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FREE//GRATUITO
Published by Acción Latina
eltecolote.org
January 25-February 7, 2018
Vol. 48 No. 02
Internment survivor shares painful history in hopes of avoiding mistakes of past
Sobreviviente de la reclusión comparte dolorosa historia para evitar errores del pasado Alexis Terrazas
Alexis Terrazas
El Tecolote
T
El Tecolote
ras observar la enorme pared de vidrio dentro del Presidio Officers Club, que enlista a más de cien mil nombres de japoneses estadounidenses recluidos durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, Arthur Yasushi Sato finalmente encontró los nombres que estaba buscando. “No puedo llamarle emoción”, dijo Sato, describiendo su experiencia sobre la exposición ‘Exclusión: el papel de Presidio en la encarcelación japonesa estadounidense de la Segunda Guerra Mundial’, que visitó con su hijo, Ilyich ‘Equipto’ Sato. Juntos, localizaron los nombres del padre, madre y la hermana mayor de Sato. “Fue la sensación de que estaban allí, el reconocimiento de que estaban allí... víctimas de esta grave injusticia”. El nombre que Sato no encontró fue el suyo. El 26 de junio de 1944 nació (a dos años del confinamiento de japoneses estadounidenses) al sudeste de Colorado, en el campo de reclusión Amache, también conocido por su nombre oficial, Granada War Relocation Center.
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fter staring at the massive glass wall inside the Presidio Officers’ Club, which listed more than 100,000 names of Japanese Americans interned during World War II, Arthur Yasushi Sato eventually found the names he was looking for. “I can’t call it excitement,” Sato said, describing his experience of the exhibit “Exclusion: The Presidio’s Role in World War II Japanese American Incarceration,” which he visited with his son, Ilyich “Equipto” Sato. Together, they located the names of Sato’s father, mother and older sister. “It was this feeling that they were there—acknowledgment that they were there… victims of this grave injustice.” One name Sato didn’t find was his own. On June 26, 1944 Sato was born (two years into the internment of Japanese Americans) in southeast Colorado in the incarceration camp of Amache, also known by its government name Granada War Relocation Center. Exclusion exhibit The Presidio’s exhibit opened in April of 2017, 75 years after president Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) signed Executive Order 9066, which led to the forced removal and incarceration of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. “The order came from here,” said CEO of Presidio Trust Jean Fraser, during an ethnic media roundtable organized by New America Media on Oct. 5, 2017. “We need to understand why this happened.” The short answer as to why 120,000 people were incarcerated is fear. “It’s one of the great ironies that our president [FDR] started his tenure with words about, ‘All we have to fear, is fear itself,’ [and then] created an executive order that empowered a general here to incarcerate more than 100,000 people out of fear,” said Eric Blind, Presidio trust director of heritage programs. “One of the things that we found through our research was how this manifested itself … [through] a series of small actions.” Those actions began after Pearl Harbor with Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt, who signed 108 civilian exclusion orders from his Western Defense Command office in the Presidio’s building 35, which implemented Executive Order 9066. Before signing those orders, however, Dewitt doubted that incarcerating Japanese Americans—60 of whom were students at the Presidio’s Military Intelligence Service Language School as part of the War effort—should be, or even could be done. “After all, an American citizen is an American citizen,” Dewitt reportedly said. “But there were voices that kept talking to [Dewitt],” Blind explained, singling out Colonel Karl Bendetsen. Bendetsen “kept talking to him about their fears, about their suspicions, about ‘the other.’ About other people in our midsts, and what would happen if decisive action was not taken.” Dewitt ignored his own initial skepticism (and the due process of American citizens) and set the wheels in motion for Japanese incarceration. Tomomi and Kimiye Sato were two of those incarcerated.
After internment Tom and Kimi decided to stay in Denver and seek out a new home, and had another child, Janet, because Sato explained, “the racism [in California] had even heightened after the war, because they didn’t want the Japanese coming back.” According to Richard Reeves, author of the book about internment, “Infamy,” one San Francisco Examiner columnist at the time wrote that she would “slit the throat” of any internee who attempted to return to California. “And this was commonplace. It was normal, it was accepted in the media,” Sato said. Though WWII had ended, the slurs towards Japanese didn’t. WWII movies were huge in the 1950s, as the United States continued to wage wars in Asia. “The dehumanization of the Japanese was just un-
Exposición sobre la exclusión La exhibición de Presidio se inauguró en abril de 2017, 75 años después de que el presidente Franklin D. Roosevelt firmara la Orden Ejecutiva 9066, que llevó a la destitución forzada y el encarcelamiento de 120 mil personas de ascendencia japonesa de la costa oeste. “La orden vino de aquí”, dijo la directora de Presidio Trust, Jean Fraser, durante una mesa redonda sobre medios étnicos organizada por New America Media, el 5 de octubre de 2017. “Tenemos que entender por qué sucedió esto”, expuso. La respuesta concreta de por qué 120 mil personas fueron encarceladas es aterradora: “Es una de las grandes ironías que nuestro presidente comenzara su mandato con palabras como ‘Todo lo que tenemos que temer es el miedo’, [y luego] creara una orden ejecutiva que facultaba a un general para encarcelar a más de cien mil personas por miedo”, dijo Eric Blind, director de los programas patrimoniales de Presidio Trust. “Una de las cosas que encontramos a través de nuestra investigación fue cómo esto se manifestó... [a través] de una serie de pequeñas acciones”, agregó. Esas acciones comenzaron después de Pearl Harbor, con el teniente general John L. DeWitt, quien firmó 108 órdenes de exclusión civil desde su oficina de Comando de Defensa Occidental en el edificio 35 de Presidio, con lo cual implementó la Orden Ejecutiva 9066. Sin embargo, antes de firmar esas órdenes, Dewitt dudaba de que el encarcelamiento de japoneses-americanos —sesenta de ellos estudiantes de la Escuela de idiomas del Servicio de Inteligencia Militar del Presidio como parte del esfuerzo de la Guerra— debiera o pudiera llevarse a cabo. “Después de todo, un ciudadano estadounidense es ciudadano estadounidense”, Dewitt dijo, según informes. “Pero hubo voces que le siguieron hablando [a Dewitt]”, explicó Blind, señalando al coronel Karl Bendetsen. Bendetsen “siguió hablando con él sobre sus temores, sobre sus sospechas, sobre ‘el otro’. Sobre
See INTERNMENT, page 10
Vea SATO, página 10
Art Sato sostiene una fotografía de sí mismo con su madre Kimiye y su padre Tomomi durante su reclusión en el campo de detención Amache. Art Sato holds a photo from his childhood of himself, his mother Kimiye and father Tomomi while they were imprisoned at the Amache incarceration camp. Photo: Alexis Terrazas A Sato story Tomomi (who was called Tom) was born and raised in Sacramento, and Kimiye (who was called Kimi) Oshita was born in Castroville. The two were “Nisei” (meaning the first generation of American-born children of Japanese parents) and came from farming families. Tom and Kimi married and settled in Sacramento until WWII. At the time of their forced evacuation, Kimi was pregnant with her first child, Gloria. While Tom was sent to Camp Amache, Kimi was went to Merced Temporary Assembly Center. “I hate the name,” Sato said in reference to the temporary camps that held Japanese Americans while the permanent camps were being built and finished. Tom was forced to miss the birth of his first child. “They were separated. After the birth, they put them on a train.” Of the 120,000 people who were incarcerated, two thirds were American-born citizens. “That other third were the ‘Issei’ (Japanese immigrants to North America), who were not allowed to be citizens,” Sato said. “It’s not that they didn’t want to be. Because of the racist immigration law of 1926, they were forbidden from being citizens.” Two years later, the couple had their second child, Arthur. Sato has no memories of Amache, which closed Oct. 15, 1945, a year and four months after he was born. But a lover of jazz, the song “Denver Union Station,” by saxophonist Francis Wong and Fresno-born former Oregon Poet Laureate
Lawson Inada, is one that strongly resonates with him. Inada, who also was incarcerated at Amche as a child, tells the story, in poetry and music, of being released from Amache and put on a train to Denver Union Station. “I was on that train, probably in my mother’s arms,” Sato said. Sato has never been to Amache, but he plans to visit the site of his birth with his son. “I’m also very curious about if that train still runs from Granada, to Denver Union Station,” Sato said. “Because I would love to ride that.”
This issue is dedicated to Fred Korematsu, who resisted internment when most did not Esta edición está dedicada a Fred Korematsu, quien resistió la reclusión japonesa cuando la mayoría no lo hizo