Mixed Families: Love and Separation in the U.S. WWII Concentration Camps
This project commemorates dates and events related to the U.S. government’s Mixed-Marriage/Mixed-Blood Policy of the American concentration camps incarcerating the West Coast Japanese American community during WWII. Posts will go up here and on social media (Instagram; Twitter) on a rolling basis as the anniversary of each event occurs. Altogether, the project will reveal glimpses of some of the hundreds of mixed-race families swept up in the U.S. WWII forced removal and incarceration of Japanese American community from the West Coast in 1942-1945, either through their own stories or through the policies that policed them.
The project is an outgrowth of my forthcoming book on just one of these families.
Timeline of Events Impacting Mixed-Race Families in & around the American Concentration Camps
May 8, 1942: Cancellation of mixed-family exemptions; WDC Form PM 7 for non-Japanese incarcerees
Wartime commanding general of the Western Defense Command and the Fourth Army, John DeWitt, cancels all exemptions for mixed-marriage families who had received a reprieve from being sent to one of the Japanese American detention centers on the West Coast, which were constructed after the bombing of Pearl Harbor the previous December, and which had begun opening that spring. Starting in early April, 1942, as Japanese Americans were excluded from the West Coast, forced to leave their homes, and incarcerated in camps, some families with members who were not of Japanese descent, or who were mixed-race, had gotten a temporary stay of removal. On May 8, 1942, all temporary reprieves were cancelled, both going forward and retroactively, as the first stage began of the so-called Mixed-Marriage/Mixed-Blood Policy for the camps.
See an excerpt from the document cancelling all reprieves for forced removal due to mixed-marriage status.
Also on May 8, 1942, the Western Defense Command announced WDC Form PM-7, the so-called “Request and Waiver of Non-Excluded Person.” This form was thereafter given to non-Japanese members of mixed-families who "chose" to enter one of the camps--rather than be separated from their spouse or children who were being incarcerated. A non-Japanese parent or spouse, in the words of this form, would "request the privilege....of exclusion, evacuation, and resettlement...in all respects as if he or she were a person of Japanese ancestry." This form was introduced in the memo linked above.
May 10, 1942: Estelle Peck Ishigo, a white wife, incarcerated with her husband
Estelle Peck Ishigo arrives with her Japanese American husband, Arthur, at Pomona "assembly center," a forced relocation center in California, as one of almost 100 wives who were not of Japanese descent but were married to Japanese or Japanese American men, and were imprisoned with their husbands and/or children during the forced removal and incarceration of the West Coast Japanese American community in 1942. Estelle would likely have been forced to sign a particularly disturbing document, named WDC Form PM-7, before she and heer husband were permitted to stay together during the war. She and Arthur would eventually be incarcerated for the duration of the war at Heart Mountain "relocation center," a Japanese American concentration camp in Wyoming.
May 13, 1942: Emily Filson, Japanese American wife, leaves behind her white husband when she is incarcerated
Japanese American Emily Filson sent to Pinedale “Assembly Center,” leaving behind her husband Eugene, who is white but who lost his job because of his marriage to a Japanese American woman. Filson will eventually be sent to Tule Lake Japanese American concentration camp, though her husband will repeatedly try, unsuccessfully, to secure her release.
See a document from Tule Lake concentration camp describing Filson’s imprisonment and family separation
May 14, 1942: Harry Uyeda and his mixed-race wife separated by Uyeda’s removal and incarceration at Arboga
Japanese citizen Harry Uyeda is sent to Arboga/Marysville “Assembly Center” during the forced removal and incarceration of the West Coast Japanese American community, leaving behind his wife, Leleta, a US citizen of “part Portugese, part negro” descent, in San Francisco. Leleta tries but fails to convince Army Headquarters to release her husband, who is soon sent to Tule Lake concentration camp. Eventually, the Uyeda’s endure the only option available for them to stay together: She enters Tule Lake after having likely signed the U.S. Army’s WDC Form PM-7 and becomes an incarceree of a Japanese American concentration camp herself.
