Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston - Japanese American Internment Camp Survivor, and Memoirist

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I'm Guy Kawasaki and this is remarkable people. This episode's guest is Jane Wakatsuki. She's the author of Farewell to Manzanar. This book was written in the 1970s when Jean was 37. It chronicles her family's internment during World War II. It is one of the books that many American schools use to help students understand racism and prejudice. Jean was 7 when her family was uprooted from Long beach and placed in the Manzanar Internment Camp in the High Sierra of California. In total, 120,000 Japanese suffered from the same treatment. It was done in the name of security. The fear was the Japanese would sabotage America's war efforts. In this interview, she explains what happened to her and her family and her hindsights about the experience, as well as how it relates to the racist environment in America today. However, don't expect anger and bitterness because she has come to terms with what happened. In fact, she has traveled throughout America in order to educate people so something like this doesn't happen again, to fully understand her interview, here are some definitions and explanations. Shikata ganai is the Japanese concept that something cannot be helped or nothing can be done. It's not necessarily defeatist or angry. It's more like it is what it is, so stop feeling sorry for yourself and deal with it. Issei refers to the first generation of Japanese to immigrate to America. Nisei is the second generation of Japanese Americans. They were born in America and she is one. Sansei FYI is the third generation of Japanese Americans. I am a sansei. Kibe describes Japanese Americans, I.e. people born in America who returned to Japan for their education and then came back to America. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was part of the U.S. army. It was made up of primarily Sansei Japanese Americans from Hawaii. The 442nd first fought in Europe during World War II. For its size and length of service, it is the most decorated unit in American military history. Much of the motivation of the members of the 442 was to demonstrate their loyalty to America even when Japanese Americans were being interned. The JACL is the Japanese American Citizens League. It is a civil rights organization whose purpose is to foster the progress of Japanese Americans and Asian Americans to fight bigotry and prejudice. Katonk is a term used in Hawaii and by people from Hawaii to refer to Japanese Americans born on the mainland. This interview discusses the difference in perspective between Catonks and Japanese Americans from Hawaii such as me. It is not completely a negative term, but it's certainly not positive. In the second half of this interview, Jean discussed the time she almost went on Glenn Beck's show. The voice you will hear in the background is Gabby Houston, her daughter. She was sitting in on the interview, and she chimed in to help explain the story. The goal of this episode is to prevent anything like this from happening again. I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is remarkable people. And now here's Gene Wakatsuki.

My father, of course, as soon as the bombing of Pearl harbor, the FBI were over the house because he was a fisherman. He was also ise, meaning that he was born in Japan. He also studied. He was an educated man. So the FBI came and he was gone. I was a child then, so I couldn't recall exactly what was going on. But I do know the results in the family, which was great fear, because the head of the family, and my father is a very powerful man. You know, he's a real issei type, very powerful, was gone. And then, of course, all the rumblings of the war and the racism that came out of that, and the whole thing about the internment, this was unprecedented to get a whole group of people. But they were way out in the plains someplace. But in Los Angeles or in cities in Hawaii, they say, okay, this group of people, Japanese, report to a certain church at a certain part of Los Angeles, bring only that which you can carry, and we'll see you there. I mean, it wasn't that flippant, but of course, that's what happened. So people met at a certain place, left their cars, left their homes. What could they do? If they were making payments to the banks, which, of course, most of the people were, you can't make the payments anymore. So that's how they lost their home, the boats. Oh, yeah. Oh, the boat. The FBI came and they just compensated that immediately.

And the FBI thought that your father was taking fuel to submarines off the plane.

That's what they accused him of doing.

Because he had barrels on the deck.

Yeah, of chum. There Was not only ignorance, but there's tremendous prejudice. And so they would leave. They didn't even know what chum was, probably.

So your father is taken away?

Yes, disappeared. I don't know exactly how the official word got around that where you were to go, but I think like in the Japanese community, they said, oh yeah, they're going to pick up a whole group of people at the church in Los Angeles. So meet there. Everybody from Boyle Heights, meet there. And that's how the people were, I think.

So you voluntarily went there?

Oh, yes. What could we do? There were no men. They picked up the issei who were 30s and 40 years old. My oldest brother was late teens. Right. Or early 20, so. And already we were, you know, we. They had experience. They knew their, quote, place in the society. Because at that time, the 20s and 30s and before that, there's tremendous anti Asian feeling on the West Coast. We went straight to Manzanar. Other people, but other people were in this. In. I guess it would be this area taken to the Tamparan racetrack and they lived in the stalls there. They put them in there because that was confined. And they did that at Santa Anita racetrack. So that was picking up the people taking them there. And then from there they were dispersed to these concentration camps of which there were. Was it 10 in the most remote parts of the country, Arkansas, Arizona, away from the West Coast.

