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Show ril 1983 A Copy of a Talk Giv n to vleber High School Students Regarding Some of y R ol1e .. t"ons about Topaz, Utah A Wa Rel cation Center Dorothy B. Pratt It is a real privile a to be invited to tall with a group of young people such a you •• ••• I m very plea ed to knotJ that you are interested in learning about an eve t which ook place 40 years a~ ••• an event which you and your parents probably have not bee much aware of, but which is very important in the hlstory of our country. It was a part of our history which neve. should have taken place, and You need to know about · t and under. tand it o that you can do all in your po 1er tc k-eep a like injustice from 1appentng ever again . I heard a young pr fesso r t-.a lk the other day, and he made the statement that t•1e learn things by repetition ••• that 80 repe t · tj ons make such an imprint on our consclouaness that we remember it. Ther are some occurrances that o not require any repetition to be imprinted on our minds for the rest of our lives. Two such occasions for me were ( 1) the day I alked out of our home in Fillmore, Utah and picked up the newspaper. It was September 3, 1939t~t The headlines read that Great Britain and France had declared war on Germany two days after Germany had crossed into Poland. I felt a cold chill go up and down my spine, because I realized that it could mean America's eventual involvement. Britain and France had been our traditional allies. Indeed, before World War II was over, almost every country in the worli did become involved. to some extent. ( 2) The OTHER day, whi h I remember so we 11, even to the details of what I was doing, where I wa standing, how I felt when we heard a newsman on our little radio make a startling and terrifying announcement ••• oPEARL HARBOR FAD BEEN A TTAICKED BY THE JAPANESE! It happened at 7: 55 A.M., December 7, 1941, and we didn't get the news until mid-day over our radio. (We didn't have television in Utah until the early 1950's.) My husband and I looked at each other with our eyes full of questions and shock, with feelings of uncer t.ain ty, and on my part a definite feeling of fear. What would this mean to our country, to all of us? The news was at fir t very sketchy, and full of confusion. And for many months afterward the news from the Pacific was all bad. There was real fear that the west coast would be invaded almost any moment. Before this war was over, three young men who had lived on one block in my hometown, including one of my brothers, were dead as a result of the Ware Almost 2500 yaung American men lost their lives i.n the Pearl Harbor attacko This shock1ng event united our country rapidly, and we all pitched in to do whatever we c u ld to helP ,~1. th tr e de en e effortlt We had a saying in those days, n PUT IT 0 , WEAR IT OUT, MAKE IT DO, OR DO \--TITHOU T." It wasn't long until there as rationing of food, clothing, g-a.:, tires, etc . F'o1 ty vea c a"'o ·._,hjs nex:t JuJy, my husband and I went to live and work at a place TrJi;h tharkfn11y nv Jcnp r tXistr •• ,.Topaz, Utah (o 18 of se·caral War Helocati.on Centers ; s the.r ~1 ... re ca led) 'l'here wa a pecial group of Americans, 110,000 of them, whose lives were sha ttere by the 1941 bombing of Pear] Harbor by he Imperial Japanese Navy that Sunday, December 7th. These were Americans of Japanese descent, and their families. About a thir of them were issei (first generation), and two thirds were nisei (second generation). The nisei were all born American citizens. Most of the 110,000 were living on or near the west coast. All of sudden their government distrusted them; their neighbors were shocked and suspicious, and the Caucasions who didn't know them, looked on them as filE DtEMY o The question was asked~. c .Would the Japanese Americans aid Japan from within? The Hearst newspapers and oth r media in California had already done a good propagand job ••• calling the Japanese Americans "the Yello Periltt and out of ignorance and little |
