The COncentration Camps for Americans of Japanese Ancestry in Oregon
  PINEDALE

One of the great mysteries of the evacuation is why the government decided to send Portlanders  to the North Portland Livestock Pavilion but sent the residents of Hood River to Pinedale, north of Fresno, California. Many Hood River residents had friends and relatives in the Livestock Pavilion (see above). Perhaps that was the intention - Mr. DeWitt was trying, perhaps, to suppress any attempts to organize opposition to the constitutional infringements occurring and suspected everyone. 

"A nation spends millions of dollars to set in motion gigantic, unwieldy machinery for the unprecedented task of separating more than one hundred thousand peaceful and industrious persons  from their homes and their livelihoods, then herds them into ten specially constructed barracks cities, surrounded by barbed wire. All this enormous expense, waste of manpower through enforced idleness, betrayal of constitutional rights, spreading of heartbreak and confusion - for what?"- Oregonian Allen H. Eaton 1944
Above: Many from OSU were on the train to Pinedale: Oregon-born, OSU's Ray Sato, his sister Esther- whose college was interrupted by the imprisonment- his father Tadao and mother Shin were sentenced to Tule Lake, via Pinedale, for the crime of being of Japanese ancestry. Ray stayed in Poling Hall. Oregon-born, OSU's Mark Sato, with his young wife, Marjorie, was also on the train to Pinedale. Mark was doing graduate work at OSU.
       
"I cannot speak for others but I myself felt resigned to do whatever we were told. I think the Japanese left in a very quiet mood, for we were powerless. We had to do what the government ordered. In my own mind I thought: "Surely we will be unable to return." I was so worried about what the future held for my children! We had struggled for many years but we could lose everything. I was so frightened I did not think we would come home alive." Oregonian Misuyo Nakamura, from Odell Oregon "I felt terrible about our evacuation, because this was leaving everything we had. It was very difficult to see that we could be treated so miserably even when our son Billy was in the service. But we did not consider disobeying the orders." - Ms. Hama Yamaki. ed. note: With her husband Yetaro Yamaki, her daughter and son, Ms. Yamaki was sent to Pinedale and thence to Tule Lake for the crime of having Japanese ancestry. She had come to the US nearly 30 years proviously and her husband 35 years ago. Both daughter and son were listed as music teachers. OSU's Portland-born Mitsuo Takasumi Below) , his new wife, Misako (Washington-born) and their 1 year old infant, Norman, were sentenced to Tule Lake, via Pinedale Assembly Center, for the crime of having Japanese ancestry. Mr. Takasumi's parents, Tokuzo and Chiyo had, years earlier, experienced the emotional trauma of watching their oldest daughter, Hatsuye die as an infant. Now they accompanied their eldest son into captivity with his own infant, Norman, not knowing what lay in store for their son and his child. Mr. Takasumi's second son, Gerald, was born in captivity at Tule Lake.
"The collective recollection – from everyone who remembers the train trip – was that the shades were pulled," - Homer Yasui
       
