MANZANAR Internment Camp Diary (English Translation): 12/7/41 – 12/17/42

By Karl G. Yoneda, Sataye Shinoda and Dorothea Lange

The late Karl G. Yoneda (1906-1999), former Japanese-American labor activist & WWII veteran, published this diary in Japanese in 1988 through the PMC Publishing Co. in Tokyo, Japan. It chronicles the period from Dec. 7th 1941 to Dec. 17th 1942, during which he and his family were forcibly interned in the "Relocation Center" for Japanese-Americans at Manzanar, California. This e-book is an English rendition thereof, originally translated from the Japanese by Ian R. Forsyth between 1992-1995. In 1997 a very few (5) hard copies were "desktop-published" by the translator, but this e-book represents the first formal publication of the English version.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ian R. Forsyth
• Release date: May 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781775310334

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EPUB Copyright © 2021 Ian R. Forsyth

All rights reserved.

Published by: Ian R. Forsyth

ISBN: 9781775310334 [formatted: 978-1-7753103-3-4]

MANZANAR Internment Camp Diary (English Translation) was translated from the original Japanese version with permission from the late Japanese-American author & labor activist Karl G. Yoneda (1906–1999).

Translation Copyright © 1997 Ian R. Forsyth (Canadian Intellectual Property Office Registration No. 461190)

Cover Image: Dust Storm at Manzanar War Relocation Authority Center (Photo by Dorothea Lange, Courtesy National Archives, photo no. 210-GC-839)

Cover Design: Ian R. Forsyth

Software used in this ePub manuscript compilation:

VIM (Vi Improved), version 7.4.1938

LibreOffice, version 6.4.5.2

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), version 2.8.16

Calibre (E-book Management), version 4.19

XJDIC (electronic Japanese-English dictionary program, version xjdic24 with loaded dictionary files: edict, kanjidic, enamdict), created by Australian academic Jim Breen.

Kiten Japanese Reference Tool, version 1.3 (using KDE Development Platform 4.14.21)

Slackware Linux 14.2 64-bit, kernel version 4.4.14

A Note Concerning the Title:

The original work from which this translation was derived bore the Japanese title MANZANĀ KYŌSEI SHŪYŌJO NIKKI (マンザナー 強制 収容所 日記), as well as its English rendition — MANZANAR CONCENTRATION CAMP DIARY — in hand-written capital letters on the front cover and inner title page. However, over the years author Karl Yoneda shifted his viewpoint concerning the term Concentration Camp in reference to Manzanar. In April 1997 he sent me (the translator) a hand-written note to that effect and requested I append it to his concluding Postscript. The reader is requested to please take note of that.

To be sure, there were some discrepancies in the terminology used to designate various types of camps in operation during WWII:

The official designation for Manzanar and the other nine medium security installations for Japanese-Americans was Relocation Center (tenjūjo in Japanese) (転住所). Interim transfer facilities were Assembly Centers (shūgōjo) (集合所); while the higher-security facilities were termed Internment Camps (eg. Missoula, MT) and Citizen Isolation Camps (shimin kakuri shūyōjo 市民 隔離 収容所 — eg. Moab, Utah). Now, Missoula, Montana, one of the so-called internment camps, was referred to by at least two Japanese terms: shūyōjo (収容所)(in the camp-map legend), and tekisei gaikokujin kōryūjo (敵性 外国人勾留所) (detention center for enemy aliens— n.7, chap.5), although the dictionary rendering of internment camp is yokuryūjo (抑留所). (see map illustration)

The word shūyōjo (収容所) by itself is a somewhat generic term meaning a home, (refugee) camp, asylum, concentration camp (for POWs), repatriates' reception center, etc. Coupled with various prefixes, however, it becomes more specific: horyo shūyōjo (捕虜 収容所) ► POW camp; and kyōsei shūyōjo (where kyōsei = compulsion, coercion) (強制 収容所) ► concentration/prison camp.

Other authors have referred to the WWII camps for Japanese-Americans as concentration camps (see Drinnon 1987, and Modell 1973 in the Bibliography). Karl Yoneda himself, appearing before the CWRIC during its 1981 San Francisco hearings, felt compelled to allude to the relocation centers as concentration camps (see Commentary, final note). The memorial plaque erected on Manzanar's old sentry house in 1973 also referred to Manzanar as a concentration camp, although according to Thomas Yoneda, many involved (including himself) vigorously opposed the selection of this term.

