Mock Trial
The Yamashita kids (second generation in the United States, and the first American born generation, called Nisei among Japanese Americans) had educational aspirations. Six of Kishiro and Tomi's seven children went to Cal Berkeley.
Kishiro had put all the money towards their education. But college-educated Nisei did not find an easy time getting a foothold in professional fields to which they aspired. Some of the Yamashita siblings got lucky with employment, and some had to rely on employment from family members established in produce (like Chiz' husband Ed Kitow), a field where Japanese Americans were dominant in California in the 1930s.
Tom Yamashita, the youngest of the seven siblings.
UC Berkeley Japanese American Women's Club 1937. Kay Yamashita is second from right first row. Iyo is fourth from left in second row.
While at Cal Berkeley, John participated in a mock trial hosted by the University of California Japanese Students Club. A prototypical or imaginary second generation immigrant or first generation American of Japanese descent "Nisei" youth was being put on trial for whether or not he did or did not have initiative and ambition. This topic reveals an anxiety among Japanese Americans attending UC Berkeley on their position in American society and an underlying assumption that an important barrier is the amount of ambition. This trial could be a way to theorize or comment on the degree to which racial discrimination is a barrier that Japense Americans face in employment. And yet the framing of the debate in terms of ambition and initiative implies that these are the necessary or desirable qualities.
Many Nisei children of immigrants who made it through college found that they could not find jobs in their ideal professions.
Nisei Cal Students wanted to avoid the fate of being stuck in low wage labor jobs even after graduating with a college degree. Japanese American students hoped assimilation would allow them to escape such categories. In 1932, the Japanese American Student Association attending Cal Berkeley put on a mock debate examining the question “Is the Japanese American youth fulfilling his role?”
Nisei students were invested in theorizing the role of the Japanese American youth and in promoting the Nisei generation's success. John wrote in his position paper at the mock trial about the obstacles facing Nisei youth:
“It is true, ours is a hard row to hoe and ours is to be a struggle against oppression and suppression. No doubt to many of us the barriers that confront us seem insurmountable and the efforts bound to be futile. We are striving in vain says the heavy-hearted Second Generation Japanese. The place of the Japanese-American is meant to be servile….But let us take stock of ourselves! What are we made of?" (Full Essay)
To see a collection of all of John's undergraduate papers.
Oct 22, 1932 Mock Debate, Japanese American Student Association, Cal Berkeley.
John, going by his first name, Hiroshi Yamashita, debates in the affirmative as a junior at Cal Berkeley, Class of 1934.
Nisei College students were well aware racial prejudice in the job market as well as broader society.
The Nisei's particular relationship with Japan and their vision for how their generation could get ahead in a prejudiced society appear as themes in many of the essays John wrote in college at U.C. Berkeley. In one such essay, John compares the lot of college-educated Japanese and African Americans as they face racism in employment.
“Why does the negro boy say, ‘I don’t know why I’m going to college!’ And the deserving Japanese, culturally an American, hands in his application for a certain position in engineering. He is refused! The president of the concern may be a man of high noble character and personality, but he will give as a refusal, 'My colleagues will not tolerate working with a Jap!' The opportunities are practically all closed now and the Japanese in American must be a servile race. For him only position such as gardening, farming, window-washing and small shopkeeping are open. The reason for this condition lies solely in the fact that there is a racial consciousness and a superiority complex which stand in the way of the young Japanese obtaining better opportunities…”
To read the essay in full. Excerpt comes from the bottom of the second page.
To see a collection of all of John's undergraduate papers.
John's college essay entitled "The Role of Citizenship in a Changing World"
Outine on Paper about Japan's role in Manchuria
Notes on how the East and West are Blending, John.
These essays, along with others that John saved from his college years, demonstrate how one Japanese American youth conceived of his place within society- an othered and at times maligned existence. John saw his position as similar to Black Americans, but did not deeply interogate the differences or the similarities. In these papers racial consciousness is not a tool for the oppressed, but rather, something to be avoided for a future of racial harmony. Also at work in these essays is an orientalizing essentialism of the East and a romanticized view of militarizing Japan.
John yearned for a society without consciousness of race, and proposes that the Nisei could become a bridge for racial divide.
"We must contribute towards the bringing about of brotherly goodwill among races...Let us strive all with one accord to hasten the day when men can meet in sincere brotherhood, then peace and true understanding will reign among nations."
In this thesis, racial harmony could lead to harmony between nation states, particularly, the U.S. and Japan. John was interested in combining the best of both cultures to show America that there was something to offer in the Orient. This college writing is a bit essentialist, and at times even defends Japan’s war crimes in Manchuria. In his essay, "The Role of Citizenship in a Changing World," John drafted multiple times for various audiences. In it, he writes of the challenges to democracy in Nazi Germany and in fascist Italy, and how the U.S. must stand as the beacon for rights of citizenship and freedom. "The very fronties of democracy have been pushed back in the last few years until today the United States seems to present the last stronghold of democracy."
After the attacks on Pearl Harbor, the Yamashita siblings would burn their college papers on Japan’s cultural strength for fear that these essays could be used against them. (Many families burned all their family photos of famliy in Japan, believing that any photo or letter written in Japanese could be used against them. One oral history source: Documentary Film "Of Civil Wrongs and Rights: The Fred Korematsu Story") The wartime incarceration would indeed end this line of optimistic thinking. Japanese American Nisei would no longer strive to be the diplomatic bridge between the United States and their parents’ home country.
