Infamy

by Richard Reeves

  When camp was over: Harrington, Yankee Samurai, p. 184.

  The MIS: Ibid., Kindle location 3993 et al.

  Among the most: Ibid., Kindle location 5712.

  One irony: Ibid., Kindle location 2408.

  One of the Kibei: Ibid., p. 159.

  Staff Sergeant Roy: Ibid., p. 252.

  On the tiny: McNaughton, Nisei Linguists, Kindle location 5955.

  After the war: Lyn Crost, Honor by Fire: Japanese Americans at War in Europe and the Pacific (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1994), p. 31.

  Ben Kuroki: Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 83 et al.

  The Americans had: Ibid., p. 106 et al.

  There was: McNaughton, Nisei Linguists, Kindle location 1648.

  The Pearl: JAH, p. 224; Michi Nishiura Weglyn, Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps (New York: Morrow Quill, 1976), p. 153.

  At the same time: JAH, p. 269.

  Methodist bishop: Daniels, Taylor, and Kitano, Relocation to Redress, p. 118.

  Following President: Robert Asahina, Just Americans: How Japanese Americans Won a War at Home and Abroad (New York: Gotham Books, 2006), p. 51 et al.

  “Last Tuesday”: HAY, p. 59.

  the young men: JAH, p. 61

  At Heart Mountain: Ibid., p. 66.

  Question 28 was worse: Question 28 asked: “Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any and all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance to the Japanese emperor, to any other foreign government power or organization?” The male citizens answered question 28 as follows: 15,011, “yes”; 340, “qualified yes”; 4,414, “no”; 375, “qualified no”; 128 made no reply. In other words, 73.7 percent answered affirmatively; 21.7 percent answered negatively. Of the female citizens, 15,671 answered “yes”; 376, “qualified yes”; 1,919, “no”; 210, “qualified no”; 226, “no reply”—85 percent affirmatively, 10.4 percent negatively. Of the male aliens, 20,197 answered “yes”; 137, “no” (96.4 percent affirmative, 0.7 percent negative). Of the female aliens, 14,712 (96.5 percent) answered “yes”; 263 (1.8 percent), “no.” Considering the entire group, citizens and aliens alike, and before any changes were made in the replies given, 65,079 (87.4 percent) answered “yes”; 6,733 (9 percent) answered “no.”

  James Hatsuki: Daniels, Taylor, and Kitano, Relocation to Redress, p. 7.

  Two days later: Katcher, Earl Warren, p. 148.

  Easter Sunday of 1943: Tamura, Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence, p. 104 et al.

  Still, no matter: Everett M. Rogers and Nancy R. Bartlit, Silent Voices of World War II: When Sons of the Land of Enchantment Met Sons of the Land of the Rising Sun (Santa Fe, NM: Sunstone Press, 2005). p. 182.

  Earl Warren, now: Katcher, Earl Warren, p. 148 et al.; Weglyn, Years of Infamy, p. 154.

  “There isn’t any”: PJ, p. 220 et al.

  The same day: Weglyn, Years of Infamy, p. 163 et al.

  Representative John Costello: Ibid., p. 151.

  The press continued: De Nevers, The Colonel and the Pacifist, p. 223.

  “Soft restraint”: “Says Japs Benefit: Representative Asserts Camps Get Scarce Foodstuffs,” New York Times, January 10, 1943.

  One of them, Congressman: Weglyn, Years of Infamy, p. 229.

  On December 6: Robinson, By Order of the President, p. 250.

  CHAPTER 7

  After his Easter: HAY, p. 72.

  That same day: Ibid.

  Senator Chandler: Drinnon, Keeper of Concentration Camps, p. 64; HOS, p. 377.

  In a smaller: HOS, p. 376.

  High school graduations: Calisphere, http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft3c6003sr/.

  And Stanley: HAY, p. 89.

  On the seventeenth of: Ibid., p. 86.

  In late August: Ibid., p. 87 et al.

  Even Hayami’s brother: Ibid., p. 85.

  In September of 1943: Estes and Estes, “Hot Enough to Melt Iron.”

  A state assembly: McWilliams, Prejudice, p. 259.

  Governor Warren then: Ibid., p. 263.

  Dorothea Lange, already: Linda Gordon and Gary Y. Okihiro, Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006), p. 5.

  Adams, the visual: Ansel Adams, Born Free and Equal: The Story of Loyal Japanese Americans, Manzanar Relocation Center, Inyo County, California (New York: U.S. Camera Publishing, 1944), p. 13.

  During 1943, the: McWilliams, Prejudice, p. 257.

  Within days, the WRA: Robinson, By Order of the President, p. 248.

  At the beginning: Weglyn, Years of Infamy, p. 156.

  WRA director Myer: PJ, p. 208.