What about in English? Technically the term concentration camp could be interpreted as referring to such a place as Manzanar, but it’s a matter of connotation and interpretation. In the minds of many, concentration camp conjures up images in excess of those that existed at Manzanar and the other relocation centers referred to in this book. Specifically, it calls to mind the death camps in Nazi Germany associated with the Holocaust. Internment Camp in English implies forcible confinement at the very least, which certainly applies to the case of Manzanar.

In 1997, unable to find a willing publisher at that time, I prepared a limited desktop-published version of this translation: five copies, printed and then bound by hand, in which the original title’s term — Concentration Camp Diary — was maintained, with Karl Yoneda’s note of reservation appended to his Postscript. However in this 2021 e-book version I am acceding to Karl’s wishes and refer to Manzanar as an Internment Camp in the title and wherever the term kyōsei shūyōjo (強制 収容所) appears in Yoneda’s text; but have stuck with Concentration Camp where it appears elsewhere (as in Sataye Shinoda’s Commentary), and whenever the term concentration camp was directly quoted from various English-language sources.

—Translator

Romanized Japanese terms:

KYOUSEI SHUUYOUJO vs KYŌSEI SHŪYŌJO

There are several systems for representing Japanese words in Latin alphabet letters for presentation to readers with no knowledge of Japanese script (hiragana, katakana, kanji).

One of the distinguishing features between them is the method of indicating long vs short vowels. In particular long O’s and U’s. In the JSL system these follow the Japanese phonetic symbols, which helps to indicate how the word would be written in kana. The word kyousei (compulsory, forced) (強制), an example of the JSL romanization, can also be represented as kyōsei in the Hepburn system of romanization, where the long vowel is indicated by a macron symbol above the letter. Same idea for the long-u sound in shuuyoujo (収容所), which can also be rendered shūyōjo.

Which of these systems works best is a matter of preference. The Hepburn system (with the macron diacritical mark above the vowel) is less confusing (in my opinion) from an English reader’s perspective, while the JSL system more closely mimics the letters required for keyboard input of Japanese words on a computer. That is, the long-o sound in JSL can be written either oo or ou, which represent two distinct sequences in hiragana (おお vs おう) but sound the same to native English-speakers’ ears. Though the original digitized version of this translation text used the JSL system, I have converted all those instances to the more easily-read Hepburn-romanized versions by substituting in the macron-diacritic vowels for long o, u, and a.

—Translator

ABBREVIATION LIST

AFL — American Federation of Labor

AJ — Amerasia Journal

AP — Associated Press

CCC — Civilian Conservation Corps

CIO — Congress of Industrial Organizations

CJA — Canadian Japanese Association

CMWU — Camp and Mill Workers Union

C.O. — Commanding Officer

CP (CPUSA) — American Communist party

CWRIC — Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians

EO — Executive Order

F.D.R. (FDR) — Franklin Delano Roosevelt

GB — Ganbatte (Yoneda 1983)

ILD — Intenational Labor Defense

ILWU — International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union

IP — Impounded People (Spicer et al. 1970)

JACL — Japanese American Citizens League

JCP — Japanese Communist party

JFA — And Justice For All (Tateishi 1984)

KCC — Keeper of Concentration Camps (Drinnon 1987)

LAT — Los Angeles Times

MILS — Military Intelligence Language School

MIS — Military Intelligence Service

MP — Military Police

NCJAR — National Council for Japanese American Redress

NDC — Nisei Democratic Club

NUCF — Nikei United Citizens' Federation

OSS — Office of Strategic Services

OWI — Office of War Information

PW — People's World

RA — Repairing America (Hohri 1988)

[S] — Supplemental newspaper headlines/articles—TRANS.

SFC — San Francisco Chronicle

SFN — San Francisco News

SFX — San Francisco Examiner

TLC — Trades and Labour Congress of Canada

TRA — The Red Angel (Raineri 1991)

TRANS. — Translator's note

UMW — United Mine Workers

UP — United Press

USO/U.S.O. — United Service Organizations

WCCA — Wartime Civil Control Administration

WRA — War Relocation Authority

TRANSLATOR'S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Grateful acknowledgements are extended to the following individuals and groups:

Mr. Karl G. Yoneda — for permission to translate his memoirs into English; for steadfast encouragement throughout the long period of work involved; and for providing me with an exhaustive list of pronunciations appropriate for the many Japanese personal names and organizations mentioned within the text of Manzanar Internment Camp Diary.

[NOTE: All Japanese names cited in the chapter texts have been presented in Western fashion, i.e. personal name first; surname last.]

