This month marks the passing of 70 years since the February 19, 1942 signing of Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin Roosevelt, an act resulting in the forcible removal and incarceration of more than 110,000 people of Japanese descent. About two-thirds of those relocated to concentration camps scattered across desolate areas of the United States were U.S. citizens. To reflect on this milestone and its legacy, SPICE joined with the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies (IUC) and the National Consortium for Teaching About Asia (NCTA) to co-sponsor “Commemorating 70 Years Since Executive Order 9066: A Panel Discussion on the Japanese-American Experience of World War II.” Moderated by Stanford Professor of Japanese literature and IUC Executive Director Indra Levy, the event drew a crowd of educators, students, and community members eager to enrich their understanding of this troubling chapter in U.S. history. Presentations were given by an esteemed panel: Professor Emeritus Donald Hata of California State University Dominguez Hills, writer and artist Dr. Ruth Y. Okimoto, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki, and journalist and filmmaker gayle yamada. Drawing on their diverse experiences, the panelists addressed how the wartime treatment of Japanese Americans by the U.S. government does not, as Levy emphasized, “sit quietly in the past.”

 

 

A common thread connecting the presentations, raised both by panelists who spent their childhoods in the camps and those born after the war, was that the traumatic experience of the war years left an indelible mark on the Japanese-American community. In the words of yamada, “The Japanese-American experience during World War II defined us as a people. The war was not a personal experience for me but it defined who I have become almost without me realizing it.” Hata recalled that after the war, many families including his own lived in “fear of being singled out again as scapegoats,” and consequently “abandoned, rejected and suppressed Japanese language and culture. The desired goal was to be a 200% white American, an emasculated model minority devoid of any connection to their Japanese heritage.” Okazaki echoed this, explaining that he only realized years later how much the Japanese-American community in which he was raised was “acting out a post-camp experience…that’s why we had to be in Boy Scouts—it’s because of the camps—that’s why we had to be in every single sports league—it’s because of the camps…that’s why we had to be so American, that’s why we were constantly told not to stick out, to belong, not to get in trouble.” For Okimoto, the dislocation of being forced from her home and sent to the camps following Executive Order 9066 was paralleled by the challenges of then re-entering society following the end of the war: “We laugh about it now but it was very scary after the war to come back to a community being the only Japanese family and having people stare and chase us.”

The scars left by wartime experiences, panelists suggested, made it difficult for Japanese Americans to confront and openly discuss this period for many years. Yet, each of them discovered a way—teaching, archiving and creative reconstruction of the past—to explore the legacy of Japanese Americans in World War II, both for their own personal understanding and in order to share these stories with others. Hata found that his time at the IUC in Japan “brought clarity and a sense of identity and purpose to my life…I learned about Japanese history and about my Japanese immigrant heritage.” Hata later drew on this when he developed groundbreaking teaching materials in order to introduce the experience of wartime concentration camps into a college survey course on U.S. history. His text Japanese Americans and World War II: Mass Removal, Imprisonment, and Redress, co-authored with Nadine Hata, first came out as a slim 15-page supplement at a time when there were no other suitable materials for teaching this history, and is today a core source in this field. Okimoto, on the other hand, discovered that drawing and painting were her “salvation,” for they offered a way to “express myself about those years that I could not talk about,” which in turn enabled her to document the history of the Poston camp where she and her family were imprisoned during the war in Sharing a Desert Home: Life on the Colorado River Indian Reservation, Poston, Arizona, 1942-45 and contributions to From Our Side of the Fence.

Both Okazaki and yamada turned to documentary filmmaking to reveal unexplored aspects of Japanese-American wartime history. Okazaki’s many films have included a documentary on three men who challenged the legality of Executive Order 9066, an exploration of the life and art of Estelle Ishigo, one of the few Caucasians to enter the camps with her Japanese-American husband, and his third and most recent project All We Could Carry, from which Okazaki shared clips of poignant testimony of camp survivors. Yamada in turn was drawn to a project focused not on the camp experience, but rather the veterans of the Military Intelligence Service (MIS), including her father and many other Japanese-American soldiers who served in the Pacific War by translating intelligence, questioning Japanese prisoners, and bravely leading “cave flushing” operations. Yamada’s film on the MIS, Uncommon Courage, which she screened during her presentation, vividly demonstrated how these Japanese Americans employed their language and cultural knowledge to save lives on both sides of the conflict, all while many of their families were behind barbed wire in the United States. 

