The History of Japanese-American WWII Incarceration, Told be Densho
This photo was taken in 1933. The Suguro farm was located in the Midlakes area of Bellevue, Washington. Image courtesy of the Akizuki Collection.
Densho
Densho (伝承) is a Japanese term meaning to pass on to the next generation, or to leave a legacy. Our organization’s name reflects our mission and purpose.Densho’s mission is to preserve and share history of the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans to promote equity and justice today.
Densho documents the stories and experiences of Japanese Americans who were unjustly incarcerated during World War II, striving to capture their testimonies before their memories are extinguished. We offer these irreplaceable firsthand accounts, coupled with historical images, letters, and other archival materials, as well as educational resources, to explore principles of democracy and promote equal justice for all.
Densho is a Japanese term meaning “to pass on to the next generation,” or to leave a legacy. The legacy we offer is an American story with ongoing relevance: during World War II, the United States government incarcerated innocent people solely because of their ancestry.
Founded in 1996, Densho is a digital archive and public history organization whose mission is to preserve and share history of the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans to promote equity and justice today. Our public websites include more than 1,200 oral histories and over 140,000 photos, letters, and other archival items, as well as free historical and educational resources. Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, Densho is a nonprofit organization started with the initial goal of documenting oral histories from Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during World War II. This evolved into a mission to educate, preserve, collaborate and inspire action for equity. Densho uses digital technology to preserve and make accessible primary source materials on the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. We present these materials and related resources for their historic value and as a means of exploring issues of democracy, intolerance, wartime hysteria, civil rights and the responsibilities of citizenship in our increasingly global society. We are committed to making the stories of the people who lived through this critical event accessible and meaningful for current and future generations.
To learn more about our organization, visit densho.org.
Brief History of Japanese Americans in Bellevue
Satellite villages of the Duwamish Tribe dotted areas of Bellevue and Factoria, and, prior to the arrival of European Homesteaders, called the area home since time immemorial. Following the Treaty of Point Elliot in 1853, Seattle and the surrounding areas became the heart of the Washington Territory as white settlers staked land claims and marked out property. Bellevue was transformed by the logging industry, and following the clearcutting of the region, the landscape was marked by stumps of the previous old-growth forests.
Japanese American immigration to the Pacific Northwest and West Coast began in earnest after the Meiji restoration. In 1855, this immigration wave was largely led by young men leaving Japan to find work in laboring industries like logging, mining, railroad construction, and farming up and down the US Coast and in Hawai‘i.
As they began their lives in America, Japanese immigrants and their attempts to establish belonging were influenced by previous restrictions codified into laws that had affected Chinese immigration waves. Subject to alien land laws, and added within the category of “aliens ineligible for citizenship”, they were not able to buy property and naturalize through pathways afforded to European immigrants. But unlike Chinese Americans, whose families were subject to the Page Act, Japanese immigrants were able to establish families in the US, as Japanese women did not have their immigration pathways blocked. Some marriages were secured through sending pictures across oceans to find a match and this pathway was called “picture brides”. Oftentimes, images of younger selves were passed onto prospective women and when they arrived to meet their husbands they found older men greeting them. While some other marriages were prearranged between families. In any case families were able to be established and created in America–with many families choosing to strike down permanent roots.
As Japanese immigration grew, tensions followed. The stereotypes and caricatures previously created for Chinese Americans were cast on the faces and bodies of Japanese Americans. The Japanese immigration wave perpetuated the fear of Yellow Peril, that these non-white immigrants would destabilize the American way while crowding out cities and creating competition for work. These tensions came to a head when the government enacted the Gentleman’s Agreement of 1907 between Japan and the United States—slowing immigration as new passports for Japanese laborers ceased.
Despite barriers put in front of them, Japanese Americans established Japantowns, or Nihonmachis, up and down the coast, providing networks for labor and community while new immigrants established themselves in their new homes. Seattle was a major hub for Japanese immigrants, and the surrounding areas provided new networks for work. Japanese immigrants began to establish farms on the Eastside as they leased land from previous homesteaders on their logged land.
The work to transform the landscape was difficult and dangerous work. Large logs had to be cleared through dynamite and physical labor, with many Japanese immigrants leading the work itself. As Japanese immigrants took to changing the land of Bellevue, they established family farms whose fields were built upon previously old-growth timber forests.
Second generation Japanese Americans, or Nisei, who had birthright citizenship, were afforded the right and opportunity to buy property, and some were able to purchase the land they helped to develop.
Prior to World War II, the Japanese American population in Bellevue numbered over 70 families and over 300 people, comprising 15% of the general population and 90% of the agricultural workforce. These family farms would supply Bellevue and Seattle with much of the produce and dairy eaten within the cities, and were connected to the vibrant marketspace of Seattle's Pike Place Market.
Unfortunately, the success of Japanese American farms continued to create tensions with white community members who based their fears of competition on racism and prejudice. Anti-Japanese leagues were established in Bellevue, stoking the fears of xenophobia and working to label these American families as the foreign “other”. Miller Freeman, a prominent Bellevue Leader and vocal opponent to Japanese farms, would write in the Bellevue Star, “The Japanese cannot be assimilated. Once a Japanese, always a Japanese. Our mixed marriages -- failures all -- prove this. ‘East is East, and West is West, and ne’er the twain shall meet.’ Oil and water do not mix”.
