Landmark Law Cases and American Society

Treason on Trial

Yasuhide Kawashima

• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780700619795
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Legal History
• Index: Law

Iva Ikuku Toguri (1916-2006) was an American citizen, born on the 4th of July. Her parents, first-generation Japanese Americans, embraced their new nation and raised Iva to think, talk, and act like a patriotic American. But, despite her allegiance to the United States, she was forced to spend most of her adult life denying that she was a traitor or that she was World War II's infamous Tokyo Rose. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Iva was nursing an ailing aunt in Japan. Prevented from returning to home, she was viewed with suspicion by the Japanese authorities. They hounded her to renounce her American citizenship, which she adamantly refused to do. Pressured to find employment, she joined Radio Tokyo. Known as Orphan Ann, she did nothing more than emcee brief music segments on "The Zero Hour" during the war's last two years. She was never called "Tokyo Rose" by anyone and was but one of only a dozen or so English-speaking females heard on Japanese airwaves. In need of money to return home after the war, she made the mistake of allowing herself to be interviewed by two ambitious journalists who were certain that she was the Tokyo Rose, even though she denied it. The published story brought Iva to the attention of American authorities who tried and convicted Iva for treason, despite the lack of evidence and a reluctant jury. She was then stripped of her citizenship and sent to prison. Yasuhide Kawashima's account of Toguri's trials are deeply rooted in Japanese language sources, American legal archives, and the cultures of both nations. He identifies heroes and villains in both the United States and Japan and also highlights broader concerns: the internment of thousands of loyal Japanese Americans, the meaning of citizenship, the nation's commitment to the idea of fair trial, the impact of tabloid journalism, and the very concept of treason.Iva was eventually pardoned in 1977 by President Gerald Ford—she was the first person in U.S. history to be pardoned for treason—and had her citizenship restored. Yet when she died in 2006, obituaries continued to identify her as Tokyo Rose. Kafkaesque in its telling, Kawashima's tale provides a harsh reminder that the law does not always render justice.

chapter 1

Born on the Fourth of July

Our family home was located in a typical American community. I went to the neighborhood grammar school and attended church in the neighborhood. I took part in normal activities at school and at church. . . . There was some Japanese spoken in our family until we started to attend public school; thereafter English dominated.

We followed both American and Japanese customs at home. We had both Japanese and American cooking in the home. My parents tried to raise us according to American customs. We celebrated all the national holidays, all Christian holidays . . . anniversaries, birthdays, etc.

iva toguri d’aquino statement, issued through Wayne M. Collins, September 1948, quoted in Masayo Duus, Tokyo Rose: Orphan of the Pacific (1979), 42

In the beautiful foothills of the massive Japan Alps in Yamanashi-ken (prefecture), there was a small farm village (mura), Kagami Nakajo, part of the town of Wakakusa-machi, noted for orchards of delicious peaches. It was in this village Iva’s father, Jun Toguri, was born in 1882. In 1959 this village, together with neighboring towns and villages, was merged and reorganized into a city, Minami Arupusu-shi (South Alps). Toguri was one of the dominant surnames in the village, and Jun grew up surrounded by family members and relatives who all bore the same surname.

After graduating from the Kagami Nakajo Elementary School in 1894, he apparently attended the Kofu Middle School (now Kofu High School) in Kofu, the prefectural capital, some eight miles away, commuting by bicycle with neighboring friends. There is no record of his graduating from the school nor of how many years he attended.

In 1899, at the age of seventeen, Jun immigrated to the United States, landing in Seattle, and was admitted to permanent residency, although he could not then get American citizenship. He moved to Southern California, where he tried working at many jobs, although nothing turned out to be very successful. By the time he reached twenty-one, he had become financially stable and independent. He also managed to get Canadian citizenship, a procedure followed at the time by many Japanese Americans who could not get American citizenship but frequently went back to Japan for visits. This enabled them to come back to the United States by way of Canada, circumventing any possible restrictions imposed on Japanese coming directly from Japan.

In June 1907, when he was twenty-five, Jun returned to Japan and married a nineteen-year-old woman, Fumi Iimura, from his prefecture, Yamanashi. The wedding took place in Yokohama. Jun could not afford to bring his bride with him back to America and instead frequently visited Japan to see her. Their son, Fred, was born in 1910 and baptized in a Japanese Christian church. In 1913, six years after their marriage, Jun was able to bring his wife and their three-year-old son to America. Jun met them in San Francisco where they landed.

The Toguri family was finally reunited. Iva’s parents and brother, who had been born in Japan, all became permanent residents of the United States, but none of them were able to become naturalized citizens until after the McCarran Walter Act passed in 1952, when Jun was already seventy, his wife dead, and Fred, forty-two.

