Euphemistic Terms Used To Describe WWII Incarceration Of Japanese Americans Targeted At JANM Event

by Joyce Okazaki

Mako Nakagawa of Seattle, Washington, headlined
an event at the Japanese American National Museum
on August 27, 2011, where she called for the use of accurate, non-euphemistic language to describe the
World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Photo: Mako Nakagawa

LOS ANGELES — Mako Nakagawa of Seattle, the primary author of the Power Of Words resolution that called for use of accurate, non-euphemistic language to be used to describe the wartime experience of Japanese Americans and their immigrant parents, along with the camps used to incarcerate them, spoke at an event entitled, Let’s Get It Right! Replacing World War II Euphemistic Language: The Retelling of the Nikkei Incarceration Experience, sponsored by the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) on August 27.

The event, which was presented in collaboration with The George and Sakaye Aratani Endowed Chair, and the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, discussed the “…need to replace government created euphemisms of World War II with more accurate terminology.” Read more of this post

42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage: The Passage of Time

Editor’s Note: UCLA Nikkei Student Union and UCLA Kyodo Taiko member Yoshimi Kawashima participated in her second Manzanar Pilgrimage this past April, at the 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage. She shares her thoughts about her experiences with us below.


Yoshimi Kawashima
Photo: Gann Matsuda

by Yoshimi Kawashima

The dust stirred gently in the opaque light of the rising sun, drifting along the near empty road. Eyes still drowsy from the four-hour trip, mind still struggling to awake from rising with the dawn light, we finally reached the parking lot which would lead to the Manzanar National Historic Site—my second time at the annual Manzanar Pilgrimage since my freshman year at UCLA.

When I went to my first Manzanar Pilgrimage in April 2009, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I was only newly exposed to the history of Japanese American Internment, and now, physically stepping into the forlorn desert they had once been forced to call home brought forth mixed emotions.

What does it mean to be a (Japanese) American of this generation? Read more of this post

Yosh Kuromiya: Random Thoughts On Being Nisei During World War II

Born in Sierra Madre, California in April 1923, Yosh Kuromiya and his family moved to Monrovia, where he attended grammar school, junior high and high school. He was attending Pasadena Junior College as an art major when his family was forced out of their homes and imprisoned, like other Americans of Japanese ancestry, during World War II. His family was first sent to the assembly center at the Pomona Fairgrounds, before they were imprisoned at the Heart Mountain concentration camp in Wyoming.

Draft resister Yosh Kuromiya (seated, center) was a member of the “Poster Shop Gang,” designing and printing posters at the Heart Mountain concentration camp, one of ten such camps where Americans of Japanese ancestry were unjustly imprisoned during World War II.
Photo: Kuromiya Family Collection

Kuromiya became one of 63 members of the Fair Play Committee, a group of Heart Mountain prisoners who resisted the draft in protest of the government’s denial of their civil rights. Along with other Fair Play Committee members, Kuromiya, then 21 years old, was arrested, tried and convicted of draft evasion.

Kuromiya was sentenced to three years in federal prison. He was released on parole after two years, and was pardoned by President Harry S. Truman in late 1947.

A retired landscape architect, Kuromiya resides in Alhambra, California with his wife, Irene. Today, he often speaks to groups and organizations about his experiences during World War II, and especially about his experience as a draft resister.

Below is the text of a speech he gave to the Greater Los Angeles Singles Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League on May 13, 2011.


Good evening and happy Friday the 13th! If you haven’t already had your share of misfortune today, maybe you are about to, but I hope not.

I would like to thank you all, for having me here tonight. However, I must warn you that I am neither a historian, a professor, a scholar, nor even a speaker. My exposure to history is that I’ve been around for 88 years, but never seemed to make a difference. I’ve professed a few ideas during those years but never received an encouraging response, much less a degree. Read more of this post

Swept Away: A Personal Reflection On The Manzanar National Historic Site

Editor’s Note: The following is a personal reflection by Jason Honeycutt, who visited the Manzanar National Historic Site in May, 2010.


CANOGA PARK, CA — On the almost five-hour drive north on US Highway 395 to Mammoth Mountain, I had driven by it over twenty times, always curious what it was. It looked like a prison of some sort.

Replica of one of the eight guardtowers at the Manzanar National Historic Site.
Photo: Jason Honeycutt

Last spring, I found out what “it” was.

Heading north, a friend on our snowboard trip mentioned that it was the “Manzanar Relocation Center.” Over twenty times passing it, I wondered how many others made the same mistake, not knowing what was right in front of our eyes for so long.

I grew up in the rural Midwest, and in American History class, you heard whispers about concentration camps for the “Japanese” during World War II, with no real distinction made between prisoners of war and American citizens. Of course, it was a footnote to the story of how America was helping Europe to be free, to be liberated of Nazi Germany discriminating against people based on their heritage.

Why wasn’t the history of these imprisoned Americans in our history books more clearly? Maybe, like it was swept under the rug after the war’s end, certain people wanted to sweep it under history’s rug by not talking about some of the skeletons in our closet. Read more of this post

Japanese American Community Loses A Giant: William Hohri Passes At 83

The Japanese American community lost one of its giants on November 12, 2010, when William Hohri, the lead plaintiff in Hohri v. United States, the class action lawsuit filed by the National Coalition for Japanese American Redress (NCJAR), passed away at the age of 83. Read more of this post

Sue Kunitomi Embrey: Concentration Camps, Not Relocation Centers

by Bruce Embrey

To download a copy of this paper, click on the image above.

The following paper, Concentration Camps, Not Relocation Centers, written by Sue Kunitomi Embrey, grew out of a panel discussion held at California State University, Fullerton, on March 25, 1976. It represents one of the earliest efforts of the Manzanar Committee to educate the broader public about the incarceration of 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry.

As its title succinctly states, it is an effort to clarify the nature of the War Relocation Authority camps where Americans of Japanese ancestry were unjustly imprisoned during World War II. Read more of this post

Grateful Crane’s Soji Kashiwagi Weighs In On Use Of “Concentration Camp”

Another voice in the debate on the use of euphemistic terms to describe the Japanese American Internment experience is that of playwright Soji Kashiwagi, Executive Producer of the Grateful Crane Ensemble.

Responding to Rafu Shimpo columnist George Yoshinaga, who has, for many years, argued that concentration camp is not an appropriate term to describe the camps that Americans of Japanese ancestry and their immigrant parents were imprisoned in during World War II, Kashiwagi criticized Yoshinaga’s stance in a piece submitted to the Rafu Shimpo and to the Manzanar Committee blog. Read more of this post

More From Okazaki On Use of “Concentration Camp;” Refutes Rafu Shimpo Columnist George Yoshinaga

On September 8, 2010, Rafu Shimpo columnist George Yoshinaga once again railed against the use of concentration camp to describe the camps that Americans of Japanese ancestry and their immigrant parents were imprisoned in during World War II.

In Yoshinaga’s column, “Horse’s Mouth: Raku, A Japanese Restaurant” (Yoshinaga’s comments were also included in a separate column, “Horse’s Mouth: The Richest Countries In The World,” September 14, 2010), he claimed that the ten camps were not concentration camps because, “those who wanted to leave camp had no problem, contrary to her statements.”

Joyce Okazaki (second from right) during a meeting with
Manzanar National Historic Site staff, April 26, 2009.
Photo: Gann Matsuda

Yoshinaga went on to describe his exploits outside the barbed wire, more than implying that he and all other Japanese Americans at the Heart Mountain camp had complete freedom and could come and go as they pleased. Read more of this post

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