As racist tensions grew, Japanese Americans created a community. The Japanese American community in Bellevue was close-knit through farm networks and neighborly connections. Establishing the “Bellevue Japanese Community Clubhouse,” they raised a community hall that was a hub for the area, which included a language school, church group, and activities like basketball and judo. As the second generation of Japanese Americans navigated their identities of being “Japanese and American,” they juggled assimilation and honoring their heritage. These community hall events and spaces allowed people to build relationships based on similar experiences.
Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941. Later, many of the Japanese Americans in Bellevue recalled where they were when they heard the news; this was a moment that would signal a seismic shift in how they were seen by the larger American community, and how they were able to imagine their futures in the places they established their homes.
With the underlying anti-Japanese current and the fear of “enemies within,” the Japanese American community was unjustly put under a microscope, scapegoated, and targeted. Following the attack, Japanese American civic and community leaders were placed under suspicion by the FBI, and many were incarcerated. Tom Matsuoka, a prominent Bellevue farmer and President of the Bellevue Vegetable Farmer’s Association, was jailed with an indefinite term by the FBI at the former Immigration and Naturalization Services Building located in downtown Seattle. As Japanese American civil liberties eroded through new curfews and compulsory family registrations with local post-offices, families had to grapple with uncertainties and worries about what would come next.
Their worries were met by the signing of Executive Order 9066 on February 19th, 1942 by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. EO 9066 would establish much of the West Coast under the jurisdiction of a military zone, allowing for the forced removal and incarceration of all Japanese Americans within its borders. Following the Executive Order, “Evacuation Notices” were posted in city centers up and down the West Coast—signalling to the Japanese American community that they were no longer free. Most people were given one to two weeks to pack up belongings, sell businesses, and leave properties, and they were only allowed to bring with them what they could carry.
443 Eastside men, women and children, including 300 of them from Bellevue, were forced into incarceration camps until the end of the war. Many of Bellevue’s Japanese American community was sent to the Pinedale Assembly Center located outside of Fresno before relocating to the more permanent incarceration camp of Minidoka. Escorted by armed military guards and placed within barbed wire fences, these Japanese Americans were forced to live in the high desert of Idaho, which would be a far cry from their lives in lush, rainy Bellevue.
Within the camps, they faced dehumanizing conditions with little privacy, including within the tarpaper barracks, which housed entire families together. Futures were put on hold and families fragmented as parents rectified with the trauma of loss and as children grew up within the confines of prison camps. Later, through a “loyalty questionnaire,” their allegiances were questioned and scrutinized.The questionnaire was written with the air of suspicion already placed on the person answering the questions. With one question written, “Do you forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor?”. The implication was that the Japanese Americans had previous allegiance to the Japanese emperor. Justifiably, some respondents pushed back and challenged the notion. While some others would answer no to be drafted into the milltary. The folks who answer no to these questions were deemed no-no boys and faced ostracization from the community, additional scrutiny by the camp administration and were sent to specific camps like Tule Lake. Contrasting their experience, other Japanese Americans worked to highlight their allegiance to America, volunteering for roles in the army and military intelligence services.
By the end of WWII, over 125,000 Japanese Americans had been displaced and incarcerated. After the camps were closed, incarcerees were given $25 dollars and a ticket to a destination of their choice, shattering the illusion of life going back to normal.
Post-war America continued to discriminate against Japanese Americans, and many families returned to defaced lands and properties. Tom Matsuoka’s farmhouse was burned during the war, and he decided to settle away from Bellevue in Montana. Many of Bellevue’s Japanese American families made the hard decision not to return to the Eastside with only 20 out of the 70 families coming back to the area.
Incarceration Stories of Japanese Americans in Bellevue
The Densho Digital Repository contains oral histories with several prominent Japanese Americans who made community in Bellevue. Here is a good starting point to learn more from our narrators themselves.
Tom Matsuoka: Tom was born in the United States in 1903 after his family struck out to make a life in America. After finding work up and down the coast and in Hawai‘i, his family made roots in Washington and eventually in Bellevue. After creating a community around the farmlands he helped cultivate, Pearl Harbor would change his life forever. The FBI would knock on their farmhouse door and he was imprisoned in the former INS building. After the war, the family would make the hard decision to move themselves to Montana.
Tokio Hirotaka - Toshio Ito - Joe Matsuzawa: Three longtime Bellevue Japanese American residents share what life was like in Bellevue and outline the different networks that sustained the community. Similar to Tom, their experiences detail out the thriving farmlife created by their labor and the moment that Pearl Harbor would put their futures in jeopardy. With the men being younger than Tom, their recollections detail how the early incarcerations of leaders and the process of moving with their families to the incarceration sites.
George Yoshino George details the Bellevue farming community his father joined as they leased land on the Eastside. Going from the incarceration camps to volunteering with the MIS, George would use his language skills to support the American war effort. After the war, the family would move to St. Paul and move out to the midwest.
Rae Takekawa Rae describes growing up in Bellevue and how typically American her life was. With her mother being Nisei, she details how the Japanese Americans navigated their intersectional identities. She remembers where she was when she learned of Pearl Harbor and how that moment would shatter her identity.