Chapter 14 Present Day
PRESENT DAY
JULIA
Grandmother’s challenge to find out more about their family and her doctor’s observation that sometimes “you have to search your past to understand your future,” spurred Julia into action.
But the AncestryDNA test seemed anticlimactic.
No sophisticated scanner, no elaborate medical procedure, and no needles.
Just spit. No eating, drinking, smoking, or chewing gum thirty minutes beforehand.
Gee, could she actually stop smoking for that length of time?
Julia laughed, even though she had never been stupid enough to let a cigarette touch her lips.
“Open the tube, spit until the saliva fills to the black line. Replace the cap. Tighten to release the stabilizing fluid, shake, and mail.” Those were the instructions.
The website said it took four to six weeks for the results, long enough for Julia to start some research on her own, and why she’d made the eight-hour drive from Seattle to Missoula, Montana.
For whatever reason, her parents’ overprotectiveness, or her own denial, she’d never even considered that her family had been part of the U.S.
imprisonment of Japanese during World War II.
She didn’t necessarily agree that DNA could somehow hold our generational emotions.
But if our genetic code held on to familial trauma, there must be plenty in hers from the Japanese internment camps, and she needed to research that possibility.
However it turned out, she hoped the testing would unlock a treasure trove of discovery about her heritage.
Julia had always considered her family upper middle class, edging on the side of upper. Not ultra-wealthy like the Microsoft families, but certainly not poor, and certainly not from a family that survived unthinkable hardships.
Her father’s import business employed two hundred people and owned a large warehouse near the Boeing district.
Julia’s parents valued a modest lifestyle, but she lacked for nothing, including the brand-new Toyota Land Cruiser that she drove.
Her father had bought it after she had received the acceptance letter to medical school.
He paid for all her living expenses, including the hefty tuition at the University of Washington School of Medicine, now costing over fifty-thousand dollars a year.
She took none of it for granted; that’s why this dissatisfaction with her career choice weighed so heavily on her.
With good tunes and fresh air, Julia believed the trip to Montana would do her good.
She loved Missoula. During college, she went to a couple of concerts with friends at the Kettlehouse concert venue, which nestled beautifully along the Blackfoot River.
She also had passed through the university town a few times with her parents on their way to Glacier National Park.
Julia glanced at the clock on the dashboard.
She had left early enough to arrive at the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula before it closed at five.
She’d have under an hour to look around, but didn’t know how much time she needed.
The website showed a limited collection, but she could always spend the night if she wanted more time.
Now that her grandmother had cracked open the door to her heritage, a budding curiosity sprouted in her emotions.
Google Earth and the internet showed that the thirty-two-acre historic park, situated against the Bitterroot River, contained an eclectic mix of history; including the forest product industry, the all African American 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps, and of course, the World War II Internment Camp.
The U.S. government had established Fort Missoula in 1877 for protection against the Western Montana Indian tribes.
The website stated that soldiers from the fort fought and died in the Battle of the Big Hole against the Nez Perce.
As Julia pulled up to a long brick structure that housed the museum, which the website stated served as the old fort’s Quartermaster’s Storehouse, it felt like the area dripped with history and racial divides.
She turned off the Land Cruiser’s engine and stepped out.
Not exactly a tourist hotspot. No other cars were parked in the lot, and she wished she’d called to make sure they were open.
The July sun warmed her face as she admired the clear-blue Montana sky and the surrounding mountains that hugged the community.
Julia looked at the building, hesitated, trying to decide if she should just head downtown and find a place to get food and a glass of wine.
For reasons she couldn’t quite explain, opening this path to her past felt strange and a little risky.
Mom and Dad and even Grandmama never told me about any of this. It’s a little scary.
She turned to get back into her SUV when a gray-haired woman appeared on the wooden porch surrounding the building and waved to her.
“I know it doesn’t look like we’re open, dear, but we are,” she yelled.
She looked friendly enough. Julia waved and closed her car door.
The woman stood with her hands on thin hips, covered with a mid-calf skirt that flowed down to a pair of dowdy, worn shoes.
