Time of Fear

This was a Sunday the family was preparing for church. All of us saw the radio and also came on hysterical. That's us. The Japs the bombing Pearl Harbor. This is for real. So I went out and looked towards pro harbor and sure enough you can see up in the sky was full of smoke. Three aircraft flew right over us. Gray dove with red dots on the wings and I knew there were Japanese

and I felt that by the world. I had known I dreamt about and planned for it to come to a shattering end for Japanese Americans. The attack on Pearl Harbor marked the beginning of a long nightmare. The government ordered all Japanese Americans on the West Coast. More than a hundred and ten thousand people to leave their homes. The government said that it was for our good. Because if we had stay just on the ranch people would come and shoot us. Sixteen thousand men women and children were sent halfway across the country to a state that didn't want them. Most Arkansans had never seen Japanese-Americans and most viewed them as enemies of the state. It was scary to think when we go to bed that all these people are just so close to us and what they my day they were confined in

concentration camps. We were surrounded by barbed wire. They had to watch towers with armed American soldiers with rifles pointing in in Arkansas and in America Japanese Americans were prisoners of the U.S. military and the fear played out in a remote corner of the South. This is a forgotten story in the nation's unfinished struggle with the race. Major funding for this film was provided by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. Additional funding was provided by the Arkansas natural and cultural resources Council the Arkansas Humanities Council and the Department of Arkansas heritage.

Their nearly 1940s southeast Arkansas was one of the poorest areas in America. The land bordered the Mississippi River which flooded with devastating frequency. The people of the Delta battled rattlesnakes and diseases swamps and hunger the tiny towns of Jerome and roar were typical like many communities. They were sharply divided by race. There were certain things you couldn't do without getting into trouble if you were walking down the street and another person out to push

and why. Well walking. You moved alt to the side. Putting it in the papa perspective. You knew your so called plays. Most people black and white squeezed a living out of the land. Poverty meant many never finished school. War all went very well. Communication was a little scarce so a lot of people were probably Moet and raised and never got over 50 mile mo. We did not have electricity we had no indoor plumbing we had to save our rainwater mostly it was a subsistence living. OK any good after you pay you know your expenses for the crop and everything there were very little

is a girl I just didn't realize that we were that Pawar. Or it seemed like the world had passed the region by now. But on December 7th 1941 the attack on Pearl Harbor threw terror into the most remote corners of the country. More than they were frightened that they would come and bomb our small town and my brother and I would talk about it by ourselves. What if that happened what would we do. Where would we head. The day of the attack the government wanted to show a decisive response and calm the nation's fears in front of the newsreel cameras. The FBI began arresting Japanese American leaders up and down the West Coast. They just fed sacked our entire house. They went through everything and we don't know what's

going on and then my mom is crying and then I start crying. We all cry. And then they said to my dad that he would have to go with it. And they told him to just bring his toothbrush. I remember three big white CH trapping FBI agents coming to our house questioning us searching our house and then taking my father away. We were totally intimidated. My dad he had time to tell us anything. They just took him away and that was it. More than twelve hundred man were detained without charges. The FBI arrested community leaders prominent businessman persons who seemed to have an association with the Japanese consulate. None of these people had charges against them but they were prominent.

They were nationals of Japan. They were subject to the Japanese emperor for weeks the police search for radios transmitters cameras anything that could prove collaboration with Japan. Parents were scared. They go too far in the front yard. They burned all their family pictures and failings and stuff like that and want to take any chances if they got to get it. My mother started a big bonfire in a studio about and everything that just got thrown in there. Pictures that came from Japan and letters that she had kept and treasured from family and everything was just thrown in the fire needs time she had to throw something away she said My God she's had this so long

many older Japanese Americans had lived in the U.S. for decades. They had left Japan in the late 19th century settling in California Oregon Washington and the white. They worked as fishermen and farmers they produced miracles on land that no one else wanted when they had made a little money they invited young women from their hometowns to come to be their brides. This first generation of Japanese immigrants were called Ysaye.