Mr. Sataye Shinoda (Associate Professor, Tokyo Kasei University) — for granting permission to translate his Commentary, and to include it with the primary text of Karl Yoneda's wartime diary.

Mr. Kazuhisa Imai (Chief Editor, PMC Publications Inc., 4-4-5 Iidabashi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo) — for encouraging me in the beginning (1992) to contact Mr. Karl Yoneda regarding this translation project, and for kindly providing me with the author's writing address in San Francisco for that purpose.

Mr. Yūji Ichioka (Research Associate, UCLA Asian American Studies Center) — for sternly pointing out (in 1992) that my initial translation drafts were too literal and in need of greater flexibility.

Mr. Richard Fallenbaum of Berkeley, California — for personally tracking down specific articles from 1942 issues of People's World, using the newspaper/periodical research facilities at UCLA, Berkeley campus. Many thanks once again.

Mrs. Midori Clinton of North Vancouver, British Columbia — for her kind advice regarding specific Japanese words, such as those found in leaflets posted by the Manzanar Patriotic Suicide Corps (23 June entry, chap. 8).

Staff of the Vancouver Public Library and Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library — for securing inter-library loan materials, in particular 1942 issues of San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco News, and Oakland Tribune, as well as a copy of Arthur Hansen and David Hacker's Amerasia journal article, The Manzanar Riot: An Ethnic Perspective (AJ 2:2 1974, 112–157).

Staff of the Suzzallo Library (University of Washington, Seattle) — for access to 1941–1942 issues (microfilm & microfiche) of San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times, two indispensable sources for the newspaper research behind this diary's compilation.

Mr. Bob Harris (friend and colleague from 1990s Vancouver, BC taxi days) — for his meticulous proof-reading of the first book-format copy (1997); his eagle-eye spotted no fewer than twelve typographical errors for correction.

 Family and friends — who encouraged (and tolerated) my hours of solitude devoted to this work.

 And finally (May 2021) many thanks to Karl Yoneda’s granddaughters (Tommy’s daughters) —Tamara, Yvonne and Eliana Yoneda— for kindly granting permission to proceed with publication 26 years after the initial manuscript was completed.

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION

Unlike Ganbatte (published in 1983), this book is not Karl Yoneda's autobiography. It is a view through a much narrower window; a private glimpse into merely one year and ten days (Ganbatte, a 222-page volume, covers the same period in abbreviated fashion, pp. 111–150) in the life of a man who lived into his nineties. But that brief period, and the unforeseen events that took place within it, were to re-shape and focus the remainder of his tumultuous career.

When I first came across Manzanar Internment Camp Diary several years ago, I asked myself why a Japanese-American would opt to write his wartime memoirs in Japanese as opposed to English. The answer turned out to be Mr. Yoneda's Kibei (帰米) heritage; that he received his education in Japan even though born, and having lived most of his life, in the United States. He has authored a number of books¹, but all of them — with the exception of GB — have to date been published in Japanese only. Even today [1997] he appears uncomfortable expressing himself (at least on paper) in English. As he explained in the Acknowledgments section of his autobiography: "I am most grateful to Vivian Raineri, People's World staff member and close friend of many years, who read my 'Japaenglish' manuscript and helped make it readable" (Yoneda 1983, ix). It was this same Vivian McGuckin Raineri who several years later researched and authored The Red Angel, a biography devoted to the life and times of Karl's wife, Elaine Black Yoneda.

Background research conducted during the course of compiling this translation has revealed to me, as a Canadian, that far more literature exists on the World War II internments of Americans of Japanese ancestry than of their counterparts in Canada. Ken Adachi, author of The Enemy That Never Was (1976), committed suicide several years ago (February 1989) for reasons unknown.² Though it would be speculative and arrogant to assume his motivation was directly linked to painful memories from the bygone war years, no such speculation is required in stating that, with his death, Canada has lost a valuable citizen. Adachi's book is still one of the most comprehensive examinations of the Japanese-Canadian experience. Recently, movements for redress by both American and Canadian Japanese have served to increase public awareness regarding this issue — so sensitive on both sides of the border; on both sides, in fact, of the ethnic divide in both countries. Those individuals whose attention was captured by these developments are among the obvious candidates that might reach for a copy of this, Karl Yoneda's diary in English format. However, they may well be surprised, as I was, to find between its covers much more than they bargained for. The title implies a personal memoir, likely with a modicum of politics tossed in; such an expectation, the reader will discover, falls well short of the mark.

