Japanese Internment Camp Survivors Speak Out

Summary

This Inside Edition video delves into the stories of the survivors of Japanese internment camps in the United States during World War II. Through personal narratives, it reveals the psychological and cultural impacts of the internment experience, highlighting the resilience of those affected. A mix of harrowing and heartwarming tales unfold, detailing life behind barbed wires, the disruption of lives, and the attempts to retain dignity amidst adversity. The video also covers the long-term socio-economic effects on Japanese-Americans and reflects on the lessons learned, emphasizing the importance of empathy and unity in preventing such events from recurring.

Highlights

• Stories from survivors like June Burke shed light on the diverse experiences within internment camps. 📚
• Internment camps caused deep cultural impacts, such as the loss of Japanese language and traditions in some families. 🏯
• Despite the U.S. government's apology years later, the emotional and economic scars remain significant. 😢
• Efforts to shield children from fear led to creative and collaborative community activities inside the camps. 🎨
• The financial losses incurred by the interned Japanese-Americans during the war were never fully compensated. 💸

Key Takeaways

• Japanese internment camps during WWII were a grave injustice born out of wartime hysteria and prejudice. 🚫
• Survivors like June Burke and Mas Yamashita share their unique perspectives, differing from typical narratives. 🎤
• The camps stripped individuals of their identity, transforming them into mere numbers. 🔢
• Despite harsh conditions, communities fostered a semblance of normalcy for children through social activities. 🤸‍♂️
• Many survivors felt a strong sense of American pride and advocated for empathy and understanding between races. 🇺🇸

Overview

The video presents a deeply personal exploration of the Japanese internment camps through the eyes of survivors like June Burke and Mas Yamashita. These stories vary in nature, some recounting painful memories while others narrate fortunate escapes from harshness, due to kinder experiences. The narrative highlights how these internees, despite living under oppressive conditions, managed to maintain dignity and nurture a semblance of community life.

Intriguingly, the children in these camps experienced a structured life encouraged by organized activities. Their parents prioritized shielding them from fear, often using inventive strategies to create a false sense of normality. However, the impact on cultural heritage was significant, as many families lost touch with their Japanese roots due to the restrictions on language and customs imposed during imprisonment.

While the U.S. government eventually apologized and offered reparations, the story continues to echo the hardships and unresolved grievances of the now elderly survivors. The discussions emphasize a universal lesson against prejudice and advocate compassion and unity. The survivors' tales not only confront America’s past mistakes but also inspire a commitment to prevent such historical injustices from repeating.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Personal Stories The chapter titled 'Introduction and Personal Stories' delves into the diversity and individuality of personal stories, highlighting that while some, like the narrator, may have been fortunate to avoid painful memories, others have endured significant hardships. It underscores the idea that every individual's story is unique and distinct, with varying degrees of difficulty and reflection.
• 01:00 - 02:30: Historical Context and Pearl Harbor The chapter delves into the historical context surrounding the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. It highlights the paradox of the 'Greatest Generation,' celebrated for their wartime efforts, while simultaneously subjecting fellow citizens to internment camps purely based on their Japanese heritage. This section serves to shed light on the lasting impact and feelings of misjudgment experienced by those affected.
• 02:30 - 04:30: Government Actions and Internment Process The chapter 'Government Actions and Internment Process' discusses the internment of individuals during wartime due to prejudice, hysteria, and failed leadership by the government. The narrative distinguishes between the internment camps in America, described as "America's concentration camps," and the Nazi concentration camps, noting that while the latter were death camps, the former involved imprisonment behind barbed wire fences with armed guards ensuring no one escaped.
• 04:30 - 10:00: Life in the Internment Camps The chapter discusses the experiences of June Burke and Mass Yamashta, survivors of internment camps.
• 10:00 - 15:00: Post-War Reflections and Legacy The chapter titled 'Post-War Reflections and Legacy' discusses the surprise attack on the American naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service. This catastrophic event occurred before 8:00 a.m. on December 7th, 1941, resulting in the loss of 2,403 American lives, including sailors, soldiers, and civilian personnel. The attack on Pearl Harbor is notably marked by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's description of December 7th, 1941, as 'a date which will live in infamy'.
• 15:00 - 19:00: Apology and Reparations The chapter titled 'Apology and Reparations' begins with the United States being suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval forces of the Empire of Japan. At the time, the United States was maintaining a stance of neutrality during World War II. However, this attack on December 7th ultimately thrust the nation into the global conflict. In response to the attack, a request was made to Congress to formally acknowledge the unprovoked aggression by Japan.
• 19:00 - 19:30: Closing Remarks The chapter recounts the onset of World War II for the United States, starting with the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th. The narrator, reflecting on their childhood, recalls being ten years old at the time. The impact of the war was immediate and widespread, affecting even the employment of Japanese individuals within the United States, as all were fired from their positions, including those in entertainment studios.

