Bunro Sakaino Concentration Camp Diary

January 29 (Friday)

A report went around in the camp that a general came to visit today. He indeed came but did not stop by at our internee camp buildings. My fellow citizens are getting settled down these days, and an inspection by a general does not quite concern us. Unless you are an American soldier, you can just carry on your daily business no matter who comes to visit.

Today’s newspapers report an announcement made by Washington that the U.S. government decided to recruit Japanese Americans to serve as soldiers and send them to war fields. Approximately ,110,000 Japanese are residing in the U.S., and one third of them are Japanese Americans. The majority of them are loyal to the U.S., and those who pledge allegiance to the U.S. as an American citizen will be serving as a soldier or other personnel for the military.

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The U.S. federal government does not have any other choices now they are facing a serious shortage of human resources.

Harry Hopkins, a right-hand guy of President Roosevelt, contributed an article titled “You Will be Mobilized” to urge the citizens to sacrifice themselves to the Reader’s Digest February issue. He predicts and warns that they will face larger hardship within the nation as the war progresses as many men and women are holding onto their easy jobs and not willing to devote themselves to fight against the national crises. The article observes that the current jobs offering 10,000 dollars will be a 3,000 dollar position, employment will go down to half of what it is, and having domestic workers will be a luxury. It is worth our attention to watch how the administration feels a need to deploy Japanese Americans just like German and Italian Americans despite of the difference they maintained in the past.

I heard that Mr. Usui received a letter from his wife in a relocation center [1] in Idaho to let him know that their daughter May is officially engaged. According to the letter her fiance is a sincere person from California named Mamoru Haneda, and he is nisei but fluent in Japanese. His wife wrote that their daughter loves him, and she is happy with it as well. She went on that they should support the decision of the nisei couple as long as they love each other, and she believed that her husband does not have anything against it either.

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She is not able to directly talk to her husband under the current circumstances or freely travel. She did not have any other choices but to make her own decision to agree on the engagement and to accept his official proposal through his parents.

Her decision as a mother is wise and respectable under the circumstances where the nation and also individuals are facing the biggest hardship with the husband of the household being separated in wartime. A husband and a wife need to maintain their mutual understanding and trust. I would like to congratulate the Usui family and their daughter May from the bottom of my heart. They are close to me, and I feel like this was happening to my own family.

A movie was shown as usual in the J area in the evening. I am not going as I’m not interested in watching such old movies. Seven other people are not going either. It is a wise decision.

[1] This is the term used by the author