MANZANAR
Historic Resource Study/Special History Study
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CHAPTER
ELEVEN:
VIOLENCE AT
MANZANAR ON DECEMBER 6, 1942: AN EXAMINATION OF THE EVENT, ITS
UNDERLYING CAUSES, AND HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION
(continued)
CAUSES (continued)
Evacuee Perspectives as Documented by the Community Analysis
Section
Several reports prepared by Morris E. Opler, the WRA-appointed
Community Analyst at Manzanar who had served on the faculty of Cornell
University, included the perspectives of evacuees concerning the causes
and background of the violence at the camp on December 5-6, 1942. One
revealing description of the events that led to the violence was
provided by an anonymous evacuee in a report dated November 19, 1943.
This evacuee, who was an eyewitness to some of the events leading up to
the violence as well as a confidant of some evacuees who were involved
in the controversies swirling throughout the center, stated:
I don't know the date of this kibei meeting. It was held in Kitchen
15. There the chairman opened the meeting by announcing that all loyal
American citizens should get the heck out of the kitchen. Kurihara and
Slocum had a clash in words. Slocum was pro-American and Kurihara was
anti-American and they bitterly hated each other. At that meeting Uyeno
[sic] agitated very much. Karl Yoneda was the secretary and it seemed
that he put in the wrong memorandum as to the procedure of the meeting,
which aroused the kibei boys to threaten him at one time. At that time
the kibei boys were against the forming of the fair practice committee
for the Center simply because of the fact that they thought that all
JACL members would become the ones in charge. They said the JACL leaders
were trying to get a hold of it, and it did look like those JACL leaders
were trying to get a hold of it, and it did look like those JACL fellows
were putting themselves on everything.
So Uyeno [sic] and Tsuji (both have been pulled in since), with the
help of kibei agitators, formed a kitchen work corps, which was
non-cooperative and agitated against the Administration. It seemed that
at that time the kitchens weren't getting their allotment of sugar and
Uyeno [sic] went to complain to Campbell and asked, "Where does the
sugar go to. It comes into the camp but it doesn't come into the
kitchens?"
Fred Tayama had just returned from Salt Lake City from a JACL
convention and the following night he got beat up or rather mobbed.
Uyeno [sic] was pulled in on suspicion of being one of Tayama's
assailants. The agitating group got together outside the grounds of
kitchen 22 and demonstrated. They had a loud speaker set up on top of
the oil tank. The leading agitators wanted the administration to return
Uyeno [sic] to the Center within 24 hours. He was in the Independence
jail. There were 5 chosen to act as spokesmen for the group who were
trying to get the Administration to release Uyeno [sic]. At that meeting
the agitators openly threatened to kill or get Winchester [Chief Project
Steward], Campbell especially, Tayama, who was already in the hospital,
Slocum, and all known 'dogs.' Those 5 go-betweens did not succeed but
they were arrested too.
On December 6 again they had a meeting at Kitchen 22. The agitators
inside of the mob tried to forcefully get Uyeno [sic] and the 5 men out.
Uyeno [sic] had been brought back to the Center at the time that they
demanded his freedom, but he was being kept in the Manzanar jail. On
December 6, the fateful day, another open meeting was held at Kitchen 22
outdoors. There the agitators incited the mob to take things into their
own hands. Half of the group was to go to the hospital and was to finish
off Tayama. The other half was to go toward the Administration and get
Campbell and free those who had been taken into custody.
Well, by this time soldiers were in camp lined up on 'A' street. The
mob was there. It seemed that the head persons were behind the front
line bystanders. The agitators were not in the front line. Those
agitators, it seemed, wanted to stay in the background and heckle rather
than being in the front. The agitators threw rocks at the Manzanar jail
and at the soldiers too. It seemed that the agitators wanted the
soldiers to fire upon the crowd. So the soldiers started throwing tear
gas at the crowd to disperse them. Most of the crowd tried to disperse
but by this time a soldier was shooting with his tommy gun. Several were
injured at the time. One died instantly. He was an innocent
bystander.
This is straight from block 22 block manager who was in the thick of
it all the time. All the while that the Kitchen Work Corps was
complaining about the sugar, complaining to Campbell and Winchester,
they didn't realize that the warehouse workers were taking the sugar. It
seemed that there is definite proof that one kitchen, namely number 10
used 3000 lbs. of sugar in one month. The food delivery crew was
composed mostly of Terminal Island kibeis. It was not Winchester or
Campbell's fault that each kitchen did not get its share, because of the
fact that the food distributors were mostly from blocks 9 and 10.
If Cambell had been ousted and if stricter control over the food
distribution had been maintained, the incident would not have happened.
Her[e] is another thing. Slocum was supposed to have said he would be
the last Jap in camp if at all. He said this back in Los Angeles. He
said that he would never be put in a camp like this. It looked funny
when he came then, as though he came for no good purpose.
It seemed that the Blood Brothers, the B.B.'s, a kibei group [sic],
were out to get anybody who was connected with camoflage [sic] or
J.A.C.L.
