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At JANM Conference, Tales of Endurance from the Interior Wes Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah talk about unique histories of JA settlements in the early 20th century.
DENVER.—Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe, Glendale, Denver, Clovis, Gallop, El Paso, Rio Grande Valley, Salt Lake City—these are not the places typically mentioned when Japanese American history is discussed. In spite of their distinguished stories and geographical proximity, the JA legacy is often restricted to the West Coast experience and the internment during World War II. A group of Japanese Americans and scholars from the above regions gathered in Denver, Colo. during the Japanese American National Museum’s national conference on Independence Day weekend to share their untold stories of their settlement and the discrimination they faced in the early 1900s. In 2005, a grant of nearly $1,000,000 was given to a 3-year project that will incorporate the JA history in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Utah into public school history curricula. Partially funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant, the collaborative effort includes academic institutions such as the University of Texas San Antonio’s Institute of Texan Cultures, Arizona State University’s Asian Pacific American Studies Program, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of New Mexico and the Davis School District in Utah. At the JANM conference, which was part of the project, “Enduring Communities: The Japanese American Experience in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Utah,” Art Hansen, a professor emeritus in History and Asian American Studies at Cal State, Fullerton and a historical consultant at the museum, mediated a panel, which carried the same title with the project. “These are not just the stories of one minority group,” Hansen said before introducing the panel. “They're the stories which are really at the heart of the American promise, and we need to document those and make them accessible.” The panelists representing the states included: Karen Leong, Japanese Americans in Arizona Oral History Project co-coordinator; Daryl J. Maeda, assistant professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder; Andy Russell, a Central New Mexico Community College history instructor; Thomas Walls, non-partisan Chief of Staff for the Oklahoma State Senate; and Nancy Taniguchi, an author and historian. Each of the panelists previously submitted an essay to DiscoverNikkei.org on the JA history in the five respective states. Arizona Although those who lived in the areas remained free from detention, they suffered more direct racial discrimination from the public. According to Leong, grocery and department stores would not serve them, and Japanese Americans could only enter Phoenix with a permit or if accompanied by a Caucasian American. Some farmers survived only on what they produced or had to rely on non-Japanese hired workers to represent them to sell their produce at the Phoenix market. Japanese Arizonans played an important role in supporting the relocation of the Californians to Arizona. After being released from the camps, many of them lived on the farms or in the homes of Japanese Arizonans, worked for them, and received assistance to rebuild their lives. Leong stated that the understanding of the inter-ethnic relationships is also critical when teaching the history of early Arizona. Since Arizona became a state only in 1912 and it was a relatively undeveloped state during the war, different minority groups had to rely on each other for survival. For instance, American Indians were deprived of their lands by the government to construct internment camps—Poston and Gila River—and forced to relocate. “Japanese American history, history of the internment is the history of Arizona. It's not just a history of one group, it changes the whole way of thinking about the Arizona history,” said the panelist. Cynthia Kadohata’s novel, “Weedflower,” which depicts a friendship between a Mohave Indian and a JA child at Poston, is suggested reading material for the project curriculum. Colorado Colorado is characterized by its absence of the alien land law most of the western states issued around 1920. Japanese Americans in Colorado began laboring on farms and eventually became independent farmers in the Arkansas Valley, San Luis Valley and in western Colorado near Grand Junction and Delta. After the outbreak of WWII, Colorado Gov. Ralph L. Carr welcomed Japanese Americans, and its population increased 15 fold in the Denver area during the war years. Also, its rural population tripled mainly due to over 7,800 JAs interned at Amache. The Amache internees operated an extensive agricultural system, which included over 500 acres of vegetables and crops and over 2,000 acres of field crops, along with