You Can't Stop Christmas

The Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during World War II found it challenging to celebrate Christmas the way they were used to, but they did their best. That includes both the secular and the sacred aspects.

Take the residents of Topaz War Relocation Center, for example. Immediately upon arrival, four churches were formed: Buddhist (yes, they did call it a church), Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Seventh Day Adventist. The various Protestant denominations combined while they were in the camps, with their ministers sharing duties and taking turns preaching. Actually, all of these religious groups were already used to the system because they had organized the same way in the temporary assembly centers.

As the first Christmas behind barbed wire approached, the Christian churches and the secular community made plans to celebrate. School classrooms put up small greasewood Christmas trees, and dining hall staff participated in a contest to see which mess hall had the best decorations. The highlight of the week was a pageant entitled “The Other Wise Man,” with Goro Suzuki taking the lead role. (You may know him better under his stage name Jack Soo playing Detective Nick Yemana in the TV sitcom Barney Miller.)

The Topaz Times also got into the spirit of the season. Here is cartoonist Bennie Nobori’s Christmas comic from the December 25 edition. (Regular readers of this comic strip would have known that Jankee was in love with Topita.)

But Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ, and the sacred celebrations are the most meaningful. The pageant had a religious theme, but the more traditional Christian elements were there, too. Yoshiko Uchida writes that carolers from her (Protestant) church came by on Christmas Eve and that she and her family attended its Christmas Day service.

The Japanese Americans celebrated Christmas behind barbed wire fences while they were being treated as enemies by their own country. If they could do that, then we can celebrate it wherever we are and in any circumstances.

Because Christmas is all about Jesus, and even Satan can’t stop it.

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Most of the information from this post comes from various editions of the Topaz Times, which was the camp newspaper. As a U.S. Government publication, its contents are in the public domain.

Additional information comes from pgs. 128-130 of Desert Exile: The Uprooting of an American Family by Yoshiko Uchida.

When a Photo Isn't Worth a Thousand Words

Unaltered photos don’t exactly lie, but they can mislead. Consider this series of library photos taken by Dorothea Lange at Manzanar, California on July 1, 1942.

First, let me make it clear that I don’t believe Lange had any intention to mislead. To the contrary, her photos show a real desire to generate sympathy for the Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II. As noted in last week’s post, many of her photos show the miserable conditions they were consigned to. She also personalized them with photos of family groups and children or ones showing them improving the camps on their own initiative.

I’m assuming Lange took the library photos because that’s the assignment she was given. But the captions she added had subtle messages contradicting the subject matter. Take the above photo. It appears to show a man comfortably reading (but note the crate for a chair) in a well-stocked library. And at first glance, that’s exactly what the caption says:

A barrack building has been turned into a library at this War Relocation Authority center for evacuees of Japanese ancestry. A trained librarian of Japanese ancestry employs modern techniques in the management of this library which already contains a large stock of books donated by friends.

“A large stock of books donated by friends.” In other words, the government didn’t take any responsibility for stocking the library. The caption with this photo makes it even clearer.

The Main Library of this War Relocation Authority center. The Librarian is a graduate of the University of California Library School and employs modern library techniques. All books have been donated. [Emphasis added.]

Many donations were used books that people simply didn’t want, so the library collections at the camps weren’t nearly as varied as at public libraries and couldn’t meet the demand for popular reading material. And the donated magazines were probably more outdated than the ones you find in your dentist’s waiting room. The lack of variety comes out in the caption of this next photo.

A corner in the library at this War Relocation center for evacuees of Japanese ancestry. This section contains books in the Japanese language, most of which are translations of English classics.

Since books written in Japanese were confiscated before or when the Japanese Americans left their homes, Lange’s caption tells us that they had no access to books with their own cultural stories and history.

Taken alone, these photos imply that the U.S. government was taking good care of the Japanese Americans it had incarcerated against their will. But the real story—or at least part of it—comes out in the captions.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but those words can be misleading even without Photoshop.

So be skeptical.

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All photographs in this post were taken by Dorothea Lange. They are in the public domain because she was a War Relocation Authority photographer and the photos were taken as part of her official duties as an employee of the United States government.

Hidden HIstory

Two weeks ago, I participated in a library book fair. Although I was selling copies of all my books, I wanted to highlight Desert Jewels, my middle-grade novel about the Japanese-American incarceration during World War II. So I put together a photo album with some of the official photos taken at the time by War Relocation Authority photographers.

