Wartime History

1942 Wartime Sentiments

"Japanese Farmers Pledge Assistance"

Palos Verdes News, Vol. XIV, No. 7, Dec. 19, 1941, p.1

In order that their position might be clearly understood in the present crisis, Japanese residents of the Peninsula have issued the following resolutions for publication through their president, Hideo Takenaga.

WHEREAS: The United States is now at war with Axis Powers and
WHEREAS: Our first objective is to win the war and
WHEREAS: We realize the necessity of all-out aid toward the successful prosecution of this war and
WHEREAS: One of the vital necessity in the emergency is have sufficient supply of food product.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:
That the San Pedro Vegetable Growers Cooperative Association comprised of American citizens of Japanese ancestry cultivating approximately 1900 acres of vegetable farms of the Palos Verdes Peninsula offers its facilities for National Defense.

Signed: Hideo Takenaga, President, Kenji Kadonaga, Vice President, M. Ishibashi, Secretary, M. Ashimoto, Treasurer

---

"Japanese Are Ordered Out of Palos Verdes"

Palos Verdes News, February, 1942

"The Palos Verdes Trust this week served notice on the the Palos Verdes Homes Association, and on all the Japanese vegetable growers occupying the approximately 600 lots... to vacate these lots October 1. This step is not taken out of any hostility to the Japanese vegetable growers but is due to the fact that Palos Verdes Trust proposes immediately to commence an intensive development program. Clearly, they could not expect people to buy property for high-class residential and business purposes with the nondescript farm houses scattered over the premises and occupied by Japanese."

---

"Japs* Told to Remain Until Ordered Out"

Palos Verdes News, March 13, 1942, Vol XIV . No. 13, p. 2 By Palos Verdian

"Japanese still farming the land in Palos Verdes Estates along the ocean are yet here!

In some places, the families have doubled. What is the nature of this sudden increase in population of local Japs? A.E. Hanson ordered all Japs out immediately by canceling their leases. Some of those Japs simply moved to their fellow countrymen in Palos Verdes Estates.

...Regardless of the fact that the crops should be saved and Japs properties taken over by our American farmers, we should not tolerate their menace. There is even some talk of organizing vigilantes to burn their places.

Our demand is out with the Japs immediately!"

* "Japs" is a derogatory, offensive and racist term.

---

"Local Japs* Moving Out, Properties Leased to American Group"

Palos Verdes News, March 27, 1942, Vol. XIV, No. 14, p. 1

"Finally, the local Japanese are leaving Palos Verdes Estates. They have voluntarily, under the leadership of Hideo Takenaga, negotiated a satisfactory deal with Mr. Sterling Oswalt who took over all the Japanese leases. The leases include taking over the land, crops already planted, farming implements, houses and water rights."

* "Japs" is a derogatory, offensive and racist term.

Crystal City

Crystal City, Avala County, Texas

Crystal City Internment Camp differed greatly from other relocation centers and was administered by the Dept. of Justice. It was originally conceived as a 290 acre family camp for 2000 Japanese internees, but the need to house German prisoners of war expanded camp construction for 3500 persons. The first Japanese group arrived March 10, 1943 – mainly Issei men who were picked up after Pearl Harbor because of their Japanese school associations. Later Italians and Peruvian Japanese, abducted from their country and detained for potential prisoner exchanges, joined the population. Crystal City closed in late 1947.

Housing consisted of:

1. Three-to-four apartment units per building with indoor communal toilets, apt. kitchens with running water
2. Three-room cottages of 500 sq. ft to accommodate families with special conditions, kitchens with running water
3. Victory huts, single and double units, to accommodate overflow of internees. Outside central baths & latrines
4. One-room units for childless couples or couples with one infant kitchens with running water

Camp internees were given tokens for work to be exchanged for food, clothing, at the central stores carried in shopping carts taken to their quarters. Thus, families were allowed choice in what they ate and cooked. The Japanese Union Store, beauty & barber shops, sewing and hobby stores were self-operated by the Japanese. There was employment for 700, but at low wages of 10 cents an hour. Families also had access to private bank accounts, but limited to a $30 withdrawal once a month per person. Germans managed their own shops and lived in segregated areas.

Crystal City allowed outside passes for families to take picnics. The camp featured a swimming pool (concrete irrigation reservoir) and held recreational events as other camps did. One-hundred-fifty students had their own school, plus Japanese classes after the regular session. Students could also attend college on the outside.

©2006, JAHMP

Summarized from:
Historical Narrative of the Crystal City Internment Camp (1943 to June, 1945 period), INS Service Report to the U.S. Bureau of the Budget, Crystal City 50th Aniversary Reunion Booklet

Evacuation: Assembly Centers

President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, excluding all persons of Japanese ancestry from designated West Coast military zones.

