TAUGHT TO OBEY EMPEROR

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXX, Issue 13670, 18 June 1942, Page 7

TAUGHT TO OBEY EMPEROR

| JAPANESE PUPILS IN U.S. Foreign-Language Schools Recent Revelations Consider this quotation as pari o; ihe daily instruction of thousands of “American” children up ami do'.vn the Pacific Coast over a period of years: “Our great. Japanese Empire lias been’ruled for 10,000 years by our honourable Prince. We are till his subjects. .And, being so. we must continue steadfastly in the path of our predet tssors. There is no other country in the world to compare with ours. It is our duly to carry on One great spirit of loyalty to the Emperor and the Empress, and try to achieve their aims. “AVe must also try to understand tile Government of our nation and the problems before it. We must surely try our utmost in this always, for it is our duty ami our work. Do it with a big heart. “Always love your country and your Emperor. Build up your body. Study everything, be diligent. Do not forget what you learn. If you do all- this you will be a good Japanese.” The students are Japanese-Ameri-cans; that is, the American-born children of Japanese parents. Some are children of other American-born Japanese, writes Rodney L. Brink, in the “Christian Science Alonitor,” in a despatch from Los Angeles. Books Published in Japan The textbook from which the quotation is taken has been in wide use in the Japanese-language schools. It is one of a set of such books for all grades from primary to high school. The books were published in Japan, approved by the Ministry of Education of the Japanese Government. and the teaching has been given, right up to the time of Pearl Harbour, by teachers from Japan or by American-born Japanese who were educated in Japan. For these and other teachings held to be subversive, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has arrested many alien Japunese and has charged them with being “undesirable aliens.” Alany are now in inland detention camps, booked “for the immigration service” for probable deportation afte'r the war. Pupils who have learned these anti-American lessons under Japanese schoolmasters, although Ameri-can-born, are nevertheless now under strong suspicion. The impossibility of knowing just how deeply their studies have influenced their inenr convictions has made necessary the current, progressive removal of all Japanese, alien and citizen, from coastal territory and 1,0 0 0 spot zones where vital war work is being carried on. Some of the books studied by the young American-Japanese through years past have displayed prominently pictures of the Japanese flag and the Japanese Emperor, with the Japanese salute “banzai” which is something like an equivalent of the German “hell.”

Just a few years ago young Jap-anese-Americans were studying at least part of the time a text-book written in Japanese which had been printed in the United States. It had the endorsement of the California Department of Education, but also had been sent to Japan and had been approved by the Ministry of Education there. Court Upheld Teaching A court decision, holding that foreign-language schools could teach almost whatever they wished, put the American-published textbook in the background, and in recent years these have given way almost entirely to those published in Japan. The newer textbooks contain pictures of Hitler youth groups in Germany, pictures of airplanes and tanks, besides relating the children who study them directly to the Emperor of Japan. Tuition in the Japanese language schools, always held after regular school hours and on Saturdays, is said to have ranged from one and a half dollars to four dollars a mouth, with the average payment about two and a quarter dollars. These figures give rise to a natural supposition that the Japanese Ministry of Education, besides approving textbooks, subsidised the schools in some way, perhaps in the payment of a portion of the salaries of the teachers. This point cannot as yet be stated as a fact, for the proof is not complete. There has been mention of possible establishment of Japaneselanguage schools at the induction centres, where hundreds of Japanese are being sent en route to new homes farther inland. Camp Man-

ager C. E. Trigs at Manzanar, Ow r ens Valley, has said “there is no provision for the establishment of any such institution here.” Civil law, as it now prevails, does not prohibit the conduct of such schools, but it is not held likely that the Army and its civilian branch dealing with evacuees will countenance such establishments. Schools in England, possibly with Japanese-American teachers, are being arranged by the State Department of Education. Change Was Planned As tension mounted between Japan and the United States, while Japan was preparing its attack on Pearl Harbour, it was announced by Japanese school authorities here that new textbooks were being prepared, in which the flag of the United States would replace that of Japan and a picture of the Washington Monument would replace that of the Emperor. The war has halted that project, many Japan-published textbooks have been seized as subversive propaganda, and the alien schoolmaster w - ho taught bright American-Japan-ese children about Hawaii as “a foreign country” and about “stealthily attacking enemy harbours” has had his activities suspended at least for the duration.

Because they have permitted thenchildren to study obeisance and loyalty to the flag of the Rising Sun and the Emperor of Japan, and because some aliens and some of the American-born already have proved that they took those studies seriously, all Japanese now in this nation are labelled “dangerous” by the United States Army, and are being handled with care.