Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Resilience: Your Questions Answered

Episode Date: October 28, 2022

We asked you to write or call in with your lingering questions about Japanese incarceration, so today, on Resilience, Sharon answers your questions. Join us to hear more about what happened to Japanese Americans in Hawaii after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, what happened to the assets of the incarcerated, and where you can find more resources, like oral histories, photos, and video compilations. 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

Hi, my name is Julie and I am part of the Asian American community. I wanted to thank you so much for sharing these podcasts about the Japanese incarceration camps. And where I live in Washington, you can still see traces of what happened. It wasn't even that long ago, really. And in a small town near where I live, I take my kids to play at the park there and we go hiking on the trails in the town. And it's still a small town today, but in the 40s, it was also quite small. And one of the biggest businesses there was a lumber mill. And they had employed quite a few Japanese Americans. I think there were a few hundred Japanese Americans living in that town. And then one day there were zero and they

were all incarcerated. And even years later, when they were finally freed from those camps, none of them came back to the town. And so even today, I don't believe there are any Japanese Americans living in that town. And so this little tofu house that they have turned into a small museum is there by the park. And it's very sobering for me to think that there were people eating in that little shack and doing their work. And they were a part of the community. And now it feels almost forgotten in a way. So thank you for bringing voice to this. Hello, friends. Welcome. Before we wrap up our resilience series, I wanted to give you,

the listeners, an opportunity to participate. So we asked you to write or call in with your lingering questions about Japanese incarceration. Maybe you want to know more about life inside the camps or where many of these families settled afterward. Like Julie mentioned, this was a part of history that happened not so far back in our country's past. And it's up to us to keep learning, to ask for more information, and to share when we can. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. Let's dive right in and start with a question from Lee in Richmond, Virginia. Lee writes, I cannot find information on this, but was there any sense of Japanese American emigration from the U.S. being imminent at the time. If cornered by my captors and forced to swear allegiance to them, then I would be tempted to return to my family's

country of origin. I'm wondering if, in retrospect, any findings mention the potential for fleeing the United States before Executive Order 9066. In other words, she's asking, was there any sense that people of Japanese descent wanted to return to Japan? So that's a great question, actually, and the short answer is no. The longer answer is that there is a possibility that some Japanese Americans could have made arrangements to leave the United States after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but it's unlikely, and it would have been a very minuscule number of people. Most Japanese immigrants had been living in the United States for nearly 20 years or longer. The Immigration Act of 1924 greatly reduced the number of immigrants allowed into the country and almost

completely cut off immigration from Asian countries. The Japanese immigrants who were living on the West Coast when President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in February of 1942 had arrived before that Immigration Act went into effect in 1924. So they had been in the United States for nearly 20 years. These were people who had come to the U.S. to seek opportunities and economic security, and they considered themselves Americans. They were in it for the long haul. Japan had become an increasingly unstable country during the first half of the 20th century. As Japan rapidly expanded its industrial and urban areas, farmers were being forced off of their land and workers faced an increasing amount of joblessness and sharp drops in wages.

Some began to seek opportunities outside of Japan and the prosperous U.S. economy was a big reason why they came to the United States in the first place. So if you remember way back at the beginning of our series, we talked a lot about how settling in the U.S. wasn't an easy task for Japanese immigrants. They faced hostility and discrimination, along with racist laws and regulations that were specifically created to make it harder for them to gain citizenship and assimilate fully into American culture. But the people who did stay were determined to persevere. And by the 1940s, they had spent the better half of two decades building their lives here. They ran successful businesses and excelled in agriculture,

and they created deeply connected communities, and they raised their families here. The United States may not have been the Issei generation's country of origin, but they made it their home. And for the children of Japanese immigrants, the Nisei, it was both of those things, right? Close to 80,000 of the over 120,000 Japanese Americans who were incarcerated were U.S. citizens by birth. So young Nisei in the 1940s, like George Takei, attended public schools every day. They pledged allegiance to the flag, and they sang the national anthem, and they spoke English. Older Nisei were headed off to college or starting careers and jobs and contributing to the American tax base. So despite the forced removal and incarceration that Japanese Americans faced, these were people who had no intention of returning or moving to Japan. In fact, they had for years sought U.S. citizenship but were denied that right by the U.S. government. Organizations like the Japanese American Citizens League

