The Nisei Go Back

Mitsuye Endo is a loyal U.S. citizen, born 24 years ago in Sacramento. Her eyes happen to slant upward because her ancestors were Japanese. In 1942, when the U.S. Army uprooted 110,000 people of Japanese blood from their truck gardens and berry patches along the West Coast, Mitsuye Endo landed in a War Relocation center at Topaz, Utah.

This week the Supreme Court of the U.S. unanimously agreed that Citizen Endo --and, by implication, any other loyal Japanese-American--has a right to live where she pleases. Justice Frank Murphy denounced "the unconstitutional resort to racism inherent in the entire evacuation program." But the court, frankly avoiding a tough constitutional issue in wartime, almost contradicted itself.

Tackling the case of another relocated Japanese-American, the Justices ruled, 6-to-3, that the Army had had a right to evacuate all Japanese and Nisei in a time of national emergency. Said the court: "Exclusion of large groups of citizens from their homes ... is inconsistent with our basic Government institutions. But . . . hardships are part of war."

For almost two years, the right of the Government to shuffle citizens around at will had been a burning constitutional issue. But by the time the Supreme Court ruled this week, the question was academic. Day before, the Army had rescinded its mass evacuation order, told the loyal Japanese and Nisei they could return. Invasion, the Army explained, is no longer "a substantial possibility."

Interior Secretary Harold Ickes soothingly promised Westerners that there would be "no hasty mass movement" of returning evacuees. But the difficulties of readjustment loomed large enough to give pause to all citizens of good will. Problems had already cropped up:

P: In Hood River, Ore. (pop. 3.280), American Legionnaires daubed paint on their servicemen's honor roll to obliterate the names of 16 Nisei soldiers.

P: At Brawley, Calif., 3,500 citizens jammed onto the high-school athletic field for an anti-Japanese mass meeting, listened to an orator scream: "Do you want these yellow-bellied sneaks to return to Brawley?" The crowd roared: "No!"

P: In Parker, Ariz. (pop. 456), Andy Hale put a sign in his barbershop: "Japs Keep Out You Rats," ejected Raymond Matsuda, a Nisei veteran, wounded in Italy. . These were isolated instances, in small communities. But most of the U.S. Japanese on the West Coast lived in such small towns. And in the larger cities, the Hearst press kept up its anti-Japanese screams. California's Governor Warren, setting the tone for the vast majority of West Coast citizens, promised every effort to keep the return of the Nisei orderly.

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