Incarceration and the Creation of Racial Enemies and Racial Friends

"Now It's Permanent" Feeling

After staying at Tanforan Racetracks in San Bruno, California for the months of May through September 1942, the Yamashita family (Tomi and most of her grown children) were moved by train along with the rest of the incarerees in that "assembly center" to Delta, Utah for a permanent detention camp, called Topaz Project. Tomi's eldest daughter Kimi and her husband Bob and their child Martha would be sent from Fresno Detention Center to McGee, Arkansas to Jerome Camp. Tomi petitioned in October 1942 to have them moved to join the rest of the extended family in Topaz.

In Kay's letter describing her arrival to Utah in September 1942, she wrote,

"Utah, here we are. We got here on a sweltering hot day with a dust storm that came up form no where in the afternoon to make things rather miserable. The train ride was pretty fought for everybody, but we consider ourselves lucky for we had one of those old Pullmans— they wouldn’t permit us to pull down the upper berths but we made ourselves as comfortable as possible by putting the seats which face each other together and slept with our feet going both ways. Some of the people were quite sick…

...Gosh what a rotten feeling it was— sort of sad and depressing as we started to move - passing the rows of horse-stalls we called home for those months and seeing the crowds still standing there in the dusk and on the barrack tops waving good-bye to us…”

...We’re glad you’ve been able to get away to school - inspite of the fact the [Camp] Administration is grand and the place is comparatively good somehow the thinking individuals are wanting more than ever to get out— I guess a lot can be attributed to the finality of this place— “now it’s permanent feeling."

Kimi, Bob with kids Ted and Martha in Watsonville

Correspondence between Milton Eisenhower of the War Relocation Authority and Pickett of the American Friends Service Commitee discussing the creation of the Japanese American Student Relocation Council, May 5, 1942

Kay at second to right

John and Kay

Kay

What is the National Student Relocation Council?

Leave Clearance: Creating Racial Enemies and Racial Friends

In “Extraordinary Racial Politics: Four Events in the Informal Constitution in the United States“ (2018) and in article "Japanese Internment and the Racial State of Exception," political science scholar Fred I. Lee posits that leave clearance, the process where the U.S. government allowed a portion of detainees to qualify to leave detention for employment or college is as much a part of internment history as the guise and methods for mass removal and mass detention. In 1943, about 16,000 of roughtly 120,000 Japanese immigrants and American-born citizens of Japanese descent people living on the West Coast were granted leave clearance to work or got ot college, followed by around 18,500 the following year (Richard Cahan and Michael Williams "Un-American: The Incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II). By allowing some detainees to leave detention and move to the Midwest and East, the state created new definitions or thresholds for freedom that were divorced from constitutional rights.

Lee writes that interment is a "series of decisions on the friend/enemy distinction" that is derived from the state claiming a "state of exception." In a state of exception, the government does not make itself obligation to prove anything. Rather, it only declares that there is an exceptional state where constitutional rights will not apply. While most population scholarship and interpretation of internment (incarceration museums) focus on war time hysteria, public sentiment, and pressures that led to this mass denial of constutional rights of habeus corpus. What does leave clearance tell us more about the methodology of state power? The rules and mechanism by which some Japanese Americans and sometimes Japanese immigrants were allowed to leave in a type of parole from camp, was foundation to the logic of internment. It both denies and replaces constitutional righs with administrative privileges while also enforcing cultural and assimilationist values in the confined population. Understanding how the state deploys a “state of exception” for a certain group or race in the context of Japanese American internment/incarceration is also useful to understand other historical contexts and moments of political crisis where this same theory is implemented. And further, we can gain more meaningful historical analysis by situating incarceration history into a wider frame as one example among many where this state tool is deployed.
 
Fred Lee writes,

“This is to say that the initial declaration of racial enmity was not the final word-- almost from the very beginning of the internment, the state successively granted students, workers and finally soldiers indefinite leave clearance from the camps. These procedures at the same time relaxed physical constraints while intensifying the friend/ enemy distinction through its re-articulations.  A state project of racial assimilation will account for these leaves in terms of a will-to-unify the liberal-democratic state as a nation of homogenous people. Redrawing the line between friends and enemies in a way that allowed thousands to cross it, the state attempted to assimilate the ‘loyal’ Japanese Americans into wartime society as racial friends.”
 

Lee details the process by which the War Relocation Authority administered a program of leave clearance as one which delineated or distinguished "friends" or "loyals" from "enemies" or "disloyals" through the lens of acculturation to American culture. Lee points to a state goal of producing a socially assimilable and obedient racial subject. 

At first leave clearance was limited to college aged students and laborers who were filling jobs that were in high demand in the Midwest such as in the field of sugar beet harvesting in the fall of 1942. By spring of 1943, the camp administrators started recruiting Japanese detainees as volunteers to the army and then conducted a required registration and loyalty questionnaire that would determine the likelihood of successfully implementing a military draft on Japanese American men which was later enacte.

Student Relocation Council

Only one month after the San Francisco Area Bay Area Japanese American community was ordered to report to detention at Tanforan Racetracks on April 30th, a private organization called the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council (NJSRC) formed to assist college-aged Japanese descent students to enroll in college in the Midwest and East Coast. The council was established in May 1942 and led by the Executive Secretary of the American Friends Service Committee (Quaker organization) and ultimately supported around 4,000 students in getting allowance to leave camp to attend college. While there was a ban on universities that had military operations or programs, the council would seek out colleges who were willing to accept Japanese Americans.

The council employed strict parameters for which types of college-aged internee students it would advise and support included those that had a B grade average or higher in high school, excellent character, and “ability to mix with Caucasians.” The council refused support to any student that had spent significant time in Japan or was not a U.S. citizen, and also opted to hold back a certain amount of ‘important’ youth leaders in detention at the center stating “attention must be paid to retaining important student leadership within the centers’. These parameters distinguishing worthy and unworthy students in a way that associated certain characteristics with worthiness of inclusion in the wider American society instead of on the basis of constitutional rights. This process supported the creation of a racial friend/ racial enemy distinction that the camp administration would further develop and deploy through leave clearance protocols and questionnaires.

