Reconciling with the Ghosts of Our Past — Japanese Internment Camps
The year is 1942 and you are woken up by the unrelenting sound of soldiers banging on your front door. They inform you that you only have 48 hours to get your assets in order. You leave the comfort of your own home for tiny stalls meant for horses — the stench of manure and rotting hay still lingers in the air. Other families have come to the racetrack as well, treated like animals by your own government. You couldn’t have imagined the country you loved would have deemed you the enemy in these times of war. The description above is not some recounting of dystopian fiction. This was the cruel reality for many Japanese Americans during World War II. Two months after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war on Japan and signed Executive Order 9066 (Onion 2009). Although the Order did not specifically target any one ethnicity, over 120,000 people of Japanese descent were mass-incarcerated without trial, without evidence, and without due process of the law. This was one of the greatest human rights violations known to 20th Century American history. How was this allowed to happen? And what lasting implications did this mistake have for the future? This article will discuss the historic implications of Japanese internment; as well as various works of media that addressed the same issue.
The majority of those affected by Executive Order 9066 succumbed to more than just incarceration. When citizens were told to evacuate within 48 hours, they did not have enough time secure their personal properties. They also did not know how long this “evacuation” would last. Many people lost their homes or sold them well below market value. Personal items such as photographs, memorabilia, etc. were also left to the government and banks. They brought only what they could carry. American concentration camps functioned as small cities. Most attributed with their own postal services, educational facilities, farming plots, and mess halls. Unlike a city however; the camps were surrounded by unending lengths of barbed wire. Guard towers cast deep shadows onto those below. When internment was overturned in 1945, people did not have much to go back to, except for the prejudice that was still well established by the war. Few mediums have captured the poignancy of this historical atrocity other than AMC’s The Terror: Infamy.
Infamy does not shy away from the true horror of the American concentration camps. The show does well in emphasizing this fear by introducing creatures of Japanese folklore into the history. In the opening sequence we find an elegantly dressed woman unnaturally walking down a misty dock. Her bones crack with each movement. It is clear all is not right with her. She awkwardly sits down, gazing at the glass-like water. The unsettling scene comes to a crescendo when she takes one of her hair sticks and without hesitation impales her head through her ear. Cue title sequence. Intriguingly, her deceased status does not stop her from appearing throughout the show as a ghostly remnant. Her presence marks death or ill-fortune to whomever sees her. One character known as Yamato-san confidently tells the others that these misfortunes are due to a bakemono or yurei. Thematically it makes sense for a bakemono to be haunting the characters of The Terror, because the word translates to “a thing that changes” (Mayer 1974). This was a time of transitioning. America had just entered World War II. Pearl Harbor was bombed. And over 120,000 American citizens were wrongfully incarcerated on basis of nothing but their ethnicity. The “obake” is the personified fear experienced by all the people of Japanese descent in the camps. Furthermore, this spirit takes the appearance of Yuko Tanabe, the woman seen committing suicide in the opening acts. Thematically, this is highly significant. In the show’s reality, Yuko Tanabe was a well-respected member of the Terminal island community. She knew everyone and everyone knew her. The crowded funeral scene speaks to her respect amongst the community. But what’s the true importance of this? Yuko Tanabe turns against her peers. Or at least the spirit does. Yuko betrays her fellow Japanese — killing or maiming anyone in her path. Does this not resemble the way America turned against its Japanese citizens? So not only is the “obake” a personified allusion to the internment anxiety, but also is a metaphor for the way America betrayed Japanese Americans. There is deeper importance to Yamato-san warning others of the “obake.” He speaks with an air of dignified credibility — as if Yamato-san has undergone this situation before. And in fact — he has.
