Federal Government Uses of the Japanese-Language Press from Pearl Harbor to Mass Incarceration

Abstract

During World War II, federal officials used the Japanese “enemy language” press to pacify Japanese Americans and facilitate mass incarceration. While making efforts to preserve the press as a symbol of American democracy, the Office of Facts and Figures, and later the Office of War Information, sought to use it as a messenger of governmental news and views, as a morale builder among Japanese Americans, and as a defense against Axis propaganda from abroad.