"We were worried we would never be able to return. I remember the tears rolled down my face." Oregonian Miyoshi Noyori, from Dee Oregon. Ms Noyori had already survived one heartache when her husband, Seizaburo Namba, a Dee, Oregon farmer, had died 5 years earlier. She had remarried Shigeji Noyori, a Hood River fruit farmer, after being alone for 2 years. She and Mr. Shigeji Noyori were both imprisoned in Tule Lake for the crime of having Japanese ancestors. "We were herded onto the train just like cattle and swine. I do not recall much conversation between the Japanese. But I do remember sitting next to Etsuko Abe from Parksdale, who offered to share a lunch she had made." - Oregonian. Misuyo Nakamura, from Odell, Oregon. Ed. note: Etsu(ko) Edna was married to Raku Abe, a railroad worker from Dee, Oregon. Both, like Ms. Nakamura, were imprisoned at Tule Lake California for the crime of having Japanese ancestors. Corvallis also once had a small community of railroad workers who were from Japan, at the turn of the twentieth century.
Above: Mitsuo Takasumi (OSU '39) Below: His infant  (in 1942)  son Norman Takasumi in the Hood River High School Yearbook in 1960.
Altogether, 488 Oregonians were on the train to Pinedale. A total of 4,823 people were transported there, living in 10 barracks blocks, each with 26 buildings, and a military police building, coupled with an administration building, existed separately.
"I remember seeing a large cactus when our train stopped at a large field near Pinedale, so I guessed that we had arrived at a hot place. We were completely fenced in and there were watchtowers with soldiers bearing rifles....The camp was incomplete, so construction was ongoing. Our room had a concrete floor and a lightbulb with a drop cord. Our only furnishings were were beds with bare springs, thin matresses and blankets. We were helpless to be confined here." -Oregonian Itsu Akiyama   Also on the train to Pinedale was OSU's Mitsuo Takasumi's 22 year old brother Yoshio, 14 year old brother Fred, 13 year old brother Nobua and 16 year old brother Tesuo. His wife's parents, Ichi and Buro Shigehara joined other Washington residents in Puyallup, Washington, at a place absurdly called Camp Harmony, before being shipped to Minidoka along with Misako Takasumi's 16 year old brother Kei, 15 year old brother Ken, and a 2 year old infant Dean. Traveling as part of their household was 23 year old Michiko Fukano, listed as a seamstress.

  

 Above : Pinedale.  [ed. Note: For the crime of having Japanese ancestors, Ms. Akiyami (left), a daughter and and 3 sons were imprisoned in Tule Lake. A 4th son was in the army (above right) on Dec. 7th, 1941. The camp records have no trace of her husband, Mr Tomehichi Akiyami. The numbers assigned her family, 16328 A-F show a gap in the records at 1632B.The implication is that Mr. Akiyami was one of those picked up by the FBI in the...   ...dead of night, weeks earlier and taken to Montona, New Mexico or one of the other remote camps, as had been Mr. Masuo Yasui. The fact that the Japanese government had given him an award (the Sixth Order) which was insignificant to everyone, perhaps, but himself and the US government, for furthering US agricultural trade with Japan.
       
Emi Kiyokawa, Sigeo Kiyokawa, and Kei Kiyokawa - all Oregon born and all from OSU -were on the train to Pinedale along with their father Riichi and father Rei, 3 brothers and 2 sisters . Left: Sigeo Kiyokawa. At 4' 10", Kei Kiyokawa was the starting pitcher for OSU's varsity team (right) and played football as well. He is one of the Nisei Hall of Famers. Left: "In addition to Elliott, Coleman also has Gene Williams, Bud Patterson and the diminutive Kei Kiyokawa, all throwing from the 'wrong side'" [ed. note 'wrong side' means lefties]. From the Gazette Times, March 26, 1942 - the day before the Mar. 24 curfew became effective.
       
Right: OSU's Ray Yasui, his wife and sister in law - all from OSU - were on the train as well. Mr. Yasui's  mother, Shidzuyo Yasui,17 year old brother Homer, and 14 year old sister, his uncle and aunt, Renichi and Matsuyo Fujimoto were all on the train to Pinedale, as were his wife's mother Ichino, father Yasuta, and brother Bob.  Right: Mr Homer Yasui, brother of OSU's Ray Yasui. Those familiar with the cultural evolution of the nation will believe they recognize the 'James Dean Look' (below right). However, this photo predates Dean by years. In truth, James Dean was sporting the 'Homer Yasui Look'. Easily recognizable today ( see below), he generously gives time to speaking of his experiences. 
Above: OSU's Ray Yasui, who was the eldest son and took on a good deal of responsibility after his father's imprisonment in Ft. Missoula, Montana on Dec. 12, along with  Senichi Tomihiro (see earlier)
       
Below right: "Homer and Miki Yasui field questions" at a school in Fort Missoula, Montana where his father was imprisoned. Below is a picture of a guard tower at Fort Missoula in 1943. Masuo Yasui was held at Fort Missoula until around April, 1942, after which he was transferred to Fort Sill, OK, then Louisiana and then to New Mexico "for reasons known only to the Army and to the Justice Department." The guard booths at Missoula are intact today (far left), in storage at the fort.
       
