In most societies, it is the middle-aged group who are the leaders and the doers. That generation was missing from our society because back in 1924 Congress passed an Asian exclusion act, which stopped all immigration of Asians to America.
As a result, we had a discontinuous population -- men in their sixties and seventies, women in their forties and fifties, and teenaged children. Only those born in this country were citizens. Most people don't realize that the Naturalization Act of 1790 limited citizenship to only "free white persons," (and following the Civil War, the act was successfully challenged on behalf of blacks). The only non-white racial groups that were left were "Asians" and thereafter, though Asians could immigrate to the U.S., all were excluded from citizenship eligibility.
CONTINUED BELOW
The author's grandnephew Chris Nomura (left), the author's favorite sister Yosh, and her son Robert Hasegawa.
The Chinese were the first Asians to be excluded from immigration by a series of Chinese Exclusion Acts in 1882-1888. By 1923, an immigrant from India attempted to gain citizenship by arguing that he was Caucasian, but the Supreme Court changed the definition of "white" to a popularly held definition and excluded him. Just to make sure that everyone understood, the Immigration Act of 1924 was passed and it expressly barred entry of "aliens ineligible to citizenship" from immigration, which meant Japanese and other Asians. It was not until Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1965 that race was finally removed as a factor.
But beginning in December of 1941 and within two months later, the FBI rounded up and jailed those Japanese leaders we did have in our community. They were mostly teachers, businessmen or journalists. We were left voiceless in America. Politically, we didn't exist since we had no one to champion our cause.
The climate of hate had provided an opportunity for special interest groups who jumped at the chance to remove us as competition and at the same time acquire our land holdings. We were powerless to stop them. Only the young and the helpless were left, and we were easy to bully, round up and put away.
My mother, who was a remarkably strong woman, simply accepted her fate. She felt that, as a mere guest in this country, she had no rights. Furthermore, she wished us to do what the government wanted done.
Mizuko, my mother, didn't hate being there the way I did. She had survived thirty years of hell, always wondering where her next meal was coming from. Now her life was relatively easy, for she did not have to worry about food, rent and other living expenses. It was like a vacation for her. She taught illiterate women how to read, others how to knit and crochet. The latter were skills she had abandoned since her youth. But now she had the time for such leisure activities.
From the time of our arrival, I brooded over how to get out of this prison. At that stage of my life, I hadn't given much thought to my rights. I was one of the helpless and ignorant. I just did what I was told and was forced to waste my life in ignominy.
MIGRATORY FARM LABORERS
Rupert, Idaho
Because of wartime labor shortage, we were encouraged to find jobs and "relocate" away from the coastline. But this was a Catch 22 situation. We had to have a bona fide job offer from someone, a clearance from the FBI and an approval from the office of the commanding general responsible for our new area of residence. Since most of us were uneducated, unskilled and inexperienced, the prospects for a job were very slim. The paperwork took so long that employers lost interest and the offer of employment disappeared. I was trapped, so I quit trying.
I was saved from doing something stupid or dangerous by the announcement that we could volunteer for farm work. A huge labor shortage developed in Idaho, Utah, Montana and Colorado as farmers lost their workers to the war effort.
In desperation, the farmers were turning to us for help. We, in turn, were being offered a chance to venture outside the barbed-wire fence.
The words "migratory farm laborer" conjure images of impoverished people moving from farm to far doing menial, backbreaking work. That, and any other demeaning impression you may have about this work is probably correct. Our farm work was to be done under the supervision of armed guards. We were also told that we would return to camp when the labor shortage abated.
The people who do this work are doing so because they have no other alternative. I did have a choice, but the idea of breathing "free air" under any circumstances seemed far superior to being incarcerated. So, in 1942, at the age of nineteen, I volunteered without hesitation.
The farmers knew all about stoop labor, and they weren't about to volunteer. But ninety-one of us city folks decided to take our chances. Later, the local paper reported our mission and printed some statistics about the group. We ranged in age from nineteen to sixty, and averaged fourteen years of education. We fit a typical cross-section of society with mostly good people and a sprinkling of poor workers, troublemakers, and one who turned out to be a petty thief.
We boarded a bus in Manzanar, which took us to Rupert, Idaho, a farming community of 1,500. Rupert had a movie theater, several stores and incredibly, fourteen churches. The founding fathers must have had huge religious differences to spawn so many churches. I think they had visions of explosive growth. Now two ghost towns, Campbell and Paul, flank Rupert.
At first we lived in tents. At 6:00 a.m. we stood in the street where farmers looked us over and then made their selections. The old and the frail were chosen last, if at all. One farmer confided that he never hired men with gloves. He reasoned that anyone concerned about getting his hands dirty could not be a good worker. The scene was reminiscent of buyers looking over a group of homes or slaves before the auction.
To avoid these daily humiliations, and to give everyone a fairer chance to work, we began contracting ourselves in groups of five or six men. For the first week or so, disagreements kept the group memberships in constant flux. But gradually sttable teams were formed and the troublemakers were forced to work as loners.
I became a member of a group of six led by Taka Nishi, a young, bright and energetic worker with aspirations of becoming a writer. He was shrewd and articulate, which enabled us to get better than average contracts.
We got along well except for Aoki and Shintaku, two men in their fifties, who hated each other. They snarled and insulted each other continually, but they tolerated one another because both were hard workers and assets to the team. While Shintaku was round and very close to the ground, Aoki was just the opposite -- tall, skinny, and stoop shouldered. His profile reminded me of the mummy of Ramses II now at the Cairo Museum. Shintaku had a piercing voice and he claimed proficiency on the biwa, a Japanese string instrument. Aoki disputed this musical skill with much scorn. He said little and, when not taking shots at Shintaku, was morose. To maintain peace, we developed the art of interposing ourselves between these enemies.
My best friend was George Murakami. Flabby and round-shouldered, George wore glasses so thick that his eyes disappeared into tiny dots. Before the war, he had attended UCLA, specializing in semantics. During off-hours, he gave me an excellent education in the English language by teaching me the etymology of many words. Though a good guy, George suffered from one terrible defect. He could not swallow water with his head tilted back from the communal jug. As a result, he always let his "slop" go back into the bottle. We'd look at his contamination with disgust and shocked disbelief. Then, in unison, we would shout, "George, you bastard, drink last."
"I couldn't find it," she replied. Five years later, that check turned up in her suitcase.
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