Transcripts For CSPAN3 Lectures In History 20150221

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And now lectures in history. In this lecture, university of Southern California professor Richard Reeves examines the press and its coverage of japanese internment during world war ii. This is about an hour. Part of what were going to talk about today is the tendency for the press to all follow the same story line, which weve seen a lot of right now with two story lines that are taking up most of the news space these days. Ebola every papers saying the same every paper, every television, the internet is all following that story according to a pretty well known narrative because its also been fictionalized in film. And then, what then knocks off ebola and people dying in africa. Bill cosby, so that all everybodys writing the same kind of story about bill cosby every day but with different names. And so, today, i want to talk about a story that ran like that what happens when a kind of fever, kind of hysteria, usually based on fear, like ebola was where the press takes a line. Or in this case, where the press was a major player in one of the darkest episodes in American History. The internment of japanese americans during world war ii in concentration camps in those barren parts of the country. The high deserts of the west, and the swamps of arkansas. And if from here in los angeles if you take route 395 north, say youre going to manmouth for skiing, which is why most people head up that way. But about half way up, you come to a sign that says mansinar relocation camp. And theres a building there with a bit of a Visitor Center and that kind of thing. There was a day when 19,000 japanese americans from california, oregon and washington were kept in that camp. In none of these people had done anything. They were never charged with anything. Put in these camps, held there for four years during world war ii because they looked like the enemy. So i want to go through that. As youre driving up that road toward mammoth i remember many times, someone in the car would say, isnt that where they put the japanese . Its just a barren desert. Theres nothing at all there. It actually once was a lake, but los angeles the water in los angeles comes from that land. They drained the land over those, over the years and left it this waste land with dust, fine dust all over it. And soon it would become home to people because they looked like the enemy. On december 7th as im sure you know 1941, the Imperial Japanese navy bombed pearl harbor. And a day later, the president of the United States asked congress for declaration of war against japan against the imperial japan, and the words he used were, this is a day that will live in infamy. The sneak attack on pearl harbor, and what were going to talk about largely is how the press reacted to that and because of the way the press reacted the way the country reacted to it. A lot of this is going to be about words. Any time history is always about which words you use. The first is concentration camps. Concentration camps was the word word were the words used by president roosevelt on february 19th of 1942 when he signed the orders ordering the roundup of the japanese, both aliens and citizens living in the United States or living not in the United States, living on the west coast. The west coast was declared a war zone there was fear, most of it unfounded that the japanese could attack california could attack oregon, could attack washington. If you were japanese or japaneseamerican, and you lived in iowa or in new york, none of this had anything to do with you. And as well see people in most parts of the country really didnt even know this ever happened. One of the families that was held in one of these camps for four years decided not to come back to california. And they lived for 40 years in indianapolis, indiana. She was a nurse he was an accountant. And in that 40 years not a Single Person that they talked to had ever heard of the camps of the concentration camps. I want to add that when i talk about words concentration camps later took on a different meaning. Because of the germany extermination camps for jews, for russians, for any political enemies that they had so that a lot of people since tried to avoid the use of that term because though many japanese and japanese americans died in the camps, the conditions were pretty grungy and unhealthy, they were not death camps. They were just to keep them away because though there had never been a single act of sabotage by a japanese or japanese american during world war ii or the runup to world war ii they were put there because people were so afraid there would be acts of terrorism bombings people on hills with flashlights signaling to japanese submarines so they could bombard San Francisco or whatever. Those things didnt happen. But people were afraid of them. And the press was feeding that fear all the time. There are three other words that are involved in this are ise nise and kibe. Ise was the japanese word for first generation. The people who came to america largely as farm workers or to build railroads were the first generation ise. They were not allowed to become american citizens. In 1924, the Congress Passed the asian exclusion act of 1924. Asians could not become naturalized citizens of the United States no matter how long they were here. But according to our constitution their children could become citizens. And their children were called the nise, the Second Generation. There was another group greatly suspected, mostly unfairly many of whom became great war heroes. And well get into that, called the kibe. And the kibe were american citizens that is Second Generation japanese americans who would be who were nise but they were called kibe because they were of a group whose parents sent them back to japan to be educated. So they were born in the United States at a