Iva Ikuko Toguri was born on July 4, 1916, in Watts in South Central Los Angeles, the area where the first major black riot erupted in the mid-sixties. At the time of Iva’s birth, the area was a working-class neighborhood dominated by whites. The Toguri family moved around a lot in Southern California, but mainly in the Los Angeles area. Iva was the first American citizen in the family.

In September, two months after Iva’s birth, Jun entered her name in the Family Register (Koseki) of his ancestral family at his native village, Kagami Nakajo, in Yamanashi, Japan. Customary at the time among the Japanese in America, this procedure gave Iva citizenship rights in Japan, but she lost her dual citizenship in 1932 when she was nearly sixteen because her father had the registration canceled. The 1930s were a strenuous period for Japanese Americans. As Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and eventually made it Manchu-ko (“the country of Manchu”), anti-Japanese sentiment grew stronger in the United States. In order to dispel any suspicions attendant on “dual nationality,” many Japanese Americans deleted the names of their nisei (second-generation Japanese American) children from the Japanese family registry to make them fully American. Iva’s father did not register her with the Canadian government, so she lost any eligibility for Canadian citizenship rights. Thus by the time she reached sixteen, Iva Toguri was a citizen of the United States only.

Jun, like many other industrious Japanese immigrants, worked hard while trying various jobs. In 1921, when Iva was four years old, her father took the family to Calexico on the Mexican border to grow cotton. By then the infamous Alien Land Law of 1913 that had originally permitted leasing but in 1920 made it illegal for noncitizens to own or lease agricultural land made Jun’s enterprise unprofitable. After a third child, June, was born there, the family moved to San Diego, where their third daughter, Inez, was born. Finally, in 1927, when his recent series of business ventures proved unsuccessful, Jun Toguri decided to take his family back to Los Angeles. He started a small import business that slowly but surely prospered. It developed into a retail grocery and variety store, specializing in goods from Japan. It was a family operation in which everybody pitched in. Fred was his father’s chief helper, and the daughters helped after school, tending the shop.

After returning to Los Angeles, the family moved several times. They first settled on East 38th Street and then moved to the 1700 block of Wilmington Avenue, a block from their store, Wilmington Avenue Market. Then they moved to 11718 Bandera Avenue, and in 1938, to 11630 Bandera Avenue.

Although Jun’s store sold Japanese groceries and other goods and profited from having a solid Japanese American clientele, the Toguris did not socialize much with Japanese Americans. Throughout the course of the family’s many moves, Jun was not only very careful in selecting a house in a non-Japanese area but was determined to see his children become fully Americanized. The Toguris rarely went to Japanese American festivals, gatherings, and events, and Jun tried to limit their association with other Japanese. Since Jun always tried to find a house in a neighborhood where there were many Caucasians, Iva’s playmates and friends were mainly Caucasians.

English was the primary language spoken at home, and the family belonged to the Methodist Church. The Toguri children were discouraged from speaking Japanese, except to their mother until she learned enough English to communicate with them. This was not the age of diversity in the United States, and the Toguris did indeed become a typical American family. Like many other Japanese American families on the Pacific coast in the thirties, forties, and fifties, the Toguri family was Americanized, pro-American, and independent, believing in Americanism and the American system.

Because Fumi Toguri suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure, Iva, as oldest daughter, took over much of the household responsibility, including looking after her younger sisters. Like most Americans at the time, the Toguris valued self-sufficiency; everybody in the family willingly did the family chores and was self-reliant, unwilling to accept any outside help and support.

Iva was a responsible, competitive, disciplined, and reliable person. While attending public schools, she joined the Girl Scouts, took piano lessons and became an accomplished pianist, and also became a skilled typist. She was active in many sports, including playing tennis on the school team.

Because her family moved around in Southern California, Iva attended many different schools. She went to Hoffman Grammar School in Calexico and Lincoln Heights Grammar School in San Diego. In Los Angeles, she attended the Ascot Avenue Grammar School and McKinley Junior High School. Finally she ended up at Compton Union High School, from which she graduated in 1933. During her high school years, she also attended Compton Japanese Language School on Saturdays as did most nisei children. After graduating from Compton High, Iva attended Compton Junior College for half a year until the winter of 1934. She then transferred to UCLA in the fall of 1935.

During all her childhood and student years she had very little contact with Japanese civilization and tradition. Her strong sense of loyalty to the United States, moreover, somehow forced her to disregard traditional Japanese culture. She had many talents, but in order to become a genuine and true American, Iva seemed to have come to despise everything Japanese, including Japanese foods, especially rice. The Toguri family, though consisting only of issei (first-generation Japanese American) and nisei members, did indeed become the “typical” all-American family.