cattle, hogs and poultry. Many of them worked on sugar beet farms outside Amache with seasonal passes. Over 150 JAs served as instructors at the Navy Japanese Language School in Boulder from 1942 to 1946. In the WWII era, Colorado bore one of the most prominent Nikkei journalists; James “Jimmie” Omura. Omura relocated from San Francisco and became the English-language editor of the **Rocky Shimpo**. His controversial position of supporting the draft resisters was later described as “arguably the most courageous and significant Nikkei journalist writing ever produced” by a historian. New Mexico Roy Ebihara, who was born in the Santa Fe Railroad’s segregated community, “Jap Camp,” in Clovis in 1934, shared his experience of “the exodus” at the Denver conference. “I have other brothers and sisters who are unwilling to talk about this. When we want to leave a legacy, when we want a legacy about our heritage, I think it is important one of us steps forward. So, here I am,” said the retired optometrist, who currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. Ebihara remembers that immediately after the Pearl Harbor, men from the Sheriff’s Department came to look for contraband. They took his father’s shortwave radio, a TV and killed the family’s German Shepherd. In January 1942, the Ebiharas and nearly 20 other Japanese Americans from the Santa Fe Railroad housing were taken to an abandoned and isolated Civilian Conservation Corps camp in Lincoln County by a vigilante group. There, the family spent the next 11 months living “like Robinson Crusoe.” “We, the kids, loved it,” Ebihara said. “It was like a vacation for 11 months.” “(Their stories) should not be ignored or marginalized by those who are interested in the western U.S. history and Japanese American Studies,” said Russell, who encouraged the audience to come to New Mexico for further, much-needed research on the region’s JA history. “(Japanese Americans in New Mexico) want people to know that they have their own stories before the war started and hardships during the war. They may not have been at internment camps, but they were fired and kicked out from their houses,” Russell continued. “Some of them asked to be in camp because they were starving.” Russell stated that although New Mexico has not been Anglo-dominated and been known as the “Tolerant State,” Japanese Americans in some communities, like Clovis, suffered physical and cultural isolation. On the other hand, in other cities, such as Gallup, the state’s tradition of toleration seemed to prevail. During the war, Gallup High School elected two Nisei class presidents. Texas During the war, Texas hosted three internment camps; Seagoville, Kenedy and Crystal City. They contributed to a huge increase in the Japanese American population in the 1940s. At its height, Crystal City housed 4,000 internees and more than two-thirds of them were Japanese. The anti-Japanese sentiment had calmed down partially due to the heroic rescue of the Texas Lost Battalion by the all-Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team. In order to save the lives of 211 Texans, the 442nd lost 200 Japanese American soldiers, with 600 more wounded. For this deed, the members of the 442nd were named as honorary Texans by the state and their legacy helped heal the wounds brought by Pearl Harbor. Utah Like other interior-western states, Japanese Americans in Utah suffered increased racism in the 1920s, but Taniguchi stated that the dominating LDS (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) culture actually helped JAs to fit in quickly. Both the Japanese and LDS traditions emphasized family, farming and community, plus LDS churches typically ask their followers to give up their previous backgrounds, communities to unite under their faith. LDS convert, Mike Masaoka moved to San Francisco to become national secretary and field director of the Japanese American Citizens League in the mid-20th century. He was a spokesperson to bring national awareness to the JA community outside the West Coast. During the war, the JACL headquarters relocated to Utah and brought its newspaper, **the Pacific Citizen** to the state. The group organized the National JACL Credit Union in Salt Lake City in order to help Japanese Americans whose assets had been frozen or restricted. Due to nearly 8,000 internees from the San Francisco Bay area to Topaz, there was a rapid increase in the circulation of the **Utah Nippo** from 600 to 10,000 during the war years. In 1947, Utah’s Wataru “Wat” Misaka was picked in the first round by the New York Knicks during the initial National Basketball Association draft and broke the professional color barrier. That same year, Mike Masaoka spearheaded intensive lobbying for redress, resulting in the 1948 Evacuation Indemnity Claims Act, which paid out $38 million of an estimated $400 loss. He was later chosen as the very first “J.A. of the Biennium” by JACL. |