They built communities infused with traditional values of honor and the BDA answer to authority. It was a community within a community. We had our own banks. We had our own churches. It we had own doctors. There was a section that we weren't allowed to go out of. We were kind of understood that you know from K Street to Broadway and from maybe about 7th Street down to first street that that was our area. The mantra of that he said was called don't want to apply meaning for the sake of the children and it doesn't matter who the parents were. They all agreed that their whole life was based on what would happen

to their children. Parents try to show by their actions what they want. So they worked hard and they would say you work hard no matter what. Hard work did not bring acceptance. Their success in farming and business made white competitors jealous and vindictive. Federal and state laws prevented that you say from owning land or becoming citizens. Their children called me say were American citizens by right of birth but they too are often treated as outsiders and we call our parents telling us we have to do well in school because we would have to be twice as good as the next student in order to get jobs get an education and so forth so we

were well aware that we were as we say not quite. Not me I learned on the Pacific coast. This is a defense against any possible invasion attempt in the tense atmosphere after Pearl Harbor. Many thought Japan would strike again. Fear and hatred of Japanese-American soared to new heights. California farmers complained they came into this valley to work and they stayed to take over. You were called Jack. No matter where you went. And you know when my friends would talk they would say Jack all the time and I'd be there. And and I didn't say anything because I felt so bad I just wanted to hide. If all the Japs were removed tomorrow we'd never miss them and we don't want them back when the war ends either.

Newspapers betrayed a racial stereotype of the Japanese for that they were untrustworthy that they were devious and that they were kind of there in case of war. Military commanders in California share that view. They saw all Japanese-Americans as potential collaborators. They wanted to round them up and remove them from the West Coast. In spite of a complete lack of evidence it was they argued a military necessity. There was not one federal indictment of the Japanese and United States or Hawaii for espionage illicit ties not one single case. But it didn't matter in Washington there was little opposition to rounding them up.

In February 1900 to President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9 0 6 6 it authorized the military to designate areas from which certain people could be excluded. In Oregon Washington and California all Japanese-Americans were ordered to register their families and prepare to leave their homes. When I asked my parents why are we being so victimized. And they said well it's the war and we are Japanese. The government asked us to do it. We bonded to show the Americans that we are Americans and that we are not dangerous people and that if this is what you want us to do well we'll go along with it. We have a saying it's she got talking and I means it can't be helped.

And also this other word Amman you know which means OK your there with it. And so primarily that's what we did. Well we had no choice. It was strawberry time and we were all out picking strawberries. When I looked up and I saw some soldiers posting some sign on the post and there was notice that they would have 10 days to get ready to evacuate. My father was frantically running around trying to sell off as much as it could be handed to horses or I just gave him away practically. They just lost everything they had. I'm

going to say goodbye to all my friends only one teacher stopped my English teacher and she said I know you have to go but I want you to know that war is between countries in between people. And I always felt you know very I was really impressed with that. I always remember that still makes me kind of emotional. Stripped of their homes and their constitutional rights more than one hundred and ten thousand

Japanese-Americans surrendered to assembly centers nearly 40 percent were children. Seventy percent were American citizens. All prisoners behind barbed wire room in Washington D.C. The government didn't know what to do with the next President Roosevelt established the War Relocation Authority or w r re to manage the situation. He appointed Milton Eisenhower youngest brother of General Dwight Eisenhower to head the agency. The idea of women and children there. Eisenhower wanted the WRAF to be a resettlement project similar to government programs for the poor.

