"Throughout the twentieth century...propaganda has been one of the crucial tools of warfare and has been enlisted to manipulate the ideas, attitudes, conclusions, and tolerance levels of civilians and soldiers.” Lynette Finch, Psychological Propaganda, page 370
Government Propaganda is a major proponent during any war, and World War II was no exception. On top of other media methods, the United States government released numerous propaganda posters to encourage the American public to support war efforts and rally against common enemies. Unfortunately, such propaganda became a way to promote racist stereotypes against Japan and the Japanese.
Since the end of World War II, many scholars have observed the countless examples of propaganda used throughout the era. While propaganda is far from an American-only phenomenon, studying the nation's propaganda offers insight into encouraged mindsets during the time. As this first poster, released by the U.S. Navy, demonstrates, the United States military emphasized the perceived advantages the Japanese had against the U.S. to encourage United States' citizens to maintain efforts against a common enemy. While informational posters gained traction, more caricaturized and simple posters took precedence, spreading dangerous racial stereotypes against the Japanese.
"Propagandists in Washington and Hollywood depicted the Japanese as a faceless mass of subhuman enemies worthy of extermination." - Christina Klein, Cold War Orientalism, page 4
Both caricatures of the Japanese as well as depictions of the Japanese as animals gained traction in propaganda posters throughout 1942 to 1945. As historian John Dower explains, the United States framed the Japanese as an “other” during World War II, offering that, “the Western allies...persisted in their notion of the ‘subhuman’ nature of the Japanese, routinely turning to images of apes and vermin to convey this” (Dower 9). Such tactics can be seen in the adjoining poster, depicting the Japanese as a rat, removing humanity from the equation. Christina Klein offers that the inhuman factor that played a role in many propaganda posters contributed to the continued idea of Japan as an enemy that needed to be neutralized (Klein 4). The attack on Pearl Harbor instilled a deep-seeded fear of another Japanese attack on U.S. soil, sparking instances of hysteria (Daniels 200-201). The government capitalized on such fears, using propaganda as a tool to channel American fear into the war effort, especially encouraging support in the fight against Japan.
"Hysteria seems to have infected almost everyone... The psychological impact of the attack on Pearl Harbor was tremendous. In the ensuing crisis, some of the best and worst instincts of the American people came into play." -Daniels, Asian America, pages 200-201
Depictions of the Japanese threat did not stop with animals. Even instances of human portrayals utilized a stereotypical Japanese caricature. The adjacent poster demonstrates a small-scale Japanese caricature. However, this poster also highlights another aspect of anti-Japanese propaganda during World War II. As this poster demonstrates, American propaganda separated the German people from Hitler and the Nazi regime while grouping all Japanese civilians with Emperor Hirohito and the Japanese military regime. Establishing Japanese civilians as equally threatening as the Japanese government and military led to a demonization of the entire nation rather than its specific regime of the time. This discernment between the Germans and the Nazi regime as opposed to the Japanese as a whole shows the ways that racism played a part in American propaganda against Japan.
While the previous poster offered a small-scale caricature of Emperor Hirohito to represent Japan, the following poster from the State Forest Service offers a more prevalent caricature of the Emperor. The caricature features Hirohito with large teeth and pronounced canines, and a scrunched appearance around his forehead, nose, and eyes. The stereotypical influence of the drawing of the Japanese emperor is apparent when juxtaposed next to the depiction of Adolph Hitler. While the drawing does not depict Hitler in an appealing light, it also does not depict any racially stereotypical characteristics. So, much like the previous poster, there is a stark contrast between depictions of the Nazi regime and the Japanese empire. Even more pronounced caricatures of the Japanese erupted as World War II progressed, offering combined depictions of racist stereotypes and inhuman imagery.