  At its peak, Tule Lake: Jim Tanimoto, A Frightening Incident in Tule Lake, DOH, December 10, 2009.

  The extra contingents: Weglyn, Years of Infamy, p. 161.

  Jim Tanimoto, classified as: Tanimoto, A Frightening Incident.

  Most nights: Drinnon, Keeper of Concentration Camps, p. 127 et al.

  California’s former immigration: Martin, Boy from Nebraska.

  On January 14: Fife (Washington) Free Press, April 8, 2009, p. 1.

  At the same time: Ronald Magden, Robert Mizukami Interview Segment 12, DOH, April 11, 2000. Web, accessed December 22, 2010.

  The Uchida family: Uchida, Desert Exile, p. 141.

  Earlier in 1943: Most Honorable Son, directed by Bill Kubota, DVD (PBS Home Video, 2007).

  Kuroki continued on: Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 155 et al.; Most Honorable Son.

  Frank Emi: Remarks before Association for Asian-American Studies, Washington State University, March 24, 1988.

  Then Kuroki: Most Honorable Son.

  Two days later: Martha Ferguson McKeown, “He Was an American at Birth—and in Death,” Portland Oregonian, May 25, 1946. Ms. McKeown was a teacher in Hood River and Hachiya had been one of her students.

  CHAPTER 8

  In the first week: Anne O’Hare McCormick, “The Outlook from a Japanese Relocation Camp,” New York Times, January 8, 1944.

  Secretary of War: Greg Robinson, A Tragedy of Democracy: Japanese Confinement in North America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), p. 251; Smith, Democracy on Trial, p. 369.

  After the meeting: Smith, Democracy on Trial, p. 370.

  “The more I think”: Ibid., p. 369.

  On May 24, 1944: Drinnon, Keeper of Concentration Camps, pp. 43 et al., 280–81; Weglyn, Years of Infamy, p. 312.

  A grand jury: JAH, p. 162; Frank Abe, Frank Emi Interview Segment 20, DOH, January 30, 1998. Web, accessed December 22, 2010.

  After their second: JAH, p. 162; Drinnon, Keeper of Concentration Camps, p. 127.

  Before the trial: Ernest Besig Interview Segment 4, DENSHO, October 1, 1992; Drinnon, Keeper of Concentration Camps, p. 128.

  In spite: Drinnon, Keeper of Concentration Camps, p. 127.

  Besig, had been trying: Ibid., p. 128.

  Whatever his skills: John Christgau, “Collins versus the World: The Fight to Restore Citizenship to Japanese-American Renunciants of World War II,” Pacific Historical Review 54, no. 1 (February 1985).

  Back in Washington: Smith, Democracy on Trial, p. 327.

  Though only 117: Drinnon, Keeper of Concentration Camps, p. 126.

  George Nakamura: Smith, Democracy on Trial, p. 284.

  The breakup: Gruenewald, Looking Like the Enemy, p. 154 et al.

  Stanley Hayami: HAY, p. 105.

  Yet, at the same time: Ibid., pp. 115, 57.

  The class of 1944: Manzanar yearbook, Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles.

  “This will probably”: Oppenheim, Dear Miss Breed, p. 217.

  The talk: Ibid., p. 214.

  Tom Kawaguchi: Asahina, Just Americans, p. 51.

  Stanley Hayami: HAY, p. 125.

  Back “home”: Ibid., p. 137.

  “Chicago is”: Oppenheim, Dear Miss Breed, p. 225.

  “I have heard”: Ibid., p. 23
4.

  CHAPTER 9

  On May 28, 1942: Estes and Estes, “Hot Enough to Melt Iron.”

  Because of the One Hundredth’s: C. Douglas Sterner, Go for Broke: The Nisei Warriors of World War II Who Conquered Germany, Japan, and American Bigotry (Clearfield, UT: American Legacy Historical Press, 2008), p. 17; www.goforbroke.org/history/history_historical_veterans_100th.asp.

  One of the men chosen: Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, The War, PBS, September 2007. Web, accessed July 14, 2011.

  Not surprisingly: Calisphere, content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft1h4n99xm/.

  Commanding officers: Asahina, Just Americans, p. 59.

  The mainlanders had lighter: Sterner, Go for Broke, p. 20; Asahina, Just Americans, p. 60.

  At Shelby: Asahina, Just Americans, p. 60.

  “Arriving”: Ibid., p. 62 et al.

  As the mainland: Sterner, Go for Broke, p. 10.

  The 442nd left: Ibid., p. 37.

  On June 6: JAH, p. 277.

  “All three companies”: Asahina, Just Americans, p. 106.