I had plenty of pictures to choose from, but I was especially grateful for the ones that had recently become publicly available. Obviously, the Internet has increased access to almost everything, but that’s only part of this story. The other part is that many of Dorothea Lange’s most unsettling photos were quietly suppressed by the Army and buried in the National Archives. If you are interested in learning more about that story, I recommend Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment. It’s worth buying just for the photographs.

Look at the picture at the top of this post, which Dorothea Lange took on June 30, 1942 in one of the hastily erected barracks at Manzanar, California. Manzanar was the first camp to be constructed, and many of the earliest residents lived there the entire time they were incarcerated. However, most of the Japanese Americans lived in temporary “assembly centers” while their more “permanent” accommodations were being built. Lange took the photos below on June 16, 1942 at the Tanforan Assembly Center, which was a former race track where horse stalls were converted into living quarters. There were some hastily-built barracks there, too, but I’m guessing that the interior photo shows one of these horse stall apartments.

As you can see, the living accommodations were anything but luxurious, and they came with minimal furnishings—one cot per person and nothing else. Eventually the Japanese-American residents built furniture from scrap lumber and found other ways to make their quarters more comfortable, but they had to rely on their own limited resources to do it.

Dorothea Lange didn’t last very long as a War Relocation Authority photographer, but I’m glad we have found the record that she left.

Photos are a great source of historical research, and they seldom lie. But even before Photoshop there were ways to make them tell a misleading story.

I’ll talk about that next week.

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All photographs in this post were taken by Dorothea Lange. They are in the public domain because she was a War Relocation Authority photographer and the photos were taken as part of her official duties as an employee of the United States government.

Learning About D-Day

This past Friday (June 6) was the 70^th anniversary of D-Day.

My mother’s youngest brother landed with the troops on D-Day and survived, although he never talked about it. For those who went through it, it must have been very hard to live with and very hard to forget.

For the rest of us, it’s too easy to forget. That’s why we need reminders like the D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia, where I took the picture at the top of this post. The dioramic sculpture shows the troops landing on Omaha Beach. The boxy thing in the rear represents a landing craft. Two men have already made it safely to the beach (or at least safely for now), while the one on the right is still in the water and the one on the left is already dead.

In these days of the Internet, it’s easy to learn about D-Day or any other historical event without leaving home. Books are good teachers, too, but armchair learning isn't the best type.

Museums and memorials are better teachers. Besides visiting the D-Day memorial in Bedford, I also learned about D-Day at the World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana.

As for the European museums, I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen any of them. At least one was around when I was in Europe as a child, but my father didn’t believe in spending money if he could avoid it.

He did love history, though, so we probably visited the beaches of Normandy. Unfortunately, I don't remember them.

Now that I’m an adult, I would like to go to Normandy and see the places where the D-Day invasion occurred. I’d also like to visit the D-Day museums in Arromanches, France, and Portsmouth, England.

Because that's the best way to learn history.

Another Type of Courage

Last week I talked about the courage that sends people into war at the risk of their lives and limbs. This week I am going to discuss another type of courage: the courage to stand up for one’s convictions.

Don’t get me wrong. The men of the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team had both types of courage. I’m sure many if not most of them fought for their conviction that World War II was a just war or that America was worth defending (or both). But those convictions were the popular ones at the time.

The members of the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee had the courage to take a stand that was both unpopular and illegal.

The Heart Mountain draft resisters weren’t conscientious objectors who didn’t believe in war. They weren’t cowards who were afraid of dying on the battlefield. They weren’t typical draft resisters at all.

A typical draft resister says, “I won’t go.” A Heart Mountain draft resister said, “I’ll be happy to go when I and my family are given the same rights as other Americans.”

Why the stipulation? Because the United States government put the Heart Mountain draft resisters and their families behind barbed wire simply because of their ancestry.

The Heart Mountain incarceration camp wasn’t the only source of Nisei draft resisters, but the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee made the strongest statement. The Committee was composed of Japanese American citizens who were loyal to the United States and willing to serve in the army once their rights were restored.

By June 1944, sixty-three members of the Fair Play Committee had resisted the draft and been arrested. At a mass trial held in federal district court in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the judge found each of the defendants guilty and sentenced each one to three years in prison. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions, and the committee members served them out.

