In this story, Susan Hasegawa — a Professor of History at San Diego City College — shares about her upbringing in Hawaii and her mission to spread awareness of Japanese American history. Read on to also learn about crucial aspects of Japanese Americans’ experiences in San Diego, from groundbreaking contributions in the fishing and agricultural industries to the trauma of incarceration.
“On the island of Maui, far from Waikiki, there's a place called Hāna that is heavenly. And when you go there, you’ve got to see the Hasegawa General Store.” That’s a song by Paul Weston, a Hollywood jingle writer who would vacation in Hāna.
My great-grandfather started the Hasegawa General Store with my great-granduncle, who initially moved to Hawaii to work on Hāna’s sugar plantations, but then decided to start a business and family. Both my great-grandfather and great-granduncle eventually returned to Japan. Both of my grandparents were born in Hawaii, educated in Japan, and returned to Hawaii as young adults. My father grew up in Hāna, attended boarding school on O’ahu, and then attended the University of Colorado, Boulder. Afterwards, during his stint in the military as an army accountant, he met my mother. She had grown up on the Ewa Plantation in a Filipino Camp, which was a housing area that had been built for Filipino workers.
Antique Photograph of the Ewa sugar plantation, Hawaii.
The two of them got married, and my mother, who was an elementary school teacher, moved to Hāna. She taught school for a couple of years, and when she had my older brother, she became a stay-at-home mom and joined the family business, running the Hasegawa General Store with my dad.
I was born and raised in Hāna. It was 2.5 hours from the closest city, with only about 1000 people over a 25-mile coast. The beach was right across the street from my family’s house. Growing up there was a lot of fun, but my community was very isolated. We didn't have a television until I was 10 years old, so I spent a lot of time listening to the radio and playing outside.
I grew up in a predominantly Native Hawaiian community. I didn't know a lot about Filipino or Japanese culture, except maybe the food and my grandparents’ holiday traditions. I grew up dancing hula, playing the ukulele, celebrating Aloha Week and May Day. In Hāna, Native Hawaiian culture was definitely dominant. Looking back, I found that very enriching. But anytime there were Asian or Japanese tourists — which were very few during the 1970s — people would tell me, “Hey, Susie, your cousins are here!” because almost everybody else was part Hawaiian. On the other hand, when I went to Kahului (the closest town over), I did have Japanese American friends, and we would go to Obon together. For high school, I attended an O’ahu boarding school that was predominantly Asian American, with a lot of Japanese American students. And on the other side of Maui, there was a greater presence of Asian and Japanese American culture, with Buddhist temples and Japanese language schools.
Throughout middle and high school, I’d always liked history and found it easy to study. When I went to college, I thought I needed to find a practical major, so for a while, I was leaning towards economics. However, I didn't enjoy my economics classes, so I took classes in other areas and ended up becoming a history major.
During my undergraduate work, I also started looking at Japanese American history and incarceration. A friend and I received a school grant to research the redress and reparations movement in Washington, D.C., and speak with the Asian American politicians leading it. We interviewed people from the Japanese American Citizens League and talked to the late Senators Daniel Inouye and Spark Matsunaga. We also had lunch in the Senate Dining Room, which was the coolest thing. Overall, it was really interesting to talk to the political leaders who pushed for and obtained redress, which is a U.S. government apology and $20,000 payment for Japanese American World War II incarcerees. When we returned to Colorado College, we wanted to ensure that other students were exposed to that aspect of history. We organized a program and brought in a minister who had been incarcerated in Colorado and settled in Denver.
I now work with the Japanese American Historical Society of San Diego as a historian, organizing different exhibits and educational programs. Kay Ochi, who was involved on the ground with redress and reparations, recently worked with the City Council and San Diego Public Library to rescind a San Diego City Council action that supported the FBI in removing Japanese Americans from communities. They’re passing part of a consent item to officially take the World War II resolution off the city books. Japanese American and Asian American history are still continuing in terms of addressing past actions.
We also asked Professor Hasegawa various other questions. Here are her answers (edited for length/clarity):
1. Could you share a few of the major ways that Japanese Americans have shaped San Diego?
Japanese Americans had a major impact on the fishing industry. In the 1920s, there was a growing tuna industry, especially with the invention of canned tuna. Japanese immigrants brought in new fishing techniques, like double and triple bamboo poles with a barbless hook. Skilled fishermen could remove the barbless hook in a single motion, which made fishing much faster. While Issei fishermen helped grow the fishing industry, a lot of the women — the Issei wives and daughters — worked in tuna canning factories, which was hard labor, but did not require English language skills.
Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans also contributed to agriculture, introducing new techniques. There were quite a few farms in the South Bay, North County, and Mission Valley, right next to the Mission Valley Mission. One of the main crops in the South Bay was winter celery, which was popularized by Japanese American farmers.
However, the farms’ success also brought a backlash in the form of alien land laws, which prevented people in eligible for citizenship from owning property. This backlash targeting Japanese immigrants also applied to all Asian immigrants, who could not become naturalized U.S. citizens until the 1940s or 1952.
As a result, Issei Japanese immigrants started families by marrying picture brides and bringing them over. Their Nisei children were U.S. citizens, which enabled them to bypass alien land laws by putting their property in the name of their children. Small businesses owned by Japanese immigrants were also able to survive because, often, all of the family members — including the children — worked in the business. In all these ways, Japanese Americans set down roots.
2. How did Executive Order 9066 impact San Diego’s Japanese American community? Specifically, could you share some context about the community before internment camps, and how these events impacted their everyday lives after they were released?