  The 442nd Combat Regiment: GoForBroke.org. During World War II, an infantry battalion constituted four companies: three rifle companies and a heavy weaponry company. Three battalions constituted a regiment and three regiments constituted a division. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team, meant to be a self-contained fighting force, a segregated one with white officers and Japanese American enlisted men, included the 552nd, 232nd Combat Engineer Company, 206th Army Ground Force Band, Anti-tank Company, Cannon Company, medical detachment, headquarters company, and two infantry battalions, one of them the One Hundredth Battalion.

  On July 11: “George Saito,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?=s08paiTodq8, accessed November 2, 2010.

  In September of: Asahina, Just Americans, p. 144.

  It was not: Ibid.

  “Banzai!”: Banzai means literally “a thousand years of life.” In Japan, it was used as a tribute to the emperor. The phrase Tennuoheiko Banzai, often used by Imperial Japanese soldiers in the Pacific, can be translated as “Long live the emperor.”

  Next the Nisei: Asahina, Just Americans, p. 158.

  After the Bruyères: Ibid., p. 161; Sterner, Go for Broke, p. 174; Crost, Honor by Fire, p. 184.

  The article did: Asahina, Just Americans, p. 193. Robert Asahina, in his formidable and impressively researched book Just Americans: How Japanese Americans Won a War at Home and Abroad, identified Lieutenant C. O. Barry as actually in the medical attachment of the 141st Regiment of the Thirty-Sixth Division.

  After the press: Asahina, Just Americans, p. 189. The debate over whether General John Dahlquist should have bypassed Biffontaine and was using Nisei as “cannon fodder” has continued through the decades. At least one 442nd officer, a lieutenant colonel named Gordon Singles, met Dahlquist years later and refused to shake his hand. There was never any question about Dahlquist’s personal courage. He went to the front line, within forty yards of a German machine-gun emplacement, and one of his staff, Lieutenant Welles Lewis, son of the writer Sinclair Lewis, was killed there, his blood splattering Dahlquist. Later in the last year of the war, Dahlquist was formally and publicly reprimanded by General Eisenhower because he had shaken hands and had lunch with the Nazis’ Field Marshal Hermann Goering, who was captured near Munich by his division.

  On Monday, December 18: Peter Irons, Justice at War: The Story of the Japanese American Internment Cases (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 325 et al.

  In dissent, Justice: Fred T. Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education, “Ex Parte Mitsuye Endo,” http://korematsuinstitute.org/institute/aboutfred/internmentcases/ex-parte-mitsuye-endo/.

  From Minneapolis: Oppenheim, Dear Miss Breed, p. 235.

  On the night: JAH, p. 167; Tamura, Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence, p. 143 et al.

  “To those of Hood River”: Tamura, Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence, p. 41.

  Hood River County: Ibid., p. 147 et al.

  Anti-Japanese racism: Ibid., p. 170.

  Stanley Hayami’s: HAY, p. 148 et al.

  At 5:00 a.m.: Sterner, Go for Broke, p. 110 et al.

  Two weeks after: Ibid., p. 151.

  When Private Shiro Kashino: Vince Matsudaira, Kash: The Life and Legacy of Shiro Kashino, KIRO-TV, Seattle, 2012.

  One of the survivors: Solly Ganor, Light One Candle: A Survivor’s Tale from Lithuania to Jerusalem (New York: Kodansha International, 1995), p. 292 et al.

  One of them: HAY, p. 174 et al.

  CHAPTER 10

  Sergeant Ben Kuroki: Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 188.

  The 442nd: Sterner, Go for Broke, p. 144; Crost, Honor by Fire, p. 312.

  Months earlier, on December 15: Weglyn, Years of Infamy, p. 192.

  “There are still 100”: Asahina, Just Americans, p. 229.

  When Governor Warren: PJ, p. 217.

  their resettlement programs: Arthur A. Hansen, REgenerations Oral History Project: Rebuilding Japanese-Americans Families, Communities, and Civil Rights in the Resettlement Era— Resettlement: A Neglected Link in Japanese America’s Narrative Chain, Japanese American National Museum, 1997. Web, accessed February 22, 2012, p. xix.

  By the beginning: Nigel Hamilton, The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941–1942 (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), p. 486; Robinson, p. 261.

  More than 2,000: In 1996, in a class action lawsuit brought by Peruvians, the United States admitted wrongdoing and paid $5,000 to each surviving Latin American detainee.

  “I’m not going to worry”: For more information on Alice Nitta, see JapaneseRelocation.org.

  Jeanne Wakatsuki, who: Houston and Houston, Farewell to Manzanar, p. 121.

  There were also: Rogers and Bartlit, Silent Voices of World War II, p. 139.

  At Tule Lake: Ibid., p. 315.

  There were 5,461: Weglyn, Years of Infamy, p. 247.

  What happened next: Ibid.

  The Nichiren: www.archivetoday/SKEob; HOS, p. 436.

