Amache: An American Injustice

Narrator: This patch of high plains, just a mile square, has stories to tell.

Over the course of three and a half years, some 10,000 people were incarcerated here, in the arid land of southeastern Colorado.

Moriguchi: We did nothing wrong, and yet our government deprived us of our rights.

Hashimoto: Almost 70% of us were American citizens.

Tinker: To be put away, behind barbed wire -- it was wrong.

Havey: It was a huge tragedy.

And the impact, I think, is still going on.

M. Tonai: No one else should ever, ever experience that again.

[ Birds chirping ] We were home that Sunday.

We got a call from my cousin.

She said "Did you hear?"

I said, "Hear what?"

"You didn't hear?"

I said "Didn't hear what?

What are you talking about?"

"Japan bombed Pearl Harbor."

I said, "Cut that out!"

Niiya: Literally as the smoke was still billowing at Pearl Harbor, the FBI and local law enforcement started to round up Japanese immigrant community leaders.

M. Tonai: 9 o'clock that night, knock at the door and there were two FBI agents.

They said they wanted to talk to my father.

I didn't see him for over three years.

Najima: They took my father away without any explanation.

They just took him away.

Havey: My parents' reaction to Pearl Harbor was silence.

They couldn't explain to us what was happening.

Moriguchi: Although like myself I'm a third-generation Japanese American, they looked on us as non-Americans.

Hashimoto: Treated us like spies, I guess.

They froze the bank accounts.

So if you didn't have any cash, boy, you had a hard time buying food.

Moriguchi: It was a culmination of all the discrimination and hate actually of Japanese Americans.

From the time they first immigrated, they were not wanted.

Narrator: In the late 1800s, first-generation Japanese immigrants, known as Issei, began arriving on the West Coast, primarily as farm workers.

As immigration increases in the early 1900s, so does anti-Japanese fervor, fueled by white supremacists and organized labor groups, who accuse Japanese immigrants of taking American jobs.

Niiya: That eventually leads to the string of discriminatory legislation, making Japanese immigrants ineligible for citizenship and prohibited from purchasing land.

Narrator: By the 1930s, amid rising tensions with Japan, the FBI preemptively targets innocent community leaders.

R. Tonai: Pearl Harbor hits, good excuse to start rounding up the so-called suspects.

Narrator: As Japan scores military victories in the Pacific, the war hysteria grows, along with calls to remove all Japanese from the West Coast.

Niiya: General John L. DeWitt was the head of the Western Defense Command.

And according to DeWitt, we have to forcibly remove all Japanese Americans because "There is no way to determine their loyalty."

Narrator: On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, which leads to exclusion orders addressed to all persons of Japanese ancestry, "alien and non-alien."

Niiya: What's a non-alien?

That's just a way to say a U.S. citizen without using the word "citizen."

Suddenly they have a week before they would be evicted from their homes and businesses.

Ogo Shew: You don't know where you're going.

You don't know how long you'll be there.

You have no idea sort of what the conditions will be.

Havey: I came home from school one day, and my mother was packing.

She said, "We're going camping."

Wow!

[ Chuckles ] This is great!

Hashimoto: Only one suitcase allowed.

Put your best clothing and shoes and boy, it filled up right away.

K. Kitajima: My father had to sell his tractor, refrigerator, our Ford pickup.

Practically gave everything away.

We couldn't keep anything.

Fuchigami: There were groups that wanted our land, 'cause it was highly productive land.

And there were few voices raised in opposition.

Narrator: By early May 1942, the entire West Coast Japanese American population has been moved into temporary prison camps, euphemistically called "assembly centers."

Many in California's rural farming communities are taken to the county fairgrounds in Merced, while Los Angeles-area residents are housed at the Santa Anita Racetrack.

R. Tonai: There's a lot of confusion.

There's a lot of despair.

There's a lot of depression.

Hashimoto: Watchtowers, machine gun towers, searchlights, barbed wire all the way around.

M. Tonai: We ended up in the horse stable.

The walls still had cow dung on it.

Havey: I hated it.

I really hated it.

