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By Root 1351 0

even the rise of Hitler—and reports of atrocities by refugees who had seen firsthand the horrors committed by Third Reich—could not induce the country to enter another world war. Far-sighted American leaders made the case that if the United States did not enter the fray quickly it might well be too late to save itself. Even this dire warning could not engender support for action. Noninterventionist feelings remained so high that President Franklin Roosevelt made neutrality an important part of his 1940 reelection campaign. Addressing the mothers and fathers of America, he promised, “I have said this before and I shall say it again and again and again. Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.”

On December 7, 1941, Japan solved the quandary for America’s leaders, by launching a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

Earlier that year, Roosevelt had already ordered an embargo on war supplies to Japan—an embargo made politically feasible in part by the Chinese American rallies on the shipping docks. The Japanese high command, fearful that their plan for Asian conquest would be thwarted, recommended to Emperor Hirohito a short-sighted and, in retrospect, suicidal response—an aerial attack on the American Pacific Fleet in Hawaii. At dawn on December 7, carrier-based Japanese planes bombed the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, sinking or badly damaging twenty-one naval vessels, destroying almost two hundred American aircraft on the ground, and killing or wounding approximately three thousand naval and military personnel.

From that moment forward, America no longer considered the Pacific war a remote Asian event. The next day, in his address before Congress, Roosevelt, referring to December 7, 1941, as “a date which will live in infamy,” asked the legislature to declare that “since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December seventh, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.” Japan’s allies—Nazi Germany and Italy—quickly declared war on the United States, thrusting the formerly isolationist country into a titanic global struggle on both sides of the world.

Almost overnight, the attack on Pearl Harbor transformed the American image of China and Japan—and redistributed stereotypes for both Chinese and Japanese Americans. Suddenly the media began depicting the Chinese as loyal, decent allies, and the Japanese as a race of evil spies and saboteurs. After the attack, a Gallup poll found that Americans saw the Chinese as “hardworking, honest, brave, religious, intelligent, and practical” and the Japanese as “treacherous, sly, cruel, and warlike”—each almost a perfect fit with one or the other of two popular stereotypes formerly promoted by Hollywood, in characters like Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu. The unspoken question for many Americans was how to tell the good guys from the bad guys. On December 22, 1941, Time, the premier newsweekly in the United States at the time, published an article entitled “How to Tell Your Friends from the Japs.” According to Time:

Virtually all Japanese are short ... Japanese are likely to be stockier and broader-hipped than short Chinese. Japanese—except for wrestlers—are seldom fat; they often dry up and grow lean as they age. The Chinese often put on weight, particularly if they are prosperous (in China, with its frequent famines, being fat is esteemed as a sign of being a solid citizen). Chinese, not as hairy as Japanese, seldom grow an impressive mustache. Most Chinese avoid horn-rimmed spectacles. Although both have the typical epicanthic fold of the upper eyelid (which makes them look almond-eyed), Japanese eyes are usually set closer together. Those who know them best often rely on facial expression to tell them apart: the Chinese expression is likely to be more placid, kindly, open; the Japanese more positive, dogmatic, arrogant.... Japanese are hesitant, nervous in conversation, laugh loudly at the wrong time. Japanese walk stiffly erect, hard heeled. Chinese, more relaxed, have an easy gait, sometimes shuffle.

Time