As
discussed within chapter five of Mae M. Ngai’s Impossible Subjects, Executive
Order 9066 issued by president Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942 displaced all
Japanese Americans living on the west coast of the United States by forcing
them into internment camps. While the federal government, as well as the rest
of America, rationalized this discrimination by stating that the
Japanese-Americans were a potential threat to the American WWII war effort,
historical analysis reveals that there were many components to this order and
the injustices that ensued. While Impossible Subjects references the
lack of such drastic governmental action against Italian and German Americans
to further emphasize the prejudice inherent in the executive order, it also
discusses a more complex idea pertaining to how Japanese-Americans were vetted
by the WRA. While it was later found that there were some Japanese militarists
within the internment camps, Ngai notes that the WRA (War Relocation Board)
used “culture as an index of loyalty.” In this way, those Japanese-Americans
who held a firmer grip on their ethnic and cultural ties were deemed less
“American” and more likely to be placed in an internment camp. What’s particularly important to note is that the WRA
considered “cultural” identity of these Japanese Americans only, thus not
really caring for any other aspects of their identities, such as political
affiliation. Thinking retrospectively, Executive Order 9066 and Japanese
internment symbolize the United States’ struggle with the recognition of
intersectionality. In the eyes of the federal government and much of white
America, the Japanese-Americans were defined solely by their Japanese heritage
-- no matter how large or small that part of their identity may have been for
that individual. America refused to consider the possibility that other aspects
of Japanese Americans’ identity could influence their political affiliation
or sense of American nationalism other than cultural and ethnic tradition.
Realizing the parallels of this disregard for intersectionality with those
issues of intersectionality in contemporary America reveals the prominence of
complex identity and its applicability throughout American history.