Article by ian baxley

The American Enemy

By Ian Baxley

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follow my partner and three others up an elevator making small talk while my partner catches up. The three people are her uncle, her grandma, and our subject, her grandpa.

Over all I get a very kind and gentle attitude from all three but especially the grandfather. I also understand my partner’s warning about their dementia as the two repeat sentences without any memory of saying them before and overall seem a bit out of it. I start to question if a man who

doesn’t remember asking if he should comb his hair for the interview only five minutes ago would remember details about an event that happened almost 70 years ago. I, however, am proven wrong as we start the interview. He remembers his experience leading up to the Internment Camps, and remembers the layout of the camp he was at with extreme clarity. He also shows that he has a large amount of historical knowledge. Most of the events he knows about

he lived through being in his mid 90’s, but at the same time, he was in the camps when these events took place and was denied most of this information when it happened. While thinking back now, it is obvious that being Interned is a life changing event, the sheer amount it seemed to affect his life was baffling for me.

We all know America is a nation that takes pride in the amount of diversity in it, but this diversity has also been a subject of conflict for a long time.

During

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World War II, America had to face a dilemma.

The Empire of Japan launched a successful surprise attack against the American Naval Base of Pearl Harbor.

This attack on America by Japan began to paint a target on the back of all the Japanese Americans.

They did not really see this as a major event however. Mary Yama, a child when America went to war remembered about Pearl Harbor saying, “It bothered us that Japan and America were going to be enemies. We didn’t give it too much thought.” Even worse, it was discovered that a man named Takeo Yoshikawa had been sent from Japan to spy on the Base and gathered crucial

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information for the attack. This man was let into the United States without a second thought but had betrayed that trust in the eyes of the U.S. To prevent further spies, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066.

9066 ordered all Japanese Americans to report to a specified place and await further instructions.

Craig Yama, a teenager at the time, remembers how, “...they called it an evacuation, but what is actually was was a forced removal of all Japanese Americans from the West Coast after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. I guess they felt that we may turn against the United States, we were actually United States citizens so there was no reason for them to do this thing.” While Mr. Yama can’t speak for all of the Japanese Americans, they did not have much of a reason to betray America. They all grew up in America and to them, this was home. The spy brought paranoia and the ignorance to the fact that Yoshikawa was not a Japanese American, he was a Japanese

citizen, and officially a spy.

Still, Mr. Yama and many other fellow Japanese Americans were taken from their homes and sent to small temporary camps around the Western United States.

The Japanese American’s were only given a short time notice and could only carry one bag with them. These camps were located in secluded areas of the country, usually in places with harsh weather conditions, which the Internees were not prepared for.

Another teenager at the time, Barbra Sugimoto was taken to a camp called Heart Mountain, located in Wyoming. She remembers, “The seasons there were very severe, in the summer time it was really really hot, and when the wind blows there was dust storm and they used to penetrate through the cracks in the wall, and then in the winter time, it was very very cold, and still it penetrated through the cracks in the wall.

And we had a pot bellied stove, and periodically a truck would come and unload coal, the black coal, and everytime we burnt them we felt like everything was getting

kind of black, soot was not take people for doing with its boundaries. A coming filling the area.” nothing wrong. camp called Manzanar A different Internee Our country takes pride was built in the Los from another camp in having a fair and Angeles area. Mrs. Yama remembers similarly. just Judicial system, a remembers, “My brother Shirley Kuramoto, a child system where everyone went to a Catholic church in Topaz, Utah, says, is offered a fair trial. At and the people there “One thing I remember least in theory that’s how will be people there to about Topaz volunteer to was there “...they called it an evacuation, but what help build were a lot of is actually was was a forced removal of M a n z a n a r . sandstorms.

We didn’t all Japanese Americans from the West P e o p l e want to get would be separated Coast” -Craig Yama warned that from him there’s a storm coming. it would be. In reality the so since he was there I remember these storm 120,000 people taken to we volunteered to go to you couldn’t see a thing these camps didn’t even Manzanar and so we went and the sand would just bit step foot in a court. They into Camp a lot earlier into your skin if you were were told to report to a than most people.” These caught in.”

Interment community area with one people literally built their is often compared to suitcase and then were own jails, not hoping to imprisonment, but shipped off to relocation undermine America, but prison does not have centers, before being instead blindly followed these harsh weather sent off to the actual America, supporting it conditions. Prison does camps.

