Paul Bannai

PAUL BANNAI
Family # 1107
Camp: Manzanar, CA
Address: 5-10-5

Written by a member of the Bannai Family.

I was born on July 4, 1920 in Delta, CO to Sakui and Shino Bannai. They were from Aizu-Wakamatsu in Fukushima-ken in Japan. I attended grammar schools in Colorado, Utah, and Arizona and Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles.

I worked in banking and attended the American Institute of Banking in Los Angeles and the University of California Extension School in Real Estate before World War II.

We had several weeks to sell our home furniture and private possessions. We did not store anything, as there was not place that we could find, not knowing what the future would be.

We were told to take only what we could carry and therefore, the primary items were things to wear each day. Valuables such as jewelry, cameras, etc. were hard to take or to leave behind. Most of these were left in a safe deposit box with the bank where I worked.

Although we were able to sell everything at “give away” prices I had bought a car a few months prior to the order to evacuate and the people, knowing that we had to leave, offered ridiculous prices for everything. I was so disgusted that I locked the car up and threw the key away when I left. Some friends of mine came by and saw the car, called a locksmith and sold it for me and sent me the proceeds, even though it was a fraction of what it was worth.

I did not go to an assembly center because when my parents heard they would have to go to camp they volunteered to go to Manzanar with the first contingent. I received permission from WRA to remain behind because I worked for a bank and many of the evacuees were worried about their money so I stayed and left with the last group. My inclination was to challenge the executive order and remain, but my parents would be worried and so rather than go to prison, I decided at the last minute to join them at Manzanar.

We situated in 5-10-5 in Manzanar and I was given the title of property manager and that meant $19 per month in pay. Mother, Father, three sisters, and a brother and I shared the one room given to us.

The trip to camp was uneventful. We who boarded one of the last busses to leave the Los Angeles area were looking forward to joining all who preceded us. There was very little conversation and only a sad feeling over the entire group. Arriving during the daylight hours, my own feelings in seeing the barbed wire and guard towers really broke my heart, but seeing my family after some absence made up for the sadness.

Sharing a small room with a family consisting of seven of us, going to a common mess hall, common shower and bathroom, all of these things were something we had to get used to. I was through school but the rest of my family, three sisters and brother, were enrolled and although it was not up to the standards of the schools which I attended, it was necessary and helped pass the time for the family.

My contacts with the administration were more than the normal. In the Property Management Department, my job entailed handling much of the government equipment that came into camp for use or distribution among the evacuees. To the administration, they had a job to do and they were mostly sympathetic to our situation and therefore tried to be as accommodating as possible. My contacts with the MPs were only after I had left camp and came back to visit my folks in the uniform of the US Army prior to my overseas trip. The MPs were, of course, suspicious of me in an army uniform with sergeant stripes and they asked for more information than under normal circumstances.

During my stay in camp I took part in some sports activities in order to break up the boredom of camp life and even went to a dance or two. My main thought was to leave camp life as soon as possible. When they announced that if we volunteered for a farm labor camp (because there was a shortage of hands to harvest crops) that we would be considered for leave from Manzanar, I immediately volunteered to join the first group.

I left camp with a group of ten others and went to work the sugar beets and potatoes in Rexburg, ID for a German family. The family gave us comfortable quarters and treated us as human beings. The work was very hard, harder than any labor that I had ever done in my life but we survived. The feeling of being outside without facing the barbed wire and guard towers was in itself a good feeling each day of waking up.

When my tour with the labor group was over I did not want to return to camp and with the assistance of the student relocation group I was able to enter the University of Nebraska as my grades in high school were very good. Upon reaching the university they would not admit me because they had a quota on Japanese American students and my name was unusual and they made a mistake. Because it was their fault they found other schools in the Midwest that would admit me and I chose Drake University in Des Moines, IA.

Prior to the next semester I had to seek employment and therefore went to work at the Tangney-Maginn chain of hotels as a steward. I heard about the formation of the 442nd Regiment (all Japanese American army unit) and volunteered. I was inducted at Fort Dodge and went to Camp Shelby, MS to train with the unit.

Wind and Dust
This wind and dust I have to bear
How hard it blows I do not care.
But when the wind begins to blow –
My morale is pretty low.
I know that I can see it through
Because others have to bear it too.
So I will bear it with the rest
And hope the outcome is the best.
– George Nishimura, age 16 (Manzanar, 1943)

Read this to learn more about the demographics of each of the ten facilities administered by the War Relocation Authority.

Back to ID booklet main page.