April 10, 2007
Community
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 9
JACL praises recognition of Topaz as a National Historic Landmark
The Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) has praised the designation of Topaz, a World War II internment camp in Utah, as a National Historic Landmark. United States Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne made the announcement earlier this month. The Topaz camp was one of ten sites that imprisoned over 110,000 Japanese Americans, most of them U.S. citizens, at the outset of World War II. Congress later recognized the error of the internment and passed legislation to provide redress and an apology to the internees. JACL has supported and promoted the designation of Topaz and several other internment sites. Tule Lake in California, Amache in Colorado, and Heart Mountain in Wyoming have recently been designated National Historic Landmarks with the support of JACL and other camp committees and civic organizations. To learn more, visit the Topaz Museum website, located at . q
Tour highlights oral history of Japanese-American internment experience
By Maileen Hamto The Asian Reporter
ortland resident Henry Sakamoto, 80, was a teenager when his family was forced to leave their home and family business in Nihonmachi (Japantown) in Portland to live in barracks surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by armed military personnel. Race hatred directed at Asians living on the West Coast peaked following Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, and Japanese Americans became the target of war hysteria. In 1942, Sakamoto and his family were among 3,700 people from Oregon who were taken to the camp in Minidoka, Idaho. Sakamoto, one of the founders of the Oregon Nikkei Endowment, led a tour recently through the Japanese American Historical Plaza along Tom McCall Waterfront Park, among granite stones etched with poems that evoke the history of Japanese Americans in Oregon. He began the tour alongside two huge, cylindrical bronze sculptures that contain images. One portrays combat scenes of Japanese Americans fighting among the Allies during World War II. The other pillar shows an old Japanese man holding an infant. Reading the poems engraved on the granite stones, Sakamoto weaved stories from the camp to illustrate the dehumanizing and unjust experience of internment for Japanese Americans. Portland was home to a close-knit Japanese community that successfully established businesses and other ethnic organizations during the pre-war era. “Nihonmachi — from Front to Broadway, and from Burnside to the Steel Bridge — housed roughly 100 small businesses: laundries, bathhouses, hotels, little grocery stores,” Sakamoto said. As early as the late 1800s, Asian immigrants to the United States experienced much racial prejudice, underscored by laws that openly discriminated against Japanese as well as Chinese, Koreans, and Filipinos. Laws prohibited Asians from becoming United
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Korean studies teachers’ conference
K-12 educators are invited to attend a free one-day conference on Korea, presented by the University of Washington Center for Korea Studies, on Saturday, April 21. Teachers will learn about Korean history and culture through lectures on Silla and the Silk Road, pre-modern Korea, Japanese colonialism, and more. The conference will be held from 9:00am to 3:00pm at the University of Washington’s Kane Hall in the Walker-Ames Room. A Korean bento box lunch and clock hours will be provided at no charge. Advance registration is required. For more information, or to register, call Young Sook Lim at (206) 543-4873, e-mail , or visit .