In San Diego County, from the North Coast all the way down to the Tijuana border, there were approximately 2,000 Japanese American immigrants and Nisei (second generation Japanese American) citizens in 1940. Right after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the FBI jailed all the Issei leaders of the community and sent them up to Justice Department camps in Los Angeles and Tujunga. There was a lot of fear among the community. Suddenly, the husbands were gone, leaving the wives to take care of the entire family.
In February of 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which allocated the military Western Defense Command to take any necessary measures to secure the West Coast. General Dewitt and other civilian leaders decided that everyone who was of Japanese ancestry would be removed from the West Coast including into the southern border of Arizona. On April 1st, San Diegans learned that they would have to get rid of all their property, take care of their affairs, and then meet at the Santa Fe Depot train station in downtown San Diego on August 7th. Some people left farms with crops still in the ground. A handful of people did have friends who took care of their cars or homes; others just had to leave.
By August 8th, in the city of San Diego, almost everyone of Japanese ancestry was gone. There were a couple of stories where a pregnant mother could stay at Scripps Hospital to have her child, but was then driven by the Military Police up to Santa Anita Racetrack. Japanese Americans were held there for a couple of months, until permanent incarceration camps (in places like Manzanar, Poston, Gila River, and Tule Lake) were constructed to disperse all the people at Santa Anita. Most San Diegans ended up in Poston, Arizona, which was on the Colorado River Indian Tribal Reservation. There were three camps in Poston, a couple of miles apart, housing almost 18,000 people at their peak.
Due to a labor shortage, the U.S. government allowed some young people to help harvest sugar beets in Utah or elsewhere, in places that were not part of the West Coast exclusion zone. Some of them were treated nicely, but others were treated horribly. The government then created a leave program that allowed people to go inland — outside of the exclusion zone — to get a job. That's why there are pockets of Japanese American communities in Denver, Minneapolis, and Chicago.
At the same time, the U.S. military was recruiting Japanese American volunteers to become soldiers for the army. Some people refused to join because they were angry at how the government had locked them up and taken away their civil liberties. The Japanese American Historical Society of San Diego and the Japanese American National Museum have letters from young adults at the time who couldn’t believe this was happening, and who were asking, “How can they do this to us? We’re American citizens. We’re not disloyal.” Despite this, there were a number of men from camp who volunteered for what became the 442nd Regimental Combat Unit. Others waited until they were drafted. There were also a handful of people who resisted the draft. The “No-No Boys” were so disillusioned by internment that they refused to join the military, answering “no” to questions 27 and 28 on the government’s “loyalty questionnaire.” In Heart Mountain, they were prosecuted and found guilty of draft dodging, so they spent time in federal prison.
Other people answered “no” on the questionnaire because the questions were very ambiguous and vague. They asked Issei to swear loyalty to the U.S. and forsake their Japanese citizenship. So if Japanese agreed, they would become countryless people since they couldn’t become U.S. citizens and would no longer be Japanese citizens. A lot of those discussions really tore families apart. The “no, no” people were considered disloyal troublemakers and sent to Tule Lake, which became a place of riots and anger. The government treated this as evidence that Japanese Americans were “disloyal,” when in reality, that was their only way to express dissent.
In the end, many San Diegan men volunteered when called upon. They served in Europe with the 442nd and in the Military Intelligence Service as translators in the Philippines and Burma, and on the front fighting the Japanese. They translated Japanese codes and papers and interrogated prisoners. The Nisei men proved their loyalty through their lives.
At the start of 1945, after the presidential election, it was clear the U.S. was winning the war. Because of a 1944 court case, starting on January 1, 1945, the government allowed people to return home to the West Coast. People faced a tough question: do they go back to San Diego, a community that clearly rejected them, or do they go someplace else in the Midwest? Throughout 1945, about 800 people returned to a very changed San Diego, one that had a huge increase in war industries, a housing boom, and a population boom. Some younger children were able to reunite with friends and graduate with their high school class. But for others, it was very tough. It was especially difficult for older Issei men, who were in their 50s and 60s, but had to start all over again with finding houses and jobs. So, there are varied experiences with both the trauma of having to leave and enter camps, and the trauma of having to come back.
3. What are the most important themes or messages that you hope people take away from learning about Japanese American and/or AAPI history?
I think that one important message is to have empathy and sympathy for all our brothers and sisters. We often don’t feel a shared experience. There are insular communities, even within groups of Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Cambodian Americans, etc. However, other people don't necessarily see individuals as Chinese American, Japanese American, etc. They just see us as “the other.” Some people — especially ignorant, bigoted racists — will pick on anybody they feel is a threat to them. In a sense, anti-AAPI hate has united AAPI communities with the realization that we're in this together. It’s important to act on opportunities to reach out across AAPI communities and across other ethnic communities, as well.
4. Finally, are there any other issues, projects, personal experiences, etc., that you’d like to highlight?
My research is focused on Japanese American history. I worked on a talk titled "The Japanese American Community and the Constitution” with a colleague at Palomar College and the Japanese American Historical Society. The U.S. Constitution was signed on September 17th, so all institutions and schools that receive money from the federal government need to create some type of program that commemorates Constitution Day and Citizenship Day. I work on integrating my research into this program to increase awareness and educate people on the contributions of Japanese Americans, but through the lens of the U.S. Constitution and political institutions, looking at the court cases and the laws.
In high schools, everyone is going to have to take an Ethnic Studies course in the near future. For California State University, everyone is going to have to take one in order to graduate. There was a lack of API courses and representation to fulfill the area F requirement within the district, so last year, I spearheaded work to create a course called Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies. I wrote the curriculum, organized all the textbooks, and worked with API faculty at our sister colleges, Mesa College and Miramar College, to make sure that the course would be approved. I’d like to see increased course offerings at the San Diego Community College District, as well as courses that will articulate, transfer, and fulfill requirements at four-year institutions.
Comments