Executive Order 9066

     Three months after Pearl Harbor attack, the President of the United States, FDR issued the Executive Order 9066.  Readers of my blogs are familiar with this infamous Executive Order which launched the Nazi-like action by the U.S. government to round up all residents of Japanese descent, legal residents and citizens of the U.S. alike, and ship them off to "internment camps" for the duration of the war.  Our Japanese American citizens of the West Coast and parts of interior, were rounded up like the Jews in Europe, and shipped off under guard to internment camps carrying only few meager possession that they could grab at short notice.  Men, women, and children, without exception were subject to this treatment.  In fact, anyone who was at least 1/8th Japanese was subject to this law!  Today, that would have included people like Ann Curry of NBC who is half Japanese, and Richard Gere, the movie star, who is 1/4 Japanese!  However, many mixed-race people escaped internment because they had none-Japanese last names and did not volunteer the fact that they were part Japanese to the authorities.
     It was a very cruel and senseless act by the U.S. government, born of panic and desire for revenge against the Japanese after the Pearl Harbor attack.  It didn't seem to matter that the people that were so mistreated were Americans, American citizens.  If they were of Japanese descent, they were subject to this law.
     Naturally, not everyone agreed with U.S. government's cruel and senseless act of "interning" all of the Japanese-Americans on the West Coast (as well as Nevada, Arizona, and other western states).  Many none Japanese openly protested and were marked by the government as "trouble makers."  I ran into one such person during my undergraduate days in California.  He was teaching a class that was called "Executive Order 9066."  I was initially surprised to learn that this professor, an Irish-American and not of Japanese descent, was teaching a class on Japanese internment during World War Two.  At the time, in the 1960s, Ethnic Studies and Women's Studies were in their infancy and were just getting started on campuses across California.  On all of the different campuses, the subject of Japanese internment was taught by Japanese-American professors, those who were actually in the internment camps during the war.  So, the fact that a none-Japanese was teaching this class on our campus sort of caught me by surprise at first.  Then, I read a long interview that he had with the local newspaper, in which the paper was trying to promote his class and at the same time tell his fascinating story.
     It turned out that he was one of those none-Japanese who protested the enactment of the Executive Order 9066.  At the time he was a graduate student.  He had actually just completed all of his class work for a Ph.D. and only needed to write the dissertation to receive his doctoral degree.  However, because of the war, he decided to take a break and thereby became an ABD (an unofficial title used in academia for those who are "all but the dissertation" short of receiving their doctorate).  As an ABD, he was no longer enrolled in school and was subject to the draft, which he didn't mind.  He was a patriot and was willing to serve his country.
     During his protest against the government policy, the Executive Order 9066, he not only demonstrated in the streets with placards, but wrote letters to FDR with copies sent to the Army and FBI.  For his street protests, he was arrested by the police, roughed-up, and spent a night in jail along with several fellow protesters.  He wasn't very popular with his neighbors, but that was about it.  On campus there were many like-minded individuals, both students and faculty members who participated in the protests.
     Shortly after his decision to take a break from school, he was called up for the draft.  Being in excellent physical condition, he didn't foresee any problems, and he wanted to serve in combat.  He was afraid that because of his education, he might end up behind a desk someplace doing some boring clerical work, so he asked to be assigned to the infantry and to a combat unit.  The army went along with his request partially and he did receive infantry training, but instead of being assigned to some combat unit, he was assigned to be a guard at Tule Lake Internment Center in Northern California!  He said that the sergeant who handed him his orders had a nasty smile on his face as he said, "You love the Japs so much, the Army thought it would be good to send you to guard them!"
     He was stunned!  Obviously the system was paying him back for his protests and letter writing!  Who ever said that bureaucracy does not have a memory and is not vindictive!  It seemed to have a very good memory, and was very vengeful!  So, off he went to Tule Lake to be a guard.  He was horrified at what he saw.  The Japanese-Americans were kept behind a barbwire fence with armed soldiers guarding them.  Their "housing" was a row of barracks-like clapboard structures with tin roofs with no insulation, which made those building freezing cold in the winter and unbearably hot in the summer.  There was no plumbing, there were trench like common latrines, such as the ones used by soldiers in the field!  It was horrible!  He said that he later imagined that it wasn't much better than the housing the Jews received from the Nazis in those Extermination Camps!
     He performed his duties as a guard, but he also did everything and anything he could within his power to make life easier for the internees.  He complained to his superiors that the conditions were terrible and that something should be done to improve the situation.  He was strongly reprimanded and told that he would never be promoted and that if he didn't watch out, he would end up in prison.  Since he performed his duties as he was directed, they didn't send him to prison, but true to their word, he was never promoted. After three years in the Army, from 1942 until the end of the war in 1945, he spent his entire time at Tule Lake as a Private, not even a one striper (a Private First Class), but just a Private with no stripe!
     Although there were some soldiers that were sympathetic to the internees, most were afraid to say anything and avoided making friends with him.  He spent a very lonely and miserable three year period at Tule Lake.  However, as they say, there is always a silver lining, even under a dark cloud.  He met a Nisei girl who was interned with her family.  At first the girl refused to even speak to him, but eventually she warmed up and they became friends.  He would go to town in his off days and buy products that were unavailable for the internees and smuggle them into the camp.  He took a big risk doing this, but he did it anyway.
     In time, he fell in love with the Nisei girl.  But of course, they couldn't date or anything, just talk across the barbwire fence most of the time!  Sometimes, when he was not on duty, they would secretly meet at some deserted corner of the camp and have some privacy.  But those occasions were very rare and few.
     A few months after the war ended, the internees were released and sent back to where they came from.  Most returned to homes that were no longer theirs, their property was either confiscated by the government or commandeered!  He was discharged from the army and he returned to school to finish his Ph.D.  He had lost contact with the Nisei girl although he looked for her desperately.  Several years later, by pure coincidence he ran into her in another town where she was teaching.  She had been teaching at the Tule Lake Internment Center school during the war.  She was a college graduate with teaching degree.  So, naturally she resumed teaching after the war.  They resumed their relationship and were married shortly.  Their story, changed considerably to suit the needs of "dramatization" and "artistic license," was made into a movie called Come See the Paradise in 1990 with Dennis Quaid and Tamlyn Tomita.  I don't know why Hollywood always insists on changing the original stories, sometimes to the point where they are unrecognizable.  In this case, neither Dennis Quaid nor Tomlyn Tomita are anything at all like the old professor and his wife.  A pity, because their story would have made a great movie on its own right!  But then again, perhaps they didn't want their story commercialized into a movie.    
     He was an exceptionally brave and principled individual.  I don't think many people could have done what he did, I doubt if I could have!  I am glad that I met him and had the opportunity to talk to him, and take his class!