Tanforan
The Tanforan Assembly Center in San Bruno, California, was a former
race track built for horses, and the horse stalls were the living quarters for the people. Horse stalls were hurriedly covered over with rough flooring, but the sow bugs, potato bugs, and the mice would crawl all over the place. Horses’ hairs were plainly visible. . . . Mattresses were filled with hay by the evacuees. . . . The beds were the only furniture they had.[1]
The compartments had neither plumbing nor heating and only one single lightbulb hanging from a pull chain. The typical living space was 16 by 20 feet with an average occupancy of six people. Ernest Uno remembered, “Those stables just reeked. There was nothing you could do. The amount of lye they threw on it to clear the odor and stuff, it didn’t help. It still reeked of urine and horse manure. It was so degrading for people to live in those conditions. It’s almost as if you’re not talking about the way Americans treated Americans.”[2] Okubo colorfully depicted the bachelor’s quarters: “Nearly four hundred bachelors were housed in the grandstand ‘dorm.’ They slept and snored, dressed and undressed, in one continuous public performance. Some built ‘walls of Jericho’ of sheets or blankets.”[3] She also commented on the constant queues: “‘Line-ups here and line-ups there’ describes our daily life. We lined up for mail, for checks, for meals, for showers, for washrooms, for laundry tubs, for toilets, for clinic service, for movies. We lined up for everything.”[4]
Koji Murata bemoaned the shocking conditions in Tanforan as well, but commended the ministry of the church: “I feel that the clergy and the church was a beacon of light in those dark days. We forgot denominations and worked as a Christian. That was heartwarming. Resumption of church and Sunday school gave the people a great life.”[5] According to Dave Tatsuno, “At our first church service at Tanforan, Dr. Chester Green of the Presbyterian headquarters in San Francisco gave an inspirational message that ended with a line I never forgot: ‘Be candle lighters . . . punching holes in the darkness.’”[6] Chitose Manabe, who served with her husband Takeji by leading Bible studies and singing in the choir, recalled “War time can’t be helped—everybody have some troubles. . . . We have to overcome.”[7] As Yoshiko Uchida reminisced, “The need for spiritual sustenance brought overwhelming numbers of people to the Tanforan churches, and the first few Sundays there was standing room only at both the Japanese and English services.”[8]
Worship services were interdenominational as “thirteen Protestant denominations created a council of Nisei who planned services and other activities. In a spirit of fellowship and solidarity, the council decided to let each group take a turn leading in a fashion consistent with the denomination’s particular faith tradition.”[9]
Mrs. Isokawa recalls that at the joint worship services there were 400 to 450 at the Japanese worship service, and 300 to 400 at the English worship service. The Bible study groups and the prayer meetings were well attended. Frequently at the Bible study hours, the journeys and the intensive faith of Abraham and St. Paul were emphasized and that the people would have the faith as strong as Abraham’s, looking forward to the city which has foundation, whose builder and maker is God.[10]
The Young People’s Council organized a thriving youth fellowship on Sunday evenings, drawing representatives from each of the Protestant churches at Tanforan. Sometimes, they also held seminars such as “What Should the Nisei Attitude as Christians Be Toward the U.S. Government?” Many young people such as Tad Fujita and his friends entered the camp resolved “to become servants of God to help and serve others.”[11]
Those from outside the center also sought to bring comfort. The Quakers continued to care for evacuees even after they were transported to the assembly centers. For instance, Frank and Josephine Duveneck visited Tanforan every Thursday on behalf of the AFSC to assess any needs.
[Josephine] Duveneck, obtaining a permit for visiting Tanforan as a representative of the American Friends Service Committee, reported fair conditions and good personnel in charge. She requested stoves from the committee for small babies who were endangered by the damp chilliness of the center. The Friends also sent in a truckload of recreational materials and reading matter.[12]
George Aki had been ordered to evacuate within a month of his marriage and three days before graduating from the Pacific School of Religion. He initially despaired of hope until God sent him an unlikely encourager:
The first night within the confines of the Tanforan Race Track, our temporary detention camp, I died mentally. I lost complete faith in myself, my beloved country, and, yes, my religion. I lost all control of my life within the barbed-wire fences, with armed soldiers in guard towers with their searchlights. I was absolutely nothing.
However, while we are in utter darkness and despair, God seems to send people who give us inner light and strength. On my fourth day in the barbed-wire enclosure, Ward Stephenson, one of our army guards, and a seminary acquaintance went to the graduation and brought me my diploma. Unknown to me, Reverend Robert Inglis of the Plymouth Congregational Church was hurriedly preparing an official ordination at Tanforan for Mas Wakai and me. On June 11, 1942, representatives from eleven neighboring churches gathered to examine us and to proceed with the ordination.
In every way, this event was the turning point of my life, for it brought into focus what God wanted me to do with my life. I also learned the following: that Christians would gather amid danger for Christ and His church, that they would never cease to pursue the noble adventure of faith, and that though dreams may be shattered, God will see to it that they are built anew. I learned that the church may go into exile, but it would never die. I overcame the fear of death and vowed that where the church went, I would go. As Albert Schweitzer once said, “Sometimes our light goes out, but it is blown again into flame by an encounter with another person. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.”[13]
Salinas
The two Protestant ministers at the Salinas Assembly Center, Revs. Kiyoshi Noji (Issei) and Kohei Takeda (Nisei), immediately established the church with worship services, prayer meetings, and Bible studies. “They were even-tempered ministers and they were able to do considerable counseling and easing of tensions.”[14] The Young People’s Church Committee also sponsored Friday night singspirations for the whole community. Despite the uncertain times, the church would not neglect meeting together and thus continued to grow.
