
practical reason for the forced transportation of Peruvian Nikkei to internment camps in the US: “American authorities
apparently intended to transfer all ‘enemy aliens’ residing in South America to
the US for the purpose of exchange, if necessary, for Americans held in Japan”
(Higashide 129). Although Adiós to Tears
opens with a paragraph in which the testimonialist declares his unconditional
love for his three motherlands (Japan, Peru, and the US), he now voices his
feeling of betrayal:
Peru had severed diplomatic ties
with Japan, but it was still a third party to the dispute. Even if it had been
pressured by the United States, what country with any pride and independence
would have said, “Yes. We shall comply,” and hand over innocent people? If it
were only those with Japanese citizenship, a case might have been made. But the
Peruvian government had given in to American pressure even to the point of
deporting naturalized citizens and Peruvian citizens who had been born there.
(142-43)
Beyond the
condemnation of American wartime propaganda, Higashide ponders about additional
causes of the anti-Japanese riots during the Pacific War. In his view, Peruvian
Nikkei were themselves partly at
fault for their feeling of cultural superiority and their refusal to identify
with their host country or become naturalized. These attitudes were sometimes
reflected in the tradition of sending children to study in Japan. Higashide also criticizes their
voluntary isolation from Peruvian society, which created a separate “nation
within a nation” (Higashide 77). He also lists the fact that they were the last
wave of immigrants, their rapid economic success, and their decision to
congregate in Lima, instead of dispersing throughout the country.
In
addition, Higashide provides examples of Japanese resistance. For instance,
some avoided deportation by hiding, paying “substitutes” to take their places,
or through the use of bribes. He also mentions the use of litigation and the
defiance of the “anti-citizenship” group in the detention camp, who advocated
renouncing U.S. citizenship. Other times Higashide is critical of some
oppositional attitudes, such as that of a group of internees that decided to
protest by breaking chinaware, and expresses again his detachment from fellow
internees who, upon hearing news that Japan had surrendered unconditionally,
considered committing ritual suicide.
Japanese Peruvian
women were also active in confronting the manipulation of their families by
international interests. The heroic demeanor of Higashide’s wife first while
the latter was hiding in an excavated secret room in their house, and later,
when she was left behind in Peru, is an excellent example. During these trying
times, her courage challenged the testimonialist’s early doubts about the
character of Nisei—she proved to be a
“true daughter of Japan” and an example of the “way of the warriors” (131). At
a personal level, Higashide decided to avoid the government’s economic boycott
against Japanese nationals by closing the shop and starting a new one with a
business permit in his wife's name. Later, in a new example of resistance and
ingenuity, he outwitted Peruvian authorities by hiding in an underground room
in his own home.
From the time when
a fellow Japanese national gave him the Otani Company in the town of Cañete,
Higashide made a conscious effort to make acquaintances beyond the Japanese
Peruvian community to integrate himself into his new country or, in his own
words, to have a “sense of belonging” (8). That these upper-level social groups
accepted him must have seemed like a blessing at first; however, this
hard-earned social prestige was later deemed enough to warrant the label of
“dangerous” in the eyes of U.S. intelligence agencies. Indeed, his success in securing the
affection and support of the Peruvian elite thanks to both his economic success
and his position as a leader of the Japanese community in Ica ended up bringing
about his demise: in spite of having avoided involvement in political
activities, he was one of the first victims of wartime anti-Japanese
propaganda. Some time later, he found out the true reasons behind his arrest
and deportation: “rather than being influential persons or
leaders within their respective communities, those on the first list were Axis
nationals who had involved themselves deeply with the local Peruvian
establishment” (Higashide 115).
In conclusion, Adiós to Tears is a remarkable
testimonial because it shows how, along with the violation of human rights
committed against Japanese Americans during World War II, the U.S. government
went beyond its borders in its recruitment of pawns for the exchange of prisoners
of war. Therefore, it adds a new page to the history of the Japanese diaspora,
and to the sad episode of the deportation of Latin American residents and
citizens to U.S. internment camps. At the same time, it reveals additional
nuances to the historical notion of citizenship in Peru and the rest of Latin
America. This testimonio is also
crucial to understand how an outside influence successfully overturned Peruvian
officials’ widespread support for the Axis powers, and turned mainstream
population against their Japanese neighbors, including those naturalized
Peruvian or born in Peru. Cultural prejudice together with economic competition
and wartime anxiety had become the perfect culture medium for the birth of
anti-Japanese hysteria. Adiós to Tears also
challenges the traditional debates about Peruvian national identity that would
only consider the dichotomy between Criollos
and indigenous people, disregarding people of African and Asian descent.
Finally, even though the cosmopolitanism of “flexible citizenship” can be
socially and economically rewarding in times of peace, Higashide’s testimony
shows its structural limits, dangers, and personal costs during wartime,
regardless of how much hard-earned cultural capital and social prestige have
been accumulated as a strategy of flexible positioning.
Works Cited
Barnhart, Edgard N. “Japanese internees from Peru.” Pacific Historical Review 31.2(May
1962):169-78.
Emmerson, John K. The Japanese Thread: A Life in the U.S. Foreign
Service. New York:
Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1978.
Gardiner, C. Harvey. Pawns
in a Triangle of Hate. The Peruvian Japanese and the United
States.
Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1981.
Higashide, Seiichi. Adiós to Tears:
The Memoirs of a Japanese-Peruvian Internee in U.S.
Concentration
Camps. Foreword, C. Harvey Gardiner; preface, Elsa H. Kudo; epilogue, Julie
Small. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000.
Ong, Aihwa. Flexible Citizenship. The Cultural Logics of Transnationality.
Durham and
London: Duke
University Press, 1999.
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