The Japanese-Americans would be sent from the assembly centers to new relocation camps inland. From there they would look for jobs and settle in areas away from the West Coast. The agency picked 10 sites for the camps. Two were in Arkansas near Jerome and ROE are they huge tracts of land abandoned and default for taxes. They were near rail lines and the government could easily acquire them. The governor of Arkansas was Homer Adkins. How Moroccans was furious with the concept of the federal government dumping Japanese-Americans in Arkansas. They thought that if they were a security threat on the west coast they could also be a security threat in Arkansas. He also feared their presence would upset the state's rigidly efficient segregation. I have kids with a very strong supporter of white supremacy and as

governor he did everything he could to make sure that prevail when Arkansas I was asked to take some of the inter Neath Atkins refused. As for the we're going to we're going to maintain the status quo most Arkansans white and black didn't want the camps either. There was a great deal of opposition to the Japanese-Americans being ok or until the Debian Ouray officials started waving money in the faces of local merchants and state leaders. They did extremely good job convincing the people that this would be a influx of jobs influx of money into their economy. Adkins relented but he insisted in writing on severe restrictions on the Japanese-Americans. He demanded that they be kept under military guard. They would not be allowed to work in the state. They would not be allowed to buy land. They would be removed from Arkansas at the end of the war

with the agreement in place that up to you are a hired local contractors to build the camps as fast as they could. When they started building the camps we stood looking at such a big camp and if they were going to put Japanese in their camp What was it going to do to our area. And then when they went out with the towers that were manned with guns. Well there was about ritually roar in the fall of one thousand forty two. After almost six months in assembly centers more than 16000 Japanese-Americans were ordered onto trains heading east to Arkansas. Boarded the train early in the morning and for four

days in three nights we all just say it was all cramped hot with cold going where and sitting up. And that actually was torture. I remember they're letting us out once out in the desert and the guards were there making sure that nobody runs away. Where could we run away to when it was out in the desert. There wasn't anything there. Who finally got their train just stopped in the middle of nowhere and I looked our home my gosh why are we stopping. And someone says I must be Jerome and I didn't see anything

it was just total boondocks. The locals were overwhelmed rower had a total population of only one hundred forty two people. Jerome just a hundred and twelve when the train started arriving with these people everyone was sitting around watching I don't think anybody worked for a week. There was a lot of fear in both communities. People saw any Japanese person as the enemy. We feared everything that was Japanese. We would sit on the front porch and with our binoculars and it seemed that they were just Julians of them only each trainload we had more population were arriving than was in our little town almost overnight. Jerome and roar became the fifth and sixth largest cities in the state. Really.

The camps were rough and still unfinished. They were divided into blocks each block housed about 60 families and had its own laundry showers latrines and mess hall. Families crowded into small spaces. You had to line up for everything you had to line up for breakfast line up for lunch or line up for dinner. For many the lack of privacy was a nightmare. That was the hardest thing to get used to.

There's a stall with maybe about 10 or 15 shower heads and there you are having to go take a shower so we still wait until about three o'clock in the morning. They thought circumstances were very to us humiliating. The w r a wanted the camps to be largely self-sufficient. Residents elected black managers to work with the administration. They helped organize the kitchens and mess halls supplies and shops. Health and Safety adults were encouraged to work and they earn token wages $12 a month. A lot of people want to work just to keep busy but also because they need a few dollars that we were paid they needed new shirts new socks. Working

in the untamed land of the delta was strange and intimidating Arkansas has that funny red clay and I mean you step into it and it's really good and we all had to walk to work and the work was like. Maybe a half a mile away and that was trudging all the way in that mess overgrown swamps around at the camps young and old cut down trees and drain the land. I worked as a lumberjack. We had to go out in the forests and cut down the trees and cut them to fire burning pieces. It was the first time I had been in setting like that. It got cold of course

it was swamp land so it was just messy. Before internment more than 60 percent of the adults had worked in farming as they cleared the land in Arkansas. They began raising vegetables and hogs to help feed the camp children attended makeshift schools. The w r a hired white Arkansans to help staff them and where to go or first of November. Forty two I was making less than 900 for the year. IRS or their civil service wages would be about $2000 for the year. Well that was attractive.

