History That Doesn't Suck - 207: Japanese Internment: Removal, Relocation, & Reckoning

Episode Date: June 8, 2026

"What I vividly recall is after getting to Tanforan and walking into this horse stable, and Mom… putting down her suitcase and just crying.”This is the story of Japanese American incarceration.In February 1942, shortly after the United States enters the war, FDR signs Executive Order 9066, beginning the forced removal of Japanese Americans from their West Coast homes and lives. Some 120,000 civilians—many of them American citizens, none of them charged with a crime—are sent to camps across the American West and South. Their constitutional rights are denied in the name of national security.Even as families struggle to carry on inside the barbed wire, legal challenges arise. Three Japanese Americans fight their way to the Supreme Court, forcing the nation’s highest court to confront a question it would rather avoid: can the Constitution be suspended for an entire ethnic group in wartime? And when the court finally rules—does the answer change anything at all?____Connect with us on HTDSpodcast.com andpreorder Prof. Jackson’s new bookgo deep into episode bibliographies and book recommendationsjoin discussions in our Facebook communityget news and discounts from The HTDS Gazette come see a live showget HTDS merchor become an HTDS premium member for bonus episodes and other perks.HTDS is part of Audacy media network. Interested in advertising on the History That Doesn't Suck? Contact Audacyinc.com.

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The book publishes June 16th. Pre-order now from your preferred retailer. Details are at hddspodcast.com slash book. And thank you for supporting HDDS. It's 10 a.m., December 7th, 1941. After escorting bombers during the second attack wave on Pearl Harbor, airmen first class Nishikachi Shiginori is flying away from the island of Oahu. and his sleek, fast and deadly Mitsubishi A6M, better known as the Zero.

But as he soars above the Pacific's blue waters, he notices his fuel is going low, fast. He did take some hits. It must be a punctured fuel tank, and it doesn't take him long to realize that. There's no way he's making it back, but 200 miles to his aircraft carrier. I hear you. It's time to resort to the backup plan, landing on the small and most western. of the eight Hawaiian islands, the island of Niihau. Nishikichi spots the small, 18 by six mile island below.

But wait, there are structures, people even. Not good. In their morning briefing, his superiors said the island was uninhabited, thus making it a good spot to land, bail, and wait for rescue via an imperial submarine, if needed. Bad intel then. But at this point, Mishikai. Aichi has no other choice. He's heading down whether he likes it or not,

and as he gets close, he takes in another surprise. The fields are deeply plowed, ensuring a rough landing. This won't be pretty. Standing in his front yard, Howard Calli Ohana watches as the aircraft and its black plumes plummet, as the wheels clip the fence, and the nose slams into the earth, bending to propellers like twigs.

A compassionate man, he dashes toward the wreckage. Howard opens the cockpit. He looks down at the pilot, alive but unconscious. Now, Howard doesn't know about the attack on Pearl Harbor this morning. No one on Niyihau does. Though decades since King Kameha Meha the 5th sold the island to Elizabeth McHutchinson-Sinclair in 1864, her Robinson family descendants are still honoring their royal charge as stewards over the island's native population, the Nihahuans, by keeping it a forbidden, almost exclusively native island,

all but living in the past, with but precious few radios, perhaps only one on the whole speck of land. That said, Howard, who is educated, known for his intelligence, and aware of the recent tensions between the U.S. and Japan, isn't without his suspicions. He disarms the unconscious and unknown visitor, taking the man's loaded pistol, as well as his papers. Nonetheless, as Nishikaichi wakes up, the 29-year-old 5-foot-6 Hawaiian is as kind as ever.

He helps the stranger to his feet, and takes him home to feed him. The oddest of days follows. As the almost entirely native islands, less than 200 residents descend upon Howard's home, they call for one of the few who might be able to better communicate with the broken English-speaking pilot, Japanese immigrant Ishimatsu Shintani. But after the briefest of conversations, Ishimatsu freezes and excuses himself. Next is the island's beekeeper and paymaster, a second-generation Japanese American, Yoshio Harada. Nishikaichi tells him about the attack.

Yoshio says nothing for the moment, as the Nihawans treat their unexpected guest to Kalu a pig and an evening of music. Airman Nishikachi even plays and sings a Japanese song, basically a luau. But the pleasantries come to a quick end when the island's possibly lone radio brings word of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Yoshio translates as the Nihawans learn from their unexpected guest of his role in the attack. The next few days are filled with uncertainty and improvisation. Having neither a police force nor a jail, the Nihawans house Mishikaichi with the Harada family, as five others volunteer as guards. But this leaves the Japanese pilot.

ample opportunity to speak in Japanese with the Haradas, both Yoshio and his wife, Irene. Now, what Nishikaichi says or does to win over the Haradas? We'll never know. Sources conflict. But as the days pass, Yoshio decides to help the stranded pilot get his papers and, if not escape, at least achieve an honorable death. It's now 4.30 in the afternoon, December 12th. Nishikaichi needs to use the outhouse and is walking there accompanied by one guard and Yoshio. Or he was, until he gave some excuse for ducking into the honey warehouse. Unsuspecting, his kind guard thinks nothing of it and even lets the pilot lead the way in.

Stepping inside, Mishikichi grabs a shotgun. Yoshio grabs a revolver. The defiant duo lock the guard in the warehouse. commandeer a horse and wagon and make their way back to the crash site. It's now 5.30. Back at the plane, they take the 16-year-old guarding it as prisoner. The pilot then attempts to radio the fleet.

As they do, Howard, watching this from his outhouse, sees his moment to escape. He opens the door and sprints off. Stop! Stop! The shot misses. Howard disappears in the distance. Meanwhile, the guard locked in the warehouse has gotten free. He alerts the village, as does Howard, who additionally lights a bonfire to signal the Robinson family,

then sets out on an all-night journey and a rowboat with others to get help from the island of Kauai. But as Howard and his men row, Nishikaichi and Yoshio are at his house, desperate to find those papers. All they find, though, is Nishi-Kachi's gun. desperate to ensure those papers never reached the United States government, they take a drastic step around 3 a.m. With dowses of gasoline, they put Howard's house and the crash zero to the flame, but not without first taking the aircraft's ammo and machine gun. And sometime after sunrise, they take prisoners, including Ben and Ella and Ahelae.