certain age, they went back to japan to go to school, live with relatives and then came back to the United States and they were called the kibe, which becomes very important because they were really the only young japanese in america who could speak the language. The ise could speak japanese, very few of them spoke english. The nise could speak english they went through regular schools, many of them were in berkeley, ucla, usc, the main colleges in california, but they did not speak japanese. They spoke a little at home, but they were not fluent in the language. That becomes very important later when we need interrogators and interpreters in the pacific when were fighting the japanese on island after island to okinawa. Finally, the word, if you see if you see these incidents written about, generally its called the japanese internment. But that is inaccurate even though its the common usage. Internment means you are an alien whose country is at war with the country youre in and you are interned until that war is over. Thats if youre an alien. 75 of the japanese of the american japanese in the concentration camps were not aliens, they were citizens. They were incarcerated, imprisoned, they were not interned. Had machine guns looking down on them. Rounded up 2,000 japanese and japanese americans in the west coast states. They were all on lists which had been compiled by the fbi, by the military by the census bureau, and, in fact they looked like looked like the membership of the rotary club. It was anyone with influence. Lawyers, priests, journalists, any leader of a club anyone who donated to a japanese charity back home for them. Those were the 2,000 people rounded up s, mostly by the fbi, most of them before sunset on december 7th. All of them by sunset on december 8th. They were not put in camps. They were taken directly to prisons in levin worth, santa fe, around the country. And their families, many of them, did not know where they were for a year or two because the government would not reveal even that they had picked up these people although their families were left behind trying to find out where dad was. Dad was in a levinworth prison although he was never charged with anything other than being born in japan. The last thing ill say about words is we didnt want to call them camps. We didnt want people to know what they were like. There was a lot of propaganda that went out that made them sound like they were resorts, resort communities. Or as they were officially call ed pioneer communities. Before they went there, though. The ones around, after the 2,000 are rounded up, then beginning in march, executive order 9066, which was what president roosevelt signed to put these people into camps and into jail, was signed on february 19th, 1942 on march 1st, we began rounding the army, began rounding up all the japanese. And by all the japanese, i mean anyone as the government said with one drop of japanese blood. They went so far as to scour the hospitals. And if people if an old japanese man, say was in a hospital and could not be moved, they would assign four soldiers to guard him around the clock. People in their 90s who couldnt move. They scoured the orphanages to find any orphans who had any japanese blood in them. And they, too, were rounded up and sent to 19 Assembly Centers. Where do you put an Assembly Center when youre going to round up 10,000 people in l. A. . What they used for the Assembly Centers were racetracks fairgrounds, animal exposition centers, places where big rodeo rings and whatnot. And they kept them in stables. Families, each family would get a stable with a dirt floor, a whitewashed wall and obviously smelling like horses had lived there. And urinated there. And Everything Else there for 50 years, which they had. The japanese did not resist. There was no resistance at the beginning because they were so anxious to prove that they were patriotic americans. And they were glad to do what the government told them to do. And the government told them to live in stables behind barbed wire with towers and machine guns pointing down at them. They were good humored enough that they, the joke at santa anita which was the largest of the Assembly Centers, the second was a racetrack up in San Francisco and everyone at santa anita would say they had the stable of the great horse sea biscuit. Who had been housed there. The japanese were left to organize themselves. College students, all the College Students at the university of california, every other college on the west coast were organized schools for the kids. They organized, there were 108 baseball leagues the japanese were baseball crazy. The kids. There were 108 leagues at santa anita alone. And they would play ball all day. Also, teenagers kind of liked it. Because in very tightly knit patriarchal families which the Japanese Community was suddenly people were eating in mess halls. And they didnt have to eat with their parents anymore. The boys and girls could meet together young boys, teenagers in the stands and whatnot. And one of the things we accomplished, its an accomplishment was to break apart the japanese Family Structure in four years. The First Six Months usually in an Assembly Center and then on to the camps. This is what the camps looked like. They were tar paper barracks that were thrown up quickly. They had no plumbing, no heating, and they had an electric light every 20 feet, although the people, families were put in cells inside these buildings, which were only 8 feet across. If there was a larger family, it would be 12 feet. There were two types of people. Doctors, pharmacists, lawyers. And then there were rural and ocean japanese who were less well educated worked farmland which they often owned themselves. The japanese were not allowed to buy land. They couldnt be citizens. They couldnt buy land. But they could buy land in their childrens names. So they owned and produced 