Japanese Internment Camp Survivors Speak Out Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 mine is just one story and there are 100,000 other stories each story is different each pain is different I was fortunate not to have Painful memories but there are a lot of people who have had very painful experiences mine is not the average story mine is one of the maybe luckier stories
• 00:30 - 01:00 of a childhood Behind Bars children and adults who were born and raised in the United States were locked in internment camps on American soil solely because they were of Japanese descent this happened during World War II while the soldiers who fought in this war and the Rosy the riveters who were their lifeline on the home front are hailed as the greatest Generation there are people still affected by what it feels like to be mistakenly considered
• 01:00 - 01:30 an enemy of their own country it was both Prejudice wartime hysteria like they said and failed leadership of our go government leaders that sent us all into what we call America's concentration camps which are different from Nazi concentration camps those were death camps that they were sent to ours was not like that ours was just being behind prison barb wire fences with armed guards making sure that no one
• 01:30 - 02:00 escapes June Burke and mass yamashta are both survivors of internment camps Jun Burke is a California Native I was born in Hollywood went to Dayton Heights grammar school in Hollywood and lived a pretty normal life I didn't feel any special prejudice against us as children but later on when I grew up I read all these things that were said in the newspapers that were said by politicians
• 02:00 - 02:30 and different people an American naval base in Pearl Harbor Hawaii was pummeled by a surprise attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service it happened before 8:00 a.m. on December 7th 1941 2,43 Americans Sailors soldiers and civilian Personnel died that day December 7th 1941 a date which will live in in infy
• 02:30 - 03:00 United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by Naval and their forces of the Empire of Japan at the time the United States was still claiming neutrality in World War II but the attack launched them into the fight I ask the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday December 7th
• 03:00 - 03:30 1941 a state of War has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire I was six when the war broke out I was 10 years old when uh December 7th happened and the bombing of pear Harbor immediately all Japanese were fired even from the studio
• 03:30 - 04:00 government jobs and also students who were going to UCLA or USC could not go back to school and then they set up a um curfew area where we could no longer travel more than five miles from our home and we had to be at home by 7:30 and this law was fought all the way up to the Supreme Court but they ruled that uh in more time the Army has the right to do this so they lost the case in supreme court because they couldn't
• 04:00 - 04:30 travel more than five miles um uh a lot of families moved in together and because everybody was fired and didn't have jobs they also started using their savings and their savings were being depleted when Executive Order 9066 came in to be and we were all forced to leave our homes this evacuation of the Japanese has been ordered by the army
• 04:30 - 05:00 Presidential Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Franklin D Roosevelt it authorized the forced removal of people with Japanese ancestry living on the west coast to what the government called relocation centers the camps were not finished yet so the government used places normally only fit for animals to serve as Japanese detention centers Japanese living here in Southern California they were taken to Santa Anita which is a RAC
• 05:00 - 05:30 trck and the pona fairgrounds we were living up in Oakland Northern California and the people living up in Northern California we were taken to tan Fran which was a racetrack there were these posters that were put up all over the West Coast the one that went in your neighborhood told you to report to such and such a place so to make sure once these order came out that there wouldn't be any demonstrations or resistance the FBI rounded up what they considered Comm Community leaders
• 05:30 - 06:00 Japanese Community leaders and took them away Burke remembers the day she learned her family would be forced to move my sister and I were walking home from a movie and she started seeing these signs on the telephone post that said Japanese in this area have to be out of here by a certain date it was for us it was May 7th which gave us about a week to get rid of all of our belongings and my sister went home and I remember her yelling at my parents she
• 06:00 - 06:30 was saying you were born in Japan so you have to go to camp but I am a United States citizen I just took a class in constitutional rights and they can't do this to American citizens my mother said to her well who's going to take care of us in Camp and who's going to take care of you out here by yourself so my sister said yeah all right I'll go to camp with you Burks family along with many others
