The following is a press release from the National Park Service.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The National Park Service (NPS) has awarded 23 grants totaling: $2.9 million to help preserve and interpret historic locations where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.

In the program’s second year, the Japanese American Confinement Sites Grants will help fund projects in a dozen states, including the restoration of a historic railroad depot in Arkansas that will house an exhibit about that state’s two confinement sites, and an educational outreach program to engage youth in preserving confinement sites through art, conversation, and community service.

“The Japanese American internment experience is an important chapter in American History,” said NPS Director Jon Jarvis. “The National Park Service is honored to be part of this shared effort to preserve these sites, which are a tragic reminder of a shameful episode in our past, and a compelling lesson on the fragility of our constitutional rights.”

The NPS grants range from: $17,295 to re-establish the historic Honor Roll at the Minidoka National Historic Site in Jerome County, ID (which commemorates Japanese American servicemen from that camp) to: $832,879 to build the interior of the Heart Mountain Interpretive Learning Center in Park County, WY. Also receiving grants are a project to develop plans to rebuild a guard tower at the Granada Relocation Center (Amache) in southeastern Colorado, the relocation and rehabilitation of a historic barrack from the Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston) in Arizona, and several oral history projects. Although the matching funds support preservation and interpretation work in 12 states, some of the projects are national in scope. These include a plan to create a reference and resource website that will hold research materials and curricula on the history of the camps.

Congress established the Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program in 2006 to preserve and interpret the places where Japanese Americans were sequestered after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The law authorizes up to: $38 million in grants for the life of the program to identify, research, evaluate, interpret, protect, restore, repair, and acquire historic confinement sites. The program aims to teach and inspire present and future generations about the injustice of the World War II confinement and demonstrate the nation’s commitment since then to equal justice under the law.

Congress appropriated: $3 million for grants in the current fiscal year. They were awarded in a competitive process, matching: $2 in federal money for every: $1 in non-federal funds and in-kind contributions raised by groups working to preserve the sites and their histories. Congress appropriated: $1 million for fiscal year 2009, the first year of the grants.

Locations eligible for the grants include the 10 War Relocation Authority camps that were set up in 1942 in seven states: Gila River and Poston, AZ; Amache, CO; Heart Mountain, WY; Jerome and Rohwer, AR; Manzanar and Tule Lake, CA; Minidoka, ID, and Topaz, UT. Also eligible are more than 40 other locations in 16 states, including civilian and military-run assembly, relocation and isolation centers.

Following are brief descriptions of the funded projects. Those marked with an asterisk (*) indicate that the applicant is from one state and the project relates to a confinement site in another.

Arizona

*Under California, see Japanese American Citizens League, Pacific Southwest District project, Passing the Legacy Down: Youth Interpretations of Confinement Sites in the Western United States.

*Also under California, see Poston Community Alliance project, Poston Preservation Project—Barrack Relocation and Rehabilitation.

Arkansas

Arkansas State University – Jonesboro, AR
Rohwer Relocation Camp Interpretive Project Rohwer Relocation Center, Desha County, AR::$100,502

McGehee Industrial Foundation – McGehee, AR
Jerome-Rohwer Visitor & Interpretation Facility Rohwer Relocation Center, Desha County, AR Jerome Relocation Center, Chicot and Drew Counties, AR: $419,967

*Under Hawaii, see the University of Hawaii, Center for Oral History project, Unspoken Memories: Oral Histories of Hawaii Internees at Jerome, Arkansas.

California

Friends of Manzanar – Independence, CA
Oral History and Research for Enhanced Interpretation and Education at Manzanar Demonstration Block 14 Manzanar Relocation Center, Inyo County, CA: $58,833

Japanese American Citizens League, Pacific Southwest District – Los Angeles, CA
Passing the Legacy Down: Youth Interpretations of Confinement Sites in the Western United States Manzanar Relocation Center, Inyo County, CA Tule Lake Relocation Center (Tule Lake Segregation Center), Modoc County, CA Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston), La Paz County, AZ Minidoka Relocation Center, Jerome County, ID: $151,790

Japanese American National Museum – Los Angeles, CA
Nisei Oral History Project Multiple sites, counties and states: $42,573

Japanese American National Museum – Los Angeles, CA
Toward Justice for All: Exhibit Planning Multiple sites, counties and states: $75,713

Poston Community Alliance – Lafayette, CA
Poston Preservation Project—Barrack Relocation and Rehabilitation Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston), La Paz, County, AZ: $31,000

*Under Oregon, see Klamath County Friends of the Library project, Breaking the Silence: The Power of Remembering, Oral Histories of Tule Lake Internees

