How many decades before congress apologizes to her citizens, again, for violating their civil libert

[OnyxCollie]

1. The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians

was a whitewash to protect corporate interests.

The reasons the Commission gave for the interment? Lt. Gen. DeWitt was a racist with a hard-on for war, who had been listening to racist rhetoric (from Earl Warren, no less), and everyone else who could have done something to stop it, failed to do their jobs.

Oops. Sorry!

What the Commission's report leaves out is the economic interest. For decades, corporate interests have lobbied to get laws passed to exploit Asian workers, using mechanisms like racism to generate support. The internment was a massive payday for farm corporations, who persuaded the government to subsidize dummy corporations to harvest the crops, which would then sell back to the farm corporations for cheap.

The material interests of the capitalist class were put in jeopardy when the Japanese were
interned (Okihiro & Drummond, 1986). Many large landowners had provided the capital
requirements for the farms and had issued the Japanese large advances on the crops. After the
Japanese had been interned, the landowners feared the Japanese would default on the loans,
while the government was concerned that the crops would be left unharvested in the fields.

In support of Lindblom’s (1980, as quoted in Joseph, 1982) theories that business
management must be induced to perform “by giving them not everything they ask for, but
everything they need for sufficiently profitable operation,” (p. 74 {254, 255}) and that
government depends on corporations to perform essential functions, the Farm Security
Administration (FSA) was given the responsibilities “to insure continuation of the proper use of
agricultural lands evacuated by enemy aliens and other persons designated by Lt. Gen. DeWitt
and to insure fair and equitable arrangements between the evacuees, their creditors and the
substitute operators of their property” (FSA, 1943, p. 2). The California Deciduous Growers’
League had proposed a solution: consolidate small farms and create dummy corporations,
subsidized by the government, to avoid exposing the real corporations to risk (Japanese
Evacuation and Resettlement Study {JERS}, 1943, as cited in Okihiro & Drummond, 1986).

These dummy corporations were given risk-free loans, secured on the assets of Japanese
farms, and having already provided the capital expenses for farm operation, free use of
machinery. Additionally, due to the unconventional deals made with the Japanese farmers, farm
corporations shared half of the profits made from the sale of crops (JERS, 1943, as cited in
Okihiro & Drummond, 1986). Making it clear that the corporations would not be exposed to any
risk, the director of the California Fruit Exchange said, “All of us understood that if there were
any losses on any individual ranches or ranch- the corporations or individuals would not be held
responsible.... {Otherwise} I wouldn’t have stuck my name on those papers” (JERS, 1943, p. 11,
as quoted in Okihiro & Drummond, 1986, p. 173).

According to Okihiro and Drummond (1986), since the farm corporations owned the
property, they were ensured a monopoly after the Japanese farmers were removed. Furthermore,
as the dummy corporations were buying the crops from the Japanese to sell back to the parent
corporations, they would buy cheap and sell cheap. Additionally, since the farm corporations and
the Japanese shared profits on the sale of the crops, there was little incentive to show farm profits
when the Japanese could simply be charged for services rendered to make up the gain. This
parasitical arrangement was highly profitable for the farm corporations, and as such “most fruit
shippers and canners refused to operate for the next year unless they could be financed by the
government under the same conditions” (JERS, 1943, p. 16, as quoted in Okihiro & Drummond,
1986, p. 174).

In an example of how enticing this arrangement was, J.J. Woodin, general manager of
Fruit Farms, Inc., wrote a threatening letter to Russel Robinson, Wartime Relocation Authority
chief evacuee supervisor, demanding conditions be maintained:

If Gov’t money is not available, and by this I mean that the Gov’t take the financial risk
in the operation of the ranches, then it will be necessary for us of Fruit Farms, Inc. to
terminate the leases with Japanese owners at the conclusion of the 1942 operations. If
Gov’t money is going to be available, then details should be worked out, certainly by
early October, 1942; otherwise the ranches will undoubtedly suffer considerably for lack
of care (Neff, 1943, as quoted in Okihiro & Drummond, 1986, p. 174).

When it was decided that the government would no longer issue FSA loans, the
subsidized corporations were dissolved, abandoning the farms and leaving them to foreclosure
(JERS, 1943, as cited in Okihiro & Drummond, 1986).