They also continue to search for Howard. But as the duo threatened death, Ben's patience grows thin. It's now December 13th. Under the watchful eyes of Nishikaichi and Yoshio, Ben tells his and his wife's captors that they won't find Howard. He's off island. In this moment, Yoshio seems to realize just how out of hand this has all become. Just what he has done.

He's burned a friend's home to ash. He's threatened the lives of people who thought of him as a friend. Yoshio unbuttonedens his shirt and reaches for Nishi Kichi's shotgun. Is he about to commit ritualistic suicide? Yeah, he is, and Ben takes advantage of this distracted moment. He leaps at the now unarmed pilot. As the two grappled, Nishikachi grabs his pistol. He fires three times as Ella holds his arm back, and as Yoshio tries to hold her back,

Ben's hit three times and yet still fights on, seizing the 140-pound pilot just as he does his sheep, lifting him in the air. The towering flying, then throws Mishikaichi against a stone wall, knocking him out, hold. As he lies there, unconscious, Ella grabs a large rock and bashes his head in, then pulls his hunting knife and slices the airman's throat. Filled with shame, Yoshiel places the shotgun against his stomach and pulls the trigger. with both of their captors dead or dying. Ella goes to seek help as her husband leads profusely.

Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. The Nihihau incident, as airmen Nishi-Kaiji-Shi Ghanori's dramatic and deadly Pearl Harbor aftermath comes to be known, truly shocks America. Yet, while the press focuses on the Harada family's betrayal and the heroism of so many Hawaiians, like Ben Kanahe-Lay, who does survive. There's another part of the story, a heroism of Jack Mizua and Ben Kobayashi. A 28-year-old lieutenant in the Hawaiian National Guard, Jack volunteered to lead the forces that answered Howard's call. His fellow guardsman, Ben,

also volunteered to serve as interpreter. In other words, even as Yoshio threw in with the Japanese airmen, the very first American soldiers to arrive on the shores of Niihau in response, were led by and included fiercely loyal Americans of Japanese descent. But this less dramatic part of the tale was greatly underreported. Instead, the American press was quick to treat Japanese Americans, even those born and raised in the states, as though they would all respond like Yoshio and support the enemy. So did the U.S. government.

Less than three months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which led to Japanese internment. Oh, and just that name is an issue. Is this internment, relocation, or even concentration? Many at the time and today push back against the use of concentration because of the association with the Nazi work and death camps that we just learned about in recent episodes.

I'll primarily use internment camps today, but note that the history of this topic is hardly settled. And internment is indeed this episode's story. But hold on, a few brief notes on language before we dive in. In this episode, you'll hear a few different words to describe Japanese Americans. Isay is a first-generation Japanese immigrant, someone born in Japan, but living in the U.S. Nisei is a second-generation Japanese American, a person born to Japanese parents on American soil and living in the U.S. And while there are other words for third generations and more, collectively, Japanese,

Japanese immigrants and their children are called Niki. These are the three main words that I'll be using, since that's how most Japanese Americans did and still do refer to themselves. But, as with much history, we also have words imposed on marginalized groups. Words that are uncomfortable, yet will be repeated as I quote historical sources. In this instance, I'm referring to the abbreviation of Japanese that Japanese Americans reject immediately. In the words of one young Japanese-American living through internment, Ted Nakashima, quote, What really hurts is the constant reference to we evacuees as Japs.

Japs are the guys we are fighting. We're on this side and we want to help. Why won't America let us? Close quote. Yeah, that's the word. So heads up, we'll hear it more in this episode as we drive toward an unsatisfactory answer to Ted's question. And with that, our story begins with a brief catch-up on the status of Japanese-Americans in the U.S. before the war breaks out. Then we'll see FDR make the decision to imprison this mix of citizens and immigrants with Executive Order 9066.

We'll then go from discussion to action as an ineffective attack on the West Coast is used to accelerate the path to internment. From there, we'll see what life inside these nationwide internment camps is like. In this worst of circumstances, many will make new homes and new lives. But there's no sugar-coating this austere and barren existence. Finally, we'll follow the fight against internment that goes all the way to the Supreme Court. Much to do. So let's get to it by returning to the 19th century. Rewind.

Acting on behalf of President Millard Fillmore in July 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry and his famous black ships sail into Eddo Bay. demanding the Japan end its isolationist ways. He gets his way, a reality that we know all too well from episode 193. But here's the thing about Matthew Perry forcing Japan to be economic friends, if you will. One can't exchange goods and services without eventually exchanging ideas and people. As external influence leads to the Meiji Restoration and Civil War in 1868, 22 souls flee the island nation the following year for El Dorado County,

California. They set up the Iwokamatsu tea and silk colony. Others head to the island kingdom of the Hawaiian Islands. Not a part of the United States at this point, but we'll note it since, as you likely recall from episode 106, it will be American soil before the end of the century. In short, the final two decades of the 19th century and first years of the 20th see hundreds of thousands leave, no longer isolationist Japan, for Hawaii or the continental U.S.'s western states, where they work on railroads, farms, and instill other occupations. As we enter the 20th century, and America's anti-Chinese sentiment becomes a more general anti-Asian racism, the U.S. moves to limit Japanese immigration. We've covered some of this in past episodes, but here's a streamlined

refresher. On the heels of President Theodore Roosevelt's negotiating an end to the Russo-Japanese war, the U.S. and Japan strike a quote-unquote gentleman's agreement to end Japanese migrant labor. The terms are this. Japan won't issue passports to new would-be U.S. hopefuls without existing relations. Meanwhile, the U.S. will continue to permit the wives, kids, and parents of those Japanese workers already in the states to immigrate. Restrictive, yet the restrictions only tighten in the 1920s. In 1922, OZawa v. United States confirms that U.S. law prohibits Japanese immigrants, that is, first-generation-europeer. from naturalizing as citizens. In 1924, a new immigration curtailing immigration act that you may recall from episode 118 goes further,