The council worked with the Wartime Civilian Control Administration to get assurance from the college as well as the local community such as a policeman, mayor or distinct attorney of “community acceptance" of Japanese American students entering their city, college, and community outside of the West Coast exclusion zone. [See Collection on NJSRC documents from Hoover Institute, and Collection of Kay's personal and professional correspondence during 1941-1944].


The organization worked closely with the Wartime Civilian Control Administration and War Relocation Authority and Camp Administrators in developing its core procedures as of June 24, 1942. A letter dated May 5, 1942 from the Director of the War Relocation Authority (WRA) Milton Eisenhower to Mr. Pickett of the Friends Service Committee described the working relationship. Milton Eisenhower agreed to have his agency pay for travel expenses out of detention camps to the universities and set up a government agency within the camps to certify students. Pickett replied to the working arrangement stating, "It is only by some such policy as this that we shall be able to atone for the violence that has been done to the constitutional rights of American citizens."

Kay Yamashita worked as an employee with the student relocation council for years and continued working for the organization from Philadelphia after gaining leave clearance from Topaz after many of her sibling already had received leave clearance [See Kay's WRA File]. Through this position she had insider information on administrative decisions which would affect internees and would notify her family with new information including about the loyalty questionnaire which produced much confusion and division within the camps. She helped students in many camps prepare their college applications, transcripts, cover letters and corresponded directly with students, and assisted them through the process of trying to get cleared by the War Relocation Authority to leave. She likely assisted her brother John who applied to many seminaries and was accepted to Methodist Garrett Seminary in Evanston, Illinois and was granted leave clearance in December 1942. 

Chiz and Kiku

Tomi visiting with grandson Kiku and family, likely in Calexico, prewar

Ed with his grandma, Tomi, at his house in Calexico, Arizona, pre-war

Kiku

Kiku was in 3rd grade at Topaz Incarceration Camp where teacher Miss Yoshinaga recorded the everyday stories of the classmates. Kiku shares that his parents are leaving for Idaho and Salt Lake City. His father, Ed Kitow, is leaving to work on a farm in Idaho.

Chiz and John

Leave Clearance for Laborers

Agricultural worker shortage led to the first forms of clearance to leave the camps. Japanese Americans were a significant segment of the agricultural industry in California, involved in all levels of agriculture from truck farming to citrus to gardening. The fact of agricultural leave clearance reveals the realities of wartime labor needs in food production and the contradictions of wartime mass incarceration.  On October 18, 1942, Kay wrote a letter detailing the conditions in camp, describing how Camp Administrators began showing movies and propaganda shorts, in attempt to convince Japanese American men to work picking beets for 70 cents a day after food and shelter costs. Kay reported that Ed (Chiz' husband) was allowed to leave for 5 days with Earl to Salt Lake City to look for farm jobs for men in Topaz and sharing that permanent leave is "red-tape." By November 1942, many young people received leave clearance to work picking sugar beets in Utah. Kay's friend Asa Fujie was one example, being granted temporary leave for a job apple-picking in Provo, Utah. How does Fred Lee's argument about a racial friend/ racial enemy distinction correspond to labor shortage leave clearance? Labor-based leave clearance exposes the elaborate leave clearance application system as pro forma as it was discarded when faced with demands for menial labor. Beyond agricultural work, detainees also carried out war support activities such as building camouflage or social reproduction functions such as growing fresh food to supply other internment camps.

Kay wrote about what she thought about the future for incarceration and labor-based leave clearance, "I am in the belief that in the future as time goes on and man power is increasingly needed they will just tell us to walk out."  And she often bemoaned in letters that Japanese Americans were only able to secure menial jobs like bus-boys, janitors, bell-hops, and were often barred from higher-paying defense jobs offered the average white American. But, in April 1943, Kay's older sister Iyo and her husband Min Tamaki received leave clearance to move after Min secured a  welding defense contractor job in Chicago. [Source: Letter from Kay to Ted, April 9, 1943] See Iyo's WRA File. 

Chiz' husband, Ed Kitow, eventually received leave clearance in April 1943 from Topaz Camp to work on a farm in Idaho. His leave clearance evaluation included an interview documenting his background: Ed had graduated from Stanford, and had lived for 17 years in Calexico, California near the Arizona border, and had owned and operated a large produce business in cantaloupes and melons employing 200 workers and was hoping to go back to farm management or marketing. On his leave application when asked which states he would like to secure work in if granted leave clearance, he wrote "California, Arizona, Colorado or Utah." [Ed's WRA File. Chiz' WRA File.] Ed's wife Chiz had worked as a nurse after receiving a degree at U.C. Berkeley. Once they were granted leave clearance to move to Idaho, Chiz cooked for the farm workers there. Kiku is initially left behind at Topaz. Kay wrote about her young nephew's loneliness in an April 26, 1943 letter,

"Chiz and Ed haven’t returned from Idaho yet- she wrote one measley letter- and then suddenly wired us Saturday nite that she wouldn’t be back for Easter- poor Kiku I just cried with him- he’s such a lonely boy- since his mother and dad seem to leave him all the time- when they’re in here they have a million meetings to go to or are too tired to pay any attention to him- and he’s always being scolded - and his naughtiness is just a reaction to his loneliness and neglect from his parents. I bought a dozen eggs and we dyed them together the nite before Easter - just like John used to do with us. He had the thrill of his life running around giving them to the kids of our block - he came back to tell me how much fun it was to see the kids happy because he gave them a colored egg. He begs us not to say anything about his mother coming home because it’s never true- he finally broke down and asked if he could sleep on our side because he was so lonely." 