Yamato-san speaks with credibility, because he is played by none other than George Takei (see Fig. 1). Science fiction fanatics may recognize Takei from his portrayal of Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu on Star Trek. But before he was traveling the universe in Star Trek, he was traveling with his family to one of the 10 internment camps in America. So when Takei’s Yamato-san warns us about the ghosts of his homeland, maybe he is really warning us about the ghosts of his past. Takei was brought on as a consultant for the show. Because of his 4 years of childhood internment, Takei was able to inform the production team what was accurate or not. According to a Deseret News interview, they added a character just for Takei to act in the show (Johnson 2021). The Terror: Infamy is hardly George Takei’s first or last involvement in Japanese internment-related programs. He has been apart of many projects in order to spread the history of internment across the globe. His childhood internment inspired an entire Broadway show entitled “Allegiance,” in which he wrote and starred in 2015. His most recent endeavor occurred at the 2021 Moab Music Festival. This festival showcased Japanese American composers and the performance of Takei’s “Lost Freedom: A Memory.” Takei recounted speeches and various prose about his childhood internment set to the chamber music of Kenji Bunch (Johnson 2021). Anyone looking for more information about Japanese internment need not look any further than They Called Us Enemy. Co-written by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, and illustrated by Harmony Becker, They Called Us Enemy is an awe-inspiring, all-encompassing history of the events leading up to, during, and after Japanese internment of the 1940s. Told from the perspective of a 5-year-old George Takei, we walk with him as he and his family navigate a hostile post-Pearl Harbor America. What follows is a synopsis of the most significant events in the book.
They Called Us Enemy begins Takei’s story in an unexpected setting — Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s home. Takei was asked to speak for “the 75th Anniversary of Executive Order 9066” in 2017. This place, as Takei states, is “where my story begins.” The history of FDR’s home is first juxtaposed with Takei’s parent’s history. He recalls tales of how they first met. His Father, Takekuma Norman Takei was born in Yamanashi, Japan (Takei 2019). While his mother, Fumiko Emily Nakamura was born in Florin, California. They both lived happily in America many years prior to Executive Order 9066. George Takei tells us how his father ran “a lucrative dry-cleaning business” (2019). They diligently worked towards purchasing a 2-bedroom house that could support a growing family. But in the spring of 1942, they were forced to trade their home for a Santa Anita horse stall (see Fig. 4), barely able to fit a person, let alone a family. The dehumanization of Japanese Americans did not cease here. Months later, the Takei’s would be subjected to further adversity in the face of racism. Donning numbered tags “like cattle,” they boarded a train into the unknown. Their destination — Rohwer Relocation Center (see Fig. 5), “the easternmost of the ten internment sites” in Arkansas (Takei 2019). They Called Us Enemy poignantly opens our eyes to the two worlds created by this human rights violation — the adventure felt by a 5 year old George, and the trauma experienced by his adult parents. Scenes of George playing in the train car are contrasted by panels of his mother thoughtfully peering out the windows, fearing for the safety of her family. The book does well in pointing out the vastly different experiences felt by the kids and their parents during this time. They Called Us Enemy also successfully interweaves George Takei’s story with vital pieces of historical context.
Readers would not be able to grasp the full gravity of Takei’s story without first introducing us to those responsible for stoking the flames of racial hysteria — our very own government. In a time when country-wide unification was paramount, Californian government officials Earl Warren, Fletcher Bowron, and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt insisted on escalating tensions and dividing the nation against itself (Takei 2019). Because of the influence of these men, and many more, Japanese loyalty to the United States was heavily scrutinized since the beginning of the war. Those wishing to exhibit their loyalty by patriotically joining military efforts, were strictly denied enlistment. In fact, Japanese were not only prohibited from joining the military, they were actually deemed “4C Enemy Aliens” (Takei 2019). This “alien” moniker would last longer than its official repeal however; as Asian Americans have historically been placed in the category of “otherness.” They reside in a limbo state of American, but not quite a citizen. The denial of Japanese into the military would not last long as war is a game of numbers. The fighting had led to a high death toll, and “America needed new soldiers” (Takei 2019). In the early months of 1943, as long as it was deemed a Japanese American was loyal to the United States, they were allowed military enlistment. How did the government evaluate whether someone was loyal or not? They sent out an incriminating questionnaire to everyone older than 17 at the prison camps. According to Takei, two particular questions were deemed extensively problematic. Question 27 asked Japanese Americans to fight for a country that wrongfully imprisoned them. While question 28 was complete entrapment. If answered “yes,” you admitted a previous loyalty to the Japanese Empire. If answered “no,” however; you were admitting disloyalty to America. Again, this was an unfair trick of syntax that had unfortunate consequences for the Takei family.
