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>> Eighty years ago tomorrow, in February of 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066.

By March, Exclusion Order Number 1 mandated the removals of Japanese Americans from Bainbridge Island, which started what would become one of the most infamous chapters in American history.

All across the Western United States, 120 thousand people of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of them U.S. citizens, were forced to give up everything and move into detention camps for the duration of the war.

Tonight, we remember those who suffered and hear from those who are working to make sure it never happens again.

Next, on Northwest Now.

[ Music ] Japanese Americans in Western Washington paid a terrible price for their ancestry when the internment orders were issued.

Shopkeepers, farmers, educators, professionals, husband, wives, and children, were all rounded up on short notice, forced to give up property and shipped off first to Camp Harmony at the Puyallup Fair Grounds and then to the detention camps with the majority winding up in remote areas of California.

On Bainbridge Island, a large memorial and interpretive center stands on the path leading to Eagle Harbor, where 276 people walked aboard the ferry to leave the island.

With the passage of time, those who lived the experience are slowly fading away, which is why Northwest Now contributor, Michael Driver, show us, it's up to a new generation to help us remember.

>> I've been really thinking about what is it, you know, why this history?

Why do I hold onto it so tightly and I think it's because it won't quite let me go.

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 in December, everything changed, right?

The United States was now at war with Japan, and in February 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, and that authorized the removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast.

Certainly the forced removal, I want to be clear, right, not an evacuation as it was called.

Tule Lake is where my family was.

It was a terrible time for them, for sure.

My family was shocked and upset.

This is an unpublished book that my dad wrote about his time being incarcerated.

Some of the things that stand out are those kinds of moments of resilience and creativity that my grandparents had.

Certainly another moment that I remember very strongly is the moment where my dad and my uncle were burning their family pictures, things with Japanese writing on them.

It's a terrible thing, right?

To have to burn your own family history and I think one of the things that sustained them and kept them though, was that they were and remain a very close knit family.

One of the few pictures I have of my grandparents and all of their kids, my dad ended up having six siblings.

My grandmother was pregnant actually when they were evicted and so she gave birth to my youngest aunt in camp.

This is an actual map of the camp itself, my family was in barrack 45, it was incredibly hot; tar paper barracks made for a really miserable experience.

This is a picture of my dad, Taku, he's the young boy on the right here.

For years I had known my dad was in camp, but I'd never seen a picture of him in camp before this.

Executive Order 9066 is part of what happens when we allow xenophobia and war time hysteria and a lack of political vision and a lack of long-term vision to vilify a whole group.

I love this picture, probably because it really shows the kind of dad that he was.

He was a really affectionate dad.

It is something that I want people to think about in terms of the long-term legacy.

Here we are, 80 years later, right?

And this is still something that my family is dealing with in certain ways, that my community is still dealing with.

We're trying, a lot of us, to extend the lessons of that history into the present, because it was so terribly traumatizing.

This history of Japanese Americans has lots of roots and branches into other parts of American history, and if we're not careful, we can really let that go or bury it or erase it, without having learned the lessons that history has to teach us.

I don't want us to forget just how dehumanizing such an order can be for so many people, and their kids, and their kids kids, for generations to come.

>> The United States Government, formally apologized for Japanese internment and paid 20 thousand dollars to each survivor in the '80s and '90s.

But the trauma of the internment camp experience resonates through the generations and remains present today.

Joining us now, our returning guest, Bainbridge Councilman, Clarence Moriwaki, who spent years advocating for the memorial on Bainbridge Island and sharing the story of exclusion through speaking engagements through Humanities Washington.

Karen Yoshitomi, Executive Director of the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Washington.

Dale Watanabe, Executive Director of the Japan American Society of the State of Washington.

And Mike Yaguchi, Commander of the Nisei Veterans Committee.

Welcome all of you to Northwest Now, great to have a conversation about a very important historical issue that also has a lot of ramifications for today.

And that's why, Clarence, I want to start with you.

I've asked you this question before, but in the context of you doing so much work on history with the memorial and with Humanities Washington, I'm sure you've heard this pushback; why do we have to remember this?

Why do we have to bring it up all the time?

It's divisive, it doesn't help.

What's your answer to that?

>> Well this year is the 80th anniversary of the first forced removal of Japanese Americans and the signing of the executive order in February, 1942, from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Executive Order 9066.

And it set in motion the forced removal and incarceration of more than 120 thousand Japanese Americans from the West Coast, which was about 95% of all Japanese Americans in the Continental U.S. Why is this important?

Because that was a racially motivated executive order against a class of people, because of color, two-thirds of them U.S. citizens, and if people don't think it can happen, it has happened.