 The same day that Kix shares in his 3rd grade class at Topaz Camp that he is sad that his parents are leaving him on April 14, 1943, the class also discusses the killing of a detainee names James Wakasa. The journal entry for the class for this day reads:

"On Sunday evening, at 7:30 o clock, an old man, Mr. James H. Wakasa passed away. This morning some of our boys saw a dog balancing on a car as it drove by on the road. Yesterday we started to build our "cookie house" for Hansel and Gretel. Edwin, Bobby, Lynn and Kei were chosen to work on it. Today Kiku's mother and father left Topaz. His father went to Idaho and his mother went to Salt Lake City. There was a fire at the turkey farm last night. We went to see the ant hill, scorpions and horned toad at Miss Ito and Mr. Kusano's class."

The killing by an armed guard of a 63 year old man (James Hatsuki Wakasa) who walked too close to the barbed wire fence escalated tensions. Kay wrote about this event in her letter to Tom dated April 14, 1943 and described the Formal Military Hearing which followed. Kay describes detainees allowed on picnic hikes but,

"they come after us in a jeep and force up at the point of a --I think they call them sub-machine gun because they're real big-- to ride with them in a jeep back to the Internal Security here...I've seen more little kids not knowing any better just happen to walk in the wrong direction- and I say it's merely desert with not a darn thing around- brought back at the point of a gun stared still- the impression such a experience leaves in a small child is really no joke."

Kay heard that the residents of the city of Delta despised the military policy,

A few of them, we are told by the Administrative staff are back from the Wars in the Pacific- not fit for service and a little excitement thrills them- I know they've made a few remarks about wanting to shoot them Japs down, meaning us...My heart goes out to the two young fellows that were killed by the M.P's at Manzanar- just spectators fatally wounded because the MP's got jittery- their friends and family must hate- for hatred is brewed by just such acts- and we do feel this we are at the mercy of a bunch of morons who do not know any better- and the old story about WHY SHOULD WE BE KEPT IN A PLACE LIKE THIS COMES UP AGAIN.

Sus with Kiku

Iyo's Questionaire for Leave Clearance

Ed's Questionaire for Leave Clearance

Chiz' Leave Clearance Application

Letter from Kay in Philadelphia to folks in Topaz, July 26, 1943. Kay describes what she has just heard about the mandatory implementation of the leave clearance questionaire which will be used to isolate and segregate perceived 'disloyals'.

Iyo in Philadelphia after leave clearance, 1944

Iyo at Bailey Farm in Westchester Pennsylvania, the family home of Pooh Bailey. Kay had met Pooh at International Institute in Mills College. The Baileys were Quakers who opened their Dutch farm to Contientious Objectors serving in the mental hospital in and around Philadelphia. (Kay's Oral History 1991)

Required Registration: The Question of Loyalty/ The Question of Assimilation

In the early part of 1943, the camp adminstration and military collaborated to expanding  the "indefinite leave clearance" application and make it mandatory. This new registration process, later referred to by internees and scholars as a "loyalty questionnaire," tested the feasibility for a draft or voluntary recruitment of Japanese American men into the U.S. military while still in detention. Kay described in her letters the process by which the camp administration collaborated with the military to revise the leave clearance application and make it required for all detainees. At this point in the spring of 1943, the U.S. government was not yet formally drafting detained Japanese Americans held in detention. However, the required registration generated confusion and consternation among detainees who worried that answering the question could constitute agreeing to serve in the military in racially segregated units. In March 1943, the War Relocation Agency also actively solicited detainees at camps willing to volunteer into the army to serve in a racially segregated combat unit in the war including in speeches. There were already Japanese Americans serving in the U.S. military before the U.S.' entry into war, but these soldiers had been kept from active duty service. In a letter dated February 13, 1943, Kay described the upheaval that this caused, writing,

"The Camp is in a turmoil, really the worse I've been in. This registration of all over 16 has caused a rowl. The Issei gave a big howl over the 28 question which was worded to the effect about unqualified loyalty to the U.S. and forgetting the Emperor. They had several heated meeting about even answering- the Council took it up with Ernst and he telephoned Wash. got the answer changed to "you can qualify your answer" since if they answered the question by yes and no - if answered yes you would automatically become a man without a country since they have no chance of becoming an American citizen, while if they answer no, there would certainly be no chance for them to eve leave these centers and possible deportation after the war....The Kibei- are the worst bunch of them all- we didn't think we would have any trouble with them in this Camp - but gee did they come to the fore. They just about dominate all the Nisei meetings- heckling everybody and threatening to beat them up and the sorts- with even cries of kill him in Japanese. They usually come in a big group-- they had their own meeting and decided they weren't going to register at all. The whole registration is to get people cleared and volunteers for the army- and propagandize the whole thing and then I think the WRA's intention are then to get the defense industries opened with more work opportunities for relocation... I was against the whole registration but after you think about it there's no alterantive and it's just merely going to make it harder later if we don't...We've noticed the kids and their parents are having some intense breaks over this whole question with many parents threatening disownment and suicide if the kids register since the oldsters have taken that if a Nisei signs up and answers the questions correction, he automatically volunteers..."

This letter indicates Kay's acquiescence to the camp administrator's perspective and her aversion to strongly worded or militant resistance led by Kibei or Japanese Americans who were born in the U.S. and had been sent to Japan for their early upbringing and education, a group which would have included her eldest brother and sister (Kimi and Sus). Many incarcerees did not know how to answer the questions #27 and #28 on the questionnaire which asked all detained to forswear allegiance to the Japanese emperor (which would imply that they previously maintained allegiance) and if the detainee would be willing to fight in the war. As an example of a particluar response to this confusing and intimidating question, Ed Kitow simply changed the wording of Question 28 on his Feb 17, 1943 Application for Leave Clearance form and stapled over his revised question to the form and answered that question. Instead of answering the question of forswearing allegiance to Japan and therefore becoming a stateless individual, Ed wrote an alternate question "Will you swear to abide by the laws of the United States and to take no action to in any way interfere with the war effort in the United States?" After significant negative response and push back organized by detainees which Kay viewed negatively, the camp administration re-worded Question 27 in order to avoid asking people if they would serve in the armed service. But just looking at the "loyalty" questions would not provide a full picture of the registration which actualy captured many cultural markers such as magazine and langauge abilities. So either Ed created his own question or perhaps his stapled in response reflected the Topaz-based resistance to the wording of the question and the fact that registrants were allowed to revise the question itself. 

