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FEBRUARY 19, 2017 |
SponsoredNewspapers InEducationContent
In January 1945—after securinghis reelection in the 1944
presidential race—Roosevelt issued adeclaration reopening
theWest Coast to JapaneseAmericans. The camps began
to close. Incarcerated JapaneseAmericansweregiven$25
and instructed to leave. Ironically, many inmates protested
what they saw as yet another eviction. Peoplewhohad lost
everything, especially the elderly and familieswith young
children, felt theyhadnothing to return to.
Otherswerehappy tofinallybe freeof the camps, but
they found that goinghomewouldnot be easy. Soldiers
were returning from thewarwith stories of atrocities
committedby the JapaneseArmy, which fedmisplaced
anger against JapaneseAmericans. AfricanAmericans
seeking jobs in thebooming shipbuilding industryhad
left the JimCrowSouth and relocated to theWest Coast,
moving into empty Japantowns after beingdeniedhousing
inwhiteneighborhoods. Returning JapaneseAmericans
facedheavy competition for housing and employment, and
discriminationwaswidespread.
News coverageglossedover thesehardships and
highlighted the success stories of familieswhowere able
toquicklybounceback. A storyon theKajimura family
of Sumner,Wash. described “theolder Japanese, quietly
resigned tobeingpushed from their homes” as “happy
towork their fields andhead their families”—ignoring the
reality thatmany elderly JapaneseAmericans had reentered
theworkforceout of necessity, not choice. Even as the
media acknowledged the injusticeof the incarceration, it
downplayed the impact onpeople’s livelihoods and spread
a narrativeof JapaneseAmericans as quietly accepting their
fatewithout bitterness.
I would call all thesenumbers in thepapers
advertising rentals. And theminute I saidmy
name, ‘Oh, wedon’t rent to Japanese, we
don’t rent toAsians.’ So I called the real estate
agencies, and they’d say the same thing: ‘We
don’t sell to Japs, wedon’t sell toOrientals.’
—
I was downonMaynard and Jacksonwaiting for
abus and thebus stopped, and then thewoman
sittingon thewindow side, shehad thewindow
open. I waswaiting toget on and she just looked
down atme from thebus and she said, ‘You
killedmy son,’ and then she spit atme.
—FumikoUyedaGroves
Contrary to this report fromAugust 1945, temporary hostelswere crowded,make-
shift facilitieswith littleprivacy. Far frombeing a “privilege,” formany residents they
felt like
.” The childrenpictured above are standingoutside the
Japanese LanguageSchool hostel, where they lived after returning toSeattle.
Densho, Ohashi FamilyCollection
LEAVINGCAMP:
ALONGROADHOME
Manzanar National HistoricSite
Densho