And I asked my mother, you know, "What is this?

This is really a funny kind of camp."

She explained then, "It's a camp for Japanese Americans."

I said, "Well, I still would like to go home."

She said, "Well, you can't do that."

Narrator: Meanwhile, 10 permanent prison camps are being hastily constructed in remote inland locations.

By the end of August, the incarcerees are again on the move.

Hashimoto: They put us on the Santa Fe tracks there in Merced.

We were required to pull the shades down so you couldn't see where you're going.

Moriguchi: When we got out of the train, I noticed we were surrounded by machine guns.

So my first thought was that they were gonna kill us.

They were gonna kill us out there in the desert.

Narrator: The incarcerees arrive at the Granada Relocation Center, more commonly known as Amache, 10,500 acres of windswept prairie in southeastern Colorado.

Najima: It was as desolate as you can get.

Tumbleweeds and dust and sand.

Yokouchi Madden: The dust kept coming between the cracks.

You could never keep it clean.

Tinker: The camp was not finished.

There wasn't even running water.

M. Tonai: They gave us a canvas cot.

Cotton mattress.

Two blankets.

They had one pot-bellied stove, but it wasn't enough.

When it really got cold, like 16 below zero, we shuddered all night long.

Ogo Shew: It was communal living -- thin walls, and shared bathrooms.

The Issei women would go to the latrines at like 3 o'clock in the morning to get some modicum of privacy back.

Hashimoto: In the mess hall, we got Army food.

Bread, spaghetti, cow tongue -- tough as heck to eat.

Most people just threw it away.

But that's what we had to eat.

Havey: There was a curfew.

If you were out after that, then the guards were...

They were free to shoot.

That's what we were told.

Narrator: For decades, survivors and their families have been returning to Amache to remember and to pay homage.

In recent years, they have also been joining archaeologists and students from the Denver University Amache Field School.

The school combines traditional fieldwork with guided site visits for former Amacheans.

Kamp-Whittaker: When people think about archaeology, they often picture, you know, digging into the ground, pulling up buried treasures and artifacts.

But at Amache, part of the archaeology is about people.

It's about uncovering stories and experiences to understand what happened to the Japanese American community during World War II.

Tinker: I'd just turned three when we went into Amache.

And up until the Amache Field School, I really had no vivid memories.

But the first Field School that I went to, they showed me my barrack.

And nothing for about five minutes.

And then pretty soon, I could actually visualize what was there.

One year we found an old bathtub.

It's called an ofuro.

And I remember taking a bath with my mom and my two aunts.

Every year I come back, we seem to find something that elicits memories that all of a sudden -- wow!

R. Tonai: Where was Auntie Em and your aunt?

M. Tonai: Well, they were next door to us.

They were in 3A, and we were 3B.

Later my father came, so we filled it up.

My father was in prison until '44.

Man: How do you feel being in your actual barracks now again after many years?

M. Tonai: A lot of memories come back, good and bad.

Bad, you know, how much our parents suffered.

That was worse than anything else.

Uno: Many of the Issei men were taken at the apex of their productivity.

This was all taken away from them.

They were broken spiritually.

Havey: My father was destroyed by the wartime experiences.

He said, "We come here to the United States and then just when we're becoming financially able, then they treat us this way."

Ogo Shew: Communal living turned families upside down and really disrupted the traditional family dynamic.

Hashimoto: Before the war, the parents were the boss of the family.

When we came to camp, the family disintegrated.

Go to the mess hall, the kids sat with their friends, the mothers sat together.

Fathers sat together looking real glum.

They had no say about anything.

Narrator: After six months at Amache, the government creates even more turmoil within the community.

Niiya: In early 1943, the War Department decided to allow Japanese Americans to volunteer for the armed forces again.

That was the impetus behind the so-called loyalty questionnaire.

Narrator: The loyalty questionnaire is given to every incarcerated Japanese American.

It is composed of 28 questions, all largely benign, except for the last two.

R. Tonai: Question 27 asked, "Will you serve in combat in the U.S.

Army?"

