This article examines how the federal government controlled the Japanese “enemy language” newspapers in Japanese American “relocation centers” during World War II. Camp officials were facing a dilemma: They knew Japanese news media would promote effective information dissemination, but no one understood the language. As a compromising solution, they limited Japanese contents to verbatim translations of official English releases. They also conducted thorough background examinations of translators to sort out “unquestionably loyal” bilingual Japanese. Press freedom inside the barbed wire fences was conditional at best; it was even more so in the enemy’s language.
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