National Perceptions - Radio Reactions

KMBC was a major radio news station in Kansas City during World War II. KMBC aired both national and local radio programs that covered wartime events, propaganda, and news. Since World War II, KMBC has expanded into television broadcasting and continues to provide the Kansas City area with news broadcasts.

Wartime media allowed for the persistent spread of opinions against common enemies of the time. As historian Roger Daniels explains,

"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 200-1).

Radio news outlets covered the shocking attack by the Japanese military across the country, with national broadcasts aired on KMBC, a major Kansas City radio station. Generalizations and racial distrust erupted immediately upon the outbreak of Pearl Harbor’s attack, reflecting decades of racial discrimination against the Japanese that permeated American society. As historian John Dower explains,

"to scores of millions of participants, the war was also a race war...it exposed raw prejudices and was fueled by racial pride, arrogance, and rage on many sides" (Dower 4).

Park College continued to be home to progressive and supportive thoughts and actions towards Japanese Americans throughout the war. John W. Wilkinson expressed in his 1943 letter to Dr. Young: 

"In a world in which hatred and kindred emotions seem to have blotted out all semblance of reason, and bigotry under the name of patriotism has succeded[sic] the small amount of tolerance which has seeped slowly into our consciousness, I would like to think that Park is doing a small bit in maintaining these forgotten virtues. Hold fast to the course you have set for Park" (Letter from John W. Wilkinson, Sept. 11, 1943).

Park College represented a beacon, a reflection of one side of the American ideas on Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II. However, while discourse on Japanese Americans saw both support and opposition and a call for democracy and understanding, anti-Japanese sentiments remained mostly steadfast throughout the war. While white Americans did not all agree on the plight of Japanese Americans, a certain unity permeated thoughts and opinions towards Japan and the Japanese people. 

While Park College served as an example of citizens working past prejudices against Japanese Americans throughout the course of the war, national and local perceptions of Japan were still indicative of racial hatred and prejudice against the Japanese people. While newspapers especially utilized anti-Japanese slurs and shocking headlines to solidify Japan as the ultimate enemy, radio programs also contributed to such sentiments. A Columbia Recording Corp radio program, aired on March 16, 1943, used a dramatized skit to portray situations occurring in China, representing the Japanese military specifically. Within this skit, the characters always addressed the enemy as “the Japanese,” and after the skit, the guest speaker, Dr. Tsune Chi Yu, is introduced as:

"the man who is in a position to know firsthand...about the brutal methods of our enemy, the Japanese" (Nathan Van Cleave et al., program #43, 10:50 - 11:08).

Labeling “the Japanese” as the enemy insinuates that every single Japanese person is the enemy, not simply the government or military, increasing suspicion of all Japanese people despite their distance from military decisions. At the end of Dr. Yu’s address, which provided insight into the measures the Japanese military took within China, the narrator returns to abruptly announce, “this is our enemy" (Nathan Van Cleave et al., program #43, 13:23). Again, firmly establishing the Japanese as the enemy rather than Emperor Hirohito, his regime, or the Japanese military alone.

In contrast, the media addressed the Nazi regime as such, with one radio program going as far as labeling the enemy in Europe as Hitler, even referring to his regime as “Hitlerism,” rather than demonizing the entirety of Germany (Nathan Van Cleave et. al, program #42, 11:00). The Japanese enemy permeated the country through both radio programming and newspaper articles. As historian John Dower emphasizes, the Japanese were

"perceived as a race apart, even a species apart – and an overpoweringly monolithic one at that…there was no Japanese counterpart to the ‘good German’ in the popular consciousness of the Western Allies" (Dower 8).

Many of the portrayals and representations within the media took a racialized edge that the German threat did not experience.  

On a national scale, there were radio broadcasts and other media that warned against the persecution of Japanese Americans. For example, the radio program “The Boy from Nebraska,” addressed the abhorrent treatment of Japanese Americans within the United States. The program is a dramatized story of a Japanese American soldier from Nebraska who did not receive a Purple Heart, even though he was injured while saving others, and then faces hatred at home from white Americans for his Japanese lineage (The Boy from Nebraska). As the program continues, it mentions occurrences of Japanese American discrimination throughout the United States. One example addressed a sign in an Arizona barbershop that read, “Japs keep out, you rats!,” to which the narrator emphasizes,

“he [shop owner] doesn’t mean the emperor of Japan, or the emperor’s soldiers, or the emperor’s people – he means the boy from Nebraska" (The Boy from Nebraska, Oct. 17, 1945, 7:00 - 7:45).

While such programs brought national mindsets on Japanese Americans into question, and local reactions to different situations also demonstrated the complexity of Japanese American sentiments during World War II, they did not offer much variation on the views of Japan and its people. 

Daniels, Roger. Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States Since 1850. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988. 

Dower, John W. War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. Pantheon Books, 1986. 

Finch, Lynette. “Psychological Propaganda: The War of Ideas on Ideas During the First Half of the Twentieth Century.” Armed Forces & Society 26, no. 3 (Spring 2000): 367–86. doi:10.1177/0095327X0002600302. 

Horten, Gerd. Radio Goes to War: The Cultural Politics of Propaganda during World War II. University of California Press, 2002. 

Roberts, Kenneth, Henry Gosho, and George Putnam. “Treasury Salute No. 271: The boy from Nebraska.” Recorded Oct. 17, 1945. War Finance Division, digital recording. Located in the J. David Goldin collection, The Marr Sound Archives, UMKC, Kansas City, MO, Call #40575. 

“Supportive Letter from Mr. Wilkinson to Dr. Young,” letter from John W. Wilkinson to Dr. Young, Sept. 11, 1943. Located in Francis Fishburn Archives and Special Collections, Park University Nisei Collection, Park University, Parkville, MO, ID: PC-L-1945.1.700.  

Van Cleave, Nathan, Dr. Tsune-Chi Yu, et al. “This is our enemy, program #43.” Recorded Mar. 16, 1943. Columbia Recording Corp, digital recording. Located in the J. David Goldin collection, The Marr Sound Archives, UMKC, Kansas City, MO, Call #46082. 

Van Cleave, Nathan, et al. “This is our enemy, program #42.” Recorded Mar. 9, 1943. Columbia Recording Corp, digital recording. Located in the J. David Goldin collection, The Marr Sound Archives, UMKC, Kansas City, MO, Call #46082.