And at the Japanese American Memorial on Bainbridge Island, where they were the first to be taken away, March 30, will be our anniversary commemoration.

Our motto there is aspirational and it's also inspirational I hope, and it's [foreign language], or let it not happen again.

And we've been asking that question all the time, let it not happen again.

>> And I think it's a warning too.

>> Well, I think it's, sadly, it's not effective.

Because it is happening again.

Right after the coronavirus and the former occupant of the White House started these racist tropes saying Chinese flu and Kung Fu, Kung Flu, right?

China virus.

The swine flu was not the American virus, I mean these were deliberate attacks to Asians, and it happens overnight.

I've been accosted, so it is happening again, unfortunately.

>> I want to do something I typically make a mistake with and save to the end; I don't get the organizations represented get their websites in and get their mission, so I want to make sure that we get that off the top and understand your roles in this.

Karen, let's start with you; the Japanese Cultural Center of Washington, what do you folks do and how can people get involved if they want to?

>> Okay, well, at the JCCCW, we do a lot of programming but originally we started off as the Japanese Language School.

For a period immediately following the end of World War II, we were temporary housing for returning Japanese, and we called ourselves the Hunt Hotel.

Currently, as the cultural center, we continue Japanese language classes but it's also about serving as a custodian or steward for the stories of the people who immigrated here and we're talking about two generations nearly, at the time that the executive order was signed, that were impacted by this.

And as Clarence said, two-thirds of whom were American citizens.

So, the programming that we do today is not only carrying on the legacy but it's so important now because of the relevance of what's happening today.

And if I could, I'd like to provide context for that.

Clarence had mentioned that one of the causes and circumstances that led to the forced removal and incarceration was race prejudice, but a congressional commission on the war time incarceration of civilians, internment of civilians, included also a failure of political leadership as well as war hysteria, and I would say in today's climate, it's not war hysteria, it's fear, it's domestic terrorism, right?

And that's even more dangerous, right?

And so it's not about remembering what happened and the guilt perhaps, but it's now that you know, what are we going to do about it?

So we are the memory keepers, and so forth, but it's also a call to action.

>> And to be able to identify those trends and those things happening in society that are maybe red flags.

>> Absolutely.

In terms of if you talk about race prejudice, back then it was Japanese, but today we're talking about immigration reform and voting rights.

If you're talking about back then it was economic greed, right?

But today we're talking about food insecurity and shelter, right?

Basic human rights, basic human needs.

And also, a means to earn a living, right, is at jeopardy and primarily due to the pandemic.

But it affects people across the nation and across the world, right?

>> Dale, the Japan-American Society of Washington, what's your role, how did you come up and how are you folks commemorating this?

>> I'm, my role is the Executive Director and I've been doing that, it'll be 10 years in May, after a long career at Microsoft.

But Japan America Society of the State of Washington, we're actually going to be celebrating our 100th anniversary next year and if you think about it, oh, and from a mission standpoint, the mission is really friendship between the people of Japan and the people of Washington State.

We're a membership organization that has corporate members, like Boeing, like Mitsubishi, so you have companies on both sides, but also individuals who care about that-- >> That bridge, friendship, that bridge.

>> That friendship.

And so we have programs every month that has to do with some you know, cross connection, you know, whether that be in business trade, but the one of the reasons why I joined the organization was we have a program called Japan in the Schools, but it introduces Japanese culture into K-12 schools to help young people get an introduction to another culture.

And the one thing that I've noticed when I go to these classes, is it's a starting point for many of the kids to be able to you know, get introduced to a new culture, but also be able to talk about their own.

In many cases those classrooms actually are where the kids start talking about what they do at home [inaudible] you know, after they've talked about what happens in a Japanese home for example.

>> Mike, the Nisei Veterans Committee, I'm always so interested about, when it comes to the exclusion order, how few Americans at the time realized how many Japanese Americans served in World War II, were decorated in World War II, and still came back to prejudice and derision which just blows my mind.

>> Well, which is the reason why the Nisei Veterans Committee was formed by returning veterans from both the European theatre and the Pacific theatre.

They were not welcomed at some of the more established veterans service organizations and so they created their own.

And many other regional communities throughout the United States you know, discovered the same thing, so you'll see a lot of Nisei Veteran like organizations.

But for us, our mission is to preserve and protect and to enhance the Constitution of the United States and with respect to EO9066, you talk about a violation of those guarantees, you have to ask yourself a question as to whether or not you would hold that document even closer to your heart during times of fear, during times of hysteria, and in the absence of political leadership, which was one of the three big conclusions out of the commission on war time internment and relocation of civilians.