In "Imaging Japanese America: The Visual Construction of Citizenship, Nation and the Body,” Elena Tajima Creef considers the Japanese American detainee's relationship with their stigmatized cultural and racial positioning as a double alienation.

The double alienation of the Japanese Americans results in both what W. E. B. Du Bois and Gloria Anzaldua have identified as the specific kind of psychological conflict of people of color who are forced to choose where they must fit in between two or more cultures. Under the intense pressure of wartime racism, the Japanese Americans had little choice but to participate in their own racial and cultural erasure in order to prove their loyalty and lay claim to an American identity(page 26).

Japanese Americans were structurally encouraged to deny any Japanese cultural traits and participate in their own cultural erasure through the loyalty questionnaire registration. Archival documents suggest that the questionnaire measured loyalty in terms of culture, language and religion and entry into typically American institutions such as the Boy Scouts. This is evident in the Provost Marshall Summary document in Sus' FBI file which shows how various questions on organizational and cultural affiliation were associated with "good" or "bad" answers for likelihood of being or remaining loyal to the nation. This document indicates that a point system was in place that measured traits deemed American or loyal and traits deemed other. The left column of Sus' Provost General File tallies the "Americanized" or good qualities culled from the Loyalty Questionnaire which include having a relative in the U.S. military; having entire education in U.S.; participation in R.O.T.C, being Christian, having affiliation with JACL (Japanese American Citizens League) or Boy Scouts of America or YMCA or YWCA or Rotary or Masons; Answers to Question 27 and 28. Whereas, the right column organizes the answers that were less associated with American acculturation and included having a father interned; having immediate relatives in Japan; being schooling in Japan; participating in a Japanese language school in the U.S.; traveling to Japan; number of years living in Japan; being employed by Japanese government agency or steamship line or a listed Japanese firms; being an instructor at a Japanese language school; participating in Shintoism or Buddhism; being member of a listed organization; having proficiency in Japanese; being a dual citizen; requesting repatriation. This system which identified mainstream culturally "American" attributes and provided those internees with freedom supports the thesis that internment was a process of demarcating racial friends and racial enemies within the Japanese American population. Through this method, the state flexibly defines and redefines 'racial enemies' and 'racial friends'. Whereas before the required registration, leave clearance was conducted on a case by case basis with white character references. With the change to a loyalty quesitonnaire implemented to assess likelihood of gaining army volunteers from the camps, the camp administration appears to have streamlined the process by creating a sorting or point system based on cultural affiliation with Japan as a proxy for likelihood of treasonous intent.

Before Required Registration: White Recommenders



It is useful to further define the process by which leave clearance occurred before and after this juncture. Prior to spring of 1943, applying for leave clearance from camp was a complicated process involving many background checks and at least some closeness to a white person or "Caucasian" and ideally a history of being active in mainstream American institutions and fluent in American culture and attitudes. The first application for leave clearance instructed: “Give the names and addresses of references not to exceed five in number. These need not be Caucasians, but good Caucasian references maybe particularly helpful.” Friends sent in letters to the government vouching for their friends' characters and loyalty to the U.S. by emphasizing their friendships with whites. 

When applying for leave clearance, internees named five references. Letter writers often described their Japanese American friends as close or similar to white people, and may have been prompted to respond this way by specific questions from the War Relocation Authority. The state’s used Caucasian as the primary source for understanding the loyalty risk of detainees and as a tool to implement its racial friend/ racial enemy test. 


Kimi’s husband Bob had applied to leave clearance to teach Japanese language at a U.S. military language school and had asked his friends to send in character references.  One friend, Margaret Rohrer wrote to Dillon S. Myer, the director of the War Relocation Authority describing Bob Ono:
"He has Caucasian friends among the business and professional classes. His standing in his how community of Fresno, California was very high. He was trusted and respected by those who knew him and regarded as an extremely intelligent and exceptional individual by his Caucasian friends. Without reservation I can say that Mr. Ono is equipped with those personal qualification needed to make a successful adjustment to participation in normal American living."

We see how the state makes sense or distinguishes between “racial enemies” and “racial friends” in the example of Bob Tokiro Ono (Kimi’s husband) who had applied for leave clearance to become a language instructor for U.S. Military Intelligence School in Michigan. FBI records on him indicate that he was found to be a donor to an international organization (hokoku kai) in Fresno that raised money for the Japanese military, which would produce suspicion and could be a reason to deny leave clearance. However, authorities ultimately decided that he was a low risk because of his supposed “Americanization.” The government official writes in the FBI Report about Bob noting that he had excellent character references, spoke English at home and had attended American colleges and Christian churches.

"The subject has an excellent letter of recommendation from Frank Herron Smith, a member of the Methodist church, who is actively in charge of the Japanese congregation. Mr. Smith has resided in Japan for some time and he speaks, reads and writes the Japanese language fluently. He would probably understand the Japanese mind almost as well as a Japanese...Subject claims that he is a graduate of the University of Oregon, and another reference states that most of the family conversation is conducted in English. He is married to an American citizen and he has a son attending the Washington University. The subjects is also a member of the Methodist church, all of which indicates that, although he is a citizen of Japan, he is quite well Americanized." 
Here we see that the evaluator was reviewing his religious affiliation as a market of his cultural “Americaness” and also loyalty.
Other examples of white recommenders for family members demonstrate that friends felt compelled to describe detainees' response to Pearl Harbor as well as professionalism. A former co-worker of Kay's in the U.S. Employment Service in Oakland, Sylvia Sorenstein, described her in a character reference document to the Camp Administrators as a professional worker and well liked in the office and also states,
"I knew Miss Yamashita at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor and feel that she was sincerely aggrieved...She was born here and went through the University of California and has many non-Japanese friends..Kiye is not a good looking girl but dresses in good taste.. I think Kiye an exceptionally fine girl and deserving of a normal life in the community." 
 