Colorado

Colorado Preservation, Inc. – Denver, CO
Building Stock Research and Inventory Related to the Granada Relocation Center (Amache) Granada Relocation Center (Amache), Prowers County, CO: $20,093

Colorado Preservation, Inc. – Denver, CO
Water Tower Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Plan at Granada Relocation Center (Amache) Granada Relocation Center (Amache), Prowers County, CO: $37,327

National Trust for Historic Preservation – Denver, CO
Granada Relocation Center (Amache) Guard Tower Reconstruction Plan Granada Relocation Center (Amache), Prowers County, CO: $34,980

District of Colombia

National Japanese American Memorial Foundation – Washington, DC
Recruitment and Training of Volunteer Docents for National Japanese American Memorial Foundation Multiple sites, counties and states: $38,909

Hawaii

Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii – Honolulu, HI
Hawai’i Confinement Sites Educational Documentary Honouliuli Internment Camp, Honolulu County, HI Sand Island Detention Camp, Honolulu County, HI Kilauea Military Camp, Hawai’i County, HI Kalaheo Stockade, Kauai County, HI Haiku Camp, Maui County, HI: $117,626

University of Hawaii, Center for Oral History – Honolulu, HI
Unspoken Memories: Oral Histories of Hawaii Internees at Jerome, Arkansas Jerome Relocation Center, Chicot and Drew Counties, AR: $29,080

University of Hawaii, West O’ahu – Honolulu, HI
Multidisciplinary Research and Education at Honouliuli Internment Camp, Phase 2 Honouliuli Internment Camp, Honolulu County, HI: $ 98,544

Idaho

Friends of Minidoka – Twin Falls, ID
Minidoka Honor Roll Minidoka Relocation Center, Jerome County, ID: $17,295

*Under California, see Japanese American Citizens League, Pacific Southwest District project, Passing the Legacy Down: Youth Interpretations of Confinement Sites in the Western United States.

*Under Washington, see Wing Luke Memorial Foundation/Wing Luke Asian Museum project, First Person Stories Revealed: Historic Materials from Minidoka Preserved through the Higo Ten Cent Store.

Massachusetts

University of Massachusetts, Boston – Boston, MA
From Confinement to College: Video Oral Histories of Japanese American Students in World War II Multiple sites, counties and states: $68,852

Oregon

Klamath County Friends of the Library – Klamath Falls, OR
Breaking the Silence: The Power of Remembering, Oral Histories of Tule Lake Internees Tule Lake Relocation Center (Tule Lake Segregation Center), Modoc County, CA: $55,000

Texas

Friends of the Texas Historical Commission, Inc. – Austin, TX
Japanese Confinement Sites in Texas: An Untold Cultural Legacy of World War II Kenedy Internment Camp, Karnes County, TX Seagoville Internment Camp, Dallas County, TX Fort Sam Houston Internment Camp, Bexar County, TX Fort Bliss Internment Camp, El Paso County, TX: $20,167

Washington

Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial -Bainbridge Island, WA
Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial Bainbridge Island/Eagledale Ferry Dock, Kitsap County, WA: $182,725

Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project – Seattle, WA
Japanese American Confinement: Reference and Resource Website Multiple sites, counties and states: $166,145

Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project – Seattle, WA
Stories Less Told Part II: Video Oral Histories of the Japanese American Incarceration Multiple sites, counties and states: $210,000

Wing Luke Memorial Foundation/Wing Luke Asian Museum – Seattle, WA
First Person Stories Revealed: Historic Materials from Minidoka Preserved through the Higo Ten Cent Store Minidoka Relocation Center, Jerome County, ID: $100,000

Wyoming

Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation - Powell, WY
Heart Mountain Interpretive Learning Center (Interior Build-Out) Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Park County, WY: $832,879

- NPS -

Unless otherwise specified, all stories, images, video and audio content on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. You may copy, distribute and/or transmit any story, image, video or audio content published on this site under the terms of this license, but only if proper attribution is indicated. The full name of the author and a link back to the original article on this blog are required.

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by Jaymie Takeshita

Dear Grandma,

Every time I talk to you on the phone, I tell you about all the things I do with the UCLA Nikkei Student Union (NSU), right? I have yet another NSU story for you. Yesterday, a bunch of us from UCLA went on the 41st Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage. My friends who have been on the Pilgrimage before told me that it would be a great experience; I didn’t expect it to be as amazing as it actually was.

