Pinedale
The Pinedale Assembly Center, located just outside Fresno, California, was called “hell’s acre” by the internees because it was unbearably hot—up to 120 degrees in the shade (if there had even been trees to provide shade). “Pinedale was eighty flat, dusty and treeless acres a few miles north of the city of Fresno. The San Joaquin Valley sun had baked the earth as hard as concrete. Stepping off the train, even long after the sun went down, was like walking into an oven.”[1] Hatsumi Nishimoto recounted, “It was so hot that when we put our hands on the bedstead, the paint would come off! To relieve the pressure of the heat, some people soaked sheets in water and hung them overhead.”[2] Linda Tamura also commented on the unappetizing food: “Frequently our meal was a plateful of white beans, four or five fresh spinach leaves, a piece of bread, and sometimes a couple of wienies. That was all we were served, so we had to eat it.”[3] John Kanda recalled his own experience:
Pinedale was a camp like all camps, surrounded by barbed wire, and inside there was a sentry line which you’re not supposed to pass. There wasn’t a blade of grass in that place or a tree. It was just sand and dust and the tar-paper barracks, and it was really hot. I can recall everything the neighbors said; they were talking on either side of you, and it was just like you were right next to them. There was no privacy. You could even hear people whisper; it was terrible.[4]
According to Rev. Daisuke Kitagawa, the only Protestant minister at Pinedale, “Those in charge of the center were by and large decent and kindly people. . . . [but] the place was constantly patrolled by military police to prevent any communication with the outside.”[5] “Ringing the perimeter was a ten-foot-high fine-mesh fence topped by three strands of electrified barbed wire. At each corner of the compound stood a tall watchtower manned twenty-four hours a day by military police. Searchlights made wide, measured sweeps over the barracks all night long.”[6]
Kitagawa grew concerned as many extended families were split apart because the authorities did not understand the Japanese conception of family. Conflicts also arose among evacuees who were arriving from different parts of the West Coast and competing for limited resources. “People suffered from idleness. Everybody wanted to leave the center and be on his own.”[7] So Kitagawa responded to the need by organizing worship services and providing pastoral care for the residents:
One of the first things I did was to organize church services for the various religious groups. The administration set aside one barracks as a community hall which was used every Sunday by the Issei Christians from 9 to 10 A.M., by the Nisei Christians from 10:30 to 11:30 A.M., and by the Buddhist group in the afternoon. During the week this community hall was used for all sorts of purposes by volunteer groups. For church services clergymen of several denominations cooperated.[8]
Kitagawa also ministered to the families of those with mental and emotional disorders. He recalled one occasion of caring for a grieving family.
I accompanied a family from Kent to Fresno County Hospital. Their oldest son, nineteen years old, was dying of leukemia. His life had been prolonged for about a week by blood transfusions, but eventually the doctors had to tell his parents that there was no hope for him. The difficult task of relaying that verdict in Japanese to his parents fell on me, as well as the task of comforting the dying youth. His was not the only funeral we had at Pinedale. There were others; and perhaps they would have died wherever they were. But the situation in Pinedale was such that the bereavement of one family became the bereavement of the whole community. Every time there was a funeral, the community spirit was intensified and solidified. People who had already parted with their worldly possessions were further reminded of the transitoriness of life itself. Death is always a sobering event; at Pinedale it was profoundly so.[9]
During the internees’ brief two-month stay at Pinedale,
the sense of sharing the same destiny intensified their awareness of belonging to one another. . . . Individuals were quick to cooperate with one another to make their common life as tolerable as possible under the circumstances. . . . The reason an integrated community emerged at Pinedale was that all lesser individual problems were submerged by the one common problem—we were people of Japanese descent.[10]
Kitagawa attributed the church’s sense of desperation to the people’s increased religious hunger.
Church services, Scripture classes, and other religious functions, both Christian and Buddhist, were well attended. . . . I preached some of my best sermons at Pinedale. The Bible study sessions on the Epistle to the Galatians which I gave once a week for six weeks can hardly be matched by any series I have given since. The instructions on the Apostles’ Creed which I gave every Sunday evening could easily be the best interpretation of the Gospel I have given in my whole life. . . . That Japanese Christian congregation and I shared the awesome sense of standing before the Judgment Seat.[11]
From Galatians, he taught the church such life-changing truths as “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. . . . If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22-23, 25). He reminded them that true Christian character would demonstrate itself most boldly in the midst of trials. In addition, reciting the Apostles’ Creed together every Sunday connected the Japanese Americans in the twentieth century to faithful Christians from generations past.[12]
I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
Fresno
The Fresno Assembly Center was located at the Fresno County Fairgrounds which was known for its desert sun.
Teiko Tomita remembered the heat in the Fresno Assembly Center. The temperature soared in June, she recalled. There were no shade trees, and the barracks were poorly constructed with tin roofs that magnified the heat. When it got hot, she noted, tar seeped through the floor and the bed legs would get stuck to the sticky, soft floor.[13]
Four Protestant ministers shepherded the church at Fresno, but resources were tight so various denominations had to share meeting spaces and often ministerial duties. Due to limited space, certain Sunday school classes even met in the shower annex or the recreation hall. Ministers preached such life-giving sermons as “Facing the Future Unafraid” and “A Christian Example in a Time of Stress.”[14] The church’s ability to adapt under adverse conditions allowed it to carry on through the internment years.
[1] Kessler, Stubborn Twig, 215.
[2] Hatsumi Nishimoto, cited in Okihiro, Encyclopedia, xxiv.
[3] Linda Tamura, The Hood River Issei: An Oral History of Japanese Settler’s in Oregon’s Hood River Valley (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 175-76. “The whole process of eating was unappetizing, from standing in long lines in the sun to filing past servers who slopped hot and cold food together on a metal plate to sitting on long, hard benches in the noisy mess hall. Because of the heat, food poisoning was an almost weekly occurrence” (Kessler, Stubborn Twig, 218).
[4] “John Kanda” in Tateishi, Justice for All, 120.
[5] Kitagawa, Issei and Nisei, 64-65.
[6] Kessler, Stubborn Twig, 216
[7] Kitagawa, Issei and Nisei, 69-70.
[8] Ibid., 67. He added, “On recreational programs volunteers from California and the Northwest, from Christian and Buddhist groups, worked together. All functions, religious and secular alike, were open to everybody. There was soon a community newspaper, under the fitting title of Pinedale Saw Dust, coming out every week” (ibid.).
[9] Ibid., 69. Most of the 1,862 Japanese Americans who died in the camps died of natural causes, yet a few were killed “accidentally” by their American wardens, were victims of camp riots, or died because of inadequate medical care.
[10] Ibid., 70-71.
[11] Ibid., 71.
[12] Variations of the Apostles’ Creed exist, but the wording has remained essentially the same since its inclusion in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. All Christians have believed more than the Apostles’ Creed, but one cannot believe less and still be a Christian.
[13] Okihiro, Encyclopedia, 220.
[14] Suzuki, Ministry, 83.
