Scapegoat Cities

The original caption for this photograph reads: "Gila River Relocation Center, Rivers, Arizona. Sunrise Services (Christian) were held at this center Thanksgiving day."

In the hot spring of 1943, a lonely old Japanese prisoner went missing from the Gila River Relocation Center in southern Arizona.  This episode introduces Mr. Otomatsu Wada and tells the story of his disappearance and of the efforts to find him.

The story is true in every essential detail.

In 1948, Congress passed the Japanese Evacuation Claims Act.  It allowed Japanese Americans to file for claims for compensation from the federal government for the losses they had suffered as a consequence of being forced from their homes.

Sounds good.  But don't get your hopes up.

As you listen to this episode, keep this fact in mind: in order for a person to count as Jewish under the Nazi Nuremberg Laws of 1935, at least two of her grandparents had to have been Jewish.  And in some circumstances even two didn't suffice and a person had to have three.

This may seem kind of random, but it's not.  Listen and you'll understand why.

A pomeranian.  (Not Tiz.)

This is the photo that the Downs submitted to document that they'd owned the car they were claiming for.  It's the car on the left, behind Eunice Down's little brother.

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Music in this episode: "Frame of Mind" by Erik Haddad; "Trust," "Foreigner," "The Wrong Way," "Trap," and "Books" by Jazzhar, "Don't Fence Me In" performed by Roy Rogers.

Perhaps you've heard the Yiddish word chutspah, which means something along the lines of "nerve" or "temerity" or "audacity." The classic definition of chutspah is the child who murders both of his parents and then asks for the court's mercy because he's an orphan.

The government provided a definition of chutspah in 1944 when, two years after locking up all of the Nisei as suspected spies and traitors, it turned around and began drafting them into the U.S. Army.

This episode of Scapegoat Cities tells the story of one Nisei who refused induction in order to create a legal test case for the courts.

In all, over three hundred Nisei resisted the draft during the war.  Nearly two hundred of these came from just two camps -- Poston and Heart Mountain.  The balance came from seven of the other eight camps, including Minidoka in Idaho, which is the site of this episode. Only Manzanar in California produced no draft resisters.

All but 27 of these hundreds were convicted of federal crimes. The 27 who beat the charges were from the Tule Lake Segregation Center in northern California. In their case, a federal judge concluded that it was "shocking to the conscience" to confine someone on the basis of suspected disloyalty, draft him into the military, and then prosecute him for resisting.

If you're interested in knowing more about the Nisei draft resisters, check out my book "Free to Die for their Country: The Story of the Japanese American Draft Resisters in World War II," and Frank Abe's excellent film

This episode is a true story in every key detail.

This is a photograph of many of the 63 Nisei draft resisters from the Heart Mountain Relocation Center on the first day of their mass trial for draft resistance in a federal courtroom in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1944.

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Music in this episode: "Frame of Mind" by Erik Haddad; "Room with a View," "No-End Ave," "The Wrong Way," and "Ulysses" by Jazzhar, and "Don't Fence Me In" performed by Roy Rogers.

Colorado River (Poston) Relocation Center, Parker, Arizona. A work crew assembles a barrack that will house six families.  

The dubious construction achievement described in this episode really happened -- at the Poston Relocation Center in Arizona -- on May 19, 1942. 

I shifted the location of the event from Poston in Arizona to the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming because I wanted to be able to tell the story of the impact on surrounding communities of the construction of the camps, and that was an easier story for me to tell in Wyoming than in Arizona.

The towns of Cody and Powell really did benefit economically from the camp in the ways described, and in other ways. Regrettably this did not keep their town councils from issuing a joint resolution in May of 1943 asking that Japanese Americans not be allowed to leave camp to enter the towns (except to work the fields).  

The Irma Hotel is still welcoming guests today.  You can still get a drink at the cherrywood bar that Queen Victoria gave to Buffalo Bill.

I created the character of Ned Anderson and the terms of the competition. We don't actually know the incentive that led the workers to their "accomplishment."

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Music in this episode: "Frame of Mind" by Erik Haddad; "Countryboy" - www.bensound.com; "Rooftop" and "Chunk of Lawn" by Jahzzar; "Sad Day" – www.bensound.com; construction sounds built from clips found on FreeSfx -- http://www.freesfx.co.uk; "Don't Fence Me In" performed by Roy Rogers (public domain) .

Photos courtesy of the National Archives Catalog. 

Each of the ten concentration camps run by the War Relocation Authority had a newspaper that was edited by the prisoners, naturally under government supervision.  These papers give us a glimpse -- although just a partial one -- of life in the camps.  

This episode of Scapegoat Cities relies on the newspapers for Saturday, August 21, 1943 -- a day I chose at random -- to present a sketch of daily camp life.