And so, it's applicability today, you only have to look a little bit after 9/11 when President Bush recalled his cabinet and asked them to establish new security protocols to protect the homeland on one of the things he said to his cabinet was, hey, and oh by the way, let's make sure we don't do to our Arab and Muslim Americans, what we did to Norm Mineta, who was then the Secretary of Transportation, in 1942.

And I think that's just you know, proof of what that commission you know, concluded, there you had a political leader, the highest executive in the land, laying that out and you didn't see that happening.

So, again you know, we are, the Nisei Veterans Committee, we're all about protecting defending the Constitution of the United States.

>> Speaking of veterans, and I find this, and everybody can chime in on this too, but I wanted to hit you with this first; I always find it very interesting when I, you know, through reading and talking to people, there is still a piece of Japanese American society that feels it needs to prove its loyalty as a result of what happened 80 years ago.

How is that possible?

And I think it also is an example of people not understanding the generational impact something like this can have.

>> Yeah, that's a fair question, I mean even through my lifetime, and I started my service in '78 and retired in '06, you know, I've had my snippets you know, of insults hurled, racial epitaph.

I've also had people who have used racial epitaphs that didn't know that it was something that was insensitive and totally inappropriate.

And so you seize those opportunities to ensure learning occurs and see where the cards fall and if they get it, so be it, right?

But on those who just can't quite get that, then there is that constant effort to educate, to inform, to persuade, and you know, that's my style.

Others have had it, you know, take it as a soldier's fight, someplace else, but you know, I seem to have had success with that.

But it continues today and that's why organizations like ours are so relevant, not only to mainstream Americans, but certainly within the AAPI community.

>> I saw you nodding Clarence, and I think alongside that piece of the loyalty thing is also, and I always find this interesting too, the victims have a sense of shame.

Explain that to me, how it is that Japanese American could have a sense of shame over what happened and how that echoes through the generations.

Where does that come from and give us a little context for that.

>> Well I'd like to stress that there are 120 thousand Japanese Americans taken from the West Coast, 114 thousand right away and 6,000 were born in those camps, so there's about 120 thousand stories out there.

So to generalize would not be fair because a lot of people took it individually and in different actions.

>> Sure.

>> I mean the Nisei Vets were that way but then there were the resisters, the Gordon Hirabayashi's and the Fred Korematsu's and Minoru Yasui's, who challenged the constitutionality of the executive order and that was quite brave because they were getting not only rejected from their nation, but the Japanese American community in general challenged them, saying don't rock the boat, they already think we're disloyal so why are you doing this?

It was a pretty internal bravery on their part.

So people had a lot of different reactions.

There's shame, there's guilt, there's blame, there's humiliation, these anger, you know, it depends on your base and how you were brought up and what values you put, I mean, those three men I mentioned strongly believed, I'm just, I'm an American and you can't take away my rights.

Others chose to enlist and serve in the military, like my father did.

He served in the military intelligence service which was a group of Japanese Americans who were linguists who were interpreters and he served in the Pacific theatre and in the occupation of Japan.

That was his choice to show his patriotism.

So people reacted different ways and to kind of explain, try to say how every individual does it would really be unfair because it broad brushes the entire experience.

Because everybody had their own way to do it.

And some just couldn't take it.

The suicide rate was remarkable, sadly, in the camps, because of all those feelings, perhaps all of them at the same time; blame, guilt, shame, anger.

So it's a difficult story and our country, I will just say this, thank goodness after that commission came through with their report, there was a redress process.

President Reagan, I mean, yeah President Reagan moved it forward and then President Clinton put the letters of apology, only 20 thousand dollars to the remaining survivors.

If you had passed away, you didn't get that money.

>> Does that end it or-- what remains to be done?

>> Well on that, that's all, that's finished because the survivors got their funds, but I just wanted to add, for a lot of-- some people again, burned their checks or tore them up.

A cash free check, tax free check.

That letter of apology was far more important.

>> I think your point's well-taken about the many reactions that were, I brought that one up because it always strikes me as being like wow, what, where is the shame in that?

But I, your point's well-taken there.

>> But part of it is a recognition of the fractionalization of the community, I mean in terms of whether you're looking about loyalty, but also within the family unit itself.

And then to add on top of that, then you factor in say some were then further segregated and taken to Tule Lake, and so then there's the added shame of being part, coming from a segregation center within a concentration camp within the United States, you know, so I mean, there are all of those factors that play in, but it's because of the pressures that were placed on individuals and the families at the time.