These camps even if it hurt their own interests.

Mr. Yama describes the Japanese Americans as, “...like sheeps.

We followed all the instruction the government gave us.”

They were not a threat to America, they were in fact a help for America.

Mr. Yama would leave his Internment Camp in the middle of the war to move to Chicago with other Interned not hold eight year old were hastily built and not young men to work in like Mrs. Kuramoto and built to last. In fact, some the factories of Chicago, infants, like her baby camps were even built pumping out equipment brother. Another Most by the people who were for the war. They worked importantly, prison does going to be imprisoned hard to prove themselves

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to the country that had betrayed them and it showed.

After the first wave, the Chicago companies requested many more Japanese Internees as they were very skilled workers.

In a more direct way, a special division in the U.S. army was made full of Japanese Americans.

This Division was the 442nd, a group fighting in the Eastern Front, mostly in Italy, taking the most dangerous

country that they could be trusted.

While some were out fighting or working, most people were kept in these camps until the end of the war, but their struggles did not end there.

Mrs. Sugimoto remembers “We used to walk on Evelyn Avenue, near Castro Street for Groceries, and right by Evelyn and Caldron, there’s a company called Pie Oh My Company and at lunch time people

missions. The 442nd had both the highest number of honors for any army division, as well as the largest percentage of casualties. This was all in the name of the JapaneseAmericans showing their

would be sitting outside having lunch and my grandpa and I passed by they would throw rocks at us and of course I was kind of careful and they would yell at us, ‘Go back where you came from!’.

At the time I thought to myself, well where would I go back to? This is where I was born, and that’s all I know...”

Another internee, Shirley Kuramoto, a child at the time remembers how after Pearl Harbor was bombed she “...was in the fourth grade, and when I was there, this little boy named Jack suddenly looked at me and said, in not a very nice way, you’re a Jap, he started calling me a Jap.” Jap is a derogatory term for a Japanese person, just as insulting as the N-word. A fourth grader learned this racism from someone else, most likely their parents. Although disliking your enemy is not uncommon, the logic behind hating American citizens like Barbra Sugimoto, Craig Yama, and Shirley Kuramoto is non existent.

Even I started out talking to these people looking at them through the glasses of stereotyping and racial assumptions.

These people looked incredibly Japanese, yet talking to them I realized they were some of the most American people I had talked to. Shirley Kuramoto talked to me about playing hopscotch and telling ghost stories

with her friends. This white, and blue blooded an enemy, both faceless, experience is almost American. and defined by face. We identical to that I would That is the great irony are a country built on the idea that Liberty and “...they would yell at us, ‘Go back Justice are guarantees to where you came from!’. At the time I all Americans, not just white Americans, not thought to myself, well where would I just black Americans, all go back to? This is where I was born, Americans. We need to and that’s all I know...” keep that ideal in sight if we hope to be the great -Barbra Sugimoto country we claim to be. hear from my grandma of Internment.

The when she talked about Americans questioned her childhood in Texas. these JapaneseI talked to another Americans, even asking internee named Jimi them, “...question 28, Yamaichi, a man who will you be 100% loyal reminded me of my Texan to the U.S.” We look grandfather, from the way around our world divided they both dressed almost so much by race, losing identically, with a button sight of who are friends, up shirt, suspenders, and who are foes. The slacks, and a straw hat, U.S. was at war with the to the way they talked Country of Japan, but with their fairly hard Japanese Americans were to understand, vaguely not associated with the

southern accents. I went into these interviews thinking I would be interviewing a Japanese person, and coming out having interviewed a red,

country. They were born in America, they grew up in America, they are American. But for some reason their heritage antagonized them into

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Works Cited “Etiquette.” - Canine Companions for Independence. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2016.

“Executive Order 9066: The President Authorizes Japanese Relocation.” Executive Order 9066: The President Authorizes Japanese Relocation. N.p., n.d.

Web. 12 Feb. 2016.

“Japanese-American Relocation.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d.

Web. 12 Feb. 2016.

Sugimoto, Barbara “Internment Camp.” Los Altos High School, Eagle Theatre 201 Almond Ave, Los Altos, CA. 10, March 2016.

Yama, Craig. Personal Interview. 13, March 2016.

Yama Craig. Personal Interview. 27, March 2016.

Yama, Mary. Personal Interview. 27, March 2016.

Kuramoto, Shirley. Personal Interview. 18, April 2016.

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