Through his penchant for quoting from newspapers of the day³, Mr. Yoneda opens for us a second window: an inside look at some of what Americans were being told in 1941 and 1942 — about the Japanese inside and outside the United States, about suspected espionage attempts, about the war's progress in Europe, across the Pacific, and in Southeast Asia. Scanning through microforms of 1942 issues of the San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times at the University of Washington's Suzzallo Library in Seattle, I felt as if I were in a time capsule. Mr. Richard Fallenbaum of Berkeley, California, to whom I am indebted for going out of his way to provide me with original materials from People's World, experienced a similar sensation: The paper was tremendously interesting during that period, he wrote. ... Even more interesting than the war articles are the articles on domestic issues. The paper ... was not shy about defending workers rights and struggling against racism.... There is material in there for several books. Indeed; but just as each of us is drawn to particular sections of the daily news, it must be borne in mind with respect to this running subplot within the Manzanar Diary that its author, too, was selecting those issues of particular importance to him.

Karl Yoneda's political views will certainly not be shared by everyone who may be interested in perusing this diary. But those same views were essential in moulding his perspective, in guiding each stand he chose to take, and in the selection of those contemporary news items he chose to record. In the Introduction to GB, Professor Yūji Ichioka (Research Associate, UCLA Asian American Studies Center) makes the assessment that A broad historical perspective is essential to understand the man (Yoneda 1983, xi). Be that as it may, whether you find yourself enthusiastically supportive of Yoneda's firm Communist beliefs, or riddled with misgivings over them; the fact remains that his convictions were integral to a host of observations on his part which should prove revealing to many outside of his own political circle. Again and again I was struck by the feeling: That wasn't in the history books; what else have we missed?

I have made a point of inserting additional chapter end-notes (differentiated from the author's by an appended — TRANS.) which I felt were important with regards to: (1) clarifying certain confusing elements, (2) providing supplemental information pertinent to the author's text, and (3) alerting the reader to alternative viewpoints concerning the most controversial issues. With respect to the latter, I would like to make the following explanatory comments: Karl Yoneda's documentation of the existence within (at least one of) the evacuee camps of a faction who truly hoped that Japan would win the war is a sobering revelation, considering that the FBI had supposedly rounded up most of the ultra-nationalists prior to exclusion and detention. It is also, as the author points out (n.4, chap.16) a factor which tends to have been ignored by social analysts such as A. Hansen and D. Hacker. That eye-opener notwithstanding, in my opinion it does not automatically follow that all who obstructed the aims of the JACL and the Manzanar Citizens Federation were in fact fascists, as opposed to simply individuals disgruntled by the treatment they were receiving. The truth must lie somewhere in between, which is why I felt compelled to offer balancing testimony; all the more so because specific individuals are singled out as villains who (as in the cases of Joe Kurihara and Harry Ueno [n.2a, chap.16]) were later revered as heroes by some within the Japanese-American community. Simply translating any aspersions into English thereby broadcasts them to a wider audience, and I am not in a position (nor do I wish) to cast judgment on either Mr. Yoneda's supporters nor his opponents. Secondly, existence within the camps of nightly-roving gangs intent on beating or killing their ideological rivals is another sobering disclosure, especially when one imagines the circumstances of the intended victims: their whereabouts known to all, nowhere to run, their words and actions subjected to the daily scrutiny of their peers. Knowing full well that they were being discriminated against, the evacuees were nonetheless under constant pressure to demonstrate their American-ness by behaving as if none of it bothered them. Any sizable group of people confined together under such circumstances would have been bound to fragment into groups violently disagreeing on whether conformity or protest constituted their best chances of survival. To a large extent they were damned no matter which way they turned. As a case in point, the strong-arm tactics herein ascribed exclusively to the pro-Japaners were also adopted, according to James Ōmura, by some who wished to silence the protesters (i.e. by certain members of the pro-America faction). When James Ōmura was charged with sedition for editorially supporting the Heart Mountain draft resisters' Fair Play Committee, he was none-too-subtly shunned:

... Campaigners for my Defense Fund drive were avoided on the streets, gang-beaten in an alley, intimidated with bodily harm, and shown the door.... This ostracism was not confined to Colorado alone. It was the same in the camps and in the free zone. (Japanese American Journalism During World War II by James Ōmura; Nomura et al. 1989, 74)

It is my belief that one of the most grievous wounds inflicted upon both Americans and Canadians of Japanese ancestry by the wartime internments was that of forcing them to become distanced from one another by virtue of having to choose sides under such grossly unnatural conditions. Justifiably blaming the government and public hysteria for what was being perpetrated against them gradually devolved into pointing the finger at one another. Persistence to the present day of animosities which developed between the JACLers and non-JACLers strikes me as a sad situation which ought to be included in Mr. Yoneda's list of current social concerns which he terms, in his Postscript, as Manzanar's Shadow.