So now you get to the camp and what is it like?

I would compare it to, Gosh, closest to would be like the reservations that they put the Indians in. Except, of course, we couldn't leave. It was barbed wire. Manzanar was a mile square and had 36 blocks. Within each block you had 12 barracks. And in the barracks there were either three or four apartments in the barracks. And one family lived in each of those apartments. So it was like we were in the army. They had barracks, we lived in the barracks. So, you know, because they just threw the barracks together. And so one of the. I think the of the people who were there, the young boys or young men, they would get like a big can and then you take off the top, but they get that top and they would cover the holes. And that's how they would cover the holes that were in the floors. They're kind of ingenious. And then it was so cold. It was so bad for that first year, six months, that they then came with linoleum and covered the floors.

It was too cold at that point. Were people just accepting that they can't do anything? I mean, what was the attitude?

What Was the morale.

Like I know there was a riot. So at some point.

Yes, but remember they had all. Basically they took the leaders of the camp and especially the Issei, which was like my father. So my father was being in his 40s. Right. So that's what they did. They snipped the chiefs, the leaders and so that the young Nisei men had to take over and assume leadership in this community. And then were put into this strange community of barracks like army, except their families living there. And then of course they chose camp leaders. And you never saw white people in the camp unless after a year when they put in a school, then they had white teachers that came. But it was. The white people would be just soldiers who were guarding outside and later on teachers would come in. So basically when you first come in. I never saw Japanese when I was living in Ocean Park. So suddenly I was in this community. Everybody was Japanese and some of them couldn't speak English. Like Terminal Island. I was in this really strange place because I couldn't understand what they were saying. So it was just the most insane thing that happened. There is such ignorance about who Japanese were and about dealing with any other racial group.

What was the relationship with, for example, the guards?

Oh well, there's no white people in the camp. After the second year we did have a school then a lot of Quakers and high minded white people came to teach in the schools. But the first year it was like crazy. That's when they had the big riots and everything. I never saw any white people in the first months in the first year except soldiers, of course. We were in barbed wire. So there were four. I don't know how many towers there were. And those were soldiers with machine guns up there in case any of us tried to leave. Who's going to go out in that snake infested desert?

Eventually it became sort of a functioning entity.

Right.

Like a city with school.

Absolutely. Gardens and I'm talking about Manzan. I don't know how other camps were because I'm sure in Arizona it would be different because the weather would be so different. In Arkansas we ate better than the people outside because we raised our own food, pig farms. And that's all they had to do was run the camp.

You mentioned the concept of shikata ganai several times. With hindsight, do you think shikata ganai was the right attitude?

I think it was the only one where they could survive because there's no way we could have rebelled with guns and we would all have been killed. Right. So how do you deal with this and make the quote, best of it. In other words, instead of going into deep depression or remorse and so forth. So I think what they did was just because they had leadership with these different men or women and getting together and then they start making farms. Growing farms and raising chickens and so forth. And then you have poor white people and they would see that the Japanese were growing vegetables and dairy farm or whatever it was, and these poor people who didn't have the wherewithal and the farming skills and so forth. So the Japanese were starting to feed the poor whites. That's a fact. Wow.

I'm from Hawaii and when I came to Stanford for my undergraduate education, I met Japanese Americans from the mainland.

Oh boy.

For the first time.

Which you know the term Katonk.

Yes. Okay.

So first time I ever met these Katonks.

Right.

I could not relate to them at all because justifiably so. They had a chip on their shoulder about being Japanese. Racial prejudice.

Yeah.

Internment, all this kind of stuff.

Yeah.

And I was from Hawaii.

You're the majority.

I'm the majority from a fairly powerful family in Hawaii. I could not relate at all to all this victimization stuff. It was an eye opening experience for me also.

Oh, for sure. It's amazing that they even talked to you about it because for years they just never talked about that experience. And that's why. Farewell to Manzanar. When Pharaoh to Manzanar came, it was like people were stunned that that had ever happened in my age group.

Were they angry that you wrote that book and lifted up?

