Japanese-American students receive honorary degrees 66 years after internment

Japanese-American students from 1942 were honored yesterday when the University of Washington bestowed 165 honorary Bachelor of Arts degrees on them, which bore the Latin phrase “nunc pro tunc.”

Or, “now for then.”

The degrees completed a 66-year journey for the students, whose education at the UW was interrupted by their incarceration into internment camps, as mandated by the U.S. military in May 1942.

The diplomas were accepted both by honorees and representatives of those students who weren’t in attendance. Earlier estimates stated that about 70 of the 165 people were actual students.

Names of honorees were read by American ethnic studies professors Stephen Sumida and Gail Nomura.

“In part, these are the human faces and individuals of a history I teach,” Nomura said. “They’re a living testament in a darker page in our history. The ceremony is a remembrance that we should defend the civil liberties of all.”

For the students, Nomura said, receiving the degree gives them closure for a very painful episode in their lives.

“It’s a story their grandchildren will remember,” she said.

The keynote speaker, Norman Mineta, served as Secretary of Transportation for President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2006. He was also in an internment camp in Wyoming during World War II.

“I cannot think of a place that I could be prouder to be at than here today at the University of Washington,” Mineta said in his speech. “The message of today’s event is a simple one. It’s never too late to do the right thing.”

During the speech, Mineta recalled the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was 11 years old, and it was the first time he’d ever seen his father cry. He later understood that the look of anguish on his father’s face was from the realization that the country of his birth had attacked the country of his heart, he said.

He congratulated the class seated before him for their determination.

“Your drive and your perseverance in the face of impossible odds have more than earned the degrees you are receiving today,” he said.

As the faculty prepared to present the diplomas, Board of Regents Chairman Stanley Barer reminded the honorees that their degrees are completely valid.

“Understand that the regents grant this to you as fully earned,” he said. “The term ‘honorary’ simply means that you earned it in the most honorable way.”

For UW President Mark Emmert, who spoke at the opening of the ceremony, the proceedings were a monumental day at the University of Washington.

Several distinguished faculty and board members presided over the ceremony, including five regents, one former regent, the provost, vice provosts and deans of various UW colleges.

Mitsi Mihara, who received a degree, had many grandchildren in attendance with her family at the ceremony. One of them, Tomiko Mihara, is a fourth-year student here, and “granddaughter number seven,” as she put it.

“When you think of all these people, compared to them, we’ve gone through nothing,” Tomiko Mihara said, referring to the crowd of honorees milling about Red Square. “And here they are, getting their degrees. It’s great that all these people can get together.”

Tomiko Mihara mentioned that in her American ethnic studies class with professor Tetsuden Kashima, Kashmia said most of these people only get together for funerals.

Kashima, who was held at a relocation camp in Utah for three years during the war, gave the closing remarks at the ceremony.

“We pause in our busy lives to honor these Nikkei students,” he said. “It is our sincere hope that today’s ceremony heals a wound and completes an important unfinished task.”

A historical perspective: Discrimination against, and internment of, Japanese-Americans

Anti-Japanese sentiment existed long before the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. There had been anti-“Oriental” antipathy on the West Coast for decades before.

It was aimed at the Chinese up until the 1880s, but the dislike was instead directed at the Japanese after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibited nearly all Chinese immigration.

Between 1882 and 1924, that racial discrimination presented itself in a number of anti-Japanese laws, which kept Japanese from entering into interracial marriages and buying property.

From 1924-1941, the tension was less pronounced, as Japanese people moved into ethnic enclaves and “little Tokyos” to avoid the persecution afforded to immigrants who weren’t allowed to become citizens.

When Pearl Harbor was attacked, the children of Japanese immigrants — the second generation — were young, with an average age of about 17.

Lieutenant John L. DeWitt was the head of the Western Defense Command at that time.

“DeWitt is noted for his anti-Japanese sentiments,” said professor Tetsu Kashima, of the Department of American Ethnic Studies. “He, along with many other leaders, didn’t — or wouldn’t — make the distinction between Japanese nationals and their children, who were citizens.”

After Dec. 7, these leaders wanted to remove persons of Japanese ancestry, whom they considered threats to national security.

“We were at war with Germany and Italy, but there was no intention of doing a mass removal of them,” Kashima said, pointing out that the long history of anti-Japanese antipathy played a vital role in the decision to send Japanese people to internment camps.

In Hawaii, there were even more persons of Japanese descent than on the West Coast, and two-thirds were American citizens. For Gen. Delos Carleton Emmons, who was stationed in Hawaii, the Japanese were never considered to be such a threat that there should be massive incarceration, Kashima said.

Ethnicity was not specified in Executive Order 9066, which President Roosevelt issued on Feb. 19, 1942. The order merely stated that the military could remove any and all persons from areas that they so designated. It was the generals who had the authority to do so.

On May 4, it was this authority that allowed generals to order all persons of Japanese descent in the Seattle area to be “evacuated” by the army to Camp Harmony at the Puyallup fairgrounds.

All Japanese-American students at the UW were forced to leave school in the middle of spring quarter.

“Four hundred and forty-nine people — American citizens — were summarily removed,” Kashima said. “They couldn’t go to school.”

After the first public proclamation of the order in early March, which made Seattle a restricted zone, the UW began to work on transferring its Japanese-American students to other colleges.

The work of then-president Lee Paul Sieg and other faculty members, who wrote to other colleges and attested to their students’ loyalty, resulted in the transferal of 58 of the 449 students out of the restricted zone.

The UW continued to support its students throughout the next year by trying to get them out of the camps and into different schools, wrote history librarian Theresa Mudrock in an e-mail. Mudrock was one of the first people at the University to begin looking into the history of evacuated Japanese-American students.

The UW and UC Berkley became the founders of what would become the national clearinghouse for Nikkei students (students of Japanese descent) wanting to leave the camps and go to school: the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council.