Nidoto Nai Yoni: Let It Not Happen Again

[david_myers]

Plans to detain millions of undocumented immigrants in “vast holding facilities” evoke déjà vu for us folks native to Puget Sound’s Bainbridge Island. We’ve heard that story before. Bainbridge was ground zero for an earlier mass exclusion, the World War II internment of 120,000 west coast Japanese Americans, citizen and noncitizen alike.

Their removal began with Exclusion Order No. 1, giving our island’s Japanese Americans six days to settle their affairs before being transported to desolate camps for the war’s ensuing three years. At the March 30, 1942 ferry departure point—now the site of a national Japanese American Exclusion Memorial—other island residents (including my father, the insurance agent for many) gathered to say their heartbroken goodbyes.  

Although differing, the two mass exclusions each illustrate two social psychological phenomena.

Overblown fear. Our human fears are fed more by vivid (easily remembered, cognitively available) anecdotes than by representative data. Thus, fueled by widely-publicized immigrant crime stories, many Americans fear an “immigrant crime wave.” Nearly 6 in 10 agree that “the large number of migrants seeking to enter the U.S. is leading to more crime”—despite the reality that immigrants (both legal and undocumented) have an incarceration rate well below that of U.S.-born citizens.

World War II-era media similarly hyped a false threat of Japanese Americans as potential spies and saboteurs. Racist caricatures and dehumanizing language fueled hate crimes, including vandalism and vigilante violence.

Contact matters.  One of social psychology’s great lessons is that prejudice decreases with friendly social contact between people of equal status, while minimal contact sustains prejudice. In today’s world, anti-immigrant sentiment in both Germany and the U.S. runs strongest in states with the fewest immigrants. West Virginians, whose state has the lowest proportion of undocumented immigrants, have been most likely to disagree that “the growing number of newcomers from other countries strengthens American society.”

Likewise, in World War II California, where people of European and Japanese descent mostly lived separately, fewer people bid the internees goodbye. On their return, many signs banning Japanese American customers made clear they were unwelcome. Separation makes the heart grow colder.

On Bainbridge, where all islanders intermingled as school classmates, in neighborhoods, and in businesses, wartime camp news from the excluded Islanders was shared via the island paper. At the high school graduation, 13 empty chairs symbolized the missing friends. Post-war, the returning internees were greeted with food and support, and their descendants today operate some of the island’s thriving businesses. Contact works.

The exclusion memorial and its motto offer a reminder that speaks to our present. It was created, states the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community, “to instruct future generations about the injustices of the past and to be forever vigilant about the fragility of assumed rights.” It commemorates “the strength and perseverance of the people involved—both those exiled and their island neighbors,” and reminds us of our capacity “to heal, forgive and care for one another.”

David Myers, a Hope College social psychologist, authors psychology textbooks and trade books, including his recent essay collection, How Do We Know Ourselves? Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind.