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 By Sharon Boswell
and Lorraine McConaghy
©1996 The Seattle Times
June 23, 1996
Masa Haito's sharp eyes and steady nerves helped him defeat 129 other pitchers in the Seattle Times-Park Board baseball contest. His 12 strikeouts in the competition at Collins Playground earned him the right to compete for the district championship in late May 1942.
But Masa Haito did not pitch in the finals. And five of the top 10 honor students in the senior class at Broadway High School did not attend their graduation ceremony. They all had been "evacuated" with their families to camps in the interior -- a security precaution as the United States went to war with Japan.
The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 drastically altered opportunities for thousands of Japanese Americans along the Pacific coast. Overnight, many who had called Puget Sound home for nearly half a century became "enemy aliens" with their life work in jeopardy.
Signficant numbers of Japanese immigrants had first arrived in the region in the 1880s. Exclusion acts aimed at the Chinese had opened up jobs in the Northwest for Japanese laborers willing to endure the backbreaking toil required on railroad-construction crews or in area sawmills, coal mines and salmon canneries. Hoping to make fortunes quickly and then return to their homeland, Japanese workers soon found that low pay and discrimination subverted their dreams.
Yet many eventually built a successful stake in the Northwest. Japanese farmers turned hundreds of acres of stumpland in Bellevue and the White River Valley into farmland yielding berries and vegetables in abundance. Some sold their harvest at the Pike Place Market; by the 1930s, an estimated 75 percent of all produce grown in the region came from Japanese farms.
Japanese Americans also owned service businesses as diverse as hotels, laundries, banks, groceries, bathhouses and restaurants. In Seattle, a vibrant Japanese district emerged, initially centering in Pioneer Square but soon moving eastward along Yesler and Jackson streets, forming Nihonmachi -- Japantown.
Immigration laws denied most first-generation Japanese naturalization rights, but their children, born in the United States, were full citizens. Within the Japanese community, institutions such as the Nippon Kan Theater and the Japanese Language School encouraged members of the second generation -- the Nisei -- to respect traditional cultural values. Yet the desire to become "true Americans" remained, despite the racism of fellow citizens.
Wary of successful Japanese entrepreneurs, Seattle businessmen had formed an Anti-Japanese League in 1919; two years later, the state Legislature passed an Alien Land Law, prohibiting the sale or rental of property to anyone ineligible for citizenship.
On Dec. 7, the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, drawing the United States into World War II.
After Pearl Harbor, the region's Japanese Residents became targets of even stronger suspicion and abuse. In Kent, which had the area's largest Japanese-American population, the mayor activated home-defense units to combat sabotage. Several hundred "aliens" from throughout the area were rounded up, while a curfew was imposed on Japanese in Seattle. Many of the city's other Asian residents sported buttons such as "Chinese" or "Not from Nippon."
Others responded with sympathy for loyal Japanese citizens caught in the web of war. The Medina School principal used his own car to pick up Japanese-American children denied rides on public buses, and the Council of Churches made a plea for citizens to refrain from "prejudice and bitterness" against their Japanese neighbors. The Times, which had earlier editorialized about the "Little Madmen of the East," now urged readers to avoid hysteria.
Prominent Japanese citizens publicly expressed their dismay at the actions of the Japanese government, and more than 1,300 crowded into the Buddhist Temple to pledge allegiance to the United States. Japanese men, some in their 60s, registered for military service.
Despite such demonstrations of loyalty, most local residents failed to protest plans to evacuate the Japanese as authorized by Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin Roosevelt in February 1942. The Times spoke for many in trusting the military and the FBI to decide whether it was necessary to resettle these "enemy aliens," never mentioning the Nisei's rights as citizens.
Government response was quick: 300 Japanese Americans were removed from Bainbridge Island by the end of March 1942; 2,000 more from the Seattle area followed in April. Most initially were sent to Camp Harmony, a temporary detention center at the Puyallup fairgrounds. Here the poor food and lack of privacy gave Japanese Americans the first bitter taste of what life would be like as internees.
Newspapers depicted the Japanese undergoing evacuation with good-natured acceptance. "It's for the good of the country, so we'll move," one Bainbridge Island farmer was quoted as saying. But classified advertisements told a different story of lands, homes and businesses given up for fire-sale prices. Store owners quietly complained of competitors trying to buy their stock at 5 cents on the dollar.
In Washington state, nearly 13,000 people of Japanese descent ultimately were sent to detention centers -- most Seattleites ended up at Camp Minidoka near Hunt, Idaho, while the majority of rural Western Washington evacuees went to Tule Lake in California.
There, life went on. The internees' situation was not unlike that of several hundred Italian and German prisoners of war who were confined at Fort Lewis and Fort Lawton. But not one of the Japanese detained was ever charged with espionage or any other crime.
Years later, the American government acknowledged that even war could not justify the treatment of West Coast Japanese Americans. Apologies were made, pardons granted and monetary redress paid. But nothing could make up for all the lost opportunities -- the special childhood memories of winning a pitching contest or graduating with honors that could never be regained. |
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Re: Abundant Dreams Diverted (Score: 1)
by jpma on Tuesday, November 09 @ 15:26:00 EST
(User Info | Send a Message) | " as authorized by Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin Roosevelt in February 1942."
this is the true culprit. why didn't he veto it instead. ultimatey he was the biggest racist.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/fdrye
" Roosevelt, his critics maintained, had shown himself to be a man without principles. Herbert Hoover called him a "chameleon on plaid," while H. L. Mencken said, "If he became convinced tomorrow that coming out for cannibalism would get him the votes he so sorely needs, he would begin fattening a missionary in the White House backyard come Wednesday." The Sage of Baltimore declared, "I am advocating making him king in order that we may behead him in case he goes too far beyond the limits of the endurable."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/fdrye |
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Re: Abundant Dreams Diverted (Score: 1)
by dream on Wednesday, November 17 @ 11:08:50 EST
(User Info | Send a Message) | For a long time, I was so angry about what the Japanese did to us, us being Koreans. I always thought that they, especially the direct perpetrators, should be punished in certain ways. But even in those years when those thoughts were prevalent in my mind, this was one thing I never thought was right. I thought it was interesting in interpretation, but never right. The ones locked up were, for the most part, Japanese Americans who, although they may have held some loyalty to Japan as their home country, had no affiliation with the events of Pearl Harbor. But they locked them up as families, small children even, like criminals. But isn't it interesting that in this same time, Hitler had declared war on the United States, and there was no worry about German spies and locking them up. I guess it helped that they were white, so who would know who to lock up. But it's a fascinating happening.
But here's a thought. In that time, America was so condescending on Germany for creating the camps for Jews. they were condescending on Japan for what they did, which was often the same. Now, they are still condescending on other countries for repeating those types of actions. But as this shows, they basically did the same thing. But often enough, many don't like to think of it as being "as bad" or bad at all for that matter. Why is that? Why is it that when different countries are doing the same thing, America is the only one free of blame for it? And moreover, why is it that they always put the past in the past and say "we're past that" while they are repeating the same actions and events. The only difference would be that it is against different groups of people and involves somewhat different details. |
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Re: Abundant Dreams Diverted (Score: 1)
by dream on Wednesday, November 17 @ 11:09:56 EST
(User Info | Send a Message) | For a long time, I was so angry about what the Japanese did to us, us being Koreans. I always thought that they, especially the direct perpetrators, should be punished in certain ways. But even in those years when those thoughts were prevalent in my mind, this was one thing I never thought was right. I thought it was interesting in interpretation, but never right. The ones locked up were, for the most part, Japanese Americans who, although they may have held some loyalty to Japan as their home country, had no affiliation with the events of Pearl Harbor. But they locked them up as families, small children even, like criminals. But isn't it interesting that in this same time, Hitler had declared war on the United States, and there was no worry about German spies and locking them up. I guess it helped that they were white, so who would know who to lock up. But it's a fascinating happening.
But here's a thought. In that time, America was so condescending on Germany for creating the camps for Jews. they were condescending on Japan for what they did, which was often the same. Now, they are still condescending on other countries for repeating those types of actions. But as this shows, they basically did the same thing. But often enough, many don't like to think of it as being "as bad" or bad at all for that matter. Why is that? Why is it that when different countries are doing the same thing, America is the only one free of blame for it? And moreover, why is it that they always put the past in the past and say "we're past that" while they are repeating the same actions and events. The only difference would be that it is against different groups of people and involves somewhat different details. |
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Re: Abundant Dreams Diverted (Score: 1)
by nesaispas on Monday, January 10 @ 00:42:31 EST
(User Info | Send a Message) | But continually we overlook that German and Italian nationals were also detained with their children. That is not to say some internments were not unjustified, but for the most part the nationals of the big players in the Axis recieved most of the burden. BTW, after the war was over it was the German nationals who remained the longest in detention for fears of Nazi Sympathizers.
Similarily, how many german children had youthen meories stolen, and how many Germans went from American Loyalist to Nazis, the statistics cannot tell. |
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