#dli

[rubberfacedolly]

♡Even evil doctors deserve a little loving! ♡

[postcard-from-the-past]

Déli railway station of Budapest, Hungary

Hungarian vintage postcard, mailed in 1973 to Siklós

[worldsthought1]

"Unlocking Your Canadian Dream: How to Find the Perfect University with ...

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

So this series of posts reminded me of something that really fucking bothers me. While the 442nd are rightfully lauded for their spectacular accomplishments, I’d argue that a different unit of nisei contributed even more to the American war effort.

I’m talking, of course, about the Japanese-American veterans of the Military Intelligence Service (MIS).

Let’s take a moment here and do a little exercise in military logistics. It’s the 1940s and you’re in charge of running the American war effort against the Axis Powers. You want to know as much as possible about your enemy, right? The more you know about their troop movements, strategies, supply lines, morale, etc., the better you’ll be able to counter their efforts and stage attacks. Now, you and your allies have some pretty sharp fellas working on cracking your enemies’ codes, so you’ve actually got a big ol’ pile of communications to go through. There’s just one problem: your enemies don’t use English.

But hey! You’re America! Land of immigrants and all that! Don’t speak German? There’s plenty of German-Americans who do! Don’t speak Italian? There’s plenty of Italian-Americans who do! Don’t speak Japanese? HMMM. WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING TO FIND A BUNCH OF JAPANESE SPEAKERS???

These excerpts come from American Patriots, an anthology of stories from the MIS interpreters put out by the Japanese-American Veterans Association of Washington DC. I know it’ll take a minute, but I want you to read every goddamn word. I *NEED* you to feel the weight of those events:

The United States military was crippled by its lack of Japanese interpreters. They knew they were crippled even before Pearl Harbor. To fix that handicap, they recruited men from literal concentration camps. Not only did those men rise to the occasion, but other men from other camps volunteered to serve. This country did not deserve their loyalty, but they still served. And no one fucking talks about them.

Wow! That’s amazing! Surely there’s a bunch of movies and books and documentaries about these guys, right? America loves a good patriotic WWII story!

There's almost no media about the Japanese translators. American Patriots is the only book I’ve come across in real life, and that only happened because I stopped by the Japanese American Veterans Association's booth at the Cherry Blossom Festival. There's a few history books, mostly by Japanese-American groups, and a couple of articles, but that’s about it. They're all pretty old (American Patriots came out in 1995). Nobody fucking talks about the nisei translators.

The next time you bring up the heroic service of the 442nd Regiment, bring up the heroic service of the Japanese translators of the MIS. The next time you discuss the contributions of POCs to the US military, I want you to discuss the Japanese translators. The next time you get angry about how Asian-Americans are ignored by American culture, I want you to get angry about the Japanese translators. This is an important piece of American history, and it’s always overlooked, and I’m sure we all know why. Let’s change that.

Further reading:

Nisei Linguists from Washington in World War II

Military Intelligence Service

JAVA's compilation of nisei members of the MIS Hall of Fame

JAVA's research archive

[runixa]

On the plus side since my partner isn't home tonight I get to have the evening potatoes snuggles