To Investigate How US Citizenship was Performed by Japanese Americans Interned at Tule Lake Incarceration Camp During World War Two as a Consequence of the Loyalty Questionnaire

Introduction

 

On 7th December 1941, Japan launched a devastating attack on the US Navy base Pearl harbour. Subsequently, those of Japanese ancestry residing in the United States became the target of national resentment and suspicion; in February 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which ordered the relocation of 120,000 Japanese Americans into Incarceration Camps[1]. Two-thirds of these were US citizens.[2] The largest of the ten camps was Tule Lake, located in the Siskiyou desert, California. Tule Lake was in operation from May 27th, 1942 – March 20th, 1946. In 1943 it became a Segregation Facility to hold those branded “disloyal” by the Loyalty Questionnaire[3]. This essay explores how Japanese Americans performed US citizenship as a result of the Loyalty Questionnaire and how they were treated for doing so. It applies performativity theory to interrogate how citizenship is enacted by the individual and evaluated by the state and society: I will suggest that citizenship is an appropriation (enaction) of culture via performative acts – actions that signal belonging to a specific group.

 

First, by ‘Japanese American’ I refer to the Issei (first-generation), Nisei (second-generation), and Kibei (second-generation educated in Japan), using these terms when referencing specific sub-groups. Each navigated US citizenship differently, shaped by upbringing and US and Japanese legal frameworks. The label ‘Japanese American’ itself is contradictory: ‘Japanese’ implies Japanese citizenship, whilst ‘American’ implies US citizenship; nevertheless, the Issei were barred from US naturalisation. Thus, ‘Japanese American’ includes both citizens and non-citizens, suggesting that legal citizenship is not required to culturally perform it.

 

This argument is applied to Japanese Americans’ responses to the Loyalty Questionnaire administered by the War Relocation Authority (WRA) to determine the loyalty of the inmates for either military drafting, release, or further detainment. These responses shaped how citizenship was performed and understood. Although the sociological and historical impact of the Loyalty Questionnaire is well documented – David E. Collins[4], for example, a historian writing forty years after the war, details US citizenship renunciation – it is rarely interrogated through a theoretical lens. Doing so will indicate how external forces affect the construction of citizenship and the reading of performative acts.

 

To define these acts, I draw on Judith Butler’s theory of performativity from Gender Trouble[5], where gender is constructed through a ritualisation of repetitive acts that signify gendered meaning. I adapt this to argue that performing cultural acts constructs a cultured self – a citizen. Here, I distinguish Butler’s “performance” from the colloquial term (of a show or production), whilst suggesting that cultural events (e.g: 4th July celebrations) are comprised of such ritualised performative acts; participation in these events equals a subject’s appropriation of that culture. This will suggest that Japanese Americans in Tule Lake were American, as they performed US cultural, patriotic events.

 

I will then introduce J. L. Austin’s performativity from How to do Things with Words[6], which identifies ‘speech acts’ – the locutionary (the act of saying something), illocutionary (what is done in saying something), and perlocutionary (the effect on the listener) – as actions carried out by language. I will apply these to the Loyalty Questionnaire, and the phrase, “I am American.”, spoken by Japanese Americans, revealing that the felicity conditions (the appropriate conditions to authorise the utterance) required for both utterances to confer citizenship were not met. Antithetically to Austin, I will suggest that utterances cannot be self-realised but depend on external validation – what Louis Althusser[7] terms interpellation. The interpellator is any figure or institution that shapes the understanding of the subject; it judges both acts and the subject’s aesthetic (i.e race), exposing tensions between the performed identity and biological markers. This is because both biological signifiers and performative acts have naturalised signification, and the two can, therefore, be perceived as incongruous. This disparity underlies my central argument.

 

In chapter one, I will compile the work of sociologists to outline three memberships of citizenship and analyse their relationships: ‘racial citizenship’, ‘cultural citizenship’, and ‘legal citizenship’. My key text is Aihwa Ong’s Cultural Citizenship as Subject-Making[8]. Ong re-evaluates British sociologist T. H. Marshall’s theory of citizenship[9] – a postmodern investigation of citizenship in the 1960s that suggested citizenship should make all citizens equal but that other factors affect this, like class (his case study of Britain revealed), and that citizenship is a performance of ‘basic rights’: powers granted by citizenship (i.e voting.) Ong extends Marshall’s definition of ‘basic rights’ to include cultural acts. This means performing an act that denotes a particular culture (i.e speaking English.) Ong calls this ‘cultural citizenship’. With Ong’s term, I will suggest that the performances of Japanese Americans adhered to ‘cultural citizenship’.

 

Important to the success of these performances is authenticity theory, for ‘performance’ implies a forcedness, a non-truth – inauthenticity. A marked performance affects the credibility of the performer, who is trying to naturalise their performative acts (in this case, to perform a citizen – thereby, citizenship becomes proof of authenticity.) Also, the Loyalty Questionnaire was administered to interned Japanese Americans to determine their loyalty to the United States; this interrogated the authenticity of their US citizenship performances. I will explore this through the two main arguments of authenticity (as outlined by Jean-Paul Satre and Martin Heidegger): that authenticity is self-determined, versus authenticity as externally validated. The Loyalty Questionnaire will serve as an example of the latter.    

 

In chapter two, I will apply my theory of performative citizenship to Japanese Americans in Tule Lake, providing examples of how the different generations performed their citizenships (through performative acts and events), and their responses to the Loyalty Questionnaire. This will include the renunciation movement, where 5589 Japanese Americans renounced their US citizenship and requested repatriation to Japan, where they felt they would be better treated[10]. Many, however, were misled by pro-Japanese groups and government coercion.

 

Overall, I aim to suggest a new reading of citizenship construction through performativity, and to reveal the constructed and contingent nature of US citizenship (and citizenship in general) through the described case study.

 

[1] David E. Collins, Native American Aliens: Disloyalty and the Renunciation of Citizenship by Japanese Americans during World War Two, 1st ed. (London: Greenwood, 1985) p5

[2] Ibid

[3] Rosalie H. Wax, ‘In and Out of the Tule Lake Segregation Centre: Japanese American Internment in the West, 1942-1945’, Montana The Magazine of Western History, 37:2 (1987) p12-25

[4] Collins, p5

[5] Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 1990)

[6] J. L. Austin, How to do Things with Words, 2nd ed. (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1975)

[7] Louis Althusser, ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses’, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, (1971)

[8] Ong, Aihwa, ‘Cultural Citizenship as Subject-Making’, Current Anthropology, 37:5 (1996)

[9] T. H. Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class. (London: Oxford University Press, 1950)

[10] Collins, p6

 

​

Chapter One: Constructing a Performative Lens Through Which to View Citizenship   

 

What is Citizenship?