At UCLA, as a premed student, Iva chose zoology as her major, hoping that it would prepare her better to get into a medical school. Iva’s college life was just like that of other students: she went to football games, dated (usually Japanese American students), and played tennis. She continued to help her father in his business, and during the summer she even helped him drive on long business trips. However, in spite of an upbringing that valued hard work and carrying out one’s obligations, it took nearly eight years for her to complete her bachelor’s degree after her graduation from high school, perhaps because she procrastinated in doing the required schoolwork. In addition, there were many distractions. A ruptured appendix and the resultant complications, for example, forced her to drop out of school for two years.

According to former fellow students of Iva’s, who Masayo Duus interviewed in 1976, Iva was “a lively and lighthearted person, no different from the other American girl students.” She had “an extroverted, outgoing personality” and was “full of energy.” Iva was also remembered to have “a good sense of humor, always kidding and making jokes.” One student got the impression that “she did not have any interest in Japan at all.” “She was more mature and more relaxed,” another recalled, “perhaps because she was older.” Iva was “a completely average American girl,” still another commented and added that he “never got the slightest impression that there was anything particularly Japanese about her.” “She never used strong words,” a conscientious objector student remembered, “but she never budged from the idea that if it were she, she would go and fight for the country, America.”

Upon graduating from UCLA with a bachelor of science in zoology in June 1941, Iva’s wish was to go to a medical school, as her mother also wished her to do. Her undergraduate GPAs, however, might not have been sufficiently high enough for her to be admitted to an American medical school. She excused herself saying that it was difficult for her to get in an American medical school because she was “a Japanese and woman.” One former classmate remembered her talking about going to Japan to study medicine since “she had relatives there who were in the medical field,” though she sometimes expressed her feeling that she had no interest in Japan and things Japanese. This might have been just wishful thinking, however, because Iva’s knowledge of the Japanese language was too poor to pass the entrance examinations of Japanese medical schools or to carry on the regular medical course work. During the summer of 1941, she was therefore contemplating pursuing graduate work in some other field, although nothing specific materialized.

chapter 2

“Aunt Shizu Is Sick”

She could still see them in her mind’s eye as they had been that summer morning—the receding figure of her mother, the cause of the trip. Fumi Toguri had been suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure. Her mother’s figure had held Iva’s gaze until the details had became blurred, and Iva could see only the small figure with raised arm flanked by her brother, Fred, her father, and her two sisters, June and Inez. It had occurred to Iva then that she might not see her mother anymore.

iva toguri on the deck of the Japanese ship Arabia Maru, pulling away from San Pedro, California, on July 5, 1941, Rex Gunn, They Called Her Tokyo Rose (1977), 9

Sometime during June 1941, Iva’s mother, Fumi, received a letter from her brother-in-law, Hajime Hattori, stating that his wife, Shizu, Fumi’s twin sister, was seriously ill with diabetes and high blood pressure and probably on the verge of death, and, therefore, Shizu very much wanted her sister to come and see her before it was too late.

Fumi was in no condition to travel to Japan; she, too, was bedridden with diabetes and high blood pressure. Jun was too busy in his business, in which Fred, who once hoped to become a lawyer, was now heavily involved. Iva’s two sisters were still in school and too young to travel on their own. Iva, it seemed to her parents, was the only family member available to make the trip. After graduating from UCLA, Iva was still pondering her next academic pursuit and doing nothing for the time being except helping her father in the store. So it was natural that her parents would ask Iva to go in her mother’s place. She did not want to go to Japan but reluctantly agreed to visit Aunt Shizu and her family as the family representative.

Was the parents’ decision to send Iva to Japan to inquire after Shizu, in lieu of Fumi, a crucial decision in retrospect, and was it reasonable and well thought-out? The Tokyo Rose case was contingent solely upon the decision Iva’s parents had made. Were there any other options? If someone else or no one went to Japan, Iva would have never encountered her future problems. While Shizu would no doubt be delighted to meet a niece who had traveled all the way from America, especially during the time she was bedridden, it was not that urgent. It was Fumi she was desperate to see, not having seen her twin since Fumi left for America twenty-eight years ago. Did the Hattori family (husband Hajime, daughter Rinko, and two sons) need any additional help in caring for the ailing Shizu?

Nevertheless, because th...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Editors’ Preface
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Guilty!
• 1. Born on the Fourth of July
• 2. “Aunt Shizu Is Sick”
• 3. A Dozen Roses
• 4. The American Paparazzi
• 5. The Attorney General’s Abrupt Decision
• 6. Assembling Witnesses and the Jury Selection
• 7. The Prosecution’s Case
• 8. The Defense Rebuttal
• 9. The Verdict and the Sentence
• 10. Appeals, Threat of Deportation, and Pardon
• Conclusion: Prosecutorial Misconduct and the Coram Nobis Relief
• Chronology
• Bibliographical Essay
• Index
• Back Cover