Japanese and English are very different languages. Throughout the delicate balancing act of getting it right while avoiding too literal an interpretation, I've tried my best to make certain that nothing in the text was left out, nor anything added that wasn't there originally (with the exception of newspaper-quote supplements and translator's end-notes). I'm not Karl Yoneda, and in assuming his voice I sincerely hope I've succeeded in conveying his thoughts and impressions in a manner with which he himself would feel comfortable. I must assume full responsibility for any failings on that score. The process of bringing this material to the attention of English readers — including those of Japanese ancestry — has been at times a trying experience, but without doubt an enlightening one. It is my hope that some fraction of that sense of amazement I've felt during the course of this work may be transmitted to the reader.

This translation is dedicated to victims of racial discrimination and stereotyping, past and present.

Ian R. Forsyth, B.Sc.

New Westminster BC, Canada

February 1997

April 2021 addendum:

24 years elapse: We cross the century boundary; 911 happens. Iraq/Afghanistan/Syria conflicts; global economic crises; dire effects of climate change, global warming, violent conflicts and associated increased immigration from the Middle East into Europe and from Latin America into the US. Global rise in populist politics leads to increased levels of xenophobia and racial profiling – both in the North America and in Europe. Despite a brief interlude of hopeful progressive policies under Barack Obama, Donald Trump assumes the presidency of the United States of America in 2016. White supremacy movements gain traction in the United States. Anti-Muslim hysteria not only proliferates in the United States but is actively endorsed by the Trump administration. Latino immigrant families are placed in detention cages at the Mexican border with children being separated from their parents. Tensions between the US and both Russia & China escalate, with both the US & Russia now engaged in modernizing their nuclear arsenals (after America’s decision to abandon the ABM Treaty in 2002). Racial tensions between whites and African-Americans in the United States continue to fester giving rise to the Black Lives Matter movement. Native Americans are attacked with militarized police squads and water canons for trying to protect their water rights in the face of a major pipeline project in North Dakota (Standing Rock, Apr 2016 – Feb 2017). It’s not as if positive things haven’t also happened in the interim; but we need to be clear that racial tensions and xenophobia (among other polarizations) are alive and well in North America and that future wars are not inconceivable.

The recent election of Joe Biden as Democratic President offers some welcome glimmers of hope for more positive and altruistic policy directions in the United States (in my opinion). However I think it’s safe to say that concerns raised during World War II over the appearance of forced relocation centers / internment camps for American (& Canadian) citizens of non-European ancestry are still very relevant today. The Shadow of Manzanar (マンザナーの影), which Karl Yoneda evokes in his postscript to this diary, looms menacingly in the background even now. We should heed it.

Ian R. Forsyth

British Columbia, Canada

In Memoriam:

Karl Gōso Yoneda passed away on May 9th, 1999.

He had outlived his lifelong partner Elaine Black Yoneda, whom he lost on May 26th, 1988.

His son Thomas Culbert Yoneda passed away just this year (2021) on Jan 28th.

Karl Yoneda’s granddaughters — Tamara, Yvonne & Iliana — have given their kind permission and support to see their grandfather’s Manzanar diary published at last.

I.R.F.

COMMENTARY¹

解説 (By Sataye Shinoda)²

On 28 April 1988, Karl and Elaine Yoneda stood at the former site of Manzanar Concentration Camp. Ever since the first pilgrimage to Manzanar was organized in December 1969, they had taken part every year without fail. By this time, many of the people who had been interned here forty-six years previously had already passed away, while even those who had been young at the time were now elderly. A meeting was convened, and the Yonedas explained to the younger participants, who were unaware, just what had transpired here during the war. Both eighty-one years of age, husband and wife had determined that so long as they lived they would continue to recount the facts in an effort to forestall any repetition of that error: the forcible eviction imposed first upon the American Indians, and subsequently upon Japanese-Americans. This book is a diary kept by Kibei-Nisei Karl Yoneda during World War II, begun on the day of the attack against Pearl Harbor, continuing through his own compulsory evacuation to the Manzanar Concentration Camp, and beyond to the time he left the camp as a volunteer to join the U.S. Army.