Okazaki affirmed that even after making three films on the subject he remains convinced that there are still stories yet to be told, because the discussion is, in a sense, just beginning. “It shocks me that the discussion is evolving so much still that even the terminology is still in discussion and evolving, and probably will continue to evolve.” Hata directly confronted this previously unexplored aspect—the insidious bureaucratic nomenclature represented in terms like “evacuation,” “relocation camp,” and “non-alien” (rather than U.S. citizen), which “cleverly obscured the reality that U.S. citizens, solely on the basis of their race, were herded without trials or due process into concentration camps as political prisoners, surrounded by barbed wire, watch towers, machine guns and searchlights, and soldiers with orders to shoot anyone trying to escape. Let us never forget what WRA [War Relocation Authority] was designed to do and did very efficiently.” Raising consciousness, diligently archiving the past, and identifying new stories and perspectives, emerged as shared concerns among the panelists, even as they emphasized that fighting historical amnesia was a future-oriented endeavor. Yamada noted that the kind of archiving projects she is involved with enable people of any ethnic background or race to “look at a moment in time—which was the war—and figure out for themselves how they could work through the same kind of issues that are being brought up.” “I hope that no other child in America,” concluded Okimoto, summing up the lessons of her presentation, “has to go through such an experience as that, to stand in a barrack, in a classroom, and have the teacher say ‘Ok children, it’s time to salute the flag.’…You’re in a prison camp but you’re saying ‘I pledge allegiance to the flag’…I hope that there’s no war where an ethnic group would be put in that kind of situation.”

The presentations were followed by a discussion, during which speakers fielded questions from the audience and elaborated on their stories and work. Panelists also remained after the event to meet with participants and sign books and DVDs. The video of the panel presentations is now available online, so that even those who could not attend in person can be inspired to learn more on their own, share this history with students, friends and family members, and ultimately work together to confront the troubling legacy of racial profiling and hysteria in the United States during World War II. “All four panelists were the model of courage in their personal discussions of the meaning of Executive Order 9066,” reflected Levy, “For those who were unable to attend the panel discussion, I am thankful that we were able to make a video record of the event. This recording will be an important part of the lessons I teach my son, and I highly recommend it to all parents and educators who are concerned about the legacy we bequeath to the next generation of Americans.”

 

On Feb. 14, KleenSpeed Technologies welcomed members of the Corporate Affiliates Visiting Fellows Program to see firsthand the electric vehicle (EV) technologies being developed at its Mountain View, CA headquarters. 

After giving each Visiting Fellow a turn at riding the KleenSpeed Mountain E-Bike, president and founder Timothy Collins and CTO Dante Zeviar showed our group exactly what is under the hood of their EV-X11 electric racecar. In 2011, the EV-X11 won the ReFuel EV Challenge for the third year in a row at the Mazda Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey, CA. 

“It was a great opportunity to see their products in person–giving me an experience I cannot get through simply reading on the website,” said Yoshimasa Waseda of the Japan Patent Office.

KleenSpeed’s vision is to achieve “success thru passion.” From our visit, it is evident their team is very passionate about the EV technologies they are developing, and about what lies ahead in the future in the global marketplace. 

The decades-old U.S.-Japan alliance remains a stabilizing force in the Asia-Pacific region, but it continues to evolve with changes in both countries and in the region. In January, Kenji E. Kushida and Phillip Lipscy joined other rising Japan studies scholars for discussions about issues confronting the relationship.

Kushida, the Takahashi Research Associate in Japanese Studies at Stanford’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC), and Lipscy, a Stanford professor of political science and a Center Fellow at Shorenstein APARC, joined fellow members of the U.S.-Japan Network for the Future in Washington, DC, for the Japan Moves Forward forum on Jan. 13. Kushida is a current member of the network, and Lipscy is an alumnus of the inaugural 2010–2012 group. The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, which established the network in 2009, recently published an edited volume of papers from the first cohort. The network also includes several former Shorenstein APARC affiliates: Kenneth McElwain (University of Michigan), Gene Park (Loyola Marymount University), and Kay Shimizu (Columbia University).

Lipscy also participated in a conference, held Jan. 21 to 23 in Kanazawa, Japan, on the future of the U.S.-Japan relationship. The event, organized by the Japan Institute of International Affairs and co-sponsored by Ishikawa Prefecture, examined factors such as security issues, economic relations, and the role of international institutions. Former Shorenstein APARC affiliate M. Taylor Fravel (MIT) also participated in the conference.