effectively banning even the gentleman's agreement level of Japanese immigration altogether. So, by this point, the only way to be of Japanese descent and an American citizen is to be a second generation, or Nisei. Truly, the United States has put those of Japanese descent in a state of limbo. Even Nisei who holds citizenship gets signals that theirs is a citizenship of technicality, not political reality. Case in point, when a bill proposing Hawaiian statehood in the 1930s dies, the reason is that Congress fears creating a state that might soon have a Japanese electoral majority. This is the limiting political reality for the 126,000 people of Japanese air. ancestry living in the continental U.S. and the more than 150,000 living in Hawaii as we

entered the 1940s. The situation is fraught, and it only worsens with Pearl Harbor and the Nihihau incident. An FBI director Jay Edgar Hoover is not a man to tread lightly amid tension. Ah, yes, Jay Edgar Hoover, I trust you recall our meeting the decades-long leader of the Bureau at the start of the Red Scare in episode 151. Well, Edgar has been gathering Intel on immigrants, especially those hailing from the Axis nations, that is, Italians, Germans, and Japanese, for years. His plan to arrest those deemed the most potentially subversive is actualized as FDR liens on ancient legislation, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, and issues Proclamation 2525 on December 7, 1941. This declares Japanese nationals over 14 years old and living in the U.S. enemy aliens.

The next day, December 8th, two more proclamations apply the same designation to likewise youthful Germans and Italians, making over a million people living in the U.S., quote-unquote, enemies. Yet, the truth is that, of the Axis Nationals, it's primarily the Japanese who get arrested, like Japanese orphanage director Rokuichi Kusumoto, who seized from his home in Los Angeles, all but immediately. The American media jumps right into the fray. newspapers warn of the peril from, quote, spies, saboteurs, and fifth columnists, close quote, the fifth column being those who are sympathetic to an enemy nation, even if they aren't working to promote said nation's cause.

And it doesn't stop at warning the public to be keen-eyed. Headlines like, quote, Jap boat flashes message ashore, close quote, and Japanese here sent vital data to Tokyo, report widespread aid. by Japanese Americans along the coast. To be clear, none of these headlines are true. In fact, beyond the Ni'i-Hao incident, not a single instance of Japanese-American betrayal, sabotage, or espionage will ever be discovered.

There are zero such incidents on the West Coast. But that doesn't matter in December of 1941. Instead, these local, quote-unquote, reports are deeply disturbing, General John L. DeWitt of the Western Defense Command. As to be spectacled and bald, as he is responsible for protecting the West Coast, the just over 60-year-old commander is sure invasion is imminent, and that Americans descending from any current Axis nation aren't to be trusted. Now, he can't lock up every German or Italian-American in his jurisdiction.

That would mean millions of people, simply not feasible. But the West Coast's just over 100,000. 20,000 Japanese Americans, that's doable. Chaired by Supreme Court Justice Olin Roberts, yes, the switch in time saves nine, Justice, whose New Deal conversion we witnessed back in episode 176, the official Pearl Harbor report goes public on January 25, 1942. This Roberts report stops short of accusing Japanese Hawaiians of aiding the attack outright, but the implication is unmistakable.

Coming on the heels of the Nihau incident, the document is just what General John DeWitt needs for his mass incarceration argument. Attorney General Francis Biddle isn't having it. Insane. Considering this not only unnecessary, but unconstitutional, he pushes back, hard. But that doesn't deter John.

The West Coast commander pivots from the Justice Department to pushing his case with the War Department, and here John finds friendlier ground. While 74-year-old Secretary of War Henry Stimson has reservations, his 46-year-old assistant secretary John J. McCloy does not. The Johns then are in alignment. And General John DeWitt is unwavering. In fact, he even sees the lack of spy work evidence as evidence,

considering the complete absence of sabotage a suspicious situation in and of itself. Truly, this is nothing short of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation for Japanese Americans. More support for internment follows, not just on a supposedly defensive basis. Organized white farmer groups, like the Growers Shipper Vegetable Association, and white American nurseriesmen of Los Angeles are happy to use the war as an opportunity to, quote, kick the Japs out, close quote, and also take over their farmlands. Meanwhile, the manager of the Growers Shipper Association tells the Saturday Evening Post, we might as well be honest.

It's a question of whether the white man will live on the Pacific Coast or the brown man. And so, over the protestations of A.G. Francis Biddle, who insists that there is, quote, no evidence whatsoever of any reason for disturbing citizens, close quote, General John DeWitt and his collaborators in D.C. go straight to the president. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. What does America's progressive president think of the, quote-unquote, Japanese problem? Honestly, worrying about hypothetical domestic spies is a luxury he doesn't have in the immediate war-declaring aftermath of Pearl Harbor. But by January, 1942, the pressure is mounting from every side.

From General John DeWitt and Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy, from a public whipped up by journalist Walter Lipman's columns demanding, quote, mass evacuation and mass internment, close quote, and from Canada, which is starting its own Japanese relocation program. There is one voice in FDR's world, however, that consistently and bravely pushes back, his wife. Even amid the misleading official reports of alleged nefarious actors right after Pearl Harbor, Eleanor urges the nation not to falter on its great ideals. On December 16, 1941, she wrote, in her syndicated newspaper column, My Day.

Quote, If we cannot meet the challenge of fairness to our citizens of every nationality, of really believing in the Bill of Rights, and making it a reality for all loyal American citizens, regardless of race, creed, or color, if we cannot keep in check anti-Semitism, anti-racial feelings as well as anti-religious feelings, then we shall have removed from the world

the one real hope for the future on which all human beings, must now rely." And now, in early 1942, she's all the more adamant impressing Franklin not to intern American citizens. But amid the rising political pressures and the Japanese victories in the Pacific we heard about in episodes 197 and 198,

Franklin falters, making what historian John Meacham aptly calls, quote, Roosevelt's greatest concession to fear, and, to quote again, arguably his greatest failure as president. In mid-February, Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy gets verbal confirmation. FDR tells him, there will probably be repercussions, but it has got to be dictated by military necessity.

