Topaz Oral History Project research files: Published articles (1920s-1980s)

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d. rt. k t- 'e .o d s 0 1 e 1 My Experience with the Wartime Relocation of Japanese ESTHER B. RHOADS* wilh a bibliographical e.ssay by HOWARD H. SUGIMOTO On December 7, 1941 the Japanese in America were as shocked as everyone else in the United States when they learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The truck farmers were at work in the fields, the nursery men and the store owners were at their usual jobs or relaxing at home, and children were helping their parents, studying or returning from Sunday school when they heard the news. In addition to the thousands of Japanese in Hawaii, there were more than 127,000 persons of Japanese ancestry in the continental United States. About 63 percent of these were born in this country, but because of their youth only about 15 percent were of voting age. The immigrants came from a great variety of backgrounds and from many parts of Japan, but the great majority were from western Japan, second or third sons of farmers or fishermen from crowded areas where the inheritance was too small to be divided. They had come seeking a better life for them­selves and their children. In the still rather feudal system of Japan, the one chance of improving one's social status was through education. America offered unlimited educational and economic opportunities if one worked hard. Despite discrimination and the inability of the first-generation parents to become citizens, many Japanese settled on the West Coast. Some were businessmen, priests, and teachers influential i~ their •Esther B. Rhoads lived in Japan for 20 years before 1941. A teacher at the Friends (Quaker) School in Tokyo, she was one of few Americans who could speak Japanese. Home on furlough at the beginning of the Pacific war, she began work in February 1942 with the Quaker-sponsored American Friends Service Committee program to help persons of Japanese ancestry and continued in this until June 1946. Then she returned to Occupied Japan to work with the AFSC relief program and teach at the Friends School until1960. In this essay the term "Japanese" is sometimes used in the old-fashioned way of ethnic identification. It should be remembered that even during the Pacific war period more than half the ''Japanese" in North America were actually Japanese Americans or Japanese Can adians. 127 JUL C: 198 THIS MATERIAL MAY BE PROTfCJED BY COPYRIGHT 1J (Title 17 U.S. Code}