40 of the agricultural product of california. At the time they were taken in. And there was no small coincidence that that land almost all was stolen from them and taken by other farmers. White farmers who refuse to give it back after the war. And there really was no Legal Recourse because the japanese after all, are in concentration camps and cant pay their taxes. And after they dont pay their land taxes or other taxes after a year, the state took over the land and turned it over to other farmers, turned over their boats to other fishermen, Terminal Island down in san pedro was a japanese colony before world war ii. All their boats were taken. The houses were knocked down. And the boat, the good boats were given to the coast guard, which used them to patrol the panama canal and the lesser boats were given to greek and italian fishermen farther north. If, again, the number was 120,000. We were at war with two other countries. Germany and italy, and some germans and italians were arrested. Particularly germans of the germanamerican bund which was a semimilitary group allied with hitler. But giving away whether the program was racial or not if they had done the same thing to the germans and japanese that they did, we did, if we did the same thing the germans and the italians that we did to the japanese, we wouldve had to put 50 Million People into camps because there were huge numbers, much larger numbers of germans and italians living here. They could become citizens because they were white. It was race that denied the japanese and chinese and koreans citizenship. Like gerrymandering in politics the lines had to be drawn pretty carefully. They had meetings in washington that went as high as the secretary of war to help design in San Francisco a particular district, which would be called a war zone. And everybody that could be removed from a war zone and gerrymandering because there was one family they wanted kept outside the lines. And that was the family of joe dimaggio the baseball player who had just hit in 56 straight games was the most valuable player in the american league. And the government knew what would happen if dimaggios parents ended up in a concentration camp. The newspapers wouldve done a cosby and more about that. When the war was over and one of the reasons some of this is still fresh. Like men who are in combat rarely talk about what they did during the war. Particularly to their families. They are ashamed or frightened or appalled by what they actually did in the war. And they were not about to tell their mother their wife their children what it was like. It was exactly the same for the japanese the ise did not tell their children what they had done during the war. It was not spoken about among people in the 1960s that prompted the japanese to begin telling what happened to them. And that, what it was was the Civil Rights Movement the by young black College Students and the Antiwar Movement by Young Americans of all races and older americans, too. It brought up the questions that had been hidden about race about war and the nise and the Third Generation the grandchildren of the ise began to ask their parents what did you do during the war, daddy . And the stories began to come out and the japanese began to organize, people wrote memoirs of what happened in the camps academic books began to be written about the legality and constitutionality of what had been done to these people for no other reason than the fact that they looked different from most americans. But it became an open subject then in the late 1960s and 1970s. When it was actually happening back in the 40s an assistant secretary of war named john mccloy, a very famous man in his time said in a memo they knew this was unconstitutional we can cover the legal situation and in spite of the constitution. Why the constitutions just a scrap of paper to me. The governor of wyoming who tried to keep camps out of his state, a man named nell smith shouted at one of the federal people who wanted to was organizing the camps if you bring japanese into my state, i promise you theyll be hanging from every tree. The governor of idaho the same reason, his name was chase clark said the japs live like rats, breed like rats and act like rats. The commander of the army in the west, an old fool and a bigot named john dewitt carried the day with the slogan, a jap is a jap theres no way to determine their loyalty. But it was not only the American Army wasnt in great shape between the wars. The leftovers werent the brightest bulbs in the store. And they and dewitt was a good example of that. And a lot of them there was much, much more open bigotry antisemitism, antiorientalism, anticatholicism in the United States now than then. And these things were openly talked about. There were organizations which mimic the ku klux klan to have these people locked up and greed, being as american as apple pie to get their land get their boats. And many of the people who were villains in this later became heroes. In this country. The attorney general of california then was named earl warren. He became governor warren and he became chief justice of the Supreme Court. He was the one who pushed the line before congress. He rode the backs of the japanese to the governorship. But his line was that the fact that there had been no sabotage was proof they were organizing massive sabotage and it would only happen when they got the word from tokyo. And that was what one political cartoonist took called waiting for the signal from home. And japanese lined up all over the west coast, picking up tnt to use to blow up netices. He wanted eded to stop the germans from making war. And he believed that it was the shape of japanese heads. That pruf proved the slope they were called slopes sometimes, it was the word like the n word, that if they could figure ways to reshape their brains, his theory was and the president of stanford