See a document from Tule Lake concentration camp describing the Uyedas’ story
May 15, 1942: Japanese American George Mitsuda ordered to Walegra, forcing his wife to choose between separation & freedom
Japanese American George Mitsuda is removed from his home in Sacramento and taken to Walerga “assembly center, leaving behind his white wife, Frances. George will eventually be sent to Tule Lake, a Japanese American concentration camp in northern California. Frances will try to visit him frequently there, and eventually George will be released, under the Mixed-Marriage/Mixed-Blood Policy, after almost a year of being incarcerated. This policy mandates that he and Frances move East, away from their home, to resettle and build a new life outside the West Coast.
See a report from Tule Lake concentration camp detailing part of the Mitsuda family’s story
May 16, 1942: Mixed-race Okazaki children sent alone to Manzanar concentration camp
Mixed-race sister and brother Florence and Takeshi Okazaki, the former a college-student, the latter in high school, are removed from their home and sent to Manzanar Japanese American concentration camp in California, alone and without their parents. Their white mother stays home in LA, but the U.S. Army will not permit the Okazaki children to stay home with her; their father, from Japan, has been interned in another camp in New Mexico.
See “Document of Evacuation as It Applied to (1) Mixed Bloods, (2) Mixed Marriage, (3) Orphans; And (4) Others…,” a report from Manzanar relating to the Okazaki family story.
May 17, 1942: Japanese American “Mariko Chang” leaves behind her Chinese American husband upon her incarceration at Pinedale
Japanese American Kiyoko Chinn, given the pseudonym “Mariko Chang” by the War Relocation Authority, is sent to Pinedale Assembly Center, leaving behind her Chinese American husband, Harry—the first time they’ve been separated since marriage. Chinn will soon be sent to Tule Lake Japanese American concentration camp, where she will report being shunned and even beaten by some incarcerees for her mixed marriage. Harry will try unsuccessfully for her to be released.
Read about the “Chang”/Chinn family history here, and learn about Kiyoko/”Mariko”’s eventual arrest in 1943 for trying to return home to her husband.
May 18, 1942: White father of two young children appeals unsuccessfully to FDR to keep his wife and children from incarceration
LeRoy Johns, the white husband of a Japanese American woman and father of two children under the age of 3, writes a handwritten letter to FDR pleading to keep his family together: to avoid his wife and children’s forced removal from home and incarceration in a Japanese American concentration camp; or his own need to leave his job and home to enter camp with them. Later documentation, from July 1942, shows that the Johns family will be incarcerated together in Santa Anita “assembly center,” where inmates will be housed in horse stalls, though the U.S. Army indicates that, because Mr. Johns is a “Caucasian” husband with a Japanese wife and “mixed blood children,” the family might be eligible for release from incarceration and to return home together. This same option will be withheld from families without children, or from families where the husband is Japanese or Japanese American. Presumably, in order to stay with his family, Leroy Johns will be required not only to give up his job and freedom but to sign WDC Form PM-7, whereby he will “request the privilege” of being incarcerated with his wife and children “as if” he “were of Japanese ancestry” himself, as part of the government’s Mixed-Marriage/Mixed-Blood Policy.
See excerpt from two letters offering a glimpse of the Johns family’s story
May 24, 1943: Army Colonel Karl Bendetsen declares mixed white/Japanese wife “A Japanese, pure and simple”
Army colonel Karl R Bendetsen argues against the release of Theresa Takayoshi, a young mixed white/Japanese woman, who’d been incarcerated with her Japanese American husband and two babies at Minidoka camp in Idaho. Takayoshi had applied for release for herself and her two infants in order to return to Seattle and live with her white mother, an appeal Bendetsen resists based on suspicion that their family culture is insufficiently “Caucasian” in spirit. Bendetsen declares Takayoshi “Japanese pure and simple,” though her mother is white and she is mixed, because both Theresa and her mother married Japanese men.