Since opening its doors to the world in 1978, China has pursued a sometimes erratic but reasonably steady course leading to increasing global economic and political interaction. Its interests now extend from Pyongyang to New York and Sydney to Riyadh. U.S. President Barack Obama’s announcement of a new “pivot” toward Asia, recent events on the Korean Peninsula, and China’s upcoming leadership transition provide additional reasons to seek greater understanding of China’s goals and interactions with other nations.

Thomas Fingar, Stanford’s Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow, is leading a new multiphase Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) initiative to explore the nuances and complexity of China’s foreign relations and domestic issues. The China and the World research project aims to contextualize and better understand China’s regional and global interactions, both from the perspective of China itself and from that of other countries. Beginning with Northeast Asia, the project will analyze China’s relations region-by-region throughout the world, and will involve experts from Stanford, China, and the regions studied. It kicks off with a Shorenstein APARC-organized workshop held Mar. 19 and 20 at the new Stanford Center at Peking University.

Fingar discusses the development of China’s foreign relations since 1978, and describes the project and workshop’s background.

In the three decades since Deng Xiaoping enacted his 1978 Open Door reforms, what have been the main trends in China’s global engagement?

The general trend since 1978 has been for China to become increasingly active and engaged in a growing number of places around the world. There have been a number of phases to this.

The “honeymoon period” of U.S.-China relations (1979–1989) was a period of essentially no competition to China’s interaction within the U.S.-led world economic system. China concentrated on the OECD countries—especially the United States, Japan, and Western Europe—that had money to invest and willingness to trade.

After the 1989 Tiananmen Square Incident, China’s international options became more constrained as its relations with the developed world plateaued. It began to reach out to the places that would deal with it: Southeast Asia and particularly Africa. This was in part diplomatically motivated, and in part a search for new markets for the low-end goods it was beginning to produce. It was also the beginning of its search for energy.

Around 2000, China transitioned from building a more modern economy towards being one—beginning the era of its “rise.” China’s demand for resources went up, as did its capacity to supply more markets and its ability to invest more of its growing foreign exchange earnings. It became globally active, proclaiming that it had a new, less exploitative model than what the United States and Europe offered.

What Northeast Asia issues do you think China will focus on this year, especially as it plans for a major leadership transition?

North Korea’s stability and China’s growing investments in the DPRK. Beijing is acutely interested in whether Kim Jong Un will prove a viable leader and whether the regime will be able to manage its new challenges. China is concerned about possible North Korean provocations that might trigger responses by South Korea and/or the United States, putting at risk the peaceful regional and international situation China needs for its political and economic development.

The second issue is answering the question: what does the U.S. pivot toward Asia mean? What does it mean in terms of security, economics, and relations with Japan and Korea? China is the largest trading partner for each of these countries. They value it as a market, and as a source of resources. Yet they also worry about being excessively dependent on China. They appear not to have worried about this quite so much when their dependence on the U.S. market was comparable.

Two full workshop sessions will be devoted to Japan and South Korea, both countries with close U.S. ties. What are the most important factors with regard to China’s rise for these two countries? What about for Southeast Asia?

One of the reasons for our upcoming Beijing workshop is to develop a general template of questions we can ask for each region. We want to avoid focusing the questions too narrowly on Northeast Asia.

For Japan and Korea, one factor has to do with economic opportunities and with their own vulnerabilities. The other has to do with the security challenges of China’s rise, and the uncertainty of its military aspirations. Japan and Korea do not want to be drawn into U.S.-led activities, but they still value the United States for protection. They are concerned about managing the decoupling of economic and security dependence, about no longer being dependent on the same country for both.

Many regional issues are interrelated, such as maritime territorial claims and naval expansion. China is an economic player in Southeast Asia, and the Philippines and Thailand have an alliance with the United States. Indonesia is a rising county in Southeast Asia, and India is an outside player in the region. The U.S. 7th Fleet currently defends the shipping lanes to Northeast Asia that go through Southeast Asia, which probably is not the long-term solution.  

Russia played an important role in shaping the political ideology in the early days of the People’s Republic of China, and the politics of both countries—especially Russia—have changed so much. What is their relationship like now?