When George’s parents answered “no-no” to questions 27 & 28, they were relocated to Camp Tule Lake (see Fig. 6), “a maximum-security segregation camp for ‘disloyals’ (Takei 2019). Continuing on the theme of wrongful incarceration, Camp Tule Lake bunked radical defectors with loyal American citizens. This created a lot of tension amongst everyone at camp — even between internees themselves. The internal fighting finally gave way to a sullen silence in 1945. The smoke of a massive explosion rises from the panels of They Called Us Enemy. Takei’s mother is sobbing into the sheets of her cot. The scene is heart wrenching. News of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have just reached the camp (see Fig. 1 & 2). Tears are shed and the lives of many family members, whom resided in Japan during this time, are lost. Japan surrenders. The war is won, but at what cost?
They Called Us Enemy continues with George Takei’s life after leaving Tule Lake in 1946 (Takei 2019). They spent four grueling years wrongfully imprisoned along with the other 120,000 Japanese people uprooted by Executive Order 9066. The Takei’s endure and persevere. As George Takei got older, he would discover the truth about his childhood during his “after-dinner discussions with my dad” (Takei 2019). Takei would go on to educate himself about democracy and social advocacy. Activism which was undoubtedly instilled by his father. Furthermore, readers get to hear about Takei’s beginning acting career. Plays, musicals, tv shows. Here we understand the importance of George Takei landing his role on Star Trek. His portrayal of Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu skyrocketed Takei into stardom. With such fame, he had a platform for actual social change. George Takei has devoted his life to spreading awareness around America’s historical blemish, amongst other things. He donated his $20,000 restitution money towards funding the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. He lends his hand in the fight for LGBTQ justice and marriage equality as well. For his generous activism, we thank him.
America needs more social activists like George Takei. Japanese internment was not just an isolated incident in the past. Similar human rights violations are occurring presently. Look at how there is still mass hysteria surrounding Muslims after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Or how migrant prison camps resemble the same conditions of 1940s internment. Most recently, there was the discrimination towards Asians during the COVID-19 pandemic. We like to think of ourselves civilized and righteous, because we live in the present. But mistakes are still made, due to a lack of awareness/education. The best way to fight our problems, is to make sure we learn from our past and do not repeat them. In 1942, 120,000 people of Japanese descent were wrongfully incarcerated without trial. In today’s society, a constitutional violation on this scale would have been breaking news. This tells me, that we are indeed learning from our mistakes, but we can still do better. I leave you with a quote from They Called Us Enemy; “Shame is a cruel thing. It should rest on the perpetrators…But they don’t carry it the way the victims do” (pg. 140 Takei 2019). Years after Executive Order 9066, America finally acknowledged its shame. In 1988, 42 years after the last internment camp closed, President Ronald Reagan issued a formal apology and awarded $20,000 to individuals affected by America’s mistake. Change is possible, but what of the other injustices? Will those affected by the slave-trade ever see their restitution? The answer awaits in the future of our democracy.
Figures
Works Cited
Eisinger, Justin; Steven Scott, Harmony Becker, George Takei. They Called Us Enemy. Top Shelf Productions, 2019.
“Japanese-American Incarceration during World War II.” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, Retrieved November 1, 2022, from www.archives.gov/education/lessons/japanese-relocation#background.
Johnson, L. E. (2021, September 4). At 84, ‘Star trek’ actor George Takei is still on a mission. Deseret News. Retrieved November 1, 2022, from https://www.deseret.com/2021/9/3/22655865/star-trek-actor-george-takei-on-japanese-american-internment-during-world-war-2
Mayer, Fanny H., (1974, March 1). Religious Concepts in the Japanese Folk Tale. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. Retrieved November 1, 2022, from https://web.archive.org/web/20070930024357/http:/www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/jjrs/pdf/3.pdf
Onion, A., Sullivan, M., & Mullen, M. (Eds.). (2009, October 29). Japanese internment camps. History.com. Retrieved November 1, 2022, from https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/japanese-american-relocation
Onion, A., Sullivan, M., & Mullen, M. (Eds.). (2009, October 29). Pearl Harbor. History.com. Retrieved November 1, 2022, from https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/pearl-harbor
Zhelyazkov, Y. (2022, June 4). Obake and Bakemono — Japanese mythology. Symbol Sage. Retrieved from https://symbolsage.com/obake-and-bakemono/