 

To explore how performance shapes citizenship, we must first examine the evolving definitions of citizenship. Citizenship is ‘membership in social and national communities that leads to the conferral of basic rights to individuals and to groups’[1]. So, a citizen is a member of a nation who recognises and enacts their ‘basic rights’ as granted by the nation. These ‘basic rights’ are defined by T. H. Marshall as an enaction of political discourse (i.e. voting)[2]. To be a citizen is to have the right to enact political discourse; this right is bestowed by the state.

 

Marshall argued that by being granted the same ‘basic rights’, all citizens are equal. However, as Marshall noticed in the treatment of the British lower class in the 1960s, factors (race, gender, class) disrupt this relationship – incarcerated Japanese Americans in the US were also treated as second-class citizens. Sociologist Takeyuki Tsuda, fifty years later, explores this racial prejudice and distinguishes different memberships of citizenship. One being ‘racial citizenship’ – this is the process of a subject being treated as racially equal to another.[3] This asserts (as Marshall did) that citizenship is based on equality, and that race isn’t homogenous within citizenship. This helps understand Japanese American citizenship, which is complicated by its dual race and culture. 

 

Additionally, sociologist Aihwa Ong introduces ‘cultural citizenship’ membership. ‘Cultural citizenship is a dual process of self-making and being made within webs of power linked to the nation-state and civil society’[4]. A citizen is a subject who constructs identity through the appropriation of cultural acts – acts which are perceived as denoting a certain nationality and, therefore, adheres to that nation’s citizenship. These cultural acts include the ‘basic rights’ granted by citizenship, as these are actions that signify affiliation to a certain nation. Although she doesn’t use the term, Ong connects citizenship to performativity. Her ideas of ‘self-making’ suggest that ‘cultural citizenship’ arises when individuals appropriate specific cultural acts.  

 

‘Cultural citizenship’ is critiqued, however, by Lisa Lowe in Immigrant Acts[5], writing on the racialisation of citizenship in the same year as Ong. She argues that ‘cultural citizenship’ is flawed because it homogenises culture – it suggests that anyone who does not appropriate the specific acts is excluded from that culture. Nevertheless, the purpose of citizenship is to exclude. It is a boundary that defines one set of people from another[6] – a communal ‘self-making’ (to form a shared culture.) Also, Lowe is assuming that performative acts do not have fixed signification – they do. As Ferdinand de Saussure illustrated in his theory of semiotics, meaning is derived in the relationship between what one sees and what one perceives[7]. He labelled these signifier and signified. The signified is given value by a shared understanding between subjects – an ideology that binds them. This ideology predetermines the signification of the signifier. An interpellator could only perceive the signified differently to someone else if they were outside of that fellow’s ‘shared understanding’. Even then, that interpellator’s response is still determined by an ideology. Ong is, therefore, asserting that cultural acts have fixed signification, determined by the dominant ideology. Ong is not homogenising culture but accepting that culture is homogenised. Lowe’s argument fails because she cannot assert that signifiers are ever free of pre-determined meaning. This will help to later assert the fixedness of American cultural acts and how incarcerated Japanese Americans appropriated them, and why these acts were then read as American.     

 

The final membership for this investigation is ‘legal citizenship’ – to be recognised in law as a citizen[8]. ‘Legal citizenship’ bestows ‘basic rights’ to the citizen; both the nation and the subject recognise each-other. This membership allows the citizen to influence the state. Interestingly, a citizen can possess ‘cultural citizenship’ but not ‘legal citizenship’, as the performance of cultural acts is not dependent on law. This will illustrate why Japanese Americans felt themselves American, despite a lack of ‘legal citizenship’. This framework introduces how citizenship, though often seen as fixed or legal, relies on the meanings assigned to certain cultural performances.

​

 

Performativity, Authenticity, and their Application to Citizenship

 

While legal and cultural forms of citizenship identify what must be demonstrated, theories of performativity explain how these are enacted. These performative acts are defined by Judith Butler in Gender Trouble, which builds on the work of post-structuralists Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. Butler suggests that gender ‘must be understood as the mundane way in which bodily gestures, movements, and styles of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self’[9]. These ‘bodily gestures, movements, and styles’ are the appropriation of certain acts that signify a gender. These acts are ritualised and become read as part of that subject’s identity. I suggest that, like gender, citizenship is constructed through a ritualisation of performative acts. These acts are cultural ‘bodily gestures, movements, and styles’ and ‘basic rights’, which are also ritualised performances. By performing cultural acts, a subject possesses ‘cultural citizenship’. By performing ‘basic rights’, a subject possesses ‘legal citizenship’. The two aren’t reliant on each-other; one can perform culture but not ‘basic rights’, which are policed by the state. This is important in understanding how Japanese Americans performed US citizenship at Tule Lake, for they appropriated “American” behaviours, language, and activities (cultural acts); yet they were denied ‘legal citizenship’.

 

Butler is, however, critiqued by James Loxley in Performativity[10], which traces the evolution of performativity from J. L. Austin’s speech act theory to Butler’s interpretation. Loxley suggests that Butler’s framework implies that performative acts are conscious and that subjects can choose what to appropriate. Instead, Loxley asserts that appropriation is unconscious, shaped from one’s surroundings. He says, ‘performativity describes the relation of being implicated in that which one opposes’[11]. This implication is to be perceived through an external force – what the subject exists within but cannot shape; it is shaped by it. Loxley, however, does not define how this implication occurs. Using Louis Althusser’s concept of interpellation, this implication is the “self” being moulded by its surroundings (parents, institutions etc.) and their binding ideology.[12] He calls these institutes ideological state apparatuses because they “indoctrinate” the subject to ideology – interpellation. Thus, the signification of performative acts forms through social recognition, not self-determinism, but this isn’t the appropriation of performative acts. Loxley is, therefore, conflating interpellation and performativity. Interpellation is the “self” being subjected to ideology, which determines the signification of roles and what roles can be played; performativity is (as Butler illustrates) how the “self” enacts ideology, the act of playing the role. Loxley, therefore, cannot assert that performative acts are unconscious – the signification is predetermined, but the acts themselves can be consciously performed by anyone. Understanding interpellation as the process by which roles are made intelligible helps clarify how performativity operates not in a vacuum, but within the structures that predefine the roles available to be enacted.

