Writing
The Japanese American Internment
The Japanese came to America for a dream just like everyone else- a chance of receiving new land. In Yakima, Washington state, 150 Japanese lived in Yakima. In the area surrounding the cities of Wapato and Toppenish, Washington state, 650 Japanese lived. There was two types of living for the Japanese- Farming or business. In Yakima, men would put aside time to write senryu poems (a type of Japanese poem). Then, every week, men came to senryu clubs to read and listen to people’s senryu poems. The Japanese families also owed a mortar and pestle for making mochi, a type of rice cake. But, that happy life soon changed forever.
On Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. With this, unknowingly, the Japanese changed the life of Japanese- Americans all over the west side of America. The president Franklin D. Roosevelt signed executive order 9066 which ordered all of the Japanese on the west side of the country to be shipped out to internment camps closer inland. During the time the Japanese had to get ready, families had to sell or burn most of their personal belongings. The Japanese living in Yakima (all 1017 of them) were sent to Heart Mountain, Wyoming state. Once there, the Japanese at Heart Mountain stayed there for three years. After Heart Mountain, only 10% of the 1017 Yakima Japanese returned. Even after that, most of the returning 10% of Yakima’s Japanese population moved to Oregon or California state because they were treated so badly.
