Co-ops in World War II

A brief history of how co-ops improved the lives of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans

October is National Co-op Month, a celebration of all things co-op. With this in mind, it’s fitting to remember a unique piece of co-op history that unfolded during World War II in the U.S. Most people are familiar with the dark history of Japanese Americans’ detention after the attack on Pearl Harbor. All Japanese Americans on the West coast were considered security risks which led to their mass incarceration. After the U.S government evicted law-abiding Americans from their homes, businesses, and farms and forced them to live in detention camps, cooperatives provided most of the goods and services in the camps. It’s a grim story but it shows how co-ops answered the needs of those who were unjustly persecuted. 

On February 19, 1942, just after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war against Japan, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which ordered the Secretary of War to exclude “any and all persons” from designated areas in the United States. Though the order did not specify Japanese Americans, it was implemented to target and relocate them from the West Coast, under the guise of national security (even though 2/3 of them were born in the U.S.) Shortly thereafter, more than 120,000 civilians of Japanese descent were prohibited from living or working on the West Coast. By October 1942, these civilians were forced to leave their homes and businesses and relocated to 10 remote internment camps for the remainder of the war. The War Relocation Authority (WRA) administered these camps and was responsible for feeding, housing, educating, and providing employment for the evacuees.

The executive order mandated immediate action, thus temporary housing was needed until detention centers could be built. They were bussed to “assembly centers,” racetracks and fairgrounds where the living conditions were terrible. Families were allotted horse stables to live in, among other indignities. They stayed at these places for up to four months until the permanent camps were completed. The camps or “relocation centers” were built many miles inland, often in remote and desolate areas. The 10 sites were located in California, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado.

For the WRA, the logistical considerations of essentially creating out of thin air almost a dozen “towns” populated with thousands of people were astronomical. The internment camps were intended to be as self-sustaining as possible within the parameters of a wartime economy. How to even start such a monumental task? 

At that time, co-op associations were quite common. The need to house and sustain thousands of detainees indefinitely convinced the WRA that cooperative enterprises would be the optimal model for organizing logistics. Thus the WRA implemented co-ops to provide goods and services in the camps. This made practical sense for several reasons. Because of how co-ops are set up, the membership itself would provide managers, workers, and governance. Co-ops were ideal for the camps because of the WRA’s limited resources, the remote locations, the lack of skilled managers, and the need to start supportive businesses immediately to service tens of thousands of captive people. They also decided to pay the detainees the same basic wage and to distribute a portion of the surplus profits to them, also known as a patronage rebate, which is a common practice of co-ops. 

The cooperative enterprises operated much more cheaply than if they had been staffed by non-Japanese-American employees and operated as privately-owned businesses. Of course, the decision to establish co-ops went beyond their use of cost controls; instituting co-ops meant that resistance would be minimized and the labor process could be controlled in a non-market setting using a captive labor force that the WRA could not force to work. Even though they were implemented because it was the most convenient and economical option for the U.S. government, co-ops were a saving grace for people. They were one of the only things in the camps that the people could control. Manzanar Camp (MCE), in California, was one example of how successful the co-ops were. At its height, MCE employed 239 staff, rented seven barracks, and operated retail stores for food, clothing and dry goods, a canteen, warehouse, laundry, barber shop, beauty salon, shoe repair, as well as subsidizing the Manzanar Free Press, the camp’s newspaper. 

In the beginning, the co-op members didn’t trust that one of the co-op benefits, patronage rebates, would actually happen. They had to save their receipts to get the rebate. A janitor at the Amadene, Arkansas camp kept all the receipts he found on the floor, and when the co-op board announced a 10% dividend for the year, he became the richest person in the camp. His receipts showed $3,000 in purchases so he got $300. 

All in all, the co-ops were a resounding success. By 1944, the entire wartime co-op community had $12 million in sales (about $200 million in today’s dollars.)

By 1945, the year the war ended, all the detainees were finally released. Some of them returned to their hometowns but many did not for fear of lingering prejudice. 

“Peace and Better Life,” the Japanese cooperative motto, is an apt sentiment when we think of the suffering and determination of the people of the camps, who persevered in the face of wrongful incarceration and years of harsh conditions. Co-ops played a valuable role by giving them some measure of dignity in an otherwise impossible situation. Let us remember these families today and how co-ops provided an incredibly meaningful element for them, a measure of self-governance.

Sources:
https://www.thenews.coop/the-wartime-secret-of-the-second-largest-consumer-co-op-in-the-usa/
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1708&context=aah_journal
Oryana Newsletter, September/October, Vol. 5, 1990
Japanese American Oral History Project, California State University, Fullerton, 1973
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/japanese-american-relocation