But, the president adds, be as reasonable as you can. Days later, February 19, 19th, 1942, Franklin issues, Executive Order 9066, authorizing the Secretary of War, quote, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate military commander may determine from which any and all persons may be excluded, close quote. The order is vague at best. It says nothing about Japanese Americans, the West Coast, or relocation. Still, it grants all the power in terms of advocates need. So, how do they proceed from here? Well, sometimes events just line up, and answers come in a flash. It's just before 7 p.m. Monday, February 23, 1942. We're at Wheeler's

Inn, a restaurant and hotel along Coastal Highway 101 in California, near the Elwood oil fields, just about 12 miles west of Santa Barbara. The two-aproned owners of this white adobe, classic roadside stop, Lawrence and Hilda Wheeler, are very proud of their homemade American diner meals. And it does smell good. I don't know about you, but I'm thinking of ordering one of the roasted meat dinners for 75 cents. Ah, well, we'll have to order later. They're shushing everyone so we can hear President Roosevelt's fireside chat. Let's listen. Washington and his continental army were faced continually with formidable odds and recurring defeats. Throughout the 13 states there existed, fifth columnists, and selfish men, jealous men, fearful men,

who proclaimed that Washington's cause was hopeless and that he should ask for a negotiated peace. A strong revolutionary war comparison on the president's part and the right instinct. These are, as the president will quote later in his speech, truly times that try men's souls. But the fifth column, that's a sight of the revolution rarely invoked. Yet it speaks to what Americans are really worried about right now, and among their greatest fears is domestic enemies,

throwing in with the foreign foe. And foreign is the focus. Franklin wants still semi-isolationist Americans to really get that this is a world war. We need our allies. we need to fight far from home. He asks us to lay out maps and follow along as he describes places and countries

many of us rarely think about, or in some cases, haven't even heard of. We must fight at these vast distances to protect our supply lines and our lines of communication with our allies. The object of the Nazis and the Japanese is, of course, to separate the United States, Britain, China, and Russia, and to isolate them one from another.

It's the old familiar access policy of divide and conquer. Access propaganda, talk against defensive isolationism, or what he calls, turtle policy. So Franklin continues. But wait, what was that? The whole building is shaking. Lawrence and Hilda head outside. We follow. 7.15 p.m.

A shell explodes against a cliff a mile away. A geyser of dirt, as Hilda will call it. Another winds overhead and lands on the nearby Stanth Range. Of course, a scream. Out toward the beach, Lawrence sees it. A Japanese submarine, about a mile offshore, hammering the bank line absorption plant with its deck on it. By 7.45 p.m., it's gone.

16 shells, $500 in damage. No casualties. For Hilda, it's even a backhanded win. She and her sisters in Australia and Washington, D.C., respectively, had a standing bet on who'd be closest to a bombing, and the California just won. But then, 36 hours later, 2.15 a.m., February 25th, radar picks up an unidentified target off the California coast.

By 306 a.m., anti-aircraft batteries opened fire. 1,440 rounds erupt into the LA night sky. And erupt at what? Nothing. Maybe a weather balloon? One man dies of heart failure. A streetcar takes a falling fragment. That's the damage.

Even though this attack mostly sprays sand and scares horses, think of what it is. A Japanese attack on the U.S. mainland. The first attack on the continental United States since the war of 1812. Pearl Harbor was horrible, but Hawaii is still over 2,000 miles distant from the continental U.S. This is different. Amid the blackouts and anti-aircraft fire on February 25th, this so-called Battle of Los Angeles fires up Congressman Leland Ford of California's 16th District.

He insists that Japanese Americans are signaling to ships, while his 10th district, California colleague, Alfred Elliott, is greeted with applause on the house floor for hyperbolicly demanding, quote, We start moving the Japs in California into concentration camps and do it damned quick. Last night, 25 shells were dropped in my district. Don't let people kid you by saying there are good Japs. Maybe one in a thousand is, but not any more than that, close quote. With Franklin's Executive Order, 9066, barely a week old,

The authorization to exclude civilians from military areas leaps to booting Japanese Americans out of their homes on the West Coast. By March, 1942, the increasingly hard-set general John DeWitt furthers FDR's executive order, producing public proclamation number four, which forces evacuation and detention for Japanese Americans along the whole West Coast. And non-coastal states are already registering their disapproval at the thought of Japanese Americans coming their way. Idaho Attorney General Bert Miller declares, We want to keep this a white man's country. The new proclamation requires time to build spaces large enough to house the West Coast's roughly 120,000 U.K. While the Army sets things up, these displaced people are sent to quickly created, quote-unquote, assembly centers in California, Washington, Oregon, and Arizona, none of which are ready.

Some are proper barracks. others repurposed racetracks like Tanferan south of San Francisco or fairgrounds like Kuala up south of Seattle. Attorney Bob Utsumi will later remember what I vividly recall is after getting to Tanfran and walking into this horse table and mom putting down her suitcase and just crying. The War Relocation Authority, or the WRA,

is created to bureaucratize the process They manage transfers to the permanent camps once anyone deemed a security risk is removed. Most internees stay in the assembly centers, anywhere from a few weeks to several months, between the spring and fall of 1942. Of the 112,000 people sent to these centers, almost 70,000 are American citizens with no charges for disloyalty and no legal means to challenge their loss of liberty or property. The relocation centers or internment camps are finished at different times. Tully Lake and far northeast Modoc County, California, opens first on May 25, 1942, followed by Manzanar on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada's by June 1, 1942. Previously an assembly site, Manznor will house thousands of Japanese Americans ripped from their own homes.

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Lillian Matsumoto and her husband, Harry, are in a bus packed with children. Somewhere on the Californian roads running north from Los Angeles. likely Route 6. While many parents have been on similar bus rides, Lillian and Harry are effectively the parents to every child on this bus and another one behind them. See, this is a bus full of orphans. Orphans on the move.

