Civilians and Internees During World War II

Norma Huss author photoRelevant History welcomes Norma Huss, who calls herself “The Grandma Moses of Mystery.” She’s a wife, mother, grandmother, (soon to be great-grandmother), and author. Her mysteries for adult readers are set along Chesapeake Bay, where she and her husband sailed for many years. Her non-fiction is a telling of her father’s youthful adventures in Alaska. YA fiction Cherish is a blend of generations, and needed a lot of input from the younger generation to ever appear. It’s a Halloween book that grandma and grandchild can enjoy together—each will learn something about the other’s teen life and “social media.” For more information, check her web site and blog.

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A young teen’s view of World War II
I had just turned twelve a month before that Sunday afternoon when we heard the news. My family sat in the living room around the wood stove, listening to the radio while my mother and I cleaned eggs with sandpaper brushes before they would be sold to city folks. My father relaxed before milking cows. My younger brother and sister played. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

Over the days ahead, we heard our president tell us we were at war. Since I lived close to the west coast, we feared the Japanese. (My husband, as a child in Pennsylvania, feared the Germans.) We had air raid drills at school, we covered our windows so light wouldn’t seep out, we bought savings stamps. My father took a first aid course and learned how to stop bleeding. My mother spotted planes.

One day at school, mimeographed sheets were given to the oldest child in the family. After the parents read the sheet, it had to be returned the next day. We were to watch and report any sighting of incendiary bombs. The Japanese were floating balloons carrying them across the ocean. The government didn’t want Japan to know a few had landed.

In a few months we received our ration books with stamps of different colors, one for every member of the household. On a Sunday, we heard over the radio what each color stood for. Red stamps were for meat and butter. Another color was for canned vegetables. Sugar was rationed, as were shoes and gasoline. Since we lived in the country, we grew much of our own food, including meat, so we used our meat coupons for butter. Since each person had the same ration of shoes, families with small children found it more difficult to manage keeping those growing feet shod. Gasoline rations were separate. Farmers received more than enough to run their tractors to keep food production up. The speed limit was reduced to 35 miles an hour, saving on fuel, but also reducing accidents caused by worn out tires. (Rubber for tires was in very short supply.)

Some of the products we see in our stores today began life as non-rationed goods to replace rationed items. Play shoes made without leather or rubber were soon available. They became quite popular, and, in some cases, necessary. Cake mixes, on the other hand, were a failure. They tasted awful. My mother was disgruntled that some companies were getting allotments of sugar to mix up something so useless. (The did improve with time, until, today, they are probably more popular than home made cakes.) Production of fake butter, called oleomargarine flourished.

Internment of Japanese residents
When the war began, we lived in an area largely populated by German immigrants. This was not a problem with us. The kids were our classmates and friends. Others accepted Italians as well. The people who lived with Japanese neighbors weren’t so benevolent. My aunt, who taught school near Seattle, told us a story, which may have been an urban legend before its time. She said a teacher asked a child what they would do if the government took the father away to a camp. The child supposedly replied, “Then my mother will light the candle on the roof.”

In any event, the Japanese families, over half of them American citizens, were moved completely out of California and the western half of both Washington and Oregon. (Less than 2,000 of the over 150,000 Japanese Americans in Hawaii were interned.) I later worked with two of the Japanese women who had been interned. One had been a child. She told me they asked the man of the family two questions. “Do you swear allegiance to the United States?” and “Will you fight against Japan?” Those who replied “No,” to both questions were kept in internment until the war was over, then sent to Japan. Those who replied, “Yes,” to both questions were released, but could not return to their own homes until after the war.

Of the two women I knew, the older one had been released with her family. During the war she worked for the government in Washington D.C. After the war, when her family returned to the Seattle area, they discovered the farm they had signed over to friends to “save”, had been sold by the supposed friends who left with the money.

The other woman’s father had been born in the United States of immigrant parents. He went to Japan to choose a wife and returned to farm in America where the children were born. He said, “Yes,” he was a loyal American, but “No,” he wouldn’t fight against his wife’s family in Japan. They stayed in the internment camp until the war was over, then returned to the Seattle area. The absolute worst, my friend said, was dealing with all the others in the camp who had said, “No, No.” They tried to turn her family against America.

The book, Cherish
My book for teens is Cherish (A Ghost Mystery). It’s a story that spans the centuries with today’s Kayla, and Cherish, a teenage ghost from 1946. Cherish, fifteen in 1946, would have lived through World War II, just as I did. But, just as I did, by 1946, a year after the war was over, she didn’t dwell on it. Others did.

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Cherish book coverA big thanks to Norma Huss. She’ll give away a paperback copy of Cherish to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Saturday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available within the United States only.

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Face of the Enemy: Internment on Both Coasts

Relevant History welcomes Joanne Dobson and Beverle Graves Myers, co-authors of the historical mystery Face of the Enemy, released 4 September 2012.

