The story of the incarceration of persons of Japanese ancestry during World War II has been well-documented. Less well known is the experience of more than one million non-citizen immigrants classified as “enemy aliens” before, during, and after the war.

In the late 1930s, as turmoil in Europe and Asia escalated, the U.S. government began to prepare for the possibility of U.S. involvement in war. Preparations included surveillance of Japanese, German, and Italian communities, both in the United States and in Latin America; compiling lists of “potentially dangerous persons;” and plans for internment and deportation.

After the United States entered the war in December 1941, some 31,000 German, Italian, and Japanese “enemy aliens” in the U.S. and from Latin America were apprehended and detained for reasons of “national security.” Some were deported in prisoner exchanges to war-torn countries they had left years before. These deportations included dependent children who had never been to those countries. 

The Enemy Alien Files exhibition – an updated and redesigned version of an exhibit first presented in 2001 – combines these historical events and the memories of these diverse ethnic communities in order to explore how wartime fears, anti-immigrant attitudes, racism, and the failure of political leadership affected thousands of men, women, and children against whom no charges of wrong-doing were brought.

 

“This need to share knowledge about our ethnic diversity has acquired new importance and has given new urgency to the pursuit for a more accurate history.”

— Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America.

 

In response to a grassroots movement led by the Japanese American community, the U.S. government admitted that its claims of a national security threat, as expressed in Executive Order 9066, and the “military necessity” of their forced removal and incarceration were unfounded. In 1988, Congress granted Japanese American survivors an official apology and monetary compensation as well as public education funding. While in 2000, congressional legislation acknowledged WWII civil liberties violations against Italian Americans by the U.S. government, no such acknowledgement has been granted to German Americans nor to persons of German, Italian, or Jewish ancestry abducted from Latin America. While Japanese Latin Americans have secured some measure of government redress, their struggle for reparations continues.

The fragility of the civil and human rights of all people, regardless of citizenship status, in times of war, economic stress, and climate crises is a global concern. The story of the WWII apprehension, forced relocation, internment, and deportation of “enemy aliens” raises questions about the making of security policy and the fate of civil liberties and human rights in wartime and other social upheavals. The exhibition invites consideration of these issues.