made it their goal to assimilate, to prove their patriotism and not to flee. And then let's look at the logistics here of leaving the U.S. after Executive Order 9066. The U.S. military was at war with Japan. So travel to and from this island country was non-existent for non-military travelers. Traveling to Canada or Mexico for Japanese Americans was also risky because both countries were carrying out their own military actions to incarcerate Japanese immigrants. And then the timeline was also very swift. Within hours after the Pearl Harbor bombing, over 1,200 Japanese community and religious leaders had been arrested. Even before President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 two months later, the FBI and the military police began raiding homes, enacting curfews,

scrutinizing the actions of Japanese Americans on the West Coast. So a plan to leave the country would have sent up a lot of red flags. Once the order went into effect, many families had just dates to pack up their belongings and leave their homes. They were registered and tracked by numbers handed out by the War Relocation Authority. So there was simply no time or opportunity to consider leaving the United States. And most Japanese immigrants and citizens complied, hopeful that doing so would be a testimony to their patriotism. And even those who protested their removal and incarceration did so from within the United

States. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends and together we have the podcast office ladies where we re-watched 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 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. So here's a question from Laura. Hi, Sharon. I had a question about those of Japanese descent who were living in Hawaii. It wasn't a state yet, but obviously that was where the Pearl Harbor attack happened. And I was just curious what happened to those Japanese.

I don't remember hearing if they were transported to the mainland and incarcerated here or if something happened specifically on the Hawaiian islands. Anyway, thanks for doing everything you do. Pearl Harbor was bombed was somewhat different than what happened on the mainland. So within hours of the attack, martial law was declared on the island chain, which by the way, was not yet a state. Hawaii was territory until 1959. So martial law is the direct military control over regular civilian functions. It supersedes civil laws and is usually enacted temporarily during times of extreme conflict. But in Hawaii, after Pearl Harbor, martial law lasted for nearly three years. The military and the FBI quickly rounded up any suspected spies or anyone they felt was suspicious. And in this case, the suspicion was rooted in racism. People were held just for being Japanese and living in certain areas of the island or having a reputation as a leader or an

influencer or being a Japanese American who owned a boat. More than 2,000 people were arrested and detained in the first 48 hours after the attack. Some were eventually released, but others were actually held for years. The military in Hawaii imposed a strict curfew. Habeas corpus was suspended, and trial by jury was temporarily eliminated. Every person on the islands, with the exception of children, stood in long lines to get fingerprinted. They were issued identification papers, and they had to carry these papers with them at all times and present them to any military officer who asked. But 37% of Hawaiian Island residents were of Japanese descent, and the government could not afford to incarcerate a third of the population of Hawaii. It would have crushed the labor force and the economy, especially during wartime when there was a much higher need for production labor.

So instead, the Hawaiian islands became their own type of incarceration center. While the Issei and Nisei were free to stay in their homes and work in their jobs, they were still targeted with the most restrictive rules. Ise were legally labeled enemy aliens and were not allowed to gather in groups of more than 10 or to change residences. They were expected to turn in any items that could be used to aid espionage like portable radios, firearms, cameras, and flashlights. Japanese schools were closed and media outlets were censored. The press was only allowed to publish articles in English. Japanese Americans were barred from fishing, a job that was the livelihood for many island families. Japanese Americans who served in the military were placed in segregated units, although

we know that Hawaii's Onise 100th Battalion went on to join the 442nd to become one of the most decorated units during World War II. It was Presidential Proclamation No. 2627, issued in October of 1944, that ended martial law in Hawaii. Habeas corpus was restored. Habeas corpus is a legal term that requires the government to give you a hearing. And the territory was designated as a military area. While most of the island's Japanese population was not incarcerated on the mainland, the years under martial law took their toll.

