That Damned Fence: Relocation Camp Life
Through the Eyes of Japanese Alien and Japanese-American Poets
By Christine Woll
For FYS 234 The U. S. Relocation Camps in World War II

On February 19, 1942, Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued the infamous Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the internment of 110,000 Japanese Aliens and Japanese Americans in concentration camps because of the so-called "military threat," they posed. In 1945, poet Lawson Fusao Inada wrote the following poem, titled "Concentration Constellation," which refers to the various relocation camps that were used to contain these people:
In this earthly configuration,
We have, not points of light,
but prominent barbs of dark…

Begin between the Golden State's
highest and lowest elevations
and name that location

Manzanar. Rattlesnake a line
southward to the zone
of Arizona, to the home
if natives on the reservation,
and call those Gila, Poston.

Then just take your time
winding your way across…
just make yourself at home
in the swamps of Arkansas.
for this is Rohwer and Jerome.

But now, you weary of the way.
It's a big country, you say.
It's a big history, hardly
halfway through - with Amache
looming in the Colorado desert,
Heart Mountain high in wide
Wyoming, Minidoka on the moon
of Idaho, then down to Utah's
jewel of Topaz before finding
yourself at northern California's
frozen shore of Tule Lake…

Now regard what sort of shape
this constellation takes.
It sits there like a jagged scar,
massive, on the massive landscape.
It lies there like the rusted wire
of a twisted and remembered fence.

As Inada points out with his analogy to a constellation, the United States government had constructed many camps and scattered them all over the country. In other words, the internment of Japanese-Americans was not merely a blip in American history; it was instead a catastrophic and appalling forced removal of 110,000 people from their homes. In order to prevent history from repeating itself, it is important that study is done on the subject. As Inada illustrates, government documents and written accounts are not the only way to study the issues surrounding the internment; poetry, being a traditional and cherished practice brought over from Japan and continued in the United States, serves to give a unique and informative perspective into the lives of the Japanese internees. Not only does the poetry written by Japanese aliens and American citizens of Japanese descent describe the living conditions in the relocation camps they were imprisoned in, but it also demonstrates the array of emotions these people felt, including the hope of one day being free, the anger at being imprisoned, and, most prominently, the sadness from being away from home and loved ones.

Why was writing poetry so popular in the internment camps? Jori and Kay Nakano relate that short poems "were ideal forms for the internees' expression of their pent-up emotion," because of the scarcity of writing paper. The Nakanos also point out that short poems were a Japanese tradition of expression, and thus a form that the people of Japanese descent were comfortable with. Their poetry offered a means of escape and relief, a way to vent and reflect in the harsh environment they were trapped in. While commenting on his own experiences, Inada asserts that "if it weren't for the poem, the thoughts and feelings would have stayed submerged, unexpressed, gradually fading and dispersing in my consciousness," and that that was "the way, the gift, of this ancient and universal way known as poetry."

Most of the poems written by those in the camps were very short, as was the Japanese tradition. The two most popular forms were tanka and haiku. Haiku, the shortest form of poetry in the world, normally with a 5-7-5 syllable pattern, is mostly used to describe nature. Tanka poetry has a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable pattern, speaks of nature and human emotions, and, as the Nakanos write, "allows the reader to perceive the unsaid and the intimated." However, poets were not restricted to these forms; Makoto Ueda notes that in the early 20th century, some radical poets started a free-style movement, advocating a "freer" form of haiku and tanka. Also, as seen in the Inada poem presented earlier, not all poetry was written in the short tanka and haiku forms.