“In publications and in the popular consciousness of the people who read them, the Japanese could exist as malicious subhuman creatures bent on the destruction of the American nation itself.” - Brandon Seto, "Paternalism and Peril", page 60
"Tokio Kid" was a recurring image depicting the Japanese during World War II. As Brandon Seto explains, the depictions of the Japanese in media allowed the American people to view the Japanese as inhuman threats that would not surrender until the demolition of the United States (Seto 60). However, such depictions were loosely based on encounters with the Japanese military, not civilians. Thus, American propaganda generalized the Japanese populace based on portrayals of military combatants. On top of this, the depictions further established the Japanese as inhuman or subhuman, further separating the Japanese from accurate depictions in American propaganda. The adjacent "Tokio Kid" poster displays a vampiric figure, with large fangs and pointed ears, to represent the Japanese enemy. Improper English grammar is used when depicting the thoughts of "Tokio Kid," intended to mock Japanese accents. The appearance of "Tokio Kid" provided a completely inhuman character for Americans to project onto Japan, making later horrors that occurred against the Japanese easier to accept. Additional "Tokio Kid" posters are included in the photo gallery below.
The following poster offers the condescending nature of U.S. anti-Japanese propaganda posters. The inclusion of derogatory words, also present in earlier examples, to describe the Japanese as well as describing them as "little" offered a sense of American superiority. The American superiority complex reflected anti-Asian racism from the late 1800s and early 1900s, demonstrating how racist foundations can resurface in times of turmoil.
While propaganda was originally intended to target the Japanese in Japan, it did have a negative impact on Japanese Americans and Japanese immigrants in the United States. As Roger Daniels explains, "Japanese America was simply destroyed, although some of the pieces would be put back together after the war” (Daniels 187). A collective suspicion of the Japanese, and the belief that Japanese Americans would be loyal to Japan rather than the United States, permeated public opinion, a reflection of similar fears from the early 1900s after the Russo-Japanese War (Kurashige 87). The lasting impression of assimilation to American society and propositions that specific groups could not assimilate over time also played a factor in such mindsets. Even President Franklin D. Roosevelt, like his distant cousin Theodore before him, did not believe that the Japanese could assimilate with white Americans (Kurashige 170).
Fear of an attack by the Japanese in the U.S., increased through the spread of various propaganda methods, led to the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans with Executive Order 9066 after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Although there were calls against the Executive Order, it took effect in 1942, relocating tens of thousands of Japanese Americans and immigrants away from the West Coast, effectively destroying Japanese American communities and encroaching on their rights (Daniels 214-216). Lon Kurashige points out how President Roosevelt "quashed fears about German and Italian enemy aliens in the United States, who, unlike their Japanese counterparts, would escape mass evacuation" (Kuashige 170). So, while Germany and Italy were also members of the Axis powers and participating in the war, and German and Italian Americans and immigrants experienced some cases of incarceration, only Japanese Americans were evacuated and incarcerated at alarming rates. Justification of actions against the Japanese in Japan, as well as Japanese Americans in the U.S., were influenced by the continued portrayal of Japan as a nation of subhuman people who would remain loyal to the emperor, even when thousands of miles from the island nation.
Propaganda is a powerful wartime weapon, allowing specific thoughts and principles to permeate a nation's people and influence their attitudes (Finch 370). It is apparent that the United States government capitalized on propaganda and successfully used it to influence the American people to support war efforts and identify the Japanese as an enemy in need of destruction. Such acceptance allowed the U.S. government to employ merciless tactics in the war as well as enact an unconstitutional Executive Order at home. While such blatant caricatures are not likely to be used today, propaganda is far from eradicated. It is important that we recognize such efforts so we can make our own decisions without extensive influences on our judgments.
Additional anti-Japanese posters are included in the gallery, depicting only a few of the countless propaganda measures that circulated the United States during World War II.
All Propaganda posters Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration, accessed on the Densho Digital Repository. Each individual poster is linked to the Repository. The full collection of United States World War II Posters, 1942-1945, can be located on the National Archives website.
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