Uprooted: Chapter 4

Moving day was the most lamentable and sorrowful day in all our life on the Pacific Coast—our foundation, built by fifty years of hard toil and planning, was swept away by Army’s Order.

Local newspapers, however, took the “air raid” seriously, without any evidence that it had transpired.

In the three months after Pearl Harbor, German submarines sank scores of ships off the Atlantic coast. They struck boldly, as if they were receiving information from spies in the Port of New York, the hub for Europe-bound war supplies.

This belief, Park insists, made them “accomplices of the government” and thus “legitimized the bigoted policies of racial profiling.”

President Roosevelt, an aide noted, was blase, indifferent to “what happened to their property” after they moved.

To this day I can remember vividly the plight of the elderly, some on stretchers, orphans herded on the train by caretakers, and especially a young couple with four preschool children.

The father had diapers and other baby paraphernalia strapped to his back.

Parking lots gave extra space for quickly built shacks, derisively called “chicken coops.”

At Santa Anita, a racetrack in Arcadia, Private Leonard Adams was deeply touched by the sight of the “many weeping or simply dazed, or bewildered by our formidable ranks.”

“The water stagnated at the front steps...The mosquitoes that festered there were horrible…Rohwer was a living nightmare.”

Manzanar struck a child, Itsuko Taniguchi, as the most dismal spot on the planet...

During a visit to Tule Lake, a WRA inspector noted: “I discovered that a slave labor racket was being carried on and had been continuously carried on since the inception of that Center.”

During a visit to Tule Lake, a WRA inspector noted: “I discovered that a slave labor racket was being carried on and had been continuously carried on since the inception of that Center.”

The desert sands I’ll plod,
Far out beneath its skies and stars,
To be alone with God.

Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston remembered how Issei gardeners diverted water from an aqueduct to build a “small park” at Manzanar “with mossy nooks, ponds, waterfalls and curved wooden bridges. Sometimes in the evenings we could walk down the raked gravel paths. You could face away from the barracks...and for a while not be a prisoner at all.”

Searches were as intrusive as any carried out by FBI agents after Pearl Harbor.

We’re trapped like rats in a wired cage,
To fret and fume with impotent rage

Its broadcasts denounced America’s “diabolic savagery”...

While this charge had the sting of truth, it also reeked of hypocrisy.

Secret memos revealed the department’s intention to use these people as a “reprisal reserve” for “bargaining purposes.”

But remember that not a single one of those evacuated had been proved guilty of any crime—of any subversive act or sabotage...

Remember [too] that there should be absolutely no stigma upon them; on the contrary their cooperation deserves our approval and calls for our applause.

Because China was an ally, Congress in 1943 repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act, but Chinese immigrants still could not apply for naturalization.

We use everyday language with each other; it is simple, direct, colorful, and even profane.

It does this through the use of euphemism, the substitution of a mild word or phrase for one normally considered blunt, unpleasant, or upsetting.

Yet the reality was nothing so benign as what evacuated seemed to imply.

Again, the glowing description did not match the bleak reality.

You’ve heard the adage “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

Ralph Merritt, the camp’s director, was a decent man, but also patronizing toward the inmates, calling them “my children.”

Born Free and Equal has a large photo of the main entrance and its sign, MANZANAR WAR RELOCATION CENTER, an evocation of the rustic welcoming signs at national parks.

“I believe that the acrid splendor of the desert, ringed with towering mountains, has strengthened the spirit of the people at Manzanar…

The huge vistas and the stern realities of sun and wind and space symbolize the immensity and opportunity of America.

She hid in tight corners, concealed her camera, and sat atop the roof of her car—anything for a candid shot.

Disgusted by the blatant racism, she wrote: “What was horrifying was to do this thing completely on the basis of what blood may be coursing through a person’s veins, nothing else. Nothing to do with your affiliations or friendships or associations. Just blood.”

These wound up in a file that was labeled “impounded” and closed to the public.