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Show ABSTRACT World War II and the attack on the US Naval Base at Pearl Harbor caused racist and bigoted actions to be taken against Japanese Americans in the United States. Executive Order 9066, signed by President Roosevelt in 1942, forced Japanese Americans on the West Coast to move from their homes into “relocation” camps in the interior West. The Army’s need for troops gave Japanese Americans an opportunity to show their patriotism and loyalty to the country that had interned them in camps. This brings up the question as to how they were portrayed by news organizations in the United States, specifically Utah, which had a thriving Japanese American community as well as an internment camp within its borders. This video documentary shows how Utah newspapers covered the Japanese American troops of the 100th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team, from statewide, larger newspapers like the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune to smaller ones, such as the Millard County Chronicle and Utah Nippo. Some news accounts showed the bravery of the soldiers and their accomplishments. However, other than the Japanese-run Utah Nippo, all of them occasionally fell into racist wording and tropes that stained the country during this period. This project shows that bigotry and hatred can still be seen in some media, no matter what the recipients have accomplished for their country. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii INTRODUCTION 1 METHOD 3 PRODUCING THE DOCUMENTARY 4 CONCLUSION 5 REFERENCES 7 APPENDIX: LINK TO DOCUMENTARY FILM 8 iii 1 INTRODUCTION As nations began to fight in World War II, news coverage of the struggle filled newspapers around the globe. The United States of America had managed to stay out of an active role since fighting broke out in Europe on September 1, 1939. This all changed on December 7, 1941. That morning, the Japanese engaged in a surprise attack on the US Naval Base at Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii. This attack led Congress to declare war on the Japanese and the other Axis powers in the following days. The United States would spend the next four years fighting Nazi Germany and fascist Italy across Africa and Europe, as well as fighting imperial Japan across the Pacific and Asia. The war came amid the complexities of immigration. The 1940 Census recorded 126,947 people of Japanese ancestry in the United States out of a total population of more than 131 million (US Department of Commerce, 1943). About 110,000 Japanese Americans lived on the West Coast, not only in cities like San Francisco and Seattle but also in rural areas (Niiya, 2021). Two-thirds of the people of Japanese descent were American citizens, born in the United States. They were known as Nisei, or second generation, while the parents of the Nisei who migrated to the United States were known as Issei, or first generation. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized the Army to evacuate all Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. Initially placed in temporary “assembly centers,” evacuees were then transported to semi-permanent camps in remote locations, primarily in the Western United States, where most remained until the war ended in 1945. One of these camps, known as Topaz, was constructed near Delta, Utah. Left with very few of their belongings and the possibility of their homes and businesses not being 2 returned to them once they got back, these displaced people faced a grim future (Burton et al., 2002). The need for soldiers to fight a global war was severe enough to make its way to the “relocation camps,” including Topaz. In 1943, Nisei men were able to volunteer (or were sometimes coerced) to join the Army. By 1944, they were eligible for the draft, and thousands were inducted from the camps. These men were not allowed to serve in the Navy or Marines, and they were usually not allowed to fight in the Pacific Theatre. It is notable that these same requisites were non-existent for German and Italian Americans who were fighting in the US military. Most Nisei served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team or 100th Infantry Battalion, which fought as a unit for most of their deployment. These troops saw intense combat during campaigns in the Southern European and Italian Theatres. Their casualty rate was extremely high, and they were awarded thousands of medals for valor (Odo, 2024a; Odo, 2024b). With events transpiring quickly in the United States after Pearl Harbor, news organizations had large quantities of potential stories to cover. One of the most notable stories would be the depiction of the 110,000 incarcerated Japanese Americans and their treatment by their own government due to the actions of people they had no connections with, except by ancestry. The most intriguing of those stories would be the Japanese American Nisei soldiers fighting not only for their country, but in a way, for their freedom. Were these soldiers treated with the same respect and honor for their courage and bravery as their white counterparts? Or would the coverage resemble that of rhetoric that the United States government was spewing about these Americans in a post-Pearl Harbor America? Would there even be any coverage of these soldiers? 3 METHOD To narrow down the coverage, I decided to focus on the coverage by newspapers within Utah. Newspapers were chosen because they are extensively archived and preserved, unlike radio broadcasts from the 1940s. Utah had its own Japanese communities, mostly in rural areas of northern Utah as well as Ogden. Salt Lake City had a thriving Japantown with businesses, houses of worship, and a bilingual newspaper (Manwill, 2024; Niiya, 2023). As previously mentioned, Utah was also the location of one of the 10 internment camps that held Japanese Americans forcibly evacuated from the West Coast. With these connections to the Japanese Americans, it is natural that Utah newspapers would cover those stories. I analyzed how the two major Utah newspapers, The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News, portrayed the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and 100th Infantry Battalion. Smaller local newspapers were also analyzed. Those included Utah Nippo, an Issei-run newspaper that was published in Salt Lake City’s Japantown. Utah Nippo gave an insight on the soldiers as well as those incarcerated at Topaz from a perspective that the other organizations did not have. After choosing what newspapers to analyze, I then used digital archives to find stories by using keywords and phrases such as “442nd,” “100th,” “Topaz,” and other terms. To find the portrayals of the Japanese American troops during World War II