Resettlement History

Renunciation

"Their sense of belonging was shattered by the persecution, betrayal and abandonment of their fellow citizens and their government." Seattle, WA, Nov. 24, 1945 – Documentary Photo Aid, Florida 32757

Repatriation-Expatriation-Renunciation

The initial opening for a return to Japan was actually a prisoner agreement for 1943-44 Japanese diplomatic staff in exchange for a proposed list of "desirable" immigrant types carefully screened by Japan and U.S. Only 54 Japanese from the 18 relocation/detention sites and three miscellaneous types actually embarked on the S.S. Gripsholm June 6, 1942 from New York Harbor.

Throughout internment, various lists of repatriation requests passed between camps undergoing bureaucratic delays and family transfers from place to place as in the Hirose narrative. In the Kubota narrative, economic hardship, desires to keep the family intact and filial obligations to elderly parents were the chief motivations to expatriate, not disloyalty.

Meanwhile wartime politics were still raging to enact punitive measures on interned Nisei. On July 1, 1944, the "denaturalization bill" (PL 405) proposed by Attorney General Biddle allowed Americans to renounce citizenship on U.S. soil in times of war. This was a compromise to appease California politicians calling for all Japanese Americans to be deported ("We don't want those Japs back in California and the more we can get rid of the better") and those proposing "to strip citizenship from those had marked no-no on the loyalty questionnaire." Only 117 renunciation requests were received by November, 1944. However, throughout 1944-45, renunciant types at Tule Lake applied hard core pressure on non-committal families to seek "the Japanese way of life" and be a "true Japanese" based on the bitterness of their treatment so far. Renunciant leadership wanted Tule Lake to become a colony of discontents. Twenty-thousand requests were filed in 1945 of which 75% originated from Tule Lake. When WRA camps were closed, the agitation ceased and the renunciants-under- duress successfully petitioned for reinstatement. (see Wayne Collins,esq.'s Tule Lake suits). All applications become moot and the majority of Tule Lake families resettled.

The 4,724 internees who chose repatriation/expatriation from WRA camps is a wartime chapter that never should have happened:

"No other statistics chronicle so clearly as these the decline of evacueess' faith in the United States. In the assembly and relocation centers, applications to go to Japan had been one of the few nonviolent ways to protest degrading treatment. During three years of rising humiliation, 20,000 people chose this means of to express their pain, outrage and alienation, in one of the saddest testaments to the injustice of exclusion and detention. The cold statistics fail, even so, to convey the scars of mind and soul that many carried with them."

Personal Justice Denied, Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, 1983, pg 252

©2006, JAHMP

Resettlement Period (1945-1955) – Finding a Home Place

From Nanka Nikkei Voices, Resettlement Years 1945-1955, Copyright JAHSSC, May 29, 1998

"Resettlement" commonly refers to the period following January, 1945, when internee/detainee families were searching for a place to live as well as a livelihood. In many ways, resettlement is a misleading term since it designates a postwar time frame. For the Issei male, serial resettlement was a lifelong constant. The war years were the ultimate displacement.

To the young adult Nisei or Nisei veteran, resettlement years meant exposure to new places and marriage, a new career or college education and in this community, a non-farming occupation. However, family values placed heavy responsibilities on the Nisei children to take care of their hard-working parents and bring them back to some "home place" where family members could restart their lives.

Dillon S. Myer, WRA director summed up WRA resettlement policies:

"It would be good for the United States generally and I think it would be good from the standpoint of the Japanese-Americans themselves, to be scattered over a much wider area and not to be bunched up in groups as they were along the coast. [WRA relocation helps solve] a serious racial problem. " May 14, 1943 Press Conference

Those with better intentions sought to place Japanese families in East and Midwest communities where they knew reception would sympathetic. In Minneapolis-St Paul, MN, local resettlement committees and prominent individuals took it upon themselves to canvass likely homes going door to door to assure neighbors and dispel any fears. Certain civic and religious organizations set up temporary hostels, boarding houses, especially near Fort Snelling's Military Intelligence School (MIS).

Chicago could attract returnees with numerous job offers. Utah had already attracted many Japanese American internees who saved their states sugar beet crops. WRA took Denver, CO off the resettlement list, citing Denver's inability to handle large returnee groups. Japanese families actually viewed Denver favorably as a site close to other relocation centers from where scattered family members could reunite.