The Question of White Allies

While Kay endeavored to leverage any relationship with white contacts on the outside, she also identified the most authentic support from the members of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. She had a very active correspondence with F.O.R. member Caleb Foote and had even attended a speech by Bayard Rustin as well who was also a member of the organization. Kay wrote in a October 1942 letter to her sibling Tom that the National Secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation had visited and that Caleb Foote will come Nov. 8th. Kay mentioned how Quakers are the only ones who would vouch for Japanese Americans and admired Mr. Neudstadt of the Social Security Board (Regional Director) for being the only government serviceman to fight the forced removal "evacuation”. Kay had an active correspondence with a number of supporters including Mrs. Duveneck, a wealthy quaker. Mrs. Duveneck wrote to Kay on March 6, 1943 remembering a time when Kay visited her at her ranch in California. She wrote to Kay again in October 1943 and on Easter. Kay received gifts from Goodmans, Mrs. Duceneck, Grace Nichols in Christmas time 1942 and described this in a letter. "Gee these hakujins [white people] really surprise you with their generosity - I don't suppose we would have done the same if it were the other way around - gosh it really makes you think." Kay's letter to Mrs. Duveneck on December 24, 1942 shows that she was trying to maintain a real relationship, as she relayed recent events including the case of a man who left Topaz during an authorized picnic in order to commit suicide and was was found by the authorities. These letters indicate that Kay had formed relationships with Quaker women including Mrs. Duveneck and shared stories of her day to day life, updating them on injustices and also her own experiences. For Kay’s leave clearance application, recommendations letters or character witness letters for Kay describe her closeness with white friends as a measure of her acculturation and loyalty to the U.S. Robert Inglis of Plymouth Congregational Church in Oakland wrote, “Her devotion of America is unquestionable. She is adaptable and will find friends in the Caucasian community." Leila Anderson of the Young Women’s Christian Association wrote, “She was also active in our YWCA and had many good friends among Caucasian.  I would say she is very much an American." Elizabeth Goodman wrote, “She is thoroughly American in her attitudes and mannerisms’ it does not occur to those who know her to think of her as a Japanese. She is not good looking, but is rather smart looking, very well dressed, in good taste, and neat in appearance."

Densho details the types of responses within the camps that this 'registration' produced:

 With the issuing of the "loyalty questionnaire" in early 1943, inmates pressed to have the questions re-worded, yet even the milder versions of the questions did not compensate for the offense that was felt by the first versions. Many refused to answer as a result. Others responded with acts of violence and threats directed at prominent pro-administration prisoners. Nearly one-fifth of all male registrants in Topaz answered negatively to the original wording of the two loyalty questions. 1,447 prisoners considered "disloyal" were transferred to the Tule Lake Segregation Camp in exchange for a similar number of prisoners from that camp deemed more "loyal." Thirty-six inmates requested to leave for Japan. Some camp observers considered the reaction to the questionnaire to be one of the most strident of all the camps, noting that it drew upon broad support, was well articulated, and was well organized. Whether prisoners felt satisfied that their demands had been heard when the questions were modified or felt forced to enlist to save their future citizenship, the resistance was palpable, but widespread violence was prevented.

Kay wrote about the growing pessimism and cynicism of young people in Topaz in letter on March 6, 1943 to John who had received leave clearance to go to Seminary in Evanston, Illinois:

"The youth of the Intercollegiate Group have become cynical, bitter, apathetic. Product of the Army registration: the question is always 'to fight for what?'...36 who applied for repatriation/ expressed desire to go to Japan were sent to Arkansas. About 500 applied for expatriation/repatriation, some in order to avoid draft."

A few months later, Kay found out about the Camp Administration's plan to segregate "loyal" and "disloyal" detainees into separate camps when she sat in on confidential meetings as part of her work with the Japanese American National Student Relocation Council in Philadelphia. She wrote to Kimi and Tomi on July 26, 1943 about the matter. She was the only Japanese sitting in on confidential meetings of Placement staff. She told her folks:

I have been increasingly concerned-- since the return of Trudy and Tom from Washington-- as you know or do you? If the folks don't know it's better not to discuss the matter with others- but we are quite certain that there will be a quite a bit of shifting and relocating to other centers etc. for the purpose of segregating the disloyal from the loyal - beginning plans with later part of August and actually beginning on September first. One Camp has been chosen for the place where all the disloyal or those who have requested repatriation will be sent- they won't tell us which one- however I know postitively it is not Topaz...If I were you, Neich [Americanized version of "older sister" in Japanese], I would plan to leave not later than the third week in August. Please do because - with Washington red tape and all sorts of things happening in between - so often things get bogged dow nadn what was perfectly alright before becomes not alright- as in the cases of so many heartbreaking experiences with our students.

This period marked a change in leave clearance. Before this point, leave clearance was based on an application that asked for character references and compiled information about schooling, and social group affiliation. It is difficult to tell what would have led to an applicant gaining leave clearance or being denied. Though we can see from Bob Ono's file, some of the evidence that camp administrators and War Relocation Authority personnel in D.C. would have reviewed.

Community Welfare Department at Topaz Internment Camp. Sus is in the back most row at middle left.

