Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Resilience: Redress and Reparation

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

Today's episode marks the conclusion of our series, Resilience: The Wartime Incarceration of Japanese Americans. During the postwar era, a new generation was born to the Nisei as they returned to their lives outside of incarceration camps. This third generation, the Sansei, were raised by parents who endured years of discrimination and incarceration, but they themselves came of age during the 1960s and 70s–a time in America’s history that saw the of both civil unrest… and transformation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends. Welcome. Welcome back as we wrap up our series, Resilience, the Wartime Incarceration of Japanese Americans. During the post-war era, a new generation was born to the Nisei as they returned to their lives outside of the incarceration camps. This third generation, the Sansei, were raised by parents who endured years of discrimination and incarceration, but they themselves came of age during the 1960s and 70s, a time in America's history that saw both civil unrest and transformation. These were Japanese Americans who felt empowered to act, and they helped their parents challenge the government's past actions. So today, let's expand on what we spoke about with Professor Benai in our previous episodes,

and hear some of the stories of those who spoke out, and how exactly the United States addressed incarceration in the decades following World War II. the United States addressed incarceration in the decades following World War II. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. While incarcerated Japanese Americans were allowed to leave camps by the war's end, President Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 still existed in a sort of legal limbo. The government suspended the order after the ex parte Supreme Court decision in 1944, which to recap quickly, was the unanimous ruling that the U.S. government could not continue to detain any citizens who were conceitedly loyal to the country. This Endo ruling led to the

reopening of the West Coast to Japanese Americans after their incarceration and suspended Executive Order 9066. But President Roosevelt never terminated the order. Truman lifted the order on December 31, 1946, declaring that the hostilities have terminated, but offered no formal statement to terminate the order outright. It would take over 30 years and several more presidencies to do so. Executive Order 9066 was finally put to an end on February 19, 1967, on the 34th anniversary of America, do hereby proclaim that all the authority conferred by Executive Order 9066 terminated. I call upon the American people to affirm with me this American promise that we have learned from the tragedy of that long-ago experience forever to treasure liberty and justice for each individual American and resolve that this kind of action shall never again be repeated. And while the termination of the order acknowledged a part

of history that had largely been brushed under the rug by the government for decades, it still fell short. The one-page proclamation never offered an apology. Japanese Americans noticed. A California representative, Norman Mineta, who had been incarcerated at Heart Mountain, was at the proclamation ceremony. He said, it doesn't go so far as to apologize, but it did acknowledge it was a very tragic event and that we should make sure it does not occur again. The government spent decades covering up the severity of the atrocities Japanese Americans endured while they were incarcerated. In 1942, the War Relocation Authority decided to document the evacuation and incarceration of West Coast Japanese Americans through photographs. They hired well-known photojournalist Dorothea Lange, who had spent the 1930s photographing the hardships endured by those affected by the Great Depression.

affected by the Great Depression. If you don't know her by name, you know her by her photos. Her most famous, the black and white migrant mother that depicts a weathered and weary woman flanked by her two young children who have their small heads resting on her shoulders. Dorothea took the commission from the WRA to document the evacuation. She was opposed to the forced removal and incarceration and considered her photographs to be a vehicle for social change. While the agency was expecting Leng to show a humane operation and the cheerful compliance of Japanese Americans, Dorothea was determined to capture the truth as she saw it. She captured the chaotic scenes of Japanese Americans being ushered by military personnel onto overcrowded buses and trains. She took photos of their closed

and abandoned businesses. She did not shy away from capturing the stress and anxiety on their faces or the threadbare barracks they were forced to share, and the oversized government-issued coats they were given in freezing weather. Instead of allowing Lange to publish her photos as originally intended, the government seized them, writing, With Dorothea's commission cancelled, Manzanar camp director Ralph Merritt invited another famous photojournalist, Ansel Adams, to document camp life. Dorothea wrote to Ansel Adams about her experience. She said to him, I fear the intolerance and prejudice is constantly growing. We have a disease. It's Jap baiting and hatred. You have a job on your hands to do to make a dent

in it, but I don't know a more challenging nor more important one. I went through an experience I'll never forget when I was working on it and learned a lot, even if I accomplished nothing. Ansel's photographs were different from Lange's, and he obeyed the rules given to him. He was to not capture the guard towers or the barbed wire fences. His photographs seem less gritty, less depressing than Dorothea's, but Adams had an agenda too. He said he aimed to depict the people there as Americans, no different from those living outside the camps. Ansel Adams returned to Manzanar four times at his own expense to take photographs. He said, the purpose of my work was to show how these people, suffering under a great injustice