Some people labeled the resisters as disloyal, but that was not the case. As noted above, loyalty to the U.S. and willingness to serve in the military were both qualifications for belonging to the Fair Play Committee. The Heart Mountain draft resisters were loyal Americans who stood up for what they believed was right.

And that takes its own kind of courage.  

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The picture at the top of this page shows the Heart Mountain draft resisters sitting in the federal courtroom in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The photograph is in the public domain.

Remembering the 442nd Regimental Combat Team

This Memorial Day, I would like to honor the men who served and died with the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II.

Initially, the United States didn’t want Japanese Americans serving in combat units during World War II. Then it changed its mind and decided to form an all-Nisei unit to fight in Europe. (Nisei were the second generation Japanese in America and the first generation born in this country.)

Actually, it was never an all-Nisei unit. The United States was perfectly happy to have Japanese Americans fight and die for their country, but it refused to commission them as officers. So the Nisei soldiers in the 442^nd fought under the command of their white brothers.

And they fought with courage and honor. According to many sources, the 442^nd has the distinction of being the most decorated infantry regiment in the history of the United States Army. This includes 9,486 Purple Hearts, eight Presidential Unit Citations, and 21 Medals of Honor.

All of this came at a high human cost. The 4,000-man unit needed frequent replacements for the soldiers who died or were wounded in battle. In all, approximately 14,000 men served in the 442^nd during World War II.

One of its most famous exploits was rescuing the “Lost Battalion” in October 1944. Two hundred plus men from a Texas battalion were surrounded by German troops, and the 442^nd was ordered to rescue them. The rescue itself was a success, but the men of the 442^nd fought one of the bloodiest battles of the war at a cost of 200 dead and 800 wounded.  

But the most unusual thing about the men of the 442^nd was their loyalty to a country that showed no loyalty to them or their families. While they were fighting and dying in France, their fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and wives and children were incarcerated behind barbed wire in the deserts and swamps of the western United States.

So join me in saluting the men who served and died with the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team.

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The photo at the top of this page shows Japanese-American infantrymen of the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team hiking up a muddy road in the Chambois Sector of France in late 1944. It is an official army photograph and is in the public domain.

Reparations and Apologies

Is there any way we can make up for what we did to our fellow Americans during World War II? Even if we reimbursed them for their financial losses—their homes and businesses—how do you put a monetary value on family heirlooms? More importantly, how can we make reparations for taking away freedom and dignity?

 

We can’t.

Still, America has a responsibility to do what it can. Several years after the war ended, those affected by the forced move were given the opportunity to file claims for damage to or loss of property, with a $2,500 limit. The Federal Reserve Bank estimated the losses at approximately $400 million, but less than a tenth of that was paid out as a result of the claims process.* Even those claiming less than the $2,500 limit received only a fraction of what they asked for.

In 1981, Congress established the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians. The Commission held 20 days of hearings all around the country and heard more than 750 witnesses. It concluded that Executive Order 9066 and the subsequent events were not justified by military necessity but resulted from “race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership.” It recommended that the United States issue an apology and make payments of $20,000 to each of the survivors. This was still a miniscule sum compared to the actual losses, but the Commission may have been concerned about the affect that larger amounts would have on the U.S. Treasury.**

Congress accepted these recommendations in what became the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which President Reagan signed into law on August 10, 1988. The formal letters of apology came from President Bush and accompanied the payments that began in October 1990 but were made—as recommended—only to those who still survived.

To me, the apology is worth more than the money. But there is a better way to show that we are sorry for what America did to its Japanese citizens and permanent residents.

It’s easy to say that we would never do the same thing today. But wouldn’t we? Human nature doesn’t change, and living in a country that extols freedom and diversity doesn’t make us immune. In my opinion, the best reaction to our past is to know it, to realize that what happened to the Japanese Americans could occur again (although probably to a different group), and to work hard to keep it from happening.

Because complacency ensures that it will.

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*    My resources agreed on the Federal Reserve Board estimate and the $2,500 limit, but they were not consistent as to the amount that was actually paid. I have used the higher amount of “less than $40 million,” but it might have been significantly less.

**  Based on the CPI Inflation Calculator from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, $400 million in 1942 dollars would have been $2.4 billion in 1982 dollars. By 1990, when the payments began, that amount had risen to $3.2 billion.

