Day of remembrance: Part 3
| By Paul Kusuda In Asian Wisconzine’s February issue, I began my discussion about February 19, 1942, the Day of Remembrance for many Japanese Americans. Those who have personal memories are rapidly declining in number. Ten weeks after the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the forced evacuation of more than 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry from the west coast states of California, Oregon and Washington. Of interest to me were two phenomena. First, there was no disturbance or violence by those forced to leave their homes to go to places of confinement called camps. Obviously, acts of defiance would have jeopardized national security — armed forces would have to be deployed to quell any such uprising. Second, there had to be self- identification. After all, who could differentiate among Asians as to who was Japanese and who was Chinese (who were our allies), Filipino, Korean, etc? So, we went to an unknown destination, also not knowing for how long we would be there. We went because our government said we had to go. We had all kinds of feelings — bewilderment, abandonment, bitterness, surprise, fear, betrayal, being trapped, anger, curiosity, abandonment, etc. Our family of five (duly equipped with a family identification number and individualized designation — mine was 3390a) arrived at the Manzanar Relocation Center in desert country near Death Valley, Calif. We saw the American flag, but we also saw armed soldiers (with bayoneted rifles) who greeted us without smiles. We knew it wasn't going to be fun. It wasn't. We were directed to a 20 ft. by 100 ft. barracks building divided into five sections called "apartments." Each apartment was 2 ft. by 20 ft. and had one door and four windows. Each apartment was to house a minimum of seven people until ongoing construction was complete and additional barracks were built. So, our first apartment was 19-9- 3, Block 19 (of 36), Building 9 (of 14), Apartment 3 (of five). Our family consisted of five members, so two others (a single mother and a teenage son) shared the area. Fortunately, additional barracks were built in two to three weeks and the other family moved to another apartment. Later, we moved to 33-3-3, a building that was divided into four apartments rather than five. We were shown to our apartment by "old-timers," that is, those who had preceded us by a week or so. The apartment contained very little in addition to what we had been able to bring with us. We saw a small oil-burning stove — no central heating, of course. That was a new thing for us because in L.A. we were used to gas-fired heat. However, my father figured out how to light the stove and where to pour the oil. We piled our stuff on the floor after seeing seven wood-slatted folding cots, each with two brown woolen blankets marked U.S. and an empty bag. There were no chairs or other furniture items. We had brought sheets (as instructed), and the first thing my parents did was to use string and safety pins to create a makeshift wall to divide the room to enable some privacy. Then we all had to go to a central location to get injections to protect us from typhoid fever — a wise but somewhat painful move. Following that, we found out how to use the canvas bags. We each filled one bag with straw. Then, when filled and zippered closed, it became an identifiable mattress — top, bottom and four sides. Very clever. The first night, we all went to sleep on the straw-filled mattress and awoke to find ourselves on a partially-filled canvas bag, feeling the wooden slats that topped the cots. Being city folk, we failed to consider how much straw packs down. (Later, I thought, ‘Thank goodness we got straw instead of hay.’) My mother, obviously wiser than the rest of her family, packed her mattress to the point of overfilling it. She almost rolled off it at night; however, in the morning, she woke up after a night of comfortable sleep. Her bag had morphed into a mattress instead of an almost- empty canvas bag. For me, filling the bag was an excruciating ordeal. I had hay fever which turned into asthma. So, I filled my bag, sneezing away and trying to wipe away my voluminous nose drippings. What a picture I must have made. Anyway, after we got up, we all went to the mess hall (a double-barracks building) for breakfast. It was not bad, I thought. And for free! Lunch was not fancy but palatable. Then, dinner — what a shock! The administration, with good intentions but little knowledge or "smarts," had to plan menus for Japanese (overlooking the fact that two-thirds of those incarcerated, were U.S. citizens born in the United States). Geography and other information sources showed that the Japanese came from an island country where fish and other ocean products were the main staples of their diet. Based on skimpy knowledge, and wanting to show awareness (now called cultural sensitivity), administration meal planners distributed barrels of fresh squids and baby octopi to the mess halls. Interestingly enough, some of the older folks considered boiled squid a special treat. Most of us didn't. Very unappetizing is a World War I aluminum mess kit (featuring an attached swivel handle) filled with a glob of mashed potatoes, a scoop of boiled white rice, a few tablespoons of jello, and a boiled squid — tentacles and all. By the way, when squid or octupi are boiled in saltwater, they expel a purple fluid, so the non-partitioned plateful of food also had a salty purple base. Mess halls were aptly named. What a reception! After that, a lot happened in Manzanar. I was there for a little more than a year, but my parents, my older brother, and younger sister had to stay about two years longer. I relocated to Chicago where I found a job (actually, I went through a series of jobs) at 50 cents per hour; in several months, my pay was 62 ½ cents per hour. That's a brief and incomplete story about how the Day of Remembrance, Feb. 19, 1942, affected one family. However, the experiences did not sour us to U.S. citizenship, democracy, patriotism, etc. Many of us, however, did wonder about justice for all. |