The Untold Story: Internment of Japanese Americans in Hawaiʻi - PBS Version (60 min)

[Music] while the story of the mass internment of Japanese Americans in California Arizona Oregon and Washington has been well documented over the years very little is known about the Hawaii internees and even less is known about the confinement sites located in Hawaii oh [Music] in 1885 larger numbers of Japanese began to immigrate to Hawaii to work on the sugar plantations they came in search of a better life by 1920 Japanese immigrants and their children made up 40 percent of Hawaii's population for many of the ese or first generation the dream of a better life was coming true but there were dark clouds gathering over the islands the nationality acts of 1790 and 1870 restricted Japanese immigrants from naturalization in 1922 the Supreme Court case Ozawa versus the U. S denied the ese U. S citizenship the ruling stated that Japanese immigrants were ineligible for citizenship because they were not of the Caucasian race the ISE would continue to be classified as aliens and then as alien enemies during World War II the sugar Planters were really in control of the economy and polity of Hawaii the military was a different entity and they were competitors they were competitors over land and competing interests but their interests their competing interests came together in the strikes that Japanese Americans engaged in one in terms of security the other in terms of Labor the military examine the Japanese Menace in Hawaii and they concluded that they couldn't identify those who would be quote loyal to the U.

S or disloyal to the U. S so they quickly then in the Summerall report moved to identifying leaders of the community rather than those who would be disloyal and it targeted them for detention in the event of War George Patton who was stationed in Hawaii during the 1930s also devised a similar plan this plan eventually got scuttled but it morphed into what is called the ABC list it contained an extremely detailed plan of arrest and Detention of different categories of Japanese issei at the same time the FBI was also Gathering Intelligence on the Japanese in the islands the FBI created the custodial detention list it became the initial list used to arrest the Japanese in Hawaii for internment [Music] engines Rose between the U. S and Japan and the possibility of War loomed but in Hawaii the Japanese immigrant issei and their children the nisei went about their daily lives I come from a family of nine including my grandpa who we call jisan and six of us children [Music] life was quite peaceful and very quiet because this was in Hale Eva My dad became a tailor although he had gone to McKinley High School and he was a high school grad he ended up becoming a tailor to help my grandfather we were not rich but we were not poor we had a good life [Music] my mother's father my maternal grandfather was tamosaku Watanabe he was appointed a counselor agent by the Japanese consulate partly because he lived in Ola and he was a minister the people who lived in the area needed help with various literacy issues counselor agents were not paid by the Japanese government it was primarily to help Japanese citizens and dual citizens Hawaii processed records of birth death marriage divorce with the Japanese government because of this affiliation with the Japanese government they were targeted for internment another group that was looked at suspiciously for being pro-japanese were the Japanese language School teachers like otokichi Ozaki osaki came to Hilo in 1917 at the age of 12 and then in 1924 I believe he was asked to teach at a Japanese language school which he did and he did that and was very well liked by his students when he and his family moved to amaulu Plantation which is a sugar Plantation he took on the task of tutoring the plantation kids in both their Japanese and English studies well my husband's name was kuniaki nishioka and then for the convenience of Living in America he was nicknamed Bob he was born July 1 1916 in Honolulu and when he was 12 years old his father decided to pull up stakes and return back to Japan and when he came back to Hawaii it was 1939.