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The photograph at the head of this post was taken at Manzanar War Relocation Center on July 3, 1943. If you look closely, you can see a dust storm in the background. Dorothea Lange took the picture as part of her official duties as an employee of the United States government. Because it is a government document, the photo is in the public domain.

Everything Was Gone

Beginning on December 17, 1944, the Japanese Americans were allowed to return to their homes and businesses on the West Coast. The war hadn’t ended yet, but by that time it was clear there was no threat—at least not from the Japanese Americans. More cynically, FDR had just won another presidential election (eliminating the political pressure), and the government probably anticipated losing two U.S. Supreme Court cases that were scheduled for decision on December 18. As it turned out, they lost one case and won the other. But even in the case the government won, the decision implied that the state of emergency that justified the original evacuation order no longer existed.*

Now that they could go home, the Japanese Americans should have been thrilled, right? Wrong. Many were afraid to return. America was not in danger from the Japanese Americans, but the Japanese Americans were in danger from the bigots on the West Coast. Although the vast majority who returned did so without facing physical violence, beatings and murder were not unknown.

Far more people were affected by financial devastation. As noted in my February 24, 2014 post, the Japanese Americans had only a few days to pack up and store, lease, or sell everything they owned. The government offered to provide storage “at the sole risk of the owner,” and those who took them up on it discovered that the safety of their items depended on the particular facility.

Some Japanese Americans were fortunate to find trustworthy friends to store their goods and honest business managers to run their businesses and collect rent on their properties. But many others returned to find their goods looted, their homes foreclosed after rents intended to pay the mortgage went into the agents’ pockets, and their businesses raided. And they received practically no compensation for their losses.

As my next post will discuss, the U.S. did eventually provide some redress. But was it enough? And why have I spent two months on this subject? I’ll leave you to ponder those questions until next week.

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*    The government won Koramatsu v. U.S., which upheld the original exclusion orders. It lost Ex Parte Endo, which held that the government could not restrict the Japanese Americans’ freedom once they had left the West Coast.

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The May 20, 1942 photograph at the top of this post shows goods stored in a Woodland, California facility. The picture was taken by Dorothea Lange as part of her official duties as an employee of the United States government. Because it is a government document, the photo is in the public domain.

Barbed Wire and Deserts

After spending several months in the temporary camps, the Japanese Americans were sent to more permanent “relocation centers.” There were ten of these permanent incarceration camps, and all were built on land that was isolated and unusable. The easternmost two were built in the Louisiana swamps. The other eight were built in the western deserts. The camps were surrounded by barbed wire fences and guard towers, even though only a fool would have tried to cross the desert to freedom.

The temperature ranged from 120 degrees in the summer at Poston, Arizona to -30 degrees in the winter at Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Yes, even deserts can be cold at the higher elevations. At Poston, the residents dragged their cots outside to sleep during the summer months because the tar-papered barracks retained the heat from the daytime sun. But if a dust storm came up, they fled back indoors. During the spring and fall, the residents at many camps bundled up on their way to breakfast and shed their extra layers in the heat of the day.

In the deserts, the Japanese Americans were at the mercy of violent windstorms. The dust-sized sand particles blew in their eyes and noses and blinded them so that they couldn’t see where they were going. The dust even blew into their homes and the mess hall through cracks in the walls and floors, forcing them to eat and drink it. And in many camps the residents were triply cursed—dust blizzards in the summer, snow blizzards in the winter, and mud the rest of the time.

Housing in these more permanent camps was similar to that of the barracks used in the temporary camps. Each “apartment” was a single room used for sleeping and living, although most of the living occurred out of doors or in the mess hall. As in the temporary camps, residents had to leave their rooms and go to a mess hall for their meals and to another central location to do their laundry, use the bathroom, and take a shower. 

There was some improvement over the temporary camps, however. The food got better as the cooks became more experienced, and the latrines were eventually fitted with partitions between stalls and showers. School opened, and life settled into a routine. But it was a routine lived in deserts or swamps behind barbed wire fences. 

As in the temporary camps, the only furnishings provided by the government were an army cot and mattress (or straw ticking) for each member of the family. The government also provided two army blankets for each person, but those blankets often ended up as privacy walls. People managed to make their quarters livable, but they had to do it on their own.