Japanese immigration into the United States of America began in 1869, first attained a rate of one thousand per year in 1891, and thereafter steadily increased. At the time further immigration by the Chinese, who currently filled the ranks of the lowest stratum of laborers, had been barred; it was in their place that Japanese immigrants were entering the country. Since many of these were comparatively well-educated and highly diligent agricultural workers, they were welcomed in particular by the farming families of California who were suffering from a shortage of labor. Apart from agriculture, the Japanese also engaged in fishing, forestry, railroad construction, domestic labor in the cities, etc. They made contributions in every expanding field of endeavor. However, through a combination of unrivaled expertise and unflagging efforts in their work, the Japanese immigrants came to acquire an economic power base which made them competitive rivals with the Caucasians — at which point things took a new turn. In the early 1900s, beginning in Seattle and San Francisco, anti-Japanese movements spread like wildfire throughout the West Coast. In particular, Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War was viewed by Caucasians as a threat from the yellow races; hence the antiquated Yellow Peril theory was resurrected. As the anti-Japanese movement gradually gained momentum, the Japanese immigrants were beset by various rumors directed against them. This situation reached a peak in the 1920s, and culminated with the establishment in 1924 of the Japanese Exclusion Act, by which the avenue for Japanese entry into the United States was closed.

With further immigration thus barred, it appeared as if the anti-Japanese movements along the West Coast would subside temporarily. However, when Japan embarked upon her path of aggression in Asia, the resulting censure against the Japanese government was directed in kind towards Japanese residing in America. Nevertheless, despite the ostracism they were suffering, the immigrants bore and raised children and proceeded to set down roots in the United States. Their unflagging efforts and patience eventually bore fruit, and their lives were actually beginning to stabilize. But the effect of the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces on 7 December 1941 was like pouring oil on a fire, and the result was a state of anti-Japanese hysteria along the West Coast. The Issei, barred from naturalization and hence denied their civil rights, now became enemy aliens and those among them who held positions of authority within the Japanese community were seized by the FBI. Through the freezing of Issei bank accounts, cancellation of life insurance policies, revocation of all manner of licenses, termination of employment and other measures, the very foundations of the livelihoods of Japanese-Americans were overturned essentially overnight. In addition, they were hounded by malicious rumors and newspaper articles which made out [all] Japanese-Americans to look like spies. Once some fifteen hundred Issei leaders had been arrested, their social organizations³ were, for all intents and purposes, rendered inoperative. The Nisei on the other hand were still young, and their largest organization was the Japanese American Citizens League [JACL]. But against the American government's might what could the Nisei, with their dearth of experience, really be expected to do?

On 11 December the Western Defense Headquarters was established with Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt appointed as commanding officer. Various influential groups pointed to the potential risks presented by Japanese-Americans as spies or saboteurs, and began to exert political pressure on the authorities in demanding they be isolated. Through repeated negotiations between the Department of Justice and the army, the authorities were gradually swayed by public opinion and began to hand down decisions unfavorable to the Japanese-American populace. The opinions of individuals like Attorney General Biddle, who had opposed evacuation from the very start, were completely drowned out. On 19 February President Roosevelt finally put his signature to Executive Order No. 9066. In accordance with this, the military authorities were empowered to evacuate all persons of Japanese ancestry from the Pacific coastal regions which had been designated as strategic zones. Secretary of War Stimson immediately sanctioned C.O. DeWitt to exercise that authority, and on 2 March DeWitt ordered Japanese-Americans residing in the strategic zones to evacuate voluntarily. However, with public hostility against them at its height, the idea of moving was not viewed as a welcome option; no more than roughly five thousand relocated of their own accord to Utah, or to Colorado. When the tenth of the month had passed⁴ the government inaugurated the WRA (War Relocation Authority) and appointed Milton Eisenhower as its bureau chief. Eisenhower resigned this post after three months and was replaced by Dillon [S.] Myer, who acted as Bureau Chief for the WRA until its dissolution.