he got a job at the initihonganji high school teaching Japanese language and he had just gotten into uh then the war broke out [Music] World War II I mean that is the most traumatic event in my life [Music] but that morning 7 50. it was a dormitory mid-back all of a sudden music stopped Hawaiian music announce that came out again this is a war and they are Hawaiian island under the enemy attack then we noticed that there are soldiers next to our house where the bridge was and they started shooting their rifles at the planes I remember seeing the newspaper which said war I said w-a-r it was some huge letters I mean I didn't know what that word was martial law was soon declared martial law means military control of a particular territory within the U. S and that civil liberties are the Constitution is suspended on December 7th 1941 arrest squads were mobilized the war department ordered the rest of all names on the FBI custodial detention list so as the smoke still Rose from Pearl Harbor these squads went to various districts in Hawaii not only on Oahu but all the other Islands locating those people to arrest them from my research there were 391 individuals who were arrested in Hawaii between those two days most of the cultural Sensei the principles of Japanese schools and Senior teachers were rounded up men who had status Business Leaders or Physicians Buddhist and Shinto priests were another large group arrested on December 7th and 8th over half the names in the custodial detention list were volunteer Consular agents like the Reverend tamasaku Watanabe or those performing councilor duties like the Reverend Paul osumi of Kauai I never asked my parents their thoughts and feelings of that day but I'm pretty sure my father was quite surprised that he was just arrested and he was taken to the wailua county jail in waialua the primary traits were leadership in the Japanese communities most marvelous kind of account of that was this publisher soga yasutaro and he describes how hearing the news of Pearl Harbor it filled him with Drad towards the evening he got ready he said he expected something to happen he had his shoes on and everything when three agents knocked at his door and they just said come with us and he said where am I going and they're not going to tell him they weren't going to tell him and his wife he says that she went out the gate whispered in his ear don't catch a cold [Music] and Sogo then was put into this car and there were other people and it's they stopped along the way to pick up others and he said the streets were all dark and deserted and there were centuries posted at various places and taken to the immigration station relieved of all of his personal belongings and then shoved upstairs into this room which is dark and he couldn't see anything thank you soga fumbled around in the darkness and eventually found a place to sleep he realized there were a large number of men locked in the room with him on the big island otokichi Ozaki experienced a similar fate so he was picked up the FBI agent said you might want to bring some clothes with you because you may be gone for three or four days so he was put into a Paddy Wagon and one by one other men would join him in the Paddy Wagon and then they took them to Kilauea military Camp he said the only thing that he was allowed to bring to the camp was his keys his wallet a handkerchief and a sweater across the territory of Hawaii on the islands of Kauai Maui Oahu and the Big Island similar arrests were taking place back at Kilauea military Camp Ozaki composes a tankapung I hikarayuk o and then the very next day they were lined up and he didn't know what was going to happen to them he saw the guards with their guns and he thought they might be shot but it turns out that they were going to be led into the cafeteria to be fed this time was very bewildering they really did not know what was going to happen to them uh they didn't know if they were going to be alive the next day there were about 112 and they stayed there for about 72 days before being shipped off to Honolulu in the morning he recognized people as the leaders of the community his friends [Music] he said these soldiers were young kids you know and a lot of them were quite nervous actually but they ordered them around with those bayonets pointing at them he said we would have died a dog's death and dog's death had we sort of answered back all Oahu internees were first processed through the U.

S immigration station both soga and Ozaki wrote about the poor living conditions during the early days of the war at dinner time they were served these oval like Army tins that food was just slopped into he also said that they had to eat after the German and Italian detainees who ate first and then dumped their mess kits in these buckets of water so by the time the Japanese ate they had to grab those from that it's like a slop cam so he felt kind of sickened by the greasy utensils that he had to use they had to share coffee cups it was demeaning of various dignity these were the leaders of the community you see and that's the kind of treatment given to the leaders which was then a lesson to the rest of the population you see me while at the immigration station Ozaki finds strength in a bean plant he sees growing outside the fence [Music] is [Music] there are 13 known sites used for the internment of the Japanese in Hawaii during World War II some of them housed only one or two internees others held up to several hundred the Sand Island Detention Facility was quickly opened on December 9 1941. internees lived in tents for six months until Barracks were built the camp would also flood during heavy rains and they would bring over the ones who were held on the neighbor Islands to the main facility at Sand Island between 1941 and 1943 almost all of the Hawaii internees were processed through Sand Island at some point MrOzaki was in a total of about eight different camps throughout Hawaii and the mainland and he said that by far Sand Island was where he received the worst treatment in one of the best accounts a written account by the journalist yasutaro soga you really see especially at Sand Island in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor the tensions were very high conditions were very harsh internees at Sand Island were made to do manual labor many of the older issei who were leaders priests and teachers were not used to these harsh conditions your recount episodes where there was a clear intent to kind of emasculate and even embarrass the men a spoon is missing from the mess hall you all know the rules for this camp you are to have no metal objects on your person the person who has the spoon step forward now if no one will step