It drained a lot of your best teachers from Arkansas schools and there was an uproar from the it's a part of education and also from local schools that the best teachers were leaving and teaching in the incarceration camps Arkansans felt they were being cheated. The controversy was just the first to enrage the locals. They would get trying loads of food and mother fussed about but she said they get all the food and we get a food stamp that we can only buy five pounds of flour five pounds of sugar. The man in the community day could go out there and get stops for kitchens they could go and get slops by the bigs and there would be how old I am. Then there would be my very Ed and there would be fruit. Stuff that that we didn't have and I think there was no resentment no

mom part thing or anything else I had same. People were so angry that the new head of the w r a Dillon Meyer addressed the issue in a radio interview. What kind of food do they get. I heard they get a lot of bacon and things that the rest of us can't get. Just a minute after a rumor got started the people in the. Locations that are are subject to a marketing restricted at any one of these people don't get any more food than is available to the general public. But the complaints continued. They were given a hospital which we didn't have. They had schools which we had to travel to good was to go to school and it seemed like there was always some little something that they could get that we couldn't. And that's what kept the anger and people in. Inside

the camp life divided along generational lines of the say and you say parents tried to keep a sense of family and make a life for their children as normal as possible. Traditional family structures began to crack. The same men no longer able to provide for their families found themselves adrift. Up until then the father ruled the house and and we always did what we were told and we sat together and ate together everything.

Once we got into camp we had our own playmates and so when it came time to eat we sat with our friends in the mess. We never sat with the pads anymore. US teenagers all got together and ate together. The parents would sit with their friends and my father to not have control of us much as he did on the outside. And so life was much easier for us girls. I must say the camp experience was the toughest for the parents because they always cared about the future of the children and old they could seize on certainty. Darkness seems as if there was no way out. My mom she would spend a lot of time writing letters to my dad.

We got word that he was in Bismarck North Dakota and we were told to write letters to our congressman to plead that my dad be released. We didn't get any response from them at all. But we continued to write. I wanted so much for him to come back. The new sari in their late teens and 20s were bored resentful and anxious to leave occasionally

accompanied by camp supervisor. They got permission to go into time. Some of the Japanese men would come to the little store and there were a lot of people that would visit with them. They didn't like the fact that they were coming to their store. You know that was ours while we were walking on the street especially and they would just come straight out of us. We had to jump off the cycle. I mean that's how they did they let it be known that hey you know we don't want you here. In segregated Arkansas law there was no place for Japanese-Americans. We didn't know who had to sit in the front of the bus or the back of the bus and we kind of took the middle section says if we sit in the middle they can't tell where we belong. And I got on the bus like Sarah walked to the back of her post I recently got set up for her. It's only for blacks back there it on.

It was strange and very the feeling that you don't know where you belong. I don't understand it every time. I should have had my back. Many say were students who wanted to finish college. Virtually every college in Arkansas the college presidents had written to the governor and to the State Board of Education saying that they did not want Japanese-American youth in their colleges. The rationale they gave was that if they allowed Japanese-Americans into their colleges they would also have to allow African-Americans into the colleges. Those who wanted to find jobs faced the same stumbling blocks as a severe labor shortage in Arkansas. And there were in tourney who volunteered to work. They felt this would have contributed to the country.

The governor refused he would allow them to go in other states to work. But he would not allow them to work in Arkansas through civic and religious groups. The young people applied for jobs farther away. After passing multiple security checks the authorities allowed many to leave hundreds set off for new lives in strange cities. They worked in defense industries and government offices. They attended college. They worked as domestic servants and secretaries cast food you know was 70. I remember getting $50 semi-trained care one way train fare to Chicago. I felt very

strange when I left camp. It was such a sheltered life. And then going out on my own. Because you didn't know what to expect I mean but baby friendly you are what they try to harm you. You're throughout 1942 American troops deployed overseas and classified as enemy aliens. Did he say we're not allowed to serve in the military. You're now the government realize they would be valuable in the war effort. In January 1983 it approved a Japanese American fighting unit in Hawaii.

