'Later, Selective Service began drafting Japanese American men who were interned in camps with their families. Thousands joined, but nearly 300 disobeyed, calling themselves "resisters of conscience," and were ultimately sent to prison.'
I hadn't heard of this before. I wonder how long they were in prison and if anything was done about thier record.
Japanese Americans recall civil-rights abuses in WWII
Robert Rogers, Staff Writer
Article Launched: 04/23/2008 10:37:09 PM PDT
Photo Gallery: Japanese American Dramatic Reading CSUSB
SAN BERNARDINO - They sat reading the words of their own tragic journeys.
The now gray-haired men recounted the pain and terror of their youth, when they morphed into an enemy of the state through no fault of their own and were summarily ostracized and imprisoned by their birth country.
Their tormentors called them "yellow." Six decades later, the patriotism of their dissent bloomed Wednesday in Cal State San Bernardino's Santos Manuel Student Union theater, earning the crowd's empathy and respect and salving wounds between their
Momo Yashima, left, and Paul Tsuneishi speak on a panel. Japanese-American speakers performed a dramatic reading regarding civil rights during World War II in A Divided Community on Wednesday at Cal State San Bernardino. (Eric Reed/Staff Photographer)
own people.
In an event billed as a historic lesson about rights trampled by the passion of war and a healing of divisions between Japanese Americans, five readers dramatized the plight that befell roughly 120,000 people stripped of possessions and interned in military camps during World War II.
"A Divided Community," a dramatic reading, featured three Japanese-Americans who lived the harrowing American tragedy that grew from bigotry to state-sanctioned assaults stripping them of land, possessions and freedom.
The three responded differently, creating a divide that has never really closed.
While Frank Emi and Yosh Kuromiya resisted compulsory military service for a country that trampled their rights, Paul Tsuneishi served despite his family's imprisonment in a military camp.
The three men, all in their 80s, highlighted for more than 100 people in attendance the bitterness that has existed between those who chose service and those who chose resistance.
"One doesn't normally go to prison for liberation," Kuromiya said. "But strangely enough, that's where I found it."
The play's director and one of its readers, Momo Yashima, opened the performance with an impassioned declaration, saying she brought the play to the university to show young students a vital piece of American history that for too long was distorted by "political agendas" that "replaced integrity and truth."
The early stretch of the play was peppered with excerpts of American literature and songs of the pre-war era, laced with bawdy bigotry and exploitative ideas about the Japanese who had begun streaming onto the West Coast.
In 1924, Tsuneishi read, congressional passage of the Immigration Act effectively barred immigration by Japanese and other groups. While many older, politically marginalized Japanese-born people opposed the legislation, the younger generation of Japanese Americans opted not to mount any opposition.
"The failure to fight against it started the rift" between the groups, Tsuneishi said.
That deepened to unforeseen levels with Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
By early 1942, Emi, Kuromiya, Tsuneishi and thousands more were ousted from their homes and shipped to camps.
"Back then you didn't talk back, didn't make waves. You just held it in," Emi said.
"A young soldier kept poking me with his bayonet" to keep the line moving. "I knew then that we were in trouble."
Later, Selective Service began drafting Japanese American men who were interned in camps with their families. Thousands joined, but nearly 300 disobeyed, calling themselves "resisters of conscience," and were ultimately sent to prison.
Emi and Kuromiya were among those locked up for a few years in federal prisons.
Those in attendance said the performance, which was also filmed by a Japanese documentarian, was a conscience-tugging tale.
"They had so much respect for this country's values, they resisted orders that were totally against those values," said Holly Roy, a senior history major. "Their resistance was heroic."
Another attendee, John Sorgi of San Bernardino, was particularly moved. Sorgi, 72, was in an Arizona camp as a small boy. "It's hard for me to think about," he said, "but it's important for people to know this history."
Japanese Americans recall civil-rights abuses in WWII - San Bernardino County Sun
Japanese Americans recall civil-rights abuses in WWII