Evacuation was a visceral memory of loss in Issei-Nisei communities--economically and emotionally. The average American citizen also paid. By November, 1942, evacuation had cost the U.S. Government $88.6 million.

Mothers & Children Evacuated

In 1940, there was a West Coast population of 12,861 Japanese and American-born children, from ages under one to 14 yrs who would have accompanied their parents during evacuation. Providing for children's needs would have been especially trying during travel and hot climates. In the Hirose narrative of internment, his sympathy went to his mother having to manage a younger sister with special developmental needs.

The Nishizakis were luckily a young couple without children when evacuated from Woodland to Merced. In the following passage, Merced Assembly Center is seen through the eyes of a mother and the effect on her young child (Keith).

"...we have been here nearly two weeks and from the second day, Keith has been ill. He has had high fever for quite many days... 104, 103 degrees, and yesterday turned for the worse so here we are in this inadequate barrack ward. Lack of nourishment, bad food, diarrhea, etc. and contagious sore throats. As you know Keith is very allergic to all cow products such as beef, butter, milk, etc. Sometimes we would walk in the dining room and the only thing he could eat would be bread and radish... they will not serve special food... he was forced to eat (can) tuna... But I was able to arrange so that I could obtain some chicken and Rabbit meat through one of the friends in Merced.

The toilet conditions though somewhat improved is of grave matter to us. An outdoor privy with eight crudely out holes all in a row on semi- smooth long board. These 'eight holers' are to take care of several hundred people. One [our] barrack is next to our D War kitchen so we get the noise of the dishes from 5 AM to 7 PM. We have one room about 20 ft square with only partial partition so that we get all our neighbors' noise, radio, phonograph, etc. Keith finds the noise to be very disturbing.

Already, I find that this camp life is the undoing of all the painstaking home training of Keith. To be cooped up in this congested area without any decent sceneries – only rows and rows of these ugly black-papered barracks is no healthy incentive for growing children. I shudder to think what a few years of this life will do to Keith. The only hope is to have him see through books and pictures all that I would like him see in reality. Pictures and story telling will be my method. I'm glad that I packed all his books to be sent to the permanent center. Because he is on a special diet, he eats along in our barrack. I believe he is already forgetting how to eat normally about the table. He is becoming more shy and retiring and is losing some of his cute personality. His case is one of the many tens of thousands. I must admit this dry climate is very good for him and in spite of peculiar food and his weak condition he has not had an asthma attack."

Letter to Mrs. Clausen from Hugh Anderson Collection Pasadena Historical Society

©2006, JAHMP

General Devers

Excerpt from a letter dated 30 April 1945 to Mr. Wiliam C. Carr, Chairman Friends of the American Way

"The Japanese-American soldiers who have served under my commands, both in Italy and in France are, in my opinion, among the finest soldiers in the United States Army. Their bravery, devotion to duty and resourcefulness are attested to by the numerous citations and decorations awarded to them. One of their units, the 100th Japanese-American Battalion, has been referred to in the press as the 'most decorated battalion in the U.S. Army.' A larger unit, the 442nd (Japanese-American) Regimental Combat Team, won the admiration and respect of all Allied fighting units on the Western Front when it participated in the heroic rescue of a 'Lost Battalion' of the 36th Division last October in the Vosges Mountain.

No commander could wish for better or more loyal troops."

Jacob L. Devers
General, U.S. Army, Commanding

Pasadena Research Collection & Archives, Hugh Anderson Collection

Granada-Amache Relocation Center

Granada, Colorado or "Amache" as it was called by the internees-- was originally private land owned by the American Crystal Sugar Company and George S. Rule. The camp sat on a 640 acre plot amid 10,500 acres, one mile west of the Arkansas River and one-half mile north of Granada, 14 miles east of Lamar, CO. By October, 1942, 4,492 had come from Merced Assembly Center, 3,062 from Santa Anita Assembly Center and miscellaneous others for a total Amache population of 7,567. James G. Lindley, the Project Director, described initial conditions when the first group of 212, handpicked for their needed skills, arrived:

"The contractor failed to have buildings ready by scheduled date but the Western Coast Defense Command refused to change the schedule for departure of evacuees. As a result, evacuees arrived before adequate Facilities were prepared. Trains usually arrive at night; lighting facilities were extremely sketchy, and families stumbled around in the dark, individuals often falling into excavations when being led to their quarters. Candles, with their ever-present fire hazards in this city of cardboard houses, were their only light.

Hot and cold water was provided in only a few blocks; mess hall installations lagged. Evacuees had to walk several blocks to find a bath house with water provided. One mess hall served as many as four blocks, 1000-1200 people, serving in three or four shifts. Water for drinking and washing dishes had to Be hauled in truck tanks from Granada [16 miles away], as center water was impure and inadequate. The toilets in the wash rooms were used before the water connections were made and a clean-up hose squad was necessary to clean up the attendant litter. Wooden privies were finally provided, neither sightly or sanitary.