Yeah, their hands are full. Let's allow this couple to focus as I explain the situation. Recently, Lillian and Harry became the superintendent of the Shoney and Japanese children's home in Los Angeles. They took over after the FBI arrested the orphanage's founder, Japanese National and L.A. resident, Rokuichi Kusumoto, right after the Pearl Harbor attack last December. That's right. I mentioned his arrest earlier. He's now imprisoned in Missoula, Montana. Anyhow, newlyweds Lillian and Harry have been running the orphanage since. Now that everyone of Japanese descent on the West Coast is getting locked up,

Including American citizens, the question arises, where do orphans go? Where should these children be incarcerated? Despite an initial push to split the kids up, Lillian, Harry, and others win the battle to keep them together. All orphaned children from the West Coast and Alaska are heading to the eastern side of Central California's Manzanar internment camp, and that's where our bus is headed right now. Across two buses and a van, 40 children, 32 from the Shoneyan Japanese children's home, seven from the Catholic Mary Knoll home, and one from a San Diego convalescent home, are making the five-hour journey.

The 22 children at the San Francisco Salvation Army home will join next week. Ages and situations vary too. Three-year-old Annie Shiraishi Sakamoto has never known a home other than the Mary Knoll Orphanage. Six-year-old Kenji Sumatsu's Japanese father is being held by the FBI, a situation that caused his mother to have a nervous breakdown, leaving him and his younger brother and sister at the Shonian. In other words, this war and the nation's policy responses are the direct cause of his orphaned state.

Some kids don't even look Japanese. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed, six-year-old Dennis Bombower didn't even know his birth mother was Nisei until someone checked his records and sent him to Lillian and Harry and this bus. I think you get the picture. Let's get back to the bus ride. As the bus rolls along California's scorching desert highways for hours on end, Lillian tries desperately to keep the children entertained.

They play games, tell stories, and sing songs. In fact, one little girl, about four years old, expressly asks Lillian if she can sing a song. Well, of course. Going to the front of the bus, where a young military policeman sits with his rifle, the little one turns and faces her fellow orphans. And then, she starts singing. Of all the songs, it's a poignant moment. One burned into Lillian's memory, into everyone's memory, perhaps especially the young soldier, who is clearly flooded with a mix of emotions.

As the bus supervisor will later recall, she didn't know all the words, but she knew the melody. The young soldier holding onto his rifle, but the bayonet listened, and I could see the tears flowing down his cheek. It's not long before this orphan bus arrives at Manzanar Children's Village. Some kids won't be here long. Their parents are released. They get adopted, or they just age out of the village and into Manzanar internment camp. Zooming out, the War Relocation Authority, or again, the WRA, runs a total of 10 war relocation centers.

We've mentioned the two California camps, Tully Lake and Manzanar. Arkansas also has two. Rower and Jerome. So does Arizona, called Poston and Gila River, respectively. Four other states have one each. Idaho has mini-doka. Wyoming has Hart Mountain. Utah's camp is called Topaz, while called Topaz, while called.

Colorado's is Grenada, or more commonly Amachi. The camp locations are not chosen for hospitable environments. Instead, the scene is more typically sparse hillsides, and most certainly, guard towers and barbed wire. Locations are selected because they're remote and unused. It's a very military existence. The interned sleep in barracks, meals are in mess halls, as then seven-year-old orphan at Manzanar Children's Village. Francis Honda will later testify.

It was a very lonely place and sad, too, with babies crying and nothing to do. It was like the end of the world for me. Each of these barbed-wired, surrounded camps are largely the same. To grab but one example, at hot and humid southeast Arkansas's Rower, or rows of identical black tar-covered barracks, which housed the almost 8,500 internees. Each block holds about 250 people and has 12,000. of these barracks with six rooms per barrack.

These heat-absorbing wooden rooms have thin walls, three windows, and a pot-bellied stove. In the center of each block is a mess hall and buildings for toilets, showers, and washing. But dignity is not lost in these camps, as each forms communities of their own. They celebrate American holidays, like July 4th, right alongside the Akogishi-Sai Festival of December 14th, honoring the 47 Ronan. Even Christmas isn't lost. Santa still makes the rounds inside the barbed wire. Walking through the camps, you'll find old men playing cards and drinking home brew sake, or reading the camp newspapers, often printed in Japanese and English.

You'll see worship services, both for Buddhists and Christians. And don't forget to catch the internees playing sports from football to volleyball and most popular of all, baseball. There's a fierce rivalry between the baseball team. teams across different blocks in Poston, Arizona. Sometimes camps even play each other, or local high school teams. We'd be remiss not to mention the thriving art scene, which includes wood carving, calligraphy, embroidery, ceramics, and live performances.

Hart Mountain has four groups of Kabuki Theater performers. Manzanar holds classes in both ballet and the traditional Japanese dance called Bon Odori. Grenada, or Amachi, has parades for summer carnivals. and a few months later, children performing traditional Japanese dances in kimonos for the Buddhist Oban Festival celebrating their ancestors. In Minidoka, internees get to enjoy a Yosei, that is, a Japanese vaudeville show, showcasing singing, dancing, and musical comedy.

Minidoka loves the ever-popular star band with their lineup of a saxophone, harmonica, guitar, and vocalist. But overwhelmingly, the main art practiced in the internment camps is, poetry. Here's one example from Japanese American journalist and poet Kehosauga reflecting on being taken from his home in Honolulu to be interned on the mainland. From the cabin window, I bid farewell to this fair island, my home of 50 years, until its shadow disappears. The war doesn't keep all the internees bound to the states. Some people are able to leave for college, while others help with the war effort. This requires passing the W.

URA's loyalty test, which includes renouncing any allegiance to Emperor Hirohito and noting if they're willing to serve in the armed forces. The majority of Japanese Americans answer yes to both questions. Young men enlist and are drafted into the military, forming all Japanese American units. Ultimately, over 30,000 Nisei will serve, and yes, that includes the patriotic Japanese American who didn't hesitate to respond to the Nihihau incident that opened this episode. episode. Lieutenant Jack Mizuha. Sorry, scratch that. Despite a demotion that morning for simply being of Japanese descent, he's now Captain Jack Mizua, a well-learned promotion reflecting his unwavering loyalty to Uncle Sam, even when Uncle Sam didn't reflect that loyalty back.

