Tokyo Rose in Chicago

[Manigault]

Several of the Japanese who were thrown off the West Coast are still living in Hyde Park.

[paytonc]

There was a Reader cover story on Tokyo Rose many years ago; it is one of the more curious local history tidbits I remember reading about.

Originally Posted by Drover

It's still there, one of the last reminders of when south Wrigleyville/Boystown was Japantown.

...and the Nisei Lounge, on Clark east of Sheffield, "nisei" being a second-generation Japanese-American. I've also heard the bit about the forced eastward migration from the camps, and many ended up in Chicago since it's where the western train lines end.

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by Drover

It's still there, one of the last reminders of when south Wrigleyville/Boystown was Japantown. That and some of the old-school sushi joints along Clark.

yup - I studied karate at the dojo upstairs, it's an interesting store, to say the least.

kind of funny when you realize a place like the Alley is now old school.

[Basekamp]

I think that we as Americans can learn from this story as we can with all stories, but also we need to learn the whole of the history involved here. A strongly significant (not majority but statistically significant) percentage of Japanese living in America were pro-emperor, in fact the emperor was divine by Japan's religion and of course, commanded obedience. As America was busy with supplying one war and fighting another as soon as Pearl Harbor happened, there was not a lot of time to run around playing "whose the spy?" with our tens of millions of population when we knew that the Japanese of the day were possibly the most fiercely nationalistic population in world history and also our new sworn enemy. In fact, to this day many Japanese in Japan bear racial and nationalistic superiority complex to the nations around them and other races of the world. At any rate... in addition to the significantly (again, not majority but significantly) correlated allegiances of Japanese in America at the time... Americans had decided to drumm up an all new nationalistic fervor and that was also unfortunately also racially based (to drum up the populations will to fight a rationed war against the Japanese.) As a result, many Japanese Americans were in direct danger of physical harm or worse from working class--"little to lose" ---population harboring ill will. The real and significant threat of spy or sabatuer Japanese combined with the real and significant threat to peaceful Japanese from US citizens required segregation. The only quick and effective way to do that was camps. Extreme? By today's standards yes. but the standard to the day dictated something completely different. An era of nationalistic pride fueled total wars that decimated an entire generation of the world's population on a premise of pride. Today, I'd hope this wouldn't happen again, but outside of fiction teaching our children that yes indeed inequity can be created by a good system, there is no historical benefit to spin Tokyo rose or any other story of the Japanese of the day into a US-holocaust type story which is not only historically incorrect, but frankly insulting to a generation that bled so we can live in our condos and eat and drink without ever rising a scythe to the grain or a sword to defend it.