Loyal Americans: Japanese American Imprisonment During World War II

In the past few months, renewed attention has been raised over the everyday violence and discrimination faced by Asian and Asian Americans. Unfortunately, this recent wave is part of a pattern of historic prejudice and anti-Asian sentiment. One such moment in our community’s history was the forced incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. We acknowledge this injustice, past and present. To learn more about this dark moment in Hayward area history, please read below.

“…we believe the part of wisdom dictates that Japanese, citizens or not, must be, for the most part, evacuated. Harsh. True. But war is a harsh business and we did not ask for it….Safety is important, and it is far better for a few to be hurt than that a few make it possible that many be hurt.”

The above quote comes from an editorial in the February 26, 1942 issue of the Hayward Journal newspaper. It was written just days after President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which granted permission for military commanders on the West Coast to issue orders forcing thousands of Japanese American citizens from their homes for the duration of the war. The editorial disregards the fact that the majority of Japanese Americans they were okay with “evacuating” were, in fact, American citizens entitled to all the rights citizenship entails. This is not the opinion of everyone at the time, but it was the opinion of a vocal portion. It was an easy leap for many people to make, following on the heels of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and combined with long-standing feelings of distrust, and even hatred, toward anyone of Asian descent on the West Coast. People argued that Japanese Americans would be spying for Japan and actively work against the US in fighting the war.

With a majority of the population, along with the local, state, and federal governments, in favor of “relocating” Japanese Americans away from the West Coast, families were forced to comply. Local Japanese-American citizens had to register at the local office of the War Relocation Authority, which in Hayward was located on C Street, close to Mission Boulevard. A few weeks after registering, families had to report for “removal” to the interior of the country.

There were designated evacuation sites along the West Coast, as each area was broken up into zones. The Hayward Plaza was the evacuation site for Japanese Americans in the Hayward area. In the days leading up to the evacuation in late April and May 1942, photographer Dorothea Lange traveled through San Francisco and the East Bay documenting the lives of Japanese Americans as they faced leaving their homes, reported for “evacuation”, and first settled in their new temporary quarters.

Lange’s photos have since become some of the most iconic images of this event. The photos show the stoicism, confusion, resignation and disappointment in the faces of people who felt loyalty to America and that their loyalty was under suspicion. These were people who had jobs and businesses, homes, cars, possessions, and pets. They sent their children to school, paid taxes, played that all-American sport of baseball, listened to Bing Crosby and Glenn Miller, and served in the military. But because of their ethnicity, they were deemed “enemy aliens” and not trustworthy.

Even as newspapers like the Hayward Journal were arguing that evacuating the Japanese American population was the right thing to do, they were also encouraging them to continue operating their farms and businesses to help with the war effort and show their loyalty until they were removed from the area. As Japanese Americans made frantic plans to sell their property or find someone to operate their business, none of them knew when or if they would return home.

For most Japanese Americans living in our area, they first went to the Tanforan Assembly Center across the Bay where they spent several months in temporary quarters, under armed guard and unable to leave, while more permanent housing was constructed in locations in the interior of the country. By fall 1942, most families were moved to Topaz Relocation Center in Utah, a desolate place far from the gentle climate and lush landscape of the Hayward area. At both locations, families lived in poor, cramped, uncomfortable conditions.

In the face of extraordinary circumstances, they found ways to live and establish a new normal. Forming schools and playing sports, establishing newspapers and planting crops. Many of their sons went off to fight in the war for their country.

Japanese Americans were not passive. Some fought legal battles in the courts against the injustice of their incarceration. Others risked prison by refusing to be drafted into military service when their civil rights as Americans were being disregarded. Still others refused to proclaim their loyalty to a country that would treat them so poorly. And even as they pushed back against the injustices they faced, they were doing so as loyal Americans with the right to do so.

The “evacuation” order was lifted in early 1945, paving the way for them to return home. But it wasn’t that simple. Some people sold their homes and businesses and had nothing to return to. Others had arranged for someone else to operate their business or lease their homes. Getting control of their property back wasn’t always easy. It took years to get resettled and reestablished.

It took far longer to get an apology from the government. Finally, in August 1988 President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which provided a one-time redress payment of $20,000 and an apology to survivors of the internment camps. Since those dark days of World War II, there has been a concentrated effort to document the stories of Japanese Americans who lived through incarceration. As we approach the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Liberties Act and as we face growing racial divisions within the country, it is fitting to once again look at this moment in our nation’s history from our local perspective. To study those famous photos and learn the stories of these loyal Americans directly impacted by racism and wartime hysteria. To remember that we can never go down this path again.