was one of the people who talked him into is this, was that they were 2,000 in brain, cranial development, they were 2,000 years behind white people. And if we captured them to try to change the shapes of their skulls. Roger baldwin who was famous as the founder of the american civil libberties union, would not allow a young civil libertys attorneys to represent the japanese because he was a close friend of roosevelt. And all of the roosevelt policy was designed to keep as much of this secret as possible until after the 1944 election. He won reelection for a fourth term. So it is not a new story. And immaterial has never been a new story. Some of these themes racist, greed, injustice denial, are part of the history of the country. And then there comes the soulsearching the apology and the most american of coping mechanisms. Lets move on. Were moving on. That is to say nothing of the indians, the native americans, who were forced out of their land and their land was taken by patriots. There was also a great deal of censorship in world war ii. There was a lot of censorship they only allowed pictures to come out of these camps. When the government approved of them. It takes a lot of manpower to do that when 120,000 people are writing letters. And the censorship went so far as to the fact that until dday, 1944 june of 1944, news media were not allowed to show pictures of dead americans. For the first four years of the war, three years, no dead americans were shown in american newspapers or magazines. That ended with dday when the press threatened when thousands of people died thousands of americans, Young Americans, died. And the papers,rather than have the papers get to the newspapers get to the Supreme Court the government the government allowed some photos to be taken. You know, this is so the fact that this happened to other e other people there were germans that it happened in world war i. And there were fewer of them. They werent killed, but they were discriminated against. The irish, irish need not apply. And other catholics were kept out of employment. The italians, the jews, the chinese, the japanese latinos, the south asians, african americans. Theres such an undertoe in American History that we call ourselves a nation of imgrants. But what we are is a nation made by imgrants. They were often hated because they were not like us until they were us. All of those groups became came to look down on later imgrants. But they were all discriminated against in their time. Until they became part of the majority. And we saw the role of the press now the press knew something was coming. Everybody knew something was coming. The tensions had gotten so great between america and japan. Largely over the growth of japan and their needs for things like oil and steel when they are a country that really doesnt have the kind of Natural Resources to say that say we do. And we were sanctioning the japanese because of their aggression in china. The same as we are now sanctioning the russians because of ukraine and have sanctioned cuba. For no particularly good reason anymore. For more than 40 years. November 1941, this is three weeks before pearl harbor, Los Angeles Times front page headline was japanese put under f. B. I. Inquiry. So the press knew it was coming. And, through the press the public knew it was coming. And the this is the kind of thing that would happen. Something is a big business in big buttons that said i am an american. Or said i am chinese. The chinese were allies, we were allies of the chinese in world war ii. And of course, most americans could not tell the difference between someone who was chinese and someone who was japanese. This is life magazine ran sections, most biggest media in the country then, on how you can tell the difference between japanese and chinese. A popular cartoonist did a riff at the time and did this for life magazine. Also how to spot a jap. And its pretty funny stuff. You were supposed to check the distance between the toes of people of color on the theory that since the japanese used what we now call flipflops, that there would be more space between their toes. It was always said here that you may find jams among any group. Make your man walk. The chinese strides, the japanese shuffles. Make him remove his socks and shoes, if anybody and then you do the toe routine. Michelle, in her pher on this subject, said it was ridiculous. Why . I know i cant tell. I mean were they just going to start persecuting all asians who shuffle . What would happen to an old chinese man with arthritis and overbite. What this cartoon did from a journalist socially credible and deeply entrusted as life magazine was, especially at a time of such po larty was deeply irresponsible, in my opinion. Which we can all appreciate from contemporary standpoint. When people flinch at the use of the term jam. And one thing i do appreciate about it, though is acknowledgment, at least, in a public forum that most people could not tell the difference between certain types of asians, which, you know, i think a lot of us still agree would happen today. Well, would it happen today . Would it happen today . Would this happen again . Taking a large number of americans, citizens because of their race their religion, their national origin. I mean its not the same thing, but its sort of happening with the ferguson and, like, you know, racial policy in the United States right now. So its not the same thing at all. But its only still an issue today. In terms of race. What if theres another 9 11. What would happen . I dont know. But we do a very good job of ill filling the other episodes like that. Very, very traumatic for the country as a whole. Does anybody else have any thoughts on that . The case of national security. They had to verify whether its a real passport. Because, as you know there were people who boarded mh37 0e with stolen passports. They were italians, but