By BILL WATANABE
My family was sent from the harsh climate of Manzanar in Inyo County to the harsher climate of Tule Lake near the Oregon border in March of 1944.
I was a newborn baby only two months old at that time. My family rode the train and according to my mother, it snowed all the way to the Tule Lake Segregation Center, where 17,000 other Nikkei were incarcerated.
Tule Lake was where the government sent all the people they considered “disloyal” or “trouble-makers.” How did they discern who was “loyal” and who was not? Much was determined by how one answered Questions 27 and 28 on a so-called loyalty questionnaire.
I am uncertain as to how one can determine a person’s loyalty by a questionnaire but at any rate, my parents did not answer “correctly” and were deemed “disloyal.”
My mother was an American citizen, born in Long Beach and raised as a Kibei-Nisei in Japan since childhood; she spoke no English. My father was an Issei immigrant who came to America in 1920 at the age of 16.
My mother had four brothers, all Kibei-Nisei, and three of them were also in Tule Lake along with their families. Presumably, her three brothers also did not answer the loyalty questionnaire correctly.
Two of her brothers were fervently pro-Japan and were convinced Japan was winning the war. They were part of a group called the Hoshidan who would gather for training and fitness exercises and jog serpentine-style around the camp grounds wearing hachimakiand shouting “Wa-shoi, wa-shoi”in unison.
My mother and her third brother were neutral about the war and thought her two brothers’ fanaticism was foolish. Her fourth brother, the youngest, was serving in the U.S. Army, eventually ending up in the Military Intellienge Service unit during WWII.
My mother’s youngest brother got a leave from the Army and came to Tule Lake to visit his sister and three brothers and their families. Can you imagine the conversations they may have had during this visit? I was never informed about what they talked about – but it may have gone something like the following:
“My U.S. Army buddies tell me that Japan is losing the war.”
“No way – Japan’s fighting spirit will not waver and will eventually triumph.”
“The U.S. government is planning to send us back to Japan. What will happen to us?”
“You should get out of the Hoshidan. They are too radical and blind to the truth.”
“You would actually fight for America and against Japan?”
If only the walls could speak to us now – what might they have heard?
As it turned out, my two pro-Japan uncles were sent to a prison in Santa Fe, New Mexico and eventually, after the war ended, they were sent back to Japan with their families. My third uncle and his family, along with my mother and her family, were able to return to the San Fernando Valley and resume their farming. My fourth uncle joined my mother’s family on the farm after being discharged from the Army.
Years after the end of WWII, from my youthful and ignorant viewpoint at that time, it seemed like blood was thicker than water and all the brothers and my mother were united as an extended family. All of our families were incorporated together in the flower-growing business, and we observed every New Year’s with joint mochi-making and sharing bounteous New Year’s meals.
Even so, I wish I could have heard what they might have talked about during the intense period at Tule Lake when America and Japan were at war with each other.
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Bill Watanabe writes from Silver Lake near Downtown Los Angeles and can be reached at [email protected]. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those ofThe Rafu Shimpo.