MANZANAR Historic Resource Study/Special History Study

CAUSES (continued)

Evacuee Perspectives as Documented by the Community Analysis Section

Several reports prepared by Morris E. Opler, the WRA-appointed Community Analyst at Manzanar who had served on the faculty of Cornell University, included the perspectives of evacuees concerning the causes and background of the violence at the camp on December 5-6, 1942. One revealing description of the events that led to the violence was provided by an anonymous evacuee in a report dated November 19, 1943. This evacuee, who was an eyewitness to some of the events leading up to the violence as well as a confidant of some evacuees who were involved in the controversies swirling throughout the center, stated:

I don't know the date of this kibei meeting. It was held in Kitchen 15. There the chairman opened the meeting by announcing that all loyal American citizens should get the heck out of the kitchen. Kurihara and Slocum had a clash in words. Slocum was pro-American and Kurihara was anti-American and they bitterly hated each other. At that meeting Uyeno [sic] agitated very much. Karl Yoneda was the secretary and it seemed that he put in the wrong memorandum as to the procedure of the meeting, which aroused the kibei boys to threaten him at one time. At that time the kibei boys were against the forming of the fair practice committee for the Center simply because of the fact that they thought that all JACL members would become the ones in charge. They said the JACL leaders were trying to get a hold of it, and it did look like those JACL leaders were trying to get a hold of it, and it did look like those JACL fellows were putting themselves on everything.

So Uyeno [sic] and Tsuji (both have been pulled in since), with the help of kibei agitators, formed a kitchen work corps, which was non-cooperative and agitated against the Administration. It seemed that at that time the kitchens weren't getting their allotment of sugar and Uyeno [sic] went to complain to Campbell and asked, "Where does the sugar go to. It comes into the camp but it doesn't come into the kitchens?"

Fred Tayama had just returned from Salt Lake City from a JACL convention and the following night he got beat up or rather mobbed. Uyeno [sic] was pulled in on suspicion of being one of Tayama's assailants. The agitating group got together outside the grounds of kitchen 22 and demonstrated. They had a loud speaker set up on top of the oil tank. The leading agitators wanted the administration to return Uyeno [sic] to the Center within 24 hours. He was in the Independence jail. There were 5 chosen to act as spokesmen for the group who were trying to get the Administration to release Uyeno [sic]. At that meeting the agitators openly threatened to kill or get Winchester [Chief Project Steward], Campbell especially, Tayama, who was already in the hospital, Slocum, and all known 'dogs.' Those 5 go-betweens did not succeed but they were arrested too.

On December 6 again they had a meeting at Kitchen 22. The agitators inside of the mob tried to forcefully get Uyeno [sic] and the 5 men out. Uyeno [sic] had been brought back to the Center at the time that they demanded his freedom, but he was being kept in the Manzanar jail. On December 6, the fateful day, another open meeting was held at Kitchen 22 outdoors. There the agitators incited the mob to take things into their own hands. Half of the group was to go to the hospital and was to finish off Tayama. The other half was to go toward the Administration and get Campbell and free those who had been taken into custody.

Well, by this time soldiers were in camp lined up on 'A' street. The mob was there. It seemed that the head persons were behind the front line bystanders. The agitators were not in the front line. Those agitators, it seemed, wanted to stay in the background and heckle rather than being in the front. The agitators threw rocks at the Manzanar jail and at the soldiers too. It seemed that the agitators wanted the soldiers to fire upon the crowd. So the soldiers started throwing tear gas at the crowd to disperse them. Most of the crowd tried to disperse but by this time a soldier was shooting with his tommy gun. Several were injured at the time. One died instantly. He was an innocent bystander.

This is straight from block 22 block manager who was in the thick of it all the time. All the while that the Kitchen Work Corps was complaining about the sugar, complaining to Campbell and Winchester, they didn't realize that the warehouse workers were taking the sugar. It seemed that there is definite proof that one kitchen, namely number 10 used 3000 lbs. of sugar in one month. The food delivery crew was composed mostly of Terminal Island kibeis. It was not Winchester or Campbell's fault that each kitchen did not get its share, because of the fact that the food distributors were mostly from blocks 9 and 10.

If Cambell had been ousted and if stricter control over the food distribution had been maintained, the incident would not have happened. Her[e] is another thing. Slocum was supposed to have said he would be the last Jap in camp if at all. He said this back in Los Angeles. He said that he would never be put in a camp like this. It looked funny when he came then, as though he came for no good purpose.

It seemed that the Blood Brothers, the B.B.'s, a kibei group [sic], were out to get anybody who was connected with camoflage [sic] or J.A.C.L.

The man who told me this said that Uyeno [sic] was pulled in on suspicion of beating up Tayama not because the police or administration had any evidence that he was one of the assailants but because he was a dangerous agitator. So they got him first.

