Incarceration in Utah

"Now It's Permanent" Feeling

After staying at Tanforan for the months of May through September, the Yamashita Family was moved (along with everyone else) on train along with the rest of the incarerees in Tanforan to Utah with the shades of the pullman cars pulled down. They arrived in a dusty arid land. The permanent camp was notably better furnished-- hot running water and meat served at meals. But the improvements in living could not outweigh the reality that the removal from the rest of society was becoming more permanent with a more permanent encampment. The weather and the landscape would prove trying, dust storms pouring dust into barracks, hot heat in the summer and freezing temperatures in the winter.

Some detainees were ordered leave Tanforan to help set up the permanent camp in Utah--Topaz. Chiz, who had worked at the makeshift hospital at Tanforan, left early to set up the hospital at Topaz. She left with her husband, Ed and her son, Kix to Utah on September 9th. The rest of the family followed on September 15th, arriving two days later.

On October 18, 1942, Kay wrote a letter to Tom in Nebraska, detailing the conditions in camp. "Food consists of boiled turnips and potatoes with rice. Occasional egg omelet with cheese. Temperature as low as 28. Some without double walls. Coal only available at night." There was a "Mad scramble" for showers. Kay had to wait two and a half hours in a shower line. Camp 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. Some go work for the freedom. Kay bemoans inequality between menial jobs JA's are forced to take (bus-boys, janitors, bell-hops) and the higher-paying defense jobs offered the average American. Kay worries that the Japanese American is "just replacing the Negro" in the American social order, with only sub-standard jobs available.

Applying to College from Incarceration

Two members of the Yamashita family, Tomi's youngest son (Tom) and Kimi's son (Ted) born at the same time were able to attend college in the Midwest during the time that their family was incarcerated. They attended universities in St. Louis and Nebraska. The reason that we have an account written about the first days in camp and the notable news from then on is because of these two family members who are able to leave incarceration earlier than most and had to communicate with each other by letter to share information on daily life.

Tom, Tomi’s youngest child, stayed behind in Tanforan. He had applied to the University of Nebraska and Washington University in St. Louis and was allowed to stay behind by the Japanese American Student Relocation Council to wait for a response from the schools and possibly go straight to school without going to the permanent concentration camp. He would hear from the University of Nebraska after staying in Tanforan for a week without his family, and would take a train to Lincoln Nebraska for school, arriving near the end of September.

Kay wrote to Tom, noting that the camp is better set up than Tanforan, in the hot running water and the meat provided. She also emphasizes how lucky Tom was in getting out. Kay wrote glowingly about the welcoming Camp Administrator, Mr. Ernst, who many Berkeley graduate internees knew from their Cal Days. She also writes that John, her brother, calls her a sap for her letter-writing style. Another one of the siblings might have told the story to Tom any number of different ways.

Kay writes,

"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 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."

Ted Ono (Kimi and Bob's son) was the other member of the family who was able to leave the temporary dentention for college. Ted had been in the middle of his junior year at Cal Berkeley at the time of Pearl Harbor. After not being able to register at the University of Colorado, he applied and was accepted to the Washington University at St. Louis and went there from the Fresno Detention Center (Assembly Center). Kay mentions this in her Thanksgiving letter to him in 1942. Schools that had military programs, such as the Japaense Language School at University of Colorado, Boulder had a policy of not allowing any Japanese Americans in enroll. This policy reflected the sentiment towards Japanese Americans as a suspect group. To learn more about the context of Colorado (including the Japanese community that settled there since the early 1900s and the incarceration camp built in Granda).

The rest of Ted's family went on to Jerome, Arkansas. Ted was interviewed in 2011 about his experiences by Paul Watanabe of the University of Massachsuetts Boston research project: Confinement to College. The Yamashita siblings’ stories show the wide variety of outcomes. Some were able to secure jobs and leave clearance to leave. Others were not able to do so.

The National Japanese American Student Relocation Council was formed by the American Friends Service Commitee (the political organization of the Friends or Quakers). Kay Yamashita worked for the council, communicating with colleges to find out which colleges were open to receiving applications and accepting Japanese American students. While there was a ban on universities that had military operations or relationships, other colleges would not accept Japanese American students based on their own discriminatory decision-making or preference. Kay helped students in other camps prepare their applications, transcripts, cover letters and corresponded with students who were accepted into schools and going through the process of trying to get cleared by the War Relocation Authority to travel to school. The council helped around 5,000 students (Kay writes in letters of the 1970s about this work). The American Friends Service Commitee conducted oral history research on this aspect of their history in the 1990s and transcribed an interview with Kay Yamashita that also serves as a life history oral history interview as well. 