See reprint of telephone transcript between Colonel Karl R. Bendetsen and his aide, discussing the Takayoshi case
June 4, 1942: Kenzo Murayama, his white wife Maybelle, and their two-year old are transported to Tule Lake concentration camp
Childhood sweethearts Kenzo Murayama and his wife, Maybelle, are transported to Tule Lake concentration camp, along with their two-year old daughter, Joan Kiyo. Maybelle, who is white, has had to choose between joining her Japanese American husband and their toddler during their incarceration or being forcibly separated from them both. Presumably, in order to stay with her husband and child, Maybelle has been required to sign WDC Form PM-7, whereby she “requests the privilege” of being incarcerated “as if” she “were of Japanese ancestry” herself, as part of the government’s Mixed-Marriage/Mixed-Blood Policy.
See a document from Tule Lake describing the Murayama family
June 7 & 9, 1942: Army Major Herman Goebel enquires about Kazue Friar and her mixed 18-month old baby, imprisoned at Tulare
Kazue Friar, the pregnant, Japanese American wife of a white man, and her 18-month old baby are the topic of a June 7 letter sent by Major Herman P. Goebel of the Wartime Civil Control Administration to an administrator at Tulare “Assembly Center”—formerly used to showcase livestock—where both have been incarcerated after being ordered removed from home in Santa Barbara, California. Kazue, Tulare administrators will write on June 9 when they respond to Goebel’s letter, is also currently 6-months pregnant and hopes to return home to be with her husband in time for their second child’s birth. As the Japanese American wife of a white man with at least one young “mixed-blood” child, Kazue will eventually be permitted to apply for release under the Mixed-Marriage/Mixed-Blood Policy, whose “objective,” in the words of WDC’s head, General John DeWitt, is “protecting mixed-blood children and adults” not from incarceration, but “from a Japanese environment." No apparent government records exist, however, documenting whether Kazue and her 18-month-old were eventually released in time for the birth of the Friar’s second child, or whether Kazue was forced to give birth while incarcerated.
See more about the Friar family in a letter from Tulare administrators responding to Goebel’s inquiry, or see a picture of Tulare “Assembly Center.”
June 10, 1942: Tulare camp manager supports release of Japanese wife of U.S. Army enlistee, saying she does not “appear” Japanese
The manager of Tulare “Assembly Center” urges the release of “the Japanese wife of a US-army enlistee from the Philippines,” a “Mrs. Ramos.” His support of application for her freedom cites the fact that she does “not appear to be Japanese,” and though she is in fact Japanese, the manager writes that she has “facial characteristics more nearly typifying persons of Spanish descent,” as if she has somehow taken on the ethnicity of her husband. This letter shows the obsession with both race and appearance that underlay the Mixed-Marriage/Mixed-Blood Policy governing mixed race family incarceration in the Japanese American camps.
See an excerpt from this letter.
June 14, 1943: Mrs. Herbert Funn, wife of a Chinese American man, requests release from Manzanar to rejoin her husband
Mrs. Herbert Funn writes to Assistant Secretary of War, requesting to be freed from Manzanar Japanese American concentration camp to rejoin her Chinese American husband on west coast. Her request suggests that she has heard that Japanese American wives of white men have become eligible to be released and return home and that she is hoping she will be eligible for this same exemption. Her request will be denied five days later, partly because the Funns do not have children, and the Mixed-Marriage/Mixed-Blood Policy of the camps was designed mainly, in the words of General John DeWitt, to “protect mixed blood children” from a “Japanese environment.” Though eventually some Japanese American wives of non-Japanese, and particularly Caucasian men without children will be allowed to return to the West Coast before the war ends, apparently the Funns were not given this option. A 1944 edition of the Manzanar Free Press, the camp’s semi-autonomous paper, notes that “Herbert Funn, visitor, from Los Angeles, Calif” entered the camp that August, presumably to visit his still-incarcerated wife.
See a June 19, 1943, letter from an assistant to the Assistant Secretary of War to Mrs. Funn, informing her that she will not be released.