Outside friends, such as the Quakers, also sought to help the Nikkei. For example, “Cottie Keltner and his brother Orval brought personal belongings that had been stored at the Lincoln Avenue Presbyterian church gym in Salinas to Japanese friends in the center there. He made many trips with papers and documents.”[15] In addition, Jeane Noordhoff, a Reformed Church in America missionary, was commended for her work among the young people of the Christian Group at the Salinas Assembly Center. In Watsonville, before the evacuation, Noordhoff had labored beside Elizabeth Evans, a furloughed Presbyterian missionary to Japan: “Both women busied themselves visiting Japanese Americans as they prepared for evacuation. They assisted Japanese American pastors with worship services, Bible studies, and counseling. They advocated on behalf of Japanese Americans in the local communities.”[16] Then during the internment,
Noordhoff remained in Watsonville to protect the church and manse from vandalism but traveled several times per week to the Salinas Assembly Center to visit and bring needed supplies. [She and Evans] sent care packages and engaged in regular correspondence with individuals in the assembly centers, often expending their own funds to provide treats and necessities for their friends.[17]
[1] Suzuki, Ministry, 59-60. According to Miné Okubo, “The rear room had housed the horse and the front room the fodder. Both rooms showed signs of a hurried whitewashing. Spider webs, horse hair, and hay had been whitewashed with the walls. Huge spikes and nails stuck out all over the walls. A two-inch layer of dust covered the floor, but on removing it we discovered that linoleum the color of redwood had been placed over the rough manure-covered boards. . . . The mattress department was a stable filled with straw. We were given bags of ticking and told to help ourselves to the straw. The few cotton mattresses available were reserved for the sick and the old. . . . When we had finished filling the bags, the openings were sewed roughly together and we carried the bags away. It was very windy and dusty on the way back and we had some difficulty managing the awkward load. . . . We ‘hit the hay’ around ten that night, but learned very quickly that sleep was not to be easily won. Because the partitions were low and there were many holes in the boards they were made of, the crackling of the straw and the noises from the other stalls were incessant. Loud snores, the grinding of teeth, the wail of babies, the murmur of conversations—these could be heard the full length of the stable. Moreover, it was very cold and we were shivering. One blanket was not enough to keep us warm. We got up and opened the duffel bags and the suitcases and spread everything over our beds. Sleep finally overtook us around midnight. Thus ended our first day in the Tanforan Assembly Center” (Miné Okubo, Citizen 13660 [Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1983], 35, 44-45, 47).
[2] Cited in Lawson Fusao Inada, ed., Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese American Internment Experience (Berkeley, CA: Heyday, 2000), 70. Osuke Takizawa reported, “It was terrible. The government moved the horses out and put us in. The stable stunk awfully. I felt miserable, but I couldn’t do anything. It was like a prison, guards were on duty all the time, and there was barbed wire all around us. We really worried about our future. I just gave up.” His wife, Sadea, remembered that first night, “Though I was tired, I couldn’t sleep because of the bad smell. It was hell” (Sarasohn, Issei, 183). Yoshiko Uchida also noted, “Dust, dirt, and wood shavings covered the linoleum that had been laid over manure-covered boards, the smell of horses hung in the air, and the whitened corpses of many insects still clung to the hastily white-washed walls” (Uchida, Desert Exile, 70).
[3] Okubo, Citizen 13660, 63.
[4] Ibid., 86.
[5] Koji Murata, cited in Suzuki, Ministry, 62.
[6] Dave M. Tatsuno, “The Star Still Shines,” in Triumphs, 135.
[7] Personal conversation with Chitose Manabe (Berkeley, CA: 28 October 1987), cited in Sandra C. Taylor, The Jewel of the Desert: Japanese American Internment at Topaz (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993), 234.
[8] Uchida, Desert Exile, 86.
[9] Yoo, Nisei, 102. See JERS, B8.05, B8.17.
[10] Suzuki, Ministry, 60-61. This reference is from Hebrews 11:8-10, “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.”
[11] Tad Fujita, “My Cup Runneth Over,” in Triumphs, 17. Fujita grew up in a Christian home and attended the Presbyterian Church of Christ in San Francisco’s Japantown. He served as the chairman of block managers in Tanforan and later as a train captain “looking after the needs of elderly issei” on the way to the Topaz Relocation Center in Utah. In Topaz, Fujita would assist as a teacher in the Sunday school program and serve on the YMCA board.
[12] Girdner and Loftis, The Great Betrayal, 158-59. Josephine and Frank Duveneck had established the first youth hostel on the West Coast in 1937 at their 1600-acre Hidden Villa Ranch in the Los Altos Hills. This hostel would later shelter returning Japanese Americans as well as Jewish refugees and other minorities.
[13] George Aki, “A Church in Exile,” in Triumphs, 2.
[14] Ibid., 87.
[15] Girdner and Loftis, The Great Betrayal, 159.
[16] Hessel, “Conscience,” 161-62.
[17] Ibid., 162, citing a letter from Jeane Noordhoff to Gordon Chapman (20 May 1942), Fld 40, Chapman Papers.
