> Was the reality of the red scare justified? I doubt
that I would say
> yes. What I am not willing to say is that there was
no threat;
I agree with that assessment. However, rather than dealing
with fiction
surrounding 50's communism, I'm wondering if any definitive
fiction was
written during the 40's surrounding Japanese war fears. There
are some
similarities between those fears and the fears of communism
and would be
interested in hearing examples of mystery fiction dealing
with that fear
in some way.
Being born in 1950, I missed the period and grew up being
"taught" about
it in school ... including hearing about the internment camps
ala
Manzanar. Later, when public "heat" over the treatment of
Japanese
Americans became commonplace, I asked my mother about her own
experiences
during that time. In her Portland, Oregon neighborhood, there
was a
Japanese family called the Funitakes. They operated a small
grocery store
and lived in a small apartment above it. Even after the
attack on Pearl
Harbor, community support for the Funitakes remained
unchanged. They were
a "fixture" in the community. However, when the "roundups"
started for
the internment camps, there was a government raid on their
store ... and
in their upstairs apartment, agents discovered military
documents of the
Japanese government, a rather sophisticated shortwave
transmitter/receiver
and detailed reports on shipping activity in and out of
Portland.
None of this justifies the wholesale predjudice against
Japanese Americans
during that period nor does it justify the internment camps,
but to say
that threats were not real or fear not justified would be
unfair, too.
There "were" some bonafide intelligence-gathering agents on
our shores ...
and I wonder if any mystery fiction exists that deals with
this bonafide
threat.
J. Alec West
alecwest@pacifier.com
http://www.geocities.com/~alecwest
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