 

Ritualisations of performative acts extend beyond ‘bodily gestures, movements, and styles’ into what I call performative “events”; practices that denote cultural affiliation. The “events” are rituals of predefined performative acts (i.e July 4th celebrations.) This suggests that conventional performances are both productions and performative cultural “events”. This is important in understanding how culture and citizenship is performed beyond just the site of the body, but as a collective – as the Japanese Americans at Tule Lake will testify in their enaction of American culture and US citizenship.

 

Crucial to the success or failure of these performances is “authenticity”; it asserts whether the performer has the “right” to appropriate performative acts, and, therefore, whether the subject is recognised as a citizen. To explore this, we must explore the differing interpretations of authenticity.    

 

In the twentieth century, existential philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger positioned authenticity as important to understanding one’s freedom and responsibility. Heidegger theorised in Being and Time[13] (1927) that to be authentic was to be aware of one’s mortality and ignore societal distractions. Meanwhile, Sartre theorised in Being and Nothingness[14] (1943) that no-one is born with an identity; to be authentic was to construct one through choice. Although this is subsequently overwritten by Althusser’s assertion that identity is determined by society (interpellation) and that roles are pre-determined, there are parallels between Sartre and Butler, whose performativity theory implies that identity is self-appropriated. This would imply that performing acts makes one authentic. I will analyse this hypothesis through the two main arguments of authenticity that emerged later in the twentieth century: that authenticity is to be “true” to an “inner self”, versus authenticity as determined by the interpellator.

 

In 1986, Richard Handler builds on Sartre’s authenticity as freedom of expression by suggesting that ‘authenticity, which has to do with our true self, […] apart from any role we play.’[15] This states that to be authentic is to present one’s “true self” to others – to present how one self-identifies. This is problematic because the “self”, as illustrated through Althusser, does not regulate meaning, it is shaped in relation to ideology.

 

Nevertheless, Nina Hagel in her dissertation, Appeals to Authenticity, suggests that the “inner self” holds importance because it still affects people even if it can’t exist[16]. People perceive their actions as personifications of a “true self”; they do not recognise themselves as acting within ideology because it is “invisible” to them. This supports authenticity as the expression of a “true self” – this “self” is externalised through performative acts. This explains Butler’s performativity, as the appropriated ‘bodily gestures, movements, and styles’ reflect the “inner self” of the subject. Through this perspective, performativity is authentic. However, we read the signifiers of the body (biology) separately from the performative acts as the body has been naturalised (biological determinism), so the performative acts are perceived as additions, not extensions or expressions of.

 

The conflicting perspective on authenticity interrogates this relationship. As T. Storm Heter theorises in opposition to Sartre in their revisitation of his work, to be authentic is to recognise oneself in relation to others[17]. Heter is criticising Sartre as generalising that subjects live in vacuums where they can self-determine their identity. They state that subjects are authentic when they make conscious the process of interpellation by accepting the expression of others. Heter calls this mutual recognition[18]. Through this, Heter is suggesting that authenticity is the process of the interpellator recognising the subject as “coherent”, meaning that the interpellator sees no disparity between the acts performed by the subject and that subject’s aesthetic. If the two significations match, then the interpellator perceives the subject as authentic.

 

Mary Balkun, writing the same year as Heter, acknowledges this also in, ‘the authentic – and by extension the inauthentic – is associated with the visual […]; it can be seen and identified by specific markings, traits, and characterisations.’[19] She states that authenticity is aesthetic (not an “inner self” like Handler and Hagel), which is read by a third-party (interpellator.) These ‘specific markings, traits, and characteristics’ are the same as ‘bodily gestures, movements, and styles’, which are defined as performative acts. Therefore, to be authentic is to have one’s aesthetic perceived as coherent to one’s appropriated performative acts.

 

Balkun’s theory supports how Japanese Americans interned at Tule Lake appropriated American cultural acts (such as flying the US flag), but these were viewed in disparity to their aesthetic (i.e skin colour); subsequently, they were deemed inauthentic citizens. It also explains the disparity between ‘cultural citizenship’ and other memberships – a possessor of ‘cultural citizenship’ cannot always be granted ‘racial citizenship’ when there is a perceived incongruity between their race and the race that their appropriated acts denote. Therefore, rather than locating authenticity within the individual, this model suggests that what is perceived as authentic is produced through recognition, which depends on whether one’s performance aligns with the dominant expectations of their role. Together, performativity, authenticity, and interpellation convey that successful claims to citizenship are not simply performed but must be recognised as authentic within an existing ideology. The incarceration of Japanese Americans at Tule Lake offers a stark example of this in action.

 

​

Applying Performativity to US Citizenship

 

To understand how this triad applies to the case study, we must apply them to US citizenship and its history. On July 4th, 1776, the US declared independence from British colonisers. Anyone within the free states (the original thirteen of the US) were declared equal; were citizens[20]. In 1790, with US expansion and immigration, the Naturalisation Act was passed, which ‘stipulated that aliens must live in the country for 2 years, take an oath of support for the Constitution, possess a good character, and be a free white person’[21] to naturalise for citizenship. This wrote race (‘free white person’) into US citizenship law.

 

In 1866, however, citizenship laws changed. The Fourteenth Amendment made US naturalisation jus soli (law of the soil), meaning that anyone born on US land is automatically a citizen[22] – they are granted ‘legal citizenship’, regardless of ancestry. Nevertheless, ‘whiteness’ was still written into naturalisation law, contradicting jus soli; non-whites born in the US could be granted citizenship and thus become “white” (in that they were included in the group.) This highlights how ‘free white person’ is constructed and contingent to the political climate.

 

During independence, it was used to divide the US population of white settlers and slaves[23]. Pre-Civil War, as immigration from both Europe and Asia grew, ‘free white person’ meant Western European, particularly Anglo-American, which was idealised because it “best represented” the “original” settlers[24]. Post-Civil War: freed slaves were included in the Fourteenth Amendment as naturalised citizens, but they were specifically referred to as African American[25]. Native Americans were also granted citizenship. Nevertheless, both were excluded from ‘free white person’ by their specific labels and, therefore, despite being granted citizenship, were already marked as inferior to ‘free white person’[26], undermining the United States’ values of liberty and equality. The shifting definition of ‘free white person’ also exposes the arbitrariness of race – an important component in exploring how Japanese Americans performed US citizenship.

 

Supporting this, sociologist Min Zhou writes in Are Asian Americans Becoming “White”? that ‘“White” is an arbitrary label having more to do with privilege than biology’[27]. Race is constructed to maintain one group of people’s superiority over another. This power dynamic is then naturalised through iterative performance, until aesthetic (biology) has “fixed” signification. This contributes to the incongruity between the subject’s performative acts and their biology, problematising the perception of Japanese Americans performing US cultural acts.  