Pour yourself a bowl of Post Toasties and give a listen.

Tule Lake Relocation Center, Newell, California, November 2, 1942.  Writers and editors work at the city desk of the Tulean Dispatch, the camp's newspaper.    

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Music in this episode: "Frame of Mind" by Erik Haddad, Jazzhar, "Where It Goes,"  "Don't Fence Me In" performed by Roy Rogers.

Photos courtesy of the National Archives Catalog. 

In the spring of 1942 the federal government imprisoned every person of Japanese ancestry on suspicion of disloyalty.  The general who ordered the action said that it was necessary because it was impossible to distinguish a loyal from a disloyal Japanese American.

A year later, the government turned 180 degrees and announced that it could determine the loyalties of Japanese Americans and was going to do so by having the imprisoned people fill out a questionnaire.

This episode of Scapegoat Cities tells the story of how one woman, Mary Manbo (pictured above with her parents and sister), responded to the interrogation.

Mary Manbo's questionnaire and the transcript of her loyalty hearing survive in the National Archives, and this episode is drawn directly from her answers, as well as some additional research into her family's story.  If you'd like to know more about the Manbo family's experience of removal and imprisonment, check out my essay "Outside the Frame: Bill Manbo's Color Photographs in Context" in the book "Colors of Confinement: Rare Kodachrome Photographs of Japanese American Incarceration in World War II."  The book showcases more than sixty of Bill Manbo's beautiful photographs of life behind barbed wire at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center.

Mary Manbo (second from right) stands in front of a Heart Mountain barrack with her parents, Riyo and Junzo Itaya (far left and second from left respectively) and her younger sister Eunice Itaya.  Her husband Bill took the photograph, using Kodachrome slide film, a technology that was in its infancy in 1943.  

Photo (c) Takao Bill Manbo.

Bill Manbo built a little porch in front of his barrack door and marked it with the family name -- or a variation on it.  That's Bill on the left.  

Photo (c) Takao Bill Manbo.

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Music in this episode: Music in this episode: "Frame of Mind" by Erik Haddad;  "Ulyses," "Room with a View," "The Wrong Way,"  "Chunk of Lawn," and "Where It Goes" by Jazzhar, "Don't Fence Me In" performed by Roy Rogers.

The original caption for this photograph reads: "Tule Lake Relocation Center, Newell, California. A pleasant Sunday afternoon's recreation is spent by evacuee winter sports enthusiasts, on the slopes of Castle Mountain. Homemade sleds and various other homemade pieces of equipment were used by these young people."

In this episode, a romp in the snow turns into a tough lesson about captivity and control.

Like the other episodes of Scapegoat Cities, this episode is based on actual events. The incident in this episode took place at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming in late 1942. Min Tanaka is not a real person; I invented him for the purposes of the story. In preparing the story, though, in addition to looking at archival materials, I spoke to one of the boys who was sledding that day, now an elderly man.

At a time when there were almost no Japanese Americans enrolled at UCLA, Moe Yonemura was a "big man on campus." Cheerleader, elected student body official, fundraiser, spirit-builder -- Moe did it all.

He kept it up even after he and his family were forced behind barbed wire in the spring of his senior year.

When the US Army made it possible for the Nisei to volunteer in 1943 -- to join a racially segregated battallion --  Moe was among the first to join up.

This is the remarkable story of an irrepressible young man.

Hitoshi "Moe" Yonemura, here about 20 years old, stands before the crowd as "yell leader" at a UCLA football game.  The photograph is from page 244 of the UCLA yearbook for 1940.

Moe left camp to join the US Army as a Second Lieutenant in 1943.  

If you haven’t already, please review us on iTunes! It’s an important way to help new listeners discover the show: iTunes.com/ScapegoatCities

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Music in this episode: Erik Haddad - "Frame of Mind"; Jazzhar – "Room with a View," "No End Avenue," and "Where It Goes"; www.bensound.com - "Better Days" and "Sad Day"; "Hail to the Hills of Westwood" and "By the Old Pacific" from www.fightmusic.com; "Flat Feet Floogie (with a Floy Floy) by Slim and Slam (from archive.org)
 

Photo of Moe Yonemura in uniform courtesy of the National Archives Catalog. 

Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Heart Mountain, Wyoming, 1943. A boy scout carries the flag at a parade. Kodachrome slide shot by Bill Manbo, a prisoner.  (c) Takao Bill Manbo

Seventy-five years ago, in the late summer of 1942, the US government opened ten camps to imprison some 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. 

In 1988, Congress concluded that this government program resulted from racism, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.

This introductory episode of Scapegoat Cities gives you a brief overview of what led to this injustice and tells you what you'll be hearing in the podcast's episodes.