Correct and limited. The West imposed a military hardware embargo on China after Tiananmen, so Russia is a limited alternative for that, and it is also a source of energy and other resources. It is fair to say China has something close to disdain for Russia, for what it sees as political confusion and economic mismanagement. The idea of a strategic triangle—using Russia to balance U.S. influence—is something China sees as unviable.

As you move forward with this project, what is the ultimate goal?

The goal is to understand the dynamics of interaction—to understand the bigger picture. Other countries have objectives and concerns with regard to China, while China has objectives and concerns of its own. It is about identifying things such as where they see the same and different kinds of opportunities; what concerns they have about third country interests or involvement; and how they evaluate the success of policies to date.  

South of Mount Fuji, along Japan’s central eastern coast, sits Shizuoka Prefecture. Home to green tea plantations, hot springs resorts, and Yamaha pianos and motorcycles, Shizuoka Prefecture is a vibrant agricultural, tourist, and manufacturing region. It is also home to Katsunori Hirano, a current Corporate Affiliates Visiting Fellow at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC).

Hirano was born and has lived most of his life in Shizuoka Prefecture, and has worked for the prefectural government for nearly 20 years. He specialized in energy and environmental policy while pursuing a master’s degree in urban affairs and public policy at the University of Delaware (UD). His research explored ways to apply watershed management framework concepts to forest resources management in Japan. While at Stanford, he is studying biodiversity conservation and enhancement while also seeking to re-envision the path to a clean and safe sustainable future.

Last year’s Fukushima nuclear disaster has inspired him to explore ways for Japan to reduce its dependency on nuclear energy. Under the direction of political science professor Phillip Lipscy, Hirano is currently researching incentive mechanisms for financing energy efficiency and renewable energy in place in the United States.

At the very beginning of his UD program, Hirano learned about the distinction between “economic growth” and “development.” “People tend to use the Japanese-language terms interchangeably,” he says.

He is currently exploring case studies from Costa Rica and Bhutan—two countries that have been successfully managing biodiversity—in his search for sustainability models. He says the United States also offers a variety of practical examples of environmental and social sustainability. This year, Hirano plans to study the lifestyle of Amish villagers in Pennsylvania.  
 
Hirano also actively participates in Shorenstein APARC-organized visits to local companies and government organizations such as Facebook and San Francisco City Hall. He says that such site visits help broaden his thinking about innovation and sustainability.

Hirano will continue taking Stanford courses related to his research, attending on-campus workshops and seminars, and speaking with the many people he meets through his campus activities. “Stanford’s extraordinary breadth of teaching and research resources is just wonderful. To me, the learning opportunities that Stanford offers are limitless,” he says, adding that the value of in-person learning far outweighs book-based knowledge.

As Hirano pursues his research at Stanford on energy efficiency and renewable energy and searches for a redefinition of sustainable development, he hopes Japan will begin to pursue social-based development. “I believe that the challenges posed by the Fukushima experience will help inspire Japan to lead the world in creating a sustainable future for generations to come.”

Nearly a year has passed since an earthquake triggered a tsunami that swept away entire communities on Japan’s northeastern coast, leading to a series of accidents at the Fukushima nuclear complex. Since the March 11 disaster, Japan is experiencing a growing sense of community, and it faces a potential opportunity for innovation in the energy industry and economy. Masahiko Aoki and Kenji E. Kushida discuss post-March 11 developments, and a related conference at Stanford scheduled for February 27.

Aoki is the Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Professor Emeritus of Japanese Studies, and director of the Japan Studies Program at the Shorenstein-Asia Pacific Research Center at Stanford University.

Kushida is the Takahashi Research Associate in Japanese Studies at Shorenstein APARC, and a Stanford graduate (BA ’01, and MA ’03).

One Year After Japan's 3/11 Disaster will bring together experts from Stanford, Japan, and Europe for a discussion of the major economic, political, energy, and societal challenges and growth in post-Fukushima Japan.   

Looking back a year later, what do you think are important lessons we can learn from March 11?

Masahiko Aoki: Japan has often faced disasters leading to the complete destruction of cities and enormous losses of life. In the last century alone, there was the great Tokyo earthquake of 1923; wartime damage in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and other metropolitan areas; the Kobe earthquake of 1995; and so on. Each time, Japan rebuilt its life and infrastructure anew. Accepting the reality of a disaster and making efforts to rebuild is in a sense deeply embedded in Japan’s collective DNA. However, the March 11 disaster was not only just a natural disaster. People are now well aware that there were lots of elements of human and institutional error in terms of preparing for and coping with natural disasters. Recent geographical studies and historical documents reveal that large-scale earthquake-tsunami disasters comparable to March 11 have occurred four times in the last 4,000 years. It provides Japan with a good opportunity for thinking about how to build sustainable societies and cities.  