Joanne Dobson author photo

A former English professor at Fordham University, Joanne Dobson is the author of the Professor Karen Pelletier mystery series from Doubleday and Poisoned Pen Press. She won an Agatha nomination for Quieter Than Sleep, the first book in the series.

Her novels have been widely reviewed, including in the New York Times. In 2001 the adult-readers division of the New York Library Association named her Noted Author of the Year.

Face of the Enemy is her latest title. For more information, check her web site.

Beverle Graves Myers author photo

Beverle Graves Myers is a Kentucky native who’s always loved stories and always asked “why.” She made a mid-life career switch from Psychiatry to writing. Her latest project is a collaboration with fellow mystery author Joanne Dobson. Face of the Enemy launches a series that follows New York City through the challenges and triumphs of World War II. Bev also enjoys mixing murder and music in her Tito Amato Mysteries set in dazzling 18th-century Venice. Her work has been nominated for the Macavity, Derringer, and Kentucky Literary awards. For more information, check her web site.

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For decades the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II was a barely acknowledged part of our national history. In February 1942, just over two months after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 that led to the relocation of some 120,000 “persons of Japanese ancestry” in internment camps for the duration of the war. Almost all were relocated from the West Coast, mainly from California.

More recently, however, this injustice has received the attention it deserves. President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1988, granting each survivor of the internment camps a sum of $20,000. On the fiftieth anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, President George Bush offered the internees a formal apology. Several relocation centers have now been designated National Historic Landmarks and are open for tours under the management of the Park Service, and many schools include the topic in the Social Studies curriculum.

In the entertainment world, there is even a new musical set to open later this month that follows a family relocated from Salinas, California to the wastelands of Wyoming. Allegiance stars George Takei as Sam Kimuro, an elderly war veteran trying to reconcile with his family and his past. As a boy, Takei and his family were actually interned at Camp Rohwer and Camp Tule Lake.

Before we began researching the early war years for the mystery novel that eventually became Face of the Enemy, we wished we could work something about the internment camps into our plot. But we’d made a commitment to follow New York City through the war years, and like so many, we believed that the relocation was confined to the West Coast. Were we in for a surprise!

Our first task was to construct a day-to-day timeline of events using back issues of the New York Times. We started with the week of the Pearl Harbor attacks, and one article from December 8, 1941 practically jumped off the computer screen. The front-page headline: Entire City Put On War Footing—Japanese Rounded Up by FBI. We quickly scanned the article and hunted for follow-up information. This is what we learned:

Throughout the night following the attacks, the FBI, assisted by New York detectives and plainclothes policemen, conducted the extensive round-up in a fleet of government vehicles. Most of those arrested (allowed to take only what they could carry) were transported to the Federal Building at Foley Square or straight to the Barge Office on the southern tip of Manhattan for transport to Ellis Island. A ferry, surrounded by Coastguardsmen with rifles and fixed bayonets, sailed back and forth all night. The well-planned, well-organized effort eventually cast a wide net over the city’s German, Italian, and Japanese residents. But the Japanese detention came first and was the most comprehensive. One man interviewed while waiting for the ferry to Ellis Island stated that he’d left Japan in 1917, graduated from New York University, and had lived and worked as a doctor in the United States for thirty-five years.

The Alien Enemy Hearing Board appointed by U.S. Attorney General Frances Biddle was sworn in right before Christmas 1941, and hearings quickly commenced. Some Japanese nationals of government interest or official status would be exchanged for Americans held in Japan. Most of the detainees were destined to be released, pardoned, or interned according the Board’s findings. People had to make their cases in closed session before the members of the Board with no legal representation present. Some ended up being held at Ellis Island for the duration, without familiar food, clean beds, or school for the children. A New York Times January 24, 1942 article describes the situation best, “For the time being New York has a concentration camp of its own.”

In Face of the Enemy, all this backstory sits on the slender shoulders of Masako Fumi, a brilliant avant garde artist married to a Columbia University professor of Asian history. Raised in Paris while her father was Japan’s ambassador to France, Masako has broken with her family and has not seen Japan since she was three years old. After she was picked up in the December 8th sweep, her troubles multiply: she is accused of murdering the art dealer who, due to public protests, was removing the paintings from her solo show. Is Masako guilty of murder? Or is she simply a victim of the prevailing racial paranoia?

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Face of the Enemy book cover

A big thanks to Joanne Dobson and Beverle Graves Myers. They’ll give away a hard cover copy of Face of the Enemy to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winner from among those who comment by Sunday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available in the U.S. and Canada.

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Did you like what you read? Learn about downloads, discounts, and special offers from Relevant History authors and Suzanne Adair. Subscribe to Suzanne’s free newsletter.

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