that didnt seem to matter. Things like that kind of inform or impressions of how minorities are tolerated, generally. When i was researching for this in talking to a japanese woman, one of the things she braught up was it was not black people by her account who integrated Little Rock High School in the 50s. When president eisenhower sent in the army. She said it was the japanese who integrated. Because some of the japanese who had been in the camps in arkansas stayed in little rock area and became students at Little Rock High School. And were the only group of students who went into the school when the black kids went in. No whites went in but the japanese americans did. And the Japanese American Citizens League also was the First Organization in the United States to circulate petitions after 9 11 saying that muslims, in general were not to blame for this and should not be arrested orb concentrated. So that they knew what it was like my own opinion is we would do it again. And the most likely target would be muslims. So 50 latinos. A lot of people in this country want to put latinos on the texas border in concentration camps. So thicks like this probably never go away. And we have to live with that. Now, there are 120,000 japanese americans, maybe 125,00 considering the ones outside the west coast on the continental United States. There are 150,000 japanese americans on hawaii. But nothing never done. The only thing that ever happened to hawaiians, it just so happened that the japanese on the mainland was that they were thrown out of the army. But that was done and then secretly reversed for reasons ill go into. But why werent the hawaiians who, afterall, were much closer to japan, were much more likely to be invaded, had already been bombed and there were Great Stories about how they had sabotaged things, all of them untrue. Why werent the japanese on hawaii . Because they were 40 prnt of the population and the hawaiian economy would have collapsed. If they put them in camps or put them the idea they would have put them on a separate island but, without them, the economy of hawaii would have collapsed. Obviously, the japanese americans got picked on here. Because they were relatively small group and the fear the hysteria, the meanness the greed all landed on them. Im going to skip a lot of what i was going to say to talk about how this ended. Why did this end, just as im passing through here, this is a columnist, wellknown named henry mcelmore who was both in the l. A. Times and the San Francisco chronical. Strictly speaking as an american, i think americans are nuts. The only japanese apprehended have been the ones the f. B. I. Actually had something on. That was not true. The rest of them, are free as birds. I know this is the meting pot of the world and all men are created equal an there must be no such thing as race or creed hatred, but do these things go when a country is fighting for its life . Im for immediate removal of every japanese on the west coast to a point deep in the interior. I dont mean in a nice part rgs either. Personally, i hate the japanese. And that goes for all of them. Letm be pinched, hurt, hungry and dead up against it. So this fellow is pretty famous fellow in his time. Carried along that way. But the one that counted was when waulter litman i want to read a couple of the headlines, hey, from the papers, in early 1942. The Los Angeles Times. Crime and poverty go handinhand with asiatic labor. Brown men are made citizens illegally. Japanese are menace to american women. Japanese this is from the copy of the l. A. Times. Japanese males are taught by their elders to look upon american girls with a view to sex relations. The proposed assimilation of the two races is unthinkable. Its morally indefensible and biologically impossible. In San Francisco jam boat flashes message ashore. Enemy planes cited over california coast. Jams on japanese tomato plants point to airfields. This was William Randall hearst. Like dr. Seuss. Come see the myriads of little jams. Hes fully raising fruits and flowers and vegetables on california sunshine and sing hopefully and wistfully. Some day i come with Japanese Army and take all this. Yesz, thank you. Densely the flee to peaceful little japanese fishing boats flying up and down the california coach catching fish and taking photographs. None of these things were true. But they built up the hysteria that people all observe the country worried about what was going to happen to relatives, other people, in this part of the world. Edward r. Murrow his name was edward r. Murrow of cbs news gave a speech in washington saying i think its probable that if seattle ever does get bombed, youll be able to look up and see some university of washington sweaters on the boys doing the bombing. There was a mother in washington wrote to her daughter named anne and said anne, dont you think you and johnny who was her husband, and the girls there were two little girls should leave the west coast while you can . He had been a speech writer, he was head of the Foreign Policy asoelgsuation. And he came out to california to see for himself. He had lunch with earl warren who gave him his theory. I believe were just being lulled into a sense of security. Our day of reckoning is bound to come. Its a whole theory of organization in secret. Walter litman came back to february, wrote those same things in a column. And, as the greatest liberalist in the country said to the smartest journalist in the country, thats partly what gave rose vemt the cover to sign order 90066. What he said was the New York Herald and 250 other papers, the spa civilic coast is in imminent danger of combined attack from within and without. That was litmans line. It became through the press roosevelts line they so what finally happened was that a military zone was set up on the woes e west coast. The three west coast states plus parts of a az. Everyone in