{"id":973,"date":"2017-10-25T04:00:42","date_gmt":"2017-10-25T08:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/?p=973"},"modified":"2017-10-24T16:29:26","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T20:29:26","slug":"against-the-norm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/2017\/10\/25\/against-the-norm\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week in the Archive: Against the Norm–T. Eugene West and His Neighbor, The Nisei"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Joshua Kim<\/strong><\/p>\n

(A Nisei<\/a> is a person of Japanese descent born in the U.S. with immigrant parents. Nisei directly translates to \u201csecond generation\u201d in Japanese.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAt the outbreak of the war, 112,000 of these good people were taken from their homes, businesses, farms, schools, and churches and put into ten relocation camps throughout the midwest. Of these there were 70,000 American citizens by birth.\u201d T. Eugene West, University of Richmond Class of 1927.<\/p>\n

In his piece for the Richmond Alumni Bulletin<\/em>, alum T. Eugene West passionately spoke on behalf of the Japanese American community and the horrors they faced during WWII, specifically the repercussions of Executive Order 9066<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, president Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. With this executive order, Roosevelt marked the Japanese American community as public enemy No. 01, and the order acted as a stamp of approval for nationwide hate crimes and anti-Japanese violence. Anti-Japanese sentiment was quite common since early Japanese immigration to the U.S. Many of the early Japanese immigrants were from the countryside and often came with very little money. They were targeted — along with the Chinese, the Koreans, and the Filipinos — as a cheap labor source. Many of these immigrants faced harsh resentment from the white working class as they were seen as competition for employment.<\/p>\n

Yet, employment competition was not the only reason for anti-Japanese sentiment.<\/p>\n

In 1905, Japan defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War <\/a>(1904-1905) after failed negotiations to split Manchuria and Korea into spheres of influence<\/a>. This was the first<\/a> major defeat of a Western power by an Asian country in a long, long time, and caused an uproar back in the U.S.<\/p>\n

The Asiatic Exclusionary League<\/a> (1904-post WWII) was a white supremacist group that focused itself on opposing Japanese, Korean, and later Hindu Indian immigration to the U.S. They played a large role in many of the anti-Japanese legislation that was passed during this time:<\/p>\n