June 17, 1942: Ronald Kawamoto born in Santa Anita Assembly Center before being moved to the orphanage at Manzanar camp
Mixed-race baby Ronald Kawamoto is born in Santa Anita Assembly Center, where incarcerees are housed in converted horse stalls. Ronald’s mother, Teresa Rose Kawamoto, of Mexican ancestry, was pregnant at the time of the family’s removal; Ronald’s father Yoshi, his grandparents, and his two sisters were all sent to Santa Anita, where Teresa voluntarily accompanied them, presumably after signing the government’s WDC Form PM-7 for non-Japanese relatives who “request the privilege” of being incarcerated with their spouse and/or children, “as if” the signatory “were of Japanese ancestry” themselves. After Ronald was born on June 17th, 1942, at Santa Anita, the family was moved to Poston concentration camp. Teresa was given permission to return to San Diego with her infant son soon after their arrival at Poston. When she tried to leave, however, she was detained; Camp officials refused to let the infant leave, presumably because he was of part-Japanese heritage. By this time, Ronald’s father had entered active military service, so apparently he could not stay in Poston alone; Ronald’s mother then either gave up her infant or had him forcibly taken from her. In February 1944, Ronald appeared in camp records as an orphan in Manzanar’s “Children’s Village.” [As cited in Catherine Irwin, Twice Orphaned: Voices from the Children’s Village of Manzanar (California State University, Fullerton: Center for Oral and Public History, 2008), pp. 273-278].
June 22, 1942: Laverne Matsuda requests permission to join incarcerated husband; She must agree to become “as if Japanese” to do so
Laverne Matsuda, the white wife of Japanese American Yukio Matsuda, writes to officials at the Arboga/Marysville Assembly Center, an incarceration site, requesting permission to join her husband, who has been ordered to the prison camp from their home in Sacramento as part of the forced removal and incarceration of the West Coast Japanese American community. Her letter will be forwarded to the War Relocation Authority, who will respond by granting her permission to join her husband at Tule Lake concentration camp, where he will soon be sent. In order to do so, she must sign the government’s “Request and Waiver of Non-Excluded Person,” or WDC Form PM-7, attesting she will “conform in all respects as if I were a person of Japanese ancestry to all rules, regulations, and orders…” and forefeit the right to her freedom.
See the War Relocation Authority’s response to Laverne’s request to be incarcerated with her husband.
June 28, 1942: Harry Uyeda forced to move to Tule Lake concentration camp from Arboga assembly center; His wife follows him
Japanese husband Harry Uyeda is forced to move to Tule Lake concentration camp from Arboga/Marysville “Assembly Center.” Harry had left behind his wife Leleta, of Portugese/African-American descent, when he was ordered to Arboga in May 1942. Leleta now quits her job and moves to nearby Klamuth Falls, where she visits Harry every day and continues to press for his release. When this fails, she signs waiver to become a prisoner herself, likely signing the U.S. Army’s WDC Form PM-7, in which she will attest that, in order to join her husband, she must agree to become "as if a person of Japanese descent" for the duration of her own incarceration.
See a document from Tule Lake concentration camp describing the Uyedas’ story.
July 6, 1942: Mixed-race Portugese citizen Carlos Gomez, married to a white U.S. citizen, unsucessfully appeals for freedom
Carlos Gomez, a Portuguese citizen with part-Japanese ancestry, requests exemption from his impending incarceration in Tule Lake concentration camp. Gomez explains that, besides being a citizen of a country not at war with the United States, imprisonment in Tule Lake will seperate him from his wife, a white U.S. citizen. The U.S. goverment responds that they will decide his case after he is forcibly removed and incarcerated, writing, “following your induction into the relocation project to which you will be moved, investigation will be made into the facts of your case and your application considered.”
See the U.S. Army’s letter refusing to consider Gomez’s freedom until after his incarceration.