forward you will all be searched Sergeant sir strip search the prisoners yes sir you are the captain all clothes come up right now move it right now move it take your clothes off drop it right at your feet let's go move it move it the misplaced spoon was later found in the Miss Hall the internees were subjected to many strip searches what is this there was an incident for example where a gentleman had a knife-like object made from a belt buckle and because of that he had to be strip searched and he was standing Stark naked while the guards went through his belongings and his clothing and everything else and they made all the other internists and they're naked as MrOzaki pointed out with the rains coming in from nuanu very cold time hearings were held for the internees they were pressed with questions of loyalty did you buy Japanese government bonds more did you buy American bonds no why didn't you buy them I intended to buy them but had no money at the time you could have bought them if you wanted to ru pro-japan MO are you pro-japan no who do you want to win the war Japan or America I do not like War what do you think of the greater East Asia coal Prosperity sphere since Japan has a right to stand on our own tooth do you want Japan to win the war it is not a simple question then you're against America the boy erazaki's hearing finds Ozaki is a subject of Japan Ozaki is loyal to Japan and that his activities have been pro-japanese the FBI had interviewed Plantation prior to her to rest Annex said that Ozaki had the shortwave radio and was probably using it for dangerous activities in reality Ozaki had other uses for His Radio he was downloading the information from the domain news agency which is like an Associated Press in Japan at the time and he would use that information to Broadcast News on Japanese radio in the Hilo area and also for the newspaper that he worked for General statements of Suspicion applied to Broad categories of people on the detention list as in the case of tamasaku Watanabe these men are chosen from the leading alien Japanese in the communities and are believed to act as the Espionage agents or observers clearly the people who were on this list had had not done anything wrong President Franklin D Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19 1942 the order led to the mass removal and incarceration of 120 000 people of Japanese ancestry on the U. S West Coast historians have been looking for like why Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 there are various theories Franklin Roosevelt in 1936 writes this memorandum inquiring of military intelligence what plans did they have to control the Japanese in Hawaii and he used the words it occurs to me that we can put U.

S citizens and Japanese citizens alike into concentration camps those were his words this was written on August 10th 1936. so that's five years before Pearl Harbor was attacked unlike the U. S Mainland Hawaii avoided a mass internment of the Japanese population the martial law governor of Hawaii General delos Emmons made this decision despite pressure from Washington calling for a mass internment he was influenced in part by Intelligence Officers and members of the council for interracial Unity which included YMCA Executives hung Wai Ching Charles Loomis and a Japanese-American nisse shigeo Yoshida Emmons also stated that a mass internment would cause logistical problems and labor shortages in Hawaii they also comprise the majority of the laborers on the sugar plantations of the island and the sugar plantations were the Mainstay of the Island's economy so without their labor the Island's economy would have collapsed [Music] while removing the leaders of the community nearly 2 000 of them and having the controls of Martial law the military ingeniously I think was able to then control the situation and enable the productive labor of Japanese Americans Robert Shivers the head of the Hawaii FBI office also did not believe in a mass internment of the Japanese arrests and selective internment continued on into 1942.

Harry urata was a nisei language school teacher her spot when I came back from Japan I was teaching Japanese school but I am lots of nisse with teaching Japanese school my friend they're not arrested him so I thought oh maybe tomorrow maybe I gotta go one day urata was called out of democracy class at mid-pacific Institute are you Loretta Harry herretta yes he was arrested on the spot kuniaki Bob nishioka was also a Japanese language school teacher after the war started everything was shut down no more Japanese school so then he just had to look for whatever job that would give him income and he was working at the supermarket when he was picked up by the FBI Sam nishimura the Tailor from Haleiwa was also visited by the FBI well I remember one day I guess it did happen in April that there were some men who came to question him they went into my room and opened all the drawers and I said what are you looking for I didn't answer the searched all over the house and then they took my dad away I thought I remember about that deal nishimura's wife was left to care for six children nishimura was arrested because prior to World War II he co-signed a banknote for a truck which was sent to the Japan Red Cross about 800 maybe a little more were sent to internment camps in the continental United States these were almost entirely issei and over the course of the Spring and Summer of 42 10 ship loads of issei took these men from Sand Island to these various internment centers in the continental U. S I would say that most of the easy from Hawaii ended up in Santa Fe probably over 600 soga Ozaki and Watanabe would all eventually end up in the Santa Fe internment camp prior to that the journey from Hawaii took them to other internment camps in places such as Fort Sill Oklahoma Livingston Louisiana and Lordsburg New Mexico Hawaii [Music] transport ships headed to the mainland there were two types of Japanese passengers [Music] foreign [Music] but also the soldiers were prisoners because they had no choice they had to prove their loyalty to the U. S we say soldiers comprise the 100th infantry battalion and the 442nd regimental combat team in 1943 President Roosevelt approved the creation of a segregated Japanese-American army unit when the call for volunteers went out ten thousand men from Hawaii volunteered the 100th infantry battalion made up of Japanese American soldiers from Hawaii who were already in the Army prior to the war eventually became a part of the 442nd they had to demonstrate in blood shed on the battlefield that they were real Americans they are still the highest decorated military unit for its size and length of service in the history of the U.