And question 28 asked, "Will you forswear your allegiance to the Emperor of Japan?"

Nakashima: It's a weird wording that you didn't know how to answer.

Hashimoto: A lot of people said, "I don't know no Emperor."

Tinker: To the people who were not even citizens, it was very threatening.

If they forswore allegiance to Japan and the Emperor, they would have no country.

R. Tonai: For a lot of young people, the typical response was, "How dare you?

How dare you question my loyalty to this country?

I was born here, I was raised here."

Narrator: The vast majority of people answer "yes-yes."

But the people who answer "no" are sent to Tule Lake Segregation Center, a maximum-security facility in Northern California.

Aiboshi: Those people who said they were "no-no" were really ostracized.

R. Tonai: The government created a schism in the community that exists today.

It divided families.

It tore brothers apart.

Havey: The way that they coped was Shikata ga nai -- "It can't be helped."

Whatever happens, you just accept it and go on.

Or gaman.

You know, "suck it up."

Clark: So, Lily, you're standing in your barrack.

And when you look at the home movies, almost every barrack had a garden.

Havey: That's amazing!

That's amazing.

Clark: One of the most powerful medicines that these folks could have had was their gardens.

G. Kitajima: Gardens and trees would provide the people with some respite.

Just out of the desolation, you can create some beauty.

Ogo Shew: As awful and as wrong as incarceration was, seeing such vibrancy really shows the determination of the incarcerees to make the best of what the situation was.

Homma: Those Amache families were incredible.

They built a community at Amache from nothing.

They set up schools.

They set up sports teams.

Ogo Shew: There was a silkscreen shop created to make training posters for the U.S. Navy.

But it eventually makes a variety of materials for camp itself.

It's one of the things that makes Amache unique.

This visual ephemera that is art, and that really shows life at Amache.

The Boy Scouts, the Red Cross, a chapter of the YWCA.

There was all sorts of enterprising businesses.

There were Ikebana classes.

There was Sumo wrestling.

The Obon festival.

That traditional Japanese cultural identity and this very Americanized ideal play out seamlessly together within camp.

That speaks to that complex relationship that existed between these two identities even before camp.

Homma: It's that spirit of survival.

Making the best that they could.

Narrator: Unlike the other camps, Amache was constructed next to an existing town, the community of Granada.

At first, the small community is alarmed by the large prison camp just up the road.

Tinker: After a time, we were allowed to leave camp to go shopping.

M. Tonai: Initially, only Newman's Drug was friendly to us.

And he made a lot of money.

[ Chuckles ] Ogo Shew: Having the ability to walk down the street as a free American had a huge impact on the psyche and the morale of Amacheans.

Narrator: Over time, Granada residents venture into Amache for community activities, like movies and sporting events.

The Granada townsfolk also come to respect the Amache farmers.

With more than 10,000 acres of farmland under its control, Amache's main industry is agriculture.

M. Tonai: They wanted the farmers to farm all that land because those central California farmers were really, really excellent farmers.

Clark: They know how to grow in poor soil.

They bring different varieties of crops.

They bring different techniques.

They had two agricultural fairs that were like the county fair.

Thousands of people came to see this.

M. Tonai: They were just amazed, the stuff that we were raising.

Narrator: In 1943 alone, imprisoned farmers produced approximately 4 million pounds of vegetables.

What wasn't consumed at Amache was sent to other camps and to feed the U.S. Army.

Those who didn't farm held other jobs in camp.

Najima: I had a job, and most of my friends had a job, waitressing.

Havey: My mother was one of the two sewing teachers at Amache.

People respected her.

And she flowered and became her own person in camp.

Homma: My grandfather had a dental practice before the war, with many Hollywood movie stars as patients.

He became one of the dentists in Amache.

Narrator: Even the most skilled incarcerees earned just a fraction of the federal minimum wage, with the top salary only $19 a month.

Moriguchi: And if you're a common laborer, like a field hand or hauling coal, you'll get $12 a month.

Narrator: Though they still couldn't return to the West Coast, those Amache incarcerees the government deemed loyal were increasingly given permission to leave camp for jobs in other regions.

