Lecture Notes: Personal Testimony of Internment and Loyalty Questionnaire

Early Life and Internment

• Location: Grew up in Los Angeles.
• Event: Pearl Harbor caused the rounding up of Japanese Americans on the West Coast.
• Experience:
  • At the age of four, witnessed armed soldiers ordering the family out of their home.
  • Family was housed temporarily at Santa Anita racetrack's horse stables while internment camps were being built.
  • Transferred to a camp in Rowher, Arkansas, then to another camp in Tule Lake, California.

Internment Camps

• Camp Rowher: Initial camp located in Arkansas.
• Camp Tule Lake:
  • More secure and harsh conditions with three layers of barbed wire and tanks patrolling the perimeter.
  • Family transferred here due to being labeled disloyal.

Discriminatory Policies and Loyalty Questionnaire

• Immigrant Naturalization:

  • Immigrants from Asia, particularly Chinese and Japanese, were excluded from becoming naturalized citizens.
  • Japanese Americans were classified as 'enemy non-alien' during WWII.

• Loyalty Questionnaire:

  • Created due to manpower shortage in the military during WWII.
  • Required all interned individuals over 17 to answer, including elderly and young.
  • Key Questions:
    • Question 27: Asked if they would bear arms to defend the U.S.
    • Question 28: Would they swear loyalty to the U.S. and foreswear loyalty to the Emperor of Japan.
    • Consequences:
      • Answering "no" to either question branded one as disloyal.
      • Created turmoil in the camps as these questions were offensive and assumed existing loyalties to Japan which did not exist.

Personal Family Response

• Father's Reaction:
  • Born in Japan, ineligible for U.S. citizenship.
  • Refused to comply with loyalty questionnaire, emphasizing dignity over subjugation.
• Mother's Reaction:
  • As a young mother of three, refused to subject herself to the questionnaire.
• Result:
  • Family's refusal to answer 'yes' to loyalty questions led to their transfer to a more secure internment camp in Tule Lake as they were labeled disloyal.

Reflection

• Impact:
  • The experience of internment and the loyalty questionnaire highlighted racial discrimination and the challenges faced by Japanese Americans during WWII.
  • Personal dignity and resistance to unjust government actions played a critical role in the family's decisions.