S military there was a list of Japanese civilian attorneys from Hawaii who had sons in the military and there were 161 names of issei and over 200 sons in the military so there were some who had won a number who had two a few who had three and four back in Hawaii a different group of nisei were moving to a new internment camp when Sand Island closed in March of 1943 those who were left which were almost entirely nisei were transferred to the Honolulu Camp most of them at least initially were kibei that is nisei who were born in Hawaii and thus U. S citizens but who had been educated in part in Japan and for various reasons that group was deemed the most suspect by U. S authorities was the largest internment camp in Hawaii it encompassed about 160 acres and it was built originally to hold three thousand also held a number of local Germans and female internees and the largest group at Honolulu actually were pows dorisburg Nye was 11 years old when the FBI came to arrest her mother so then this dark car comes in and these two men dressed up like Elliot Ness with their hats on that's a relatives so they said where's your mom we'd like to speak to your mom and I said well just a minute please and mom was just coming from the other house side of the house so I guess I was yelling to her and she looked at me and she says Doris these guys when I have that want to talk to me I'll be right back so then they left and I was worried I was worried sick what had happened what's the matter how come they have how come dad hasn't come home from work yet her father Frederick Berg was also arrested Doris did not know what happened to her parents for several months she thought they both died I was screaming and screaming and screaming because my whole world had fallen apart she learned they were interned and remembers visiting them at Honolulu was totally Barren then it was huge and then there were some tents and that's where my parents were in tents two of the most interesting cases at Honolulu involved members of the legislature in 1940 Sanji Abe had been elected to the territorial Senate the first Japanese-American Republican he was a nisei and Thomas T sakakihara was elected to the territorial house it was a big deal for the community in 1940 because there were still relatively few Japanese Americans who held a political office at that time and then two years later 1942 they were arrested and thrown into an internment camp both of them at Honolulu before becoming a senator Sanji Abe was a former policeman served the U.

S Army in World War one and was a respected leader in Hilo he co-owned a Japanese movie theater the name of theater is yamatoza after the war started Abe gave instructions to his employees to remove anything Japanese from the theater that was to protect themselves and also to show his loyalty on August 2nd 1942 the FBI searched his theater and found a Japanese flag Abe claimed it was planted then he was arrested at the sandisa Abby was released and then arrested again a month later he was sent to Sand Island and then Honolulu Abe was forced to resign his senate seat it was developed by the military with no basis of constitutional law and it was completely classified so that it was not known to the public a lot of people knew that something was happening out everside but we had no idea where and how it was done eight people in one Shack I see eight people I don't think I had a hot shower you know really no data is hot no it's true internees called the area jigokudani which means hell Valley [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] then they have a dining room able to get together wife and children the international talk to you don't forget study hard for school because school is important yeah don't forget take care of your brothers and sisters you know and I remember somebody explaining that he is not a prisoner he is an intern and I thought well what is the difference because you know the pop isn't at home I just wanted to see him when are you coming back as soon as I can I recall where my dad would give my mom gifts like turtles that he had fashioned from Corey shell I still remember getting those rings made out of toothbrush handles I used to Marble at how hard are they to do that I made this for you thank you keep it with you and in fact he used to say that that was a good way to keep yourself occupied because some of Oklahoma boys Stir Crazy just sitting and doing nothing first I study English [Music] foreign [Music] nishimura's wife asked to move into a Mainland internment camp so the family could be together my mother decided that we have to be away from that so long it's not good so we should go to the mainland be all together so we got ready to go and my mother bought a lot of stuff for us for the cocoa country and all of a sudden in January everything stopped and then he was released on January 19th he came back [Music] Sam nishimura was released after nearly two years of internment in 1943 the Reverend Paul osumi was now incarcerated at the euphemistically named Gila River relocation Center my father came down with what is called valley fever and he got really sick never mentioned his illness to my mother when he was in the Barrack hospital he didn't want to concern my mother with his ailment a family friend wrote to osumi's wife in Hawaii about Paul's condition they were worried he might pass away osumi's wife and children voluntarily