Well, you know what? No, they weren't angry. But I think that they were just like, oh, don't bring the attention again, don't bring it up and everything. But because the response by then by the populace and everything was much more positive and about their indignant and actually we owe it to the Black power movement because the black power movement was first when the black power movement the Olympics and then brown and then Asian. So Farrell to Manzanar fell into that historical time. So when the book came out, easy to read and it was a book that we knew, my husband and I knew, listen, you cannot make people feel guilty because they feel guilty, they get mad, they get the opposite reaction. We knew that we had to tell the story that people would read and could relate to in their heart. This is a young girl, she's an American. Did we do that? And so forth so that it's readable and that people are not going to have a knee jerk reaction. So we had great purpose and I Don't know if you know this, but it's part of the story. My husband never knew about the camp.

And his husband did not know about Manzanar.

We had been married 14 years. We knew each other for. I. I Forgot it was 14 years, but the kids were already born and we just. I never talked about it. Nobody in our family did. It was a secret because it was such a shame, you know.

Why is it a shame? You were the victim, not. You didn't cause the shame.

Oh, no, no. It was a shame because we didn't have enough self. What is the word? Self. Pride. To realize that how dare they do this to us. No, because we were just at the end of 100 years of anti Asian racism in California. So my father would never go into a restaurant because I think he experienced not being served or something there. And he was a very proud man. Never would go into restaurant. It was very hard for the Issei. That's my father's generation. They were what they call the Chinese horde that came in. Well, the Japanese were right in there with that and tremendous anti Asian, which Hawaiians would not understand. Because you are the majority. You're the majority. You're in power there. And I know my mother is from Hawaii. Hawaii. And I go there. She went to school there. She went to university. And also for the 442nd, I mean, that. Go for broke. They're Hawaii boys because they had a lot of guts, because they had self esteem, because you could get that in Hawaii, not on the mainland. And so, like, it was tough with these boys who came from Hawaii and they see these. How the Japanese were so different. The Katongs were so different than they were because they were the majority.

Didn't your brother go into the army, though?

Yes.

And can you explain that to me? Like, so this government just put you in a concentration camp and now you volunteered to fight.

He didn't volunteer. He was drafted. Oh, they drafted. I mean, it was crazy. Not only they drafted him, but he couldn't speak Japanese that well, but they plucked these guys out with a high iq, whatever it is. And he was trained in. Well, he was an mis. He became one of those military interpreters and learned Japanese really well. And he was one of the first to go over to Japan right after, you know, with MacArthur, right after the war. And he was. When I think of it now, the irony of it, because my father never could afford to go back to Japan, but his son does. He and his son, my brother goes to Hiroshima and sees the great ant, sees the graves that my father's family are in. My father used to talk about being from a samurai class, and we never paid any attention to it, but it was true. His relatives are buried in Miyajima. Hiroshima, that island off there. And so my older brother, it was such an experience for him. Pride in that he was somebody and not a second class citizen. Like, we retreated here in this country. But when he went back to Japan, he saw his roots.

He never believed my father, but he was drafted. He was still serving the government that put his family in a concentration camp.

I have a hard time wrapping my.

Mind around that because what else could they do? I don't know of anybody that refused to serve. And there were some other. But they called them the. They were kibe. They were the educated. The Japanese who were Japanese Americans who were educated in Japan and they were very pro Japan and they came back, they were very educated, very smart. They knew about racism. They became the ones who marched and everything. And so the other Japanese who were not of that education and so forth stayed away from. Because they. These guys were trouble because they acted like the stereotype of the Japanese soldier or like very Nazi. You know, they would march around in camp, like, wait, wait, they were march.

Around camp in support of Japan?

Yeah.

Inside Manzanar.

Yeah. Wow. Oh, yeah. There was tremendous friction because a lot of their educated Japanese said, why should we stay in this country that treats us like this? They don't want. But then someone like my father, who was educated in both countries, he said, it's never going to be the same if you go back. At one point they said, okay, if you sign this loyalty oath and you sign it yes, yes or no, no, then that would determine what would happen to you if the war, when the war was over and so forth. So there's a huge friction within the camps of people because then they started saying, no, we're going to vote as a bloc and not as an individual. And that's when I remember my father really speaking up and just saying, no, we hit the individual not as a bloc. I'm not going to vote. And here he was from a samurai class in there. He said, I'm not, quote, going back to Japan. My children and I will stay here.

So just for clarification, so yes, yes means you're loyal to the United States.

Right?

And no, no meant.

Yeah, that's what they call that. No, no, boys. Yeah. Wow.

It's now a long time after this.

Gosh. Yeah. It's a wonder that I need. I haven't Even thought about this for a long time.

Eventually through the court system and.

And probably through the efforts of lots of white people.

Oh, absolutely.

The camps were closed.