and loss of property, businesses, and professions, had overcome the sense of defeat and despair by building for themselves a vital community in an arid but magnificent environment. But Lang and Adams were not the only photographers who captured life inside incarceration camps. Toyo Miyatake was a Japanese-American photographer who had to shutter his LA photography business when he was incarcerated at Manzanar. He managed to smuggle in a camera lens and a film plate holder even though it was against the rules. An Issei carpenter crafted a box to hold the lens and Miyatake began to document camp life telling his son that he felt it was his duty to photograph the incarcerated. Eventually, he was permitted to become the official camp photographer,

and he documented many moments, some of seemingly quiet protest. In one of Miyatake's photos, his son Archie holds a pair of wire clippers against the barbed wire fence. Miyatake also began to collaborate with Ansel Adams during Adams' visits. The men later published their work together in the book Two Views of Manzanar. Unlike Lange, neither Adams nor Miyatake's photos were confiscated or impounded by the government. In 1972, a few years before President Ford terminated Executive Order 9066, the Whitney Museum in New York used 27 of Dorothea's photographs in an exhibit about the Japanese incarceration. New York Times critic A.D. Coleman called these photographs documents of such a high order that they convey the feelings of the victims as well as the facts of the crime.

However, after the war, the majority of Lange's photos were quietly filed into the National Archives, where most of them remained largely unseen by the public until they were digitally scanned for the website in 1998. Well, these images weren't hidden by the government on purpose, per se. They weren't exactly highlighted either. But the fact remains that the information stored in the National Archives is accessible to the public, to anyone who's willing to comb through it for research. Like Aiko Herseg Yoshinaga, who was a high school senior in Los Angeles when she was forcefully removed from her home. Worried they would be split up, Aiko quickly married her boyfriend and the young couple was sent to Manzanar. In 1978, after many years working clerical and research jobs, Aiko began visiting the National Archives in Washington, D.C. She wanted to learn more about her family's years

of incarceration in Camps Jerome and Rower. Aiko was quickly drawn in and began widening her research. Later, she said, I started to examine those records and they absolutely grabbed me. I started with the War Relocation Authority records because that's where our records were kept. And all these records referred to other records like military records or state department records, which means you have to go to different branches in the archives, the same building, but different branches. And so the search spread and spread and spread. One of the most significant documents she found during her research was the original final report of General DeWitt. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. And together we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests and lots of laughs.

Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! It is my girl in the studio! In the studio. Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Lady 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits

before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. If you remember, I mentioned in a previous episode how it had been so full of false information that the copies were supposed to have been destroyed. It became the key document in later proving that the government had used this manipulated report to unconstitutionally keep Japanese Americans incarcerated. In 1983, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, which had been established three years earlier, issued its conclusion that Executive Order 9066 was not justified by military necessity, and that instead, the broad historical causes which shaped these decisions were race prejudice, war hysteria, and failure of political leadership.

That is the government's own conclusion 40 years later. That the causes of Japanese incarceration were race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership. These findings came during the middle of what's called the redress movement. By the late 1960s and early 70s, most of the sons and daughters of the Nisei were entering college. It was a time of discovery for them, a time when they were beginning to learn about the historical events that their parents spoke little about at home. Many felt that the injustices that their parents endured deserved acknowledgement and redress. They saw firsthand what speaking out and protesting could accomplish. They had watched and participated in the efforts of the civil

rights movement. They had protested against the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. And they wanted a real apology for their families. But it was an uphill climb. In the 1970s, Japanese Americans made up a very tiny percentage of the U.S. population, and a large amount of Nisei were hesitant to lay bare their old memories of incarceration in front of a government and a public that had proven time and again they weren't exactly open to admitting to the mistakes made during World War II. But the Sansei persisted. One said, the redress movement is a rejection of the passive stereotypes and symbolizes the birth of a new Japanese American. One who will recognize and deal with injustices.