Frosty night
Listening to rumbling train. 
We have come a long way.

-Senbinshi Takaoka, 1942

       
Tule Lake Right: the trucks for Tule. "Like cattle we were herded through the gates onto an army truck." - Oregonian Itsu Akiyama of Oak Grove, Oregon, about the ride from Pinedale.
From Pinedale, Hood River Oregonians, including a goodly number of OSU alums and students, were shipped to the more permanent concentration camp at Tule Lake. OSU students who remained in Corvallis were told to report  and joined others from Salem, Independence and elsewhere on the train to Tule.

Immigration from Japan had been ended in 1924. Thus, no one on the train to Pinedale had been in the country less than 17 years, except for children. There were many children at Pinedale, where Californians had joined Oregonians. There were 60 infants alone, less than a year old, who would grow to preschool age in the cramped quarters of the concentration camp (see below).

The Army had decided upon Tule Lake early on as a site for a "permanent" concentration camp. Above: April 1942. "Beauford Hayden, Supt. Klamath Reclamation Project, pointing to a chart showing the location of the site selected for the Tule Lake War Relocation Authority center, just south of the Oregon border, for housing 10,000 evacuees of Japanese ancestry." - NARA "If we are to succumb to the flames of race hate, which spread with fury to every markedly different group within a nation, we will be destroyed spiritually as a democracy." - Dillon Myer, administrator of the concentration camps (War Relocation Authority or WRA), in Ansel Adams' Free and Equal, 1944
Above:: The "crime" defined: "For Persons of Japanese Ancestry". The sign at Tule Lake concentration camp. Beyond this sign, people could be shot at will by the guards. By the end of 1943, EuroAmericans of sound mind and body were headed to the Fronts. The camp guards were recruited from others. 
Above: The trucks of Tule.
       
Above: The guard tower at Jerome, Arkansas, where OSU alum Emi Kiyokawa (left) and family ended under Mr. Myer's regime. Reading Mr. Myers' interview at the Truman Library, one might easily form the opinion that - as a declared 'liberal' - he fought the imprisonment tooth and nail and certainly never participated in it. It's an illusion.
The 2 doors in the photo above give some idea of the space allotted to households at in the camps. They represent 2 different living units. Barely visible at left is the window of the unit on left. Above: OSU's Emi Kiyokawa. Eventually the Quakers (American Friends) were able to secure her release from Tule, along with her 2 brothers, also of OSU, on condition they moved to Philadelphia.  Above: OSU's Emi Kiyokawa at work in the Finance section of the American Friends Service Committee in Philadelphia. The AFSC, a Quaker-affiliated group, like the Quakers themselves, assisted as best they could. There were others. Some explained their actions as necessary because there were those who threatened the safety of Americans of Japanese descent, a point of view our Allen Eaton contested:
       
Left: " a garden belonging to Mr. Fukudi [ed. note: a misspelling: There were no Fukudis in Tule Lake or elsewhere. There were Fukudas aplenty.] at Tule Lake Center. They were taken on an overcast day in August 1945. Rich in color and interesting in composition, the garden is a good example of what can be done by utilizing the rough materials at hand, most of which would be regarded as valueless, if not as liabilities by the average person..." "...Odds and ends of wood have been shaped into pickets for the white fence enclosure, and bark-covered slabs from the fuel woodpile give the barracks entrance a rustic character, providing an effective setting for vines and other plants." - Allen H. Eaton

Below: "Nearly every day, Hamada-san, Sato-san, and I walked to wooded area just outside the camp to find materials for ikebana." - Oregonian Asayo Noji from Parkdale.

