Japanese Peruvians in the United States
Japanese Peruvians in the United States represent a unique community formed primarily during World War II, following significant anti-Japanese sentiment in Peru. In 1940, there were approximately 30,000 Japanese individuals living in Peru, but the situation escalated dramatically during the war, leading to the seizure of their properties by the Peruvian government and the targeting of their homes. As the U.S. government viewed the Japanese Peruvian community as a potential security threat, over 1,700 individuals were forcibly deported to internment camps in the United States between 1942 and 1945.
After the war, these interned Japanese Peruvians faced additional challenges, including being unable to return to Peru or reclaim their lost properties. While Japanese Americans received reparations from the U.S. government in 1988 for their wartime internment, Japanese Peruvians were deemed "illegal aliens" upon arrival in the U.S. and were excluded from these compensations. It wasn't until 1998 that a formal apology was extended to Latin Americans interned during the war, but the compensation offered was limited and time-sensitive. Today, the experiences of Japanese Peruvians in the U.S. highlight the complexities of identity, migration, and the impact of wartime policies on minority communities.
Japanese Peruvians in the United States
There were about thirty thousand Japanese in Peru in 1940 when an already existing anti-Japanese movement greatly expanded, and about 650 Japanese houses were targeted for assault in Lima. The following year, as soon as World War II broke out, the Peruvian government seized the property of all Japanese immigrants.
The third secretary at the US embassy in Lima, John K. Emmerson, reported to the US State Department that the Japanese community in Peru was led by well-organized nationalists who constituted a threat to US national security. He suggested that the leaders of the Japanese Peruvian community be brought to the United States to be exchanged for American prisoners of war held in Japan. As a result, this proposal—as well as strong anti-Japanese sentiment from the Peruvian government—caused more than seventeen hundred Japanese Peruvians to be deported at gunpoint and transported to internment camps in the United States between 1942 and 1945.
When World War II was over, the Japanese Peruvians who were detained in the United States were not allowed to return to Peru or to have their belongings returned to them from the Peruvian government. In 1988, the 110,000 Japanese Americans who were placed in internment camps during the war received an official apology from the US government and $20,000 per person for being incarcerated. However, those Japanese Peruvians who were also interned were denied the apology and compensation. This was because when they were deported from Peru, their passports were taken away by the Peruvian government and they were considered technically to be “illegal aliens” upon their arrival in the United States. Because they were neither US citizens nor permanent residents at that time, they failed to qualify for the reparations even though a majority eventually became American citizens after the war.
Finally in June 1998, American-interned Latin Americans received an official apology from the US government; however, their compensation was only $5,000 per person. Moreover, they were allowed only two months to make their applications.
Bibliography
Gardiner, Clinton Harvey. The Japanese and Peru, 1873–1973. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 1975. Print.
Gardiner, Clinton Harvey. Pawns in a Triangle of Hate: The Peruvian Japanese and the United States. Seattle: U of Washington P, 1981. Print.
Higashide, Seiichi. Adios to Tears: The Memoirs of a Japanese-Peruvian Internee in US Concentration Camps. Seattle: U of Washington P, 2000. Digital file.
Masterson, Daniel M., and Sayaka Funada-Classen. The Japanese in Latin America. Champaign, U of Illinois P, 2004. Print.
Reeves, Richard. Infamy: The Shocking Story of the Japanese American Internment in World War II. New York: Holt, 2015. Print.