The Japanese American Citizens League agreed. League agreed, and at its annual convention in 1970, they adopted a resolution to seek redress for the loss of both freedom and property suffered by those who were incarcerated. JACL committee members began to lobby members of Congress to write redress legislation. They also recruited activists, Nisei and Sansei activists who relentlessly contacted media outlets, sharing stories and information in interviews and articles. Soon television networks began to air some of the more dramatic stories from Japanese-American incarceration. The memoir, Farewell to Manzanar, was published in 1973. in 1973. And three years later, NBC aired a made-for-TV movie version, making it the first commercial film broadcast on primetime TV to be written, performed, photographed, and scored by Japanese Americans about the World War II camp experience. One of the actors in Farewell to

Manzanar said last year, 2021, on the 45th anniversary of the film, that many of the Nisei on set felt like they were reliving history. She said, even when I talk about it now, it raises the hair on my arms. It really made me think hard about what the Ise and Nisei went through. All of the articles and the books and films and speeches the Nisei gave during the 1970s had a similar effect on many Americans. Many of them were learning for the first time what had actually happened behind those barbed wire fences at incarceration camps. In 1979, Senators Daniel Inoue and Spark Matsunaga, both Japanese-American men who had served in the 442nd Infantry during the war, introduced Senate Bill 1647 to establish the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians. In 1980, Congress and President Carter signed that bill into law.

Congress and President Carter signed that bill into law. We know that the commission gathered archival sources, scholarship, and personal papers that explain the government's decision-making process for incarceration, and that Aiko Herseg Yoshinaga's research played a pivotal part in its rulings. The commission also held 20 days of oral hearings. Over 750 policymakers and incarcerees in cities like Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, and New York shared their experiences over the course of six months, from July to December of 1981. But not everyone trusted the commission to do the job effectively. The National Coalition for Redress and Reparations, or NCRR, was a Sun Tse-led grassroots effort for inclusion in the commission hearings. They were worried that the hearings would be restricted to

the JACL community, which was made up of primarily well-educated, assimilated Japanese Americans. So the NCRR encouraged working class and non-English language speaking Japanese Americans to testify in front of the commission. Their efforts succeeded in getting the commission to add an evening hearing in Los Angeles, which was after working hours, and translators at the Los Angeles and San Francisco hearings. Amy Iwasaki Mass, a social worker who had been incarcerated at Heart Mountain as a child, testified in Los Angeles in August of 1981. She said of the experience, it was interesting because it was not something that was popular among everybody. And I guess the fact that I had been talking to my students, to my patients,

and reading about other people's experiences with camp, I knew what a profound effect it had on all of us. So I knew that was important to talk about, even though it wasn't popular to talk about. Let's take a listen to some of the testimonies brought before the commission. Here is Bert Arata from Peoria, Illinois. At the time of the Pearl Harbor bombing, a day I will never forget. I was living at 325 State Street in Los Angeles, California with my wife and two-year-old daughter. I was shocked and stunned and thought, what will they do

to us now? Although we are American citizens. Shortly after, two FBI men came to our home and ransacked the entire house, but found nothing but suspicion. I remember the proclamation of President Roosevelt posted on telephone poles, ordering all persons of Japanese ancestry to dispose of their homes and business and go to the assembly center. We loaded our truck with clothing and bassinet, thinking we might be spared from going to the camp. The feeling of being under suspicion for no reason except that we are Japanese by nationality and center camp is something you can never forget. And this is Shizu Sue Loftin. I live at 921 Agatide here in Chicago. My father was a 200% American. He came here at

age 17 and he said it was always a dream that he would live in the United States. It was mostly through his influence that all of us grew up almost 200% Americans. Therefore the betrayal we felt was more acute perhaps than for others. On December 7th I realized that our citizenship really counted for nothing and that was a terrible blow to me. I realized that martial law had been declared and that anything, anything could happen. That I had no rights, that anyone had any business or were obliged to even consider. All the things, all the words I had taken for granted, equal protection under the law, regardless of color, race, or religion, no longer applied to me. I was a simple,

non-political Nisei woman of 28 with a nice Nisei husband and a child, a a bright child of 19 months. And we dreamed American dreams then. Mostly I remember thinking back to those days that my thoughts were for my child. I thought because of martial law anything could happen. And as the rumors began coming up in the Los Angeles area where I lived, that they could take my child away from me. She was not quite two. What I wanted more than anything was to keep her from being harmed. I had no idea what martial law meant. It could mean that children would be taken from their parents,

just as surely as older people that Issei could be taken from the Issei children. And let's hear one more testimony. This is from Mary Fujihara Omori. I am a victim. I have been injured. Parts of my life have been destroyed. I have been sacrificed, tricked and duped, but none other than my own government. I was and am a citizen of the United States,