The camp administration and some of the teachers were white, but the Japanese Americans who were forced to live there held most of the jobs in these newly created cities. At Topaz, Utah, professionals such as doctors made $19 per month, skilled laborers and semi-professionals made $16 per month, and unskilled laborers made $12–$14 per month. This was many times less than they had made outside or than white colleagues made at the camps.

The college-age and young adult residents left as soon as they were accepted into colleges or jobs away from the west coast and could get sponsors. But the older people and the young children stayed until the government forced them to move yet again. Why did they stay in a prison after they were given a chance to leave?

As I will explain in my next post, they had nowhere else to go.

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The photograph at the top of this post shows the interior of a barrack apartment at Manzanar. It is typical of the “apartments” at all of the permanent incarceration camps. Notice the bareness of the room and the cloth partition used by the residents to create a little privacy. The picture was taken by Dorothea Lange as part of her official duties as an employee of the United States government. Because it is a government document, the photo is in the public domain.

Home is a Horse Stall



General DeWitt initially favored a “voluntary” removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. It was only voluntary in the sense that they would get to choose where to relocate outside the restricted area, however. There was nothing voluntary about leaving.

Unfortunately for General DeWitt’s plans, many Japanese Americans had no where to go, and those who did try to leave often had to turn back after being denied service at gas stations and threatened with violence in supposedly unrestricted states. So the policy changed to one of forced removal into hastily assembled incarceration camps.

While the permanent camps were being constructed, General DeWitt sent most of the West Cost Japanese Americans to temporary camps.* These assembly centers, as they were called, were built primarily at race tracks and fair grounds, where there was enough land to squeeze in thousands of men, women, and children. They contained three basic types of housing.

·       Horse stables, shown in the picture, were converted into family housing, often with six people crowding into a stall with two “rooms” separated by Dutch doors. (The back room was for the horse and the front room for the fodder.) Linoleum was laid directly over the manure-covered floors, and the rooms smelled of urine. The walls had been whitewashed so hastily that the painters hadn’t even swept off the cobwebs or the insects, which were now part of the interior decoration.

·       Cow barns with concrete floors were divided into miniature units using flimsy wooden partitions that didn’t reach all the way to the ceiling.

·       Tar-papered barracks designed for soldiers were constructed with green lumber that quickly shrunk, leaving gaps in the floorboards with grass and dandelions growing through them.

All three types of housing were short on privacy. Males and females had to share sleeping rooms, and the thin walls (most of which didn’t reach to the ceiling) guaranteed that your neighbors knew your business and that the crying baby four units away would keep you up at night.

And the furnishings? An army cot and straw ticking for each member of the family. Period. As time passed, people managed to make their quarters livable, but that was due solely to their own resourcefulness.

The inmates ate their meals at picnic tables in a huge mess hall. Badly cooked oatmeal was standard breakfast fare, and dinner might consist of two canned sausages, a boiled potato, and a piece of bread without butter. They didn’t starve, but they didn’t eat their fill, either.

The bathroom situation was even worse. Dozens or perhaps hundreds of people shared a common latrine with no doors on the stalls. In some locations, it was just a row of seats with no partitions between them. The showers were also communal. And there were no bathtubs for the Issei, who were unused to showers.

What if there was a storm? If they wanted to eat, they went out in the rain. If they needed to use the bathroom, they went out in the rain. Or mothers took empty coffee cans from the mess hall garbage and used them as chamber pots for their young children, requiring them to empty and rinse the cans during the day. Those were their choices.

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to live like that.

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*    Some Japanese Americans were sent directly to Manzanar, which was the first permanent camp to be “completed.” Even that word is a misnomer, however, as construction continued long after the inhabitants arrived. The next post will cover these permanent camps.

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The photograph at the top of this post shows a row of converted horse stalls at Tanforan Assembly Center in San Bruno, California. It was taken by Dorothea Lange on June 16, 1942 as part of her official duties as an employee of the United States government. Because it is a government document, the photo is in the public domain.

The Power of Words

Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Of course it would. But if somebody handed you something that looked like a rose and called it a “stinker,” you might hesitate before putting your nose up to it. Words do matter.

President Roosevelt, General DeWitt, and the federal government were masters at misleading through euphemisms. As mentioned in last week’s post, the Civil Exclusion Orders and other orders issued by General DeWitt turned citizens into “non-aliens” to make the orders sound more palatable—or to make the Nisei sound less American. But that was just the beginning of the euphemisms.

