Smithsonian visits Arizona with Japanese American internment camp exhibit

The Smithsonian and the Arizona chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League are bringing an exhibit to the state Capitol in that same spirit.

The Smithsonian’s “Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and World War II” will visit the Arizona Capitol Museum from Jan. 26 to April 6. The walk-through exhibit features artifacts from internment camps on loan from the citizens league.

Arizona was home to two internment camps, both on tribal reservation land. The Gila River War Relocation Center, on the Gila River Reservation south of Phoenix, held more than 13,000 Japanese Americans.

At the Poston Relocation Center on the Colorado River Reservation south of Lake Havasu, 17,000 people were held. Both camps were open from 1942 to 1945.

Two memories of Arizona’s camps

Hall was born in late August of 1942, just after her family arrived at the Gila camp. Her mother carried Hall for 10 months, Hall said, because she didn’t want to give birth in the horse stalls where they were kept before going to the camp.

When her family left the Gila internment after three years, Hall said she remembers not wanting to leave the place she knew as home. Years later, after the death of her mother, she began discussing the memories she held, to the surprise of her family. 

“Our families never talked about the camp,” Hall said. “I told (my family) some of the things that I remembered, and they were just in awe.”

One memory was of three boys pushing a cart of pomegranates. Years later at an event at the Chandler Museum, Hall heard Mesa resident Tom Koseki speak about his experience at the Gila camp, where he was sent from Los Angeles when he was in the first grade.

Koseki was one the boys with that cart.

Koseki, 82, and Hall developed a lasting friendship after learning of their shared history.

Koseki’s father was a physician who had served in the U.S. military in World War I. Before being sent to Arizona, his family was moved between assembly centers in California.

“My dad was a veteran of World War I,” Koseki said. “He said, ‘Why don’t you put me to work, rather than keeping me with this (horse) manure.'”

Koseki said his father was bitter about having served the country, only to end up a prisoner of war after returning home. His father was told he would work in the hospital at the Gila camp, but by the time they arrived, those jobs were taken, Koseki said.

Instead, his father handled paperwork.

Both Koseki and Hall remember cold nights, hot days and dusty barracks. Koseki remembers refusing the “junk that they called food,” and refusing to eat anything but “crackers … and a little bit of bread.”

The exhibit will allow visitors to see photos of the mess halls the internees ate in, and the Japanese American Citizens League has loaned items such as home-made watering cans, rice fryers and cigarette rollers that are believed to have been made in camp, according to Capitol museum representatives.

Hall noted some positive memories from the time at the camp as well. She said while many lost their businesses and land, some were able to return after, and some Japanese Americans found community within the camps.

Hall’s uncle, her mother’s brother, even wrote Hall a letter saying her mother’s happiest time of life was within the Gila camp.

“For the first time she didn’t have to work, she didn’t have to worry about where to live, she didn’t have to worry about food, she could spend time with her children for the first time, and she could socialize with other women,” Hall said.

“My husband and I read that letter a couple of times before it sunk in; we couldn’t believe it.”

In contrast, Koseki remembers his mother crying and feeling isolated. 

“(My mother) didn’t know what to do, so she learned to knit … she made some things that I still have today,” Koseki said.

Hall first returned to the Gila camp for a visit in her twenties, and she took her dad back when he visited her in Arizona.

“It’s not that he wanted to go back. He didn’t know he had that opportunity,” Hall said. She said returning to the camp was a chance at closure for her father.

She said he was bitter until the late 1950s when a teacher at the school where he worked as a custodian invited him to speak about the internment camp. Hall said a white student asked her father if he hated white people, to which her father replied, “No, when war happens, terrible things happen.”

Koseki went on to serve in the US Navy for 43 years and said despite incarceration at the camp, he is proud to be an American and proud to have served the country.

What exhibit visitors can learn

Koseki and Hall hope the Smithsonian exhibit and the stories of other Japanese American will inspire people to learn and share their stories.

For younger generations, they said they hope to educate them on the history of the country and Japanese Americans.

The exhibit will be self-guided, with an attendant to answer questions and additional resources to help parents talk to their children about the experience. Some of the museum’s rooms are similar in size to the barracks — a visual aid to help visitors understand the small quarters.

For older generations, Hall said she hopes to show what can be gained from sharing stories. She said a friend had shared Hall and Koseki’s experience with members of their church in Southern California, and that Japanese Americans in the church said they “finally felt free to share.”

The exhibit ends with a portion dedicated to President Ronald Reagan’s Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which formally apologized and issued a redress of $20,000 to each Japanese American or legal resident of Japanese ancestry in the camps across the U.S.

The exhibit also shows photos from President George H.W. Bush’s ceremony with former camp residents in 1990.

The Capitol museum also will host events while the exhibit is in town, some of which are still being added to the events page on the museum’s website.

The museum exhibit is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. Parking is available at the Wesley Bolin Plaza in front of the state Capitol. 

After leaving Arizona the exhibit will visit Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, followed by Minnesota, Utah, and New Mexico.

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