• 06:30 - 07:00 were moved to the Santa Anita racetrack they gave us a tag with a number on it and they said to us this is your number this is your family number our number was like 3407 and they said well the rest of the time you are here in San Anita or wherever you go you don't use your family name you use your number and so immediately you lose your identity like that no one could take pets into the
• 07:00 - 07:30 camps with them and that that was a really uh tragic sad thing for a child then they told us uh go over to that hay stack and fill your pillow with straw so we put the hay and pillow and then we dragged it up the road and then they said well this one here Barn 54 is the horse stall where you're going to live we didn't have mattresses they we had to stuff these bags with straw on hay and
• 07:30 - 08:00 that's what we slept on cuz I can remember it being so dusty in these stalls my mother my father and I slept in the back part of the horse doll where I guess the horses would would be and then the front part which we called our living room was my brother's bed and my sister's bed that's probably where they kept the hay for the horses to eat at night they would uh in Sant Anita they would have bed checks and we had to all be in our they put a flashlight in our
• 08:00 - 08:30 fa and make sure you're in your bed and then it's lights out for the whole camp and then they have search lights going all around the camp to make sure that no one's trying to escape I thought well this is what happens when you're in Camp uh when you're in a prison right now they use it for the horse receiving Barn before they go out on the races but in the wartime days this whole large room was shower faucets they put a sideboard inside this huge
• 08:30 - 09:00 room and half of the room was for women and half of the room was for men and just the supply wood boards separating us and everybody was assigned to eat at a certain mes Hall there were six mes Halls the red mol was in the grand stand where we had classes where we had programs where uh we had school really nice beautiful the other mes Halls were all in the Barrack which was okay and then the blue mesle was in The Stables
• 09:00 - 09:30 which had horse flies and stuff I remember once my father got really angry he had a hot he had a hot temper and he stood up and he told this waitress you put on a hairnet or a scarf because your hair can get in my food so we we thought my God here's this horrible conditions that we're living in and he's worried about a hairnet or a girl Berg says her parents and other
• 09:30 - 10:00 adults were careful not to fill the children with fear they always remain calm I don't know how they felt when they went with us but there's a Japanese saying that says K and that means for the sake of the children they wanted to make sure that all the children grew up in a normal happy surroundings we had libraries and books and schools the Elders all printed
• 10:00 - 10:30 newspapers make sure that we all knew was everybody knew what was going on and also set up softball leagues baseball leagues basketball for both boys and girls and Cub Scouts and um all the normal things activities that children do as a second generation born here in Los Angeles I'm feel really indebted to our EA we call first generation EA the immigrants our parents
• 10:30 - 11:00 they kept telling Japan don't go to war with the United States because Japan is like our mother and father and we were born there so our parents are still there but our children are born here in America so it's like asking you to choose between a mother and a father and they beg Japan not to go to war with the United States well that didn't work after about 6 months at the race track yamashita's family was moved to
• 11:00 - 11:30 the topaz internment camp in Utah they put us on trains I remember that cuz I never been on a train before they covered up the windows with black paper or black cloth or something I didn't know why they didn't want us to look out they didn't want people to see us I don't know so in each car there was a soldier with the rifle and they had bayet on the I remember that they had bayet on the rifle anyway very intimidating and so our block was block
• 11:30 - 12:00 13 I tell people you never forget your block number because there were no trees nothing to block the wind so we used to get dust storms all the time and you couldn't keep the dust sand out of the rooms Burg's family was moved from the racetrack to another internment camp in Rowan o Arkansas they always emphasize oh look how much fun you're going to have you're going to go on a train ride you're going to go on a bus ride and I oh I've never been on a train before I've never been on a big bus before so
• 12:00 - 12:30 it was all new adventure for me and uh I remember it as that because again they didn't want to put fear in children's minds they wanted us to uh feel safe and comfortable but I also saw poverty in Arkansas and Jim Crow my father rode on a bus and he was told to sit with the white people and he couldn't sit in the back of the bus and he came back to Camp
• 12:30 - 13:00 saying I'm a I'm an enemy alien I should be in jail and yet they treat me better than they treat the people who live here he he he thought it was incredible that that was going on in the United States he he never saw that before in his life she recalls why many school AG children took on Americanized names and how it had lasting generational effects the teachers were from Oklahoma Arkansas Mississippi