Now he and other Nisei soldiers are the 100th Battalion, as well as the later 442nd Infantry Regimental Combat Team, into which their battalion is later folded, are too storied to squeeze into this episode, but never fear. We'll get to see these brave Nisei's in action in the future. But keeping our stateside focus, it's more than fair to ask, how do these soldiers' interned families feel about their service? Well, it's a mix. On the one hand, there are feelings of honor, as displayed in this anonymous poem, The Cream of the Crop Nisei soldiers, raised by wrinkles on the parent's brow. On the other hand, not everyone could swallow their pride and dignity as sons and brothers put their lives on the line for a country denying them their constitutional rights. An estimated

12,000 or more, mostly Nisei youth, protest their internment by responding no to both rejecting Emperor Hirohito and to serving in the military, leading to their nickname as No-No residents, or, like the title of John Okada's novel, No-No boys. These no-noes are separated from their families and sent to the Tully Lake Relocation Center in California. Yisei Munozaki writes in verse, Disloyal, with papers so stamped, I am relocated to Tully Lake, but for myself, a clear conscience. These protests aren't the only trouble that arise in the camps.

Labor strikes demanding safer work, better pay, and the firing of perceived hateful administrators abound. Sometimes it gets violent. At Manzanar, on the night of December 5th through 6th, 1942, protests to release a popular union leader end with attacks on the police station and gunfire into the crowd. Eleven internees are hit. Two die. It's a shocking incident, one that doesn't help the Japanese-American cause.

But it also shows the American public that all is not well within the remote barbed-wire-fenced camps. Unfortunately, Manznar-earned. isn't the only place where the public and internees learn just how similar to prisons these camps are. It's about 7.30 in the evening. April 11, 1943. 63-year-old internee number 1105494, or rather, James Hatsuaki Wakasa, is out for a sunset walk along the west fence of the Topaz internment camp in central Utah. He's likely with one or more of the many dogs he likes to take for walks near the perimeter fence after he finishes dinner. As this heart of hearing, Isay Man looks out across the wind-swept sage-brushed desert all around him.

His mind could be many places. Maybe he's thinking about getting to speak Japanese with his friend, Carl Akiya, at dinner. Maybe he's far off from this desert, all the way back to his college days in Tokyo before he graduated in 1900. Or maybe he's back in his days as a chef in San Francisco, teaching cooks in the U.S. Army during the First World War. Whatever James is thinking about, his attention shifts to something near the west fence. He pauses to get a closer look, completely oblivious to the shouts from the guard tower 300 yards away. Inside that tower, lanky teenage military policeman Gerald Philpott is hollering into the wind. Yeah, just a teenager, and how old exactly he is, is hard to say since.

Like many young men in this war, Gerald lied about his age when he enlisted. And what exactly is going through this young soldier's mind at the moment is hard to say. Maybe the teenager is distracted by a desire to head home to Durham, North Carolina, to see his widowed mother. Perhaps he's thinking about his new wife, Donna, here in Utah. Regardless, Gerald's reverie was interrupted as he watched James walk. The young soldier shouts at James to stop. To get away from the barbed wire fence? No answer.

The young soldier does so again. four times now. But what this kid doesn't know is that James couldn't hear him on a normal day, let alone in this wind. He's hard of hearing. James draws closer to the fence. Gerald fears he's trying to escape.

The youth shoulders his rifle and fires. The 30 caliber bullet rips through James' chest, then shatters his spine. The 63-year-old internee never saw it coming and dies instantly. 40 inches away from the

fence, his blood soaks into the hard Utah clay. James's death makes the internees plainly aware of their position in this camp. As Michito Akamoto later remembers, we were totally vulnerable. We were helpless. There was no way of defending ourselves from anybody who just got trigger happy and wanted to shoot us. Ultimately, the effects of James Wakasa's death are best summarized by historian Sandra Taylor. To quote her, some of the innocence and presumed goodwill that had existed between the interned and the incarcerators died with Wakasa and was not reborn. Let's talk groceries, specifically your groceries with Instacart.

You want your groceries just the way you like them, right? Well, the Instacart app lets you do just that. They have a new preference picker that lets you pick how ripe or unripe you want your bananas. Shoppers can see your preferences up front, helping guide their choices. Instacart, get groceries just how you like. From arrests to voluntary evacuation, internment, and now the death of James Wakasa, Japanese Americans, American citizens, have seen their constitutional rights utterly trampled. It should come as no surprise then that legal challenges to internment arise.

Some are fought all the way to the highest court in the land. It's a crisp fall Monday morning, October 16th, 1945. Black robes sway with every step as nine Supreme Court justices trudge across the carpeted main floor conference room of the Supreme Court building. Only two of them include the nine old men whom we met back in episode 176, Chief Justice Harlan Stone, who, as an associate justice back then, supported the New Deal amid the vicious judicial fights, and Owen Roberts. Yes, the switch in time justice who wrote the Roberts report. All seven of the other justices are FDR appointees. Huh. I guess you might say Franklin got to pack the court after all.

Anyhow, now gathered around the room's large wooden table. The nine justices exchange a customary handshake, take their seats, then proceed with their first order of business for the day, a case that we'll decide just how real American citizenship truly is or isn't for Japanese Americans. But before we go there, let me give you some background. Last Wednesday was the Chief Justice's 72nd birthday, but more importantly, it was the court hearing for Fred Korematsu. His case dates back to May, 1942, when the dark-haired and handsome Misei man refused to leave his home in San Leandro to report to an assembly center and a subsequent internment camp. Instead, he changed his name to Clyde Sarah and got plastic surgery on his eyes.

But it was for nothing. He was recognized and turned over to the FBI. His case was taken on by the American Civil Liberties Union, or the ACLU. But so far, Fred has lost, and now Fred's fight has found its way to the Supreme Court. Now, Fred wasn't at Wednesday's hearing. Looking to avoid internment, he's relocated to Detroit since his case began. But his ACLU lawyers, Wayne Collins, and Charles Horsky have more than punched and poked at the Solicitor General Charles Fahey's arguments, which primarily rely on the 1942 report by General John DeWitt about the military necessity of Japanese-American relocation and internment.