the years under martial law took their toll. Altogether, over 10,000 people were arrested or detained under martial law. Many of you wrote in asking something similar to our next question. I think it resonates with a lot of people that entire households had so little time to pack up their homes and businesses and leave them without knowing when or if they would be allowed to return. Annie from North Carolina writes, I'm so curious as to what happened to all the things left behind. You mentioned that some items were sold, but what about everything else? Were people's homes just sold or foreclosed on? What about their financial assets? Did they have access to their bank accounts? Where did it all go? And the answer to this, Annie, is pretty complex and it differs

from family to family, right? Some families were lucky to have connections or friends who were white and were able to make promises to look after their property. We talked about that in a previous episode. Mary Tsukamoto and her family were aided by their friend Bob Fletcher, who quit his own job and cared for the grape farms of three Japanese-American families while they were incarcerated. He managed to keep their estate finances by paying mortgages, attending to their banking, and the upkeep of their properties. But that was certainly the minority of situations. The most repeated statistic is that camp residents lost around $400 million in property during their incarceration. But the Densho Organization, which is a great resource for learning more about

Japanese American history and incarceration, believes that better informed calculations puts the sum closer to between $1 and $3 billion. And that is $1 and $3 billion in 1940s money that has not been adjusted for inflation. So many people had to sell their belongings for pennies on the dollar. Businesses had to dispose of their stocks any way they could, and it was better to sell cheap than risk their storefronts being vandalized while they were gone. And vandalization still happened. Communities knew that their Japanese-American neighbors were being removed. Some of them just waited and then walked in and took anything that wasn't nailed down. One incarcerated Nisei remembered what it

was like to return to his family's farm after leaving camp. He said, the farm was leased, but the lessee just stole everything, didn't continue to farm, and then left the house vacant. So then the vandals got in and got rid of, vandalized all of our personal property that was stored in the attic of the house. All the photographs and everything were all gone. The lessee had stripped it of all the appliances and everything, stripped out of the house. The horses were sold.

The farm implements were sold. And when I say that nearly all of the Japanese Americans who were incarcerated had to start over from scratch when they were released from the camps, that is not an exaggeration. Anything they couldn't carry with them was destroyed, sold, seized, or stolen. seized, or stolen. In 1948, the Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act was passed with the intent that it would provide some compensation for the economic losses suffered by the incarcerated. But it ended up being a pretty ineffective program. People who filed claims had to give sworn testimonies before panels, and provide proof of their losses through well-documented receipts, which is a difficult task when your property is looted and damaged while you're being forced into incarceration. And in the end, the government had final say on what

they defined as a loss and allowed them to deny as many claims as they could. Through the act, the government paid out about $38 million in reparations, a far cry from the $1 to $3 billion in losses Japanese Americans suffered. And if you remember, once people were released from camps, they were given a bus ticket and $25. $25 to begin anew. Lauren from Denver asks, did Japanese Americans earn money while at camp or did they just have whatever they came with? So yes, Lauren, many of Japanese Americans who were forced into camps held jobs and earned money. However, and it's a big however, they earned such small amounts while at camp that it was not enough to support themselves or their families once they left camp.

Because the 10 incarceration camps were set up to operate like towns, many Japanese Americans did the work to keep the communities running. They performed a range of jobs. Those who had worked in the medical profession before being incarcerated took roles in the health centers. Teachers became the backbone of camp schools. And those who didn't have professions found work in places like the mess halls, kitchens, or custodial staff. kitchens, or custodial staff. Employment wasn't mandatory, but those who did work were compensated. And this compensation was much lower than what they would make outside of camps. Skilled workers made around $15 to $16 a month, and some of the lowest jobs came with a salary of only $8 a month. At Heart Mountain, for example, a teacher earned a salary

of around $225 a year. And if you compare that to the salary of a white teacher in California at the time, they earned a salary of around $2,000 a year. Again, these numbers are not adjusted for inflation, but you can see that a teacher was earning around a tenth of what a teacher outside of the camps would have made. By the end of 1944, as regulations at the camps began to relax, many Japanese Americans who could prove that their labor skills were useful elsewhere were allowed to leave. Some left for work on the railroads, others left to do seasonal farm work, and around 4,000 incarcerated students were allowed to leave to attend college. They would find room and board with white families. Some of them were sponsored to do that, and some earned small wages by cleaning homes

