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This is History for the Reckoning, a podcast that dives deep into the history that's hard to hear but critical to understand. Season one, American Concentration Camps. The story of World War II Japanese Incarceration. Welcome to another addenda episode. Huge thank you and shout out to Emily Inoue Huey for her amazing description of the state of affairs between Pearl Harbor and the forced removal to the concentration camps, which we're going to visit in our next episode. What was life like inside of those camps? But first I wanted to give you a little introduction to how many camps were there, where they were, a little fact about each one of them. So the WRA or the War Relocation Authority, the federal agency that was tasked with housing all of these people that were forced from their homes and forced into camps, the ones that had to administer the camps, build the camps, see to it that the people were kept inside of them, the War Relocation Authority. There were ten of these large camps made by the WRA. They had more camps than that, but the ones that are the most famous, and the ones that we're talking about, particularly in the next episode, are these ten camps. Each of them held around 10,000 people, give or take. Size fluctuated as things went on and as circumstances changed. We'll get to that a little bit later. So I'm going to describe each of the camps. Well, I'm going to give you the name of each of the camps, where they are, one fact about each one of them, moving from east to west. Again, there's 10 of them. So we're going to start in Arkansas with Rower. That's where the Takes were first incarcerated. So you've already heard a little bit about that one. Next one, the second camp is in Arkansas. It's called Jerome. It was the last of these large camps to open and the very first one to close. Fun fact about this one is that, well, I guess both the camps in Arkansas, is that after the drafting and recruitment of Japanese Americans had been done by the U.S. military, they were trained at a base in Mississippi. And at one point, they knew that these young men needed to blow off some steam, and they decided to throw a dance for them. And they invited girls from Jerome and Rower concentration camps to be busted out to the military base to have a dance with all of these young Japanese American men. So it was a whole, whole big party for young Japanese Americans in just the strangest circumstances, as these young men were about to go off to war, and these women that night would have to return back to their concentration camps. So next camp is Grenada in Colorado. It was the smallest of the camps by population. It peaked at 7,318. Fun fact about Colorado in general is that the only state that had a governor who was willing to welcome in Japanese Americans, both those who chose to move there when the West Coast became restricted, and also the only one who did not oppose the creation of a camp in his state. He really saw it as this is us housing fellow Americans. He was open to it in a way that no other Western governors were. Alright, next up we've got Heart Mountain in Wyoming. This was the site of the most organized resistance to the draft that we'll touch upon a lot later. And the fair play community was there. That was part of this draft resistance. I'm very excited to talk about that, but that's a story for another day. But one thing I'd like to talk about with them is the Heart Mountain Eagles. So one huge part of camp life was that kids still had to go to school, kids still had to uh have sports, athletics, recreation, and they organized a football team for their uh high school kids, and they played local high schools in football in the Wyoming area, broader than that, too. One very interesting fact is that these children on the Heart Mountain Eagles team, this football team, were those who were incarcerated. They were forced to be there, they were not allowed to leave, but there was one team that they played from one of the local high schools that was entirely white, except for one kid who happened to also be Japanese American. So this kid, his family had had the means that when the war began, before the forced relocation, they were able to move from the West Coast into Wyoming. And so this kid was playing on this high school team outside of the camps against a team inside of the camps. So just imagine being this kid and feeling like, oh, that could have been me, except for a few different circumstances, maybe a difference of a month or two. It's just a really compelling story. Hope you look into that one. Uh, there's a great book about it by Brad Pearson. I think it's called The Eagles of Hard Mountain. Okay, moving west, we get to Gila River, Arizona. Uh, so this one's interesting because it's a site where the soldiers from Hawaii were taken to do kind of propaganda efforts to influence recruitment as they were trying to get Japanese Americans to join the military. So we're gonna cover this so much in the future, but so as to say the the experience of the Japanese Americans in Hawaii was very different from those in the mainland. And so those that were in Hawaii were more likely to be already signed up for the military or to join the military after the war began. And many of those soldiers were brought over because they had a better feeling toward the American government than those who'd been incarcerated, which makes a lot of sense. A lot of these Hawaiian soldiers were seen as like poster children. They were taken to this camp in order to show the the other young men that they wanted to be young recruits. Oh, look at these men who look just like you, they're already in the army, they're having such a great time. But then imagine being these Japanese Americans from Hawaii who come to the mainland and get to see firsthand all these people that look like them in one giant concentration camp. It must have been a surreal thing. Alright, our next camp is Minadoka in Idaho. Uh I've been there, it's a really interesting site. Hope you can make it. Uh one thing that was struck me there is that there's still a baseball diamond that they maintain because recreation for all people was very important in these camps because they were functionally towns, that there were up to 10,000 people or more, and they had to find things to do with their time. They also had to find ways to bond with each other, have fun. So baseball, other organized sports was huge. So at Minadoka, they would organize by blocks. The people at these camps lived in barracks, the military style, and those were organized into blocks that were around like a kitchen unit and a laundry and bathing facility. So these blocks meant to organize a baseball team, they'd play other baseball teams. It'd be a huge community affair when the baseball teams play each other. And of course, baseball is one of the sports of choice because these are American guys, they absolutely love playing baseball. Alright, the next one is the one in my backyard, Topaz, Utah. So one big controversial story here, I guess controversial in a way that I'll get to, but uh there was a man there named Jane Wakasa who was shot and killed by a guard. So at first the camp tried to play it off as though he was trying to make his way outside of the fence, but it turns out he was actually feet away from the fence and he was facing the guard tower from where the shot came from. And the young man, the soldier who shot Mr. Wakasa, was acquitted of all charges. He