According to the official terminology, Japanese Americans were “relocated” or “evacuated” from the West Coast. Those words conjure up images of moving people for their own safety, as when residents are evacuated from homes in the path of a flood or a forest fire. There was isolated violence against Japanese Americans and some people argued—and may even have believed—that the forced removal was for the safety of those removed. But then why weren’t they given a choice of where to go? And, as many of the Nisei remarked, why were the guns pointed at those being “evacuated” rather than at those responsible for the threat?

Then there were the terms used for the camps the Japanese Americans were sent to. “Assembly centers” were temporary camps used to house the Japanese Americans while more permanent “relocation centers” were being built. Both had barbed wire fences and substandard housing, as will be described in subsequent posts. The government’s labels were political propaganda used to whitewash the fact that the camps were actually prisons for people who had committed no crimes. Those terms worked so well—at least among the bigots—that some Caucasians claimed the camps were country clubs where Japanese Americans received free room and board and took valuable resources away from the troops fighting overseas.

Finding an accurate label for these camps created a dilemma for me. Many people call them internment camps. Technically, however, internment camps are for aliens, and about two-thirds of the Japanese Americans were citizens. Today, some Japanese Americans use that term, while others view it as politically incorrect.

Technically, the assembly and relocation centers were concentration camps, where people were imprisoned solely because of their race. That seems to be the politically correct term, but I can’t quite bring myself to use it. For me, “concentration camp” conjures up images of the German camps where Jewish people were intentionally put to death and of the Russian camps where Germans and dissidents died from hard work and starvation. The American camps were terrible places, but they don’t match the image in my mind or in the mind of most Americans when they hear the term “concentration camp.”

I was conflicted when I thought that internment camp and concentration camp were my two basic choices. Then I read a resolution from the National Council of the Japanese American Citizens League. That resolution gave a thumbs down to “internment” and a thumbs up to “concentration camp.” But it also provided the term “incarceration camp” as another option. That term eliminated my dilemma, and I have chosen to use it.

But what we call the camps doesn’t matter nearly as much as what happened to loyal citizens and their parents. We’ll start by looking at the “assembly centers” in next week’s post.

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The photograph at the top of this post shows the front entrance gate at the Tanforan Assembly Center in California. It was taken by Dorothea Lange on June 16, 1942 as part of her official duties as an employee of the United States government. Because it is a government document, the photo is in the public domain.

Shikata Ga Nai

General DeWitt issued Civilian Exclusion Order No. 1 on March 24, 1942, followed in quick succession by Civilian Exclusion Orders 2 through 108. These orders contained instructions to “all persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non-alien.” It seems that General DeWitt couldn’t bring himself to use the word “citizens,” which is what the “non-aliens” were.

No. 5 is a typical exclusion order. It was issued on April 1, 1942 and required Japanese Americans living in San Francisco to present themselves for evacuation (forced removal) by noon on April 7. This gave them six days to pack up and store, lease, or sell everything they owned. Many had little choice but to give in to the vultures who offered less than 10% of the value of furniture and appliances and other household goods. Some women were so incensed at the prices they were offered that they smashed their fine china rather than letting the secondhand dealers have it for unconscionable prices.

The head of the family—or the person forced into that role if the Issei head of the household had been arrested—was required to go to the Civil Control Center in advance to register the family. The family was then given a number. The Civil Control Center also provided baggage tags with the family number and told evacuees to attach them to each member of the family and the luggage they were taking with them. (You can see the tags on the children in the picture at the head of this post.) There were no baggage tags for pets, however, because pets were not allowed.

And how much luggage could the Japanese Americans take? No more than they could carry, which different families interpreted differently. On average, they took two suitcases each plus one duffel bag for the family. There wasn’t room for photo albums or family heirlooms, either, because each family was instructed to pack (1) bedding and linens, (2) toilet articles, (3) extra clothing, (4) knives, forks, spoons, plates, bowls, and cups, and (5) “essential personal effects” (whatever that means) for each member. It was particularly hard to decide what clothes to take since they had no idea where they would be going or what the weather would be like.

So how did the Japanese Americans respond? With anger and hostility? Inwardly maybe, but not outwardly. There was very little resistance, and the battles that did occur were fought in the courts rather than in the streets.

Why did they submit? There were two main reasons. One is summed up in the Japanese phrase that I used as the title for this post: shikata ga nai. It means “it can’t be helped” and was their way of saying that what can’t be cured must be endured. The second reason is that they believed in obeying the laws of their country. If the American government said they must move out of their homes and into prison camps, they would do it. It was a way to show their loyalty.

