USC to give honorary degrees to Japanese American students 80 years too late

In 1941, Jiro Oishi was a senior majoring in business administration at USC, with only four finals left to graduate. On Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor occurred, he was reviewing for his final exams. A couple of days later, one exciting morning of final presentations, Oishi was heading toward school, when his father called him: the FBI was at his house looking for a man named Goro Jull Aro Oishi.

During dinner, Oishi’s parents informed him that the targeted man was in his 60s. To clear his name and the misunderstanding, Oishi approached the nearest police station the next morning, but as soon as they saw his heritage, Japanese American, they arrested him without hesitation.

Oishi was locked in a prison in Los Angeles and was later transferred to a federal prison in Montana while waiting for his trial.

A month later, the trial came through. As the judge saw the age difference between the person they wanted to arrest and Oishi, he let him go and put him on a bus back to California. It was then when Oishi crashed into reality: Executive Order 9066 was in place, and he had to gather his belongings and relocate to one of the 10 declared internment camps.

In the 1960s, 15 years after Oishi was released from the internment camp, he decided to finally finish his bachelor’s degree. With two daughters, this decision was not easy to make, aggravated by what awaited him. USC claimed to have lost his transcripts, together with the documents of 121 Nisei students who were unable to finish their studies, denying him the opportunity to continue his education.

“When our dad told us the story both my sister and I looked up to each other and we just couldn’t believe that it was true,” Joanne Kumamoto, one of Oishi’s two daughters, said.

USC was the only school on the West Coast that denied their students their transcripts. In 2009, other universities gave amends to living and dead Nisei students for what happened during World War II, USC has fought back.[JD1]

In 2021, USC finally announced that it will issue an apology and honorary degrees to former Nisei students, both living and deceased, in April 2022. However, this decision comes 80 years after the Executive Order was declared, and 13 years later than any other university in California.

A history of oppression against Japanese Americans

The history of racism against Japanese Americans runs deep. As Japanese Americans settled in Sacramento, California in 1869 and started taking large portions of land to work on, the government issued the Alien Land Law in 1913 to remove their power from owning land.

In 1924, further limitations were declared: the Immigrants Exclusion Act limited the number of immigrants allowed to enter the United States.

The already unwelcoming environment toward Japanese Americans was reinforced by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, which provoked President Franklin Roosevelt to enter World War II and to release Executive Order 9066. The order authorized the evacuation of people who are considered a threat to national security from the West Coast to one of the 10 designated relocation camps across the United States.

Around 12,000 Japanese Americans were deprived of their freedom as they saw their businesses close, families and friends separated and children forced out of school. The camps were located in the states of California, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Arkansas, Utah and Idaho, and were called “War Relocation Centers”, “Jap Camps” or “Concentration Camps.”

When the order was released, Oishi, who had just arrived in California from Montana, decided to marry his wife to be relocated to the same camp. They were both sent to the internment camp located in Gila, Arizona, where Joanne claimed that her parents’ testimony emphasized how “dusty, sandy and warm” the camps were. In them, the sense of privacy was ignored, as they slept on mattresses in crowded barracks with other families.

As Oishi was educated, he was assigned to be a teacher, something he was not prepared for nor wanted to do in his life.

“My mom said that she walked past by our father’s classroom and the children were sticking pencils through the tar paper walls,” Kumamoto said. “He was not planning to be a teacher, but that was his assignment.”

Click here to look at pictures of Manzanar Internment Camp, located in California.

World War II ended in 1945. Seven years later, the Immigration and Nationality Act was declared, resuming Asian immigration, and allowing them to become citizens. However, the environment on the West Coast was still hostile. According to Susan Kamei, Managing Director of the Spatial Sciences Institute housed in USC Dornsife, and professor of a course that teaches the legal ramifications of the World War II incarceration of persons of Japanese ancestry, there was “public pressure” of not wanting Japanese Americans to come back. Terrorist activities including burnings and gunshots took place to “scare them off,” and Japanese Americans, whose home was in California, were frightened to come back. Among them, Oishi, who, after being released from the camp, moved to Chicago.

According to Kamei, the environment continued seeing the Japanese as the enemy. People of Japanese ancestry, whether they were citizens of Japan or American-born citizens “were lumped together with being the enemy” and loyal to Japan.

USC, as a private institution, took its own actions into encouraging this environment.

USC as a key actor of racism against Japanese Americans

As the environment became more welcoming, Japanese Americans started to return to California to continue their education. But former Trojan students had to face an additional obstacle: USC did not welcome them back. As their school denied them entry, the students asked the university for their transcripts to continue elsewhere. Little did they expect that their university was going to become the only school in the West Coast to deny students from receiving their transcripts. Johnathan Kaji, former president of USC’s Asian Pacific Alumni Association, said that the university decided to act against these students “solely on the basis of race,” and that it “severely impacted” the trajectory of their careers.

Oishi was one of the victims of USC’s policy and found a space to continue his studies at the University of California, Riverside, where they worked out a system and recognized some of the units he took during the four years he was at school. Oishi, however, remained a Trojan football and basketball fan until 2002, when he passed away.

Jonathan Kaji has pushed the university to release an apology and honorary degrees to all Nisei students whose education was denied after World War II. Hopes were raised when in 2009 the Assembly Bill 37 was declared, requiring schools in the California State University and California Community Colleges to award honorary degrees to Japanese American students who were displaced during World War II, either living or who have passed. However, as a private institution, USC ignored the bill.

It was not until 2012 that USC gave honorary degrees to former Nisei students. However, the decision only included the ones who were still alive, excluding more than 100 students. Oishi, having passed away 10 years before, was among the students who did not receive the degree.

Jonathan Kaji was invited to the ceremony but decided not to participate, as he believed that issuing honorary degrees to only nine people was not enough.

“After I refused to participate, I was ostracized by the university and by some members of the Asian Pacific Alumni Association,” Kaji said. “They would not talk to me anymore, nor respond to my calls or emails and eventually pushed me out of the university.”

Two presidents and 80 years later, President Carol Folt took over USC. Kaji saw in this new leader an opportunity and approached her to inform her of the battle he had been fighting for the past 14 years. Finally, he was heard.

President Carol Folt announced that in April 2022 USC will give reparations for their past mistakes: they will be issuing an apology and honorary degrees to all Nisei students whose studies were interrupted as a consequence of World War II. Among these students is Oishi, who has waited 80 years. Kumamoto will receive the award on his behalf.

“My grandson, who would be my father’s great-grandson, is graduating next year,” Kumamoto said. “When I shared the news with him, he said, ‘Grandpa and I will get our degrees in the same year.’”