It seemed that Uyeno [sic] tried to get a job at the warehouse but was unable to do so. He thought that by getting in on the ground floor he could get evidence as to where the sugar went to. Rumor was flying, thick and fast around that time as to having seen Campbell drive out of this center in a panel truck loaded with meat. It seems that Campbell is in the thick of it. They sure hated his guts. I never had contact with him but I heard plenty. This fellow said that Campbell was a s.o.b. and that if he had been dead and buried the whole thing wouldn't have happened. You see, Doc., Campbell tried to be a dictator in this camp, that's why. The whole thing came out of this sugar thing too.

I think the people in the center still don't know whether the sugar was actually stolen by Campbell or misappropriated by the food delivery crew.

This is what this fellow told me. It isn't the way I understood it up to now. I had understood that Campbell and Winchester were up to their necks in sugar. Not only sugar, but there was the meat problem too. But this fellow, though he didn't like Campbell, says that this wasn't it. He says that the food distributors were more to blame. He knew this but he couldn't tell. Those San Pedro boys are pretty tough and he didn't want to get his neck in a sling. He says that in the warehouse they would just take a knife and slit down a bag of sugar. I can believe it because I have heard that eggs are delivered to the kitchens with the top row there only. Underneath the eggs are gone. Then the kitchen workers blame each other. Same with meat. Those fellows take their own boxes along and cut off pieces and throw them in there and the kitchens get shorted. If the kitchen workers complain to the food distributors about unfair distribution, the distributors lessen their allotment to that kitchen all the more. It seems that the whole damn squabble in the center is always food.

Kurihara was a fellow 35 or 40. He was a Hawaiian. He was bitter. He was an American Legionnaire [sic] and being stuck in a place like this nearly killed him. 1 first heard him speak December 5 outside kitchen 22 where the loud speaker was installed. He was definitely an agitator and I knew from the way he said things that it was just no good. He mentioned names, saying, 'Let's go get so and so, and the crowd would respond, 'Let's go get him.' They didn't at that time, but they tried to later on.

They had a little misunderstanding that brought things to a head later on too. The spokesmen, those 5 men, thought that it was understood that Uyeno [sic] was to be freed within the Center, but the Administration only meant that he was to be brought back to the Manzanar jail from the Independence jail.

The fact that the incident happened on December 6 had nothing to do with it. Nobody thought of Pearl Harbor but the newspapers. That was just a coincidence. The fellow who told me this was on the kitchen crew at Block 22 when this happened so that he was in the thick of it. He was the foreman there or the one in charge, pretty much. Uyeno [sic] worked in that same kitchen crew. [76]

On September 13, 1943, Opler prepared a report based on an interview with a Nisei from Venice who had relocated as a college freshman to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City in January 1943. While the college student was visiting relatives at Manzanar, Opler took the opportunity to talk with him about his experiences in the camp prior to his relocation. The Nisei provided some poignant insights into the stresses and strains in the camp that led to violence:

The main cause of the riot on December 6 was the feeling of the people that they had been betrayed by members of the Los Angeles chapter of J. A. C. L. They don't blame the leaders of other chapters or those in the national office but they do have it in for this Los Angeles bunch. It is felt that these fellows, in order to show their patriotism and gain favors for themselves, had given information even before evacuation about what people had said or done. Therefore they were blamed for a great many of the internments and hardships. It was believed that they had not only done this on the outside but had continued it on the inside, in other words, they had been acting as stool pidgeons [sic]. They are also charged with misleading the people while they were still on the outside and with getting them to accept evacuation. Therefore those who had become bitter over the way evacuation has gone, or who had lost much in evacuation, had it in for them.

Tayama was the worst hated of them all. He was beaten up, and he hid in the hospital. A group were out looking for him. They searched his home. They didn't find him there but they came back with tales of the fine furniture he had there and the amount of food stored in his place. This made the people more sure than ever that he was getting special favors from the government for his 'work.' Ueno and some others were jailed for beating him up. I knew there was going to be trouble, for a mob formed in the afternoon. Then in the evening they heard that Tayama was at the hospital. The mob formed again. I knew that there was going to be plenty of trouble so I stayed home, right in block 16. And, sure enough, the shooting followed. The people blamed the M.P.'s. They say they were just itching to fire.

I was working up at the hospital during this period. I was driving a truck, picking up the wash for the hospital. ... I saw the body of the boy, James Ito, who was shot and killed. He was in the ice box when I saw him. His clothes were there too. They were a bloody mess. The other fellow who died following the shooting was up in the hospital too. I didn't get a good look at him; I just went through the ward once while he was there. He was shot in the stomach and they say he was in terrible agony till he died.