that was rounded up on the gunpoint though they didnt rezigs, and were put first in the Assembly Centers, the stables. And then and then in the concentration camps. The newspapers at exactly that time reported page after page on the battle of los angeles. The battle of los angeles was fought on the night of february 24th with army and antiaircraft guns blasting hundreds of rounds in the sky for hours. Five people were killed in it. As the roads out of the city were clogged with people fleeing for their lives. The l. A. Times headlined l. A. Raided jam planes pe ril santa monocan, elsugundo and long beach. They did not bring down the enemy. Guns missed. The enemy was a navy wealther balloon. That was the battle of los angeles. So ill bring this to an end for now. Talking about how it ended. And what the American People did. Even the yietsds the oldest population, then 140 Million People, was running out of men. To fight the war. So at the beginning of 1943, they allowed japanese americans who had been in the army to rejoin and let others either enlist or be drafted but they were put in a segregated unit, like blacks called negros then, or colored people, did not serve together, no matter what you see in the movie did not serve together with whites nor the japanese. The japanese were formed into the 442nd 442nd regimental combat team, which fought in itly, france and germany and became the most decorated military unit in American History. 11 me dals of honor were given and thn later became a United States senator and served for 40 years. The publicity surrounding the 442nd began to change the minds of the country about the japanese americans and their socalled aent american attitudes. The public did not know that at the same time 6,000 japanese americans who were flown in japanese, only one in 100 american japanese or japanese americans americans could pass any kind of fluency test in japan. And the test was third grade japanese. The kibae were recruited in military service. The japanese blooeched that their codes were unbreakable. They interrogated prisoners and stole their maps. The chief intelligence officerest maited at the end of the war, that the mis never known to the american public, the public didnt know they had existed, had shortened the war by two years and saved american lives. So, finally ill end up, obviously i could go only forever. But i the press kept at it. In 1944, the l. A. Times did a poll, do you favor a constitutional amendment after the war for deportation of all japanese from this country . And forbe bidding further immigration. Yes, 10,598, no, 72. So that ill end up here. Here we go. There was a very famous incident, a town called hood river valley. Which is in mt. Oregon. Its between m. T. Washington and the cascade river. It was 40 pnts japanese. Theyre very famous for growing apples and cherries before the war. After the war, the American Legion post first blacked out the names of all the japanese. 11 from the town japanese americans who had been killed in combat blacked out their names and said that they would take care of anyone who tried to come back. There was a lot going on. The hood river became famous. But it wasnt only there. A Lieutenant Colonel named james hanley was from a small town manned in north dakota. And he was a commander. The Battalion Commander was in the 442nd were white men, although japanese, like innoate took over, when if the white commanders were killed. He was a commander. He happened to read a short commentary in his hometown newspaper. There was some good jap americans, but it doesnt say where they were editored. Charles pierce, who was a friend of hanleys. Hanley wrote him back and said yes, charlie,i know where theres some good japanese americans. There were 5,000 in this unit. They are american soldiers and i know where theyre buried. I wish i could show some of them to you, charlie. I remember one japanese american. He was walking ahead of me in a forest in france. A german shell took off the right side of his face. I wish the boys of the lost baa toll ealon. The 442nd became very famous for rescuing battalion from a Texas Division that was lost behind enemy lines. So that hanley continued. The marvel is charlie, that these boys fight it all. Theyre good soldiers in spite of the racial prejudice shown by your paragraph by your newspaper. I know it makes a good joke, but its the kind of joke that prejudice thrives upon. Our system is supposed to make good americans out of anyone. It certainly has in the case of these boys. You and a few others make one wonder what were fighting for. I hope it isnt racial prejudice. In Orange County was a family named masuda. And they were imprisoned in hill river aez az. And then there were four sons, two of them were killed in germany. And when their sister and mother returned to westmiister, within a few weeks, midnight raiders came to her door and told her to get out. She was frightened and she did. One of her brothers had been posthumously awarded distinguished Service Medal the second highest decoration for bravery in the United States army. When a general named joseph stillwell, vinegar Joe Stillwell, who was something of a legend, heard about that, he went to westminister and presented the medal to mare masuda the sister of sergeant kazua, masudo. He couldnt give it to the mother because she was an alien. And even with everything that happened, or yennals were not allowed to become citizens until 1952. And this is what Joe Stillwell said on the steps of westminister hall. The knee say brought an awful big hunk of america with their blood. I say we soldiered ought to perform a pick ax club to the japanese americans who fought the war with us. Any time we see a bar fly commando cooking on these kids or diskrim name e nating against them or their families we ought to bang them over the head with a pick ax. Im willing to be a charter member. We cant allow a