• 13:00 - 13:30 Louisiana so they all had the southern draw to hear then try to pronounce Japanese name with a Southern draw all of his kids were sit there and we just laugh we just oh my God she's murdering our names you know so I think that's when a lot of us started using our American names like I changed my name to June because they couldn't pronoun pronounce my Japanese name yasu you know
• 13:30 - 14:00 and in the relocation centers Life Goes On from kindergarten up it's an all American course for these youngsters oh they outlawed Japanese schools in the camps us kids were going yay we don't have to go to Japanese school good I always spoke Japanese in my home to my parents and to my elders I always spoke Japanese but uh as I grew up and I had children I didn't speak Japanese in my home it was all English so I think a lot of culture was lost in that the third
• 14:00 - 14:30 generation didn't have the opportunity to learn Japanese unless they were sent to a Japanese school where they were taught the Japanese language but most of us um didn't do that and so there was sort of a loss of a culture there I think but strangely enough while the um army said you can't have Japanese language schools they also said for the
• 14:30 - 15:00 sake of the elderly people we can perform Japanese dances we can put on Japanese plays and we could sing Japanese songs so a lot of the young girls like my age we all took up Japanese dancing and we took up Kabuki and playing the shamien like a fiddle and learning how to sing Japanese songs there were some happy stories to come out of our misery my sister worked
• 15:00 - 15:30 in one of the mes and she was always late because she could never get herself ready to get to the miss all in time but this young man started asking her for a date and they dated in Camp and she was just a senior in high school and he was a college student they both went to two separate concentration camps he went to aachi my sister and I our family went to roal Arkansas so they corresponded every day and uh they finally married yash's
• 15:30 - 16:00 family was incarcerated in the topaz camp for almost four years when the war ended and we were released they gave each person $25 and a bus ticket or a train ticket wherever you were going with the $225 total that the US government gave yamasha his parents and siblings the family did not return to California they settled in Salt Lake City he says it was
• 16:00 - 16:30 a culture shock after being held at a camp where everyone was of the same Heritage Hollywood was making these War pictures and the Japanese were always the bad guys right the gods are kind I will be in the White House when Japan dictates her turns of Peace So I became aware of being Japanese by VE Day victory in Europe day which honors the day the allies has accepted Germany's
• 16:30 - 17:00 surrender May 8th 1945 Burke and her family were freed she remembers how she felt on VJ Day the day marking victory over Japan I was living in Denver but on VJ Day there's such a sense of relief that the war is over we all said at that time it's the end of all wars unfortunately it it wasn't but somehow we have to keep saying no more war no more uh
• 17:00 - 17:30 violence between 1942 and 1945 there were 10 internment camps holding American citizens of Japanese descent about 120,000 people were detained against their will Burke hopes America has learned its lesson we have to learn from past mistakes we have to learn not to teach our kids to hate have them feel tenderness and kindness to one another I think that's so important the the only way we can do that is how we treat one
• 17:30 - 18:00 another race or color or ethnicity doesn't come into that it's that's Universal the internment camps had lasting economic effects those incarcerated lost an estimated $400 million in property during the war in 1948 Congress provided just 38 million in reparations to survivors of the camps you have to remember there were 120,000 different stories and so mine is just one so if you talk the age groups
• 18:00 - 18:30 between 10 and 13 you know all we remember is having fun in Camp it's the older people 19 20 years old who wanted to have college education and were denied or trying to get us work and were denied and they struggled differently my fellow Americans We Gather here today to write a grave wrong President Ronald Reagan issued a for apology to Japanese Americans in
• 18:30 - 19:00 1988 with the passage of the civil liberties act that same year cash payments of $20,000 were given to each surviving Japanese American who is a US citizen or legal resident at the time of their interment I'm just hoping that our political leadership will recognize the pain of separating people from each other and also from parents from children despite how the US treated her
• 19:00 - 19:30 family and so many others Burke says she is still proud to be an American I think there's a sense of being proud to be an American and hopefully that this never happens again to any other group and that's why we try to tell our stories I'm TC Newman for Inside Edition digital [Music]