The following New York Times article is sobering, considering that
we're expected to trust the Census people today to keep confidential
all the info they collect on new immigrants.
Census Bureau Role Reported in Internment of Japanese Americans
New York TIMES March 17, 2000 p A14
By STEVEN A. HOLMES
WASHINGTON -- Two scholars say in a new research paper that despite
earlier denials, the Census Bureau was deeply involved in the roundup
and internment of Japanese Americans at the onset of American entry
into World War II.
The academics say the bureau's involvement included identifying
concentrations of people of Japanese ancestry in geographic units as
small as city blocks, lending a senior Census Bureau official to work
with the War Department on the relocation program and a willingness
to disclose names and addresses of Japanese Americans.
While it is common today for the Census Bureau to publish reports that
would detail the number of people of a given race living in an area as
small as a city block, such information was generally not available in
the 1940's. But the authors of the paper contend that the Census Bureau provided such
detailed information as well as age, sex, citizenship and country of
birth to the War Department, now the Defense Department, on only one group,
Japanese-Americans.
The paper, "After Pearl Harbor: The Proper Role of Population Data
Systems in Time of War," was written by William Seltzer, a statistician and
demographer at Fordham University, and Margo Anderson, a history professor at the
University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee whose area of expertise is the
census.
Mr. Seltzer and Professor Anderson plan to present the paper at the
annual meeting of the Population Association of America next week in
Los Angeles. Copies have been circulating in Washington, and one was
made available to The New York Times.
The practices described in the paper did not appear to have violated
laws governing the census, which prohibit the bureau from disclosing
census information on individuals. But the authors indicated that
despite the law, Census Bureau officials appeared to be willing to
provide such data. What is not clear is whether they were asked to
do so.
"We're by law required to keep confidential information by individuals,"
the paper quotes the bureau director, J. C. Capt, as saying at a
meeting of the Census Advisory Committee in January 1942.
But if the defense authorities found 200 Japanese-Americans missing
and they wanted the names of the Japanese Americans in that area,
Mr. Capt said, "I would give them further means of checking individuals."
The Census Bureau often boasted that its conduct in the relocation of
Japanese Americans had been its finest hour because it resisted pressure
to provide explicit data to the War and Justice Departments.
But bureau officials do not dispute the findings of the paper. They say,
however, that the strengthening of the laws protecting the confidentiality
of data on individuals and the environment today would make a repetition of
those abuses unlikely.
Japanese-Americans have long suspected that the Census Bureau played a
prominent role in the relocation of 120,000 residents of Japanese
ancestry to detention camps. "We've always suspected this," said
Norman Mineta, a former California congressman who was removed with
his family from San Jose and sent to a detention camp in Wyoming.
"After all, they are the keeper of this kind of information."
On Dec. 9, 1941, two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Census
Bureau produced a report titled "Japanese Population of the United States, Its
Territories and Possessions." The next day the bureau issued a report
on the Japanese population by citizenship and place of birth in selected
cities across the country. The next day it published another report,
this one on the Japanese population by counties in states on the West Coast.
Mr. Capt justified the speed with which the bureau produced these
reports by saying at meeting of the Census Advisory Committee in January 1942: "We
didn't want to wait for the declaration of war. On Monday morning we
put our people to work on the Japanese thing." Subsequent reports
became even more detailed. In 1942, Tom Clark, a Justice Department
official working with the War Department, was quoted in the paper as
saying that Census Bureau officials would "lay out on tables [maps of]
various city blocks where Japanese lived and they would tell me how
many were living in each block."
The paper's disclosures come at a ticklish time for the Census Bureau
because they coincide with the mailing this month of census forms to
about 120 million households. Bureau officials say they fear that the
scholars' paper may frighten people into not returning the forms.
I have received numerous copies of this article within a couple
of days of it being published, so it appears to moving like wildfire
in the JA community. Sort of makes one suspicious and also angry.
Speaking of angry, about a month ago I posted the title
of a recently published book, "Day of Deceit: The truth about
FDR and Pearl Harbor" by Robert Stinnett. If anyone is
interested, check it out from your local library or buy it.
It continues the verification that the Internment was not necessary,
but from a different angle. One thing the Internment was
very helpful for was convincing the American public that they
were in danger from Japanese and Japanese Americans and
directing public anger America against a single enemy -- Us!!
Last updated 21 April 2000