"..For what? According to this group, to protect 110,000 persons of Japanese ancestry from a few hundred lawless, greedy and ruthless hoodlums, bent on wresting control of a few towns and communities. Wouldn't it have been better and cheaper and more just to have protected the Japanese by putting the mob element, the lawbreakers, behind barbed wire?" - Allen Eaton
Over time, people in the camps  transformed the landscapes and interiors around them at Tule, as at Minidoka and elsewhere. There were those who simply couldn't live without gardens and had brought seed with them. Others sent away for them and still others used native plants and forms.
       
Left: "This arrangement of young red oak branches and other wild plants is symbolic of what took place in every camp." - Allen H. Eaton. Right: Ikebana Below: "Papa spent a lot of his time in carpentry. Sometimes he got lumber from the maintenance crew, other times he used wood supplied for our stove... Papa gave away little tables and a lot of wooden vases - all shapes and sizes. - Oregonian Asayo Noji from Parkdale.
       
Right: "A nicked drain tile, a willow branch, a picnic box, a poem written on the blank side of a strip of wall paper - these are the simple ingredients. The brick-red tile (flower vase) has the nicked side turned to the wall, the willow branch is trimmed and arranged according to accepted standards, with the fallen leaf on the ground to suggest autumn." - Allen H. Eaton Right: "During a preliminary survey of the camp, the writer stopped  at a barracks home hoping to obtain some needed information. The resident was not at home but while speaking with his wife, the writer noticed a very interesting wood carving on the wall, and asked if it had come from Japan.  She said no, that her husband had done it; but he never submitted it for public showing , believing it not good enough..." 
"...After being assured that there was difference of opinion on the point of its quality, the lady shyly brought to light three or four more pieces, all of such merit that permission was asked to have them photographed. - A. Eaton
       
As people turned to spiritual resources to assist in overcoming troubled waters rising round, so they turned to the arts to sustain them. Having been plundered by their own communities and their own government, the tools and the raw materials were often simply gathered from the natural world or from discards found within the confines of the barbed wire.    "There were at first almost no carving tools in camp life so the men made 
their own from discarded saw blades, worn down files, automobile springs
and other waste metals, and in the absence of good lumber, they picked
over and used pine slabs from the fuel piles. These slabs were covered with bark on the outside but had enough solid wood on the inside for carving" 
  - Allen H. Eaton
Above: "This inkstone was made from slate, with fossils imbedded in it, left intact, and polished by hand. A little water was placed in the well and the 'India ink" stick moistened and rubbed against the stone until the right consistency was produced." - Allen H. Eaton
       
The training and talent of artists in the camp was tossed aside by a nation in need of them, at the instigation of hard-core racists bent upon their destruction. Left: Reiko Kumasaki, child-star who had a toe-dance contract with a movie studio prior to her imprisonment, shown here at a talent show to raise money for the Tule high school yearbook. -WRA Left: "Henry Ushijima, formerly a sound engineer in Hollywood, plays dance records at a dance given by the Girls' Recreation Committee at Manzanar" concentration camp. Below: Tule Lake Orchestra. Center: Woody Ichihashi's big band sound, the Downbeats, at Tule Lake.
       
Left: "Lumber scraps are utilized for auxiliary furniture at Santa Anita Park assembly center for evacuees of Japanese ancestry. " Among this family's few possessions will be seen baseball equipment, as sports, too, were utilized for emotional support, and to provide some minimal recreation for the groups which the communities gave priority - the children and the aged. Baseball (right) reigned. Music (far right) was not neglected.
       
