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Reviews
| Nisei Linguists: Japanese Americans in the Military Intelligence Service during World War II. By James C. McNaughton. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 2006. xv + 514 pp. Photographs, tables, charts, maps, notes, bibliography, and index. $29.00 (paper).
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Evaluating an "official history" is tricky. James McNaughton's Nisei Linguists is such a work—one that offers an interpretive frame and narrative sanctioned by the military. Published by the Department of the Army, the book provides a wealth of information that the "command historian" marshaled from government archives, oral histories, and many other sources. Nisei Linguists is rich in substance and well researched. Yet from a scholarly standpoint, the positive aspects of this encyclopedic work are overridden by the problems rooted in its identity as an official military history. |
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Focusing on little-known "accomplishments" of second-generation Japanese American (Nisei) soldiers who served in the Military Intelligence Service on the Pacific front, the book traces the mobilization during World War II of Japanese-speaking Nisei for intelligence work; their training in the U.S.; their activities in the South Pacific, the Philippines, and Okinawa; and their eventual role of facilitating the transformation of "enemies into friends" in occupied Japan. The book is chronologically organized, and hence it is easy to follow the complex trajectory between 1940 and 1946. For military buffs and family members of these soldiers, the detailed accounts would make this book enjoyable to read, but casual readers may find it too onerous to digest the dazzling amount of information. |
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For scholars of race and ethnicity, what matters most is the narrative scheme of Nisei Linguists. It tends to uncritically celebrate the loyalty of Nisei soldiers, albeit against the background of wartime U.S. racism, which makes their achievements look even more impressive. This scheme is a classic example of not only orthodox Japanese American history but also of postwar racial liberalist discourse, which permits the national inclusion of nonwhites based on their acceptance of American patriotism. Indeed, McNaughton ends his narration by citing the statement of a white major general: "If you Japanese-Americans are ever questioned as to your loyalty, don't even bother to reply. The magnificent work [of Nisei linguists] in the field has been seen by your fellow Americans of many racial extractions. Their testimony to your gallant deeds under fire will speak so loudly that you need not answer" (p. 462). |
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Set against the wartime incarceration of West Coast Japanese, this argument underscores the main theme of the book and many other books on Nisei soldiers: the disavowal of anti-Japanese racism and recognition of their legitimacy as Americans on the basis of their uncompromised loyalty. Regardless of his intention, McNaughton's narrative allows the U.S. Army to distance itself from the internment-style racism it had once practiced against Japanese Americans in early 1942. Through the patriotism of Nisei linguists celebrated in this book, Japanese America rehabilitates itself as an integral part of multiracial America despite the wartime accusations of their being enemy agents. Readers, too, would feel good about the current state of the nation, as it has ostensibly overcome villainous racism. It seems to be a win-win situation for all. But what is conveniently left out of the book's narration and the readers' minds is this fundamental question: Why did Nisei have to go to extra lengths to prove their loyalty for recognition as full-fledged Americans when no Euro-Americans faced the same challenge? The book's tacit validation of this special rule for Nisei—and implicitly for other minorities—should leave scholars of race and ethnicity in frustration. Notwithstanding its impeccable research and commendable attention to detail, Nisei Linguists serves to bolster perfunctorily the multiculturalist nationalism of present-day America and the racially integrated military machine based on it.
Eiichiro Azuma
University of Pennsylvania
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