According to Violet Kazue de Cristoforo, "the pre-war haiku [by people in American of Japanese ancestry] expresses peacefulness and tranquility, as well as hope for their future in America." For example, "The Flower was yellow," by Reiko Gyomo reads "The flower is yellow / I see it clearly now / dawn on autumn field," and "Chrysanthemum also in bloom" by Kazue Matsuda reads "Chrysanthemum also in bloom / continuing fair weather / wish to chat with people." Although not indicative of all poems written in the United States by Japanese aliens or Japanese American poetry, it offers good representation of many of them. Both center around the cheerful subject of flowers, and both poems feature a calm, serene tone. Also, poets have written after this time period to illustrate the feelings of the Japanese and Japanese Americans before they were incarcerated. In the first of a series of poems about a fictitious Japanese family in the United States, Geraldine C. Little writes about the teenage Cathy in early December of 1942, prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor: "Cathy muses to the mirror / What shall I wear / to the Christmas hop? / … Red tingles Rob, / Rob tingles me. / I will wear red…" In this poem Little portrays the relatively care-free attitude of the Japanese Americans through Cathy's worries over clothes and boys. In several days, she will have much more momentous things to worry about. Although many families did suffer from racial prejudice and legal restrictions, these poets make it clear that these problems paled in comparison to the experiences they were about to face.

The poetry begins to illustrate the emotions of the Japanese aliens and Japanese Americans with the announcement of Executive Order 9066, which ordered the removal of all specified people, which came to mean all those of Japanese descent, from the West Coast. In a section of his poem titled "Legends from Camp: Prologue," Inada describes the shock of the removal:
The situation, obviously, was rather confusing.
It obviously confused simple people
who had simply assumed they were friends, neighbors,
colleagues, partners, patients, customers, students,
teachers, of, not so much "aliens" or "non-aliens,"
but likewise simple, unassuming people
who paid taxes as fellow citizens and populated
pews and desks and fields and places
of ordinary American society and commerce.

This poem has a dry tone, subtly hinting at an anger and disbelief at the unjust incarceration of "unassuming people" and "fellow citizens." However, some of the poetry also illustrates how, even though they might have been angry, the Japanese aliens and Japanese Americans acted very compliantly, having faith in their country that the situation would get better. One of the characters in Little's narrative poem muses "I do not understand / at all, but if we must / go somewhere to serve / our country / then we must. Orders / are to be obeyed." Research on the subject reveals, surprisingly, little resistance to the orders, with few instances of public protest and violence, and Little's poem shows the attitude that produced this atmosphere. Finally, the poems about the evacuation shows the sadness that these people dealt with as they left their homes and were forced to sell almost all their belongings, or what Little called "a lifetime of accumulation." Yotenchi Agari reflects the feelings of all the other Japanese aliens and Japanese Americans when he writes "…about to leave this house / where my child was born." Agari's poem illustrates how the thought of leaving the place where so many of their memories had been made pained the prisoners.

Exteriorly, the poetry written in the camps can be taken to describe simply the conditions in which the internees lived. Many of these poems dealt with the landscape; from the deserts of Arizona to the swamplands of Arkansas to the mountains of Wyoming. In an untitled poem, James Shinkai describes the climate at Manzanar in the deserts of California:

…Dust clouds, like brown smoke, rose and swirl and blow
from hidden lairs in icy crags, towering high,
like hungry pack of wolves, the gale sweeps low,
fangs sharp and bared, shrieking to the sky;
the guardian peaks emerge, serene and high.

Summer, with long, parched nights and days;
and heaven's bowl a shimmering blue of heat;
the thirsty hills are choked. The sun's hot blaze
before encroaching autumn, once more retreats.
King Winter reigns upon his icy seat.

The weather and seasons were a constant force that the internees had to deal with, especially because the camps were located in unwanted and unpleasant territories with extreme temperature variations. Not only was the weather usually harsh, but the landscape was typically ugly as well. In a tanka poem, the poet Yukari describes Topaz as a "land / where neither grass / nor trees / nor wild flowers grow." Japanese aliens and Japanese American poets, used to composing Haikus about the beauty of nature, usually only found dust and barbed wire.

Matters of extreme temperatures, poor climate, and bad weather were worsened by the fact that the shelters often lacked heat, at least at first, and were flimsily made. Many of the poems describe or hint at the overall horrendous living conditions. Little describes the rooms they had to live in as "barracks / barely tacked together!" and that the paper lining the walls "lacks the line / the color / of even a nourishing / turnip!" He goes on to describe the furnishings: "Steel army cots / two mud-colored blankets / … Mattress covers / we are free / to stuff with straw." Little's poetry here informs us of the fact that the living conditions were both unwelcoming and uncomfortable.