entered Gila River as soon as my mother and my brother and I landed up in Gila he started to get better I guess it gave him a lot more encouragement with the family there with him osumi's family remained there until the end of the war otokichi ozaki's wife and children also entered into a Mainland internment camp so that the family could be together and then in 19 43 in January his family tried to join him and they were sent to Jerome Arkansas however otokichi had to remain in the Santa Fe internment camp us they tried to get together many many times but it wasn't until May of 1944 that that he was able to join them in Jerome after a year of living in separate internment camps the Ozaki family was finally reunited at Jerome Arkansas and then the Thule Lake incarceration Center in California also headed to Thule Lake where a group of 67 internees from Honolulu which included Harry urata and Bob nishioka that was the place where all the so-called Nono boys and those who had expressed a desire to go back to Japan after the war were segregated they were brought to Tule Lake and they were in an area called The Block 99 and they were not allowed to enter the main part of the camp where we were they were fenced off on the other side they put us in a stockade they watch how we we want to do you know react but nothing happened but he told me that they could see through the fence because it was one of those link fences iron fences and they were so happy to see women and children Bob first met shizuye at Thule Lake three months later they were married but then of course you know we were married in Camp and then we had no idea When The War would be ending in December of 1944 the government rescinds the exclusion order after the Supreme Court decision ex parte Endo the decision stated that loyal citizens could not be lawfully detained attorneys were allowed to return to the West Coast in January of 1945. Tule Lake remains open until 1946. Bob nishioka never returned to live in Hawaii he and shizuye settled in California after being released on Sunday September the 2nd 1945 the most horrible war in history came to its complete and formal end foreign minister shikamitsu signed for Japan with the ozakis they debated for a long time with their family back in Hawaii about whether or not they should repatriate to Japan or go back to Hawaii and in the end Mrozaki's parents won out and they said of course Hawaii is so much better please come back here when one did Ben I made my my mind I got into something for America burata then taught Japanese to the military intelligence service he returned to Hawaii and became a successful music teacher for 53 years the nisei veterans of the 100th 442nd and Mis returned and helped to reshape the future of Hawaii however for the Hawaiian tourneys their return was not as celebrated you know if you were one of these thousand or so who were thrown in Camp you must have been guilty of something so I think there was the stigma that a lot of these families carried around that they didn't want to talk about but I think precisely because there were so few the those of us growing up after the war um assumed that something must have been wrong with them I I knew that when his fans came in that they never came during the day they just came during the night to see him and that we don't blame them to uh for feeling like that I guess they don't want to be associated with our intern interned person we stopped talking because if I started to talk to my dad about it he would get so angry and my mom would don't talk about don't talk about it don't I don't want to hear about it don't talk about it and she'd get very upset none of those who were interned have ever been charged with a crime sabotage or assault or whatever none of them I think you know my grandfather um when I asked him why why he didn't talk about it and why his kids didn't know about it he said that for the longest time he was really angry he was angry at the government for taking him and then when he came back he was angry at people who came to see him because they had to sneak and see him and I think that made it really hard for him to talk about but it's amazing how he could go on with his life in a real positive way after his release Sanji Abe the first territorial senator of Japanese ancestry never returned to politics during the war time [Music] will change everything in 1966 Abe was awarded the ranju hosho Imperial decoration by the Japanese government for his service to the Hawaii Japanese community Watanabe resumed his ministry this time on Maui solga returned to Hawaii in 1945 and resumed his work at the nippu Gigi newspaper now called the Hawaii times Ozaki returned to Hawaii and also worked at the Hawaii times in later years he became the general manager he just jumped right back in as I believe a lot of issei did he was as I mentioned a renaissance man and he developed something called the Ozaki red which is still very much in profusion today it's known for its hardiness and its beauty and its red color and its size osumi and his family moved to Oahu he became well known for his newspaper column he wrote a column for the Honolulu Advertiser which was called today's thought although he was a Christian Protestant Minister he was not really quoting the Bible or anything he was just giving people simple daily thoughts of how to live a happy life in 1952 the ese were allowed to obtain U.

