Dispatch from Military Area No. 1
Sometime between April 28 and noon on May 5, 1942, my grandfather, a dentist with an office in downtown Portland, was approached by a patient who asked him to hold a box of china for safekeeping.
I have inferred the timeline based on the fact that Civilian Exclusion Orders No. 25 and No. 26 were posted on telephone poles, bulletin boards, and shop windows on April 28. These orders announced that all persons with at least 1/16 of Japanese ancestry, which included my grandfather’s patient, would be “excluded” from Multnomah County at noon on May 5. Each order specified a different region of the county and a different Civil Control Station to which a responsible member of each family would report for further instructions.
Multnomah County was located within Military Area No. 1, which encompassed the western half (approximately 200 miles from shore) of Washington, Oregon, and California, and the southern half of Arizona. This region was divided into 99 exclusion areas, which were defined based on information illegally provided by the Census Bureau. The Bureau released names and addresses of Japanese American populations by state, county, and city to the Western Defense Command. The exclusion orders were issued sequentially, with areas deemed sensitive militarily given the highest priority. The first order targeted Bainbridge Island in Washington on March 24, 1942; the last order for Military Area No. 1, number 99, was issued on May 30, 1942 for Yolo County in California.
After the civilian exclusion orders were posted, my grandfather’s patient had just six days to sell, store, and/or give away everything he owned, including any businesses, property, furniture, belongings, pets, and/or livestock. People were allowed to take only those things that could be carried and everyone had to bring their own:
Bedding and linens (no mattresses)
Toilet articles
Extra clothing
Sufficient supply of knives, forks, spoons, plates, bowls, and cups
Essential personal effects
On May 5, 1942, my grandfather’s patient would have reported to the Portland Assembly Center, one of sixteen temporary prison camps that were hastily constructed, surrounded by barbed wire, dominated by sentry watchtowers, and overseen by military guards armed with machine guns. At its peak, the Portland Assembly Center housed 3,676 men, women, and children under one roof in a livestock pavilion on the grounds of the Pacific International Livestock Exposition. Small 10’x15’ family rooms were constructed out of thin plywood, the dirt floor (only recently the repository for so much manure) was covered with planks, the short walls were just 8’ high in the otherwise cavernous pavilion, and the door was no more than a flimsy canvas curtain. Families were essentially living in cubicles, which did nothing to shut out the round-the-clock onslaught of sounds and smells.
The overcrowding precipitated a cascade of problems: lack of privacy, poor sanitation, and illness among them. The lack of privacy was dehumanizing by design and in effect, making people feel like criminals and making it easier for women to be harassed or assaulted. The threats to self-image and to safety were most keenly felt in the showers and the latrines, which had no stalls, curtains, or doors with a latch. The showers were shared by everyone, young and old, male and female. Older women often tried to shower at odd times, only to find that others had the same idea. Unlike most “assembly centers,” the Portland location at least had flush toilets, but there weren’t enough of them. At every turn, the prison camp offered stark and persistent reminders that they did not have bodily autonomy or physical safety.
All of the prison camps were a reverse Brigadoon: whole cities that sprouted almost overnight without the fairytale element. Plagued by grossly inadequate sewage systems, ventilation, refrigeration, and sanitation, the prison camps were also inadequately staffed to maintain complex infrastructure required to keep thousands of people fed, housed, and alive. The lack of refrigeration and trained cooks led to outbreaks of food poisoning and dysentery, which increased pressure on the already inadequate toilet facilities and caused a fly infestation. Nonexistent ventilation during the hot summer months led to indoor temperatures as high as 107 degrees in July, an even more overwhelming stench emanating from the stockyards, and more fly infestations.
For four months, this prison camp operated only 8 miles from the Civil Control Station in downtown Portland to which my grandfather’s patient had to initially report for instructions. Because of its proximity, it became a tourist attraction for gawkers who stood on the other side of the barbed wire fence, pointing out people they used to know or hurling insults. During those summer months of 1942, the imprisoned parents and children could hear the sounds of frenetic carnival music and excited shouts emanating from the amusement park at Jantzen Beach Center less than a mile away.
