MANZANAR Historic Resource Study/Special History Study

CAUSES (continued)

Joseph Kurihara Statement in March 1944 and Merritt Interview with Kurihara, November 12, 1945

By March 1944, Joseph Kurihara, one of the principals in the events at Manzanar on December 5-6, 1944, had been transferred to the Tule Lake Segregation Center. At the request of the Community Analysis Section in the WRA's Washington Office, Kurihara, still embittered by his experiences at Manzanar and subsequent treatment by the WRA, prepared a written statement concerning the issues that led to violence at Manzanar. Kurihara stated:

Camp Manzanar was sailing along very satisfactorily until the introduction of the J.A.C.L. around the beginning of August 1942. This was the dynamite which only needed a spark to touch it off. I started to blast them to Hell, but they were so well entrenched behind the Administrative wall with official backing, it took several blastings before they were completely routed.

Togo Tanaka, one of the leading sponsors had personally admitted to me that he saw the sign of defeat on the very first night of the meeting. He withdrew and did not appear at the second meeting. However the sneaky Fred Tayama and Kiyoshi Higashi persisted in trying to salvage the bursted pieces of J. A. C. L. and attended without authorization, the National Convention of the J.A.C.L. at Salt Lake City, Utah.

In the meantime the Kibeis were very active trying to form a group of their own to offset the J.A.C.L. Permission to organize was not only denied but even the usage of the Japanese tongue thereafter was definitely prohibited. My petition to form the Manzanar Welfare Organization likewise was denied before presentation by Assistant P.D. Ned Campbell. None other than the J.A.C.L. was recognized and permitted, a discrimination which roused the feelings of the interested and the impartials.

This political controversy would have remained dormant had the J.A.C.L. been kept out of the centers. It was natural that feelings against everything American would be keenly entertained through the sting of evacuation. In the midst of such treacherous atmosphere, the J.A.C.L. had been boldly introduced. Had we been respected and treated as American citizens, the reaction might have been a welcoming one, but when we were classed as Japs and treated as such, I cannot see where in we should further americanize the youngsters of the centers. Unjustly General DeWitt had denounced us as "Once a Jap, always a Jap." Why then must we keep our vows to uphold the constitution of the U.S.? We were not unloyal. We were made disloyal by the greatest saboteurs in the service of the country, General DeWitt. . . .

Concluding his remarks, Kurihara sounded a warning that represented the frustrations and bitterness of many evacuees:

In short, let's take the fences out, the towers should also be removed. If the Army must have them, have them erected miles away. Give the inductees the chance to scout the surrounding hills. Give them every privilege of humanity. Short wave news and free expression of their emotions. Cut out all the vicious lies and discrimination. It is Un-American. All the dirty things said and done will not help win the war. Otherwise do not criticize what they do over there if America can not practice Democracy and the Doctrine of the Four Freedoms.

Finally make no promise which cannot be kept, or threaten the Japanese. They will surely call your bluff. [81]

After the war's end, on November 12,1945, curiosity led Merritt to seek out "possible hidden reasons" behind the violence at Manzanar on December 5-6, 1942. At Tule Lake, he interviewed Joseph Kurihara, then making preparations to leave for Japan as a result of having renounced his American citizenship, Merritt prepared a memorandum, to WRA headquarters, dated January 7, 1946, based on his interview with Kurihara. During the 2 1/2-hour dialogue, Kurihara provided some significant insights regarding his personal involvement in the unrest at Manzanar that Merritt passed along to his superiors:

. . . . The substance of his statement was that at the time of the evacuation a number of the Nisei leaders of JACL sold out the Issei and the Japanese cause in general. When he met those same leaders in Manzanar he made up his mind to expose them and drive them out of the Center. These men were Tayama, Tokie Slocum, Tanaka, Higashi, and Kad Yoneda. . . .

He said that, in the summer of 1942, Slocum had gotten himself a job on the police force and was working on the graveyard shift for the purpose of taking records from the administration offices to copy them and return them before daylight in order to have complete knowledge of all that was going on in the Center. Slocum was in fear of Kurihara and told him what he was doing and agreed to give Kurihara copies of all of the material which he got. I asked Kurihara for evidence of this and he showed me documents copied from the Manzanar files, particularly certain documents which he said were written by Tayama which were transmitted to the FBI through the Manzanar Police Department.

On August 8, 1942 the Kibei meeting was held in which Kurihara spoke as a representative of the citizens' group who had been mistreated by the Government. Tayama sent a report of this to the FBI. Kurihara gave me a copy of that report at Tule Lake. Because of the statement made by Tayama about Kurihara's speech, Kurihara says he decided to kill Tayama and therefore he organized the group which beat up Tayama on December 5th. Kurihara was not a member of the group and pretended to be surprised next morning when he heard the news of the beating. In the attempt to find the culprits of the beating, I, as Project Director, arrested Harry Ueno, a mess-hall worker who had been the head of the Kitchen Workers' Union.

On the morning of December 6th, a meeting was held at Kitchen 22 to demand the release of Ueno and from this meeting the Manzanar 'riot' was precipitated. Kurihara was a speaker at the meeting held that: day and was one of five people who composed a committee to call on the Project Director demanding Ueno's release. Because he was the most talkative, he became the leader of the group. As Project Director, I made an agreement for settlement of the disturbance on the evening of December 6th. Kurihara went before the group and spoke in what was supposed to be Japanese, telling them of the settlement. He admits and it is now generally agreed that he spoke a Hawaiian dialect of Japanese which was not understood by the crowd except when he told them that a report would be made at 6 o'clock that evening at Kitchen 22. Such a meeting was in violation of the agreement. This meeting developed the mob which later created the riot. When the mob appeared and the situation got out of control, Kurihara says he tried to prevent violence and get them to go home but that he lost control and the crowd broke up to be led in various directions by those who had particular grievances against Tayama, who was in the hospital, Slocum who was supposed to be in his barrack, Tanaka in his barrack, and others.

Kurihara took full responsibility in his talk with me for this entire matter. He said that he had spent three years in praying for forgiveness and in studying Japanese so that he in future might speak understandably. He said he was returning to Japan with the feeling that he would probably be killed but he intended to speak for America and the democratic way of living. [82]