From Incarceration to Farm Labor

Chiz' husband, Ed Kitow, received leave clearance from Topaz Camp to work on a farm in Idaho. We know about this from references to the family by Kay in letters. Ed had experience running a large farming operation of Lettuce and Cantaloupes in Calexico by the U.S.-Mexico border. Chiz had worked as a nurse after receiving a degree at U.C. Berkeley. (Did she help out with the farm operation before?) When they settle in Idaho, she cooks for the farm workers there.

Kay writes that after arriving in Utah, male inmates were immediately being solicited to work in the sugar beet industry because of the work shortage. Paid 70 cents a day after housing and food payments.

Densho Encyclopedia writes that the agricultural worker shortage led to the first forms of clearance to leave the camps ahead of the creation of the loyalty questionnaire which tabulated loyalty based on cultural traits, closeness with Japanese culture, religion and language use. Japanese Americans were a significant segment of the agricultural industry, involved in all levels of agriculture from truck farming to citrus to gardening. The fact of agricultural leave clearance emphasizes the On the one hand, Japanese Americans are seen as likely to commit treason and possible attacks on American soil, and they are also necessary for the production of food in a time when there is not enough of a labor force to harvest the fields. This double standard of not being loyal enough to deserve to remain in their own communities and jobs and loyal enough to harvest the fields in other states presents a comparison to other immigrant labor forces which are demonized for crossing the border without papers and yet make up a sizeable portion of the food production system which makes food so affordable or underpaid.

Gunned Down

Ironically, the same day that Kix shares in class that he is sad that his parents are leaving him, the class also discusses the killing of a detainee names James Wakasa.

Kay wrote about the growing pessimism and cynicism of young people in Topaz. She wrote to John on March 6, 1943 after he received leave clearance to go to Seminary in Evanston, Illinois with news:

"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."

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.

Kay describes the Formal Military Hearing which followed. The atmosphere was markedly different based upon the importation of soldiers from the War in the Pacific. 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 becahse they're real big) to ride with them ina 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 impresssion such a experience leaves in a small child is really no joke." She hears that the city of Delta despise the MP's, saying they are drunkard menace when they come to town.

A few of them, we are told by the Administrative staff are back from the Wars in the Pacifc- 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.

As an American, I can never shout and condemn Hitler- for we have it here in America. It's sad and I wonder about the future. I can only say I have felt and know-- and the confience of many of these people here must be won back by our U.S. before we can say much more.

The Question of Loyalty/ The Question of Assimilation

Elena Tajima Creef writes in "Imaging Japanese America: The Visual Construction of Citizenship, Nation and the Body,” about the Japanese American detainee's relationship with their stigmatized cultural and racial positioning and the nation's perception of their loyalty.

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).

The loyalty questionnaire that was distributed in 1943 divided the detainees. The questionnaire followed a period in which detainees applies for leave clearance to be able to move out of camp and take jobs in the Midwest or East. When the leave clearance form became mandatory, it was used as a loyalty questionnaire. The questionnaire was an attempt to quantify loyalty in terms of degree of adoption of Americanized cultural attributes such as protestant religion and boy scouts. By the same token it measured the degree of erasure of Japanese culture, such as knowledge of the Japanese language or attendance at Japanese language schools, or Buddhist or Shinto religious beliefs. The Provost Marshall Summary document in Sus' FBI file demonstrates how various numbered questions were tallied in terms of loyalty to the U.S. This document strongly suggests that a point system was in place that measured traits deemed American or loyal and traits deemed other. This point system was no doubt used to determine a detainee's ability to receive leave clearance but also segregation into Tule Lake camp for "disloyals". The measurement of loyalty in terms of cultural attributes is disturbing as it implies that cultural difference is related to disloyalty or treason.

Note that the Left Collumn of Sus' Provost General File tallies the "Americanized" or good qualities culled from the Loyalty Questionnaire. The Right Collumn tallies the marks against a detainee, Japanese cultural traits that were assumed to be points towards disloyalty as the WRA defined it. This lay out and marking of points implies that a tally system was used to measure loyalty.

Many did not know how to answer the questions #27 and #28 which asked all detained to forswear allegiance to the Japanese emperor (which would imply that they previously maintained allegiance) and if all detainees would be willing to fight in the war.