In the end, the greatest pull was back to the West Coast. Of the 94,000 evacuated from California, 60% returned by 1946. In Southern California, 25,000-28,000 (pre-WW II pop. 37,000) returned to Los Angeles County. Los Angeles Mayor Fletcher Bowron continued to inflame unjustified fear and prejudice:

"Should the Japanese resume their agricultural activities on the slopes of the Palos Verdes Hills, facing the sea, those inclined to do espionage for the land of their forefathers would have a particularly potent observation post." February, 1944

Help from fellow internees, networking and family reports were viewed more reliable sources than WRA placement. Friends boarded with friends. Nisei daughters or sons who had proceeded parents for employment or education investigated possible housing as in the Nakano narrative. That family had already lost their shipped belongings in a Poston warehouse fire. Some were more fortunate than others. The Nishizakis could recover their household belongings, even wedding silver, kept by the Chinese woman who took over Fumiye's small grocery. The Sumis arrived with what they could carry. Little Tokyo hotels, Buddhist churches, former Japanese schools or community centers opened up whatever open space to be had. Temporary trailor parks sprung up in Long Beach, Torrance, Santa Monica, U.S. Army trailor camps near Lockheed Airport.

Although JAHMP highlights the three pre- and post-WW II ranch families who returned to farming, the majority of SPVGA members did not.

"Whatever the future in west coast agriculture may be, it will be the future of the Nisei farmer. Few Issei see themselves as beginning All over again, but their contributions in subjugating and reclaiming thousands of acres of waste land throughout the Pacific Coast States cannot be repeated because of their advanced age, and because they lack the knowledge of modern technological methods which now replace the plodding hand work of earlier days. The evacuation brought their turbulent day in west coast agriculture to a virtual close." p. 70

For some pre-WW II farm families who purchased land in the name of their Nisei children, the ordeal was not over upon return. From January, 1945 to March, 1947. 75 cases of violation of the Alien Land Law were filed for escheat (confiscation) to California State. Some due to mortgage payments missed during internment or verifying Nisei signatures entered on deeds.

©2006, JAHMP

Seabrook Farms

Seabrook Farms was an important site of resettlement for 2500 returnees as well as remnants of the Palos Verdes-Poston II group mentioned in the Kawashiri-Shono narrative.

Located north of Bridgeton, Cumberland County in New Jersey, Charles F. Seabrook was a man of contradictions and vision. He hated dirt, but grew up in a farming family. He was very much an engineer at heart and became the foremost agri-industrialist of the 1920's. By the 1930's Seabrook had partnered with General Foods to provide frozen vegetables under the Birdseye brand.

Seabrook's multi-ethnic-lingual workforce was composed of immigrant Italians, Estonians, Polish, Russians – those displaced by war as were the later arriving Japanese Americans and German POWs housed in a nearby Civilian Conservation Camp. Migrant African Americans from the South and Appalachians from the Great Smoky Mountains were other recruits.

Families lived in segregated Seabrook villages, but met face to face at the workplace. Run like a paternalistic one-company town, meals were provided at the company cafeteria at reduced prices as well as child care centers, a novel innovation at the time. Parents were working long shifts and some migrant children as young as twelve worked in fields. Others worked in the processing plants that sorted, dehydrated and froze produce.

The Seabrook School began operation in 1923 with teachers who imbued students with respect and exposure to other cultures. English as a second language instruction was only offered during summer months.

George Sakamoto from Granada-Amache and a Jerome internee delegation were among the first to recommend Seabrook Farms. Seabrook appeared to answer their anxieties over finding work, living quarters and a safe haven. Certain WRA authorities were hesitant after reports of arduous 12 hr shifts, six days a week based on a 24 hr work day and low pay (e.g. 57 to 69 cents/hr. for males, females paid 5 cents less). Nonetheless, by April, 1945, 2500 Issei-Nisei men, women and children had arrived. It was a rude and depressing awakening for the new Hoover Annex arrivals who found the same hastily built tar paper housing with crude plumbing. Agreements were first based on three month employment, but most stayed on. The Kawashiri-Shono family left Seabrook after four years. Today descendants of 300 Japanese American Seabrook families still reside in the area.

©2006, JAHMP