“When You Look Like the Enemy...”
With Lawson Ichiro Sakai, Army's 442nd Regimental Combat Team
Image description: A 1940s photo of Lawson Ichiro Sakai, a young Japanese American man in his Army uniform. He is looking straight into the camera with a serious expression.
Ep 8. Connecting service and sacrifice of the interred Japanese farmers and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.
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There are lesson plans for this episode!
Think success in farming has nothing to do with sacrifice on the front line?
At the start of World War II, Japanese American farmers controlled 40% of California farm production, dominating crops like tomatoes, celery, and snap beans made newly available nationwide with the success of refrigerated railway cars. 45% of Japanese Americans held agricultural jobs on the west coast as a result.
In this episode, we follow Japanese American veteran Lawson Ichiro Sakai’s Service story, from his family farm in Montebello, California through the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the internment of Japanese immigrants, and the segregated 442nd Regimental Combat Team’s sacrifice as they proved their patriotism in the European theatre.
Misti Boettiger assisted with transcription of this episode. Coby McDonald and Andrew Stelzer engineered interviews with Lawson. Thank you to the Japanese American Veterans Association for connecting us with Lawson for this interview. Learn more at their website, and on Facebook and Instagram
Behind The Episode:
Image description: A sepia-toned photo of Lawson Ichiro Sakai, a Japanese American man in his nineties, wearing a bomber jacket and sunglasses. He smiles as he looks at someone off left out of the frame. Over the photo, black letters on a faded tan square quote him: “We needed to let the government know that we may look like the enemy, but we were true Americans and wanted to fight for this country.”
Extra Audio Clips:
This clip is available with captions on Instagram
This clip is available with captions on Instagram
See photos of Lawson and others from this episode at ServicePodcast.org.
A mother and her sons live through internment and post-war racism in this article in the LA Times.
How do farming and racism and battle fatigue go hand-in-hand? It starts with this Quartz article, The Dangerous Economics of Racial Resentment During World War 2. And then you can read more at NPR and this Twitter feed by crop scientist and Farm to Table podcast host Dr. Sarah Taber. There are more fascinating (and appalling) stats in this post at the Museum of San Francisco.
Read up on the internment of Japanese and Japanese Americans at Archives.gov, A Brief History of Japanese Relocation During WW2 from the National Park Service, and 12 Facts about Japanese Internment in the United States at Mental Floss.
Check out artist Wendy Muruyama's 'The Tag Project' - a recreation with the tags used to identify Japanese during relocation and internment.
For some striking photos of Japanese internment and closed businesses, check out Densho. For photos of interred Japanese, head to this article in The Atlantic.
Not every state issued ordered for internment. Here's a map of Japanese internment zones at Britannica and camps at History.com
Watch video interviews with Issei and Nisei (veterans) at Discover Nikkei to hear more about the various opinions to Mike Masaoka's offering of a "suicide squad". Learn more about Masaoka in this biography at Densho.
Learn more about the Rhineland Campaign for Bruyères and the Lost Battalion at Go For Broke, and in this book chapter at The 442.
Check out the commendations of the "Purple Heart" 442 at Go For Broke
This rare film shows the training of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team of the United States Army. ...