S citizenship many of them finally became naturalized citizens they wanted to just kind of blend in and be part of this this change that was going on in Hawaii so I think there was this real incentive to just kind of bury this part of the story after the war Honolulu in particular but the the whole internment story was largely forgotten and along with that the story of what happens to these sites [Music] in the 1970s Japanese Americans began a movement to seek redress from the federal government groups of Japanese Americans throughout the West Coast primarily sought to question the the legality of their internment groups like the Japanese-American Citizens League were key organizers of the movement in 1980 Congress and President Carter approved the creation of the commission on wartime relocation and internment of civilians this commission investigated the causes and consequences of the mass internment you know organizing the community really was a very inspirational event it was a time of healing ajas who are interned or evacuated came together and was able to share these stories the commission's 1983 reports acknowledged the Injustice of the mass removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans it stated that these actions were carried out by the U. S government without any acts of sabotage or Espionage and were largely motivated by racial Prejudice wartime hysteria and the failure of political leadership a redress bill was introduced to Congress it was named H. R 442 in honor of the 442nd regimental combat team the ultimate result of the redress movement was an acknowledgment by the United States government that the internment of Japanese Americans was unlawful in 1988 President Reagan signed the civil liberties Act former attorneys received a letter of apology from the president and twenty thousand dollars in compensation however in Hawaii a large number of attorneys were first-generation immigrants many of them never received redress about half of the internees ultimately received redress because the other remainder had passed away but I think for a lot of them for many many years they just had accepted it and so the recognition of redress really was an affirmation that they did nothing wrong through the redress process in Hawaii news stories emerged there was a small class of individuals that came up and said well am I eligible for redress I was not interned but I was displaced by the United States government soldiers literally came in at gunpoint and said you need to leave there was approximately 2 000 Japanese Americans who were not intern but who are evacuated and this occurred all over the state they lost their homes they could not go back they lost places of businesses and for all intents and purposes they were deprived of their civil liberties the Honolulu chapter of the jacl championed their cause through illegal battles with the Department of Justice ultimately were able to get a redressed for the special class of citizens years passed and the stories brought out by the redress movements began to fade into memory foreign foreign internment camp was really kind of serendipitous khnl TV station and they were going to air Schindler's List so they wanted to know exactly where the honor internment campsite was and to our consternation we we couldn't find it but more than that we found people who said I didn't know that Hawaii had internment camps and so at that point we realized that this was a very thinly documented period of Japanese history and it was in great danger of being lost and forgotten in 1998 the former site of the honui internment camp was rediscovered by the Japanese cultural center of Hawaii the archaeological element was another key thing that occurred in the last few years it was really precipitated by Jeff Burton and Mary Farrell who are archaeologists formerly with the National Park Service Jeff and Mary have been doing archeology of all the various sites detention sites on the U.

S during World War II and for them the Hawaii sites were the last ones they hadn't really studied and so I applied for a grant to come out to Hawaii and look for all the tournament sites and working with the jcch we went to all the sites the Sand Island internment camp is just about completely obliterated but now it's like a big industrial park and there's really nothing left today the immigration station is used by the Department of Homeland Security is almost just like it was during World War II on Kauai there were four internment sites that we know of so far [Music] jail county jail and Courthouse are still intact they still look like they did in World War II on Maui there were two sites that we know of haiku camp and Wailuku jail again we don't have any Maps or photographs of it so we don't know exactly where it was but we do have a couple oral histories that kind of describe it in relation to some of the features that are still there we're a military camp on the big island has buildings almost exactly the way they were during World War II the buildings that were used to house the internees to imprison the internees are still present archeology and research continues to be conducted primarily at honuuliuli the largest of the internment camps in Hawaii so this could this could be our place this could be where the guard Tower wasn't you can see it's on a little bit of a slope University of Hawaii West oahua Oahu Field School he came involved in 2010.