“. . . my family name was reduced to No. 13660. . . . We had three days and three nights to pack and get ready . . . . We tagged our baggage with the family number . . . and pinned the personal tags on ourselves; we were ready at last. . . . We took one last look at our happy home.”
PACKING FOR THE UNKNOWN
Witness the confusion and sorrow experienced by Japanese Americans as they quickly packed up their lives and prepared for incarceration.
“It was past midnight when we finally climbed upstairs to bed. Wearily we closed our eyes, filled with an indescribable sense of guilt for having destroyed the things we loved.This night of ravage was to haunt us for years.”
FEAR AND ANGER TAKE HOLD
Saburo Masada: “A lot of fear spread among the Japanese community. So we started to burn anything that was Japanese-y, magazines, pictures with Japanese clothing. . . . Because we were afraid that the FBI would come and say, 'Why is that Japanese magazine in your home?' and things like that.”
Akiko Okuno: “We had a picture in the living room over the fireplace of Mount Fuji, so quick, that was taken down and burned. And any magazines and anything that had pictures of the emperor were burned.”
Chizuko Norton: “I remember very distinctly . . . throwing things into the fire . . . throwing Japanese records as well as photographs of people and relatives in Japan, especially those, we had several uncles who were by this time in the Japanese army.”
Saburo Masada: “I understood why we did all that, but I don’t understand why we had to do it, because we were Americans and we were loyal and we loved our country.”
“These were mainly days of quiet, desperate waiting for what seemed at the time to be inevitable. There is a phrase the Japanese use in such situations, when something difficult must be endured. You would hear the older heads, the Issei, telling others very quietly, ‘Shikata ga nai’ (It cannot be helped). ‘Shikata ga nai’ (It must be done).”
REFLECTIONS
Carol Hirabara Hironaka: “Well, we had all these curfews that we had to abide by. And we had to be in by six o'clock or something like that. And then if you have to go to a doctor, you were out of the . . . seven mile zone, so I don't know how people did go, or they probably didn't go.”
Shigeko Sese Uno: “When the baby started to come in Seattle, after midnight . . . well, he was too frightened to go out and look for a public phone or ask for help from the doctor. And the baby came . . . and it strangled to death, with the cord.”
Minoru Yasui: “At that time, knowing the uncertainties, I could scarcely blame anyone for refusing to go ahead and deliberately violate the law. And it seemed to me that someone had to do it, and the ultimate choice became, since nobody else would do it, I did.”
Gordon Hirabayashi: “It dawned on me, why I should be dashing back and my friends not? And that if I'm an American, what am I doing this for? And so I said, 'Well, if I'm an American, I'm gonna act like one,' and I turned around and went back.”
