S1: Welcome in San Diego. It's Jade Hindman on today's show. Military families are sounding the alarm about dangerous conditions aboard the San Diego based USS Abraham Lincoln. So what's being done about it? This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. In 1942 , during World War Two , President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 966. It led to the mass removal and incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans by the federal government. They were forced to leave their homes and move on to temporary detention centers , then later camps , uprooting their entire lives in the process. Around two thirds of those incarcerated were U.S. citizens by birth. And. right. And there was no trial , no due process. For many Japanese Americans , the hurt and trauma from that period is still felt today. And now , more than 80 years later , the Trump administration's immigration crackdown is bringing up memories of the past. This conversation will be exploring those through lines from past to present. I'm joined now by Naomi Oswald Kawamura. She's the executive director of Denso , a nonprofit that preserves and shares Japanese American history. Also with us is Koji Ozawa. He's an assistant professor of anthropology at UC Los Angeles. They both join me remotely. And finally , Jim Lynn is here in studio. He's a retired professor at UC San Diego. Naomi , Koji and Jim , welcome to the show.
S2: Thanks for having me.
S3: Thanks for having us.
S1: So glad to have you all here. Naomi , I'll start with you. Internment has been commonly used to describe what happened to Japanese Americans during World War II , but many experts , including those at Dean show , encouraged the use of the word incarceration instead. Can you talk about the distinction there and why the language is so important? Yeah.
S4: Yeah. Language shapes how we understand anything. And so internment has a very specific meaning. That refers to the detention of enemy nationals during wartime. And so in the case of the Japanese-American wartime incarceration , the US government forcibly removed and confined over 125,000 people , with the majority of them as American citizens , and so even subsequent exclusion orders when they characterized Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans , they refer to them as aliens or non aliens , not even saying that they are US citizens. And so we are trying to use language that more accurately kind of describes what happened or doesn't obscure those actions , and also offers a guide to terminology on our website as well.
S1: And I want to set the scene for those who might not be familiar with this history. Um , can you talk about what led to incarceration? I mean , what was the social and political climate like at the time? Naomi.
S4: Yeah , I would say. Yep. Um , so I think if leading up to when you think about when we talk about the wartime incarceration , we typically start with Pearl Harbor. But , you know , even earlier , beginning in early immigration , there were already sort of these , um , anti kind of , uh , policies that restricted , say , housing or land ownership. It kind of did not allow Japanese-Americans to become naturalized as U.S. citizens. And so there was this , um , development of these Japanese immigrants who who ended up being quite successful in fishing or in agriculture , that also harbored a lot of resentment. There was already the sort of racism. There was already sort of exclusion around people from China already. So this was already like in the backdrop even before. And I think it also helped to then fuel this sort of fear , uh , hysteria around what it meant to be someone of Japanese ancestry , that they could not be someone that could be ever assimilated or acculturated into American society , or that they were potentially , you know , spies. And so there's a lot of media portrayals that also characterize people of Japanese ancestry is not to be trusted , that they could never be American. And I think that that also , um , kind of led to sort of , I think people being , um , normalized to this concept that it would be okay to round up and then forcibly remove basically American citizens from the West Coast.
S1: Koji , how did incarceration shape your own family story?
S3: Yeah , so my grandparents were living in Pasadena , uh , in 1941. My grandfather was what we call Issei , or a first generation immigrant from Japan. And my grandmother was Nisei. She was born in the US. She was a US citizen. And they my aunt was born in Pasadena , and she was about six years old at the time. And they were all uprooted with their siblings and cousins , um , from Pasadena , and sent first to the Tulare Detention Center and then to the Gila River Incarceration Camp , which was one of the two camps in Arizona that were built on indigenous reservations. And they spent their time , um , in the Gila River camp for , for several years before eventually , um , moving out to Cleveland and by the late 1940s we were able to come back to California. But they were left , I think , with the marks of incarceration and that forced removal for the rest of their lives. My grandfather never talked about it. My aunt , when I would talk to her about it , would tell me it was too painful to to discuss , and she would refuse to really even engage in the subject. My grandmother would talk about it a little bit with me , but it's something that stuck with them for for their entire lives.
S1: And you're an anthropologist and an archaeologist. Now , how did that lead you to explore the impact of incarceration in your own work? Yes.
S3: Yes. So I'm an archaeologist. I've worked in archaeology for about 20 years now , and when I first started in my career in the field , I focused on a lot of different kinds of sites working in commercial archaeology in California , working for the Park Service , the National Park Service , And then I went back to graduate school , and I really wanted to focus on something that had relevance to my family and my community's history. And so I was fortunate enough to be able to start a project looking at the archaeology of the Gila River Incarceration Camp. For the past almost 15 years now , I've worked in collaboration with the Gila River Indian Community. Um , and looking at the material remains of incarceration camps there on their reservation , working with other tribal partners in the southwest and trying to understand the impacts and the everyday experiences of incarceration through the material record. Um , as an archaeologist and through oral histories and the stories and the materials that families keep from their time in the camps.
