What is power? Its characteristics and expressions vary to such a degree that formulating a single all-encompassing definition would be an impossible task. Even this very process of assigning meaning and significance to concepts such as power could be considered an expression of power itself.¹ Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall classify this process of establishing, changing, and experiencing meaning as productive power, which has a profound impact on our social identities, how we view ourselves, and, importantly, the way in which we view others.² In this essay, I will discuss the productive power of language with a particular focus on state-sponsored propaganda during times of conflict. I argue that the power inherent in language and words is key to the effective use of propaganda by governments at war, especially in making war-time atrocities more tolerable and acceptable to the average citizen. This essay engages specifically with the language used by the United States government to justify the internment and incarceration of “enemy” ethnic groups during the Second World War. 

Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell define propaganda as “the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.”³ This definition is inclusive of the many different forms of propaganda, ranging from the overtly prejudiced imagery and language often seen dispersed in the media during times of war to the more covert use of insinuating language in government policy. Propagandists’ ability to effectively manipulate the perceptions of their intended audience is heavily dependent on existing associations and connotations assigned to particular words.⁴ Thus, propaganda represents a clear expression of productive power as its creators utilize meaning in language to control and alter people’s conceptions of certain realities. 

In the United States, the Second World War required the mobilization of both troops on the war front as well as civilians on the home front;while the former fought physical enemy combatants abroad, civilians at home fought the “enemy within,” which consisted of ethnic minorities residing in the US but originated from enemy countries.⁵ Fear of these groups was aroused through the use of propaganda that dehumanized these people by labeling them as the “other” and as “aliens.”⁶ German, Italian, and Japanese residents of the United States were particularly targeted by this rhetoric and continuously classified as “alien enemies” in government policy. For example, the official proclamations issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in December of 1941 that made “Japanese, German, and Italian aliens subject to summary arrest and detention.”⁷ This same language was also used, more famously, in Executive Order 9066, which allowed for the removal and incarceration of over 110,000 individuals of Japanese descent from designated exclusion zones in the United States.⁸

The unjust treatment of these ethnic groups, particularly the Japanese, raises an important discussion on just how significant the role of productive power can be in the ability of governments to carry out policy. The label “alien” holds power due to the negative attributes typically associated with this word. It casts the targeted minority groups as strange, potentially dangerous, not-entirely-human beings who could pose a threat to “normal Americans” and their way of life. This narrative likely contributed to justifying the poor treatment of these groups in the eyes of the general population of the United States as it is often easier to tolerate the mistreatment of those that belong to the “other” — the “alien” — especially when they are viewed as a threat. 

Additionally, Japanese Americans also fell victim to further labeling through the heavy use of racial slurs in anti-Japanese propaganda. While derogatory terms for different racial groups and ethnicities were relatively commonly used in the United States at the time, “none was more universally used than Jap or Japs.”⁹ The constant usage of these terms in newspapers, magazines, cartoons, television, and even by politicians had an incredibly dehumanizing effect on the Japanese American population.¹⁰ The effectiveness of this type of language in denigrating Japanese Americans illustrates an important facet of productive power. These derogatory words created a stigma, which fostered the growing divide among ethnic groups in the United States and strengthened the classification of Japanese Americans as part of the “other.” This case demonstrates the incredible power that such derogatory language can possess to dehumanize and ostracize entire groups of people. That power of language becomes particularly relevant when attempting to explain how the US government could justify and execute the atrocities of Japanese American internment camps.

The specific legal terminology used to describe Japanese American internment represents another important example of how the power of language affected and continues to affect people’s perception of the US government’s actions. In fact, the use of the term “internment” to describe these camps is misleading. Internment refers to a legal process recognized and regulated under American and international law that deals with the “treatment of prisoners of war and was sometimes extended to civilian enemy nationals, including diplomats, residents in or captured by a belligerent nation.”¹¹ The 1942 forceful relocation of Japanese American civilians into camps does not fit the legal scope of “internment” and would be more accurately described as “incarceration.” In a similar vein, the government often utilized euphemisms such as “evacuation, work camp, isolation center, assembly or relocation center” in place of accurate terminology to “make a process of unjust incarceration seem benign, necessary, or even voluntary.”¹²

All these terms utilized by the US government to downplay and disguise the true scope of Japanese American incarceration exemplify propaganda. The selection of these words was deliberate and systematic, with the clear goal of framing the government’s actions as less atrocious and making public opinion more favourable towards them. Although this terminology did not directly establish distinct groups and social identity in the way that the term “alien” did, it still represents the workings of productive power. The use of the word “evacuation” is more agreeable than “forced removal” just as designating the Japanese Americans in these camps as “residents” is more tolerable than calling them “inmates.”¹³ The power of these words to alter people’s perceptions of the camps is heavily dependent on the meanings and associations already assigned to them. In other words, the productive power of language allows governments to effectively use propaganda to manage and alter public opinion in their favour. 

Through their connotations and implications, words can easily be weaponized. Whether it be derogatory and racist words intended to create social divides or carefully chosen terminology meant to downplay the scale of atrocities, both of these examples of propaganda illustrate the workings of productive power. However, no power is absolute; it would be remiss not to acknowledge that, although opposition to the incarceration of Japanese Americans was limited to a small minority, it still existed.¹⁴ This opposition raises many important questions worthy of further investigation, especially as atrocities continue to be downplayed and disguised through the use of propaganda and facilitated by the productive power of language. Why is it that some people fall victim to the fallacies of propaganda while others do not? Can individuals be taught to recognize and dismiss the negative associations and biases attached to certain words? And if so, what would that mean for the continued effectiveness of state-sponsored propaganda?

1. Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall, “Power in Global Governance,” in  Power in Global Governance ed. Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 20.
2. Barnett and Duvall, Power in Global Governance, 20-22.
3. Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion, 7th ed. (Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications, 2019), 6.
4. Jowett and O’Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion, 8-9.
5. Jӧrg Nagler, “Internment of German Enemy Aliens in the United States during the First and Second World Wars,” in Alien Justice: Wartime Internment in Australia and North America, ed. Kay Saunders and Roger Daniels (St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 2000), 66.
6. Jӧrg Nagler, “Internment of German Enemy Aliens,” 66.
7. John Joel Cullet, “Enemy Alien Control in the United States during World War II: A Survey,” in Alien Justice: Wartime Internment in Australia and North America, ed. Kay Saunders and Roger Daniels (St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 2000), 141.
8. April Kamp-Whittaker, “World War II Japanese American Internment in the American Southwest,” KIVA 86, no. 2 (2020): 225, doi:10.1080/00231940.2020.1747794.
9. Roger Daniels, “Words Do Matter: A Note on Inappropriate Terminology and the Incarceration of the Japanese Americans,” in Nikkei in the Pacific Northwest: Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians in the Twentieth Century, ed. Louis Fiset and Gail Nomura (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005), 4. PDF accessed online does not provide accurate pagination from the book. All pagination given in footnotes from this source aligns with the pagination of the online PDF.
10. Daniels, “Words Do Matter,” 5.
11. Daniels, “Words Do Matter,” 1.
12. Kamp-Whittaker, “World War II,” 224.
13. Daniels, “Words Do Matter,” 7.
14. Robert Shaffer, “Opposition to Internment: Defending Japanese American Rights during World War II,” The Historian 61, no. 3 (1999): 598, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24449883.