PAINFUL LESSONS
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PAGE 5
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HONOR
Though Min was twice denied the chance to join the Army, another Japanese-American who would become a legal pioneer from Oregon had more success. Kennie Namba was born in 1923 in Gresham, son of Etsuo Namba, a vegetable farmer from Japan. At the time of Kennie’s birth his father could not own or lease the land he farmed as 1923 saw the passage of the Alien Land Law in Oregon banning ownership and leasing of farmland by individuals without U.S. citizenship. Conveniently, in 1922, the Supreme Court ruled no person of Japanese descent was eligible for U.S. citizenship. To circumvent the rule, the Nambas, like many Japanese-American families throughout the Willamette Valley and up the Columbia River leased the land through their American-born children.
When the federal government imposed the internment in 1942 the Nambas packed up what they could. They were taken by train directly to Minidoka, bypassing the months-long imprisonment many Portland Japanese-Americans endured in the horse stalls at the Portland County Fairgrounds. In the desert of Idaho they found a partially completed camp, without adequate housing, a sewage system, or running water. “It was a land God had forgotten,” wrote one internee.
As 1942 rolled into 1943 and the danger to the mainland from the Japanese military receded many internees expected to be released. But in a cynical turn the government changed the logic of the internment from protection of America from the internees to protection of the internees from America.
Japanese-Americans, government lawyers argued, had long been faced with hostility from West Coast communities as evidence by rules such as Oregon’s Alien Land Use law and the cry for internment after the war’s outbreak. The government could point to many public leaders like this businessman quoted in the Saturday Evening Post before the internment began, “We’re charged with wanting to get rid of the Japs for selfish reasons. We do. It is a question of whether the white man lives on the Pacific Coast or the brown man … If all the Japs were removed tomorrow, we’d never miss them in two weeks, because the white farmers can take over and produce everything the Jap grows. And we don’t want them back when the war ends, either.” It would be irresponsible, the argument went, to reintroduce them into such a hostile environment.
But as the war continued, the government turned its attention to the thousands of young men interned in the camps. In 1943 the all Japanese-American 442nd Infantry Regimental Combat Team was created and Kennie was one of the first in Minidoka to volunteer.
After training, the 442nd was shipped to fight in Italy then southern France where it quickly distinguished itself, living up to its nickname “Go For Broke” by accomplishing near-impossible missions with record numbers of citations for valor. The 442nd’s rescue of the so-called “Lost Battalion” of 200 American soldiers surrounded by a German army in southern France illustrates the determination of every 442nd soldier to prove himself. More 442nd soldiers were killed during the rescue effort than were saved from the “Lost Battalion” and over 800 were wounded, but the effort succeeded. Over the course of the war the 442nd would become the most decorated unit of its size in army history. One commanding general wrote back to the U.S., “These are some of the best g--damn fighters in the U.S. Army. If you have any more send them over!”
When the federal government imposed the internment in 1942 the Nambas packed up what they could. They were taken by train directly to Minidoka, bypassing the months-long imprisonment many Portland Japanese-Americans endured in the horse stalls at the Portland County Fairgrounds. In the desert of Idaho they found a partially completed camp, without adequate housing, a sewage system, or running water. “It was a land God had forgotten,” wrote one internee.
As 1942 rolled into 1943 and the danger to the mainland from the Japanese military receded many internees expected to be released. But in a cynical turn the government changed the logic of the internment from protection of America from the internees to protection of the internees from America.
Japanese-Americans, government lawyers argued, had long been faced with hostility from West Coast communities as evidence by rules such as Oregon’s Alien Land Use law and the cry for internment after the war’s outbreak. The government could point to many public leaders like this businessman quoted in the Saturday Evening Post before the internment began, “We’re charged with wanting to get rid of the Japs for selfish reasons. We do. It is a question of whether the white man lives on the Pacific Coast or the brown man … If all the Japs were removed tomorrow, we’d never miss them in two weeks, because the white farmers can take over and produce everything the Jap grows. And we don’t want them back when the war ends, either.” It would be irresponsible, the argument went, to reintroduce them into such a hostile environment.
But as the war continued, the government turned its attention to the thousands of young men interned in the camps. In 1943 the all Japanese-American 442nd Infantry Regimental Combat Team was created and Kennie was one of the first in Minidoka to volunteer.
After training, the 442nd was shipped to fight in Italy then southern France where it quickly distinguished itself, living up to its nickname “Go For Broke” by accomplishing near-impossible missions with record numbers of citations for valor. The 442nd’s rescue of the so-called “Lost Battalion” of 200 American soldiers surrounded by a German army in southern France illustrates the determination of every 442nd soldier to prove himself. More 442nd soldiers were killed during the rescue effort than were saved from the “Lost Battalion” and over 800 were wounded, but the effort succeeded. Over the course of the war the 442nd would become the most decorated unit of its size in army history. One commanding general wrote back to the U.S., “These are some of the best g--damn fighters in the U.S. Army. If you have any more send them over!”