Evacuation Orders
Throughout the spring of 1942, notices posted on telephone poles and public buildings informed Japanese Americans of the impending evacuation: “ALL PERSONS OF JAPANESE ANCESTRY, BOTH ALIEN AND NONALIEN, WILL BE EVACUATED FROM THE ABOVE DESIGNATED AREA BY 12:00 O’CLOCK NOON. . . . ”[1] Each family received an identification number and an assigned day to show up at the designated gathering point. They could only bring whatever luggage they could carry and had to leave behind their homes, businesses, farms, churches, communities, and even pets. Most would then reside for several months in makeshift assembly centers (former racetracks and county fairgrounds) until the WRA transferred them to one of its ten relocation centers in the country’s interior. According to Wakako Yamauchi, “Camp was the place they sent us all . . . whether one was rich or poor, alien or citizen, loyal or disloyal, we had the face of the enemy and they herded us all into these camps.”[2] The Nikkei evacuees recognized their suffering as unjust, yet most accepted it as their patriotic duty to support the war effort.[3] They dealt with their grief and shame by resolving to prove themselves loyal to America.[4]
The Care of Souls
The following stories recount the practice of biblical soul care during the Japanese American internment of World War II. Many Nikkei Christians received encouragement through the public preaching and the personal ministry of God’s Word. As Paul assured the church, “I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another” (Romans 15:14). Christians also strengthened one another through the fellowship of the church in the assembly and relocation centers: “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24-25). Still more were lifted up by the sacrificial love of Caucasian believers who lived out the teachings of Jesus: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). Such care of souls has historically involved “helping acts, done by representative Christian persons, directed toward the healing, sustaining, guiding, and reconciling of troubled persons whose troubles arise in the context of ultimate meanings and concerns.”[5] The goal of the following stories is to remember God’s faithfulness to his church throughout history and to remind Christians of our continued calling to care for souls in times of trouble.
[1] The government tellingly used the term “non-alien” instead of “U. S. citizen” to lessen the force of this injustice.
[2] Wakako Yamauchi, Songs My Mother Taught Me: Stories, Plays, and Memoir (New York: The Feminist Press at The City University of New York, 1994), 243.
[3] This reflected the expressed opinion of Congressman Leland Ford (R – California) who urged War Secretary Henry L. Stimson, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and Navy Secretary William F. Knox on January 12, 1942 that all those of Japanese ancestry, whether citizens or not, be removed from the coast and placed in camps. As Ford argued, “A patriotic native-born Japanese, if he wants to make his contribution, will submit himself into a concentration camp.” Hoover resisted mass removal, however, claiming that the FBI already had the situation under control after arresting several hundred leaders of the Japanese immigrant community. Attorney General, Francis Biddle, also resisted the internment on the constitutional grounds that many Nikkei were U.S. citizens. He was countered by Assistant Secretary of War, John J. McCloy, who declared that when it comes to “a question of safety of the country,” the Constitution is “just a scrap of paper to me” (Kai Bird, The Chairman John J. McCloy: The Making of the American Establishment [New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992], 149-50).
[4] One Japanese American expressed this frustration: “I’m an American, but I’ve got a Japanese face—what am I going to do?” (Letter to Ralph P. Merritt from an unspecified internee [23 April 1945], located in a copy of Final Report, Manzanar Relocation Center, vol. I, Project Director’s Report Supervised by Robert L. Brown, Folder 1, Box 4, Manzanar Records, Special Collections, UCLA).
[5] William Clebsch and Charles Jaekle, Pastoral Care in Historical Perspective (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 4.
