By Mary Alice Murphy
Monday evening, four Japanese-Americans, who were held in internment camps as children during World War II, recounted their experiences and the projects they plan to make sure it doesn't happen again. The presentation was in Light Hall on the Western New Mexico University campus.
Dr. Nikki Nojima Louis, former child prisoner of Minidoka camp and daughter of a prisoner in two New Mexico camps, spoke during the presentations. Her father, as an Issei, or first generation Japanese-American, in 1942, during the beginning of the United States involvement in World War II, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, was sent first to the internment camp in Lordsburg.
"Herb (Herbert Tsuchiya) and I were Nisei, or second generation Japanese American. We were sent to Camp Minidoka, Idaho," Nojima Louis said. "He was 10 years old. I remember living in Block 3, Barracks (this author failed to get the number), Apartment C. Most of the 10 family camps had a population of more than 10,000."
Tsuchiya said four of the brothers in his family served in the U.S. Military. "Two served in Italy and France, one in Germany, and I was a Japanese translator in Korea."
Sam Mihara was a child prisoner in the Heart Mountain, WY, internment camp. He showed slides of his family's home in Matsuyama City in Japan, which has one of the 12 original castles in Japan, built in the 16th Century. He said sentries would give the alarm and people would pour into the multi-story building, with the most senior going to the top. The last person in would pull up the ladder.
"My grandfather worked in a factory making miso and sake," Mihara said. "My grandmother was in fabric-making. Her foot-operated weaving machine is in a museum in Matsuyama City. They wanted my father to better himself and sent him to a very good college in Japan. He became good at speaking English, so with his two languages, he got a job in the U.S. and brought his family over.
"By 1940, many Japanese had settled on the U.S. West Coast," he continued. There were a lot in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Many wanted to be farmers so they went inland to Sacramento, Fresno and Imperial County. Those who were merchants lived above their businesses.
"I was born in San Francisco—a Nisei, second generation Japanese-American," Mihara said.
He talked about how Dorothea Lange, a photographer, who had chronicled the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, was sent to San Francisco to take photos of the Japanese as they were being transitioned to the camps. Mihara showed a slide of 8-year-old schoolgirls saying the Pledge of Allegiance. "She realized that was not the real story and took many other photos. Because she worked for the government, and they did not approve of the photos, they gathered about 1,000 of her photos, which were held at Berkeley until they were released some 40 years later."
"We were denied the 'liberty and justice for all,' Mihara said.
He also showed slides of the media campaign that helped move the Japanese-Americans out of their homes. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed an executive order that said: "I'm giving authority to remove people to the military authority." Gen. John L. Dewitt was in charge of moving the Japanese-Americans away from the west coast. On the east coast, they looked for Germans and Italians.
"They registered the heads of families to develop lists," Mihara said. He showed photos of three Japanese who went to prison for not following orders. Fred Korematsu had surgery to look white, but the government was not deceived and sent him to prison. Gordon Hirabayashi refused to follow the curfew, stayed in a library past curfew and went to prison. Minora Yasui was a young lawyer. Late at night he was apprehended when he demanded to be arrested. He, too, was sent to prison.
"The cases went to the Supreme Court, which did not judge on the constitutionality of the cases, but only on whether they broke the rules," Mihara said.
"Buses were loaded with the internees, who were allowed one suitcase per person," Mihara continued. "They were taken to horse race tracks, called assembly areas, which were enclosed by barbed wire with high guard towers. Some people lived in the horse stalls; others lived in shacks built in front of the stalls, because the stalls were full.
"It was four days and three nights, until we ended up in Heart Mountain, Wyoming," he said. "It was located between Cody, which had a population of about 2,500 people and 50 miles away was Powell, with about 1,000 people. What did the people of Cody think when they learned that 10,000 Japanese were coming in? Alan Simpson, who later became U.S. Senator was interviewed years later, because he remembered what the people of Cody thought. 'They thought that if the internees escaped, they would all be killed.'"
Mihara noted that most of the people in the camp were women, children and the elderly. "But that was their thinking at the time."
Milton Eisenhower, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's brother, was put in charge of the camps. Many governors refused the camps unless they were built like prisons. "As many as 2,000 workers built the camps," Mihara showed a photo of an almost completed camp.
