The Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) was founded in 1929 to protect the civil rights of people of Japanese descent and others subjected to racism and bigotry. Today it is the largest Asian American civil rights association and has chapters in numerous U.S. cities. The initial leaders were college-educated Nisei with strongly pro-American beliefs. In the 1930s the JACL succeeded in reversing several discriminatory laws. Politically, the group assumed a conciliatory rather than confrontational position. After the Issei community leaders were arrested in winter 1942, the young organization became the liaison between the Nikkei and the federal government. Believing that resistance to the exclusion orders would be futile, the JACL encouraged complete cooperation with authorities to prove the loyalty of the Nikkei. In the camps, JACL members allied themselves with administrators and criticized dissenters for being un-American. Some people felt that the JACL had betrayed the community, and in several camps JACL followers were beaten as inu. In the 1970s and 1980s, the JACL helped to advance the quest for redress.
Nisei man leaving Japanese American Citizens League office（1942）
Centerville, California
Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration
Excerpt from Densho Archive
The JACL came into the picture fairly prominently because they became the intermediary between the Japanese community and the government. Or put it the other way, the government chose the JACL to be the intermediary, and therefore JACL was looked upon as the source of information and advice as to just exactly how to deal with some of the problems that were developing. In carrying out the evacuation orders, a lot of people felt that JACL was kowtowing to the authorities, and responding as collaborators often are depicted as responding. There was not a lot of favorable feeling towards the JACL through this period. The JACL leaders necessarily took on an authoritarian character, and people in the community responded antagonistically to that. On the other hand, the JACL was the only group that could organize the affairs of the community in any fashion. The Issei community organizations had been totally shut down, and so the JACL was the only Japanese American organization that existed. There was a kind of an ambivalent feeling, I would say, towards the JACL. People were grateful to have them running things, but also critical and unfavorably disposed to them, insofar as they were representing military and governmental orders.
sociology professor emeritus, University of Washington