 

This can be further illustrated by the example of Takao Ozawa, a Japanese American businessman who challenged US naturalisation in 1915[28], demanding his US citizenship. He was rejected on the grounds that he was not white. Ozawa appealed and ‘presented his skin colour, which was lighter than many. More significant, though, was his cultural argument. A U.S. Army veteran, Christian, and English speaker who sent his children to American schools, Ozawa understood whiteness to be more than physical appearance.’[29] He argued that one was white if they acted white – in this case, American. ‘U.S. Army veteran, Christian, and English speaker’ are performative acts of American culture – Ozawa was performing a white American. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court ruled that Ozawa could not naturalise because the Japanese were classified as part of the Mongolian race, which was not white[30]. Therefore, Ozawa possessed ‘cultural citizenship’ but not ‘racial citizenship’, and was ultimately denied ‘legal citizenship’. White was not determined on aesthetic or performative acts, but rather geography and birthplace (as Ozawa was an Issei – born in Japan.) This exposes the contradictory and illogical use of colour in prejudice, and the artificiality of the naturalisation of race. Ozawa’s experience reflects those incarcerated during World War Two.

 

At this time, US citizenship became entwined with a new term, ‘Americanisation’. In his expansive book, Making Americans, historian Desmond King explores the creation of the American nationality and defines Americanisation - ‘the civic incorporation of immigrants, that is the cultivation of a shared commitment to the American values of liberty, democracy, and equal opportunity.’[31] Americanisation is the process by which immigrants appropriate American values, and this results in ‘civic incorporation’ – citizenship. US citizens, therefore, are already successfully Americanised.

 

King then outlines five rules of Americanisation[32]: a common language; an appreciation of American ideals, standards, and responsibilities; allegiance to the US; active cooperation with fellow citizens in furthering welfare; and universal consciousness of an American identity (which means to be conscious of Americanisation itself.) So, Americanisation is the performance of five rules (performative acts.) Americanisation, then, is ‘cultural citizenship’. In performing cultural events and acts, Japanese Americans were enacting Americanisation; across the ten internment camps, the WRA subtly Americanised the population. In Tule Lake, each block had a recreation hall for sports (baseball, golf, basketball), arts and crafts, music and dancing, as well as classrooms teaching English, and libraries with English-only books[33]. These activities promoted American values. By performing them, Japanese American inmates were Americanising, and possessed ‘cultural citizenship’. Nevertheless, as with Takao Ozawa, they were not granted ‘legal citizenship’, leaving them alienated from their fellow Americans.

 

[1] Takeyuki Tsuda, ‘“I’m American, not Japanese!”: The Struggle for Racial Citizenship Among Later-Generation Japanese Americans’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 37:3 (2014) p405-424 (p408)

[2] Marshall, p5

[3] Tsuda, p407

[4] Ong, p738

[5] Lisa Lowe Immigrant Acts, 1st ed. (London: Duke University Press, 1996)

[6]Charles Gordon, ‘The Racial Barrier to American Citizenship’, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 93:3, (1945), p237-258 (p252)

[7] Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, trans. by Wade Baskin, 3rd ed. (New York: Philosophical Library Inc, 1959)

[8] Luis Cabrera, ‘Global Citizenship as Individual Cosmopolitanism’, The Practice of Global Citizenship, 1st ed. (2013), p13-33 (p15)

[9] Butler, p140

[10] James Loxley, Performativity, 1st ed. (London: Routledge, 2007)

[11] Loxley, p127

[12] Althusser (1971)

[13] Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. by John MacQuarrie & Edward Robinson, 21st (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001)

[14] Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. By Sarah Richmond, (London: Routledge, 2018)

[15] Richard Handler, ‘Authenticity’, Anthropology Today, 2:1, (1986), p2-4 (p3)

[16] Nina Hagel, ‘Appeals to Authenticity: Discourses on the True Self and the Politics of Identity Construction’, (unpublished dissertation, University of California, 2016)

[17] T. Storm Heter, ‘Authenticity and Others: Satres Ethics of Recognition’, Satre Studies International, 12:2, (2006)

[18] Heter, p24

[19] Mary Balkun, ‘The Real, the Self, and Commodity Culture’, American Authenticity, (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006) p1-18 (p2)

[20] Gregory T. Carter, ‘Race and Citizenship’, The Oxford Handbook of American Immigration and Ethnicity, ed. Ronald H. Bayor, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) p166-182, (p166)

[21] Ibid

[22] Ibid, p171

[23] Carter, p167

[24] Rogers Smith, ‘Progressivism and the New American Empire, 1898-1912’, Civic Ideals: Conflicted Visions of Citizenship in US History, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), p410-481

[25] Carter, p167

[26] Ibid

[27] Min Zhou, ‘Are Asian Americans Becoming “White”?’, Contexts, 3:1 (2004) p29-37 (p30)

[28] Carter, p174

[29] Ibid

[30] Charles J. McClain, ‘Torturous Path, Elusive Goal: The Asian Quest for American Citizenship’, Asian Law Journal, 33 (1995), p33-60 (p46)

[31] Desmond King, ‘Immigration and American Political Development’, Making Americans: Immigration, Race, Origins of the Diverse Democracy, (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2000) p11-49 (p26)

[32] King, p90

[33] Thomas James, ‘The Education of Japanese Americans at Tule Lake 1942-46’, Pacific Historical Review, 56:1 (1987), p25-58

 

​

Chapter Two: Applying Citizenship Performativity to the Japanese Americans Incarcerated at Tule Lake as a Consequence of the Loyalty Questionnaire

 

Japanese American Citizenship

 

We will now explore the complexities of Japanese American citizenship. As a reminder, I use Japanese American to refer to Issei (first-generation), Nisei (second-generation), and Kibei (second-generation but educated in Japan) – both US and non-US citizens. The Issei mostly arrived in the US from 1890 until the Immigration Act of 1924 forbade those from Asia[1]. At the time of incarceration, one-third of Japanese Americans were Issei. Despite having lived in the US for as much as forty years, the Issei were disqualified from naturalising. As the example of Takao Ozawa conveyed, this was because they weren’t white. Like Ozawa, they could perform ‘cultural citizenship’ but not be granted ‘legal citizenship.’

 

Due to jus soli, the Nisei were naturalised US citizens (possessed ‘legal citizenship’.) They were noted as ‘American as the clothes they wore, the games they played, the social customs they followed, and the entertainments they enjoyed’[2]. Through their upbringing, the Nisei appropriated these performative acts of American culture, possessing ‘cultural citizenship’. Nevertheless, due to racial prejudice and fearmongering, Nisei were refused ‘racial citizenship’, meaning that they were not protected from incarceration.

