How did a different set of economic motives make a major difference in the way Hawaii handled national security policies and practices during World War II?

Hawaii was the site of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and had the largest concentration of Japanese Americans in the country. Yet no mass incarceration took place on the islands. Why?

Japanese Americans provided most of the island's skilled labor (including a great many Army employees) and a mass evacuation would severely disrupt Oahu. Although President Roosevelt wanted to remove Japanese Americans from Hawaii,

The 'Big Five' families of Hawaii's politically dominant white plantation aristocracy formed an influential barrier to evacuation. Indeed, Roosevelt was convinced that Emmons (Hawaiian Defense Commander) took his information from the 'Big Five,' and he remarked scornfully to the Cabinet after evacuation was defeated that the plan was stymied by the pineapple and sugar growers, who wished to retain their Japanese laborers.^[7]

7. By Order of the President, Page 157.

Copyright ©1997-2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.