Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center

The main patriotic mass organization of the 1930s
and 1940s, the Chinese Hand Laundry Association, was
destroyed. The popular China Youth Club, which had
fought gambling, drugs and sexism by introducing a
modern community life, was forcibly dissolved as a "communist
front." China Daily News, which had been the
leading patriotic newspaper, lost most of its advertising
and readers. In a frameup, the newspaper's manager was
imprisoned under the Federal "Trading With the Enemy
Act" because the newspaper had accepted an advertisement
from the Bank of China. The supposedly "silent"
Chinese community had actually been a stronghold of activity
for national liberation and socialism - and was
silenced. (75)
Imperialist Civil Rights
It is also true that this genocidal campaign illustrated
how well neo-colonial "Americanization" served
imperialism. Once, in the early years of the century, oppressed
Mexicano and Japanese workers shared the hardships
of the fields, and naturally shared labor organizing
drives. In the abortive 1915 Texas uprising to establish a
Chicano-Mexicano Nation, Japanese were recognized as
not only allies but as citizens of the to-be-liberated nation.
But by the 1950's this had changed. Civil Rights had
replaced the unity of the oppressed.
The Japanese-Amerikan national minority had
been politically broken by the repression of World War 11.
Uprooted and recombined into scattered concentration
camps, we had faced an intense physical and psychological
terrorism. The resistance and defiance, even while in the
hands of the enemy, was considerable. Many of the camp
inmates refused to sign U.S. loyalty oaths. Demonstrations
took place behind barbed wire. Some 10% were under even
125 harsher incarceration at the Tule Lake Camp for dissidents