Ed Kitow had the confidence to change the wording of Question 28 and answered his own question which he carefully stapled over the question in the form. Did he know how to handle the bureaucracy? Did he wonder if his re-wording of the questionnaire would work? Is this a small cite of resistance? The wording of Question 27 was later revised by the WRA so as not to ask people if they would serve in the armed service.

And yet, there was substantial resistance to the demands put upon the detainees to prove their loyalty while their constitutional rights were witheld. Densho Encyclopedia summed up the response to the loyalty questionnaire in Topaz this way:

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.[7] 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."[8] Thirty-six inmates requested to leave for Japan.[9] 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.[10] 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.[11]

Separating "Loyal" and "Disloyal"

Kay only found out about the separating of "loyal" and "disloyal" detainees 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 her folks in Topaz 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 relocatin 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.

Detainees in the Utah camp (Topaz) wanted to get out and could only be given permission to leave if they were able to find work and get clearance from the War Relocation Authority and the higher authority of the Western Command. This process eventually included the roll-out of a controversial loyalty questionnaire which divided the detainees and led to confusion and fear. The loyalty questionnaire was analyzed by the Camp Administration and WRA to decide who should get leave clearance. WRA Files were kept in Washington D.C. and are there now in a National Archive.

Student-aged detainees applied to schools and tried to get financial aid. Colleges had to explicitly agree to take Japanese American students. Adults tried to look for work and get jobs outside of camp. The Yamashita siblings’ stories show the wide variety of outcomes.

Investigating Sus

Sus’ elementary and middle school education in Japan placed his loyalty to the U.S. in suspicion. He was repeatedly denied the ability to leave Topaz despite his college and graduate school education in the U.S., and the fact that all of his siblings had been given permission to leave Topaz. He was favored in his work for Mr. Lafabregue in the Welfare Department in the administration of Topaz, but companies were unwilling to hire him in any management position. He knew this would likely to true. He may have been unwilling to offer himself up to manual labor. When he started working on the hog farm at Topaz, it was in a bookkeeping position. He may have hoped he could translate into a farm manager position outside of camp, which unfortunately never materialized. He finally left Topaz in June of 1945 and settled in New York City.

Sus had been watched by the FBI since 1937 for his employment with Mitsubishi, the largest Japanese firm in the U.S. which produced engines for warplanes for Japan. Sus was groomed to join higher management despite the fact that top ranks were not open to Kibei or Nisei associates. His job was to buy and ship oil through an American firm to Southeast and East Asia.

Sus’ bosses were involved in promoting pro-Japan propaganda. After Japan forcibly invaded Manchuria, China, starting the Sino-Japanese war in July of 1937, an organization was formed in San Francisco (Jikyoku Iinkai) 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 treason for spreading pro-Japanese propaganda in 1942 and tried in Washington D.C.

An association with bosses sympathetic with Japan as a military power stunted Sus. As charming and useful as he proved himself among Topaz’ administrators, he could not find a job that matched his ambitions and skill set. He had made $25 per month ($300 annual salary) before the war, $16 a month in Topaz, and could not find any job during the war. Mitsubishi hired highly educated Nisei and Kibei for management positions when not many other American firms would.

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.'“

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.

Government Files on Family Members

Tom successfully left camp before even setting foot in Utah.

Bob and Kimi's son, Ted, was already attending college at the Washington University in St. Louis. Some siblings had more agency than others in being able to secure work and leave clearance.

John languished in camp. After being accepted to seminary schools, he waited for months for leave clearance from the authorities, at times losing hope that he would be able to leave. See John's War Relocation Authority File.

Ed Kitow would eventually get a job farming in Idaho, received leave clearance and moved there with Chiz, leaving their son Kiku ("Kix") in camp, who became quite lonely [Letter from Kay to Tom dated April 26, 1943]. See Ed's WRA File. See Chiz' WRA File.

Iyo would move with her new husband Min Tamaki, whom she met and married at Topaz. Min got a job in Chicago for a welding defense job. He was trained in pharmacy. They later moved to Philadelphia to join Kay who had moved there to work for Student Relocation after getting her leave clearance. [Source: Letter from Kay to Ted, April 9, 1943] See Iyo's WRA File.

Bob Ono who was raised in Japan and educated in the U.S., graduating from graduate school of the University of Oregon, got leave clearance to teach Japanese at the military intelligence school in Ann Arbor, Michigan. See Bob's WRA File. Kimi and daughter Martha applied to leave Jerome, Arkansas to join him in Michigan. See Kimi's WRA File.

Kay who worked alongside the camp administration through the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council (NJASRC) which was operated by the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers), had possibly the most agency in being able to leave by obtaining a leave clearance document. But her work helping student aged youth get into college compelled her to stay after some of her family were able to get out.See Kay's WRA File.

