Manzanar Relocation Center, California, in the summer of 1942, had a Caucasian director who formerly had managed an Indian reservation. The mere fact that high government authorities chose such a man to run a camp for 10,000 people of Japanese ancestry was enlightening. And his conduct and attitude at Manzanar showed how terrible his administration of Indians must have been.
There should be no Indian reservations in a democratic nation. The Indians had the land, and they were robbed and decimated. They should pursue life under conditions of freedom, but they are made paupers and wards of the government by profiteers who exercised strong influence in government.
In a less brutal manner, the 110,000 evacuees of Japanese ancestry were put behind barbed wire.
Indian reservations stood as examples of impounding our people, and as precedent.
Today, the evacuees are trying to collect their property losses caused by their removal, but the Justice Department and the administration stall payment, force compromises on claims and make a farce of their limited promises.
Just as conditions of Indian reservations influenced treatment of evacuees to some extent, the collection of evacuee claims would make Indians consider the claims due them. Hawaiians in like manner think of the great robbery; when missionaries came with Bibles and took the land away. The descendants of missionaries live like fat cats, while numerous descendants of victimized Hawaiians live in abject poverty, in slums, and seek homestead land without avail— because the powerful land monopolists here want to utilize the homestead land themselves.
The director of Manzanar, who had managed an Indian reservation, had a very unsympathetic attitude toward us. Thus, as I wrote last week, the bungling of the camp administration, its bullying to make us accept policies even after they were found to be unpopular and wrong, all intensified the bitterness and anger among various evacuees. A small group of pro-Japanese militarist elements took advantage of this situation and tried to silence and paralyze through intimidation, outspoken fighters for civil rights and improvements in camp.
The former longshoreman who was a member of the camp council, denounced the secret meetings of pro-militarist elements who eulogized the emperor and gave rousing "banzai!" to Japanese victories in the Pacific. He was told by the pro-militarist elements who packed a camp council meeting, to retract his statement and apologize to them. He refused, and during all this time, the. director and his top assistants aided the pro-militarists by their silence.
Violence At Night, One Beaten
A few nights after the camp council meeting where the former longshoreman stood his ground under pressure, about 18 pro-militarist and bitter anti-American elements broke into the longshoreman's barracks room with sticks and clubs. The presence of his wife and the frightened screams of their son evidently prevented these men from beating him up.
On the same night another Nisei who had been educated in Japan, was beaten up by a gang of hoodlums closely tied up with the handful of pro-militarist leaders. This Nisei was outspoken against Japanese military aggression.
When I returned to my apartment late that night, I found a note on my straw-filled mattress from the former longshoreman. I was surprised by these incidents and rushed to his barracks. His wife was still quite shaken up and she objected to his going out, but we wanted to go to the hospital to see the Nisei who had been attacked.
Tough Sledding for Civil Rights In Militaristic Atmosphere
During this period of terrorism led by the small pro-Japanese militarist elements, it was said in camp that it was unsafe for many who fought for the restoration of civil rights and principles for which the Manzanar Citizens Federation stood to venture out at night.
Today, on a national scale, the struggle for civil rights is tough sledding and many are labelled under the Smith and McCarran Acts as "subversive" for actively fighting for civil liberties and peace. And at such a time as this, the experiences at Manzanar come sharply back to mind. A military atmosphere does hot foster democratic processes.
The big business-controlled administration is driving hard on the road to militarism, woos Dixiecrats and has dumped the civil rights promise made by Mr. Truman in the last presidential campaign.
When we were in Manzanar Japanese militarism was a great threat and a dangerous evil to the whole world. Under Roosevelt's leadership, our country played a great part in its defeat.
When Fascists Like Franco Are Wooed
But today, in these changed times when a despicable counter-revolutionary and fascist like Francisco Franco is wooed as an ally of the Washington administration, Wall Street's John Foster Dulles, whose duPont firm did business with the Nazi I. G. Farben outfit to our country's disadvantage during the last war, wears the State Department's striped pants and dictates policy. He twists the arms of unwilling Asian and Pacific nations to accept the Dulles-drafted Japanese peace treaty which makes Japan virtually a colony and a military buffer of the U. S. Dulles was burned in effigy in the Philippines and the Australian and New Zealand people are fearful of a militarized Japan.