>> Yeah, that tremendous duress of being moved and family units being broken up.

I mean that's incredibly stressful.

Yeah.

>> Right.

And the trauma still exists today, right?

I mean the healing process and yes, although redress, the apology and the checks have been issued, but the educational fund, the opportunities to do exactly what we're doing here, is having conversation, that still continues.

>> And Dale, that's a big piece of your role there, that bridge building and having cultural understandings, but one of the things I wanted to hit you with is, your background as a person from business, is that I'm also, one of the things that strikes me from the reading that hits over the generations is you know, if you're forced to sell your business or to sell your property or to sell your house, there's no getting that back.

Now maybe you know, somebody works your farm for you, but the appreciation from your house, I mean, that's just money, resources, and wealth building that goes away, and that to me is shocking too.

Talk about how that reverberates over the generations if I haven't done too much already.

>> You know, it really depends upon what their situation was.

For many they ended up losing the property and so on.

In the case of, in some cases they were actually lucky, they had friends, they had people that would take care of the farm and so on, which was the case in my mother's family on Bainbridge Island.

But on my dad's side, you know, they were, and we talk about that from an economic standpoint, you know?

On my mom's side, all of our, many of our, many of my cousins are college graduates, they're professionals, et cetera, et cetera.

On my dad's side, where they really lost everything, right?

They came back and they rented farms, they rented farmland to try and regrow things, and you know, they didn't get the educational opportunities to ease that.

My mom's side did.

So that reverberates over many generations, not just the next one, right?

>> In our last 3 minutes here, wanted to talk about the onward march of Father Time, he's undefeated and we're talking about the 80th anniversary of the order.

Talk a little bit about what you're trying to do with veterans or whatever, to collect stories as time is starting to run out.

Is that effort ongoing?

And I know, Clarence, you've done a lot with that.

Go ahead, Mike.

>> Well for the Nisei Veterans Committee, we're part of a coalition called National Veterans Network, and we've worked diligently over the last 10 years to get this story, EO9066, the valor of the 100th 442 in the MIS, at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, where we've had the Congressional Gold Medal that was awarded to the 100th 442 in the MIS on display there, along with the educational content and we've taken that and we've been able to get a 3-year special exhibit at the new National Museum of the U.S. Army.

It's just been a great experience, but more importantly, that part of the country has millions of visitors and to get that kind of coverage would take all of the different Japanese American museums and organizations many years to get to that level of exposure.

So we're fortunate that Dale and I are part of that NVN, National Veterans Network, to get that story out.

And it's not just about the veterans, because you have to have context you know, the pre-war, what happened during, and what did we do after, and what's the impact on society today.

>> Yeah, go ahead.

>> You know, and the story is not just about connecting Americans with the story, it's also connecting Japan and the Japanese.

So, for example, we just did an event, Beyond Reconciliation, celebrating the U.S. Japan Alliance and honoring the Nisei Vets and one of the stories that was part of this, and people can still take a look at our website and get to it-- >> Which is?

>> -- jassw.org-- >> Okay.

>> And it's actually the story about Rory Matsumoto, who is an MIS-er, but his family had five brothers, two of them served in the U.S. Army, three of them, three of the younger ones served in the Japanese Army.

And Rory has really you know, a hero for that, but those stories about families who are really torn apart because of that, and the heroism that came as a result of many of their efforts was, is things that they still need to tell today.

>> Last 20 seconds, Clarence, I know I've talked to Lily and some others there on Bainbridge, but boy, those stories, we've got to collect them now.

>> Yeah, and that's what we're doing on Bainbridge Island, in connection with a lot of our partners here, just want to plug the 80th anniversary is March 30th, that was the first forced removal, we'll have a big commemoration ceremony there, you can come to, go to Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community, bijac.org, or the Memorial Association, Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial, bijaema.org.

>> Write it down.

Alright, thank you everybody, great conversation.

>> Thank you.

>> Thank you.

>> Thank you.

>> World War II seemed so very long ago, especially in this country, where the passage of time is measured in the time required to watch a TikTok video.

The bottom line; don't fool yourself.

We continue to prove that humankind evolves slowly and that the old ways of superstition, war, fear, intolerance, and the naked hostility toward other tribes, are still alive and well.

And, I'm sorry to say, that there's very little evidence to support the idea that something like this could never happen again.

Well, I hope this program got you thinking and talking.

To watch this program again or to share it with others, Northwest Now can be found on the web at KBTC.org, and be sure to follow us on Twitter at NorthwestNow.

Thanks for taking a closer look on this addition of Northwest Now.

Until next time, I'm Tom Layson, thanks for watching.

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