TULE LAKE II

Life went on at Tule Lake, as in the other concentration camps. Children grew, older people grew aged. For many, lives were destroyed and for others, foundations were laid. Weddings, births, anniversaries and deaths were celebrated, with the haunting photos of the occasions reflecting the circumstances. New avocations were found, older ones were necessarily abandoned and not only to the detriment of the individual but also to a resource-strapped nation and especially to the communities from whence they came. One of the latter was Corvallis.

Left: "H. Niva [ed. note: Mr. Hiro Niwa, a student at the University of California at Berkeley] had come to this country expecting to become a painter. 'Then, when I heard music in America, I took up the violin.' The wartime evacuation program interrupted preparations for concert work and teaching. In camp he became famous for another interest which had fascinated him from childhood. 'I'm crazy a long time about birds' he said." - Allen H. Eaton. Hiro Niwa was 57 when he was imprisoned at Tule Lake. At 61 upon his release, it's unlikely he was able to complete his schooling, and later play professionally, or teach. His plans ended at Tule Lake concentration camp most likely.
Standing afar

by wilted flower

Tear trickles down.

 - Tule Lake haiku by Neiji Ozawa

Above: a new born at Tule, from Life Magazine: "There were a lot of unnecessary deaths in camp. You wouldn't believe it. It's just that there were not enough people to watch the patients, not enough professionals."  
       
Left: Former shop keepers Joseph Gerald Osamu Sakamoto, 80, and Mary Ann Tsuchi Sakamoto, 80,from the Pacific Northwest, where they had lived for 47 years, celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. When the two were born, in 1863, Abraham Lincoln was president. In the background, the tar paper of the barracks is seen. Mr. Sakamoto had been a sexton of his church and was no doubt sorely missed. Right: a Tule Lake couple weds, with flowers ordered from Klamath Falls. - NARA I remember a pregnant woman came in with just terrible pain, and she was having what we call abnuptio placenta, where there’s bleeding in the uterus and it's absolutely necessary to operate right away and do a Caeserean section. But there was no doctor to do the surgery. The woman died of a hemorrhage without delivering her baby."Below: Joan Yasui, daughter of OSU' Ray Yasui, first Tule Lake baby born, from the 1960 Hood River year book.
       
Right: Letters were written to and from the camps, as people tried to maintain relationships with friends, loved ones, teachers and pastors.  Letters were always subject to censors. "All our letters were censored, all our letters were cut in parts." - Violet de Cristoforo. Photo at right from the Library of Congress. Most residents in the camp who could work, did so. Much of the work was devoted to the maintenance of the camp itself. Beyond the official expenses of the camps, the cost in labor was enormous. Below: " I probably worked from about seven o'clock in the morning to about six o'clock at night." - Hatsumi Nishimoto  "They had about three Caucasian nurses. Of course they took all the top priority jobs, and they didn't do any work. They just kind of watched over us and ran around the halls."-Oregonian Emi Somekawa, Oregon Nursing School. Below: the WRA caption, from Tule, is: "Army nurse tends segregee baby." -Oregonian Emi Somekawa, Oregon Nursing School.
       
The sorry waste of resources in the concentration camps came at a time when money and highly skilled workers were not 'to be had'. The people imprisoned at Tule Lake alone could have filled the shortage at Portland's Kaiser Shipyards (see ad below). 
Above: "A wintry view of early construction work on the Tule Lake schools. All work is being done by evacuees of Japanese ancestry." -NARA Above: "A view of evacuee farmers at work on a semi-automatic-feeding, rotary potato planter." NARA
       
Nowhere was the shortage of workers greater than on farms, especially sugar beet farms where wages were low and work was hard. Oregon Governor Sprague had always believed that those imprisoned would be available for slave labor on Oregon farms.  He hadn't bargained on the need to house and feed them and when labor for Oregon farms lacked, he turned to the US government. The NARA caption for the photo below, refers to an ambulatory patient shipped to Tule Lake, " moved directly from the pullman car to an awaiting ambulance." Bendetsen had promised himself: " a single drop of Japanese blood"...
       
