Fears
About the Breakdown of Family Authority
"Almost every aspect of Relocation Center
life--the mass feeding, the close quartering, the thin partitions between
family compartments, the occasional doubling up of small families in a single
compartment, the absence of normal economic opportunities--tended almost
inevitably to disintegrate the pre-war structure of evacuee family life.
Housewives, freed of all responsibility
for family cooking and largely relieved of other household burdens, began to
assert themselves more openly and sought about to find new outlets for their
energies. This tendency was particularly
disruptive among the older people since the housewife in Japanese Society has
traditionally occupied a distinctly inferior status. At the same time, however, these housewives
and mothers were themselves profoundly disturbed by the lessening of parental
authority over the children. Along with the fathers, they frequently voiced
concern about the bad table manners, the increasing frivolity, and even the
occasional insolence which they had noted in their sons and daughters since the
arrival at the Relocation Centers.
The teenage youngsters of Japanese
ancestry, who had established an admirably low record of juvenile delinquency
in their former homes on the Pacific Coast, showed a marked tendency toward
rowdiness in Relocation Centers. And in
more than one Center, the formation of rather distinct juvenile
"gangs" was noted."
Source: 2nd
Quarterly Report July 1-September 30, 1942.
War Relocation Authority. Papers of Philleo Nash, PhD (Anthropology).
Special Assistant to the Director for White House Liaison, Office of War
Information, 1942-1946.
