Winter
Winter 1943:The number of evacuees at relocation centers peaks at about 107,000.
March
March 11, 1943:The director of the WRA sends a letter to the Secretary of War in which he recommends an immediate relaxation of the exclusion order against persons of Japanese descent. In a letter of May 10, 1943, the Secretary of War said he would not consider the WRA director’s recommendation until the “vicious, well-organized, pro-Japanese minority group[s]” were removed from the relocation centers.
May
May 14, 1943: Dillon S. Myer, director of the War Relocation Authority, issues a statement which says that the relocation centers “are undesirable institutions and should be removed from the American scene as soon as possible. Life in a relocation center is an unnatural and un-American sort of life. Keep in mind that the evacuees were charged with nothing except having Japanese ancestors; yet the very fact of their confinement in relocation centers fosters suspicion of their loyalties and adds to their discouragement. It has added weight to the contentions of the enemy [the Empire of Japan] that we are fighting a race war-that this nation preaches democracy and practices racial discrimination.”
June
June 1943: The United States Supreme Court rules unanimously in Hirabayashi v. United States that a Japanese-American citizen must obey the curfew regulations promulgated by the Western Defense Command. One of the concurring opinions notes that “Today is the first time, so far as I am aware, that we have sustained a substantial restriction of the personal liberty of citizens of the United States based on the accident or race or ancestry…. It bears a melancholy resemblance to the treatment accorded to [Jews] in Germany.”Ca. June 1943: The Tule Lake relocation center is selected as the place where evacuees perceived to be loyal to Japan rather than to the United States, often on very imperfect evidence, are to be segregated. About 9,000 evacuees were moved to Tule Lake from the other nine relocation centers in September and October, 1943. The center eventually housed about 18,000 evacuees.
Donnerstag, 10. Mai 2007
Vincent Chin murder
Did you know, that...
June marks the 20th anniversary of the murder of Vincent Chin, a 27-year-old Chinese-American draftsman, in Detroit, Michigan. On June 19, 1982, Chin was beaten to death on the street by Ronald Ebens, a Chrysler supervisor and Michael Nitz, Ebens’ laid-off stepson. The two had earlier yelled racist insults at Chin and his friends in a bar where Chin was celebrating his upcoming marriage. After Chin and his friends left, Ebens and Nitz tracked them down and attacked with baseball bats.
Ebens had yelled, “It’s because of you little motherfuckers that we’re out of work.” The two autoworkers mistakenly thought Chin and his friends were Japanese. For them Chinese, Japanese – it made no difference. They were simply repeating the mindless propaganda then being spewed out by the auto bosses and repeated by the UAW (United Auto Workers). Supposedly imports of Japanese autos were the cause of layoffs in the U.S. auto industry. Demanding big concessions in wages and benefits from workers in the early 1980s, the auto companies claimed it was necessary to help them meet the competition from Japanese auto companies.
Not only did the UAW accept the auto bosses’ arguments – and their demands for concessions – it also stepped up a vile anti-Japanese demagogy. The union banned Japanese cars from parking lots at union offices and halls. Some union officials threatened workers who parked Japanese cars at work. Other union officials organized workers to smash Japanese cars with sledge hammers in PR events for the media. And the UAW distributed racist bumper stickers with slant-eyed smiley faces on them.
The murder of Vincent Chin was a kind of lynching, for which the UAW had laid the groundwork.
Twenty years after the murder of Vincent Chin, many more domestic autos are produced in the U.S. – but by many fewer workers. Jobs were not lost to Japanese producers – but to the speed-up drive of U.S. bosses – a drive which the UAW abetted with its racist anti-Japanese sloganeering and the partnership it openly joined with the auto companies. The U.S. auto bosses are the ones who have benefitted from the vastly increased productivity of autoworkers, not the workers.
What the UAW did prepared a tragedy for Detroit workers in many ways. Not only could they not defend themselves from their real enemy, they were dehumanized with at least some of them turned into brutes who carried out a racist lynching – or who applauded it.
June marks the 20th anniversary of the murder of Vincent Chin, a 27-year-old Chinese-American draftsman, in Detroit, Michigan. On June 19, 1982, Chin was beaten to death on the street by Ronald Ebens, a Chrysler supervisor and Michael Nitz, Ebens’ laid-off stepson. The two had earlier yelled racist insults at Chin and his friends in a bar where Chin was celebrating his upcoming marriage. After Chin and his friends left, Ebens and Nitz tracked them down and attacked with baseball bats.
Ebens had yelled, “It’s because of you little motherfuckers that we’re out of work.” The two autoworkers mistakenly thought Chin and his friends were Japanese. For them Chinese, Japanese – it made no difference. They were simply repeating the mindless propaganda then being spewed out by the auto bosses and repeated by the UAW (United Auto Workers). Supposedly imports of Japanese autos were the cause of layoffs in the U.S. auto industry. Demanding big concessions in wages and benefits from workers in the early 1980s, the auto companies claimed it was necessary to help them meet the competition from Japanese auto companies.
Not only did the UAW accept the auto bosses’ arguments – and their demands for concessions – it also stepped up a vile anti-Japanese demagogy. The union banned Japanese cars from parking lots at union offices and halls. Some union officials threatened workers who parked Japanese cars at work. Other union officials organized workers to smash Japanese cars with sledge hammers in PR events for the media. And the UAW distributed racist bumper stickers with slant-eyed smiley faces on them.
The murder of Vincent Chin was a kind of lynching, for which the UAW had laid the groundwork.
Twenty years after the murder of Vincent Chin, many more domestic autos are produced in the U.S. – but by many fewer workers. Jobs were not lost to Japanese producers – but to the speed-up drive of U.S. bosses – a drive which the UAW abetted with its racist anti-Japanese sloganeering and the partnership it openly joined with the auto companies. The U.S. auto bosses are the ones who have benefitted from the vastly increased productivity of autoworkers, not the workers.
What the UAW did prepared a tragedy for Detroit workers in many ways. Not only could they not defend themselves from their real enemy, they were dehumanized with at least some of them turned into brutes who carried out a racist lynching – or who applauded it.
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