Deep Purple

by Parris Afton Bonds

  Very few Japanese lived in the Tucson area, although there were quite a few Japanese farmers outside Phoenix. She and her father began to hear and read about department stores, gasoline stations, and restaurants refusing to serve Japanese. The Chinese even took to wearing buttons proclaiming, ‘‘I am Chinese.”

  Then the next week the Arizona legislature passed a bill forbidding Japanese to buy anything but food, not even a bar of soap.

  She experienced little trouble with the prejudice because she did not look Japanese; however, on campus, where her identity was known, she several times heard calls of “Buddhahead!” Once someone threw a tomato that splattered at her feet. But there were so many students around her when this occurred that she was never certain who was responsible. It made no difference; it did not bother her. But she did worry for her father.

  She knew that he would be refused service if he ventured outside the Barrio Libre. Inside the Barrio, life continued as normal, as normal as could be expected under the wartime’s abrupt conditions . . . the gas rationing and belt tightening, housewives lining up for ration coupons and their sons standing in queues outside recruiting stations. In the Barrio, though, there was no racial prejudice, and she, therefore, assumed her father was safe from persecution.

  Then, on February 19, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9066, authorizing the Secretary of War to establish military areas in the West Coast area and to exclude from them any and all enemy aliens. Her father, an issei, a Japanese emigrant, had never qualified for citizenship, since he had been too old to serve in the armed forces in World War I. He was therefore an enemy alien!

  The “enemy alien’’ edict could have meant Italians, Germans, or Japanese. But then came Public Proclamation No. I.

  She sat in the campus’s cantina, shaking her head as she read about it on the front page of the Arizona Daily News. General John DeWitt, as western defense commander, had set up the western half of three West Coast states and the southern third of Arizona as a military area—from which all persons of Japanese blood were to be removed, even those American-born, known like herself as nisei. This applied to anyone having as little as one-eighth Japanese blood.

  At first she was enraged. Not the Americans of Italian or German ancestry, only the Japanese! Kathy and Larry were just as angry. “They won’t do it,” Kathy assured her. “A hundred and ten thousand Japanese on the West Coast—where would they put them all?”

  “It has nothing to do with the war!” Larry said. He hit the table with the flat of his hand. “It’s those California pressure groups!”

  “You know how they feel about the cheap Oriental labor, that it threatens them,” Kathy tried to console. “Not everyone feels that way.”

  “Really?” Amanda asked bitterly. “Listen to how Governor Clark of Nebraska feels. ‘The Japs live like rats, breed like rats, and act like rats. We don't want them in our state.’

  She knew that for the most part, what Larry had said was true. In California, 1942 was an election year, and the labor unions and the various farmer associations were putting pressure on the politicians.

  To her dismay at least one politician spoke out on the mass evacuation of the Japanese. A small paragraph quoted Nick as saying, “The Japamericanese are just as much American citizens as those whose ancestors came to this country via the Mayflower” She knew that one paragraph would probably be the only communication she would ever have again from Nick. They had both made it clear they wanted nothing further to do with each other; yet Nick was supporting her and her father indirectly.

  Living in the Barrio as they did, and with her lack of obvious Japanese features, she figured she could manage to avoid being interned in one of the fifteen assembly centers appointed to house Japanese aliens and citizens until war relocation centers (or concentration camps, as she heatedly called them) could be constructed.

  But her rage slowly altered to fear as little by little over the next few weeks the world began to close in on her father and her. It began with Mike’s announcement that he would have to let her go. “It’s not that I want to, you understand,” he said, looking everywhere but at her. “But, doll, word’s gonna get out we’re employing a Japanese, then we’re gonna be in trouble.”

  Fine! she thought. No money, no food. What her father made in his laundry business was not enough to feed and house them and keep her in college. She would have to draw out a portion of her meager savings to tide them over until she found another job—using an alias this time!

  She left the Casablanca and walked the three miles to the bank she used. She waited what seemed an inordinate amount of time for the teller to return. At last the young woman returned. Her face was flushed. “I’m sorry. Miss Shima,” she mumbled, “but the Treasury Department has frozen your account.”

  At that moment Amanda ludicrously thought that the teller’s face had to have looked more stricken than her own. She was simply stunned. Slowly she treaded back to the nearest bus stop only to halt zombielike before a poster affixed to the brick wall of a building.

  INSTRUCTIONS TO ALL PERSONS OF

  JAPANESE ANCESTRY LIVING

  IN THE FOLLOWING AREAS

  Dazed, she read on.

  A responsible member of each family, on Friday, May 2, between the hours 8:00 A M and 5:00 P M., will report to the Civil Control Station where they will be:

  1. Given advice and instructions on the evacuation.

  2. Provided service with respect to storage or other disposition of property.

  3. Transported with a limited amount of clothing to new residences.

  Riding home through the darkened streets, she vowed she would not report to the Civil Control Station to be penned like a cow—or war prisoner, which was what she actually would be—in a concentration camp.