She wore a yellow sweater over a white shirt and peeled off a pair of reading glasses that hung from a silver chain as Julia walked up the stairs.
“I know I look like I helped lay the foundation, but I’ve only been here fifty years.”
Julia blushed at being caught judging the woman’s clothes and age, but when the woman laughed loudly, Julia relaxed.
“Wasn’t sure you were open, to be honest,” Julia said, trying to cover her faux pas.
“You’re coming at a perfect time. All the summer camp kids are gone, and it’s just one of those afternoons where it’s all quiet on the western front.”
Julia chuckled at the reference to the novel about World War I.
“Come on in, dear, and get out of the hot sun. Nice and cool in the museum. Can I get you some water?” The woman held the screen door for Julia and then followed her inside. “You mind signing the guest book?” She pointed to the reception desk, holding the book and a pen.
Julia picked up the pen and wrote, Julia Tanaka-Seattle.
The woman bent down behind the desk and retrieved a bottle of water from a small refrigerator. Then she turned the guest book, read Julia’s name and city out loud. “Tanaka,” she repeated, pursed her lips and nodded. “You’re here to learn about your family.”
The statement dazed her. “How did you know?” Julia asked.
“Your generation is at the age of exploration and about every few months, a young Japanese person shows up wanting to do the same.” She smiled.
“Like I said, I’m older than dirt, but I kind of pride myself on my memory.
I’ve been running the place since it opened in 1974.
I’m Peggy Wilson, by the way.” She stuck out a thin hand.
“I pretty much know all the men’s names that were here.
A little over a thousand of them,” she said with pride.
“Unless my memory fails me, I think we had three or four Tanakas here.” She smiled and nodded.
“Did you meet my family?”
Peggy laughed loudly. “Well, I’m old, but not quite that old. But I know the names and lots of the history.”
Julia shook her hand. “Pleased to meet you,” she slurred, feeling dizzy.
Peggy noticed immediately. “Let’s go sit down, dear.
” She led Julia by the hand to a chair behind the desk.
She sat her down and handed her the bottle of water.
“Here you go.” Peggy sat down in a chair beside her, still holding her hand.
“I’ve been doing this a long time, and it’s always the same…
a bit disorienting, digging into the past. When did you find out about your family’s connection to the camp? ”
“Two days ago.” Julia said, reclaiming her hand. She opened the bottle and drank greedily.
“Well, I’m not surprised,” she said. “Although it always surprises me how families don’t talk about it.”
“My grandmother told me, but her memory is foggy at times. She said that her grandparents and parents stayed here when she was five.”
Peggy looked at the floor and then at Julia. “Yes, a bit foggy, indeed. Fort Missoula housed only men here. Perhaps they had her grandfather, the Issei of the family, incarcerated here. Your great-great-grandfather. What’s his name?”
Julia sighed. “I’m afraid I don’t know that.”
Peggy nodded patiently. “A treasure hunt, then. Tell me what we have to go on.”
“I have his picture!” Julia pulled her phone from her pocket and pulled up the picture of her great-great-grandfather.
Peggy put on her glasses and took the phone, zooming in and out. “Yes, good.”
“But nothing was on the back of the photo, I’m afraid.” Julia said.
“I think we should go over to the Alien Detention Center Building. All the records for the Japanese are kept there. Do you mind driving?”
Julia looked at her phone. “But aren’t you closing soon? I don’t want to keep you. I can come back tomorrow.”
Peggy waved her suggestion away and smiled. “Nothing like the hunt to get the blood pumping in this eighty-two-year-old historian.” She stood and encouraged Julia to follow.
“So, if my grandmother is confused about being here, where do you think they lived?” Julia asked as they walked out of the building and toward her SUV.
“I hope we can find that out,” Peggy said.
“Often the government sent the men here and the rest of the family to a relocation center.” She put air quotes around relocation and then lowered her voice.
“They were really concentration camps,” she whispered.
“We’ve been told not to call them that. I hate what our government did to you all. ”
Julia glanced at her, not sure if she should take offense. But only saw sincerity in Peggy’s eyes.