 

The Kibei accounted for 9000 of those incarcerated[3]. Due to their Japanese education, they often performed Japanese cultural acts, such as speaking Japanese and preferring traditional Japanese activities over American ones[4]. Therefore, whilst they possessed US ‘legal citizenship’, they did not solely enact US ‘cultural citizenship’. This hybrid performance is reflected in Japanese Americans’ dual citizenship.

 

Japanese citizenship is jus sanguinis – dictated by blood; anyone born to parents who hold Japanese citizenship are also granted Japanese citizenship[5]. This led to fears in the US post-Pearl Harbour that the Japanese American population had allegiance to Japan and would fight the US from within[6]. Allegiance became entwined with citizenship; the US necessitated that this be pure (only to one nation) to be an authentic allegiance. Those with dual citizenship were perceived as having an inauthentic allegiance[7]. Ultimately, this led to the administration of the Loyalty Questionnaire to determine the “loyal” and the “disloyal”.

 

​

How did the Loyalty Questionnaire shape Japanese Americans’ Citizenships?

 

Department of Selective Service Form 304A[8], or the Loyalty Questionnaire, was introduced into all ten internment camps in February 1943. It was originally administered to those eligible for the military draft, but was extended to all incarcerated Japanese Americans over the age of seventeen as the WRA desired to relocate the inmates[9], despite an opinion poll in December 1942 revealing that only 29% of the US public condoned freeing the Japanese Americans[10]. The Loyalty Questionnaire aimed to quash these anxieties by assuring the public that only “loyal” Japanese Americans would be released. It condensed racial allegiance into a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. Simple, it was not.

 

Questions twenty-seven and twenty-eight were the most controversial: (27) “Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty, wherever ordered?” (28) “Will you swear allegiance to the US and defend the US from any foreign attack, and will you foreswear any allegiance to the emperor?”[11] Former incarceree at Tule Lake, Betty Monita Shibayama, a Nisei, described the wording of the questions as difficult[12] – a sentiment shared by many incarcerees. The ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers suggest a simple binary question. However, on closer inspection, the questions have implied utterances – applying the terminology of linguist H. P. Grice, I determine these implicatures: what is implied but not said.[13] The implicature of question twenty-seven is that the inmates are being asked to fight for the US Army; for twenty-eight, it implies that the speaker had a prior allegiance to the emperor, as ‘foreswear’ alludes. Nisei had never been to Japan and did not perceive themselves as having any allegiance to the emperor. Nevertheless, they did possess Japanese citizenship – a legal prior allegiance to the emperor. However, as the Nisei did not enact this citizenship (did not perform Japanese cultural acts or ‘basic rights’), they did not recognise their Japanese citizenship, and answered ‘no’ (as Shibayama testified.) As a result of the implicature, ‘yes’ and ‘no’ became what J. L. Austin would call performative speech acts; they either affirmed or disregarded the inmates’ citizenship – this was also the illocutionary speech act of the questions. For the answers, ‘No’ was perceived as an illocutionary speech act of disloyalty. However, many uttered ‘no’ with the intention of allegiance. Intention did not matter to the WRA, who had already pre-determined that ‘no’ meant disloyal (as the implicature illustrates.) The perlocutionary speech act for disloyal was to be sent to Tule Lake. Those who said ‘yes’ were deemed loyal; the perlocutionary speech act being their slow release from incarceration. Applying speech act theory to the questionnaire and responses illustrates how utterances are performative acts that contribute to the construction of citizenship and enact allegiance.

 

Whilst allegiance was entwined with citizenship, even non-citizens were screened. Issei could be deemed loyal despite not being citizens. Nisei could be disloyal despite being citizens. Therefore, ‘yes’ was a performative utterance that enacted ‘cultural citizenship’ by affirming the questions’ implicatures of citizenship, but did not grant ‘legal citizenship’ (as the speaker did not have the power to pass their words as law.) Moreover, whilst question twenty-eight was phrased as an implicature of renunciation of the emperor and, therefore, Japanese citizenship, it did not have the felicity conditions to do so – only the Japanese Supreme Court could renounce a Japanese citizen’s citizenship[14]. The Issei, under-pressure, did not realise this. Without US citizenship, renunciation would have left the Issei stateless; many said ‘no’ in fear of this. The WRA’s own report on segregation of the “loyal” and “disloyal” indicated that the inmates’ citizenship could not legally be affected by their responses[15]; yet this is what happened through renunciation. Ironically, then, the Loyalty Questionnaire could remove citizenship but not grant it, highlighting the flaws in this US policy.

 

Other factors played into responses to the questionnaire. Betty Fumiye answered ‘yes-yes’ (meaning ‘yes’ to both questions twenty-seven and twenty-eight) and convinced her Issei parents to do the same because ‘no’ had the perlocutionary of staying in Tule Lake and the family had to stick together[16]. The implicature of the questions, therefore, contained the perlocutionary speech act, as Fumiye already knew what answering ‘no’ would result in; it factored into her perception of the question. This relationship between perlocutionary speech act and implicature suggests that the effect of making an utterance (or the expected effect) affects the speaker’s decision when uttering – or not uttering. For example, Jim Tanimoto, another Nisei at Tule Lake, refused to answer, protesting against his incarceration and treatment[17]. Nevertheless, Tanimoto’s abstention was deemed ‘no-no’. Silence itself had an implicature of dissent. Tanimoto was subsequently kept in Tule Lake as it transitioned to a maximum-security Segregation Facility to hold those branded disloyal. Of the 10,000 eligible in the first round of the questionnaire’s administration (the military draft), 1238 said ‘no’ and another 3218 abstained from answering[18]. They, too, were sent to Tule Lake, where they were treated worse than German and Italian prisoners of war[19]. ‘No’ meant being treated as a non-citizen, regardless of citizenship status. This did not prevent performances of American ‘cultural citizenship’, however.

 

 

How did Japanese Americans at Tule Lake Perform their Citizenship in response to the Loyalty Questionnaire?

 

The biggest shift in the performance of US citizenship by Japanese Americans at Tule Lake as a consequence of the Loyalty Questionnaire was the renunciation movement. The Renunciation Act of 1944 allowed anyone in a time of war to renounce their US citizenship. ‘The Renunciation Act made denaturalisation a relatively simple task. The statute required only that a person […] appear before any official named by the United States Attorney General and sign a designated form.’[20] This signature acted as a binding, legal contract for renunciation – ‘legal citizenship’ and ‘basic rights’ were lost. Those who renounced were then put on a list for deportation to Japan. 5589 Nisei renounced their US citizenship after being relocated to Tule Lake as a consequence of the Loyalty Questionnaire[21]. They felt betrayed by the United States and imagined that their treatment in Japan would be better.[22] Some who renounced weren’t even ‘no-noers’; they renounced for fear of being split from their Issei parents[23].