was not ever he was certainly not found liable, much less guilty of any crime. And so the the camp was obviously very concerned about this event, made a stir, and they set up a big memorial to James Wakasa near the fence on the site where he had actually been shot. The camp authorities were getting really worried that that was going to kind of foment unrest within the camp at large. Maybe there'd be a riot they were worried about uh where it might lead. So the camp authorities influenced the people who'd put up the monument to take it down. So where it gets a little bit controversial is that now the it's believed the site where that monument was has been found. And so there's an effort to decide what to do with the large stone that was found at that site. Uh should they remount the monument? How should it be preserved? Where should it go? It's a really interesting story. So I hope you'll look it up, engage with the history that's playing out today. Alright, next up we've got Poston in Arizona. So this was the largest camp by area and was built entirely on the Colorado River Indian Reservation. What's interesting here is that the tribal council that was over the Colorado River Indian Reservation completely objected to a camp being put on their land, but federal authorities overruled them, put it there anyway. And just as interesting, there's a series of stories where like the locals who have been tribal members are interacting with these Japanese Americans and like the commonalities of experience where the federal government had forced them into this area that they didn't necessarily want to go to and they didn't know how long they'd be there. It's just really interesting stuff there. I hope you'll look that up too. Alright, moving west, our next camp is Manzanar in California. So this is a lot that happened at this particular camp. Definitely worth looking up. Probably the most dramatic event, I'd say, is it was the site of the Manzanar riots, which revolved around tensions from working conditions and food that was being stolen from residents and sold on the black market. There's a whole story there. Then also tensions with the JACL, which we'll also talk about in the future. At one point, this huge mob forms, about I think they said 5,000 strong, and the camp authorities got spooked and they fired into the crowd, ended up killing two people. So the probably the biggest unrest that happened outside of the next camp that I'm going to talk about in a moment. Really scary. Preferential jobs were given to those that were serving the needs of the state and of the camp authorities. So there was a lot of tension there. Uh it's just very interesting. Uh the final camp and the most notorious camp probably is Thule Lake in California. So this one started out like all the other concentration camps, where it was just a place to concentrate people. There were barbed wires, there were guard towers, the people with guns, machine guns pointed in, searchlights, all of that. But it was at the same level as all the other ones. But a little bit into the war, they decided to turn it into a maximum security camp. And they took from all the other camps those that the government deemed to be uh troublemakers, particularly disloyal, the ones that they thought were gonna stir up uh trouble in the camps. So this became a prison within a prison, and then within Tully Lake there was like a literal maximum security facility, which George Decay touched on in our prologue. Okay, to round out this addenda episode, I'd like to introduce you to a podcast I've really been enjoying called Past Lives. It's from Patrick Wyman, who's been doing all kinds of history content for a long time. He does such an amazing job. And this one focuses in on the daily life of an individual from history. All different stories from history, but through the perspective of a single person's life. So you get to know the entire context of it, you get to know this person. And season one that I've been listening to that I've absolutely loved has been the history of slavery. So looking at different countries, different places, different time periods, how they related to slavery, but all through the life of one of these enslaved people. So you really get a sense of uh how they lived, what it was like, and then the broader context of what everyone around them thought of this horrible practice called slavery. So I'm gonna play their trailer now. I hope you enjoy past lives.

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If you lived a hundred years ago, who would you have been? What about a thousand years ago, or ten thousand? Well, I can promise you this. You, yes, you, personally, wouldn't have been someone you've ever heard of. Our stories of the past revolve around towering figures like Alexander the Great, Napoleon, and Cleopatra. When we learn about history in school, we're mostly taught through the lens of these great people. We memorize important names and the dates of battles, coronations, and imperial foundations associated with them. Now, don't get me wrong, these people matter. We can learn a lot about the past from what they did. But they're not you. Maybe you're rich, famous, and powerful, but you're probably not. There's nothing wrong with that, most of us aren't. But we, people like us, like you and me, are the raw material of history, and we always have been. Our forebears may have included a king or queen or two, but the vast majority of our ancestors were the common clay of humanity. At best, they were advisors for those famous kings, or military officers, or members of the court. Maybe they were merchants or priestesses or administrators. More of them weren't even that elevated. They were farmers clinging to the edge of survival. They were shepherds tending their flocks and herds, worrying about wolves and sudden freezes. They were craftspeople breathing in the smoke from a forge or digging wood splinters out of their fingers. Most of those people, our ancestors, left only the barest trace in the historical record, if they left any at all. A single clay tablet recording the sale of a pair of enslaved war captives in Assyria, an epitaph for a well-off Roman merchant, an entry in a medieval account book, the rusted fragments of an iron knife with a few bones in a 2,000-year-old grave. Yet each and every one of those people was real, and they mattered. Past Lives is a show about those people and their stories. Every week we'll explore the experiences and world of a real person who lived at some time and place in the past. They were us, and we are them. By understanding them, we better understand ourselves and our place in this huge, ongoing endeavor that we call humanity. They mattered, and so do you. The first season of Past Lives will be available December 3rd. Be sure to subscribe to the feed now so you get all three episodes delivered straight to you. That's December 3rd.

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Season 1 of History for the Reckoning is made possible by support from the JACL Mount Olympus chapter, as well as generous financial support from the Takahashi Family Foundation and the JA Community Foundation. The music was produced by Patrick Coffin. If you want to support the show, follow us on Instagram at History for the Reckoning. Sign up for our newsletter at History for the Reckoning on Substack, where you'll also find the show notes for each episode, or support us financially through Patreon at patreon.com slash History for the Reckoning.