Sus as an adolescent, playing tennis

Sus and wife Kiyo

Sus, Mitsubishi, Oil, and Empire

Sus' employment with a Japanese firm and exporting fuel used directly in Japan's empire-building projects across Asia is most likely an extreme outlier story among the overwhelming majority of Japanese Americans incarcerees who were laborers or small business owner-operators. When Sus applied for leave clearance, his ties to a Japanese oil firm and a “listed” firm with ties to the Japanese government were too strong of a connection to allow for his release. The evaluation of his leave clearance appliation showed the he was part of a "listed organization" of the Japanese Society of San Francisco and had worked for a "listed firm" of the Mistubishi from 1933-1942. The Japanese Society of San Francisco was organized in the early part of the 20th century and according to Sandra C Taylor ("Jewel of the Desert: Japanese American Internment iat Topaz" 1993), these organizations which were headquartered in San Francisco though operating relatively independently "attempted to protect immigrants against discrimination by whites. They served as agents of acculturation as well, urging Issei to become 'Americanized; so they could keep a low social profile and not attract hostility"(p 15). These organizations also had a direct relationship with the Japanese government and at time tried to lower the dollar amount from $800 that Japanese immigrants needed to have in order to immigrate. Sus had been watched by the FBI since 1937 for his employment with Mitsubishi, a conglomerate firm and the largest Japanese firm in the U.S. which produced engines for warplanes and was a major oil supplier for Japan. Sus worked buying and exporting oil through an American firm to ship to Southeast and East Asia and was directed by the Mitsubishi Tokyo office. Sus explained his job in this hearing as "the branch [San Francisco] office would receive a cable from the main [Tokyo] office instructing us to purchase certain quantities of certain types of petroleum products to be shipped to Japan or elsewhere in the Orient; China, Thailand, ect. I would call the Tidewater office or the telephone and give them the order and later confirm it by memoranda and letters." [See Sus' WRA File. See Sus' FBI File.]

Moreover, something not captured in these files was the fact that Sus’ bosses with whom he had close ties were involved in promoting pro-Japan propaganda. After Japan forcibly invaded Manchuria, China, the Japanese Committee on Trade and Information or Jikyoku Iinkai was formed in San Francisco to construct a positive image of Japan to the world through tours of the U.S. and Europe. Sus’ wife, Kiyo, worked for the Japanese Chamber of Commerce in San Francisco, which shared offices with the Jikyoku Iinkai. Her boss, Tsutomu Obana, worked for both organizations at 549 Market Street. She was questioned by two FBI agents on February 23, 1942 about her work with the Japanese Chamber of Commerce, and may have first been watched by the FBI starting in November of 1939 when she began work there as a secretary. Obana, as well as other leaders of the Jikyoku Iinkai, members of the San Francisco Japanese consulate were indicted for failing to register as a foreign agent for spreading pro-Japanese propaganda in 1942 in the form of lectures and distributing thousands of pamphlets. The members of the organizations were tried in Washington D.C. and also in absentia, as some Japanese nationals had fled to Japan. All of these work and social connections affected Sus' leave clearance application. As charming and useful as he proved himself among Topaz’ administrators, he could not find a job that matched his ambitions and skill set. Sus told his siblings about being followed and having his phones tapped months before the outbreak of war between the U.S. and Japan. Kay said in an oral history interview in 1991,

“I might just tell you that my brother, as I told you, was working for the Mitsubishi company. What was so strange to us, he told us all of the wives and children all went back on a boat, because there was no planes at that time, fifty years ago. But still, the top heads were still in San Francisco, and they left the United States [on] the last gripshom, or the last boat. But my brother was left holding the bag. He was an American and he therefore stayed in the office, required to stay in the office. Every day the FBI would come and go through all the papers, and days and days of all of this. I remember my brother, he was already married and living in Berkeley—we were all living at home in Oakland—he came home one night and he said, 'You know, I think I’m being watched and our telephones are being tapped, so be careful. The other thing is maybe we should burn all this stuff that would in any way incriminate me,' because he was working for a Japanese company, 'and the rest of you.'“

In the Summary document analyzing Sus' leave clearance survey, it shows that he was educated for elementary and middle school education in Japan. By this point all of his siblings had been given permission to leave Topaz. He shared in his leave clearance supplemental statement on Dec 8, 1943,

"I have four sisters and two brother all relocated. My sister is in Ann Arbor, Michigan with her husband who is teaching at the University of Michigan. One of my younger sisters is in Nounan, Idaho, with her husband who is engaged in farming. The other two sisters are in Philadelphia, Pa, both working at the National Student Relocation Councill. My two younger brothers are in Evanston, Illinois. One is studying to become a minister at Garrett Biblical Institute in Evanston maintained by the Methodist Churches of America. The other is an engineer and working at the Dur-Ite Company in Chicago, Illinois."

 While Sus was was well favored in his camp work placement for Mr. Lafabregue in the Welfare Department in the Camp Administration, he was still denied his leave clearance in March 1944, after having two hearings to collect additional information. Utah Relocation Program Officers asked the D.C. office for some way to find employment writing, "We think you will agree that his qualification are outstanding. He is interested in a position involving bookeeping and necessary clerical management and responsibility of a large farm or plantation. Would you be able to offer such an opportunity?"

This leave clearance documents lay out how the leave clearance and loyalty questionnaire was also recording specific "listed organization" as suspect. While many Japanese Americans wuold have been denied purely on cultural markers, this example demonstrates one example that shows a more clear picture of close association to the supply lines of Japanese imperialsm. Government agents were mapping social affiliation to identify individuals who has direct ties to the Japanese government. Ties to Japanese propagandists operating in the U.S. would have been quite rare for Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II, and would be an embarassment to many Japanese Americans working to project an image of American patriotism whether through resisting unjust incarceration or  by those volunteering for the American military. Sus' job transacting shipments of oil to the Japanese empire's contractors would have been a direct connection to circuits of imperial capital which would also be the same circuits for pro-Japanese imperialism propaganda. Suprisingly, even with the associations with "listed firms", eventually by June of 1945, even Sus was granted leave from and looked for work in New York City. The FBI file reveals that they were using confidential informants to look through his mail and to record when he got something for Roebecks Catalogue as well as mail from his brothers, John and Tom, who sent him articles about the "troubles" (possibly protests) in Tule Lake. Even by the war's end on August 2, 1945, the FBI continued to track Sus' whereabouts as he moved to New York City.