Oh, yeah. They knew it was a mistake, but they've been doing it to the Native Americans. This is their M.O. the United States would do this. Just round up people and put them away.

What's your attitude now towards the United States government? I mean, have you forgiven them for what they did?

I don't know if it's about forgiving them or anything like that. I'm very active politically. And I will tell you, Trump is. He's bad news, very bad news, because he appeals to the worst part of. In people's self, you know, their psyche, if they have to have someone below them to be. And that's what he appeals to.

But focusing on what happened eventually with Mandalaar and the camps being closed and you guys going back into society even though you were in camps. I mean, the Terminal island and Cabrillo. Is the glass half empty or half full? Half full would mean that, well, eventually the system kicked in and we were freed. Or half empty would say, it should have never happened.

Oh, of course, half empty. It should never have happened.

Yeah.

But the fact of the matter is it has happened in this country because it's part of our historical personality of the country.

Do you think it could happen again to Muslims and Mexicans?

From my own point of view, as an educated person, I say, well, it could happen, but we were not going to let it happen. Oh, it's trying to happen all the time, but you have to have people who understand and who know and who understand the psychology of hatred and the psychology of not having. And then somehow, if you scapegoat another group, it somehow gives you either some feeling of worth or it's to squelch another group so that you can rise above it. And so it's really a deep psychological thing that the human being has. If we could be a perfect human being and love ourselves and not have to put down someone else in order to elevate yourself, then we can go smoothly along. And I think we're getting there to some point, at least we can articulate that. But then you have someone like Donald Trump who comes and who's a little psychologically off balance. And sometimes these people are very charismatic because they're crazy. That's very charismatic. And you get to someone who says things that is so, like, off the wall and then say, but wait a minute, because so off the wall that you start to study it or to look at it. If you yourself don't have a strong feeling envision of your.

Of your own worth, that's easy for me to say. But when you were imprisoned, they took your whole family and they stuck you in a camp as a family. Family separation at the border today. Oh, is unconscionable.

Yes.

I mean, I don't, I don't know how you can, how you can justify that to yourself. And they claim to be Christian. Could you foresee, let's say, there's an act of terrorism by Muslims in America.

Right.

Round up the Muslims, stick them in camps.

Oh, totally. It's always there.

You could see that happen today?

I could see that it would try to happen, but there'd be a lot more people who are educated who know about that. I know that the Japanese who know about the interim out of principle would speak up the jacl, because this is what they do all the time. They're looking at this, they're looking for this, what the danger signs are. And for sure it's against Muslims. We know that.

Do you have any thoughts about how we can prevent this from happening again?

Well, it's just education and when I speak, I'm open for questions, but we always get into this kind of discussion and to put that into it, like this could happen again. When you start looking at people and you're not seeing individuals and you're seeing.

This as a group, that's a key insight. So you're saying that Roosevelt or whoever said 110,000 Japanese are all the same.

Oh, yeah, of course they thought that because they look the same, they have slant eyes or whatever, and it's just simplifying things and. Well, if you think about it like from a psychological point of view, I mean, like Hitler was so crazy and all the hatred and so forth that went on with the Nazis. And so you just look at what the bottom line psychological weakness is. And I would say that with Trump today, he tries to appeal to white people or to a group of people to make them want to feel like they're above it because it makes them feel like they're it by hating someone else and putting someone else down, that they elevate themselves.

I cannot relate to the mindset that in order for you to succeed, other people have to fail.

Yeah.

I believe that the rising tide floats all boats.

Absolutely. Because I don't know. Are you. Do you have brothers and sisters?

And one sister.

One sister. And you were raised in Hawaii?

Yes.

And probably very loving parents.

Yes.

That's where it comes from it comes from that basic. When you're young, growing up and about the basic love. And it starts with your brother and your sister and your mother and your father.

What if you didn't have that though? What if you're 50 years old today and you didn't have that and you are, you are thinking Mexicans and Muslims are all rapists and terrorists.

That's because you were deprived.

Yeah, but it's too late to go back in time. So what do you do with that 50 year old who believes that, that I'm poor because the Mexicans and Muslims are taking my jobs?

You know what? I think you have to reach those people emotionally, psychologically, in their hearts. Because you know, I have found, and I have spoken to a lot of people from all over this country and I have found that most people, unless they're really damaged or anything, they really do want to love, they really do want to accept you. And so if you give them that way to do it, they can break into tears. I've had people come up to me and say, oh, I never knew about this or something like this and they're just in kind of shock. And I reach out and hold it. I said it wasn't your fault. I said, but we'll never, you'll never let it happen again. And they just start crying because they really do assume that it was their fault. And that's what I have to be careful of because you don't want to leave people feeling that they have wronged somebody because you never know how that guilt is going to turn on itself.