Tomi was able to eventually follow her kids. She wanted to join some of her kids who could afford to live with her. She may have planned to stay with Chiz and Ed in Idaho. [Letter from Kay to John dated April 21, 1943]. But her leave clearance was being denied in the summer and fall of 1943 at the time when most of her grown children were allowed to leave. Kay wrote in a Dec 16, 1943 letter to Tom in Chicago that she would try to pull some strings with Marvel Maeda in the Leave Section in Washington DC to get Tomi out of Camp. But by January 1944, Washington DC abandoned the leave clerance process "EDC" and allows Tomi to leave. Kay plans to puts her in a pullman car to Phillie.[Letter from Kay to Tom and John on Jan 4, 1944] But she heads first to Chicago to be with Tom and John.[Letter from Kay to Tom dated Jan 8 1944]See Tomi's WRA File.

Sus, being educated in Japan, was not given leave clearance easily and stayed in Topaz for much longer, almost the full duration of the war. He applied to farming jobs but was turned down, possibly because of his high level of education in business. The authorities were suspicious of his employment at a Japanese firm in San Francisco, Mitsubishi, which was involved in building war planes. See Sus' WRA File. See Sus' FBI File.

Proximity to a Caucasian

To be able to apply for leave from camp was a complicated process involving many background checks and at least some closeness to a Caucasian and ideally a history of being active in mainstream American institutions and fluent in American culture and attitudes. An inmate/ internee needed some good references. 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.

The federal government kept files on each internee and added letters that they received from friends of internees. When applying for leave clearance, internees named five references. Letter writers often described their Japanese American friends as close or similar to white people, likely prompted by specific questions from the WRA. Was a determination of loyalty linked to a perceived proximity to whiteness?

Margaret Rohrer wrote to Dillon S. Myer, the director of the War Relocation Authority about her friend 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."

Not Good Looking But Well Groomed

Recommendations letters or character witness letters for Kay Yamashita that were sent to the War Relocation Authority all recommended Kay's abilities. And a number of the recommendations commented on her physical appearance. Kay was very close to the people she considered her friends on the outside, and most likely would have been mortified to read these letters of recommendation. Did she place more faith and good will into her friendships than she received? Or were comments about appearance commonplace when recommending a female for any position? These excerpts provide an uncomforting look at Kay's friends putting it bluntly and divulging their opinions on her worthiness, her patriotism, and her appearance.

Sylvia Sorenson wrote, "Kiye is not a good-looking girl, but dresses in very good taste and is well groomed. The charm and friendliness of her personality overcome any possible negative impression she might at first make."

Josephine Duveneck wrote, “She is outgoing and friendly in her contacts and makes a very good impression, although she is not particularly good looking.

Leila Anderson of the Young Women’s Christian Association writes, “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.

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."

In another letter, Josephine Duveneck somehow found it necessary to again comment on Kay’s appearance, writing “She is a thoroughly American girl, bright outgoing, not pretty, but attractive because of her animation and friendliness.

If Kay were to ever read this letter, she would have been mortified. Kay and Mrs. Duveneck had a warm relationship and correspondence. Here are two examples: One letter from March 6, 1943 from Mrs. Duveneck to Kay remembers a time when Kay visited her at her ranch. She wrote to Kay again in October 1943 and on Easter. Kay's letter to Mrs. Duveneck on December 24, 1942 relays recent events including the case of a man who left Topaz during an authorized picnic in order to commit suicide. He was found by the authorities. These letters indicate that Kay had formed relationships with these women and shared stories of her day to day life, updating them on injustices and also her own experiences.

What does it indicate that Kay was sharing a friendship and sharing her experiences with these women who also wrote characeter witness statements which the government used to determine if and when she could leave detention? What does it show about the social dynamics of this period that so many of these letters make references to her perceived level of beauty? In writing a letter to the government, these friends and confidantes of Kay felt the need to remark on whether or not Kay was pretty. This may reflect on the level of importance that beauty carried in professional relationships, considering that this remark consistently appeared in letters about Kay's perceived loyalty to the United States. This segment of the exhibit explores the inter-related nature of the social contexts of Kay's friendsips; Kay found refuge and support among these women. She also experienced (whether aware or unaware) an underlying power difference, wherein her white friends had the ability to vouch for Kay's patriotism and had the arrogance to pass judgment on Kay's beauty as it related to the standard of women's beauty of the day (which notably were white standrads of beauty).

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