Min in uniform

Min's Oral History (1995) conducted by Oakland Museum of California, Oakland Unified School District

Tom

Tom

Ted

Draft of Japanese Americans Inside and Outside of Detention

On January 20, 1944, the U.S. military applied the draft to all Japanese Americans held in detention camps. Some detained Japanese Americans organized as the Fair Play Committee at Heart Mountain Incarceration Camp resisted this draft on the grounds that their constitutional rights had been unjustly stripped and were convicted and were held in prison. Meanwhile, Mitsuye Endo's lawsuit challenging the incarceration and mass removal was also winding through the courts and was before the Supreme Court, challenging the constitutional basis for mass incarceration and the removal of habeus corpus rights. 



Japanese Americans who were no longer incarcerated were also subject to the draft. Ted Ono, who had been attending college in the Midwest, wrote to his grandma, Tomi, and other relatives Kay, Min and Iyo in Philadelphia on June 14, 1943 about waiting for the draft,

"No news from the draft board yet. This waiting around anxious about each day’s mailing is almost torturous. Have been wondering about your draft status, Min, since we heard you’ve been tagged. Enclosed is a shot that they took for our school annual. Might be the last of me in 'civvies' so am sending it… P.S. Miss Kay Yamashita hasn’t written me for ages! Could it not be that a “male” occupies all her spare time?"











Ted was eventually drafted by February of 1945 (letter Feb 14), and entered basic training with Tom by January of 1945 (letter dated Jan 11, 1945).  

Iyo's new husband Min who had also gotten leave clearance and was working was also drafted sometime before June 1943 and had his physical on May 3rd 1944[Letter from Kay to family, Jan 11 1945]. On August 13, 1981, Min wrote about this time in his testimony for the Redress Hearings in San Francisco for the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians,

"After being released from Topaz, I travelled first to Chicago then Philadelphia looking for work. Although my skills as a pharmacist were needed during wartime, no one would hire me. I found that our incarceration in the camps legitimized and reinforced the fears that we were somehow dangerous. I finally landed a job in a laboratory in Philadelphia but my job was limited to taking care of the laboratory animals. Thereafter, I joined the army."










Min got to see his mother before he was sent to training [Letter from Kay to Folks dated Oct 10, 1944] and was to leave for the Army on Nov 28, 1944.[Letter from Kay to Folks dated Nov 24, 1944]. While stationed at a Texas medical training army program, Min wrote faithfully to Iyo everyday.[letter dated Jan 11, 1945]



By Feb 1943, Tom got a job as a civil engineer in Chicago and Tomi got leave clearance to live with him there, but eventually decided to go live with Kay in Philadelphia. Tom was considering enlisting in the fall of 1943 to Kay's dismay, but then received his draft physical notice on July 15th 1944. According to a note in Sus' Topaz file, Tom went to Philadelphia to visit Kay and Tomi. He reported to the local War Relocation Agency office and was told to return to Chicago to be drafted. Nisei inductees were placed in Shelby, Fort Blanding (Florida) and Camp Savage.[Letter from Kay to Ted dated July 5, 1944.] 

Sus with kids. To see a collection of photographs of Sus and Kiyo's family in the 1950s-1970s.

Looking for Work in New York and Japan's Surrender

After being allowed to leave Topaz in 1945, Sus moved to New York looking for work. He wrote back frequently to his wife Kiyo who took care of their two children, Kimiko who was born before removal to camp. He was trying to keep up communication with his wife and mother in camp to make decisions together about how to move forward at a time when the camp administrators were allowing and perhaps encouraging people to vacate the camps. His FBI file reveals that he was being followed in New York by agents. Excerpts from Sus' Diary from indicate that he was trying to get any kind of work including domestic "school boy" work and receiving the news of the atomic bomb and Japan's surrender marking the end of the war and the survival of his nephew who was enlisted in the U.S. military.

1945 June 30: Old Oakland M. E. Church folks had a get together at the Hostel.

Monday July 16 [1945] Registered at the NY Technical Institute.

Friday July 20 Phoned Joe Yasumura of American Baptist service re a school boy job.

Saturday July 28 Studied a little during the morning. Was hard to concentrate as I have three things coming up to my head- the welfare of K.Y. and her possible departure for Calif., accepting the job at Dr. Rice's or otherwise and my study.

Saturday, August 4 Bright but not too warm, the best day since I came to N.Y. The long awaited letter from Kiyoko finally came today via airmail. She still deosn't know when she'll leave for Berkeley. Wrote a long letter to her. Finished it 11:10pm. Went to the Hostel to get a few more of my belongings. Saw one of the most beautiful sunset across the Hudson River this afternoon (and yesterday to a lesser degree).

Tuesday, August 7 Tried to study after writing K.Y. but couldn't. Went to bed after midnight. Whatever the cause couldn't get to sleep for hours. News of the atomic bombing of Japan on Monday, August 6, came today.

Thursday, August 9 The news that Russia declared way on Japan yesterday came today. Friday, August 10 One of the most memorable day in my life. Got the news of Japan's proposing to surrender unconditionally late this afternoon. Official Gov't news was held up this evening. The U.S. Gov't did not receive Japan's offer officially. How glad our parents must be now that they are sure of seeing their sons coming home without a single injury during their service!

Sunday, August 19 Did not rise until 8:00 AM since the Chaplain did not wish breakfast this morning.

Tuesday, August 21 I shall be forever grateful to Uncle Hisashi for his action at this time proposing to stay in camp with my family to help their departure in packing and seeing thme leave safely. Wonder what he's planning to do himself and where he intends to resettle. He's really kind. Friday August 24 Cooked supper for him and his guest for the first time.