July 22, 1942: 65 year-old Japanese widow of an American diplomat appeals unsuccessfully for release from Tule Lake to join her children
Mrs. Moto Prince, the Japanese widow of an American diplomat, appeals to Tule Lake Social Welfare Department for release; Mrs. Prince indicates that she wants “to join her daughters in San Francisco,” who are both mixed-race and married to Caucasian American men. (How her children avoided incarceration is neither addressed nor confirmed in this report.) A Tule Lake administrator notes, “Mrs. Prince is 4 feet 11 inches in height and weighs 115 pounds. She has had a defective ear since 1935… She could not see what a 65 year old feeble woman could do if she were out. Her request was rejected, however, by the Western Defense Command.”
See an excerpt from this report.
July 24-30, 1942: WCCA requests information about “mixed-marriage families” incarcerated in various camps
On July 24, the Wartime Civil Control Administration sends a memo to camp administrators requesting info about “mixed marriage families” in each so-called “center.” On July 30, an administrator at Tulare camp lists various incarcerees there: a 70-year old man with a Swiss wife; a Japanese man who wants to return to his Korean wife, who has “a weak heart”; and others deemed ‘ineligible’ for release. The Tulare manager also says almost none of them, even those who might be eligible, will actually be able to secure their freedom, because according to the parameters of the camps’ Mixed-Marriage/Mixed-Blood Policy, all of the listed incarcerees would have to relocate beyond the area of the Exclusion Zone for Japanese Americans, and only one has been able to arrange to do so.
See the Tulare manager’s memo about these incarcerees.
August 14, 1943: The Pacific Citizen reports Kiyoko Chinn’s arrest for trying to leave Tule Lake camp and return to her home & husband
The newspaper Pacific Citizen reports that the Japanese American woman Kiyoko Chinn, wife of a Chinese American man and an incarceree at Tule Lake concentration camp, has been arrested and jailed for returning home to see her husband. The paper notes that, in her own defense, "She explained softly, 'I just wanted to see my husband and my home again.'"
In War Relocation Authority documents, Chinn had been given the pseudonym “Mariko Chang.” She was first sent to Pinedale Assembly Center, leaving behind her husband Harry—the first time they’d been separated since their marriage. She was then sent to Tule Lake Japanese American concentration camp, where she reported being shunned and even beaten by some of her relatives for her mixed marriage. Harry appealed unsuccesfully for her release, writing, "I need my wife very badly....I hope you will send her to me soon."
Read about the “Chang”/Chinn family history here, as well as the newspaper report of her arrest in August 1943 for trying to return home to her husband.
August 21, 1942:
The Mixed-Marriage/Mixed-Blood Policy of the US concentration camps for Japanese Americans, undergoes yet another change as the US Army & government struggles to define, manage, and police mixed families among the West Coast Japanese community. In July 1942, when the policy was announced, it initially limited applications for release from the camps and return to the West Coast to “Families composed of a Caucasian, US-citizen husband; his Japanese/Japanese-American wife; and their unemancipated mixed children”—provided the "environment of the family" could be proven "Caucasian." Otherwise, they would have to resettle outside the restricted area or remain imprisoned. Japanese American men and their non-Japanese wives (assumed to be “Caucasian”) were permitted to apply for release but not return to the West Coast.
On July 17, just five days after the policy's announcement, a new supplement permitted the potential release—but not a return to the West Coast—of two new family groups, suggesting that the Army and government finally realized that mixed families existed beyond the Japanese/white combination: 1) those composed of a Japanese wife, non-Japanese alien husband who was citizen of a friendly nation, and their unemancipated mixed children; and 2) Non-Japanese/Japanese American mothers who were citizens of a friendly nation and her unemancipated mixed children, but excluding altogether the release of her Japanese or Japanese-American husband.
On August 21, 1942, the army announced another change, allowing application for release and return to the West Coast of families “composed of a Japanese [or Japanese American] wife, non-Japanese alien husband who was citizen of a friendly nation, and their unemancipated mixed children,” providing that they could prove their family environment was “non-Japanese,” whatever that meant…
See the memo announcing this change.
Have a personal connection to this project, questions about it, or would like more info? Please don’t hesitate to get in touch.