Outside of the rooms, camp life did not improve. Poets staying in the camps often complained about the guards, the bathrooms, and the eating facilities. The poets usually portrayed the guards as cold and unfeeling. The lack of privacy and stench distinguished the bathrooms. The food was characterized as gross and monotonous; in a section of Little's narrative poem, a character describes one meal: "Rice / soppy with fruit syrup / Ugh! / I watch Mom accept / an ice-cream scoop dollop, eyes down." With this passage, Little conjures imagery of the food ("rice / soppy with fruit syrup") and expresses the inmates feelings about the food in just a few words ("Ugh!" and "eyes down.") In the poem "Kimiko Ozawa," poet Lee Ann Roripaugh complains that "My feet, my mind, become numb / from standing in line all day - / lines to eat, shower, shit / in the dirty outdoor benjos," demonstrating her frustration at the over crowdedness and dirty conditions. These examples illustrate how much can be learned about the Japanese and Japanese Americans' experiences in the relocation camps just through simple and short poetry.

However, as stated earlier, the poems written by the internees do more than show the conditions that they had to deal with. More powerful are the emotional confessions and testimonials found in the poems. Exposed to experiences too horrific for readers to imagine, these internees felt that the ancient form of poetry served as the ideal way to express the extreme emotions they were experiencing.

Many of the poems written during this time period reflected hope, the emotion that helped the Japanese aliens and Japanese Americans through these troubled times. At first hope manifested itself in the Japanese and Japanese American's compliancy to the orders of the government and their hesitation to complain. These people had faith in America; it was, after all, the "land of the free." Many decided that they had to do their "patriotic duty" and comply, and they were optimistic about their fate and hoped they would be able to return home soon. "Legends from Camp: The Legend of the Great Escape," written by Inada, demonstrates how "loyal" he and the other internees really were:
The people were passive:
even when a train pauses
in the Great Plains, even
when soldiers were eating,
they didn't escape.

This "passiveness" was not necessarily a product of fear; it was one of obligation and hope.
This hope also manifested itself early on in the form of the inmates trying to make the best of their situation. Different people used different methods to try to feel more "at home." For example, in the haiku titled "At the Volcano Internment Camp," poet Muin Ozaki writes "I feel a familiar voice / and feel comforted, for now." The fact that people of his own kind are here as well eases Ozaki and gives him a reason to stay optimistic. Other internees used their imagination; one character in Little's narrative poem claims that she will "try to think / of peach blossoms / not unripe persimmons / which saw and twist / the mouth," and another declares that she will "build the beautiful… / in this desert place / to make it bloom." Parents told their children "Shikata ga nai," which means "it cannot be helped" in order to try to have them accept their conditions and move on. The Japanese aliens and Japanese Americans were not simply bitter about their situation, and if they were they often held it in. Instead, they had faith that their situation would improve because they had faith in their country, and they vowed to make the best of the situation they were in.

Although this hope began to fade as time went on, it is still evident in some poetry written towards the end of the internment. A poem by Michiko Mizumoto titled "Manzanar" reflects the Japanese aliens and Japanese Americans courage and hope throughout these trying years:

Scoff if you must, but the dawn is approaching,
when these, who have learned and suffered in silent courage;
better, wiser, for the unforgettable interlude of detention,
shall trod on free sod again,
side by side peacefully with those who sneered at the
dust Storms.
Sweat days.
Yellow people,
exiles.

These people who had "suffered in silent courage," expected their eventual return to society, and they would try to not be angry or resentful, but instead live "side by side peacefully," with the rest of the country. Time, a component that caused many to lose hope, actually served to alleviate others. In another section of Shinkai's untitled poem, he writes "A year is gone. A quickening in the air; / …Another Spring - perhaps new hope, new life again." Shinkai refers to spring, the universal symbol for renewal and new life, to represent his hope that they will soon return home. A haiku by Neiji Ozawa reads "From this window of despair / May Sky / There is always tomorrow." Like Shinkai, he uses the symbol of spring to show that, even in the face of discouragement, the Japanese and Japanese Americans in the internment camps held on to hope.