THE RETURN OF JAPANESE-AMERICAN RESIDENTS TO THE HAYWARD AREA

When it was announced that Japanese-American residents would be allowed to return to the Hayward area, reaction was initially muted. A December 1944 article describes Hayward Mayor George Mays’ calm stance. Mays, citing a letter from California Governor Earl Warren, “urged fullest compliance” and respect for the order allowing the return of Japanese Americans. Perhaps fearing some kind of backlash, Mays also “urged the Hayward Community to accept the order in the spirit in which it was issued…” Reaction to Japanese Americans being incarcerated was mixed in the general area population, so the same range of feelings existed upon the announcement of their return home.

Not only was the city council concerned with the return of Japanese-American adults, but their children as well. An article titled “School Heads to Study Jap Problem” describes various Hayward area school officials traveling to Sacramento to attend a conference to discuss their return so that school officials would be able “to guard against playground disturbances that may follow their return.” In other words, racial violence, even among school children, was a concern. According to the article “[m]any Japanese formerly resided in this area, engaged chiefly in truck farming and nursery operations.”

In general, the uneasiness of the return of Japanese-Americans is summed up in an editorial from the editors of the Hayward Journal. The editorial begrudgingly accepts their return, while sympathizing with those who wanted the Japanese-Americans to remain interned. The editors wrote:

Bringing the Japanese back to this coast if their loyalty and patriotism are proved, is in full accordance with the constitution. We may not like it or want it. Most of us believe it is not deriable [sic] at this time, but there is nothing we can do about it except to accept it in the true spirit of Americanism which grants us the same freedom which we would deny others. We are apt to be somewhat intolerant on this score, in the face of much that has happened, but we cannot refuse to grant one group privileges we grant to another. What appears to be a problem at the moment, we believe, under American fair play and tolerance, will tend to work itself out in good time. We can make it worse by taking things into our own hands instead of permitting the law of the land to act as governing agent.

The experience of the Hayward area Japanese population upon their return is not well documented in newspapers. A few articles give some impression, but there is little information to go on. The Shibata family, for example, returned to Hayward in 1945, but was not able to live in their former home right away until the person leasing it finished their lease. And even after their return, many white employees left the nursery, not wanting to work for a Japanese owner.

Kimi Fuji, a local resident, summed up the return of many Japanese-Americans saying, “We were lucky. My parents, when they came back, had to stay in the hired hands quarters, in the back, until Mr. Knodt’s family moved out [the family leasing their home], which was about six months later. Most nursery people came back to their homes, but others just had a terrible time.”

Most of the incidents of violence reported in the local newspaper which related to the returning Japanese-American population revolved around Centerville, in what is today Fremont. A January 1945 article describes a dispute between Raymond Benbow and Yasuto Akato. Yasuto leased his truck farm to Raymond before he was sent to camp. Upon his release, he and his wife wished to reoccupy their farm immediately, but because Raymond had a lease through March 1945 a judge allowed Raymond to stay on the Akato’s farm until the lease expired. Raymond claimed to be farming the land in Yasuto’s absence. The same article also describes Hayward Union High School alumni, Kazno Shikano, returning to his twenty acres in Centerville with no problems.

There are very few reports regarding violence facing returning Japanese-Americans. One article, again a report from the Fremont area, stands out. The article, titled “Shots Fired at Jap Residents,” describes a drive-by shooting. Two Thornton Avenue homes, owned by Toshiaki Idota and Motomoskin Motosaki, were fired at by two men. There was “little damage” done because the shooters used “birdshot” pellets. The two families had returned in mid-August 1945. According to the Alameda County Sheriff, this September incident was “the first such incident in Alameda County.”

Despite these reports from Centerville, there is no real detailed information presented in the Hayward Journal newspaper. It seems that if similar incidents of property dispute of violence did take place in the Hayward area, the information was not reported as the newspaper began to shift toward a postwar tone of renewed Hayward booster-ism that looked at the postwar as an opportunity to remake Hayward.

What remains undeniable is that Asian and Asian Americans, for no reason other than their race, were targets of vitriol and violence, before, during, and after World War II and remain so even today.