Japanese-American Internment Remembered

Kyt · Oct 14, 2007

http://www.lowellsun.com/local/ci_7169540

At 14, Glenn Kumekawa moved to the desert in Utah, to a place called Topaz, an arid square mile of land where dust storms were common.

It was a lot different than Kumekawa's home in San Francisco. Topaz was surrounded by barbed wire, machine-gun nests and armed military personnel.

Kumekawa, his brother, sister and parents did not go by choice. They were moved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order No. 9066, signed Feb. 19, 1942, which sent 120,000 men, women and children to 10 "war relocation centers."

Their sin? They were Japanese-Americans, living in "sensitive" areas, two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Guilt by ancestry.

A few years earlier, Kumekawa had won his grammar school's American Citizenship Award.

Kumekawa, 79, recounted his time in Topaz for more than 100 students and faculty at Middlesex Community College on Thursday, a part of the school's One World Series. The college's Common Book, used across the curriculum, is Julie Otsuka's 2002 novel, When the Emperor Was Divine, which recalls, through fiction, one family's journey through Topaz.

Kumekawa went on to become a celebrated expert in interdisciplinary planning. He earned his bachelors degree from Bates College, his master's and doctorate from Brown University. He became city planner in Warwick, R.I., and went on to oversee the Intergovernmental Policy Analysis Program at the University of Rhode Island, where he is professor emeritus.

He remains involved in municipal planning, in the redesigning and development of downtown Providence.

His story recounts a nation's fear and racial intolerance in times of war in the name of national security. He touched upon parallels between what happened to him and the events following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

He also credits those who decried the treatment of Japanese-Americans.

The Kumekawas had two weeks to get their affairs in order before being taken to the "assembly center" at Tanforan Racetrack in South San Francisco. They could take what they could carry. Their assets were frozen.

"Scavengers" showed up, offering 50 cents for the stove, $1 for the contents of the living room. Kumekawa looked at his parents' faces as they saw, "50 years of work evaporate."

"Leave $5 and just take everything," his father fumed.

At the track, they lived in horse stalls, which "still smelled of the recent occupants," Kumekawa said.

The Kumekawa family was identified by number: 19020.

The occupants set up a school system. College students taught. The principal was a grad student at Stanford. His office was beneath a sign, "Win, place or show."

The 2,000 from the track were taken by train to Delta, near Topaz. There were military guards, but the sandwiches were served in a dining car by porters in starched white jackets.

Kumekawa said he and other passengers fished around for change for tips.

At Topaz, 8,500 people lived behind barbed wire within a square mile. Communal bathrooms, eating facilities, "not living quarters, but sleeping quarters."

Kumekawa saw a 65-year-old man shot for venturing too close to the perimeter wire.

He saw a body arrive at Topaz, a soldier from the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, comprised mostly of Japanese-Americans. The 442nd fought for the U.S. in Europe and became decorated and respected by their fellow troops.

"The 442nd," Kumekawa said, "was an affirmation to a country that kept their parents and families behind barbed wire."

Within the camps, there was a "schizophrenic equation," Kumekawa said. "There was a compelling need to protest and an equally compelling need to affirm our citizenship."

Only a few protested and a small number saw no future in America.

Kumekawa's father arrived in America in 1898, his mother in 1912. Law prohibited Asians from being naturalized, he said. California made it even tougher -- anyone ineligible for citizenship was prohibited from owning land. Families often listed property under their children's names.

"We were primarily concerned that our parents could be deported as enemy aliens," Kumekawa said. "We were dumfounded. What would happen to us, if they were indeed to be deported?"

The young Kumekawa and his friends sometimes asked, "Are we Americans? And if we are, what the hell are we doing in here?"

The war ended, and they were suddenly free.

Kumekawa left Topaz, scared. He took a train and tried to hide behind a veteran with a metal claw for a hand

"As we walked down the aisle of the train, people snapped their fingers and whistled."

As if calling a dog.

"I kept my eyes closed," Kumekawa said. "And I thought, what in God's name is going through the mind of the veteran standing in front of me?"

