Japanese Peruvian Enemy Aliens during World War II

Seiichi Higashide was not an agent of the Japanese emperor or a pro-Axis immigrant, and yet he and more than 1,800 other Japanese Peruvians got caught up in a wave of anti-Japanese hysteria during World War II that led to their kidnapping, forced migration, and incarceration in hastily erected camps in Texas and New Mexico. Higashide and his family were detained as “illegal aliens” in an Immigration and Naturalization Service detention facility in Texas alongside thousands of other foreigners in other camps spread across the Southwest. After the war, Higashide and his family worked at Seabrook Farms, a food processing complex in New Jersey, which was essentially a prison work camp. In the 1950s, the Higashides became US citizens, but the trauma of detention and racism remains with the family. The Higashides’ story reveals the intersection between US empire, national security, and immigrant detention.

“You Don’t Know Exactly Which Country You Have to Belong To”

This article examines the 1931 desegregation case based in Southeast San Diego County, Roberto Alvarez v. Lemon Grove Independent School District, through the lens of the deportation regime. This analysis reveals the ways new pressures from deportation-based immigration policies initiated in the 1920s complicated widely shared notions of transnational Mexicano identity and emphasized differences in nativity and citizenship status. The practice of apprehending individuals identified as “illegal aliens” took on a new form during the repatriation efforts of the Great Depression—removal. Within this new context, this article highlights the significance of the fact that working-class Mexican-origin migrant parents mobilized to demand educational equality for their children and to reject segregation. It illuminates how the Lemon Grove Mexican-origin community gave expression to a more expansive notion of their anti-segregation worldview than that found in the court ruling. They envisioned a community that was transnational and inclusive regardless of citizenship status, and they challenged segregation beyond mere claims to whiteness, critiquing inequality of resources with little reference to assimilationist goals.

Indians and Invaders: The Citizenship Clause and Illegal Aliens

10 University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law 499