V. State Variations in the ASEAO Program

Every state, and Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, were eligible for the ASEAO program. In Hawaii, for example, welfare officials submitted to the SSB a claim for reimbursements under the ASEAO program of $2,586.25 for the month of October 1942, and $2,520 for the month of September. ⁽¹⁾ The largest users of the ASEAO program were the states of California and Illinois, followed by New York. The state of Arizona received the least cash assistance of any state. In December 1945, 12 states had no cases pending, and another 20 jurisdictions had fewer than 10 cases pending. In that month, there were payments of $124,564 for 1,668 cases and another 453 cases were receiving services only. A total of $738,997 in payments had been made to that point, indicating that the bulk of the expended funds occurred in the last six months of the program as the resettlement of the remaining internees was carried out.

Table 5 on the following page shows the state-by-state breakdown of ASEAO benefits in December 1945. Table 5 does not show the cumulative number of cases receiving cash or services, nor does it show the payments made during 1946. ⁽²⁾ It does show the cumulative dollar figures for cash payments up through the end of 1945, but the missing year was responsible for roughly half the total benefit payout under the ASEAO program. But despite the limitations of the available state-level data they give an idea of the overall pattern of the state variations in payments during the first four years of the program. We cannot, however, assume that these same patterns held during 1946, as the resettlement phase may well have exhibited differing state involvements than the earlier phases.

The files of the Social Security Board do not reveal any noticeable variances in federal policy or administrative procedures from state to state. Generally speaking, the federal ASEAO policies were uniform national policies. However, this did not preclude significant variation in case-volumes or payment amounts from state-to-state. These variations are likely a function of four general factors: ⁽³⁾

1. The gross population of the state (larger states can be expected to generate larger case volumes and more total payments);

2. The number of needy individuals in the state among the target populations;

3. The residence patterns of the three affected populations;

4. The prevailing welfare payment levels in the existing state programs, to which the ASEAO payments were pegged.

Thus, when we look at a state like Arizona--which received a mere $68 in cash assistance in four years of the program and was providing support to a single individual in December 1945--this low level of aid likely tells several things about conditions in that state. First, Arizona's absolute population size was likely low. Second, its population of potentially eligible persons of Japanese, German or Italian ancestry was likely very low as well. Its welfare payments were also likely meager, even by 1940s standards. In the case of Arizona, there is one other factor at work. Large parts of southern Arizona were included in the military exclusion zones, so relocated individuals were not likely to resettle in Arizona. That much of Arizona was an exclusion zone would help explain why, for example, Wyoming, with half the population of Arizona, received 14 times more ASEAO payments. ⁽⁴⁾

The whole topic of state variations is an open area for additional historical work, now that we have recovered awareness of the ASEAO program. The National Archives holds about 25 linear feet of material on the ASEAO program, about half of which is identifiable as related to individual states. For purposes of the present study, the focus is on the national level operation of the ASEAO program. Thus this state-level material is a still largely unexplored resource which future scholars might well profitably mine.

1. National Archives II, records of the Bureau of Public Assistance- State Files of Civilian War Assistance to Enemy Aliens, 1940-1948, box 5.

2. This is the latest comprehensive report discovered in the ASEAO records in the National Archives.

3. This is not a rank-order list in order of importance. There is insufficient information in the records to determine which factor(s) might be the most powerful determinant in general, and the most salient factor(s) might well vary from state to state.

4. According the 1940 U.S. Census, Arizona had a population of 499,261 while Wyoming's population was 250,742.