With all your travel and speaking, do you think people are more different or more the same?

I have spoken to so many different places. It's amazing the response people like when I was in, was it Missouri, Arkansas and places like that. Maybe it was the people who I spoke to who would come to self selection. Yeah, yeah, people go to church and things like that. They were the nicest people. And when they heard that the writer was coming to their town, they got their whole families together dressed up like they're going to Sunday school because they'd never seen a rider. And they came, they were so polite, so nice thinking to myself, wow, it was this group here that forced ahead with the internment, but their children and their grandchildren were so what I would call good Americans. Just they knew it was wrong when it happened. And yeah, I was very shocked and impressed because I was scared to go to at this time when I did that, to go to these Missouri and places like that, it was okay. New York, Maine, or the West Coast. Texas. I'm afraid to go there. I'm afraid to go to the South. Still?

Still.

Yeah.

Even after you said they were kind.

And all that, because they can't make the difference between if I'm a Chinese from China or Japan. It would have to be incredible education to these people about what? About the Second World War and the Japanese Americans being interned.

Glenn Beck wanted to interview Mom.

Glenn Beck wanted to interview you.

And she was set up with an interview with Glenn Beck. And we knew that the angle that he wanted to take was that she was gonna be really, like, bashing on the US Government because he was so, you know, anti. Whatever he wanted to bash on that year.

That's right.

Remember that, Mom?

Yeah.

We were like, what is the angle? Like, why would he want to interview Mom? Like, she's the opposite of what. Like, what is his angle? Like, what is he gonna. What's gonna happen here with this interview? And so the interview never happened. But I remember you were like, oh, he's going to be shocked at what I have to say, because you had such a different spin, a different take on your thoughts on democracy and. And being in this country. And you're actually.

That's right. That was so long ago. Remember?

And even though you went through what you went through as a child, that made Manzanar you. You said if it had happened in any other country, it wouldn't have come out the same because at least now it's a country that recognizes.

Would have happened.

It would come out worse.

Yeah, it would come out like. Like if you're in China or another.

You'd be dead.

You'd be dead. Or the country would never acknowledge it.

Right. Or recompense you. I mean, you know, like, pay. They pay damages and so forth.

At least the book came out. And now it's out.

I have.

My. My assistant coach is from the Ukraine. She's never heard of Chernobyl.

She's never heard of Chernobyl.

She's never heard of Chernobyl. She was born and raised in Ukraine.

She does not know what was the reparation that every.

Every individual who was interned, no matter what your age, you got a check from the government for $20,000.

What did you do with that money?

What did I do with that money? God, I don't know. Did we go out and. Yeah, I did. I forgot what we did. That was a lot of money to my husband and I. We're not of the affluent.

I hope you spent it on something good. I'LL tell you a funny story. So I was in Mobile, Alabama. You can't get much deeper than that, right? And I was well known in the Macintosh community. So I went to a Macintosh user group in Mobile, Alabama, okay? And this white guy, he says to me, you know, guy, I was born too late for slavery and too early for robots. And I sat there and I thought, this guy has no idea that.

I'm.

Not Bubba or Junior. One of him. I'm like, I may not be black, but I ain't exactly white. And I learned a very valuable lesson that day, which is that people can focus on what separates them, or you can focus on what brings you together. And that guy said, guy, who is not white, but he loves Macintosh and I love Macintosh, so we can be friends. Is a very valuable lesson. If I didn't like Macintosh or he didn't like Macintosh, maybe we could not be friends. We might even be enemies. So one of the lessons I learned in my life is always try to find something in common, of course, as opposed to differences.

Yeah, yeah. No, that's a very, very good way of looking at things. You don't hear that much. It is about accept and immortalize your differences. Everybody wants to say, oh, you're different. That's wonderful. But then the spiritual thing is about the sameness of it. That part of us that understands each other because it's the spirit that goes through all of us that is the basis of our soul.

I hope you learned a lot from Jean's story. Many people are not aware that Japanese Americans were interned during World War II. May her story ensure that this never happens again. I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is remarkable people. My thanks to Jeff C. And Peg Fitzpatrick, my remarkable podcast team. Thanks to Terry and Will Mayall. Thanks to Gabby Houston, Jean's daughter, for making this happen. Be safe, be healthy, wash your hands, maintain a distance of at least 10ft from people until the next episode. Take care.

This is remarkable people.