Kumekawa couldn't bring himself to return to San Francisco for 11 years. "I felt I was kicked out and didn't feel right about it."

Whatever America's government did, some of its people provided affirmation. Some had protected the homes of those shipped away.

He attended college at Bates, and found it "inclusive and wonderful."

Returning troops asked Japanese-Americans if they or any of their family had served with the 442nd.

"If you have a problem," they said, "Refer it to me."

Quakers and church leaders speeded Kumekawa's way to college.

And in 1988, the government paid each of the people from the camps $20,000 in reparations.

His parents needed the money, not him, he said.

Twenty years ago, "a group of us said, 'it's payback time.'" They formed the Nisei Student Relocation Commemorative Fund, which has provided $500,000 in scholarships and aid programs to Southeast Asian students. He is the group's president.

America after Sept. 11, 2001 felt familiar to Kumekawa. Some advocated racial profiling of Muslims and Arab-Americans. Once again Americans debated, "the balance between issue of national security and preservation of liberty that is the core of our society."

He cited a Time poll taken shortly after the 9/11 attacks, indicating that nearly one-third of Americans would support interning Arab-descended U.S. citizens in camps until proven not to be terrorists.

The Supreme Court has never overruled the 1944 decision that allowed the camps as constitutional, he noted.

Without guilt, probable cause, or reasonable suspicion, "120,000 were deemed a threat to society by virtue of their ancestry."
Click to expand...

spidge · Oct 14, 2007

Kyt said: ↑

http://www.lowellsun.com/local/ci_7169540
Click to expand...

A sad state of affairs covered in the Movie: Hell to Eternity of which I have a copy.

Guy Louis Gabaldon ( March 22, 1926 - August 31, 2006)

Guy Gabaldon was a Mexican American who was adopted at the age of 12 by parents of Japanese-American heritage. At the outbreak of World War II, his adoptive family was placed in a relocation camp. He went to Alaska to work in a cannery. Gabaldon had joined the Marines on his 17th birthday and was discharged after 2 1/2 years because of wounds caused by machine gun fire.
His actions on Saipan were later memorialized in the film Hell to Eternity, in which he was portrayed by Jeffrey Hunter. After the war, Gabaldon authored two books — Saipan: Suicide Island and America Betrayed.[1] He spent later years in various businesses such as a furniture store, fishing, and import-export. He ran unsuccessfully for United States Congress in California in 1964.[1]

For single handedly capturing some 1800 Japanese on Saipan he was only awarded the Silver Star, later upgraded to the Navy Cross.

He was also called the Pied Piper of Saipan.

Surely the Congressional Medal of Honor was warranted.

http://www.guygabaldon.com/

http://www.guygabaldon.com/h2e-02.htm

Kyt · Oct 14, 2007

What an amazing guy. I'm not sure I'd have joined up, and acted with such courage if my parents had been treated like that by my government.

Definately sounds like a case for an upgrade to the MoH.

spidge · Oct 15, 2007

Kyt said: ↑

What an amazing guy. I'm not sure I'd have joined up, and acted with such courage if my parents had been treated like that by my government.

Definately sounds like a case for an upgrade to the MoH.
Click to expand...

As they say, Sergeant York received the CMH for capturing 50? in WW1.

What sort of damage could that one group of 800 have caused in a Bonsai charge.

I love a sentence in his book where he speaks of the Japanese and their "Bushido" as their reason for not surrendering.

He called it the art of "Bullshitta"!

Kyt · Oct 15, 2007

Definately a man of action, with a panache for succinct phraseology

Kyt · Feb 22, 2008

Campaign Launches to Give Guy the MoH

Arts Alliance America :: Why Wasn't WWII Hero Guy Gabaldon Given the Medal of Honor?

Get Guy Gabaldon the Medal of Honor

spidge · Feb 23, 2008

Always amazed me that he was overlooked for this honour. Sergeant York (CMH) WW1 killed 20+ and took 150 prisoners and was a national hero.

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