Japanese

In the years after statehood in 1890, sizeable numbers of Japanese laborers were in Idaho, building railroads throughout the state. The Japanese were considered “Mongolians,” a term used to deny voting and other rights to the Chinese. The Japanese often experienced harassment and intimidation by local citizens. A dozen Japanese were chased out of Mountain Home in 1892 by the “best citizens.” Ultimately, 150 Japanese laborers were driven out of Idaho.⁴¹The railroad, however, continued to hire Japanese workers. After the railroad was completed around 1910, many Japanese, who unlike the Chinese were here with families, switched to agricultural labor and settled into local communities.

Early-day railroad used in lumbering /_{Photo Citation 75}

Anti-Japanese Movements

In the early 1900s, anti-Japanese movements flourished in the western United States. The Idaho Legislature regularly considered bills designed to restrict Japanese property rights. In 1921 Idaho’s law against race-mixing (miscegenation) was amended to include a prohibition against Japanese marrying Caucasians. In 1923 an anti-Japanese measure was passed that resulted in Japanese-born individuals being ineligible to own or lease land. Japanese immigrants became ineligible for citizenship, and further immigration was halted by federal law from 1924 until 1942.⁴²

_{Japanese farmers /}_{Photo Citation 42}

There was a great shortage of labor during World War II, especially in agriculture. Efforts to recruit Japanese workers were hampered by Idaho Governor Chase Clark, who stated that the Japanese acted “like rats,” and the solution to the “Jap problem” would be to send them all back to Japan and then “sink the island.” In addition, representatives of most of Nampa’s women’s clubs met with the governor to protest the movement of Japanese aliens into the state. The Pocatello carpenters’ union passed a resolution prohibiting any of its members from working on any job where Japanese were used in any capacity.⁴³

Not until 1952 were Japanese immigrants allowed to become naturalized citizens, and it was another three years before the prohibition against land ownership by Japanese was repealed.⁴⁴

Minidoka Camp

Shortly after Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese air force in 1941, about 100 Japanese homes in Idaho were raided. Around 110,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans, then known across the United States as “Japs,” were evacuated from the West Coast and put in ten concentration camps. One of those camps opened at Hunt, Idaho, in 1942. The Minidoka camp became Idaho’s eighth largest “city,” with 12,751 persons imprisoned there prior to its closing in 1945. Eight hundred residents of the camp entered the United States military service in Japanese American units, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Battalion.⁴⁵

World War II soldier in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team /_{Photo Citation 44}

_{Aerial view of Japanese
internment camp at Hunt, Idaho /}_{Photo Citation 43}

In 1962 a constitutional amendment deleted the language that disqualified Japanese from full citizenship rights.⁴⁶ Congress passed a law in 1988 to compensate the people who were relocated. The Japanese American Citizens League has been active in Idaho to ensure that we not forget this part of our history. Today the National Park Service manages the Minidoka Internment National Monument at Hunt at the site of the former concentration camp.

FOOTNOTES: 41-Sims, Robert C. The Japanese American Experience in Idaho, Idaho Yesterdays, Spring 1978,p.1 42-Arrington, Vol. II, p. 280 43-Sims, Robert C., The Japanese American Experience in Idaho, Idaho Yesterdays, Spring 1978, pp.5-7. 44-Ibid., p. 10. 45-Ibid., p. 8. 46-Arrington, Vol.I, p. 282.