"It's Not Racist Because They're Not a Race": Race, Racism, and Japanese American Incarceration

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: Student Identity and Learning About Marginalized Histories

Abstract

This paper analyzes lessons on Japanese American incarceration during WWII to explore the problems and possibilities in creating a critical and inclusive narrative of racism in U.S. history. Data are from a qualitative case study of the teaching of U.S. history in three 11th grade classes. Drawing on critical theories of race and racism in sociology and education, I demonstrate how teachers were successful in addressing racism, but also how their understandings of race obscured the structural and systemic aspects of racism in the incarceration of Japanese Americans. I arguing that understanding race as a process of racialization is key in representing the structural and systemic racism experienced and resisted by diverse racial and ethnic groups throughout U.S. history.

Author

• John S. Wills, University of California - Riverside