Jaymie Takeshita
Photo: Gann Matsuda

It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested. It was that I didn’t understand it. The camps that were described in the books sounded like horrible places. The Poston block that you grew up on sounded like something completely different. You always said camp was fun. You are still friends with people you made in camp. Wasn’t it better than being in San Luis Obispo, where everyone would see you as the enemy? I was convinced that authors of the books were just being dramatic.

Going to Manzanar gave me a completely different perspective. The car ride was really, really long. I fell asleep, and when I woke up, there was nothing but dirt and mountains around. And we were still in California. How scary was it to be in the middle of nowhere and not know where you were going, or what was going to happen to you? Your Dad was taken somewhere else, right? Weren’t you worried that if you ended up in the middle of the desert, he wouldn’t be able to find the rest of your family again?

Manzanar looked exactly how I expected it to look, but in color. The mountains there are beautiful, and the sky is really clear. I saw my first starry sky last night. But now I can understand how difficult it must have been to live out there. It’s dry and hot like the San Fernando Valley, but there’s no air conditioning or shade to keep cool in. I felt really guilty yesterday because I kept complaining.

“It’s so hot…we have to walk so far.”

We were only out under the sun for a couple of hours. Internees like you had to live under that sun for years. How can I complain about weather in the Valley after knowing that internees had to live through heat and cold and wind. I’m really spoiled, huh?

My favorite part of the day program was when everyone danced Tanko Bushi and One Plus One together at the cemetery. You know that I’m always up to dance ondo, and I do odori all the time. But this time, it really felt different. It made me remember why I love ondo dancing in the first place; everyone, an entire community, can be brought together by a small number of moves. It sounds cheesy, but I was really happy to be able to teach those dancing next to me a dance that is important in both Japanese and Nikkei culture.

Jaymie Takeshita (background left) and Kerry Cababa (background center) listen as former prisoner Sam Shimada (background right) tells his story in a
small group discussion at the Manzanar At Dusk program,
held at Lone Pine High School on April 24, 2010.
Photo: Gann Matsuda

He said that he only talked about the good things about camp with his grandchildren, just like you did with me. As the only Yonsei in our group, I was really happy to be able to share what I knew about camp with the others in the group whose grandparents weren’t in camp. All of those books that I skimmed over and stories that you told during our Christmas parties were really helpful. Thank you!

Mr. Shimada told us that he hoped that we could gain something, even if it was small, from the discussion. I gained so much more than that. He reminded us that the camp experience for people who were young children, like you were, was different from that of the adults. He reminded us that there were things about camp that he didn’t want to talk about with his children or grandchildren, but talking in these group discussions helps him talk to his own family about it.

Our group discussion leader, Kerry Cababa, looked at me and said, “Keep asking.”

At first, I couldn’t figure out why she looked at me. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was a reminder that I need to take advantage of every opportunity I get to learn something about Japanese American History—about our family history. If the Sansei and Yonsei don’t know or care to listen to the Nisei’s stories, everything will be forgotten.

A high school student in my discussion group called Mr. Shimada a hero. She said that she admired Japanese Americans for being able to experience something like that. I never thought of the Nisei as heroes up until now, but she’s right. Yesterday, I realized that I know so many heroes. The time before camp, during camp, after camp….it was all difficult, right? I don’t think I could have handled it. But the Issei and Nisei made the best of the situation. All of you helped form what it means to be Nikkei today. In the past few years, being Nikkei has become a big part of how I identify myself. What would we be without the Issei and Nisei?

A couple of years ago, I asked Grandpa for more information about his parents and their life in Japan when I was writing a paper for Japanese school. He said he didn’t know anything other than the most basic information: where they lived, what they did. My Mom always says that she regretted not being able to speak Japanese because she couldn’t talk to your Mom. When she talks about obaa-chan, she usually says, “She tried so hard to talk to us and I couldn’t understand anything.”

I don’t have the language barrier as an excuse. I don’t have any excuses. I simply didn’t make a real effort to know. Yesterday, I realized that I can’t let it be like that. Just as Ms. Cababa said, I need to keep asking. The least I can do for the internees who sacrificed and experienced so much is to remember their stories.

I’m sorry for only listening to half of your stories. I’m sorry that I let the books you bought for me get dusty in my messy bedroom. Even though I probably know more about your camp experiences than my parents do, there’s still so much that I don’t know. There are still so many stories that I want you to tell me. The next time we get together, do you mind pulling out your old albums and showing them to me one more time?

I’ll come visit you soon. Of course I want to hear the same old stories again, but I also want to hear new ones. What was scary? What was difficult? Was school hard? Was it weird to be around Japanese people all of the time? What did you do after camp? I know we’re both busy, but let’s try to make some time for each other. I don’t want to feel how my Mom feels today. I want to be able to know and share these stories of real heroes.