S1: Naomi , you know , we heard Koji mention how difficult it was for his grandmother to to sort of relive the memories and talk about the past. I'm curious , how does that that pain come up when trying to tell these stories again? Yeah.
S4: Yeah. Our founding executive director , Tom Ikeda , he founded our organization , Denso in 1996 to collect these oral histories from former incarcerated. And so what he actually found is that people felt this huge kind of weight of that past lifted in telling their stories. And so many of our narrators actually talk about. And it also could be due to the passage of time , really , because it is a very traumatic event that they experienced. And , um , many of the former incarcerated really had to rebuild their lives all over during resettlement. And so what they have shared , though later in life , is just so how much they want , um , the future generations to know their story , to learn from their past and that they feel the sense of , um , like wanting to make their stories even more public. Like , they really are open to sharing. Um , but it could also , I think , be due to kind of the passage of time and allowing the opportunity to reflect on what experiences happen to them and to have organizations like , you know , Densha and , um , public historians and descendants like Koji looking at its importance that this history is quite important to not just Japanese Americans , but to all Americans.
S1: And , Jim , you wrote this article for the San Diego Union-Tribune that draws parallels between the history of Japanese incarceration and what's happening today. What made you want to write that piece?
S2: Yeah , it's kind of an interesting story. I have a best friend who lives in Minneapolis , and he was , um , driving around at a time when ice was really looking , trying to arrest people. And he looked in his rearview mirror and said , oh , ISIS following me. He went. He wanted to go to the bank and deposit a check. But then when he saw ice , he circled around the bank and the the guy following him also circled around the bank. So he decided , okay , I better not deposit that check. So he came back home. He never deposited that check. And he talked about how , you know , how frightening it is to , you know , to be stopped by an Ice person because they will , um , you know , conceivably put you in a warehouse , which is happening in Otay Mesa. Now , we have , uh , probably thousands of people in San Diego who are in that warehouse. They've lost their ability to speak. I mean , uh , I want to thank KPBS for giving me the opportunity to speak , because those people in the warehouse have no chance of defending themselves , very similar to the internment in the internment. 125,000 people were put in camps , and then they had no chance to defend themselves , no due process. And that , you know , when I taught that at UCSD , everybody , you know screamed , this has to be taught at UCSD. It's something that had not been taught , and now it's happening again. So I think that we can continue. I mean , I can continue having my pleasant life , but I know that the absolute opportunity to speak , to actually defend myself , to have a trial is at risk now as just as it was during the internment. So.
S1: Well , and you're , you're not I mean you're , you've sort of learned about this history through a personal lens too. Right. I mean , because your wife's family was also incarcerated. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. My wife , Julie , is , uh , Japanese American. I'm Chinese-American , and , uh , that's a great story about her. She remembers because she was a waitress in Tuolumne Meadows. So she remembers her dad driving her to Yosemite to for the summer to be a waitress. And she , you know , just asking casual questions like , oh , dad , how come you don't have any pictures from this period of time? And suddenly her dad had this had to say , well , I had this camera , and this camera was confiscated by the police department in Berkeley. And Julie got really mad. She wrote letters to the police department demanding that they returned that camera. And then he had to explain they had hours on driving to. You know , somebody had to explain all about the internment. Otherwise he probably would not have explained it because , you know , you don't he people don't understand the feeling of shame. That's such a powerful dynamic among Asians that you just simply , simply hide things that make you feel shameful. There's a phrase called shikata nai , which it can't be helped. And that's that's basically why most people don't hear about the internment , because these people who talk about it have to admit how shameful they feel. Even though the federal government was completely wrong , they knowingly withheld evidence. They claimed the Japanese Americans were spies. But all along in that decision made by Uh , Roosevelt. They knew in advance the Japanese Americans are not spies. So this is just an amazing story.
S1: And I mean , do you all see parallels between the Trump administration's rhetoric for mass detentions and deportations and the justification for the incarceration of Japanese Americans? Koji.
