Many times in the history of our country, dominant, bigoted elements have whipped up hysteria to stifle and regiment the thinking and behavior of the vast populace. Fear stalked the land then, a country proud of its democratic heritage, as non-conformists were arrested and thrown in jail, all in the attempt by the ruling elements to quash criticism and control the thoughts of the people.
Such was the time of the Alien and Sedition Acts when Thomas Jefferson himself was labelled a foreign agent. A great democratic movement was shaking France then, as the rising capitalist class took over the government from the feudal nobility.
Such also was the time after the First World War when the Palmer raids were conducted by G-men (FBI) and jails were crowded, especially in the eastern states. A great revolution was going on in Europe, particularly in Russia where the Tsarist government was removed and replaced by a government of workers, peasants and intellectuals. Here too, feudalism was wiped away and the Soviet Union moved on to Socialism.
Such also, is the present period, following World War II, which awakened the consciousness of colonial peoples for independence and a better life of decency, equality and human respect. Many nations participated in the struggle against the Axis powers and the colonial and semi-colonial people who took up arms on our side learned to fight against imperialism. While they resisted Japanese or German imperialism during the war, when the war was over, they resisted in like manner, the return of the British or Dutch or French rulers again to exploit them and the natural resources of their land.
As Supreme Court Justice Douglas and many others prominent in our country have said, this is a period of great social revolution. Today, imperialism is at its twilight stage. Korea, Indo-China, Malaya, Iran and the present conflict in Egypt are all part and parcel of the struggle of a billion colonial or semi-colonial people for control overt heir own lives.
And today there is hysteria again in our great country of democratic traditions, which grew out of a revolution to free people of the 13 colonies from despotic British rule.
Because our country grew out of such a struggle for freedom and because of the movement for liberation inspired under Roosevelt's administration—particularly during World War II— it was natural for colonial people to look to the United States for support in freeing themselves from British, French or Dutch rule after World War II. But the leaders of our nation—the dominant business and financial groups and their errand boys in government—are interested in the natural resources and cheap labor of the colonies and semi-colonies controlled by Britain, France and The Netherlands. If the people become free and independent, the profiteering would end. Such is the threatening condition in oil-rich Iran today, or rubber-rich Malaya.
Imperialism Means War; Freedom Means Peace
To keep down or destroy the aspirations of these freedom-seeking people, the imperialist powers use force against them. Thus, today imperialism means war and freedom and development of colonial areas means peace.
In such a time it is very unpopular to speak out for (peace. Only two weeks ago, peace was ruled in a Federal court as not being a "subversive" or foreign movement dangerous to the United States. This was a decided victory for freedom-loving and freedom-seeking people. People generally are afraid to speak for peace in this country today because this word has been labelled "subversive" and stigmatized by leaders in government.
Fear Stalks the Land Again
Now, as during the period of the Alien and Sedition Acts and the Palmer raids, fear stalks the land again. People who do not conform to the "cold" war, "contain communism" thinking, are arrested and jailed. The constitutional right for bail is even denied, as in the case of 15 Smith Act victims in Los Angeles. These arrests are only the beginning of further mass arrests if they are not stopped by an aroused populace.
None of the numerous Smith Act victims are charged with any overt act against the country. But their arrests and trials are employed to silence opposition to the unpopular war program and to whip up war sentiment, something which is essential to continue an "emergency" economy that brings high profits to the big industrialists and financiers. And in order to create such a hysterical atmosphere, the propaganda is directed against the Soviet Union, communism and socialism.
If we were to conduct a vote among the world's billion non-white colonial and semi-colonial people, I am sure that they would not express the alarming sentiment against the Soviet Union, propaganda which the administration directs at them through the Voice of America. They look for support from any nation and the record shows that the Soviet Union is on their side. I am sure they would tell us that we ourselves, have strayed far from the spirit of '76.
Evacuation Came During a Period of Hysteria
In the spring of 1942 when 110,000 of us, all of Japanese ancestry, were put behind barbed wire and watch towers, we also, were not charged with any overt act or crime against the United States. Hysteria had been whipped up against us, with lies drummed by the press and radio.
And this was another period of hysteria within our country when so many of us were summarily locked away—and for what? At that time the dominant racists and vested interests who wanted to grab hold of alien and Japanese American property and businesses, made it appear that we were dangerous, and so many Americans came to believe this.
The night of April 2, 1942, when our bus entered the barbed wire compound of a mile square which was to house 10,000 people, I wondered when we would get out of Manzanar Relocation Center. I wondered whether people outside who believed in civil rights would raise their voices and fight for us. One of my friends who had studied in Japan, told me that we might be shipped to Japan after the war. His wife, who was to give birth to the first child born in Manzanar, listened quietly, showing all the signs of exhaustion after the 13-hour trip from Los Angeles.
We Were All Alike, Rich and Poor, Weak and Strong
My longshoreman friend from San Francisco was already at Manzanar, having arrived there in an earlier contingent. He greeted us and helped us stuff our mattress sacks with straw. We registered at an office and were given numbers. Then we walked to the tar-papered barracks assigned us.
