The Federal Government's Decisions in Suppressing the Japanese-Language Press, 1941–42

“No longer a silent victim of history:” repurposing the documents of Japanese American internment

“…Kimberley Roberts Parks conducted a survey of US government documents about internment, although her scope was limited to the creation of documents, not their uses for redress (Parks 2004). Several scholars have focused on the use of specific documents to enact internment, such as Takeya Mizuno's work on Japanese-language newspapers and Raymond Okamura's study of census records (Mizuno 2005;Mizuno 2007;Okamura 1981). Pieces of the larger story can also be found in a variety of historical studies, such as Eric Muller's research on Japanese American draft resisters (Muller 2001).…”

“…The officials also recognized the pragmatic value of the Japanese-language press as a channel of communication with Japanese Americans. Closing off a vital source of information for the community might cause panic and misinformation to spread (Mizuno 2007).…”

Press Freedom in theEnemy’sLanguage

“…This forced some newspapers to stop operations instantly and permanently. Although most major ones managed to continue, they were put under the intense pressure of war hysteria and used by the federal government as its publicity arm (Mizuno, 2000(Mizuno, , 2005(Mizuno, , 2007. 8 For the sake of contextualization, it should be noted here that the federal government from the earliest stage of war had already taken some measures to monitor the Japanese-language press.…”