Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Camp proves value of history

WWII Japanese American detainees return to Minidoka for visit

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By MATT FURBER
Express Staff Writer

When Amy Hirasawa, 85, left Idaho 60 years ago after years of internment under the War Relocation Authority, one thing she took with her was her doll named "Blondie" that saw her through the war.

Former Japanese American detainee Amy Hirasawa, of Seattle, returned with other World War II prisoners to the Minidoka Relocation Center near Twin Falls last weekend. Her doll "Blondie" and her clogs are two possessions she retains along with many memories of her days spent as a youth in the camp. Express photo by Matt Furber

Returning to visit a preserved barrack from the World War II Minidoka Relocation Center near Twin Falls last weekend, one thing Hirasawa brought with her was that same doll.

"She wears glasses now," Hirasawa said. "She has cataracts."

The barrack and another 600 like it were used to incarcerate some 10,000 Americans of Japanese descent at Minidoka from Aug. 16, 1942, to Oct. 26, 1945.

Francis Egbert, 84, a retired electronics teacher, has been volunteering over many years to establish the Idaho Farm and Ranch Museum, an outdoor gallery of buildings and farm machinery located just off of Highway 75 north of Twin Falls, where the preserved barrack in housed.

It is among the representations of southern Idaho history hauled to the property, commonly known as IFARM.

Egbert, also a ham radio operator, heard live dispatches of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. He gave a tour of the barrack, Saturday, to three bus loads of former internees, family members and friends, who traveled from Seattle to revisit the site located a few miles further east of the IFARM museum.

Minidoka, what many Japanese Americans called "camp," is now a pilgrimage site for those who were imprisoned.

People seeking to better understand the dark period in American history can now visit the site, which was designated a national monument in Jan. 2001 in one of the final legislative acts signed by exiting president Bill Clinton.

The National Park Service is supporting the effort to develop the former prison as a memorial and an educational facility.

Last weekend was the second annual trip to Minidoka organized by the Minidoka Pigrimage Committee, which includes Hailey resident and city administrator Jim Azumano.

Azumano’s parents were married at the First Christian Church in Twin Falls during their internment. The minister, who married the couple, Rev. Emery Andrews, lost his Seattle Japanese Baptist Church congregation to the U.S. relocation of over 100,000 Japanese Americans.

Andrews packed up his famous "Blue Box" truck and moved his family to live with his congregation at Minidoka.

The reverend’s son, Brooks Andrews, who also spent part of his youth at the camp, joined the reunion Saturday night as Azumano led an evening of remembrance and story telling.

"We get rid of our anger by telling our stories," Andrews said. "It empowers us to live our lives today," he said, reflecting on sermons of his father.

In an open session of comments, questions and answers, young and old alike divulged painful and fond memories and experiences associated with internment.

Personal resolutions and advice for future generations were shared. Elders encouraged the younger members of the event to embrace the heritage of the Japanese American community’s past because the living memory is dying off to the tune of 40 Nisei per month. Nisei is Japanese for second generation Japanese Americans, who are American citizens by birth.

Egbert pointed out another structure at the IFARM called a "proving shack" that homesteaders used to survive in for the six months they were required to tend the land in order to gain ownership of the property.

During World War II Japanese were also trying to "prove up" and show their patriotism and love of America, said Mary Matsuda Gruenewald, 79, who like other internees at Minidoka has struggled with the impact of the legacy on her life.

Most Nisei, who were removed from the West Coast lost their property unless they were able to put it in the names of their children. Matsuda Gruenewald said her father had to get legal help after the war to have power of attorney transferred back to her father after the war so he could carry out family business again.

Yoko Kusunose, a young woman from Bellevue, Wash. and one of the organizers of the Pilgrimage, engaged her elders by discussing the challenges she still feels today, living between two cultures.

"I live in a white world, but I go home to a Japanese world," she said, specifically citing her days as a pupil in Seattle.

"What you said speaks directly to my heart," Matsuda Gruenewald said. "I lived in a white world. (After) Pearl Harbor I was thrown for a loop."

Matsuda Gruenewald said she has spent many years in "no man’s land," but she said writing her memoir has helped her to confirm her place and connection to history. Visiting Minidoka is part of her healing process.

"I feel like I am once again whole," she said.

Egbert, who was also a farmer, said there is more to the memory of the Japanese Americans at Minidoka than just the fact that they were imprisoned.

"If it hadn’t been for those people in the camps we never would have gotten our crops planted," he said. "There wasn’t much labor here in those days."

Despite efforts of most of those who were incarcerated to fit in and support the American war effort, including men who were recruited to fight in the famous 442nd Regiment of the U.S. Army, Japanese Americans did not receive full naturalization recognition until 1952.

At Minidoka, behind what was a guard house, a patch of earth, where an honor roll recognizing Japanese American soldiers who fought in the war once stood, is flanked by the remnants of a garden that was planted in the shape of a V for Victory, it is believed.

The visitors, mostly from Seattle, returned to Minidoka to dredge up memories. During the war Minidoka was the second largest community in Idaho.

Back in the stark barrack, returning Japanese Americans remembered that the buildings had only tarpaper walls, cots and stoves.

"I felt like I was coming home to where I had spent part of my childhood, said Mabel Shoji Boggs, 83, a Portland native.

At the IFARM exhibit there are photographs, newspaper clippings and other memorabilia of the day. One picture shows a woman exiting one of the barracks wearing "Geta", elevated wooden clogs that were used to preserve shoes issued sparingly to the prisoners and to help keep feet out of the mud.

During the weekend pilgrimage visitors rotated through tours of the monument, the IFARM barrack and a photo display of Minidoka called "Remnants," by photographer Teressa Tamura at the newly opened Herret Center at the College of Southern Idaho.

"I learned of the evacuation and incarceration of Japanese Americans in a book," said Tenuko Kumei, a teacher of American history and culture from Tokyo. "I get the real feeling here."

Visitors to Minidoka made renewed contact with friends they had not seen in over 60 years, sought information about dead parents and discussed the racism that put into question Japanese efforts to prove loyalty to the United States versus the Emperor of Japan during the War.

Many saw a strong correlation between Japanese internment and the current detention of Muslims at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

A plaque at the camp says, "May these camps serve to remind us what can happen when other factors supercede the constitutional rights guaranteed to all citizens and aliens living in this country."

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