Unhyphenated Patriots

While in Los Angeles last week, I visited the Japanese American National Museum, something I've wanted to do since beginning to write Broken Dolls.

Japanese American National Museum

Before going inside, we walked around taking pictures. Thankfully, we noticed a sign that said "Go For Broke," with an arrow pointing away from the museum. Knowing my Uncle Yoshio served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, (Uncle Yoshio's Honor) I wanted to see the memorial. So we turned in the direction of the arrow and headed about a block away, toward a large, black semi-circle monument.

Uncle Yoshio

On the front of that monument, the first thing I read was what President Truman said to the Japanese-American veterans upon their return from war:

"You not only fought the enemy--you fought prejudice and won."

The curved back of the monument is covered with over 16,000 Japanese-Americans who served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the 100th Infantry Battalion and the lesser-known Military Intelligence Service.

As I searched through the names for my uncle's, a Japanese man approached me and asked if he could help. He gave us a brief history of the monument and pointed me in the direction of a computer that would help me locate Uncle Yoshio's name.



Then, I found it.

I stared at his name, Yoshio Sasaki, thinking about what it must have been like to fight for a country that had "relocated" his family (my mother included) to internment camps surrounded by barbed wire.

Following is an excerpt from an article in the November 2, 2011 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle:

While undergoing training, Susumu Ito would visit his parents and two sisters 200 miles away at the Rohwer Internment Camp in Arkansas. Despite the injustice of being forced to relocate from Stockton, Calif., Ito said, his parents took great pride in their son fighting for the U.S. military. However, he ignored his mother's request in her weekly letters to avoid hazardous duty. He said he wanted to be on the front lines, as did his peers. The motto of the 442nd was "go for broke."

After reflecting at the site of the monument, we went into the Japanese American National Museum. There, I came upon a barrack that had been relocated to the museum. I stared through gaps and knotholes in the boards that left little privacy for the families that had lived in the tiny, primitive spaces. I imagined my mother as an eight-year old, peeking through those spaces as she searched for any source of entertainment. Then, I imagined her mother scolding her, trying to explain that each family deserved privacy.

As we walked around looking at fascinating memorabilia, an elderly Japanese man approached us. He introduced himself as Frank Omatsu, and asked if we'd be interested in hearing more about the displays.

Mr. Omatsu told us he had been in the Military Intelligence Service and had served in Burma, translating and interrogating. His family had been interned in Arkansas, where my character, Sachi, and her family were interned. (Click here for a blog on Rohwer, Arkansas.) I had not heard of the Military Intelligence Service before then, and was fascinated by his story. I imagined what it must have been like to interrogate "the enemy" while his family at home was considered "the enemy."

Mr. Omatsu told me other things I had not known before: that the 442nd rescued the Lost Battalion, suffering over 1,000 casualties (200+ dead, 800+ injured) to rescue 216 men trapped behind German lines; that attachments to the 442nd liberated several of the concentration camps near Dachau; that over 300 Nisei (second generation) women served in the Women's Army Corp.

How lucky we were to be approached by this proud and humble man who so generously shared the history of this time with us. I have done much research in writing Broken Dolls, but reading words does not compare to hearing stories in the voices of those who experienced history.

Mr. Frank Omatsu

Yesterday, November 2, 2011, Congress held a Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony to honor the Japanese American veterans of World War II. At last, the men who fought not only the enemy, but prejudice, have been honored.

C-SPAN video of the Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony

A Day of Infamy

In memory of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, here is an excerpt from my manuscript, Broken Dolls. In this scene, it is December 8, 1941, the day after the bombing. Nobu, my 17-year old Japanese American protagonist, is in school, about to listen to the broadcast of President Roosevelt's speech:
----------------------------------------------
     Third period arrived and Nobu walked into Mrs. Connelly’s Social Studies class. How was he supposed to sit through the President’s speech? The stares had become like bugs crawling all over him. He wanted to swat them away, squash them, but the creepy stares weren’t so easy to get rid of.
     Still, maybe he could scare one pest off.
     “What're you looking at?” he asked, getting in the face of a boy slumped at a desk in the front row.
     The kid snickered. Smug, he turned to look at the book in front of him.
     Mrs. Connelly rushed over to the boys. "Nobu! I’ll not have any of that in my class.”
     He dropped into a seat at the back of the room. At least there, it wouldn’t be so easy for his classmates to harass him.
     Returning to her desk, she continued to address her students. “Class, as you know, I brought my radio to class today for you to listen to the broadcast of President Roosevelt’s address to Congress.” She removed her glasses and clutched them in her hand. “The attack on Pearl Harbor has raised the emotions of many Americans, but as you listen, I expect you to conduct yourselves in a respectful manner to all students. Face forward during the speech. You may take notes, in fact, I expect you to take notes.” She smiled. “But no passing notes, especially during the broadcast.”
     Nobu took a deep breath. Thanks, Mrs. Connelly.
     When she turned the radio on, static crackled loudly, and she adjusted the volume.
     The class quieted at the sound of the President's words.
    
     Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, members of the Senate and the House of Representatives: yesterday, December 7th, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. . .

     Nobu’s pulse raced. His neck burned. He wiped his sweaty palms onto his jeans.

. . . The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost.

     Several classmates began to tap their pencils on desktops. Others’ knees jittered up and down. Some of these kids had fathers at Pearl Harbor.
     Nobu’s gut twisted and pinched.

. . . I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.

     War. The United States . . . at war with Japan.

In the Shadow of Heart Mountain

Last week, I visited my third Japanese-American internment camp site—Heart Mountain Relocation Center, thirteen miles outside of Cody, Wyoming.

I was nine years old when I visited my first site, Tule Lake Relocation Center in California. I remember watching my mother stare at the desolate site with tears in her eyes. At the time, I felt sad, even helpless, seeing her cry. And, when she explained I, too, would have been sent to the camps--though I am an American, born in the United States and only half-Japanese--I felt a lump in my throat, as I imagined watching the dust that whipped all around us from behind barbed wire fences. It scared me to think of being taken from my home and sent to a camp, even though I’d never been to Japan, and knew very little of the faraway country.

The experience of watching my mother relive her poignant memories, and feeling the fear of the Japanese-Americans of that era, was part of the inspiration behind my book, Broken Dolls.

The second site I visited was in Rohwer, Arkansas. Before I started writing Broken Dolls, I didn’t know Arkansas had had two internment camps—Rohwer and Jerome, both in southeast Arkansas. (For more information on Rohwer, please see the blog I posted after my visit to Rohwer in November, 2009, titled "Rohwer Whispers.)

None of the original buildings remain at Rohwer, only a few grave markers and a monument to the internees. However, at the site of Heart Mountain, part of the hospital and its smoke stack still stand. Also, a monument garden and walking path describes what the relocation center was like in pictures and essays. An Interpretive Learning Center is scheduled to open in August 2011. The building that will house the center is a replica of the barracks that covered what is now farmland in the shadow of Heart Mountain. Those barracks housed over 10,000 residents, and at the time, the relocation center was the third largest populated area in Wyoming.
Today, very little remains at the sites of most of the relocation centers. Sadly, it is symbolic of how little we remember of this era. I’m often amazed at how little people know of the internment of Japanese-Americans, but I’m also pleasantly surprised at how interested they are for more information.

Last week at the Wyoming Writers Conference, following a presentation on Heart Mountain by poet, Lee Ann Roripaugh, I spoke to David Reetz, President and CEO of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation.. He described how the foundation was established to memorialize and educate the public about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Development of this memorial and its Interpretive Learning Center is an important mission today, for we must remember our history.









“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” -- George Santayana