presumably with all the rights granted me by the Bill of Rights and the Constitution of the United States. The then President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, along with other government and army officials, decided that I was undesirable, unacceptable, and undeserving of my constitutional rights. Through a quirk of history, I have become both a victim and a criminal. My crime was that I was born an American of Japanese descent. I had just turned 13 years old. Racial discrimination was an integral part of my life since my birth. Discrimination was a problem served up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I saw my parents subjected to it every day. Our lives were governed by it, diminished by

it, and hardened by it. All our efforts were mobilized to overcome it. All our efforts failed in December of 1941. The ultimate act of racial discrimination was perpetrated by our government and culminated in the removal and imprisonment of 120,000 innocent people, resident aliens and citizens alike, a Japanese ancestry. The reason for my removal to a concentration camp was not a question of national security. Military necessity was a convenient excuse.

It was racial discrimination, overtly practiced and fully sanctioned by a government sworn to protect the rights of all its citizens, regardless of race, color, or creed. I was not accused. I was not tried. I was not sentenced in a court of law. Constitutional laws were conveniently suspended. American ideals of democracy were simply abandoned and thrown aside by the very people entrusted with them. I did not leave those barbed wires behind in

Tule Lake on August the 14th, 1945. I carry them with me, and I carry them with me still. I no longer want to be encumbered, inbound by them. I want to be set free. On September 17, 1987, the years of relentless work done by the Nisei and Sansei on behalf of the redress movement paid off. The House of Representatives passed the precedent-setting legislation that would become the Civil Liberties Act. The date was significant. It marked the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution, and the number assigned to the bill, H.R. 442, was also chosen to be significant. It honored the 442nd Regimental Combat Team that had served four decades earlier with so much bravery. On April 28, 1988, the Senate passed a similar bill, and the act needed only to have President Ronald Reagan's signature to be put into effect. The Civil Liberties Act called for a payment of $20,000 to be given to each surviving person who was incarcerated.

Japanese American leaders were outspoken about their concern with the provision. Was it enough? What about the families of those who had already passed away? What were they to be given? Nisei Janet Dajoko, who was incarcerated at Topaz as a child, remembers calling her mother about the sum of money. She said, I called my mother and I asked her how she felt about it and she said, nothing can pay for the humiliation we endured. And she began to cry over the phone. It was only the second time I had ever witnessed my mother crying. Nevertheless, on August 10th, President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, even though his administration had originally been

opposed to the act as it hit the floor in the House the year earlier. The signing was a public event with hundreds of redress activists in attendance. Reagan addressed them saying, what is important in this bill has less to do with property than with honor. For here, we admit a wrong. Here, we reaffirm our commitment as a nation to equal justice under the law. The first of the $20,000 checks were given to the four oldest living survivors of the incarceration. U.S. Assistant Attorney General John Dunn presented them at a special ceremony saying, well, we know we cannot rearrange our past and we cannot undo the harm and injustice. We can make amends. The Civil Liberties Act itself had five goals.

They were one, to acknowledge the fundamental injustice of the forced evacuation and imprisonment. Two, to apologize on behalf of the people of the United States. Three, to provide for a public education fund to finance efforts to prevent future recurrence. 4. To make restitution. And 5. To make more credible any declaration of concern by the U.S. over human rights violations in other nations. Thanks to the recommendation of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, a fund was established to uphold one of the key provisions in the Act, education. This fund was used to sponsor research and public educational activities. But the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund, which oversaw the

over 135 educational programs and projects during the 1990s closed its doors in 1998, even though education is so important now more than ever. Without knowing and owning our past, the discrimination, and the mistakes, we cannot hope to uphold the pillars of our democracy in the present. Chizu Iyama, who was incarcerated at Topaz, understood the importance of education and action. She said, after the camps, I fought for the kind of country that I would like for it to be. I became active in the fights against discrimination and fights for justice for all. Thank you so much for joining me today. Next time, we have a very special guest joining us. Actor George Takei sat down with me to talk about his experience being incarcerated at Camp Rower in Arkansas during the war. I'll see you again soon.

Thank you so much for listening to Here's Where It Gets Interesting. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. If you enjoyed this episode, would you consider leaving us a rating or review or sharing a link to it on your social media? All of those things help podcasters out so much. Here's Where It Gets Interesting is written and researched by executive producer Heather Jackson. Our audio engineer is Jenny Snyder, and it's hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. See you again soon. you