Yokouchi Madden: My mother got a job to go teach Japanese in Boulder to Navy officers.

Fujita: My father spent a lot of time doing work outside of the camp.

He thought incarceration was a waste of the government's energy and a waste of manpower that could be helping the war effort.

Narrator: In January 1944, following the success of all-volunteer units in Europe, the draft is reinstated for Japanese Americans.

But under the circumstances, not everyone agrees to serve.

Taguma: My father, he was steadfast in refusing to go into the Army until his civil rights were restored and his family were released from camp.

They were called cowards.

They were told they should be tried for sedition.

R. Tonai: They went to federal penitentiary as draft resisters.

Taguma: There are many ways to show patriotism.

One is on the battlefield.

One is in the courts.

One is speaking your conscience.

Narrator: Across the 10 camps, some 300 choose prison over military service.

But ultimately, more than 30,000 Japanese Americans serve in the military during World War II.

M. Tonai: We had a lot of people go in the service.

We as Boy Scouts would see them off.

4 o'clock in the morning at Granada Station, our drum and bugle corps would play.

And the Scout commissioner, Mr. Uragami, would say, "Play as loud as you can."

So the people would know that we were sending our boys to the Army also.

Narrator: For its size and length of service, the all-Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team is the most decorated unit in American military history.

Homma: Amache had 31 killed in action while their families lived behind barbed wire.

Narrator: In January 1945, the government rescinds the West Coast Exclusion Order and begins closing down the camps.

Ogo Shew: Returning home was a whole nother, you know, struggle.

Hashimoto: The government says we can go back to California, but local people didn't want these 120,000 people coming back.

Moriguchi: Some of the people in town, they came and stole whatever they wanted from my grandfather's house, and then they set it ablaze.

M. Tonai: We were destitute.

My mother, she became a seamstress at minimum wages.

And my father couldn't get a job.

His business was gone.

Narrator: In isolated instances, families are able to hang on to their properties, thanks to the kindness of neighbors.

Hashimoto: My father was able to get the farm back.

So happy to come home.

That was the happiest day of my life.

Narrator: But many incarcerees don't return to California.

As part of a calculated plan to break up and disperse the tightly knit West Coast communities, the government encourages and incentivizes Japanese Americans to resettle in the Midwest and on the East Coast.

Ultimately, the racist forces behind the incarceration had succeeded at appropriating Japanese American property and tearing apart communities.

Ogo Shew: The government literally pulled these people out of the only homes they knew.

That led to generations of trauma that we're still struggling with today.

Mikami Keimi: I always felt like a second-class citizen, like I wasn't fully accepted as an American.

M. Tonai: You know that everybody hates you.

You're the bad guy.

We were the scapegoats.

We were Japs.

Narrator: Not until the 1980s, after a campaign for reparations led by the younger generation of Japanese Americans, does the U.S. government officially apologize for the injustice of incarceration, and give each living survivor $20,000.

Fujita: The apology meant a lot.

I think it helped compensate for the taunting I experienced as a kid.

Tinker: I think that kind of restored my parents' faith in the government and in themselves, and said, "Okay, I'm a citizen.

I deserve to be here."

Havey: Taking away someone's freedom and civil rights, it's something that you can't buy.

Homma: Grandfather died in Amache at the age of 44.

My dad would say, "My father's life was worth a lot more than $20,000."

Narrator: What's buried at Amache calls on us to remember.

Kamp-Whittaker: Amache tells a story about the worst of who we can be and the best of who we can be.

Tinker: It was wrong.

It did not have to happen.

But people who lived here, they persevered.

Homma: Amache forever changed our whole family.

Three generations in Amache, three generations that were unjustly incarcerated, and my family's story is just one of 125,000 stories.

M. Tonai: I want this to be part of history.

That this is something that could be done to an American citizen.

Ogo Shew: All because they looked like the enemy.

Niiya: It shows the power of racism.

And I think because we have that experience, we also have a duty to speak out when we see this happening to other people.

Moriguchi: What happened to us should never happen to anybody else.