I was thrilled by the sight of people working together, strangers thrown together. The early volunteers helped new arrivals to get settled. No one could miss the spontaneous unity of feeling, the common struggle of displaced persons to make a go of this existence. For the moment we were all alike, the rich and the poor, talented and untalented, strong and weak. I thought, that as we build this community on his dry, forsaken land, we would find grooves to fit into. We would discover new interests and nurture hopes of passing through the gate in the barbed wire fence on our way out of this imprisonment.
"I've Lost Everything I Had"
I walked into the small barracks room covered with dust. with wind whistling in from between the rafters and the walls and from the wide cracks in the flooring.
Four old bachelors walked in with their straw-filled mattresses. We introduced ourselves.
"Where are you from?" one of them asked me in Japanese.
"From Hawaii, originally," I answered.
"You have a home then. At least a place to go back to some day," he said with an encouraging smile. "But your home is far away."
"For the time being, this is home for us," I said.
"Mine, too." The old fellow half-closed his eyes, shook his head sideways and said softly, as though he were talking to himself, "I've lost everything I had."
"We'll make out all right. We all will," I tried to encourage him.
We walked out into the darkness and my longshore friend yelled: "Watch out for the ditches. A guy broke his arm the other night."
Natural Prison Walls Outside Barbed Wire Fence
When I opened my barracks door shortly after dawn the following morning, I saw in front of me a gigantic, harsh granite wall which soared into the sky a few miles to the west of our concentration camp. This was the Sierra Nevada range, stretching north and south for miles and miles. What a chilling image! It looked dark and foreboding, like a giant bat with wings outstretched, watching us from aloft.
I had never imagined I would see the highest mountain in the United States under such circumstances. To the south of us was Mt. Whitney, 14,500 feet high. Much closer, about 10 air miles away, stood Mt. Williamson, almost as high. The grandeur of these lofty summits did not fascinate me as I had once thought they would.
In my grade school in Kona I had studied about them from beautifully colored illustrations and descriptive words in geography books. I had a tourist's view then. But at Manzanar, the Sierra) Nevada range was a natural barricade for us, outside the barbed wire compound. Early in the afternoon, the mountain range cast shadows over Manzanar, shadows that brought with them depressing feelings to hundreds of people.
A Prayer for Everybody
To the east of us rose the tawny, rolling Inyo and White Mountain ranges, running parallel with the lofty Sierra Nevadas. Owens Valley was a narrow strip between these two ranges, and our Manzanar was a point in this arid, semi-desert, bronze, sage-covered plain. Far to the north was Reno, the city of quick divorces, and south of us was Los Angeles, from whence we came.
As I stood looking at the granite giant from the doorway, I heard a woman in the next room praying to Buddha. How like my mother, I thought. With all the cracks and openings in the wall that ended halfway to the roof and had no ceiling to give privacy to occupants, I could hear the prayer very clearly. The woman prayed for her health, her family's well being and for everyone in camp.
Later on in the day, her daughter told me that her mother should not pray, for the FBI might arrest her. And the mother told me that she had prayed as long as she could remember and deeply regretted that fear of government reprisal had forced her to burn her Buddha and the tablets of the family dead.
To Protect Us From "Angry Americans"
One of my roommates woke me up as I was sitting in the doorway and asked: "Who do you think will try to escape from here?"
"I think no one here thinks of that," I replied.
From where I sat I could see the eastern and western ends of Manzanar. Military guards patrolled outside the barbed-wire fence and high watch towers were going up, equipped with searchlights whose powerful beams were to play over the camp at night, disturbing) our peaceful slumber.
A few days after we arrived in Manzanar, an administrative officer talked to those of us who lived in Block 10. He asked us not to complain but to cooperate, to be model evacuees so that the government would not make it tough on us. He said the newspapers had whipped up sentiment against us and that we were in no position to roam the country at large. He said that the watch towers and barbed wire fences were put up for our, own protection from "angry" Americans.
Common Struggle Against Physical Elements Banded Us Together
In the late spring the wind blew vehemently, frequently at suppertime when we stood in long queues. Dust moved like a thick brown wall at 40 to 50 miles an hour, so thick that we could not see the line of barracks across from ours. The rooms were constantly filled with dust and there was no use in cleaning.
Mothers carefully covered their infants' heads with blankets and hurried into mess halls where people lined between tables in twisting, endless queues, waiting their turn to be served. We could not see anything outside the windows but brown dust, which blew into the mess hall and formed a brownish skum over milk for babies and over our food like pepper.
People hurried through their meals. The morale was high for people who had suffered so much, sustained great losses in crops they had left behind, farms and property they had lost. We all got together to combat harsh physical elements of cold, wind and dust. We had almost no time to brood. The novelty of communal living took time and effort for adjustment. But all this was a temporary condition and we faced difficulties ahead.