How To Spot A Jap

http://www.ep.tc/howtospotajap/index.html

Milton Caniff created this piece in 1942 as an informational piece for American soldiers fighting in Asia. When the piece was made I’m sure it was welcome but to look back on it one can clearly how saturated it was in stereotypes.

The piece begins with two white soldiers being asked to demonstrate how the Chinese are different from the Japanese with two different men picked up on patrol. As per our experience it is again white males designating what distinguishes a person’s race much like the examples from those men who tried to apply for US citizenship and the use of science to even keep non-Angelo Saxton whites from “whiteness”.

The two men then begin to explain that the Japanese are much shorter, walk a certain way, speak a certain way, and have more slanted eyes. I found it interesting that the comic book covers we went over in class had only a few of the traits listed in this strip. They had the yellow skin, slanted eyes, and odd mouth. They also made the Japanese seem very small even when made to look large and monstrous, which plays into the “its as though his knees are attached to his chest.” Another statement that struck me as odd was when it is mentioned that the Japanese wore a special style of sandal until the military gave them boots. I believe a reason this is mentioned is because of the idea that the British held that all other cultures were incapable of higher class society. Mentioning this allows US soldiers to thing that they are from a more advanced society and thus superior.

There is however some actually practical information. That a Japanese soldier may have hidden weapons on them and would take advantage of them even under capture. Another stereotype though is brought up in terms of the “intelligence” of the Japanese. That they are all “masters of comic strip style weapons.” Several of the comic book covers portrayed the Japanese characters as mad scientists or that they were performing strange experiments that were dangerous and evil.