Of course, the government didn’t call them prison camps. Tune in next week to find out what it did call them.

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The photograph at the top of this post was taken by Dorothea Lange in 1942 as part of her official duties as an employee of the United States government. Because it is a government document, the photo is in the public domain.

Betrayed by Their Country

February 19, 1942 was an evil day for America. That’s the day President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066.

But lets put it in context.

On February 14, 1942, General John L. DeWitt, who was commanding general of the Western Defense Command, sent a memorandum to the Secretary of War recommending that Japanese Americans living on the West Coast be removed from their homes and sent inland. His reasoning went this way:

The Japanese race is an enemy race and while many second and third generation Japanese born on United States soil, possessed of United States citizenship, have become “Americanized,” the racial strains are undiluted. . . . It, therefore, follows that along the vital Pacific Coast over 112,000 potential enemies of Japanese extraction are at large today. There are indications that the very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken. (Emphasis added.)

By the way, that 112,000 potential enemies included infants and children.

FDR responded to reports like these by issuing Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. It authorized the Secretary of War and “the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate” to create military areas:

from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion.

The day after FDR signed Executive Order 9066, the Secretary of War designated General DeWitt as the Military Commander for the western states for purposes of carrying out the provisions of that order. General DeWitt quickly drew a line down the middle of Washington, Oregon, and California and across the southern third of Arizona and declared that they were military areas from which all persons of Japanese descent would eventually be removed. He also imposed a curfew on Japanese Americans that required them (except with permission), to stay home from 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. And during the daylight hours, they were not allowed to travel more than five miles from their home except when traveling to and from work.

Although Executive Order 9066 did not specifically mention Japanese Americans, that is how it was applied in subsequent orders. And although some provisions of those later orders mentioned German and Italian aliens, none were applied to citizens of German or Italian descent. That “privilege” was reserved for those U.S. citizens with Japanese blood.

How would you have felt if you had been among them?

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The photograph at the top of this post was taken by Abbie Rowe and shows FDR signing the declaration of war against Japan on December 8, 1941. It is an official government photograph, which puts it in the public domain.

Guilty by Association

Hopefully everyone who reads this blog knows what happened at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Japanese-Americans were as shocked and angry as their Caucasian neighbors were. But the government saw only what it wanted to see and reacted quickly to suppress imaginary threats in Hawaii and the continental U.S.

On that same day, December 7, 1941, the FBI began arresting Japanese-Americans who maybe might have possibly had either an opportunity or reason—however slight—to cooperate with Imperial Japan. Most of the people arrested were Issei (first generation in America) men, but some were women and there may have been a few Nisei (second generation) as well.

How could the FBI act so quickly? Paranoia about the threat from Japan had begun months and even years earlier, and the government already had a list of those Japanese-American aliens (the Issei) who maybe might have possibly had either an opportunity or reason—however slight—to cooperate with Imperial Japan. Most had emigrated to America decades earlier and would have applied for citizenship if the law had allowed it.

The arrest list included:

• commercial fishermen (because they had short-wave radios and could theoretically make contact with submarines off the coast),
• community leaders and journalists (who might have influence in the Japanese-American community),
• Buddhist priests and Japanese-language teachers (i.e., those who worked to maintain Japanese religion, tradition, and culture),
• Issei employed by U.S. branches of Japanese businesses, and
• those who had visited Japan within the last few years.

Although many people were rounded up that first day, the arrests continued for several weeks. All of those arrested were sent to prison without a trial. Some of them were “released” after months or a year to join their families in incarceration camps, but many were not released until the war ended. And none of them were ever proved to be disloyal to the U.S.

You can imagine the effect this had on innocent men and their families. Many households were now fatherless, and some were even parentless. In the Kikuchi family, for example, a teenager was left to care for her four siblings, ranging in age from eight to twelve, after both her parents were taken away.* And all Issei bank accounts were immediately frozen, leaving many families with neither a wage-earner nor access to their savings.

These arrests occurred in Hawaii as well as in the continental U.S. The military also imposed martial law in Hawaii as part of an earlier plan on what to do if the U.S. was attacked. But most Japanese-Americans living in Hawaii were spared the worst of what was yet to come.