or working at other types of part-time jobs. So the answer is, yes, they did get paid. And yes, it was a pittance. And here's a great question from Hannah in Ohio. She asks, at the time, what did the average white American know about the incarceration camps? Was there news coverage? So at the start of the war, Hannah, white Americans were overwhelmingly supportive of the plan to remove Japanese Americans from the West Coast. Americans were shaken after Pearl Harbor was bombed, and when fear and uncertainty are the driving forces behind action, they can absolutely lead to the amplification of distrust and racism. Propaganda made it clear to the average white

American that the Japanese were not to be trusted, and a family living in, say, rural Ohio who had probably never had the opportunity to know a Japanese American really had no frame of reference beyond what they read in the media. As Japanese Americans were moved into incarceration camps, the government and the media took a different approach. Their goal was to present the camps as happy, helpful places. They showed photographs of smiling Japanese Americans, stalwart in their patriotic duty to leave their homes for the good of the country. And it was absolutely a calculated spin. They had to sell the idea of incarceration camps,

not to the Japanese Americans, but to the states and towns where they were building them. Imagine being an average white American who had been told for months that the Japanese American community was full of spies and traitors, only to learn that the government wanted to bus 10,000 Japanese Americans to a camp outside your small Idaho town. There likely would have been a lot of resistance to that. So the government then had to convince the residents of towns where the incarceration camps were being placed that this was a really good thing, that everybody who was living there was happy about it, and there was no danger to the

community. At the same time, the War Relocation Authority was aware of the fact that the general public had some knowledge about Nazi Germany and their targeting of the Jewish people. They wanted to present camp life in America as a pleasant experience and to avoid the comparison to their enemy of Nazi Germany. So they were very careful with their words, as was the press. An article in a 1944 Montana newspaper proclaimed, Manzanar grows by leaps and bounds. This is the youngest, strangest city in the world. It's inhabited by Japanese who hoist American flags, put up pictures of General Washington, and pray for the defeat of Japan's armed forces.

It is a settlement that grew out in the magic time of three weeks out of the sagebrush of the Mojave Desert. The language is most definitely positive, right? Words like defeat, settlement, magic are used to assure the reader of two things. One is that the people inside the camps are not a threat to the communities around them. is that the people inside the camps are not a threat to the communities around them. And two, that the camps pose no threat to the Japanese Americans contained on the inside. And our final question today comes from Liz in Ohio. Liz asks, how can I find more information? My grandmother was imprisoned at camp. I know limited information and she has passed away. Some of my family has visited Heart Mountain where she was imprisoned.

Two of her brothers enlisted during World War II. Are there records of the people who were in prison? Photos, records of those who joined the military? So throughout this series, there has been commonality amongst all our guests. They all started their journey into researching their family history by asking questions. So it sounds like you have a little bit of information to work from. And my advice to you, Liz, and to anyone who wants to dive deeper into their family's past, is to keep pestering people until you find a good thread to pull. So sit down with the family

members who have visited Heart Mountain. Did they find your grandmother's name among the museum's records? Do you know the name of your great uncles who served during World War II? Jot down the information that you do know and start your search. The National Archives has digitized a lot of its resources and you may be able to find military records or other government documents at archives.gov. I mentioned it earlier in this episode, but another excellent resource is Densho. The organization's mission is to document the stories and accounts of Japanese Americans who were unjustly incarcerated during World War II. Their website, unjustly incarcerated during World War II. Their website, densho.org, it's D-E-N-S-H-O,

densho.org, holds a meticulously maintained collection of recorded interviews, firsthand accounts, photos, documents, and articles. And they have a searchable database of names specifically designed to help people begin their journey into their family history. So I'll link all of those in this episode's show notes for anyone who wants to check it out. Thank you so much for joining me today. I absolutely love hearing your questions and stories. This series has resonated with so many listeners and I'm so, so grateful that you've tuned in to hear all of it. It really makes my day. I'll see you 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