However, it cannot be said that all the internees were hopeful and compliant. Although perhaps many of them did not show their anger and bitterness through actions such as violence and resistance, several poets express their frustration and feelings of betrayal. Most of this anger came from the realization of the irony that they had come to the "land of the free," only to be detained. In the sarcastic haiku "Indeed - festivals of," Kyotaro Komuro writes "Indeed - festivals of / obon and Independence Day / are here for us too." Komuro obviously recognizes and is embittered by the irony behind celebrating Independence Day in a concentration camp. The fact that others like them lived freely further aggravated their anger; a character created by Little angrily notes that "That German family / down the hill, / no one spits at them / or taunts them traitors / or treats them differently." Many poets wondered why they, many citizens of the United States, and not the Italians and Germans, had been detained, and expressed this resentment in their poems. A common theme among these poems is that even animals weren't trapped up like them; a haiku by Hakuro Wako states that "even the croaking of frogs / comes from outside the barbed wire fence…" and Sojin Takei writes that "There is no fence / high up in the sky / that evening crows / fly up and disappear / into an endless horizon." Japanese American poets pondered why, as human beings with human rights, they were more detained than most animals?

This resentment and anger in many of the poems stemmed not only from just the violation of civil liberties, but from just the mental effects of being trapped and imprisoned. Another haiku by Gomyo expresses what the imprisonment does to him; he writes "Feeling of oppression / withering weeds / are dense." A famous anonymous poem that circulated around the Poston Relocation Camp expresses the popular rage that boiled under the internees' cool exterior:

They've sunk the posts deep into the ground
They've strung out wires all the way around.
With machine gun nests just over there,
And sentries and soldiers everywhere.
We're trapped like rats in a wired cage,
To fret and fume with impotent rage;
Yonder whispers the lure of the night,
But that DAMNED FENCE assails our sight.
We seek the softness of the midnight air,
But that DAMNED FENCE in the floodlight glare
Awakens unrest in our nocturnal quest,
And mockingly laughs with vicious jest.
With nowhere to go and nothing to do,
We feed terrible, lonesome, and blue:
That DAMNED FENCE is driving us crazy,
Destroying our youth and making us lazy.
Imprisoned in here for a long, long time,
We know we're punished--though we've committed no crime,
Our thoughts are gloomy and enthusiasm damp,
To be locked up in a concentration camp.
Loyalty we know, and patriotism we feel,
To sacrifice our utmost was our ideal,
To fight for our country, and die, perhaps;
But we're here because we happen to be Japs.
We all love life, and our country best,
Our misfortune to be here in the west,
To keep us penned behind that DAMNED FENCE,
Is someone's notion of NATIONAL DEFENCE!

This poem perfectly epitomizes the inmates' feelings of anger and frustration. To them, the fence surrounding the camps symbolized their oppression by the United States government and left them feeling trapped and defied.
In a section of his narrative poem, Little writes "Daffodils stab the heart / wildly joyous - / moon-yellow dream!" As noted earlier, flowers and spring imagery often symbolized hope in poetry from the internment camps. However, as Little demonstrates here, they could also produce heartache and sadness from the inmates, as the beauty of a daffodil would remind them of better times. Grief, sorrow, and unhappiness, the overwhelming emotions displayed in the poetry, must have been the most prominent feelings among the Japanese aliens and Japanese Americans trapped in the relocation camps.