"The walls of the barracks had no insulation," Mihara said. "The camp was surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers. The signs in English and Japanese warned that if someone crossed the boundary they might be shot and killed. The government assigned the Mihara family to building No. 14, Bloc 22, Barrack C. Our address, which we had to memorize was 14-22-C. We were each given a number. I was prisoner 26737D. The father of the family was A, the mother, B, my brother, C, and I was D. Those files are still available.
"The camp at Heart Mountain had 30 blocs, and each had 24 barracks," he said. "Because of the size of our family, we were assigned a 20-foot-by-20-foot room for three years. The toilets were lined up, with no privacy. We took pickle barrels and created one-person tubs. We were served bread, potatoes, powdered milk and sometimes mutton from Australia. Not at all the diet we were used to. We talked the government into letting us raise our own food along the Shoshone River. We had fresh food almost all year round, because we built a root cellar. The winters were horrible. It got to -28 degrees the first winter. The schoolroom had no desks, so carpenters built benches, which were used as desks.
"About 33,300 Japanese-Americans served in the military," Mihara said. "A unit began in Hawaii and they were shipped off to Europe. Eight hundred men and women from Heart Mountain joined the military."
He said a San Francisco attorney, James Purcell, became interested in the issue of the Japanese-Americans being held in camps. He found Mitsuye Endo, who worked for the state of California and had never broken a law. Purcell filed a lawsuit, and finally after three years, the Supreme Court let all the internees go in late 1945. The government sold the barracks for $1 each to farmers and ranchers who used them for years.
"We got back to California and the hatred persisted," Mihara said. "The goods we had stored were pilfered and missing."
He showed a short video of a woman, whose parents were James and Toshi Ito. "My father could not provide for his family, because he could not get a job. He committed suicide, so my mother and I would receive insurance. I was on my honeymoon and had a call that he had died. When we returned I learned he had committed suicide. I cried and cried. I've never cried so much."
Mihara said the woman had attended college, and finally figured out she had to talk. "It took 50 years to get justice. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the law to compensate those who had spent years in camps. In October 1990, President George H.W. Bush sent a letter of apology and a check of redress to families."
"We have built the Heart Mountain Interpretive Learning Center," Mihara said. "It is a unique family-oriented center for education and learning. They try to bring in people of all ages. We found a barrack in good shape and brought it into the center to recreate the environment."
He said the camp in Lordsburg was managed by the Department of Justice and the U.S. Army. "My father-in-law was held there. Heart Mountain was managed by War Relocation Management, and held 10,000 to 14,000 prisoners, mostly families, considered low risk, with 25 prisoners per barrack. They also had the option of moving to the East, although most remained in the West. Lordsburg held 1,000 to 2,500 prisoners, mostly Issei, first generation, who were rated as high risk. Two prisoners were shot and killed, accused of trying to escape."
Nojima Louis introduced Mollie Pressler, who gives Chautauqua talks on the Lordsburg camp, which also housed German and Italian prisoners of war.
Pressler described herself as a LOLOL, Little Old Lady of Lordsburg.
"In 1976, I signed up for a class at Western New Mexico University, on Special Problems in American History," Pressler said. "It was also my first year of teaching seventh grade. It was Phillip L. Cook, who said: 'The problem with American history is if we don't write about it, it will be lost.
"As I got into the history of the Lordsburg camp, the list of who I need to interview kept growing," she continued. "I took shorthand notes and studied the archives of the Lordsburg Liberal of the 1940s. I gathered records for my term paper. It started as five pages, turned into a 50-page paper and grew from there. Since then, I have gotten more tidbits. People want to learn about where their fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers were held. Lordsburg was neither a relocation nor an assembly camp. It was developed under an executive order, under the 1798 Enemy Aliens Act, which designated those 14 years and older to be held in a permanent alien camp.
"The Issei were not eligible for citizenship," Pressler said. "It was the largest camp for incarceration.
