Eighty years later, survivors recall life as innocent prisoners. 

Eighty years ago this month, on February 19th, 1942, President F.D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. My dad, Tad Munemitsu, had just turned 20 years old the week before. Executive Order 9066 commanded that all persons deemed a threat to national security living on the West Coast of the United States - including Japanese American citizens born in the US - leave their homes for “relocation centers” in remote desert wastelands.

Even though he was a US citizen, born in Southern California, he and about 120,000 other innocent Japanese American Nisei (second generation) citizens and Issei (first generation) parents living in California, Oregon, and Washington were now deemed a threat to national security after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. History would prove that there was never any spy activity by these US citizens and residents of Japanese heritage, but on that day, February 19th, 1942, Executive Order raised suspicion and falsely accused my grandparents and dad because of their name and the color of their skin.

Today, this little known part of history is given a brief sentence or perhaps a short paragraph in US history books, but when I was going to school, it wasn’t even mentioned. Tad’s story and the life-changing decisions he had to make are chronicled in my book, The Kindness of Color, but the sacrifice of these Japanese Americans is largely unknown and overlooked. Important for every American to know, their rights as citizens and innocent residents were taken away by the ink of a Presidential pen.

Produced in December 2021, I found it fascinating that France 24, a French state-owned international news television network based in Paris, France, would create this thorough and well-researched film on the Japanese American incarceration with interviews of camp survivors. France 24 obviously thought it worth telling this story and they have told it quite well in 18 minutes.

While my dad was 20 years old, the survivors interviewed in this film were young children during this time. John Tateishi, who was a young child at the Manzanar Camp near the Sierras of California recalls his mother taking him to the barbed wire fence and saying, “NEVER go past this fence” and when he looked up he caught the eyes of a soldier with rifle pointed at him, high up on a guard station. It was clear to him: he was a prisoner and would be shot if he ever got close to that fence. Although too young to fully understand the complexity of war and the politics behind the executive order, it was clear he was a prisoner who had committed no crime.

Another survivor, Amy Tsubokawa, was a young child at the Poston Camp, AZ - the same camp that both of my grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles were held at. Seeing the film and hearing her speak of her experience reminds me of what my parents shared about their horrific experience, loss of their freedom, separation from family & friends, not to mention their financial losses and college dreams burst as they left the only life they knew. While I never met Amy personally, I felt like she could be part of our family by her stories of a horrible shared experience, endured for 3 years of her young life.

This film is an excellent visual accompaniment to The Kindness of Color, as they show the rough barracks and tell of the difficult life was like in the camps, the ongoing hot and dusty conditions outside and inside the barracks as well as the bitter cold desert winds of winter. The views of Poston Camp bring back memories for me of a family trip in the late 1960s to see what was left of the barracks and buildings there. Not much is left now, but preservation of this historic site is underway so future generations will know this history.

As the years pass, a line in the film echoed in my mind when I heard it, “who’s gonna tell the story?” Many of the Japanese American Issei and Nisei said nothing or very little of their experience in the incarceration camps, likely because of emotional trauma or the burden of shame of being falsely accused. Most Americans don’t know of this past, yet France 24 of Paris, France felt it important to share and report it. It is that important!

Martin Luther King said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

So I’ll answer that question. Who will tell the story? I will because it matters. I will tell the story through my book and to anyone who wants to know. Will you join me? Share this story, this film, and my book with your family, friends, work colleagues, and neighbors. If you are a parent or teacher, please share it with your children and students. The best way to make sure this never happens again to any race is for the sad past history to be known and shared.

Through persistent lobbying over the course of many years by the Japanese American community and other allies for justice, progress was made on February 16, 1976, when President Gerald Ford formally rescinded Executive Order 9066, thirty four years after WWII ended. He wrote,

“We now know what we should have known then - not only was that evacuation wrong but Japanese-Americans were and are loyal Americans. On the battlefield and at home the names of Japanese-Americans…have been and continue to be written in our history for the sacrifices and the contributions they have made to the well-being and to the security of this, our common Nation.” (the Kindness of Color, p 162-163)

The history of February 19th, 1942 was finally redeemed on February 16,1976 because people shared the story and the wrong was made right. History does not have to repeat itself when we are unified to right the wrongs.

Watch live interviews at this link.

In the Press

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