None of these harsh realities conform to the images that most readily spring to mind when I think of this chapter in history. I’d prefer to imagine my grandfather’s patient in a suit (which he no doubt wore at times), smiling with friends (which he likely did), enjoying a meal in the mess hall (which he may or may not have done), playing baseball (America’s number one pastime), writing for the newspaper (The Evacuazette), staffing the library (with more than 1,750 books donated by the Portland library), or getting a haircut at the barber’s (for just a dime).
These mental images conform to those that were staged by the government and distributed to the media as part of a coordinated propaganda campaign. The fact that the people who lived in these prison camps managed to create a semblance of community is a testament to their humanity and resilience, but does nothing to erase the fact that they were forcibly removed from their homes and relocated to barely habitable livestock buildings under armed guard.
On September 7, the first group of people were transferred from the Portland Assembly Center to the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Jerome, Idaho. By September 11, everyone was gone. I don’t know when my grandfather’s patient actually left Oregon for Idaho. I don’t know if he joined the 442nd infantry regiment, which was composed almost entirely of Japanese Americans, was the most decorated squadron in U.S. military history, and suffered heavy casualties. I don’t know if he ever returned to Oregon. I don’t know what happened to his china. And I don’t know his name. This story has a beginning, but its ending is unknown.
At this particular time in history, with mass deportations threatened and underway, I find myself thinking about him and the other 126,000 Japanese Americans whose basic human rights were trampled and whose Constitutional rights were violated. I have studied this chapter in history before, but I knew it would have more stories and understanding to tell if I looked closely enough and I kept looking.
One thing I have learned in the interim is the power of words to shape a narrative, how certain words are used to dehumanize and other words recognize shared humanity. This power is most evident within the exclusion order itself, which was directed at all “persons of Japanese ancestry, alien and non-alien.” Rather than call them what they were (i.e., citizens), the order performs some serious verbal gymnastics and deploys a term that still manages to emphasize otherness. I have also avoided using words like prisoner, detainee, or evacuee unless they were included in a direct quotation. These labels are all incorrect and imposed. In every instance, the use of the word “people” works really well. The people at Portland Assembly Center were being held against their will, but to call them prisoners implies that they were guilty, which they were not. They had not been accused, tried, or found guilty of any crimes. In fact, no Japanese American, citizen or not, was ever charged with spying between 1942 and 1944.
I have also not used the term “internment camps” which actually refers to the detention of “enemy aliens” in times of war. Two-thirds of Japanese Americans who were imprisoned during WWII were American citizens. They were not enemies or aliens, but they were incarcerated by their own government on the basis of race and ethnicity.
Because I do not have a military background, I was unaware of the “legal” definition of internment. What I have noticed is an unspoken lay definition that implies that “internment” is a “nicer” form of imprisonment or detention. The smiling faces in the pictures tell one story, but a closer look reveals another. There is no such a thing as a good prison camp.
Because I cannot share the testimony of my grandfather’s patient, I will give the last word to Emi Somekawa, a young wife, mother, and nurse who was also held at the Portland Assembly Center: “One day we were free citizens, residents of communities, law abiding, protective of our families, and proud. The next day we were inmates of cramped, crowded American-style concentration camps, under armed guards, fed in mess hall lines, deprived of privacy and dignity, and shorn of our rights.”
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OTHER SOURCES (All sources retrieved on March 7, 2025)
Civilian Exclusion Orders: https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Civilian_exclusion_orders/
Japanese American Wartime Incarceration in Oregon: https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/japanese_internment/
Portland Temporary Detention Center (Portland Assembly Center): https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/portland-temporary-detention-center-portland-assembly-center/
Portland (detention facility): https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Portland_(detention_facility)/
Second Stage of Evacuation (aka Military Area No. 2): https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/manz/hrs3j.htm