specifically, I focused the searches from 1942, the year the 100th Infantry Battalion was created, to 1946, the year after the war ended and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was deactivated. Looking at both the headlines and contents of the stories as well, I inductively determined common themes that appeared in news stories. After finding many different articles on the Nisei soldiers from the different newspapers, I analyzed 4 how they were portrayed and the different ways to categorize the portrayals. Categorizing them allowed the next part of the project to be easier and more seamless. There were three broad categories: stories from larger newspapers that sometimes used racist or hateful language, such as the anti-Japanese slurs of “Jap” and “Nip,” or falsely likening American-born citizens to “enemy aliens” when talking about the troops; articles that praised the units and the soldiers in them for their accomplishments; and stories from Utah Nippo that showed how Japanese Americans viewed and wrote about their peers. PRODUCING THE DOCUMENTARY After compiling stories for the project, it was time to use the articles to begin writing a script for the video documentary project. The script is important. Editing and producing a documentary are the “how,” but the script is the “what.” The script would show the findings and observations from the research process to their fullest extent. In order to create a narrative structure for the script that makes sense, using the outline that was created by the previous categorization of the stories, I was able to group them together in a timeline that followed a linear story following the Japanese Americans. This timeline went from before the Pearl Harbor attack, to the internment of the Japanese Americans, then throughout the war and afterwards as they continued to receive awards for their service. While writing the script, I found archival film, mostly from government sources, that had visual references to the subjects that had been written into the story. Still photographic assets were used to help the narrative of the story continue forward in a way that makes sense and tells a story that needs to be told while also illustrating important information and findings from the research. These assets were found in the same way that 5 the newspapers and videos were found, using resources such as the Library of Congress and National Archives. Photography and videography in a project like this are important because showing, not telling, is what makes a documentary an effective means to convey history. Visually depicting events without needing to explain them too much can help the narrative move forward in a natural and interesting way. Showing racist headlines featuring slurs like “Jap” and “Nip,” not just talking about them in the script, demonstrates the reality of the casual racism that Nisei soldiers faced. Hearing and seeing a contemporary newsreel about the awards that the units received adds to the importance of the accomplishments of the 442nd as the most decorated unit for its size and length of service in US military history (US Army, 2025). Once all the assets were added to the script, it was time to record narration audio and begin the editing process. Once the editing process began, it was important to make sure that the assets fit logically within the script and accurately illustrated the findings from the research portion of the project. I had to make sure that all of the observations that seemed important to my main question on how Utah newspapers portrayed the Japanese American troops during the war were accounted for, and that all the articles and findings were presented in a way that makes sense and is understandable. This was important to help ensure that the project can have the impact that it should have in order to honor this unique chapter in American history. CONCLUSION In this project, the main goal was to visually document how Utah newspapers portrayed Japanese American soldiers who risked their lives in World War II for the United States of America. Some context of how they were treated in general by the 6 government and how their families were portrayed as they were being interned was deemed important because showing their treatment after the attack on Pearl Harbor could demonstrate the difference between then and after their service in combat. Their service record was also deemed important to show, as it details just how accomplished the soldiers were and how they were worthy of the honors that they would go on to receive. It also shows that bigotry was still ingrained in some stories and unfairly directed at brave heroes who had sacrificed their lives for the country that threw them and their families into camps just for being of Japanese descent. The importance of this project comes from the bigotry that they faced and how it can be repeated. This story shows that at any time, in any place, including the United States, people’s sacrifices can be discredited or not taken as seriously as they should even by the media, due to the way that they look or what country they or their families may be from. It marks a dark spot in our state and country’s history, one that should never be repeated. 7 REFERENCES Burton, J. F.; Farrell, M. M.; Lord, F. B.; & Lord, R. W. (2002). Confinement and ethnicity: An overview of World War II Japanese American relocation sites. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Manwill, J. (2024). Japantown, Salt Lake City. Intermountain Histories, https://www.intermountainhistories.org/items/show/446 Niiya, B. (2023). Utah Nippo (newspaper). In Densho Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Utah_Nippo_(newspaper)/ Niiya, B. (2021). Ask a historian: How many Japanese Americans were incarcerated during WWII? In Densho Catalyst, https://densho.org/catalyst/how-manyjapanese-americans-were-incarcerated-during-wwii/ Odo, F. (2024a). 100th Infantry Battalion. In Densho Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.densho.org/100th%20Infantry%20Battalion Odo, F. (2024b). 442nd Regimental Combat Team. In Densho Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.densho.org/442nd%20Regimental%20Combat%20Team US Army Public Affairs. (2025, March 15). Key military unit: The 442nd Regimental Combat Team. US Army Center for Military History, https://www.army.mil/article/283793/key_military_unit_the_442nd_regimental_c ombat_team US Department of Commerce (1943). Sixteenth census of the United States: 1940 (vol. 2, Characteristics of the population). Washington: US Government Printing Office. 8 APPENDIX: LINK TO DOCUMENTARY Utah Media Portrayals of Japanese American Troops During World War II, https://youtu.be/1TZcF9xTI4w Name of Candidate: Gage Versteeg Date of Submission: July 15, 2025 |