 

Nevertheless, renouncing did not strip the Nisei of their US ‘cultural citizenship’. They had been born in the US, brought up on American culture, and spoke English, and continued to do so. However, unlike the Kibei, the Nisei did not enact Japanese cultural acts, which was crucial with the imminent return to Japan. This sparked a “Japanisation” movement in Tule Lake[24], educating the Nisei to appropriate Japanese cultural acts. This – they hoped – would align with their Japanese ‘legal citizenship’, making their identity coherent, and helping them settle into Japan. This Japanisation occurred through groups like the sokoku kenkyu seinen-dan (the Young Man’s Association for the Study of the Mother Country)[25], which was founded by Issei and newly renounced Kibei on July 13th, 1943. ‘Within a few weeks, several hundred young men had joined the sokoku, and every morning before daybreak they marched down the firebreaks shouting “wash-sho! Wash-sho! [Hip! Hip!]”’.[26] These military-like drills were performative acts of Japanese culture; they were un-performing their US identities. Renunciation removed the legal component.  

 

Not everyone renounced autonomously. Historian Michi Weglyn, reflecting on all ten incarceration camps nearly fifty years after their closure, suggests that ‘thousands, out of terror and hopelessness, play-acted the part of fanatic.’[27] People renounced, not out of allegiance for Japan, but fear of being split from their families or being detained interminably as “disloyals” – renunciation equalled freedom. ‘Play-acted’ implies that Nisei were performing inauthentically; that it was a performance to self-deceive, and deceive the WRA; it subverted the Nisei’s true sentiment (“inner self”) of perceiving themselves as American. The WRA, however, deemed it an authentic performance and accepted the Nisei’s utterance to the Loyalty Questionnaire as an implicature for disloyal and their signature on the renunciation document as affirming their renunciation.

 

Other Nisei performed their US citizenship by conscripting into the army. Around 33,000 Japanese Americans served in the US Armed forces in various capacities[28]. Many wanted to serve on the Pacific Frontier against the Japanese to prove their allegiance to the US[29]. Others served in the 442nd regimental combat team, the most decorated US regiment in history[30]. The 442nd fought in Northern Italy in 1944 and later in the bloody Vosges Mountain campaign in expelling the German forces from France[31]. They played a crucial role in the Allies’ victory.

 

Fighting for one’s country is a performative “event” of ritualised behaviours; the Nisei were further appropriating American cultural acts and proving their patriotism and allegiance to the US. Thus, their ‘cultural citizenship’ supported their ‘legal citizenship’. Testimonies from fellow “white” soldiers asserted that they were happy serving alongside the Nisei, who many admired for their relentless bravery, were surprised by their incarceration, and perceived them as equals[32]. In this treatment, the Nisei were granted ‘racial citizenship’ – to be deemed racially equal.

 

Other performative “events” illustrated the appropriation of ‘cultural citizenship’. Historian and sociologist Emily Roxworthy describes the 4th of July celebrations in Tule Lake in 1943[33], where both American and Japanese cultural activities took place, from a sumo tournament to softball games; from a Japanese Noh performance to singing the US national anthem. Issei and Nisei shared their respective cultures. Thus, they performed both American and Japanese ‘cultural citizenship.’

 

Lastly, inmates performed their citizenship through the speech act “I am American!”. In his interview with the Densho Organisation in 2014, Nisei Richard M. Murakami repeated “I’m a proud American!”[34]. His accompanying tears illustrated that even seventy years after his incarceration, Murakami was aggrieved by the injustice of his treatment. As sociologist Takeyuki Tsuda explores, many Japanese Americans have made variations of this utterance in an attempt to assert their identity[35]  – however, Tsuda does not analyse the performativity of such utterances. I will.

 

The locutionary speech act of “I am American!” is a direct assertion of national identity; its illocutionary speech act attempts to conjure the speaker’s US citizenship; its implicature is that the speaker possesses US citizenship. Nevertheless, when an Issei makes this utterance, the locutionary speech act is prevented from having its desired perlocutionary due to insufficient felicity conditions – the Issei do not possess ‘legal citizenship’, nor do they have the power to grant themselves it. The utterance does, however, perform ‘cultural citizenship’, as its implicature also suggests patriotism to the US – a desire to enact US citizenship. Moreover, the speaker’s ‘racial citizenship’ is complicated by the incongruity between the performative utterance and the speaker’s aesthetic (e.g: skin colour.) The listener can refuse the perlocutionary speech act on these grounds. Therefore, whilst the Issei speaker believes their utterance, it is deemed inauthentic by the listener.

 

If a Nisei makes the utterance, it is supported by the felicity condition of their ‘legal citizenship.’ The illocutionary speech act reinforces this. Nevertheless, the perlocutionary speech act can still result in rejection, as, again, the listener may perceive an incongruity between the speech act and the speaker. However, this is dependent on the listener. Theoretically, then, the Nisei’s utterance has sufficient felicity conditions, whereas the Issei’s does not. This means that the Nisei can assert their American-ness (their US citizenship.) Richard Murakami is upset because he both perceives and can state that his utterance is true, and yet people still doubted his allegiance due to his skin colour.

 

To summarise this section, Japanese Americans performed US citizenship in a variety of ways as a consequence of the Loyalty Questionnaire. Some continued to perform ‘cultural citizenship’ through American cultural events or conscripting to the army; others chose to fully reject the US and renounced their citizenship; some more proclaimed “I am American!” to self-conjure their citizenship.