Out of chaos came order: buildings and facilities were finally provided. However, a little resentment was added to minds already filled with fear,le hatred and frustrations. A little common sense in delaying the movement from assembly centers until the relocation was ready might have resulted in more cooperation and better understanding from the evacuees."

From the voices of the interned as heard in Fumiye Tanaka Nishizaki's narrative, Thomas N. Shigekuni, attorney, wrote:

"Amache has some of the leading agribusiness leader in the state of California Who came by way of the Merced Assembly Center. There were agribusiness leaders who controlled vast farms covering thousand of acres including some who even used airplanes in their operations. The economic might of the big time farmers, wholesale produce market tycoons, horticultural nursery owners department store owners and other businessmen who were imprisoned at Amache was awesome. Was it any wonder that Amache had some of the best producing farms in the nation in World War 2. Was it any wonder that the economic predators used "national security" as an excuse to steal such trophy assets?"

©1998, Amache Historical Society

In fall of 1944, WRA's decision to turn Tule Lake relocation site (Newell, CA) into a segregation-incarceration camp caused heated controversy among internees and administrators in all camps. Internees were now labeled as "loyals and disloyals" and expatriate-types. Questions 27 and 28 of the so called "Application for Leave Clearance" were conflicting and loaded:

"No. 27. Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty wherever ordered?
No. 28. Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, to any other foreign government, power or organization?

Issued to all male/female Issei and Nisei (17 yrs & older). For Issei, yes to ques. 28 meant they became stateless since they had no right to U.S. naturalization by law and would be surrendering their only citizenship. Ques. 27 asked in their minds the unthinkable: Would they defend the government who had them incarcerated and stripped them of property and livelihood? No-no answers on paper became non-violent expression of outrage against evacuation, internment and injustices. Other questions were irrelevant--asking males or the elderly if they would serve women's army corps, etc. Carelessness shown in sloppily written questions fueled contempt for authorities. WRA revisions came too late.

The yes-yes respondents to ques. 28 was 99.8%, the highest of all WRA camps. The "no-no" answers led to segregation hearings held on July 10, 1943 with 125 Amache transfers to Tule Lake on Sept. 16, 1943. One-thousand Tulean internees were then, transferred to Granada, many who actively opposed WRA administration policies through Community Councils.

On the heels of the results, families realized that more Nisei sons would be drafted (124 had already volunteered). From January 15, 1944 when the Selective Service Act went into effect, 445 were inducted from Amache. All their fears were justified. Shigekuni analyzed the mind set of Amache's 32 draft resisters:

"Draft resisters in camps were a rather scorned bunch by practically everybody. If you think about it, 'draft resistance' made a lot of sense in the context of Amache. If you were a prisoner of the USA, why should you go out and fight and die for the USA as a draftee?

The draft resisters had no 'beef' with those who volunteered for what would be the world famous 442nd Infantry. Most fully admired the 442nd volunteers and understood the volunteers' reasons for joining. . The resisters' refusal to be drafted was their manifestation of a huge conflict in their minds about the clash between what the U.S. Constitution said about equality and a citizen's duty to defend the country. In the draft resisters' minds, being forced to Amache at the point of rifles hardly seemed like what the Constitution and the Bill of Rights promised all Americans. Their reasoning was that the duties and responsibilities between government and its citizens were reciprocal."

©1998, Amache Historical Society

Granada's "Toots, Billy and Flo" incident caught the attention of local, state and national news. Three Nisei girls allegedly assisted local German POWs in their escape from a nearby farm where they also worked. The three girls were initially charged with treason and conspiracy. A Denver federal jury charged them with conspiracy, dropping the treason charge. They were sent to a West Virginia correctional facility. Most felt that this was a not matter of "Japanese and German," but rather "man and woman" encounters and considerable naivete. Certainly prolonged isolation/incarceration from the outside and breakdown of family authority also affected their judgment.

James Lindley, the Director, who was personally viewed by many as a "thoughtful and compassionate" man under the circumstances, closed Granada-Amache on October 15, 1945.

©2006, JAHMP

Arrival of Asians in Tulare County

INTRODUCTION TO TULARE COUNTY HISTORY

Among all the proclamations of the 1942 evacuation, voluntary relocation inland gave Japanese families some modicum of choice when faced with sudden eviction. SPVGA families chose a Strathmore ranch nestled within a hidden valley between rolling hills east of towns and the rise of Eastern Sierras in the distance. Water was plentiful compared to the Peninsula. However, had they arrived thirty years earlier, they might have regretted their choice. Strathmore is located immediately northwest of Porterville which prided itself of being one of the few places known to exclude Japanese laborers (also Hindu) by public city ordinance (c.1910). Compared to Fresno where there was a long history of migrant Japanese workers, "Scarcity of Japanese Labor [was] great in Tulare County" announced the headline in 1910. Tulare orchard and vineyard owners were forced to pay double the rate per day ($2.00-2.25) to attract a dwindling supply of efficient Japanese pickers. By 1918, a news article conceded: "Japanese finally invade Porterville."

