This essay, translated from Japanese, was written by my father, George Sasaki, for the 75th Anniversary of the Nanka Ehime Kenjinkai Commemorative publication. He described his experience during WWII when 120,000 adults and children of Japanese ancestry were forced into detention centers located throughout the western U.S. It was a horrific period in the history of the United States. My father was a Kibei Nisei – born in the U.S. and educated in Japan. He was a U.S. citizen. – K. Moriyama
Because of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the lives of Japanese living in the United States became one of fear and consternation. And America began its inhuman, forced evacuation. If I recall correctly, it was about March 25, 1942, that we were forced to leave our beloved Los Angeles and were practically chased into Manzanar detention camp.
In 1940, I was graduated from the Eighth Commercial High School, and in the spring of my 18th year, I gambled my romantic dreams on America, even though I had no relatives there nor knew anyone there. And in the spring of my 21st year, we were forcibly removed from Los Angeles. Everywhere we sent, there were voices crying out, “Jap, Jap,” and we went into detention like sheep. What could have been the thoughts going through my youthful mind?
In 1943, the loyalty question came up in Manzanar. Those judged to be disloyal were to be segregated at Tule Lake camp. Because I had requested to be sent back to Japan, I was already on the blacklist. I went without answering the loyalty questions to Tule Lake.
Tule Lake was built to house 10,000 persons, but 18,000 were crammed in. Of all the racially discriminatory acts perpetrated by America, I remember this as the worst.
People at Tule Lake were in an overcrowded situation. Protests over sanitation facilities, labor and living conditions were raised. The Tule Lake Ehime Prefecture Register was compiled in an atmosphere of fearful uncertainty, I recall. It gives me a melancholy feeling to note that no one is listed as the editor, and there is no editorial copy to go with it, but each of the names of people from Ehime listed on these pages bring back memories that still fill me with nostalgia. If any of those Ehime people are still alive, their memories of Tule Lake will return with a fresh vividness. Many people on that list went back to Japan, but I decided to stay to the end to see for myself how it was all going to come out.
On record, the Tule Lake detention camp came to a close on March 20, 1946. At the time of the camp’s closure, the population had dwindled to 500. It included about 400 of us Kibei, who had no relatives in America and about 100 others who did not have permission to relocate from camp, I recall.
On March 20, 1946, we were to be sent to the Crystal City detention camp in Texas. When we arrived at the departure point, a herd of dogs barked their farewell from a vacated camp. As soon as we assembled, we were given numbers attached to our chests. Not only that, we were also taken to the guardhouse to be searched for contraband. We were forced to disrobe for the inspection. I still remember shouting at the soldier, who was about my age, “What’s the big idea pointing a fixed bayonet at a fellow American?”
In 1947, some of the detainees were released from Crystal City, but about 300 of us were sent on to Crystal Farm in New Jersey. Crystal Farm was where German POWs were kept during the war. They harvested agricultural crops and froze them. We were paid 75 cents an hour. At Seabrook, too, we were supposed to stay within a mile radius of the farm, but I remember sneaking off on the bus to see a baseball game in Philadelphia.
On September 1, 1947, a court order releasing all Japanese held under detention freed the last 302 of us who had spent five years in American concentration camps to go back to the West Coast.
Sent into camp at 21 years of age and chased about from camp to camp during my youth, I had just turned 27 when I breathed the air of freedom once again. On the way back, I went sightseeing in New York and Chicago with friends. The wind blowing off Lake Michigan was as cold as cutting steel, but in my heart, there was happiness at being a free again. As the scenery sped past the train window, I was thinking of the scant three years that I had left of my youth before I turned 30. I was thinking of the harsh reality of making a living for the rest of my life.
I got my citizenship back on March 23, 1949, I recall. I think there were about 5,000 of us who got our citizenship back then. Most of the Japanese Americans were released as soon as the war was over, and by the time I came out, they were already well on their way toward making a living, and with typical Japanese pioneering spirit, were assiduously rebuilding the foundations of their lives.