Kenji Kushida: Big shocks always cause big changes, and the type of change depends on the kind of shock. With March 11, there was the human tragedy of people literally getting washed away. It also raised the question of how to restructure energy markets, which is an area where outcomes in Japan can affect worldwide restructuring. This particular shock then is triggering a whole set of fairly slow moving, but very transformative changes that could take place over the next few years.

What trends are we seeing in Japan’s energy industry now, and what are the implications for Japan’s future energy policy?

Aoki: When I flew into Tokyo the day after the great earthquake, the city was quite dark. But by the summertime, it was not only lit up, but there was a blue hue to the light—this was due to the wide adoption of energy-efficient LED lighting. Even with the nuclear plants down and 25 percent of the electric capacity gone, there were no major blackouts thanks to energy-saving measures. This kind of incident motivates people to explore ways to innovate the energy industry. For example, Japan’s energy-efficient auto industry took off in the late 1970s in reaction to the Oil Shock.

Japan’s energy industry is currently run by regional monopolies. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), for example, monopolizes everything from power generation to retail distribution. In the past, there had been an attempt to break up the different parts of the power monopolies into separate entities. But only a bit of reform was made because of very strong resistance from TEPCO. Now TEPCO is on the verge of insolvency, so Japan has a very good chance to restructure its power industry. People are again starting to think about breaking up the regional monopolies and about innovation, which several experts will discuss during our conference.

Kushida: We will also draw on Stanford’s being in California to think about how to prevent Enron-style market manipulation and rolling blackouts from happening in Japan. A lot of it has to do with the rules and regulations that create an energy market. In the tsunami-devastated areas of Japan, there is also a tremendous opportunity for ground-up investment in new forms of energy. Silicon Valley technologies and companies can help design the next generation of renewable, sustainable energy systems in those areas.
In Japan, there is a sense that people have rediscovered their ties to one another after the disaster.

-Masahiko Aoki, Director, Japan Studies Program

During the recovery, many Japanese citizens demonstrated a remarkable strength and collaborative spirit. Has this changed?

Aoki: Annually on New Year’s Day in Japan, a high-level Buddhist priest writes the calligraphy for a word representing the spirit of the people. This year he wrote “絆”—“bond” (kizuna)—signifying the ties both among Japan’s citizens, and between Japanese and the generous help and aid that poured in after March 11.

In Japan, there is a sense that people have rediscovered their ties to one another after the disaster. Before March 11, there was some worry that young people were not so concerned about others and about tradition. Many young people now want to become volunteers, and there is also a better sense of community.

What has the impact been on Japan’s economy, and what are the prospects for recovery?

Aoki: There is an increasing awareness that Japan cannot sustain the same kinds of export-oriented, manufacturing-based industrial structures it has over the past decades.

Since 2007, Japan’s net foreign exchange receipts from royalties, investments, and the like have exceeded those from trade. The economic structure is becoming less export oriented, so the March 11 disaster might trigger the acceleration of a more domestic-oriented economy. It might also lead to an increase in foreign direct investment, prompted in part by population aging and partly by appreciation of the yen. Japan will become more domestic market oriented, while at the same time more internationally active. A lot next year depends on what will happen with Europe’s economy, but otherwise the prospect for Japan’s GDP is not bad because of reconstruction demand.

Kushida: Recovering from March 11 presents a potentially more productive experience than the 2008 global financial crisis. In 2008, Japan’s exports dropped dramatically for a few months and then there was a sharp recession that recovered quickly. There was not a whole lot that people or companies could do, other than adjust to the potential decline. March 11 provides more opportunities for innovation at the company and individual level. 

As it is finding growth in the domestic market, Japan has been criticized lately for being “inward-looking.” But two things from this latest crisis are contributing to looking outward a little more. One is the sense of vulnerability and transience, so strengthening Japan’s economic base becomes a much more urgent matter. The second is that in the aftermath of the euro crisis, the very strong yen has also led to a huge move toward outward acquisitions that are becoming integrated with the domestic economy.