Wayne has argued that General John DeWitt's military judgment was based on, quote, tendencies and probabilities as evidenced by attitudes, opinions, and slight experience rather than a conclusion based on objectively ascertainable facts, close quote. A well-placed blow. Further, the lawyer duo pointed out that the Justice Department has repudiated claims made in the general's report, like shoreline radio communication done by Japanese Americans. Thus, the two ultimately are arguing that Fred's civil rights were violated because, quote, had he obeyed all of the provisions of the order and the accompanying instructions, he would have found himself in a place of detention.

Close quote. A solid one-two combo. But will it land? Or will Scotus sidestep every swing, as this highest of judicial bodies did, with both Gordon Hirabayashi's and Binoru Yasui's cases, by making them only a matter of whether each man broke curfew, and not a matter of whether their constitutional rights had been infringed? Well, let's get back to the deliberating judges and find out. Following protocol, gray-haired and chiseled-faced Chief Justice Harlan Stone starts the discussion, from the head of the conference table.

As he sees it, they've got two choices. Are we confined to the exclusion order, or was it so tied in with relocation orders that it must be considered? He thinks the court, quote, cannot say as a matter of fact that one who goes to an assembly center will go into a relocation center, close quote. Ah, so Harlan thinks they can and should only look at the exclusion aspect while ignoring detention.

Parling continues. We must read the order as if it said he should go to the assembly center and stay there subject to further orders. Hmm. Sounds like some sidestepping footwork in the making. And indeed, our chief justice asserts that this, quote, ends the case, close quote. He's voting against Fred.

But others disagree. Owen Roberts says that Fred's only choice. was to go to prison. That is so violative of the constitutional rights of citizens that I think he was wrongfully convicted. Huh. Maybe that combo will land after all. The oscillating continues as the next three justices, Hugo Black, Stanley Reed, and Felix Frankfurter all agree with Chief Justice Harlan, while Frank Murphy and today's birthday boy, William Bill Douglas, side with their switch-saving report-writing colleague. So, four say Fred is guilty.

Three say not. Justice Robert Jackson weighs it next. Fifteen months ago, he was a part of the judicial duck in Gordon Hirabayashi's case. But not today. Looking up from his side of the table, the widow-peaked justice tells the chief justice that the exclusion order is not, quote, something we have got to accept without any inquiry into reasonableness. Close quote.

Oh, Harlan doesn't like that. He steps again, pointedly challenging, Robert, exclaiming, You are saying that Congress and the president acting together are unable to protect us against military espionage and sabotage. And that. That is the fist striking constitutional flesh. While Harlan says it comes down to whether or not Fred was required to go to a detention center, what this case is really about is whether or not

detention of U.S. citizens is allowed in wartime. And with that power at stake, the court is now divided four to four. Parlin turns to the newest black-robed justice of the Supreme Court, Wiley Ruttledge. Wiley also voted against Gordon Hirabayashi. Parlin doesn't ask so much as demands. If you can do it for curfew, you can do it for exclusion. Looking around the table, Wiley tells his fellow justices, I had to swallow Hirabayashi. I didn't like it. At that time, I knew if I went along with that order, I had to go along with attention. So I vote to affirm. That's it for today. As the sun sets on October 16th, 1944, five justices favor Fred's conviction. Four justices are against.

The decision becomes more lopsided by the time Scotus's ruling is publicly announced on December 18th. Bill Douglas flips, making it six to three against Fred. The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of Japanese internment. Hugo Black's majority opinion reads, All legal restrictions which curtail the civil rights of a single racial group are immediately suspect. Courts must subject them to the most rigid scrutiny pressing public necessity may sometimes justify the existence of such restrictions. Racial antagonism never can.

To cast this case into outlines of racial prejudice without reference to the real military dangers which were presented merely confuses the issue. Kory Matsu was not excluded from the military area because of hostility to him or his race. He was excluded because we are at war with the Japanese Empire. The military authorities considered that the need of, for action was great, and time was short. We cannot now say that, at that time, these actions were unjustified. Take a moment with that. Justice Hugo Black has just proclaimed that racial classifications get the most rigid scrutiny the court can apply. Then he concludes, this one

passes. It's the most dramatic case of having it both ways in 20th century jurisprudence. The great irony is that the standard Hugo is announcing here. Strict scrutiny will go on to do the opposite work. Future courts will use it to strike down racial discrimination, making Korematsu a precedent quoted against itself. But those are stories for another day. Right now, the Supreme Court is using this majority opinion to uphold the military's current power and actions in this time of war. Meanwhile, the dissenting opinions are most noteworthy. Collectively, they are three of Scotus' strongest dissents in the 20th century, and they most certainly do not accept Hugo's premise that the government's actions are not racially motivated.

According to Justice Owen Roberts, quote, This is not a case of keeping people off the streets at night, as was Hirabayashi v. United States. On the contrary, it is the case of convicting a citizen as a punishment for not submitting to imprisonment in a concentration camp based on his ancestry and solely because, of his ancestry. Closed quote. Taking the dissent one step further, Justice Robert Jackson looks to what precedent this case sets.

Quote, once a judicial opinion rationalizes such an order to show that it conforms to the Constitution, or rather rationalizes the Constitution to show that the Constitution sanctions such an order, the court for all time has validated the principle of racial discrimination in criminal procedure and of transplanting American citizens. The principle then lies about like a loaded weapon,

ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need. Close quote. Justice Frank Murray brings the moral capstone. He goes to the heart of Fred's plea to the Supreme Court. To quote him, this exclusion of all persons of Japanese ancestry on a plea of military necessity

goes over the very brink of constitutional power and falls into the ugly abyss of racism. Racial discrimination in any form and in any degree has no justifiable part whatever in our democratic way of life. It is unattractive in any setting, but it is utterly revolting among a free people who have embraced the principles set forth in the Constitution of the United States. All residents of this nation are kin in some way by blood or culture to a foreign land.