In a haiku Gomyo writes "Vision of loneliness / I endure / in the green of spring." Part of the sadness felt by the internees stemmed from the loneliness that Goymo describes. The relocation process often resulted in separation of families, especially at the beginning when men were detained as being "dangerous" and towards the end of the internment when many Issei were moved to Tule Lake for being "disloyal." In a tanka, Takei expresses his grief: "My wife and children / Live in a far away land / How lonely are the nights / Behind those barbed wire fences." Thousands of inmates lived the experience of missing loved ones, possibly one of the worst sorrows a person can endure. Besides missing loved ones, sometimes internees just missed someone to talk to, a familiar face. For example, poet Sei Sagara, interned at Tule Lake Segregation Center, composed a haiku that read "Arranging playing cards on bed / room too large / for one occupant." Finally, this loneliness was often the result of Japanese American men that were recruited to fight in the war. Mothers, sisters, girlfriends and wives lamented over their loved ones overseas. Poet Shizuku Uyemaru dedicated the following poem to her brother: "No letters / thoughts wandering / to distant Pacific war zone," and Little echoes the popular sentiment with a verse from the viewpoint of a girl waiting for her boyfriend:

Sam, I try to see your face
in clouds, the features
no longer clear.

Will I leave it here
with all the rest
I leave?

I twist your ring
that's never left
my finger. The world
turns, turns

but does not swing
you back.

In a haiku, Yotenchi Agari writes "Graves, another, and still another / on the ground…" The sadness expressed in this poetry often stemmed from death of a loved one. Because of conditions in the camp, many died due to illness and disease; there were also the usual deaths from old age; and of course, Japanese American soldiers were killed the war. In just a few short words, Ozawa expresses his anguish while watching a friend die, writing "Ailing - / alongside dying man / we both look at marigold." When Little describes the feelings in the camp when news of a new soldier's death arrives, he writes that it "stabs" the heart "too often," and that all they can do is picture "a boy's burnished bones / …cold / in another land…" In a tanka poem, Keiho Soga laments over a tragedy that reflects the despair and hopelessness many prisoners must have felt. Soga describes how "a fellow prisoner / takes his life with poison," and that "streaks of black blood / stain the camp road." The fact that suicide existed offers an example of the despair; however, Soga's imagery of the "streaks of black blood" further emphasize the grim and miserable life these prisoners faced.

However, most of the despair, the aguish, and the heartbreak expressed by these poets come from one emotion: their longing for home. Whether from California, Washington, or Oregon, the Japanese aliens and Japanese Americans missed their lands, their neighborhoods, and their homes. Ozawa reminds us that camp was nothing like home; after all, there were "No ripples…on desert lake," like the great Pacific Ocean that they missed. An anonymous poet describes how "memories" and "deep longing" for home can "make eyes full." In "Legends of Camp: The Legend of Home," Inada reflects the nostalgia the prisoners felt for their old lives:

Home, too, was out there.
it had names like
Marysville, Placerville,
Watsonville, and Lodi - …

And they were all full of trees,
and grass, with fruit
for the picking, dogs
to chase, cats to catch

on the streets and roads
where Joey and Judy lived.

Imagine that!
The blue tricycle
left in the weeds somewhere!

And when you came to a fence,
you went around it!

And one of those homes not only had a tunnel
but an overpass
that, when you went over,

revealed everything
going on forever up to
a gleaming bridge
leading into neon lights
and ice cream leaning
double-decker

Imagine that!

This powerful, heart-wrenching piece by Inada allows the readers to reflect on what it would be like to not be able to see the things that he or she saw everyday. In the haiku "Separated year ago today," Kikuha Okamoto merely states that "Chinese quince / must be blooming in my garden," but with this simple musing she expresses a longing not easily put into words.

By 1943 the U.S. government had released large portions of Japanese aliens and Japanese Americans and by the end of 1945, of all the relocation camps, only Tule Lake Detention Center still had prisoners. Surprisingly, the prisoners had mixed feelings about returning home. Some were jubilant about seeing their homeland again; Takei wrote "Koko Head nears / And now Diamond Head! / How bright the sea is / Shining in the morning sunlight!" expressing his joy in seeing California again. However, the thought of going back home scared many; one of Little's characters ponders "How will they treat us / in that forest / of free." The fact that the poets showed concern about going home further emphasizes the emotional tragedy these people experienced; the experience had left them scarred as they feared the country that they had once considered the "land of the free."