The man who told me this said that Uyeno [sic] was pulled in on
suspicion of beating up Tayama not because the police or administration
had any evidence that he was one of the assailants but because he was a
dangerous agitator. So they got him first.
It seemed that Uyeno [sic] tried to get a job at the warehouse but
was unable to do so. He thought that by getting in on the ground floor
he could get evidence as to where the sugar went to. Rumor was flying,
thick and fast around that time as to having seen Campbell drive out of
this center in a panel truck loaded with meat. It seems that Campbell is
in the thick of it. They sure hated his guts. I never had contact with
him but I heard plenty. This fellow said that Campbell was a s.o.b. and
that if he had been dead and buried the whole thing wouldn't have
happened. You see, Doc., Campbell tried to be a dictator in this camp,
that's why. The whole thing came out of this sugar thing too.
I think the people in the center still don't know whether the sugar
was actually stolen by Campbell or misappropriated by the food delivery
crew.
This is what this fellow told me. It isn't the way I understood it up
to now. I had understood that Campbell and Winchester were up to their
necks in sugar. Not only sugar, but there was the meat problem too. But
this fellow, though he didn't like Campbell, says that this wasn't it.
He says that the food distributors were more to blame. He knew this but
he couldn't tell. Those San Pedro boys are pretty tough and he didn't
want to get his neck in a sling. He says that in the warehouse they
would just take a knife and slit down a bag of sugar. I can believe it
because I have heard that eggs are delivered to the kitchens with the
top row there only. Underneath the eggs are gone. Then the kitchen
workers blame each other. Same with meat. Those fellows take their own
boxes along and cut off pieces and throw them in there and the kitchens
get shorted. If the kitchen workers complain to the food distributors
about unfair distribution, the distributors lessen their allotment to
that kitchen all the more. It seems that the whole damn squabble in the
center is always food.
Kurihara was a fellow 35 or 40. He was a Hawaiian. He was bitter. He
was an American Legionnaire [sic] and being stuck in a place like this
nearly killed him. 1 first heard him speak December 5 outside kitchen 22
where the loud speaker was installed. He was definitely an agitator and
I knew from the way he said things that it was just no good. He
mentioned names, saying, 'Let's go get so and so, and the crowd would
respond, 'Let's go get him.' They didn't at that time, but they tried to
later on.
They had a little misunderstanding that brought things to a head
later on too. The spokesmen, those 5 men, thought that it was understood
that Uyeno [sic] was to be freed within the Center, but the
Administration only meant that he was to be brought back to the Manzanar
jail from the Independence jail.
The fact that the incident happened on December 6 had nothing to do
with it. Nobody thought of Pearl Harbor but the newspapers. That was
just a coincidence. The fellow who told me this was on the kitchen crew
at Block 22 when this happened so that he was in the thick of it. He was
the foreman there or the one in charge, pretty much. Uyeno [sic] worked
in that same kitchen crew. [76]
On September 13, 1943, Opler prepared a report based on an interview
with a Nisei from Venice who had relocated as a college freshman to the
University of Utah in Salt Lake City in January 1943. While the college
student was visiting relatives at Manzanar, Opler took the opportunity
to talk with him about his experiences in the camp prior to his
relocation. The Nisei provided some poignant insights into the stresses
and strains in the camp that led to violence:
The main cause of the riot on December 6 was the feeling of the
people that they had been betrayed by members of the Los Angeles chapter
of J. A. C. L. They don't blame the leaders of other chapters or those
in the national office but they do have it in for this Los Angeles
bunch. It is felt that these fellows, in order to show their patriotism
and gain favors for themselves, had given information even before
evacuation about what people had said or done. Therefore they were
blamed for a great many of the internments and hardships. It was
believed that they had not only done this on the outside but had
continued it on the inside, in other words, they had been acting as
stool pidgeons [sic]. They are also charged with misleading the people
while they were still on the outside and with getting them to accept
evacuation. Therefore those who had become bitter over the way
evacuation has gone, or who had lost much in evacuation, had it in for
them.
Tayama was the worst hated of them all. He was beaten up, and he hid
in the hospital. A group were out looking for him. They searched his
home. They didn't find him there but they came back with tales of the
fine furniture he had there and the amount of food stored in his place.
This made the people more sure than ever that he was getting special
favors from the government for his 'work.' Ueno and some others were
jailed for beating him up. I knew there was going to be trouble, for a
mob formed in the afternoon. Then in the evening they heard that Tayama
was at the hospital. The mob formed again. I knew that there was going
to be plenty of trouble so I stayed home, right in block 16. And, sure
enough, the shooting followed. The people blamed the M.P.'s. They say
they were just itching to fire.
I was working up at the hospital during this period. I was driving a
truck, picking up the wash for the hospital. ... I saw the body of the
boy, James Ito, who was shot and killed. He was in the ice box when I
saw him. His clothes were there too. They were a bloody mess. The other
fellow who died following the shooting was up in the hospital too. I
didn't get a good look at him; I just went through the ward once while
he was there. He was shot in the stomach and they say he was in terrible
agony till he died.