Yet they are primarily and necessarily a part of the nation. of the new and distinct civilization of the United States, they must accordingly be treated at all times as the heirs of the American experiment and an entitlement to all the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. Well said, Frank. And thankfully, despite Scotus's utter failure to declare internment unconstitutional, there's another case that is doing important work, one that doesn't get internment declared unconstitutional either,

but puts a huge crack in it. On the same day that Fred Korematsu loses, December 18, 1944, the Supreme Court hands down a second decision. This one pertaining to a 24-year-old Misei woman from Sacramento, Mitsuya Indo. By her lawyer, James Purcell's careful design, Mitsuya is the perfect plaintiff. She's Christian. She speaks only English. She's never visited Japan. Her brother is serving in the U.S. Army, and before the war, she was the war.

worked as a clerk for the state of California, until California fired her, along with about 400 other Japanese American state employees, simply for being Japanese American. That's why James Purcell asked Mitsuya to allow him to file a habeas corpus petition in her name, and she agreed. Seeing what a force she could be, the WRA offered Mitsuya immediate freedom if she would drop the case. She refused, choosing instead to stay locked up so she could fight. for everyone else. And on December 18th, she wins unanimously. Bill Douglas, yes, the same Bill Douglas, who just flipped to side with the majority against Fred, writes the opinion. The WRA has no authority to detain conceitedly loyal American citizens. Mitsuya Indo is free, and by implication,

so are thousands of others. And yet, we might even say that Mitsuya won the day before she officially won. On December 17, 1944, Major General Henry Pratt of the Western Defense Command had already issued Public Proclamation No. 21, declaring exclusion rescinded effective January 2nd, 1945. Yeah, the timing is no accident. The administration moved first to get ahead of SCOTUS. Thus, internment begins to unwind in the new year and continues unwinding for a not inconsiderable while. The Western Defense Command only lifts the last individual exclusion orders on September 4,

1945, two days after Japan's formal surrender. Meanwhile, Tully Lake, the final camp, doesn't close its gates until March 20, 1946. Coming to our close, let's take a moment to reflect on this tale

and the internment of 120,000 Americans. Unquestionably, internment was a violation of Japanese Americans' rights. Full stop. Yet, incredibly, some of the very leaders who championed civil rights for others couldn't see the wrongs they perpetrated against this specific group of Americans. Justice Hugo Black later defends his vote in the Korematsu case with the following. Quote, we had a situation where we were at war. People were rightfully fearful of the Japanese.

They all look alike to a person who is not a Jap. Had they attacked our shores, you have a large number of fighting with the Japanese troops." This from a Justice Who, though a former clan member, goes on to fearlessly rule against segregated public schools 10 years after internment, even as his effigy burns back home in Alabama. For all of his growth, clearly, serious blind spots remain. The same is true of President Franklin Roosevelt. As historian Greg Robinson concludes of the man who signed executive order 9066,

quote, Roosevelt's decision followed logically from his view that Japanese Americans were incapable of being true Americans, close quote. Indeed, the same man behind the New Deal and the four freedoms utterly failed to recognize what both his wife and his attorney general saw clear as day. That, in the case of Japanese Americans, he trampled the very rights he's so bravely championed for others. The government seeks to make amends in decades to come, particularly in the 19th. 1980s, after lawyer and historian Peter Irons discovers proof that the government knew at the time of the Korematsu case that General DeWitt's claims of Japanese-American disloyalty were false, and worse, that the Solicitor General's office had hidden it from the court. This then raises the question of a pardon for Fred Korematsu, who rightfully responds,

I don't want a pardon. If anything, I should be pardoning the government. Nonetheless, in 1983, a federal judge formally vacates Fred's conviction. Five years later, in 1988, President Ronald Reagan signs the Civil Liberties Act, thereby formally apologizing and providing reparations for survivors of Japanese determent. And three decades after that, 74 years after Hugo Black wrote his majority opinion, Korematsu v. United States is finally repudiated. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for Scotus in Trump v. Hawaii, says, quote, Corimatsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided and has been overruled in the Court of History,

and, to be clear, has no place in law under the Constitution, close quote. Yes, more than seven decades later, the Supreme Court finally takes the bullets out of the loaded weapon, Justice Robert Jackson described in his dissent. But let's not get ahead of our defense. ourselves. Back in the 1940s, still in the midst of World War II, our former Hawaiian resident turned mainland internee poet Keho Soga loses a friend to illness, who's then buried in a camp graveyard. Reflecting on this interment amid internment, the poet writes, When the war is over, and after we are gone, who will visit this lonely grave in the wild where my friend lies buried?

a truly great and terrible question and one that doesn't only apply to Japanese Americans who meet their end in camps but also to so many Americans far from home dying on the battlefield that's right next time we're leaving the home front it's time to return to the Pacific Theater

where we last saw the momentum shifting in America's favor after the Battle of Midway but don't mistake that shift for smooth sailing the waters ahead are rough and tinged with blood. So grab your gear. You're going to need it. The fight for every grain of sand

is fierce on the island of Guadalcanan. History That Doesn't Suck is created and hosted by me, Greg Jackson. Episode researched and written by Greg Jackson and Will King. Executive editor, Riley Newbauer. Production by Airship. Audio editing by Muhammad Shazade. Sound design by Molly Bond. theme music composed by Greg Jackson, arrangement and additional composition by Lindsay Graham of Avership.

For bibliography of all primary and secondary sources consulted in this episode, visit hddspodcast.com. HTVS is supported by fans at htdspodcast.com slash membership. My gratitude to you kind souls providing funding to help us continue. Thank you. And a special thanks to our patrons, whose monthly gift puts them at producer status. Adam Gorin, Ahmad Chappellon, Andrew Nissen, Andrew Nissen, Andrew Shuron, Andrew Shepard. Sherwin, Anna in Huttah, Hart Lang, Bob Stinnick, Bonnie Brooks, Brian Gavagan, Brian Boyles, Brian Goodson, Bruce Hibbert, Cadenham, Charles Clendenin, Charles Starkey, Charlie Majes, Christopher Merchant, Christopher Pullman, Cindy Rosenthal, Colleen Martin, Callin Fares Pennington,

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