  When she walked in the door that night her father’s face told her that he had already heard about the latest mass-evacuation order. She did not have the heart to tell him about their frozen bank account right then.

  “We must keep our faith in the ultimate good of American democracy,” her father counseled, unable to hide the deep sorrow that clouded his eyes. “By voluntarily complying with these orders we will prove beyond doubt that we are loyal American citizens.”

  She turned on him, forgetting he was her father. “Next you’ll be believing that they're incarcerating us for our own good—to protect us from public sentiment!”

  She grabbed up the newspaper and held it out to him, her hand trembling with her anger. “Look! Do you think the U.S. government truly gives a damn about us? Read what General DeWitt feels about us. Read it!” She began reciting the statement attributed to the General. “‘A Jap’s a Jap, and their American citizenship is only a piece of paper as far as I’m concerned.’”

  “If you still have faith in American democracy, you’re a foolish old man," she cried.

  For the first time in her life her father struck her, slapping her cheek. They faced each other, tears streaming down both of their faces.

  CHAPTER 53

  Aghast at her own behavior, Amanda apologized to her father, throwing her arms about his emaciated body. He seemed smaller to her, or was it that she had only imagined him so much larger in her childhood—a giant with muscles like the rocks he shattered.

  As the weeks passed in tense despair she realized her father was slowly wasting away. True, he coughed little more than before, but it was as if their argument had driven him to a point of apathy.

  Two days before the May 2 deadline for registration for evacuation, her father came down ill with a cold that made simple breathing a labor for him. At any other time she would have gone for a doctor. But now not only did they not have the money but there were, of course, no doctors inside the Barrio, and she was reluctant to seek a doctor outside for fear he would report them to authorities if her father required treatment past the deadline for evacuation.

  The only consolation for her father’s illness was the fact he was not able to regis
ter as the head of the family when May 2 dawned. As a nisei—a first-generation Japanese born as an American citizen—she could be considered the head of their family. Yet she knew she would never register. She would never willingly submit to being interned like livestock.

  Her father required her constant attention those next few days, but she made plans as she sat with him or worked on his customers’ laundry. She would change her name (why had she been so stubborn with pride before?) and move them to the East, where there was no mass Japanese internment. Maybe New York, where a large colony of Japanese lived. She would worry about money for the move and her father’s acquiescence to the move when the time came. At the moment she was only concerned with getting him well again.

  Trouble's agitated barking warned her they had a visitor even before the knock came at the door. It was late, past nine, and she knew the visitor would not be a laundry customer. It briefly crossed her mind that it might be Nick, and she suddenly had as much difficulty breathing as her father did. Realizing what she must look like—the curl she so painstakingly put in her hair wilted by the iron’s steam; her hands chapped and reddened from the laundry lye—she reluctantly made her way to the front door.

  It was not Nick but a man of the same solid, muscular build. He was dressed in a business suit. “Miss Shima?” he asked. She nodded.

  He held out his hand, palm up, and she almost shook it when she noticed the black leather wallet. “FBI, ma’am," he said as politely as if he were one of their laundry customers.

  She was Lot’s wife turned to a pillar of salt. When she was unable to reply, he continued, "I’m sorry, but I will have to talk with you and your father. May I come in?”

  She blinked, finding the situation akin to some horror tale of the Gestapo suddenly appearing at the doors of Jewish homes across Europe. “I don’t have any choice, do I?”

  He shook his head wordlessly. For a moment she thought she detected embarrassment in his nice-looking countenance. "It’s either here or at headquarters.”

  She led him through the curtained doorway to the back of the house. His eyes assessed the small partitioned room in a professional manner. If he was surprised or appalled by what he saw—the bareness of the room, her father lying weakly on the mat, her dressed in a kimono—he gave no indication.

  He introduced himself to her father—John somebody, she couldn’t remember later—and proceeded to inform her father that he was with the FBI and was there to inquire why they had failed to register for evacuation.

  "Because it violates the Fourteenth Amendment,” she snapped behind him. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States,” she recited bitterly, “shall not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor be denied the equal protection of—”

  “Amanda!” her father thundered. “I'm sorry,” he told the agent. “Please continue."

  The man shifted to the other foot but made no effort to defend her accusation. “It will be necessary for you—or your daughter, if you are unable—to come down to the Civil Control Center to register for evacuation first thing tomorrow morning. If you don’t, I’m afraid things could become much worse than they are.”

  It was not a threat but a simple statement.

  “My father’s a sick man!” she protested.

  “There’ll be doctors at the assembly centers and the camps who’ll give him excellent attention—most likely Japanese doctors,” the agent assured her.

  “I will be there,” she said shortly and showed the agent to the door.

  At eight-thirty she reported to the First Methodist Church, which was designated as a Civil Control Station. Soldiers were standing guard at the entrance. There were several staffed desks inside. With no registrants, the clerks were buffing their nails or reading the funnies.