Related Stories:

• 41st Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage Highlights the Unfinished Business of the Civil Rights Struggle
• 41st Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage: Reflecting and Revisiting Living History
• Connections And Common Bonds Are Key At Manzanar At Dusk Program
• Students Taking Leadership Role In 2011 Manzanar At Dusk Program
• 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage/Manzanar At Dusk 2011 – A Personal Reflection
• 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage/2011 Manzanar At Dusk: Keeping The Manzanar Story Alive
• 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage: Everyone Has A Story To Tell, But Not Everyone Has A Chance To Tell Their Story
• 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage: The Passage of Time

Jaymie Takeshita, 19, from Northridge, California, is in her second year at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she is an undergraduate studying Psychology. She is a member of the UCLA Nikkei Student Union (NSU), serving as one of the Co-Directors for NSU Odori and on their Community Service committee.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the Manzanar Committee.

This story was reprinted in the Rafu Shimpo (print edition) on May 13, 2010. It was also reprinted on Discover Nikkei on May 18, 2010.

The Manzanar Committee encourages all those who may wish to share their thoughts, experiences and stories from the 41st Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage and Manzanar At Dusk 2010 programs, held on April 24, 2010, to submit them for publication. Whether it is a story, commentary piece, poem, photographs, audio or video, we welcome your contributions for possible publication here on our blog.

For information on submitting your work, click on: About the Manzanar Committee/Contact Us.

Unless otherwise specified, all stories, images, video and audio content on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. You may copy, distribute and/or transmit any story, image, video or audio content published on this site under the terms of this license, but only if proper attribution is indicated. The full name of the author and a link back to the original article on this blog are required.

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The following story originally appeared in the March 2010 edition of the San Diego State University Alumni E-Newsletter. It is reprinted here with permission. Original story: A Wonderful Gesture.

by Tobin Vaughn, Editor

SDSU: Former Student to Receive Honorary Degree

Carl Yoshimine (highlighted) shown in the 1942 Del Sudoeste Yearbook at San Diego State College, now San Diego State University.

“Emotionally, it was awkward,” he remembers.

The day before, he had been as shocked as everyone by news that the Japanese navy had attacked Pearl Harbor. This was the first day of classes since the attack and much of the country was still coming to grips with the stunning developments that would plunge America into World War II. When he arrived on campus from his family’s home in Ocean Beach, the first semester freshman encountered a subdued student body.

“Everybody was in small groups. All the students were kind of shocked and they were talking with each other,” Yoshimine recalls. “And I guess because of my ancestry – I’m of Japanese ancestry — I just felt kind of awkward. I wasn’t responsible for any of it and I didn’t feel guilty, but it was just an awkward day for me.”

As Yoshimine remembers it, none of his classmates were hostile or accusatory. He has no memory of a negative incident at San Diego State.

“Not on campus,” he insists. “There were other incidents after that when we were in public places. There were some remarks that were not very pleasant, but never on campus.”

As months passed, Yoshimine fell back into the routine of studying business and economics; classes the teenager thought would provide the best background for a solid career. But he came to discover a new favorite subject.

“I enjoyed history,” he recalls. “At the time there was Dr. (A.P.) Nasatir and I thought he was someone with a very good grasp of the South American culture and I really enjoyed his classes.”

Before Yoshimine could change educational directions, however, a government decree would alter the course of his life. Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, authorized the U.S. military to relocate Japanese Americans, including Yoshimine and his family, from along the Pacific coast to inland internment camps.

“And So We Got On The Train”

Word came suddenly in April, 1942. “We received that order and so we had to move. We had to leave our homes,” the San Diego native and Point Loma High School graduate remembers. He and his family were told to report to the downtown train station.

In April 1942, Japanese Americans were among those evacuated by train from the coast to inland relocation centers.

“According to the order, you were only to take what you could carry, so we each packed a suitcase and then we packed a duffel bag because it was too difficult to carry two suitcases. It was just the basic things that we would need—mostly clothing and necessities. We heard that we may go to some area that, weather-wise, was not like San Diego. It seems strange now because nowadays everyone is wearing jeans and Levis and things like that, but in those days I hadn’t even seen what Levis were like, but we went and bought Levis to be equipped for a harsher climate.

“We couldn’t take furniture. It was so limited we just left everything. We didn’t have that much time. We would just take out our furniture in front of our house and have people buy it or just give it away. My older brother, Masao, turned in our personal car to the Dodge dealer, which was about two or three blocks from the Santa Fe Station in San Diego and then he walked back to the station. And so we got on the train.”