  One Nisei, John Saito: PJ, p. 241.

  Mutsuo Hashiguchi: James Arimo, Mitsuko Hashiguchi Interview Segment 62, DOH, July 28, 1998.

  Another Washington resident: Robinson, A Tragedy of Democracy, p. 257.

  There were also hundreds: Asahina, Just Americans, p. 230 et al.

  In Placer County: Robinson, A Tragedy of Democracy, p. 260.

  Walt Hayami: HAY, p. 180.

  Heisuke and Mitsuno: Gruenewald, Looking Like the Enemy, p. 194.

  Still, the Matsudas: Ibid., p. 197.

  When Yoneichi: Ibid., p. 198.

  As the American: Tamura, Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence, p. 172.

  There were rumors: Ibid., p. 165.

  Attitudes did change: Ibid., p. 167.

  There were no: HOS, p. 394.

  Kiyoko Nomura: Michael Patrick Rowan, “All Along the Watchtowers: Photographs of Manzanar at Gunpoint, Framed in Barbed Wire,” research paper for City College of San Francisco Honors Program. Available online at voiceslikeyours.com/pdfs/MRowan_Watchtowers.pdf.

  “I learned that”: Drinnon, Keeper of Concentration Camps, p. 128.

  In the town of Westminster: Sterner, Go for Broke, p. 101.

  The Masuda family: Crost, Honor by Fire, p. 153.

  On his way home: Asahina, Just Americans, p. 229.

  That story got all: Robinson, A Tragedy of Democracy, p. 276.

  “Coming home”: PJ, p. 259 et al.

  The Najima family: Megan Asaka, DENSHO, Irene Najima Interview Segment 13, DOH, August 4, 2008. Web, accessed December 1, 2010.

  Makabe, whose father: John Tateishi, And Justice for All: An Oral History of the Japanese American Detention Camps (New York: Random House, 1984), p. 250 et al.

  EPILOGUE

  There were, in fact: Robinson, A Tragedy of Democracy, p. 258.

  “In sum”: PJ, p. 459.

  Almost fifty years: “Understanding the Civil Liberties Act of 1988,” Anti-Defamation League, 2013, http://www.adl.org/assets/pdf/education-outreach/Understandi
ng-the-Civil-Liberties-Act-of-1988.pdf.

  Wayne Collins, who had represented: Robinson, A Tragedy of Democracy, p. 258.

  Collins also represented: Daniels, Taylor, and Kitano, Relocation to Redress, p. 142.

  Collins died: Irons, Justice at War, p. 368 et al.

  Minoru Kiyota: Minoru Kiyota, Beyond Loyalty: The Story of a Kibei (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997), p. 155.

  In memoirs, interviews: PJ, p. 18.

  In 1982, eight years: http://korematsuinstitute.org/institute/aboutfred/.

  On May 20, 2011: The Supreme Court hearing had originally been scheduled for May 1, 1944, but was postponed when the solicitor general, Charles Fahy, said the government needed more time to prepare its case. Almost exactly sixty-seven years later, on May 20, 2011, Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal issued a statement titled “Confession of Error: The Solicitor General’s Mistakes During the Japanese-American Internment Cases” (http://www.justice.gov/opa/blog/confession-error-solicitor-generals-mistakes-during-japanese-american-internment-cases). The report cited a review of Justice Department documents, indicating that in 1943 and 1944 Solicitor General Charles Fahy failed to tell the Court of relevant reports minimizing the danger posed by Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. His omissions and misstatements came in the cases of Korematsu v. United States and Hirabayashi v. United States.

  BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

  John Aiso: JAH, p. 98.

  Francis Biddle: Ibid., p. 113.

  Tom C. Clark: PJ, p. 378.

  Lieutenant General John DeWitt: JAH, p. 128.

  Milton Eisenhower: Ibid., p. 130.

  Edward Ennis: Ibid., p. 135.

  Dr. Fred Fujikawa: Tateishi, And Justice for All, p. 208.

  Major General Allen Gullion: JAH, p. 153.

  Gordon Hirabayashi: Ibid., p. 163.

  Daniel Inouye: Ibid., p. 174.

  Estelle Ishigo: Days of Waiting, DVD (San Francisco: Mouchette Films, 1989).

  Harvey Itano: Weglyn, Years of Infamy, p. 108.

  Saburo Kido: JAH, p. 201.

  Joseph Kurihara: Ibid., p. 212.

  Ben Kuroki: Most Honorable Son.

  Mike Masaoka: JAH, p. 226.

  The Matsuda family: Gruenewald, Looking Like the Enemy, p. 219.

  John McCloy: Kai Bird, The Chairman: John J. McCloy, the Making of the American Establishment (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 16.

  Norm Mineta: JAH, p. 232.