S3: Certainly , I think , um , as as Naomi said earlier , the incarceration of Japanese Americans didn't start on December 7th , 1941. What was preceded by decades of dehumanization , uh , rhetoric , uh , marginalizing , uh , Japanese Americans and Asian Americans. And really , these discussions around who does and does not count as American on a on a racialized front. And I think we see those same Kinds of discussions happening right now. Who should and should not be able to immigrate here? Who should and should not be able to work here and have legal status in the United States? Who should and should not have their temporary temporary protected status revoked? Um , and these kinds of discussions are not new , but really echo a lot of what we saw in the leads up. Lead up to to mass removal and mass incarceration , which I think is something that we're seeing , you know , on a different lens , um , based on immigration status , but still this , this questioning of who could belong in the United States and being mediated through these kinds of often racialized , um , politics and racialized lenses.
S1: Naomi , where do your thoughts take you? When we talk about the parallels.
S4: Yeah , I honestly think that anyone who knows the history of the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans , um , will certainly draw the parallels or draw connections to that past and to what's happening right now in the United States. Um , you know , at 45 miles from Crystal city , Texas , which was a Department of Justice camp that was considered a family camp that kind of tried to pull Japanese-American families together. But 1600 children were incarcerated there. And 45 miles away from that , we Dilley , Texas , has an Ice detention facility , also considered a family detention center that has over 100 children , uh , there. And so I think when I think about those two , because when you visit Crystal city and you think about all the children that were incarcerated there , and today two even children as young as two years old being detained by Ice. Um , I wonder about what this reflects about us as Americans. And I think the past certainly gives us a way for understanding or recognizing how fear and racism and expansive government power can reinforce one another and it and dimension like it reminds us to defend due process. And again , going back to , um , my kind of , uh , example of the children is that we do need to think about what this reflects upon us and what we value as a society.
S1: Koji , um , some of the sites that were formerly used to incarcerate Japanese-Americans are now slated to become immigration detention facilities. How are we seeing the repurposing of this land and buildings today?
S3: I think those are the that infrastructure and reuse of infrastructure is some of those. The clearest parallels and echoes of of the wartime incarceration and really some of the most , I think , sinister and , and , um , terrible parts of it. It's just these places that are being reused time and time again as ways to alienate and confine people. Uh , we see that in the use of different kinds of , um , places like Fort Sill in Oklahoma , where there was a proposal to put a child migrant detention center under the first Trump administration that was also used to confine Japanese-Americans during World War two. That was also used to confine indigenous communities , um , like Geronimo , uh , was was famously confined there. And so you see these sites and this infrastructure being resurrected time and time again for the purposes of , of racialized confinement. And I think that's one place that , um , is is , on the one hand , very insidious , and on the other hand , could help draw parallels of solidarity and protest. And you see a lot of activism against it.
S1: All right. Still to come , we'll continue that in our conversation on the other side of this break. Welcome back. You're listening to KPBS midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. We're continuing our conversation about the parallels between the wartime incarceration of Japanese-Americans and present day immigration detention. I'm here with Naomi Oswald Kawamura. She's the executive director of Denso , a nonprofit that preserves and shares Japanese-American history. Also Koji Ozawa. He's an assistant professor of anthropology at UCLA , along with Jim Lin , a retired professor at UCSD. And Jim , there have been many efforts to bring greater light to this history. Naomi's work at Dinshaw is a perfect example of that. Are you seeing efforts to erase and undermine that history today?
S2: Oh , yeah. I mean , I have to really thank Naomi and Jen show. I mean , the effort they have to to retain this information is such. And I have to thank KPBS. I mean , you most of the public never heard of the internment. So just my chance to spend two minutes talking to you about the internment is breaking. I'm hoping I'm reaching a lot of listeners that you. Maybe you've never heard of this before , but this is something that it's a combination of the internees feeling shame and protecting their children from this horrible story , and also the fact that the public doesn't really , you know , how many of you in high school or in middle school? Heard about these? The history of Asian Americans. That's how precious it is for for me to talk to you and for you to hear this now. So we're still in major efforts to preserve it. And , for example , the camp Manzanar. They have a website where people can say how. Oh , the information that Manzanar was kind of favoring Asian Americans. And so there's efforts by the Trump administration , even at the Smithsonian , to alter the history. And when you alter the history and people say that never happened , then suddenly you you have a herd mentality that allows people to conclude , oh , immigrants are criminals and all that stuff. So just the process of preserving that history is a huge undertaking. The Japanese American National Museum also , they refused to give in to Trump and say , we're still going to keep every bit of information in there. So that's how rare it is now. Um , you know , I , I just have the the ultimate gratitude for people like Denso for KBS to actually talk about it. I mean , think about it. Those people in the warehouse can't even talk. They can't defend themselves. And this is going on in San Diego , right?
S1: It's hard to believe , Jim. And this is , um , you know , a repeat of history , it seems there it certainly rhymes , as they always say. Naomi , what are your thoughts on on the erasure of history?