 

[1] Michael Jin, ‘Americans in the Pacific: Rethinking Race, Gender, Citizenships, and Diaspora at the Crossroads of Asian and Asian American Studies’, Critical Ethnic Studies, 2:1 (2016) p128-147 (p131)

[2] Scott Matthew Keys, ‘A Polarity of Identities: Culture and The Nisei’, Shades of Gray: Japanese American Citizenship Renunciation During World War Two, (Fullerton: California State University, 2008), p47-73 (p69)

[3] Collins, p9

[4] Keys, ‘Introduction’, p1-24 (p3)

[5] Ray Malcom, ‘American Citizenship and the Japanese’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 93 (1921) p77-81 (p80)

[6] Marshall De Motte, ‘California – White or Yellow?’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 93 (London: Sage, 1921) p18-23 (p19)

[7] David Brundage, ‘Allegiance, Dual Citizenship, and the Ethnic Influence on US Foreign Policy’, The Oxford Handbook of American Immigration and Ethnicity, ed. Ronald H. Bayor, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) p375-397

[8] Keys, ‘Challenging Tradition: Second-Generation Japanese Americans During WWII and Citizenship Renunciation’, p74-103 (p81)

[9] Frank F. Chuman, ‘The Questionnaire Programme and the Nisei’ The Bamboo People: The Law and Japanese Americans (Del Mar: Publishers Incorporated, 1976) p246-261

[10] Collins, p22

[11] ‘The So-Called Loyalty Questionnaire, p4’, Densho Digital Repository, [Available at: https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-72-4-master-ce4cc2edc9/?format=doc] (Accessed: 15/01/25)

[12] Betty Monita Shibayama, ‘Interview Segment 20: Remembering Family’s Discussions Involving the So-Called Loyalty Questionnaire’, (Interviewed by Alice Ito for Densho) (Video) (Seattle: Washington, 2003)

[13] H. P Grice, ‘Logic and Conversation’ in Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Arts, ed. Peter Cole & Jerry L. Morgan (New York: Academic Press, 1975) p41-58 (p43)

[14] Malcom, p81

[15] War Relocation Authority, ‘Segregation of Persons of Japanese Ancestry in Tule Lake Relocation Centre, August 1943’, (Washington: August 1943) p1-16 (p16), Guy and Marguerite Cook Nisei Collection. [Available at: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1127&context=cook-nisei] (Accessed: 20/11/25)

[16] Betty Fumiye, ‘Interview Segment 23: Answering the So-Called Loyalty Questionnaire’, (Interviewed by Alice Ito for Densho) (Video) (Seattle: Washington, 2006)

[17] Jim Tanimoto, ‘Interview Segment 16: Reasons for Refusing to Sign the So-Called Loyalty Questionnaire’, (Interviewed by Tom Ikeda for Densho) (Video) (Gridley: California, 2009)

[18] Collins, p31

[19] John Tateishi and Roger Daniels, ‘Violet De Cristoforo: Tule Lake’, And Justice for All: An Oral History of the Japanese American Detention Camps, (Washington: University of Washington Press, 1984) p124-140 (p130)

[20] Collins, p105

[21] Collins, p6

[22] Neil Gotanda, ‘Race, Citizenship, and the Search for Political Community Among “We the People”’, Immigration and Nationality Law Review, 18:1 (1997) p607-635 (p618)

[23] Ibid

[24] Wax (1987)

[25] Wax, p22

[26] Ibid

[27] Michi Weglyn, ‘Tule Lake’, Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993) p156-174 (p164)

[28]Unknown Writer, ‘American Battle Monuments Commission celebrates Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month’, American Battle Monuments Commission, (May 9th, 2023) [Available at: https://www.abmc.gov/news-events/news/american-battle-monuments-commission-celebrates-asian-american-pacific-islander/] (Accessed: 17/03/25)

[29] Brian Niiya, ‘Japanese Americans in Military During World War Two’, Densho Organisation, [Available at: https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Japanese_Americans_in_military_during_World_War_II/] (Accessed: 17/03/25)

[30] Tateishi and Daniels, ‘Shig Doi: Tule Lake, 442nd Regimental Combat Team’, p157-167

[31] Unknown Contributor, ‘442nd Regimental Combat Team’, Densho Organisation [Available at: https://encyclopedia.densho.org/442nd_Regimental_Combat_Team/] (Accessed: 17/03/25)

[32] Stephanie Hinnershitz, ‘What We’re Fighting For: America’s Servicemen on Hypocrisy on the Home Front’, The National WW2 Museum, (July 20th, 2021) [Available at: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/what-we-are-fighting-for-war-relocation-authority] (Accessed: 25/03/25)

[33] Emily Roxworthy, ‘Transnational theatre at the Tule Lake Segregation Centre’, The Spectacle of Japanese American Trauma: Racial performativity and World War Two, (Hawaii: Hawaii University Press, 2008) p148-178

[34] Richard M. Murakami, ‘Interview Segment 10: Impact of the So-Called Loyalty Questionnaire on Family’, (Interviewed by Laris Proulx for Densho) (Video) (California: Los Angeles, 2014)

[35] Tsuda, p411

 

​

Conclusion

 

This year marks the eightieth anniversary since the end of World War Two and of the closing of Japanese American Incarceration Camps – an apt moment for war-period scholarship. This dissertation contributes uniquely by applying performativity to Japanese American citizenship, revealing it as a construction reliant on cultural acts rather than solely legal status. Such acts may conflict with state-defined legal requirements, which naturalise certain performances and racialised bodies as prerequisites for citizenship. The body and acts can then sometimes be made incongruous, exposing the racial bias underlying citizenship. While this analysis focuses on Japanese Americans, its framework extends to other marginalised groups.

 

Due to constraints, this essay illustrates rather than interrogates the process of ritualising political and cultural discourse. It builds on T. H. Marshall’s term ‘basic rights’ to show how these discourses are performed and, subsequently, ritualised, leaving space for me to expand in future research projects.

 

Through analysis of the Loyalty Questionnaire, I have also applied J. L. Austin’s speech act theory and H. P. Grice’s implicature, arguing that the questionnaire reduced allegiance – a requirement for citizenship – to a binary choice through its implicatures, thereby obscuring other criteria (such as Americanisation rules, race, birthplace.) This contradiction exposes the arbitrariness of citizenship, revealing how its terms shift with political mood. At a time when citizenship is increasingly scrutinised and policed, this essay sparks new ways of understanding both its mechanisms and meaning.