"The greatest pool of idle labor in all the west exists within a day's ride of the fields where the labor is needed. This labor is to be found in the WRA camps for Japanese evacuees....According to information given me today only 6000 of the 15000 in camp pretend to do any work, 9000 live in absolute idleness." - Oregon Gov. Sprague, 1942.Nothing illustrates the mentality that characterized Mr. Sprague more. Of the 15,088 sent to Tule Lake,  a little more than 5000 were children. 4000 were aged.

Even if Sprague had been right, there is something very sinister in the assumption of a Euro-American that he or she is entitled to demand the uncompensated - or minimally compensated - labor of others for his or her own benefit. Tule Lake prisoners sent Sprague a list of the occupations and numbers of residents at the prison camp. It silenced him.

As the beet season approached its end, eastern Oregon's sugar beet crop was saved, according to Sprague's biographer, by 41 Oregonians from Nyssa, of Japanese descent, who recruited friends and family from across the nation for assistance. It was an act of undeserved generosity, and Sprague knew it. He sent his thanks, the only such letter received in the course of the war. 
       
"Prior to evacuation, it was stressed that it was the duty of Americans of Japanese Ancestry to be evacuated. We have been told that to do so was our share in the war effort. Now that we have been completely evacuated and before we are barely settled in our new community, your good office comes forth with the statement that NOW it is our duty to assist in the war effort through participation as beet workers in the same state which only a few months ago was clamoring for our evacuation...Your statement, 'Japanese evacuees should be compelled to work or be told that they will be deported after the war' is duress in the most vicious sense. It is an Axis technique, the very principle against which the United Nations are now fighting." letter to Oregon Governor Sprague from 3 citizens imprisoned at Tule Lake - Ichiro Hasegawa, Richard Hikawa, and Ken Sekiguchi, Oct. 18, 1942. In the Oregon state archives
       
Right: In reality, the camps were themselves short of labor at harvest time and the WRA was not above impressing children at harvest time: "Helping to ease the man-power shortage that has hit the group by working on the celery planter are young Tommy Tsutaoka, Margaret Kikkawa, Shizuye Tsutaoka, Mary Furuoka. -WRA. The children were 10 and 11 years old. There were 4,966 children at Tule. There were 50 over the age of 75. The oldest person at Tule was Ishi Itaya, from the Columbia River area, at 86 years old.  Below: "Three doctors from the Tule Lake Hospital are shown in attendance at the loading of passengers for trip 24. They are, left to right: Dr. Akamatsu, Dr. Ito and Dr. Suzuki. " The NARA caption for the photo below says that, except for a EuroAmerican supervising physician, all doctors at Tule Lake were of Japanese ancestry. There were 16. At its height, Tule Lake held almost 20,000 people. The MP in the background was a fixture.
The records show only the last 2 digits for dates. Thus, the oldest listed as imprisoned was Hiroshe Yamamoto, 99. He was an American citizen, born in Washington D.C. in 1843, nearly 20 years before Mr. Lincoln arrived there as President. His father had been born in Japan, perhaps a diplomat or a sailor. His mother was American. Above: Immigrant workers - shown on Mexico's Independence Day - in WWII assisted on local farms, which were prohibited areas for those in the camps. Oregon has always had citizens of Mexican descent. Early journals speak of packers and vaqueros (from which "buckaroos" comes from).
       
Left: OSU women heading for the fields as part of the Women's Land Army to try to help solve the farm labor problem. Right: One of 3500 German POWs at Adair, north of town, working in the fields. Below: Local housewives board buses to harvest the beans north of town. Left and right below: Corvallis recruiting posters for aged and teen workers.
       
Above: "I asked the camp authorities, the doctors, and everybody to send her to a hospital outside where there was a facility to treat cancer patients. And that was denied...when she finally did go, it was with 2 MPs armed with rifles...she was not quite sixty. And they had guards on her all the time...she died" -Violet de Cristoforo
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