“We Had To Do What We Had To Do”

Just like that. Was there any thought of organizing a protest or at least laying plans to someday return and claim their property?

“I think things in that era were such that when certain laws were put in place you just were obedient and did it,” Yoshimine explains. “I don’t think the frame of mind of people was thinking ahead. They just were so intense at the time. I didn’t feel that anyone said, ‘We’ll come back’ or anything like that. It didn’t enter my mind. We had to do what we had to do. It wasn’t fatalistic. It’s just the way it was then and what else could you do?”

Yoshimine, his brother and parents ended up in a camp in the desert called Poston III, one of a trio of camps at the Poston Relocation Center near Parker, Arizona. There, his father, who had driven a produce route in San Diego, was director of food and eventually became camp director of Poston III. Yoshimine and his brother, both with some college education, became teachers of the camp’s younger students.

After about a year in the camp and before the war was over, Yoshimine relocated to Wilmore, Kentucky where his San Diego State credits transferred to Asbury College. It was what many of his friends in the camps were doing as they could not return to the coast.

On the train trip from Cincinnati down through Kentucky, The young man from California had his first experience with the American South.

“The train was full and I was naïve, so I went to another car,” Yoshimine recounts. “They told me I had to move out of that car because it was a segregated car and I had gone into the wrong section. It was a Jim Crow car and so I learned about that in an uncomfortable way.”

Moving On

Despite the discriminatory challenges they encountered, the Yoshimine’s went on with their lives. Brother Masao volunteered for the counterintelligence corps and served with the U.S. Army in Japan. Yoshimine graduated with a degree in history. Wanting to share his Christian faith, he then went on to Asbury Theological Seminary for his master’s degree in religious education. He later attended divinity school in Berkeley and got another degree.

Yoshimine married, had three sons, and became a pastor in the Pacific Coast Free Methodist Conference. For 43 years he preached on Sundays to congregations throughout his native California before retiring in 1994. He and his wife, Miko, now live in Anaheim.

Carl Yoshimine
Photo courtesy Carl Yoshimine

After an extensive search to locate them, Yoshimine is one of three diploma-eligible students to contact SDSU along with the family members of some of the others. Their input is sought to plan a May ceremony on campus for awarding the degrees.

“I thought it was just a wonderful gesture and I really appreciated that move,” Yoshimine says of the honorary degree. He’s looking forward to returning to the campus he hasn’t seen since the day he left in 1942.

“I’m sorry I haven’t (visited),” he says. “I follow the basketball and the football teams in the newspaper and I still know the fight song.”

He begins to sing the words familiar to Aztecs everywhere:

“‘Fight on, and on, ye Aztec men. Sons of Montezuma we will win again.’ See? I know the song!” he proudly proves.

Molding Character

When he finally returns to campus in May, Yoshimine says he will gladly accept his honorary degree from SDSU.

“I feel it’s an important event because it’s not only honoring a particular group of people, but it’s honoring what education in the United States stands for and the integrity of what an education should be and the fulfillment of a person as an individual seeking to fulfill their dreams,” he says.

Later this month, Yoshimine will celebrate his 86th birthday. Looking back, does he feel cheated by having his education interrupted and his life and his family’s lives turned upside down? On the contrary.

“To me, every circumstance molds a person’s character,” he explains. “Going to the relocation center, for me, helped me find a stronger faith, which has put me in a more positive outlook rather than a discouraging or negative approach.

“I think carrying excess baggage or bitterness narrows your perspective of life. It doesn’t expand you as a person. To carry something with bitterness and hurt scars you as an individual for not being able to overcome it. And to live in that state is something that is unhealthy as far as I’m concerned.”

Spoken like the Aztec Carl Yoshimine once was and soon again will be.

Related Stories:
SDSU: A Matter Of Restitution
California State University Searches For Former Japanese American Students
San Jose State University To Honor Former Japanese American Students
Fresno State: Public Help Sought To Contact Japanese American Alumni
Honorary Degree To Fresno State Alumnus Interned In WW II

California State University campuses throughout California will award honorary degrees to their former Japanese American students who were forced to leave their respective campuses during World War II, per California Assembly Bill 37, which was signed into law in October 2009. If you, or someone you know might be eligible, click on: California State University System To Grant Honorary Degrees To Japanese American Internees.

Unless otherwise specified, all stories, images, video and audio content on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. You may copy, distribute and/or transmit any story, image, video or audio content published on this site under the terms of this license, but only if proper attribution is indicated. The full name of the author and a link back to the original article on this blog are required.

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