The tug of loyalty
From Maureen Mullarkey
Sir: Stephen Schwartz makes passing reference to the 'lamented 1941 internment of Japanese Americans' (The Saudi connection', 22 September). There is less to lament than current ideological fashion admits.
After Pearl Harbor, almost one third — 5.620 — of the 16,849 Japanese and Japanese Americans interned renounced their American citizenship to facilitate repatriation to Japan. An additional 20,000 Japanese Americans in Japan at the start of the war joined the emperor's war effort,
with hundreds joining the Japanese army.
In July 1944 Congress, under pressure from Japanese Americans, enacted Public Law 405, which allowed citizens to renounce their citizenship in time of war — this, while the US was anticipating a Japanese invasion of the West Coast. Moreover, many Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans refused to take a loyalty oath or promise to obey US laws. There were no similar refusals among the internees of European ancestry, who comprised 56 per cent of the total.
Maureen Mullarkey
New York, United States
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