INTERNMENT LEGACY. Henry Sakamoto, one of the founders of the Oregon Nikkei Endowment, led a tour recently through the Japanese American Historical Plaza along Tom McCall Waterfront Park. Sakamoto read poems engraved on the granite stones and weaved stories from the camp to illustrate the dehumanizing and unjust experience of internment for Japanese Americans. (Photo/William Anshiyo Hall) States citizens and they therefore could not hold basic rights, such as owning land. Despite these restrictions, Asian communities continued to thrive in California, Oregon, and Washington. Continued on page 11
Tour highlights oral history of Japanese-American internment
Continued from page 9 “In Oregon, the Japanese have been coming since the late 1800s to early 1900s. My dad came to the U.S. in 1906. By the time the internment came, he had already spent about 40 years in the States working and trying to save money. All of that was wiped out in roughly one week’s time, after the exclusion orders were posted.” One of the stones along the plaza captures a common painful sentiment during the internment: “Rounded up. In the sweltering yard. Unable to endure any longer. Standing in line. Some collapse.” Up and down the West Coast, Japanese Americans were instructed to report to assembly centers because the permanent camps had not yet been built, said Sakamoto. His family joined their neighbors to gather at the modern-day Portland Expo Center, then known as the Pacific International Livestock and Exposition Center. “They boarded up the dirt where they housed the livestock in corrals, so they can build living cubicles for us internees. So the dirt smelled of livestock manure,” he said. The makeshift cubicles were roughly ten feet square, and consisted of four thin walls and no ceiling. “We had a canvas flap for a door. Our family of four was fairly comfortable — we had mattresses filled with straw and army cots for a bed,” he said. “But since there was no ceiling, at nighttime, we can hear all kinds of nighttime noises: crying, giggling, laughing, coughing — it wasn’t all that pleasant.” Lack of privacy in the assembly centers and camps was devastating to many internees. “The bathrooms were built without partitions. In the men’s shower room, there were six to eight shower heads without partitions. In the toilets, there were eight or nine stools lined up — all without partitions,” Sakamoto said. In all, more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry, whether citizens or non-citizens, were interned in 10 camps from 1942 to 1945. Situated in the middle of the plaza, the tallest and largest stone pillar lists the names of the camps: Gila, Granada, Heart Mountain, Jerome, Manzanar, Minidoka, Poston, Rohwer, Topaz,
INTERNEE REMEMBERS. Henry Sakamoto speaks in front of the tallest and largest stone pillar at the Japanese American Historical Plaza. The stone lists the names of the camps: Gila, Granada, Heart Mountain, Jerome, Manzanar, Minidoka, Poston, Rohwer, Topaz, and Tule Lake. (AR Photo/Maileen Hamto) and Tule Lake. “Minidoka and Heart Mountain in Wyoming were the coldest camps. All the camps were built in desolate areas: Minidoka was sagebrush land. When they cleared the sagebrush to build the camps, they left a lot of loose dirt around. Whenever the wind blew, it picked up all the dust. When it rained, all that dust turned into mud, about three to five inches deep,” said Sakamoto. The stone containing the names of the internment camps sits among jagged pieces of stone. “In this circle, the jagged pieces represent life in internment: there is no order, no rhyme or reason to that kind of life. The break in the stones represents a break in our lives in Oregon,” said Sakamoto. When the internment camps were phased out in 1945, the internees had to go back to communities and build their lives anew. One stone reads: “Going home. Feeling cheated. Gripping my daughter’s hand. I tell her we’re leaving. Without emotion.” In addition to the hauntingly simple poems etched upon the stones, the plaza also is home to a copy of the Bill of Rights, embedded in one of the stones. “Some five or six of q these constitutional guarantees were violated during the internment,” Sakamoto explained. A copy of the Civil Rights Act of 1988 also is installed, providing an official apology and reparations to Japanese Americans interned during World War II. The legislation stated that government actions were based on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” Designed by the late Robert Murase, a renowned landscape architect, the Japanese American Historical Plaza was dedicated in August 1990. Visionary activist and businessman Bill Naito was instrumental in pulling together the financial and political support needed to complete the project. Sakamoto’s tour was held during First Sunday in Old Town and hosted by the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center, which helps preserve the history, art, and culture of Japanese Americans. The center is located at 121 N.W. Second Avenue in Portland. Exhibit hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11:00am to 3:00pm and Sunday, noon to 3:00pm. For more information, call (503) 224-1458 or visit .
Cherry Blossom Loaves & Fishes Center seeks volunteers
The Cherry Blossom Loaves & Fishes Center in the East Portland Community Center needs volunteer drivers to deliver meals one day per week between 11:00am and 12:30pm to homebound seniors in East Portland neighborhoods. Kitchen volunteers are also sought to pack meals for Meals-On-Wheels drivers and to serve seniors in the meal center. Flexible schedules are available from 8:00am to 1:00pm. To volunteer, call Tamara Bailey at (503) 256-2381 or e-mail .