S4: Yeah , I do think there are real attacks on the humanities , on museums like the Smithsonian Institution's and how we talk about our shared history , how we memorialize the past. Um , I think , you know , including like the National Archives and Records Administration announced their closing to regional archives in the Bay area and in Chicago , which houses naturalization records of many AAPI communities and immigration records. And in the alien enemy , the files. Um , that including the case file for United States versus Wong Kim Ark , which is the Supreme Court case on birthright citizenship. So these closures might mean , like the materials can be technically preserved somewhere , but might become much harder for researchers , journalists , descendants and the public to find and access. And I think Americans have a right to access their past and access their records. And as a country , I do think we've come a long way in being able to talk about our difficult paths as a collective. I think that we will continue to be able to. I think this is just an incredibly difficult moment for those of us who work in this space right now.
S1: Koji , all that in mind? I mean , what lessons did we fail to learn from the past that we need to go back and grab hold of for the present?
S3: I think the , um , these , these erasures of or attempts to erase and to censor history are certainly , um , intentional and right out of playbooks of authoritarianism , uh , controlling past narratives so that we can't learn these kinds of lessons , um , to , to guide our present and our future. I think the , uh , incarceration of Japanese Americans , one of the one of the sort of great outcomes , um , of the Asian American movement in the 60s , 70s and 1980s was to get a national apologies , to get a congressional committee to actually look at the incarceration and admit it was a mistake , and to admit that the government , as Jim mentioned earlier , uh , falsified testimony and Supreme Court cases , that the government lied and covered up evidence , um , and that these kinds of policies of alienation and discrimination are not okay. And , uh , to fall back into that , to to see this kind of return to , uh , xenophobia and , um , the cruelty being shown to these , uh , migrant communities to families is really , I think , uh , abhorrent and something that I hope that we can still push to , uh , to learn from experiences like the history of incarceration , um , and hopefully and use that lesson to , to guide our present policies.
S1: One thing that that's really come up over time is the resilience of the Japanese-American community. What does resilience look like and mean to you in this time? Naomi.
S4: I think what really impresses me and what I really have the privilege and honor of being able to see is in leading one of these Japanese-American organizations , the community comes together to kind of act quickly to respond. When the announcement of the Nara closures came out. It was a quick immediately like an email thread that sort of involved and engaged so many people from across the country. I think that the community has really found ways to not only sort of steward their own past , but make contemporary kind of connections to their historical experiences. And I think that that's this huge takeaway that you can kind of draw from Japanese American community and history is that the past is useful to all of us in the present. You know , it really helps us to understand how things have come to be the way they are. Who we are or where we come from , and also kind of who we want to be. And I think in terms of the community itself , it's an incredibly , you know , there's definitely challenges , but I think that it has , um , in many powerful ways , um , relayed their past in ways that resonate to people today. And that , I think , is a way of thinking about resilience in our community.
S1: In the last two minutes we have here. How do you empower this generation to preserve this history and make sure what's happening today is not forgotten or lost? Jim , I'll go to you on that one.
S2: Well , I'm in. You know , back 40 years ago , I taught the very first course in Asian American Studies , and I fought very hard against the even the university. They thought this was a political movement that had no academic legitimacy , but I was able to push it so far that it was institutionalized. And on top of that , the Ethnic Studies Department was institutionalized , all in a period of four years , from 1986 to 1990. So every effort we can to preserve the history is so important , because this history of Asian Americans is relevant today. It speaks to due process , one of the main pillars of our democracy. And so we've got to fight for it. And what would I do if I didn't have KPBS , if I didn't have Denso , if I didn't have the Japanese-American National Museum , if I didn't have the Japanese-American Historical Society at San Diego , without those sort of places you can go to to find archival evidence. Um , you're lost basically. And the whole thing about the internment. How they knew they knew the government concealed it was due to Peter Irons , who was a fellow professor at UCSD. He went to the Library of Congress , and through the Freedom of Information Act , he he found out they knowingly concealed evidence that the Japanese Americans were not spies. But so that's the kind of thing the power of rumor , the power of people to create rumors that are completely false is , you know , the power to create fake news is such a big factor right now. Propaganda.
S1: Propaganda. And the best way to combat it is through knowledge and knowing history. I so appreciate you all for this conversation. I've been speaking with Naomi Oswald Kawamura , the executive director of Denso. Also Koji Osawa , assistant professor of Anthropology at UCLA , and Jim Lin , a retired professor at UCSD. If you're looking to learn more about this history and some of these stories we've discussed. Will include more links on KPBS. Thank you all so much for your insight and sharing your stories with us today.
S2: Thank you.
S5: Thank you.
S1: That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.