"Why Lordsburg?" she asked. "It was remote, had level terrain was near a railroad, with a small airport and a highway that ran from coast to coast. It had its own resources for water, gas and electricity. In 1942, 283 buildings were built in a 7-acre area. Each compound had 10 barracks, which held 200 men each. They came in June 1942. It was hard to see the threat in men with the average age of 55 years, and they were calm men, although they objected to their harsh treatment. Their fundamental question was: 'What are our rights?' They were required to clean the Army barracks, the latrines, the infirmary, all outside their compound, but they were paid only in coupons. The Geneva Convention said they were allowed to work only in the compounds and were to be paid."
Col. Clyde Lundy was in charge of the camp. At first the men were allowed to labor in the morning when it was not as hot. However, on July 13, 1942, afternoon details began. The internees decided they were not able to comply and were put in lockdown except for meals and latrines. They had no electricity, the doors were closed, making it unbearably hot. These were all against the Geneva Convention, Pressler said. On July 27, 1942, the camp received a shipment of new internees at the Ulmoris Siding. The internees had to walk from there to the camp. Two lagged back because of age and injury. They asked to relieve themselves, but were refused. They got off the road and were shot in the back, even though the guard had asked them to halt, he testified. He was ultimately acquitted.
Other complaints were being received about Lundy, including that he mishandled funds, gave the musical instruments meant for the internees to enlisted men, and delayed giving mail to the prisoners. Lundy was retained, but the internees were moved to Montana in late 1943. Lundy got a promotion and retired. The Issei who died while at Lordsburg were later transferred from the Lordsburg Cemetery to the Fort Bliss cemetery.
Pressler showed a photo of a heater from the camp that is still in use at the Methodist Church.
One of the former prisoners later convinced Sen. Pete Domenici to support redress for the internees.
The New Mexico Japanese American Citizens League documents sites, with funding from the Parks Service and private donors. "Our purpose is to document the history to educate students about this history," Victor Yamada said. "Usually three sites are mentioned in New Mexico, Santa Fe, Lordsburg and Fort Stanton. There was a fourth site on the Old Baca Ranch, a few miles northeast of Fort Stanton. It was used as a confinement center and housed 32 people who were picked up in Clovis and later dispersed to other camps. Families in Clovis since the 1920s were working on the railroad, but lost their jobs and were interned."
"The group plans to put out historic markers," Victor Yamada of the NM JACL said. "Second, we want to develop an outreach publication, and third a website that anybody can use. We are set to finish these projects by spring of next year.
"Much of the project will cover materials not seen by the public before," Yamada said. "We hear in prisoners' words themselves about being in camp. We have access to letters from the prisoners to their families, which, even with censoring, show their feelings about the camps. In Santa Fe, a prisoner, who was a medical doctor, kept a scrapbook that is now being translated. We have original watercolors, calligraphy, poetry, and the list of the residents who signed their names in Japanese and English, barrack by barrack. They wrote their home addresses.
"The fourth example for the Santa Fe camp will be a journal of 1,000 pages kept by a Buddhist priest. It is of significant importance," Yamada said. "He was from Japan and was a Buddhist priest in the U.S. and became a prisoner in Santa Fe and Lordsburg. About 6,000 people went through the camps in New Mexico and we have that many individual stories.
"After this phase of market outreach and the website, we want a traveling exhibit where we can talk about this issue," he said. "It will be Phase 3 over the next couple of years. Our aim is to educate the youth and others."
A woman in the audience asked where the families of the Issei were. Mihara said they were sent to other camps. The farthest eastward camp was in Arkansas. Yamada said many of the stories are still coming out.
Gerald Schultz said he had read that the Japanese could renounce their American citizenship and go back to Japan. Mihara said they were called the No-Nos and held at Tule Lake, CA. No, they didn't pledge allegiance to America and no, they didn't renounce the pledge to the Japanese emperor.
Rev. Tyler Connoley said he visited the camp in Artesia where women and children from Mexico and Central America were being held. "It is chilling how similar it is to these photos."
Tsuchiya said the same nomenclature continues to be used. The Native Americans were held in assembly areas. The Japanese-American Citizens League is one of the first to protect the civil liberties of all people. "From history, we should learn and not repeat it."
Mihara, in answer to a question if he was bitter about what happened, said he had been bitter for so long. "I stayed away from Wyoming, but being bitter doesn't help. What helps is to pass on our experience so others can learn. It is far more satisfying."