Bunro Sakaino Concentration Camp Diary

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February 19 (Friday)

I had a mild stomach ache the night before, but it gave me a hard time. I was crunching up and lying down, and finally fell asleep and forgot about the pain. I have bowel movements once every three days these days. Master Okawa brough copies of the Heart Sutra and shared them with us yesterday morning.

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He also talked about the philosophy of Buddhism among our other conversations about various things for about 20 minutes. It was very rewarding and satisfied my thirst for new knowledge.

Secretary of the internees Mr. Gengoro Nakamura met with pastor Avely, a representative of Catholic “Maryknoll Fathers & Brothers”, and details regarding us internees were reported by Mr. Takeoka today. Below is a summary.

• As for the internees family center to be constructed, about 30 units have been built, but the completion day is still unknown due to a shortage of furniture and other issues.

• The facility for families is like an apartment building, and each unit has three bedrooms and a kitchen.

• New policy of the U.S. government plans to draft all the Japanese Americans incarcerated in relocation centers at the drafting age and over and would like to have physically unqualified ones to work at farms and military facilities. They also would like to release issei who are physically fit and able to work to be employed outside of the camp.

• They also would like to release internees who are redeemed not dangerous based on the observation for the last year into relocation centers and have them to be employed in some industries like the evacuees.

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That means the U.S. government wants to hold rehearings for each internees. It will be favorable to present your donation history to the Red Cross American region and others.

• It is an interesting phenomenon to witness delayed completion of the internee family center and the U.S. government constantly changing its policy.

• Department of Justice views evacuation and the definition of nisei in the centers as illegal, but the military executed the forced removal of Japanese Americans due to the unexpected turmoil. The current policy was created by the three parties, military, Department of Justice and the president.

This school of the Catholic Church has been negotiating with the administration for the welfare of Japanese since the forced removal of fellow Japanese citizens in the west coast region took place. They had the headquarters in New York but moved it to Washington D.C. and are continuing their negotiations. Of course there is no doubt that fierce protest made by the Japanese government was the key for the recent policy changes. Some heard that all the internees except for one percent would be released.

The word “release” has always been with the internees, and even one day went by without hearing it since we were detained. A lot of the internees are having a hard time in making the final decision.

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I went to listen to a Zen missionary master Fumibuchi Ikeda (Los Angeles) at 7 p.m. I was a bit disappointed at his somewhat scattered lecture, but there was something to learn. Lectures by master Ogawa are like for university students whereas the ones by master Ikeda are like middle school ethics class.