More than 10000 men volunteered. You're President Roosevelt made a statement saying Americanism is not a matter of blood and color American ism has always been matter of mind and heart and us when we responded. The new recruits form the four forty second Regimental Combat Team and trained at Camp Shelby Mississippi. They didn't know that just over the state line mainland Japanese Americans were incarcerated in Jerome and roller. People who wanted to leave can for a military or civilian job had to pass several different security clearances to simplify the

process. The w r a and the Army drafted a general loyalty questionnaire all in tourney's over 17 had to answer the questionnaire through the camps into turmoil. No one knew what would happen if they didn't give the right answers to questions especially inflamed them. First one was who served in the armed forces and I said No not unless you know we were free. Not on the circumstances for my parents. It was an excruciating decision. A country that first of all denies you naturalization and then because you happen to look like the enemy strips you of your property your freedom and all due process. And they want you to serve

in their military. Question 28 tortie say any say apart. It asked if they would foreswear any allegiance to the Japanese emperor. People have to answer a simple yes or no are you willing to forswear your loyalty to the Emperor. You know what to me foreswear never has had any loyalty to the Emperor. I thought how strange that you would even question our loyalty I mean you've just taken us out of our homes and and dumped us into a barren camp and and treated us like we were definitely second class citizens. So what the heck you know why all the questions. I'm an American I was born here I was educated you'd never been to Japan that this seemed to satisfy them. They kept pressing for no or yes after my father had

no real loyalty to the Emperor. But that's the country of his birth. They were asking him to be a man without a country. He answered no to both those questions. I decided that they were really interested in listening to people you know they're just going to make a classification. These are people who are loyal disloyal whatever. My father said we should all go back to Japan but we're born and raised here we've never been to Japan we don't even know Japan. And we said no we're not going to go. My stepfather said that he would go back to Japan regardless. My mother was caught in a dilemma and she left it up to me you know says that. How would you feel. I'm going to go where the children are going. And I told her very clearly that says he's us the Father we should stick by him.

My mother says I cannot go with my husband I cannot leave my children behind. And she ended up staying. I thought that that was terrible of him to leave my mother you know and I couldn't understand that. It just tore our whole family apart. In Jerome a small angry group persuaded 25 percent to answer no. The highest rate of any of the camps. Many of their fellow interned he's branded them as traitors. The government sent them to a high security camp in Tooley Lake California for eventual repatriation to Japan going to to the lake that had this it's feeling I'm just doing to for my family. But on the other hand I'm also taking my sister and brother along. You know that and they have very little to say about that. And then to leave

all the good friends that we made you know are very very sad. Emotional time in spite of everything that happened. The great majority of inmates answered Yes the young people became eligible for military service. I thought that perhaps if I volunteered for the army the government might give my father a chance to rejoin the family. And most important maybe this was one way to get the hell out of the camps. More than 300 men from Aurora and your own volunteered. They were sent to Camp Shelby and joined the 440 seconds. Soon the recruits from Hawaii clashed with the mainlanders over cultural differences.

Tonk was a word originally used derisively. It was an insult and it was to describe a mainlander. They could talk was a sound we used to laugh that whenever we hit them and they hit the floor it sounded quite dumb. And flights were erupting all over the area. It got to a point where senior officers seriously considered disbanding the unit. In the summer of 1940 three officers made a plan to bring the men together. They arranged for some of the Hawaiian soldiers to be invited for a social weekend at roar and Jerome.