The greater part of the three Pacific states of Washington, Oregon, and California was designated by the army as Military Area No. 1. Approximately 112,00 persons of Japanese ancestry were living within this area. Citizens and non-citizens alike, these people (including even children deemed to be 1/16 or more Japanese by blood) proceeded down that same path of fate trodden by the Cherokee and Navaho Indian tribes before them, the latter having been forcibly evicted [from their lands] during the nineteenth century. It was different for the German/Italian-Americans, even though they too were associated with the Axis nations. That the motivating factor behind the evacuation of Japanese-Americans was actually nothing more than racial prejudice is symbolized by comments made by DeWitt: A Jap is a Jap. It makes no difference whether a Jap is a citizen or not. We don't need the Japs; they're security risks! It was hardly feasible that sites adequate to accommodate on the order of 110,000 Japanese-Americans could be prepared within a mere three months following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Temporary camps (Assembly Centers) were set up (twelve in California; one in Washington, Oregon, and Arizona respectively), and these fell under the jurisdiction of the Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA). They were hastily constructed, and — as in the case of Santa Anita where a racetrack was utilized; or of Fresno, where it was a county agricultural fairground — were, quite literally, temporary accommodation sites. Faced with very little time in which to settle their affairs, many of the evacuees abandoned their homes, sold off their household effects for a pittance, and gathered at assembly sites bringing with them only what they could carry. Some of the assembly centers were worse still in that the internees were housed in horse stalls containing traces of their former occupants, where they had to sleep while plagued by the stench of horse manure.

No sooner had they settled into the assembly centers when the evacuees had to gather up their belongings and move once again; this time to relocation centers built in the interior. This process went on from May through to the end of October, by which time all had been transferred out of the assembly centers. The relocation centers numbered ten in all, and were placed under the jurisdiction of the WRA. The government referred to these sites as relocation centers, but around their perimeters barbed wire was strung and armed sentries stood guard from atop watchtowers twenty-four hours a day; in reality they were nothing less than concentration camps. In California there were the Manzanar and Tule Lake camps; in Arizona there were Poston and Gila River; in Arkansas, Jerome and Rowher; in Utah, Topaz; in Colorado, Granada; in Wyoming, Heart Mountain; and in Idaho there was Minidoka. Poston was the largest of the centers, with a capacity to accommodate twenty thousand people. In addition, as of September 1943 Tule Lake became an isolation camp for those disloyal to the United States and thereafter it differed in character from the other centers.⁵

Karl Yoneda was interned at Manzanar, situated in Owens Valley, California, south of the town of Independence. As implied by the camp's name, which means apple orchard in Spanish, this was formerly the site of an apple-growing operation. It is claimed that even during the time of the camp's existence there remained some aging apple trees to the rear of the compound. Residents of all the camps were harried by extreme variance between day and nighttime temperatures as well as by sandstorms accompanied by strong winds. Manzanar was no exception in this respect. However, from this location to the east of the Sierra Nevada one could gaze to the west toward Mount Whitney, highest peak on the continental United States. There was also a green belt along the course of the Owens River; so the natural environment, comparatively speaking, was fairly good.

On 23 March a group of people gathered at the Rosebowl Stadium in Pasadena, California and set off in a motley assortment of vehicles, while another group assembled at the Santa Fe Railway Station and boarded a train. Both were bound for Owens Valley. They constituted the second wave of voluntary evacuees, making their way to the site of the camp one step ahead of the rest, with the intended aim of getting things in order for those to follow. Upon their arrival, all that was visible through the dusty haze in the distance were a mere thirty-eight prefab barracks, a hospital, a mess hall, and an administration building. By means of some rushed construction work, approximately five hundred barracks were soon erected and the Owens Valley Assembly Center [initially dubbed Owens Valley Reception Center (25 Mar. entry, chap. 5)] came into being. Admittance of the regular evacuees began in early April while construction was still in progress. Then on 1 June the camp was re-designated as a relocation center. Both Manzanar and Poston started off thus as assembly centers, later becoming relocation centers; in this respect they differed from the other camps. Those who were interned at either of these two facilities were spared the annoyance of having to undergo a second move from a temporary camp to a relocation center.

A camp newspaper, the Manzanar Free Press, was founded on 11 April. This consisted of four mimeographed pages and was published twice weekly. The format was later expanded to six pages; after 12 May publication was stepped up to three times per week, with the typesetting carried out in nearby Lone Pine from where the finished papers were transported back to Manzanar. All of the camps had their own newspapers, but the Manzanar Free Press and Heart Mountain Sentinel were unique by virtue of being printed [as opposed to mimeographed]. The paper was managed by Nisei who cooperated with the WRA. Through their editorial articles, they attempted to lead public opinion within the camp. After mid-June, a Japanese language edition — Manzanā Jiyū Shimbun [マンザナー 自由新聞] — was published for the benefit of the Issei and Kibei-Nisei who weren't proficient in English. However, that was shut down for a time; and there was a period during which it was subjected to stringent censorship in that only translations of articles approved by the WRA were permitted. Accordingly, it was inevitable that the camp newspaper would become chiefly directed towards the Nisei who were fluent in English. The paper's articles reflected only the opinions of those who were loyal to the United States. Discontentment increased consequently among the Issei and Kibei-Nisei; and the rift which existed between them and the Nisei, even prior to internment, was simply carried over and deepened.