May 10 1945, Letter from Homer Morris to Caleb Foote (Fellowship of Reconciliation)

John and Ish moving boxes of personal belongings that had been stored in the Japanese Methodist Church in Oakland during the war and looked after by white Methodist supporters.

Warehouse Storage Inventory List

Resettlement

John was contracted by the War Relocation Authority to run a hostel in the Oakland Methodist church building that he grew up in. After graduating from Garrett Seminary, John returned to Oakland in February of 1945 to organize a hostel for Japanese Americans who were returning to Oakland area and to ship the property that had been stored there when Japanese American members of the Oakland Japanese Methodist Church (at 797 10th Street) were first detained in spring of 1942. The property had been cared for by Lee Mullis, a white member of the church. The War Relocation Authority entered into an agreement where the agency would provide cots and mattresses for a specific period to be used to help resettle Japanese Americans. (See this letter from Roscoe, a WRA Assistant Project Director to another WRA official and this contact drawn up for John by the WRA.) John worked with the support of his friend Ish Isokawa, who may have been supporting in the work as a volunteer, as well as Lee Mullis.

Together they worked to host and house returning Japanese Americans on cots in the church and also correspond and ship belongings to the Japanese Americans who decided not to come back to Oakland. They organized an inventory of items and wrote letters to the people who had stored property in the church to coordinate the return of their property at their own expense. The list of contacts includes names and addresses. Many are still the barrack number at Topaz. Some are at Tule Lake without a barrack number included. Some have already received clearance and resettled to Midwestern cities like Chicago, Illinois and Cleveland, Ohio.

Closing the camps which was discussed by Dillon S. Myer with Homer Morris of the American Friends Service Committee in May 1945 as being closed by Dec 31, 1945. This was already set in motion due to the Supreme Court case Mitsuye Endo which was decided in December 1944 finding that the mass detention in camps was not a power designated to be given to the War Relocation Authority while at the same time refusing to make any decision as to the constitutionality of wartime mass removal or detention. The court wrote, "We are of the view that Mitsuye Endo should be given her liberty. In reaching that conclusion we do not come to the underlying constitutional issues which have been argued. For we conclude that, whatever power the War Relocation Authority may have to detail other classes of citizens, it has no authority to subject citizens who are concededly loyal to its leave procedure." The day of the decision, the FDR administration changed the policy and allowed detainees in all camps to leave except Tule Lake which was seregated as a 'disloyal' camp for detainees who had not answered "yes" to both "loyalty questions" on the mandatory questionnaire. Leaving camp was more difficult since many detainees had lost most of their possessions and had little job prospects. Morris wrote of the challenges facing the 20,000 Japanese American youth who have been incarcerated for three years, stating, "These youngsters have already had three years of camp life. This has resulted in very serious behavioral problems on the part of these youngsters and this experience tends to entirely unfit them for living as free citizens in a normal American community. Myer said that he felt that it was absolutely imperative for the sake of these children, the centers must be closed and these children gotten back into normal community life at the earliest possible date." 

The War Relocation Authority also constructed temporary affordable housing with returning Japanese Americans in addition to providing each internee $20 to cover travel expenses upon leaving the camps in the Midwest. In Los Angeles area, the agency constructed quarters (sometimes barracks and sometimes mobile parks) in Hawthorne, Santa Monica, El Segundo, Long Beach, Lomita, Sun Valley, and Burbank. Sometimes these living quarters included shared toilet and shower facilities as well (Richard Cahan and Michael Williams, "Un-American" 2016, p 214).

The following list records the manila folders that were saved by John:

Bank Statements
WRA [War Relocation Authority]
Office of Price Administration
Thank you's
Thank you's II
Thank you's III
Other hostels
Warehouse Storage
Storage Bus
Untitled Folder I
Hostel Property
Blankets Linens
Food Receipts
Laundry
Returnee Correspondence
Hostel Reservations
Yoshimura Storage
Topaz Correspondence
Isokawa
Eastern Correspondence
Rivers (Gila) Correspondence
Untitled Folder II
Tule Lake Correspondence

Iyo's children in Oakland. To see a collection of photographs of Iyo and Min's family in the 1950s and 1960s.

Kay, 1966, in Chicago Apartment To see a collection of photographs of Kay in the 1950s-1960s.

John with kid, Jane in Los Angeles circa 1956. To see a collection of John and Asako's family photographs from the 1950s- 1960s.

Marty Uyeki and her parents Kimi and Bob Ono. To see a collection of Marty and Eugene's family photos from 1950s-1960s

Dispersal

Resettlement initially led the siblings to disberse to various states including Idaho, Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, and Illinois, which led to different paths out of California than would have likely occured if there was not wartime incarceration. Martha who had been 12 at the time of wartime removal, entered high school in Michigan with her father teaching Japanese language at University of Michigan for the military. She then attending University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where her aunt Kay had settled. After the war, she joined the Red Cross to try and rebuild Europe as a laborer and was sent to Austria to dig ditches. Sus and Kiyo settled in New Jersey, after staying a few years after the war in Oakland. Iyo and husband Min moved back to Oakland and raised their three kids there in the West 10th Methodist Church with Min returning to the profession he had trained in as a pharmacist. John returned to Oakland and pastored the West 10th Methodist Church before being sent down to lead a Japanese Methodist church in Los Angeles. John and his wife, Asako, would move there and raise their two kids in Los Angeles first in the Jefferson/Crenshaw neighborhood and later in the Japanese American community settling in Gardena. Tom and his wife, Carol, moved to Hong Kong, working in the construction industry and raised their three kids. Chiz settled in Oak Park with her husband Ed, and worked as a nurse in Cook County hospital in Chicago and secured summer jobs for her nieces and nephews at the hospital. Their child Kiku joined the military. Kimi and Bob moved back to Berkeley. Ted joined Military Intelligence Service and worked in Japan in the postwar years. Kay settled in Chicago.