That began with Executive Order 9066, which I will cover next week.

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* See page 27 in Dear Miss Breed by Joanne Oppenheim.

Second-Class Citizens

I am currently researching a historical middle-grade novel based on the Japanese-American incarceration during World War II, and I believe it is important for all Americans to understand the appalling things we did to loyal citizens in the name of patriotism. (A subsequent post will explain why I use the word “incarceration.”) Since it will be a while before the book is written and finds a publisher, I have decided to dedicate a number of posts to the subject.

It actually started before Pearl Harbor. First-generation Japanese Americans, called Issei, were not allowed to become U.S. citizens, no matter how loyal they were or how long they had been in this country. In the Pacific states they were also prohibited from owning land, although many got around it by buying the land in their children’s names. Those same states, and some others, also made it illegal for anyone of Japanese ancestry to marry outside their race.

The second generation, called Nisei, had it somewhat better. They were born in the U.S. and became citizens at birth under the terms of the U.S. Constitution. As mentioned above, they were also allowed to own land, but they still couldn’t marry outside their race.

The Nisei (and some of their parents) tended to be well-educated. They spoke English as well as other native-born Americans, and they often had advanced degrees. Getting an education was easier than finding a job, however, and the West Coast was populated with engineers working as dish washers and store clerks.

Why this prejudice? Some of it was undoubtedly economic. The Japanese were accepted in Hawaii, where Japanese labor and Japanese businesses were vital to the island economy. They were largely ignored in the Midwest and on the East Coast, where their numbers were so small that they had little effect on the workforce. But they were often hated on the West Coast, where their hard work and business savvy made them serious competitors to many Caucasians.

Still, it was probably more complicated than that. It takes effort to identify with people who are different than we are, and the Japanese stood out because of their looks as well as their work ethic.

Whatever the reason, the prejudice was felt most strongly by the Issei. The Nisei had Japanese ancestors but considered themselves 100% American. No, they didn’t just consider themselves 100% American. They were 100% American.

That’s why subsequent events hit them so hard.

Next week I’ll write about the reaction to Pearl Harbor.

* * * * *

If you would like to learn more about the experience of Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast at the start of World War II, here are some books I recommend.

 

·         Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston;

·         Dear Miss Breed by Joanne Oppenheim;

·         Nisei Daughter by Monica Sone; and

·         The Children of Topaz by Michael O. Tunnell and George W. Chilcoat.

 * * * * *

The photograph at the top of this post was taken by Dorothea Lange in Oakland, California during March 1942. It appears to have been taken as part of her official duties while employed by the United States government, thereby placing it in the public domain.



Remembering World War II

There are still a few people around who lived through World War II, either on the battlefield or here at home, but it won't be long until they are all gone.

My mother's brother landed with the troops on D-Day and survived, although he didn't talk about it. My father tried to enlist as a chaplain, but they wouldn't take him because of his eyesight.

World War II was a truly global war. Although there have been wars since, none have carried that territorial scope.

So why am I writing about it now? Because we saw a couple of WWII sites on vacation, and they reminded me not to forget. Not to forget the patriotism. Not to forget the sacrifice. And especially not to forget the atrocities that incited the war. To remember even after the people who lived through those times are no longer around to tell us their experiences.

Except that isn't quite true. Their stories live on in letters and books and at places like the D-Day Memorial at Bedford, Virginia.

The top picture is a sweeping view of the memorial. The second is a sculpture showing the troops landing at Omaha Beach. You can see the landing craft in the rear and a dead soldier lying on the sand.

Initially, Roland and I wondered why the D-Day Memorial would be located in a small town tucked among the Blue Ridge Mountains. But there is a good reason. As a percentage of the population, Bedford had more D-Day casualties than anywhere else.

If you are ever in or near Bedford, make sure you stop and see the D-Day Memorial.

The other WWII site we visited was the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier, which is now a museum at Charleston, South Carolina. You can see the flight deck in the third picture.

I'm sure the Yorktown is quite a bit different from the aircraft carrier my son will serve on. But it is impressive as both a miniature city and an airport.

People who have served their country in wartime say that war is hell, and I'm sure they're right. I'm not a pacifist, and I even believe that some wars are ethical obligations. World War II is a good example: Hitler had to be stopped. Still, we should always consider whether war is justifiable under the particular circumstances, because it does have consequences.

That's why it is so important to remember World War II.