As they got into Julia’s car, Peggy asked. “How much of this history do you know about?”
Julia gripped the steering wheel as a familiar sense of shame and embarrassment flooded her. “Very little of it, I’m afraid.”
“It’s okay, dear. So many families don’t like talking about it.
” She put her hand on Julia’s forearm. “It marked a challenging time in our history. I’m afraid your ancestors were not necessarily welcomed from the beginning in the early years.
Unfortunately, the Yellow Peril was rooted deep in American’s isolationist ideology and racism.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, when people from the Asian-Pacific region immigrated legally, it created great racial anxiety.
The public directed this animosity mostly toward the Chinese, but other Asian cultures got lumped in.
Of course, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, it unleashed a storm of anti-Japanese hysteria.
The hundred and twenty thousand Japanese who lived in the United States fell under great suspicion.
‘You look like the enemy,’ became one slogan of the era, along with ‘A Jap is a Jap.’” Peggy grimaced.
“The government worried especially about those living in California, Washington and Oregon, and in 1942 President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 that authorized forceful removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast to internment camps.”
Julia turned to Peggy and blinked a tear from her eye. “How did they do that?”
Peggy shook her head. “The FBI and the military basically raided homes, rounded up the people, put them in trains, and shipped them away. Maybe a better question is, how could they do that?”
Julia searched the mountains standing like guardians around Missoula and the peaceful green field with scattered buildings bathed in warm Montana sunshine. Her brain struggled to process it all. “So, they interned my great-great-grandfather here. Where would the rest of the family have gone?”
“Well, dear. Let’s go see if we can find out.”
* * *
The restored barracks, one of many that filled the area in 1942 stood across the field.
During World War II, the Alien Detention Center housed twelve hundred non-military Italian men, a thousand Japanese resident aliens, twenty-three German resident aliens, and one hundred and twenty-three Japanese Latin and South American men.
Peggy allowed Julia to wander through the displays while she searched the archives. The placards recounted the history just as Peggy described—simultaneously fascinating and nauseating.
Most of the Italian men came from a luxury ocean liner that the U.S. had seized in the Panama Canal. The Japanese, like her great-great-grandfather, were held and subjected to loyalty hearings, with barbed-wire, guard towers, and armed soldiers surrounding them all.
The Alien Enemy Hearing Board—comprising of three American civilians, an Immigration and Naturalization Service agent, an FBI agent, a U.S. attorney, a stenographer, and an interpreter (often Korean)—interrogated every first-generation Issei man.
Julia shook her head. How frightening it must have been. Your home, your business, your family…all taken away from you and what the government determined at the hearing either sent you to rejoin your family or to jail.
Julia searched the names on the board of all the men imprisoned at Fort Missoula. Which one is great-great-grandfather?
The rooms, full of photos and placards, were solemnly quiet, so when Peggy came up behind her, Julia jumped. “Okay, found him…Hiroshi Yamamoto from Shizuoka Shi,” she said and waved a manila folder. Peggy invited her to join her on the wooden bench below the poster of names. She opened the file.
Julia recognized that the picture in the file was a duplicate of the one she carried on her phone. Peggy quickly scanned the documents but said a heart sinking, “Hmmm.”
Julia followed her eyes to the picture on the adjacent wall.
The photo showed a group of men standing solemnly in front of an altar-looking bench that held candles and flowers.
Julia didn’t see the coffin until she read the small information panel: “Japanese Funeral at Fort Missoula.” She looked at Peggy, who nodded.
“Yes, that is your great-great-grandfather’s funeral.
I’m sorry. It says here that they buried him in the Missoula Post Cemetery.
They had arranged for him to be reunited with his family in Minidoka.
Obviously, that didn’t happen. Unfortunately, other than that, we have little to go on.
Often the translators didn’t understand Japanese, so many of our files are pretty sparse. ”
It all felt too overwhelming to absorb. “Minidoka?” Julia asked.
Peggy patted her arm. “Minidoka…a War Relocation Center in Idaho. It’s where I believe you can find more answers.”