The riot was all mixed up in several ways with the mess halls. They
have always been a focus of trouble. It was charged that Tayama was
getting special favors and privileges that others were not getting. Even
now if one thing appears at one mess hall and not at another, favoritism
is charged. . . [77]
On January 24, 1944, Opler prepared a report, entitled "Evacuation,
Events at Manzanar, and Relocation (From a Well-Educated Man of
Professional Background)." Among the observations of this evacuee were
the following:
A great deal of the trouble which led to the incident here can be
traced back to hard feelings which began before evacuation and during
evacuation. Take the position of the issei. They had been kicked around
pretty much in this country. But they stuck it out, made a living,
raised their families, and some did pretty well. Then came the crisis
between the two countries and war. The issei were crowded into the
background or interned. If anyone was called to see the mayor [of Los
Angeles], it was T.[ayama] (an officer of the J.A.C.L.), if anyone went
to see the F.B.I, or any other agency of official it was T.[ayama] and
his friends. The J.A.C.L. didn't have more than 1,500 regular members up
and down the coast. I was an officer of one district with 12 clubs in it
and altogether we didn't have more than 500 members. While many of the
nisei were too young to join this was not a good representation. It was
just not a representative body and a good many were sore because it
undertook to speak for all the Japanese. . . .
Later on the story grew up that T.[ayama] and the J.A.C.L. people had
agreed right away to evacuation and had helped pick out the site for
Manzanar. T.[ayama] had nothing to do with the selection of the place.
It's true that he was brought up to see it before the people came but
this was so there would be someone to assure the people that the place
was inhabitable.
Also there was a great fear of informers and spies. There was some of
this at Santa Anita, where a fellow who was supposed to be a Korean was
beaten up. Here they suspected fellows like S.[locum] From what I heard
him say more than once I really believe he turned people in before he
came here. If he did help the government it was pretty stupid of them to
put him in here where the families of his victims could get back at him.
At any rate the families of many of those interned felt that there were
informers in here who had turned the family heads in out of malice or
for some trivial remark made during a time of peace. . . . There were a
whole series of mistakes. The first was the embittering of the
volunteers. They didn't get their union wages; in fact they didn't get
paid for months. Many had come up without any resources for they
expected to get paid regularly here. Some had promised to send money to
relatives still on the coast. They were running around here without a
nickel for months. [78]
On April 22, 1944, Opler prepared another report based on interviews
with a Nisei from French Camp near Stockton, California. This young man,
a neighbor of Fred Tayama, commented on the tensions in the camp that
led to violence, stating that the "first tension I ever felt over the
things which were to lead to the riot was when I heard that they
[JACLers] formed an American Citizens Federation for niseis only." He
noted further:
. . . . I believed that to leave out the kibei group who were
citizens also would create bad feeling between the two groups. . . .
Their point of view seemed so selfish. It looked like the JACL bunch
wanted to start in again under another name. They put themselves up for
everything that came along. The same little bunch wanted to be the
officers and to run everything. . . . This riot really did not start
directly within Manzanar because there was a tension between the people
and the JACL on the outside before coming to camp. We were led to
believe that the JACL was going to protect our rights. I suppose that
they did their best but to some it wasn't good enough. We don't remember
any attempt of the JACL to go to Washington, D.C. and protest for the
American citizens of Japanese ancestry. But they told us to evacuate
quietly and to prove our loyalty.
Another reason is that the members of the JACL were turning in isseis
who had had anything to do with the Japanese government. Instead of
doing that we thought they were supposed to help us out. After I got
here in May I met a fellow who was a member of the JACL who admitted
that the leaders had turned in issei that they had something against. .
. .
The first I knew about the trouble was when my sister told me that
T.[ayama] had been beaten up during the night. I was the only one in the
family who didn't wake up when all the noise of the beating was going
on. He lived in the barracks right across from us. This was the night of
December 5.
I was not surprised. There had been threats against T. He had been
away to a JACL meeting in Salt Lake City and while he was away there was
talk against him. They said that he was getting special privileges and
special food. He seldom ate at the mess hall and they always had plenty.
They say that when they broke into his house that night there was plenty
of sugar and all kinds of rationed items there. I believe it. His
relative was head of all the distribution of food supplies in camp and I
think they looked out for themselves.
After this man [Ueno] was arrested they tried to get him out and of
course there was some shooting here at Manzanar by the U.S. soldiers,
which I guess you can't blame them for. Still, perhaps, it could have
been avoided, I wasn't there at the time of the shooting but from what I
have heard, some of these Japanese here at camp threw rocks at the
soldiers, started up a truck and tried to run a truck into the soldiers.
The truck didn't hit the soldiers but ran into the police building.
After hearing all that I felt that the soldiers had to look out for
themselves and they had the orders to shoot, so I believe that we can't
blame them entirely. . . .
Two of my friends were shot in the leg and in the stomach that day. I
think they were innocent bystanders because I know those boys pretty
well. Both of them have relocated. [79]
manz/hrs/hrs11d.htm
Last Updated: 01-Jan-2002
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