Prisoners in Their Own Land: After the War

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In part 2 of the series "Prisoners in Their Own Land" about the internment of Japanese Americans 75 years ago, KING 5's Lori Matsukawa examines how families returning home after the war often faced prejudice and discrimination. They had a hard time finding jobs, housing, and respect. Yet even in those difficult days, there were acts of kindness and generosity that gave them hope.

http://www.king5.com/news/local/prisoners-in-their-own-land-japanese-internment-camps-75-years-later/407233471



Lori Matsukawa
8 hours ago

When the war was over, those forced into American concentration camps were forced out, given a one-way ticket home and $25. What they came back to was often less than welcoming.

“The manager took one look at both of us and said, ‘Sorry, we don’t rent to Japs.’ And bang! went the door,” recalled Lilly Kitamoto Kodama. This was on her honeymoon trip 10 years after the war ended.

Kitamoto said her father was a lifelong Republican because President Roosevelt, who signed the incarceration Executive Order 9066, was a Democrat. She said her father remained bitter over the act that put his family and some 120,000 other Japanese Americans into incarceration camps.

After the war, it was difficult to find housing, jobs, and, for Taky Kimura, self-respect.

http://www.king5.com/news/local/prisoners-in-their-own-land-after-the-war/408296190

Videos at link.

[pinboy3niner]

1. Meanwhile, some actual enemies who fought in combat against U.S. troops got better treatment

On an Army pass in San Francisco in 1970 I popped into a small Italian restaurant in the city for dinner. The Italian-American owner greeted me when I walked in and later came by my table to talk. When he learned I was a patient at the nearby Army hospital being treated for wounds from Vietnam, he told me his story.

My new friend had been captured by American soldiers while serving in the Italian Army in WWII. As an enemy soldier, he was a prisoner of war and was sent to a POW camp in Colorado, iirc. When the war ended he was allowed to remain in the U.S. and within a few years was able to bring his family from Italy to join him. No one would suspect he'd been an enemy in WWII. He blended right into American society without having to face the kind of discrimination Japanese-Americans suffered.

I visited that restaurant a lot during my time in SF, and every time, the owner would stop by my table with a bottle of wine and sit down and share more of his stories. Of course, his experience was worlds apart from the experience of Japanese-American families depicted in KING 5's series...

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2. Ain't that the truth.

And most of the people the government detained were women and children, enemies of no one.