Endless research has been done on the U.S. Relocation Camps during World War II, but curiosity demands more than an investigation of the facts concerning the internment. Although personal reflections, interviews, and diaries all give important insights into the feelings and emotions of the prisoners, poetry offers something important as well. Not always able to express everything in prose and sentences, poetry gave many an opportunity to accurately communicate their thoughts on paper, and though it was not their intention, these poems add another dimension to studies on the subject. Written by men and women, Issei and Nisei alike, the collections of poetry from the internment camp tend to be unbiased and universal to the most of the internees. Furthermore, it must be noted that besides being proof of the hope, the anger, and the despair felt by the prisoners, the poetry written by the Japanese aliens and Japanese Americans during their internment must also be taken simply as examples of beautiful works of art to be read and appreciated as they are.

Endnotes

Lawson Fusao Inada. "Concentration Constellation." Legends from Camp. Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 1993, pp27.
Jori and Kay Nakano. Foreword. Poets Behind Barbed Wire. By Taisanboku Mori et al. Honolulu: Bamboo Ridge Press, 1983, ppvii.
Nakano, ppvii.
Inada, pp1.
Nakano, ppviii.
Makoto Ueda. Foreword. May Sky: There is always Tomorrow. By Violet Kazue de Cristoforo. Los Angeles: Sun Moon Press, 1997, pp9.
Violet Kazue de Cristoforo. May Sky: There is always Tomorrow. Los Angeles: Sun Moon Press, 1997, pp29.
Reiko Gyomo. "The Flower is Yellow," de Cristoforo, 33.
Kazue Matsuda. "Chrysanthemum also in bloom." de Cristoforo, 35.
Geraldine C. Little. Hakugai: Poems from a Concentration Camp. Austin: Curbstone Publishing Company, 1983, pp12.
Inada. "Legends from Camp: Prologue.," pp8.
Little, pp24.
Little, pp23.
Yotenchi Agari. "Rhododendron Blooms." de Cristoforo, pp109.
James Shinkai, "Untitled Poem." Whispered Silences: Japanese Americans and World War II. By Gary Y. Okihiro. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996, pp123-124.
Yukari. "Someone named it Topaz." By Yoskiko Uchida. Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese American Family. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1982, pp121.
Little, pp45.
Little, pp45.
Little, pp50.
Lee Ann Roripaugh. "Kimiko Ozawa." Heart Mountain. New York: Hudson Books, 1999, pp27.
Inada. "Legends from Camp: The Legend of the Great Escape," pp12-13.
Muin Ozaki. "At the Volcano Internment Camp." Muri et al., pp16.
Little, pp72.
Little, pp61.
Roripaugh, pp27.
Michiko Mizumoto. "Manzanar." Okihiro, pp223.
Shinkai, pp124.
Neiji Ozawa. "From the window of despair." de Cristoforo, pp30.
Kyotoro Komoru. "Indeed - festivals of." de Cristoforo, pp107.
Little, pp17.
Hakuro Wako, "Even the croaking of frogs." de Cristoforo, pp273.
Sojin Takei. "Lordsburg Internment Camp" Muri et al., pp41.
Gomyo. "Feeling of Oppression," pp197.
"That Damned Fence." Okihiro, pp202.
Little, 106.
Gomyo. "Vision of Loneliness," pp193.
Takei. "My wife and children," pp44.
Sei Sagara. "Arranging playing cards on bed." de Cristoforo, pp259.
Shizuku Uyemaru. "To Brother Dick, US Soldier." de Cristoforo, pp231.
Little, pp117.
Agari. "Graves, another, and still another," pp113.
Ozawa. "Ailing," pp223.
Little, pp106.
Keiho Soga. "A fellow prisoner." Muri et al., pp57.
Ozawa. "War forced us from California," pp217.
"Beyond those steel-blue western hills." Okihiro, pp196.
Inada. "Legends from Camp: The Legend of Home," pp22.
Kikuha Okamoto. "Separated year ago today." De Cristoforo, pp145.
Takei. "Koko Head nears," pp73.
Little, pp113.

Bibliography

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