  The woman who interviewed her told her she would be appointed the head of the family unit of two. Their family name, Shima, was reduced to No. 24553. She was given several tags bearing their family number. At another desk she made the necessary arrangements to have their household property stored by the government. She was instructed that she and her father could bring with them only what they could carry in two hands. They were to bring bedding and linens for each member of the family, toilet articles, extra clothing, sufficient eating utensils including plates, bowls and cups, and work clothes suitable to pioneer life (boots and dungarees). Lastly she was told no pets of any kind would be permitted.

  On the way back to the Barrio she stopped off at the university. She was supposed to graduate with her Bachelor of Law degree in three weeks. When she asked the counselor if she could get her diploma early, he looked at her regretfully. “I’m sorry, Miss Shima. Really, I am. But it would be breaking the rules. You might petition your local congressman.”

  If Nick won the senatorial election the coming November, she would be petitioning him—something she knew she would never do. She had to grit her teeth to keep from screaming at what seemed the injustice of it all. “No, thank you, Mr. Browne,” she managed to say pleasantly.

  The bespectacled man looked almost as unhappy as she felt, and as she reached the door, he said suddenly, “Miss Shima, I can possibly arrange for you to finish the term through a correspondence course. Would you be interested?”

  She turned, blinking back her tears. Not everyone was as prejudiced as she believed. “Yes, yes I would.”

  Enthused by the possibility now, he continued, “And maybe, with a lot of luck, I can get you admitted to the bar when you finish—'on motion.’ That’s without examination. It’s not often done, but all I can do is promise you I'll look into it.”

  She crossed to his desk and bent over to plant a kiss on his shiny forehead. “Thank you, thank you very much, Mr. Browne.” She told herself that with a lot of luck, as the counselor had put it, she would be the only practicing lawyer in a concentration camp.

  After she left the blushing counselor, she found Larry at the cantina. “It must be bad,” he said when she sat down opposite him.

  She nodded. “I registered for evacuation today.”

  “Ohhh. It is bad then.” He reached out to cover her trembling hands. “If it’ll help any, the Casablanca’s business is off now that you’re not there singing.”

  She tried to smile. “Thanks, but it doesn’t help any. In addition to all the other inflictions, we’re not allowed to bring our dog with us.”

  It seemed as if everything she was experiencing was nothing compared with the simple act of giving up Trouble. She supposed the relinquishing of the dog represented the culmination of all the traumatic events in the past weeks. “Would you keep him for me, Larry? Until I return?”

  He smiled. “I now consider myself the proprietor of one mongrel dog.”

  She worked feverishly the rest of the day, buying work boots and jeans, trying to find duffel bags—which the stores had long since sold out.

  Her father seemed better when she returned home. While she sorted out the things they would take with them into two different piles on spread sheets, her father delivered the last of the cleaned laundry to his customers. The remainder of the night the two of them finished packing what would be stored in government warehouses.

  Her father worked alongside her, though more slowly, saying little. She knew he would never complain, but it must have been difficult leaving. Yet he had voluntarily left his home in Japan as a boy of seventeen—so perhaps she had underrated her father.

  Throughout the night, even as late as two in the morning, neighbors would drop in to say goodbye as word spread that the Shimas were leaving. Each time her father would halt his work and graciously offer hot tea. She did not think any of the Hispanics had ever acquired a taste for the green tea, but they just as graciously accepted a cup and drank the bitter brew without betraying their distaste.

  The next day, before Amanda and her father presented themselves at the church’s Civil Control Center, they stopped outside the university’s Student Union Building, as she had
arranged with Larry. Within minutes he appeared, greeting her father awkwardly. Then he bent down to scratch Trouble’s ears. “So this is to be my roommate for the next—” He broke off clumsily, realizing that none of them really knew how long the Japanese would be interned.

  Amanda knelt and rubbed her cheek against Trouble’s soft muzzle. “Goodbye, boy.” Her voice broke.

  Together, she and her father trudged away with Trouble’s lonely, confused yelping filling their ears and hearts. At the Civil Control Center she and her father were handed two train tickets. Only then did she discover their destination—the Santa Anita Race Track.

  CHAPTER 54

  Santa Anita Race Track. Incredible! Impossible!

  Amanda and her father were processed in the same large room (now known as the Intake Room) from which she and Nick had watched the race the year before. After they were processed, along with two thousand more weary Japanese who came in that day, they were assigned to Barrack 15, Stall 5.

  She stood before the empty stall, not really wanting to accept the fact this was happening. Although two army cots had been installed, horse manure still covered the floor. A single bulb hung from the ceiling. “There is a lot we must do,” her father said phlegmatically at her side, “and not much time before the ten-o’clock curfew.”

  She had not thought to bring a broom, but her father had packed a whisk brush. Tediously she swept the board floor while he packed the two mattress tickings they had been given with the hay provided in one comer. When the stall was as clean as could be hoped for and their beds made with the sheets and blankets they had brought with them, they collapsed on the cots, their backs against the low wooden partitions. In the glare of the naked light they looked at each other—Amanda’s face stunned, her father’s sorrowful.

  “Shall we hit the hay?” she asked in a woeful attempt at humor.