In 1916, 750 Chinese were settled in Hanford's China Alley. Younger Japanese began to replace aging Chinese laborers. Tom Shimasaki, a local Tulare historian, noted that 400 Japanese migrant workers lived in Lindsay boarding houses in the 1910-1916 peak years. Over time, the Japanese took up independent leases or bought land and became well- known for their cantaloupe crops.

During the evacuation period, local Japanese related that Lindsay was divided into two residential zones of restricted entry. The dividing line placed the main businesses and services in one zone. This forced any Lindsay-Strathmore Japanese to go to the local police station for an escort into the other zone just across the street. Zoning also forced the Palos Verdes Nisei students to drop out of Strathmore High school after only two weeks.

From May 10-13, 1942, 1500 Japanese were evacuated from Tulare and King's County to Fresno Assembly Center and then, transferred to Gila River and Poston internment centers. According to narratives and Lindsay reports, PV families boarded the trains at Porterville for direct transit to Arizona camps.

©2006, JAHMP

Recollections about voluntary relocation to Strathmore

From Miye Ishibashi recollections (age 90's ), August 15, 2006.
Collected and written by granddaughter Janna & daughter, Grace Watanabe

Miye recalls about 20 families moved to Strathmore. When the order came to evacuate the coast, Masaichi Ishibashi and others began a search for another location to farm. They contacted or were contacted by another produce association in the Lindsay area, who aided the displaced San Pedro Produce Growers by arranging lease agreements with a German farmer, Mr. Schuler. The families needed housing, so those who were able to transport lumber disassembled their ranch houses on the Peninsula. Masaichi's family transported pieces from their Ranch #4 house on the back of their produce truck and traveled over the "Grapevine." Miye still remembers some families (not all farmers) trying to escape the coast evacuation by moving inland. Unfortunately their vehicles could not make the steep Grapevine route, so they were stranded on the roadside.

In Strathmore, a man named Mr. Uyeda helped them rebuild their farmhouses. Mr. Kojima, a local farmer also assisted them with their leases. After internment at Parker-Poston II, Masaichi's family and others returned to Palos Verdes Peninsula. The favor was returned to Mr. Kojima after World War II when his family relocated and began farming in Palos Verdes with the Ishibashis.

Miye lists #1-10 PV families who voluntarily evacuated to Strathmore, CA

1. Kumekichi and Masaichi Ishibashi
2. Tomizo Ishibashi
3. Yujiro and Misuno Nakano
4. Yoshimoto
5. Hiroi
6. Yamamoto
7. Tsubochi
8. Hayakawa
9. Kubota
10. Yokota
11. Tamejiro Nakano
12. Hideo Takenaga
13. Ueno
14. Onishi
15. Hatashita
16. Muragishi
17. Kenji Kadonaga
18. Kawashiri
19. M. Ashimoto
20. Ohno

---

From Akira Ishibashi's recollections, July 28, 2006

George Ishibashi, Phillip Ashimoto and Hideo Takenaga went on a trip up and down California searching for a suitable place for Palos Verdes families to relocate inland. They knew about the Lindsay-Porterville area through Tom Kojima's father who was originally from Porterville and Jimmy Uyeda who was a local Strathmore farmer there (who later moved to Gardena).

The PV families moved onto the Uyeda leased property sometime in the spring of 1942, constructing a kind of camp community. Many families took baths at the Uyeda house. The PV families used lumber that they had hauled from Palos Verdes buildings. Housing was still short, so the young men slept in tents placed on wood platforms.

Before planting, they had to remove the staked peas from previous crops to clear the land for squash and tomatoes. The young men and women of the group picked up various jobs at local ranches: picking strawberries and weeding. The PV families had just begun to harvest their own crops when evacuation orders forced them to leave Strathmore.

---

From Namiye Nakano, July, 2006

Namiye remembers that the largest group of families lived in stalls in a kind of warehouse structure. They built houses, but soon ran out of lumber they had carted from Palos Verdes. So the remainder of the family members, especially the younger ones, lived in tents set up on platforms. She recalls that when they had to leave for Poston II, the melons were left unharvested.

---

From Yujiro Nakano's English translation of personal journal, 1963

" ...thirty families moved to Strathmore (CA) and started to live together. We succeeded despite very difficult management [Palos Verdes Corporation]. They planted cantaloupes and worked in various fruit orchards in Lindsay and other areas. I was deeply impressed by the young people's and women's great efforts."

©2006, JAHMP

© Copyright JAHMP