Rev. Royden T. Susu-Mago was the pastor of the Japanese Independent Church in Hollywood, California at the time of the evacuation order. He and his wife, Charlotte, cared for the Nisei being detained at the Tulare Assembly Center and then the Gila River Relocation Center. Born in the Hawaiian Islands, Susu-Mago had committed his life to serving the Lord after witnessing his uncle’s faith in Christ.
One evening a mob, resenting his uncle’s missionary work among plantation laborers, gathered in front of the house where both were staying. They shouted to him to come outside and face their threats. He kept on reading his Bible. Then, without any noticeable tremor of the hands, he casually closed the book to apply its teaching in his front yard. The angry crowd listened at first contemptuously to the Christian addressing them; then in some cases with interest. The sight of that uncle standing up for his Master with all the loyalty of Bushido, planted a seed. That seed is now multiplying itself.[1]
Susu-Mago was trained in voice at the Juilliard School of Music and used his training to teach music in the camps. His wife, Charlotte, a Caucasian woman whose father was a distinguished professor at the University of Southern California, was fluent in Japanese having spent five years as a missionary teacher in a girls’ school in Yokohama, Japan. She joined her husband in the camps and ministered alongside him.
In a sermon preached on the Sunday before evacuation, Susu-Mago likened America to a multi-colored tapestry of which the Nikkei were a part. They had woven themselves into the fabric of America through hard labor in the fields, industrious farming, and high levels of scholarship among the Nisei generation.
The Japanese had come to be considered indispensable to the normal life of the nation in many circles. Then, one day, suddenly, these Japanese, most of them citizens, were to be uprooted and evacuated to Assembly Centers and later perhaps to the interior. They were not being transplanted, but were being cut off completely from their friends and separated from their wives or husbands of other racial extractions. . . . If the life of the nation is to return to normalcy, the Japanese will have to be woven back into its life.[2]
Susu-Mago cast a vision of hope for post-war America and advocated that the Nikkei learn from the mistakes of others.
After the war, we will find the warp of America, new and strong, for having profited by her mistakes. She will have cast off her defective yarn and replaced it with a perfect one. If we are going to weave ourselves into this new warp and form a beautiful, integral design, our woof will have to match it in strength and beauty and quality. Having learned the result of intolerance, let us be tolerant of others. Let us remember that we all have our faults, even the best of us.[3]
Susu-Mago called for his church to keep themselves free from resentment and bitterness by directing their efforts toward acts of Christian love. As Paul wrote, “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:17-18). The persecuted Nikkei should not let their circumstances drive them to despair, but instead to remember the sufferings of Christ who had declared upon the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34a). Susu-Mago assured his church, “This is the prayer that is going to save us. It is the prayer that is going to help us recognize the worth of human personality irrespective of color, race, or creed. All these ingredients we shall need when we return to re-weave ourselves into America reborn, her flaws mended, with the grace of God upon her life.”[4] According to King Solomon, “A threefold cord is not quickly broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12b). So also, Rev. Susu-Mago recognized that the unique strength of America lay in its diversity. The nation is stronger when different ethnicities are woven together in unity. The isolation of the Japanese would prove to be a colossal failure in United States history, yet the lessons learned would serve to strengthen this great nation.
[1] Hunter and Binford, The Sunday Before, 23. Bushido was the code of honor and morals practiced by the Japanese samurai.
[2] Ibid., 24-25.
[3] Ibid., 25-26.
[4] Ibid., 26.
