ANTHROPOLOGISTS IN THE WARTIME CAMPS FOR JAPANESE AMERICANS: A DOCUMENTARY STUDY

The historical role of social scientists, particularly anthropologists, in the War Relocation Authority, established in Mar 1942 to administer relocation camps for Japanese Americans, is reviewed. Out of 27 staff members of the Community Analysis Section, 20 were anthropologists. They supported such policies as relocation of Japanese evacuees in white communities & segregation of "disloyal" evacuees in a special camp. Their predictions as to the effects of these policies were never borne out, apart from those of Marvin K. Opler, whose critical analysis of the situation was rejected. Community analysts' reports failed to deal adequately with crucial anthropological concerns, eg, kinship & language; further, they tended to label evacuees as mentally ill. A review of these & other reports reveals a failure to understand the issues confronting Japanese Americans during & after WWII, as well as a lack of serious anthropological scholarship. Staff anthropologists were more loyal to the bureaucracy than to their discipline, to the point of losing touch with the people they were supposed to study. This casts serious doubt on the record of US anthropology in general. W. H. Stoddard.