The term Kibei-Nisei refers to those Nisei who, although born in the United States, were educated in Japan and subsequently returned to America. Faced with an uncertain future because of intense anti-Japanese attitudes among the American public prior to the war, many of the immigrants sent their children away to Japan to live with their grandparents and to receive there education there. The longer this period of education in Japan, the stronger became their sense of affinity with Japan — a feeling of having returned home. A fair number of these Kibei harbored sympathies which were far closer to those of the Issei than of the Nisei. Moreover, the education they received in Japan was, for the most part, militaristic in nature. It was quite natural in the case of the Issei, denied as they were their rights of citizenship, that they should look to Japan as a source of spiritual and moral guidance. As for the Kibei, back in America prior to the war, the majority studied English and made efforts to adapt themselves to American society. However, once squarely confronted with the fact of their forcible exclusion, their distrust toward America intensified and in mental retaliation their feelings for Japan grew ever stronger. In their own minds they concocted, and believed in, various illusions about Japan.

Antagonism erupted everywhere between the Nisei on the one hand, and the pro-Japan Issei/Kibei factions on the other. In Manzanar, at the outset this antagonism began in connection with the production of camouflage nets, a form of national defense industry. On 17 June the Block Representatives Council, under Committee Chairman Ted Akahoshi, assessed the government's establishment of a camouflage net factory in the camp as an event that would afford even the Nisei with an opportunity to participate in war production work. They advised those with citizenship who were sixteen years of age or older to take part, and resolved that unreserved cooperation with the camp authorities in this matter (1) would contribute towards the fight in defense of democracy, and (2) was in the best interests of the future welfare of Japanese-Americans. Roughly six hundred individuals worked in this factory; but the pro-Japan faction berated these employees, calling them The Authorities' Dogs. Then in August the residents' self-governing body — Manzanar Citizens Federation — initiated the so-called Food for Freedom campaign. The period from August through to November was harvesting season for sugar beets; but the war had created an acute shortage of manpower, and it was clear that if the harvest were delayed the resultant damage would be severe. Consequently the WRA requested that internees from the camps help out, albeit this participation was restricted to those with U.S. citizenship. From 22 September until the beginning of October some one thousand individuals, including a small number of women, left Manzanar and headed for Idaho and Montana. This too was opposed by means of both verbal abuse and violence by the pro-Japan faction, who occasionally went so far as to inflict harm even upon the families of the laborers. They embroiled in this dispute even those who, up to that point in time, hadn't given any thought to such issues as being pro-Japan or pro-America. In the eyes of the Kibei, enraged over the trampling of rights supposedly guaranteed them in the Constitution, this cooperation by the Nisei with the authorities reflected a currying for favor with those in power.

The pro-Japan faction rallied behind Ryūsei Inouye, and banded together under the name Manzanar Black Dragon Society in opposition to the [aims of the] Citizens Federation. The latter had for some time been campaigning for the Nisei's right to serve in the U.S. armed forces; but initially the government's plan was to organize a Japanese-American Intelligence Corps comprised of Nisei who were both loyal to America and proficient in the Japanese language. Accordingly, fourteen men volunteered for this corps, passed the screening tests, and ultimately departed Manzanar under heavy guard on the second of December. That evacuees from the camp had volunteered for army service, and the fact that many who had done so were Kibei-Nisei, greatly annoyed the Black Dragon Society. Three days after the volunteers' departure they assaulted and severely injured Fred Tayama, a Nisei who worked with the Administration Bureau, on the grounds that he was allegedly an informer for the authorities. This incident sparked a disturbance which proceeded to escalate into the Manzanar Riot, during which two people were killed and another ten seriously wounded. On the other hand, those evacuees who volunteered for army service during the early part of 1942 paved the way for the formation of a Japanese-American [combat] unit the following year. The important role played by the latter on the battlefronts of Europe led ultimately to an amelioration in public sentiments towards Japanese-Americans after the war.

Karl Yoneda was born in Los Angeles in 1906, to parents who hailed from Hiroshima Prefecture. His father Hideo had moved to Hawaii from Japan in 1895 and worked on the sugar cane plantations of Kauai, as did his mother Kazu following his parents' marriage. Later on the couple