"Welcome to the Nisei ranks": An Eau Claire Teacher in Internment America

Abstract

This research aims to use the collection of Clarice Chase Dunn, a teacher from the Eau Claire State Teacher’s College – later known as the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, to illustrate life in internment camps and the defiance of the prevailing prejudice toward persons of Japanese descent from one of the camps’ teachers. Through her time working in Heart Mountain, Wyoming, she used her relationships with those at camp to confront the racial bias that was indoctrinated throughout the country. Her collection includes documents on relocation and redress, as well as the messages written by friends and acquaintances at Heart Mountain. Through a close analysis of these documents, supported by her later article and oral interview, the narrative of her life was pieced together to find this incredible defiance of opinion. By working to overcome others’ prejudice, her story suggests that although the circumstances surrounding the installation of the camps following the attack on Pearl Harbor, not all persons – especially white, or “Caucasian,” Americans – followed the propaganda-driven public opinion. Some, like Miss Chase, decided to confront these injustices head on and resolve to assist these people in any way they can, even if they are questioned for teaching them. Thus, this paper will describe not only how teachers and other volunteers experienced the internment camps for those of Japanese descent, but how Clarice Chase carried her humane perspective through the war, free of prejudices created by the public opinion, media, and war-time propaganda. By acknowledging those interned as people as real human beings, she could begin to adequately address their issues, and the issues of the students she taught.