Shino Bannai

SHINO BANNAI
Family # 1107
Camp: Manzanar, CA
Address: 5-5-1

Written by Rose B. Kitahara, Shino’s daughter.

I was a 43 year old housewife with a husband and five children living in Los Angeles when the unbelievable news of war exploded the life of our family with drastic anxiety and uncertainty that would last for the next six years.

Prior to leaving for the desert camp we had only a few days to dispose of a lifetime’s possessions at ridiculous prices set by merchants who knew we had no choice. The only items I would not sell were the china pieces we had used to share meals together as a family. These I shattered piece by piece in the backyard so none could violate what had been our personal ritual of being a family.

The pain I felt in the shameful experience of camp was for my children rather than for myself. The laws of the US prevented us from becoming citizens, but my children had been born and raised here and were always told to be good Americans.

I knew they had no future staying in the desert behind barbed wire, and despite my reluctance to lose them and break up the family, I encouraged them to apply for schooling through the help of the American Friends (Quakers) whose caring support was a rare beacon.

When my son Paul volunteered for the army I was ostracized by my neighbors and questioned as to how I could allow such a thing. I could only reply that we had always told him since childhood that he owed America his patriotism. He was our first born, and being born on the 4th of July we had named him for Paul Revere, a great patriot. My three daughters left, one by one, and while I had fearful concerns on how they would be treated and how they would manage, I knew I could not keep them with me, limiting their future. At the time I was losing my eyesight, but the presence of my last child, seven year old Ted, was my help and consolation.

My son Paul spent the war years serving in the US Military Intelligence in the jungles of New Guinea, Borneo, Philippines, and loaned to the Australian Army. I worried about what could happen to him if he became a prisoner of the Japanese, being seen as a “traitor” because he looked Japanese.

My daughters returned one by one to California in the years 1946 to 1948. I studied for my citizenship papers when the laws were changed to allow it, and though blind by this time, I was allowed to answer orally and proudly passed the test.

On the day that my husband and I attended the induction of our son Paul as the first Japanese American to sit in the California State Legislature I felt rewarded for the way I had always told him to serve his country as the first son of the first son, recorded for 43 generations of Bannais but the first born in America.

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.

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