At such a time as this, should one bow to pressure and ride the bandwagon for Japanese militarism? To do so would mean the repudiation of all that we stood for during the last war, and for which we fought at Manzanar and later, in the army.
Sit Quietly, the Administration Said
I served on the judicial committee of Manzanar in the summer of 1942. This was a trial court and three of us evacuees and two Caucasian administrators, including the assistant camp director, were judges. We frequently exchanged opinions on camp affairs and one day a Caucasian official who had attended our Manzanar Citizens Federation meetings, said we should sit out the war quietly and not fight for civil rights. This official said that any such struggle would divide the residents because of the pro-militarist elements.
I told this official we were not living in an Indian reservation and I advocate full constitutional rights for Indians; that we were not living in fascist Spain under Franco or in militarist Japan. And for the camp administration not to support our fight was tantamount to bowing before the West Coast racists. We had lively discussions at almost every meeting, before or after the court session.
The Horrible Steel Cage In Manzanar Prison
The assistant camp director and I often clashed in disagreement. I was opposed to bringing into Manzanar a steel cage, used in old mining camp jails to look up law violators. This small cage, with barely room enough for a man to stretch himself in, was brought into a padlocked barracks which was already a prison in itself. A prisoner put in there became a show thing, and thus it deprived human beings of decency.
A young man was once brought into court for taking a piece of lumber, which was weatherbeaten and lying on the ground for weeks. He wanted to make a table and stools, for our barracks were empty, except for cots. Everything was government property anyway and we could take away nothing. When time for our release came, we would not want to take away with us any of the makeshift facilities. By a split vote, the young man was found guilty.
Certainly the locking up of people in a cage in this modern time left deep scars in those who were thus abused.
What the Camp Administration Did Not Do
If we had forums and educational programs on democratic processes, training people to fight for constitutional rights and making them a reality for all, Manzanar would have developed the evacuees to struggle militantly for democratic rights and freedom. But the director from the Indian reservation and his assistant, thought in terms of a steel cage to lock up people, in a padlocked barracks room which was, in turn, behind barbed wire and sentry watch towers.
One day a member of the Caucasian administrative staff who tried to make life more bearable for evacuees, asked me to his apartment. There I met a solicitor from the national office of the War Relocation Authority which had jurisdiction over Manzanar.
The solicitor asked me: "Would you people live in peace if we improved your food, insulated your barracks with beaver board to keep out dust and made conditions better all around?"
We Look To Freedom Outside the Barbed Wire
"We had peace when we first arrived here," I said. "We fought the wind and dust and cold together. But with the coming of stability we look to the future. Some of us struggle for civil rights. The great majority of us want to leave camp and resettle on the outside."
I was extremely disappointed in this official who practically told us to sit tight and wait for the war to end.
About this time, the Federation called a meeting to discuss agricultural furlough work. I drafted a petition, asking the President to utilize us for farm work outside. About 800 Nisei and most of the Issei signed it. We circulated copies of this petition widely and sent it to officials in Washington as well as to governors of Western and Mountain states. The response was surprisingly favorable, for manpower was short on the farms.
The Authorities Wanted Those They Could Control
We began organizing and orienting evacuees who wanted to leave for the sugar beet harvest, and before long the camp administration set up a labor council to help evacuee farm furlough workers. We objected because the council members chosen by the administration were inexperienced and unable to help evacuees who would go out to inland state farm areas. True enough, when fall came, evacuees who were recruited for Montana from Manzanar were exploited, intimidated and treated inhumanly. I was in Idaho then, where we were well organized. They wrote us for suggestions and help.
Some wrote that they were living in chicken coops and it is cold in Montana. I wrote to Larry Tajiri of the Pacific Citizen, suggesting that the Japanese American Citizens League investigate conditions in Montana and parts of Idaho from where I heard complaints. He wrote back that the JACL was considering such a project and one evening Tajiri and his colleagues came to our camp in Idaho. They asked me to accompany two of them who were going to Montana but I could not leave our area where we had several hundred evacuee farm workers.
I still have the shocking reports the JACL investigators brought back from Montana. It is encouraging to read them now, for the struggle of the Nisei, Issei and their supporters has made tremendous headway.