Although I was born in America, my first language was Japanese. My Americanism contains remnants of Japanese cultural influences and values. I react to events as an American, but when the events involve Japan or anything Japanese, my reactions no doubt are different from those of most Americans. When I read of Japanese atrocities during World War II and the years leading up to it, I feel more pain than anger. When I witness or read of Japanese bigotry, I am ashamed. When I see Japanese tourists playing the role “ugly Americans” used to fill, I am embarrassed.
Now we are commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Japanese “sneak attack” on Pearl Harbor, and I am being asked how I feel about it. It is not an easy question, since it is not clear to me what it is we are trying to remember. What are the lessons, if any, we wish to learn, the conclusion we are trying to draw? For most Americans, I fear, the lessons of Pearl Harbor remain essentially the danger of letting down our guard, of being complacent and unprepared. If there are any moral lessons to be learned, they are there solely for the Japanese.
The war with Japan is thought to have begun on Dec. 7, 1941, like a thunderclap out of the blue. A more sophisticated analysis might conclude it actually began in the 1930s with Japanese aggression in China; Japanese tend to see World War II in the context of the 19th-century Western imperialism in Asia, which informed Japan’s view of the West and determined its political and economic development.
My purpose, however, is not to assess blame for the war, nor to discuss its history. I wish only to say I experienced World War II as a racial conflict. If one examines wartime posters, books, songs, movies, it is clear I was not alone in this. Most Americans, I believe, saw the war in the Pacific in racial rather than ideological terms. Americans were fighting “Japs,” because they were cruel, vicious, cunning and had an overweening ambition to rule the world. Substitute “greedy” and “acquisitive” for “cruel” and “vicious” and Toyotas for rickshaws, and we come uncomfortably close to how some politicians and journalists are portraying the Japanese today.
In even the most respectable publications it is said Japan is trying to accomplish through economic means what it failed to do through force of arms in World War II. What does that mean precisely? Given how Japanese war aims were distorted and imprinted on the popular imagination, it is conceivable the American public would come to believe during these hard economic times that Japan is out to destroy us. Do we commemorate the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor to drive home the message that “the Japs” remain implacably our enemy.?
I was 8 years old, living with my family in California, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. I and my family were called “Japs” and shipped with 110,000 other “Japs” to internment camps. I mention this only to note how racial attitudes can distort judgment and rob people of their humanity. To white Americans, Japanese-Americans became simply “Japs,” with all the cunning and treachery attributed to the enemy in the Pacific. Surely, the Japanese have much to learn from World War II, and perhaps American observers are correct in saying they have not accepted their share of responsibility for the deaths, suffering and destruction caused by the war. I am troubled by that, as I am by any sign of moral obtuseness among Japanese.
But I am also an American, and I am just as concerned about American morality. Because of m personal history, perhaps I worry more than others about the state of mind of my fellow Americans. My nightmare is that the commemoration of Pearl Harbor Day turns into an orgy of American self-righteousness and a renewed demonization of Japanese and other perceived adversaries.
I am reminded of how quick President Bush was to characterize Saddam Hussein as another Hitler. It troubled me to see the inordinate joy and pride many found in our “precision” bombing of Iraq. It was supposed to be a war with limited objectives. Was the systematic destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure really necessary? I do not know the answer. But the swiftness with which the bombing was conducted troubles me still.
The United States has a right, perhaps even the duty, to protect its own interests. As a Japanese-American, if I had to choose between the collapse of either the Japanese or the American economy, I would sacrifice the Japanese. But for me, it would be a Hobson’s choice.
Our country continues to grow more diverse in its racial and ethnic makeup, and I would hope this diversity will enable us to question our own perceptions and values more closely than we have in the past. Never mind what our enemies are like; a more important question for us is what are we like? If we must dehumanize other peoples in the world to reassure ourselves of our own goodness and to justify our actions, what kind of people are we? And what is a democracy worth that must propagandize its own people to function effectively?
If the Pearl Harbor commemoration leads some to ask such questions, it will have been worthwhile. We would be judging ourselves by a higher standard than prevails in most other places in the world, but what of that? It should make us proud to be Americans.