 

​

Bibliography

• Althusser, Louis, ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses’, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, (1971)

• Austin, J. L. How to do Things with Words, 2nd ed. (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1975)

• Balkun, Mary, ‘The Real, the Self, and Commodity Culture’, American Authenticity, (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006) p1-18 (p2)

• Brundage, David ‘Allegiance, Dual Citizenship, and the Ethnic Influence on US Foreign Policy’, The Oxford Handbook of American Immigration and Ethnicity, ed. Ronald H. Bayor, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) p375-397

• Butler, Judith, 'Body Inscriptions, Performative Subversions', Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 1990) p128-141

• Cabrera, Louis, ‘Global Citizenship as Individual Cosmopolitanism’, The Practice of Global Citizenship, 1st ed. (2013), p13-33 (p15)

• Carter, Gregory T., ‘Race and Citizenship’, The Oxford Handbook of American Immigration and Ethnicity, ed. Ronald H. Bayor, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) p166-182

• Chuman, Frank F. ‘The Questionnaire Programme and the Nisei’ The Bamboo People: The Law and Japanese Americans (Del Mar: Publishers Incorporated, 1976) p246-261

• Collins, David E., Native American Aliens: Disloyalty and the Renunciation of Citizenship by Japanese Americans during World War Two, 1st ed. (London: Greenwood, 1985)

• De Motte, Marshall ‘California – White or Yellow?’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 93 (London: Sage, 1921) p18-23 (p19)

• ‘The So-Called Loyalty Questionnaire, p4’, Densho Digital Repository, [Available at: https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-72-4-master-ce4cc2edc9/?format=doc] (Accessed: 15/01/25)

• Fumiye, Betty ‘Interview Segment 23: Answering the So-Called Loyalty Questionnaire’, (Interviewed by Alice Ito for Densho) (Video) (Seattle: Washington, 2006)

• Gordon, Charles, ‘The Racial Barrier to American Citizenship’, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 93:3, (1945), p237-258 (p252)

• Gotanda, Neil, ‘Race, Citizenship, and the Search for Political Community Among “We the People”’, Immigration and Nationality Law Review, 18:1 (1997) p607-635 (p618)

• Grice, H. P. ‘Logic and Conversation’ in Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Arts, ed. Peter Cole & Jerry L. Morgan (New York: Academic Press, 1975)

• Hagel, Nina, ‘Appeals to Authenticity: Discourses on the True Self and the Politics of Identity Construction’, (unpublished dissertation, University of California, 2016)

• Handler, Richard, ‘Authenticity’, Anthropology Today, 2:1, (1986), p2-4 (p3)

• Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, trans. by John MacQuarrie & Edward Robinson, 21st (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001)

• Heter, T. Storm, ‘Authenticity and Others: Satres Ethics of Recognition’, Satre Studies International, 12:2, (2006)

• Hinnershitz, Stephanie ‘What We’re Fighting For: America’s Servicemen on Hypocrisy on the Home Front’, The National WW2 Museum, (July 20th, 2021) [Available at: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/what-we-are-fighting-for-war-relocation-authority] (Accessed: 25/03/25)

• James, Thomas, ‘The Education of Japanese Americans at Tule Lake 1942-46’, Pacific Historical Review, 56:1 (1987), p25-58

• Jin, Michael, ‘Americans in the Pacific: Rethinking Race, Gender, Citizenships, and Diaspora at the Crossroads of Asian and Asian American Studies’, Critical Ethnic Studies, 2:1 (2016) p128-147 (p131)

• King, Desmond, Making Americans: Immigration, Race, Origins of the Diverse Democracy, (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2000) p11-49 (p26)

• Lowe, Lisa Immigrant Acts, 1st ed. (London: Duke University Press, 1996)

• Loxley, James, Performativity, 1st ed. (London: Routledge, 2007)

• Malcom, Ray ‘American Citizenship and the Japanese’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 93 (1921) p77-81 (p80)

• Marshall, T. H. Citizenship and Social Class. (London: Oxford University Press, 1950)

• Matthew Keys, Scott, Shades of Gray: Japanese American Citizenship Renunciation During World War Two, (Fullerton: California State University, 2008)

• McClain, Charles J. ‘Torturous Path, Elusive Goal: The Asian Quest for American Citizenship’, Asian Law Journal, 33 (1995), p33-60 (p46)

• Murakami, Richard M. ‘Interview Segment 10: Impact of the So-Called Loyalty Questionnaire on Family’, (Interviewed by Laris Proulx for Densho) (Video) (California: Los Angeles, 2014)

• Niiya, Brian ‘Japanese Americans in Military During World War Two’, Densho Organisation, [Available at: https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Japanese_Americans_in_military_during_World_War_II/] (Accessed: 17/03/25)

• Ong, Aihwa, ‘Cultural Citizenship as Subject-Making’, Current Anthropology, 37:5 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) p737-762

• Roxworthy, Emily ‘Transnational theatre at the Tule Lake Segregation Centre’, The Spectacle of Japanese American Trauma: Racial performativity and World War Two, (Hawaii: Hawaii University Press, 2008) p148-178

• Sartre, Jean-Paul, Being and Nothingness, trans. By Sarah Richmond, (London: Routledge, 2018)

• Saussure, Ferdinand de, Course in General Linguistics, trans. By Wade Baskin, 3rd ed. (New York: Philosophical Library Inc, 1959)

• Shibayama, Betty Monita ‘Interview Segment 20: Remembering Family’s Discussions Involving the So-Called Loyalty Questionnaire’, (Interviewed by Alice Ito for Densho) (Video) (Seattle: Washington, 2003)

• Smith, Rogers, ‘Progressivism and the New American Empire, 1898-1912’, Civic Ideals: Conflicted Visions of Citizenship in US History, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), p410-481

• Tanimoto, Jim, ‘Interview Segment 16: Reasons for Refusing to Sign the So-Called Loyalty Questionnaire’, (Interviewed by Tom Ikeda for Densho) (Video) (Gridley: California, 2009)

• Tateishi, John and Daniels, Roger, And Justice for All: An Oral History of the Japanese American Detention Camps, (Washington: University of Washington Press, 1984) p124-140 (p130)

• Tsuda, Takeyuki ‘“I’m American, not Japanese!”: The Struggle for Racial Citizenship Among Later-Generation Japanese Americans’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 37:3 (London: Routledge, 2014) p405-424

• Unknown Writer, ‘American Battle Monuments Commission celebrates Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month’, American Battle Monuments Commission, (May 9th, 2023) [Available at: https://www.abmc.gov/news-events/news/american-battle-monuments-commission-celebrates-asian-american-pacific-islander/] (Accessed: 17/03/25)

• Wax, Rosalie H., ‘In and Out of the Tule Lake Segregation Centre: Japanese American Internment in the West, 1942-1945’, Montana The Magazine of Western History, 37:2 (Montana: Montana Historical Society, 1987) p12-25

• War Relocation Authority, ‘Segregation of Persons of Japanese Ancestry in Tule Lake Relocation Centre, August 1943’, (Washington: August 1943) p1-16 (p16), Guy and Marguerite Cook Nisei Collection. [Available at: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1127&context=cook-nisei] (Accessed: 20/11/25)

• Weglyn, Michi, Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993) p156-174 (p164)

• Zhou, Min, ‘Are Asian Americans Becoming “White”?’, Contexts, 3:1 (London: Sage, 2004) p29-37