The riot was all mixed up in several ways with the mess halls. They have always been a focus of trouble. It was charged that Tayama was getting special favors and privileges that others were not getting. Even now if one thing appears at one mess hall and not at another, favoritism is charged. . . [77]

On January 24, 1944, Opler prepared a report, entitled "Evacuation, Events at Manzanar, and Relocation (From a Well-Educated Man of Professional Background)." Among the observations of this evacuee were the following:

A great deal of the trouble which led to the incident here can be traced back to hard feelings which began before evacuation and during evacuation. Take the position of the issei. They had been kicked around pretty much in this country. But they stuck it out, made a living, raised their families, and some did pretty well. Then came the crisis between the two countries and war. The issei were crowded into the background or interned. If anyone was called to see the mayor [of Los Angeles], it was T.[ayama] (an officer of the J.A.C.L.), if anyone went to see the F.B.I, or any other agency of official it was T.[ayama] and his friends. The J.A.C.L. didn't have more than 1,500 regular members up and down the coast. I was an officer of one district with 12 clubs in it and altogether we didn't have more than 500 members. While many of the nisei were too young to join this was not a good representation. It was just not a representative body and a good many were sore because it undertook to speak for all the Japanese. . . .

Later on the story grew up that T.[ayama] and the J.A.C.L. people had agreed right away to evacuation and had helped pick out the site for Manzanar. T.[ayama] had nothing to do with the selection of the place. It's true that he was brought up to see it before the people came but this was so there would be someone to assure the people that the place was inhabitable.

Also there was a great fear of informers and spies. There was some of this at Santa Anita, where a fellow who was supposed to be a Korean was beaten up. Here they suspected fellows like S.[locum] From what I heard him say more than once I really believe he turned people in before he came here. If he did help the government it was pretty stupid of them to put him in here where the families of his victims could get back at him. At any rate the families of many of those interned felt that there were informers in here who had turned the family heads in out of malice or for some trivial remark made during a time of peace. . . . There were a whole series of mistakes. The first was the embittering of the volunteers. They didn't get their union wages; in fact they didn't get paid for months. Many had come up without any resources for they expected to get paid regularly here. Some had promised to send money to relatives still on the coast. They were running around here without a nickel for months. [78]

On April 22, 1944, Opler prepared another report based on interviews with a Nisei from French Camp near Stockton, California. This young man, a neighbor of Fred Tayama, commented on the tensions in the camp that led to violence, stating that the "first tension I ever felt over the things which were to lead to the riot was when I heard that they [JACLers] formed an American Citizens Federation for niseis only." He noted further:

. . . . I believed that to leave out the kibei group who were citizens also would create bad feeling between the two groups. . . . Their point of view seemed so selfish. It looked like the JACL bunch wanted to start in again under another name. They put themselves up for everything that came along. The same little bunch wanted to be the officers and to run everything. . . . This riot really did not start directly within Manzanar because there was a tension between the people and the JACL on the outside before coming to camp. We were led to believe that the JACL was going to protect our rights. I suppose that they did their best but to some it wasn't good enough. We don't remember any attempt of the JACL to go to Washington, D.C. and protest for the American citizens of Japanese ancestry. But they told us to evacuate quietly and to prove our loyalty.

Another reason is that the members of the JACL were turning in isseis who had had anything to do with the Japanese government. Instead of doing that we thought they were supposed to help us out. After I got here in May I met a fellow who was a member of the JACL who admitted that the leaders had turned in issei that they had something against. . . .

The first I knew about the trouble was when my sister told me that T.[ayama] had been beaten up during the night. I was the only one in the family who didn't wake up when all the noise of the beating was going on. He lived in the barracks right across from us. This was the night of December 5.

I was not surprised. There had been threats against T. He had been away to a JACL meeting in Salt Lake City and while he was away there was talk against him. They said that he was getting special privileges and special food. He seldom ate at the mess hall and they always had plenty. They say that when they broke into his house that night there was plenty of sugar and all kinds of rationed items there. I believe it. His relative was head of all the distribution of food supplies in camp and I think they looked out for themselves.

After this man [Ueno] was arrested they tried to get him out and of course there was some shooting here at Manzanar by the U.S. soldiers, which I guess you can't blame them for. Still, perhaps, it could have been avoided, I wasn't there at the time of the shooting but from what I have heard, some of these Japanese here at camp threw rocks at the soldiers, started up a truck and tried to run a truck into the soldiers. The truck didn't hit the soldiers but ran into the police building.

After hearing all that I felt that the soldiers had to look out for themselves and they had the orders to shoot, so I believe that we can't blame them entirely. . . .

Two of my friends were shot in the leg and in the stomach that day. I think they were innocent bystanders because I know those boys pretty well. Both of them have relocated. [79]