It was a happy journey from Mississippi to Arkansas until we turned the band and we saw the formation of barracks and we assumed it was a military base where this one eyed Bob Wise all around with machine gun towers and calling us. And so we thought well we're passing a military base of some secrecy. But then the trucks turned in and we could see men and women who looked like us and the men who had been out of rifles standing by were not Japanese. They're all white Americans. Didn't take long to realize what this was. When we got back I

got the squad to go. I told them I'm going to tell you something. This is beyond belief and I just told them about what had happened. And I say you realize those could Tunks volunteered under those circumstances. And at that moment the regiment was formed. And we became the closest of friends. It was closer than being blood brothers. The four forty second was sent to Europe and fought in some of the toughest battles of the war. We didn't know what our future. This was the only country we knew this was home

and we felt that we had to take that chance of proving our loyalty. O purpose was a simple one to be looked upon and considered as Americans. We want to tell our neighbors you know we're good Americans and we'd like to be given the opportunity of demonstrating that if necessary with blood. The soldiers fought with the courage and heroism that astonished their commanders and turned them into legends. The 440 second one more decorations than any other unit of its size in the war. By 1944

security was relaxed at the camps for many children camp was fun. I never had so many friends like this and as a first time I felt like I was not a minority. It's kind of ironic. Well all in a concentration camp and now I feel like I'm in a majority. I actually had a very good time and I really liked it. Here is a country that for letting your true year old kid sit nurses lots of trees and lots of animals. Fishing hunting is paradise. We take long walks into the forest and

we cross the stream. Were you surprised there were somebody farming there. It cleared a tree and there were a fireman there just girls wearing gunny sack dress and they mostly rode horses to get out of there couldn't get any car you know out of there just like in the movies. Time and the growing reputation of the 440 second less and local hostility we have learned to know that trouble and therefore when they first come after there was a feeling of empathy if the people who became aware that these were people who Americans they were discriminated against because of the

color of their skin and ethnicity. By December 1944 the army had no justification for keeping people in camps. The Supreme Court ruled that loyal American citizens could no longer be incarcerated or kept out of California. The nearly eight thousand people who remained were free to leave for the third time in as many years. They had to build new lives. Some of the elderly he say didn't want to leave. They had lost everything and didn't know how they could start again.

And families stayed in Arkansas in the story the story of California. Eventually the only ones left for me here in Arkansas was good to us. But most did not want to stay in a state where they were never welcome. They fanned out to Cleveland Chicago and New York. Many returned to California. My folks the wobble going to leave again were going to go back to California. I was very sad that I was leaving all my new friends but I was kind of glad that I was coming back to California. I was very happy to leave because Arkansas meant nothing to me other than my place where the weather was strange the people were even strange to us because we didn't know them

and I didn't really have any happy memories in camp other than those we had met. The people of Jerome and roller watched them go without regret. The mother was very relieved when when they left because she said Now y'all can just go out and do whatever you want to do because I worry imagine you were getting hurt than Japanese. I am. Slowly the camp's disappeared into cotton fields. I look back today and want to hand the world. We arrived and it's such a fear of these people that were America and and and I'm truly sorry that we felt like

that. Four decades later the federal government finally apologized and blamed the wartime treatment of Japanese Americans on racism. Fear and a failure of political leadership. Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor a hundred and twenty thousand persons of Japanese ancestry living in the United States were forcibly removed from their homes and in 1988 during President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act. It awarded $20000 to each person who was interned and it offered a formal apology. The

apology lessened many people's feelings of anger and shame. But their experience continues to haunt them. The whole thing was irrational. It was racist and it was unconstitutional. We were fighting for democracy while at the same time betraying democracy. I think that's what troubles many people. We didn't do anything wrong. And yet just because of the color of our brains we were pinpointed and put into camps. And so we feel that it should never happen. And there have been times when I said to myself I wish I did not have to face. I have you know that has to do something

to a young chap. He's an American person and I thank God that I've reached this point in life where I'm proud of who I am. Major funding for this film was provided by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation.

Additional funding was provided by the Arkansas natural and cultural resources Council the Arkansas Humanities Council and the Department of Arkansas heritage. We keep yes.