Japanese Internment Quotes

“A memory is too powerful a weapon.”
― Kiku Hughes, Displacement

“One day this war will end. And when it does, Tule Lake will be just a memory.”
― Teresa R. Funke, The No-No Boys

“There was a man of the cloth—Reverend Shibata of the First Baptist Church—who left urging everyone to forgive and forget. There was a man in a shiny brown suit—fry cook Kanda of Yabu Noodle—who left urging Reverend Shibata to give it a rest.”
― Julie Otsuka, The Buddha in the Attic

“It just takes time,
it just takes patience, he says,
just like it does with people. Don't give up
until you have done everything to change
yourself. Then, he says as he sits
on the doorstep, only then you can start
blaming others.”
― Mariko Nagai, Dust of Eden

“Or was their guilt written plainly, and for all the world to see, across their face? Was it their face, in fact, for which they were guilty?”
― Julie Otsuka, The Buddha in the Attic

“I thought maybe this was the way we could show love for our country, and we should not make too much fuss or noise, we should abide by what they asked of us. I'm a totally different person now than I was back then. I was naiive about so many things.”
― Yuri Kochiyama

“Several died the day the bomb was dropped. Some lived six months after the explosion but died anyway. They were all lost. It was so long ago, young man. To you it is a history story. To me it is my life.”
― Joseph G. Peterson, Wanted: Elevator Man

“We have no one to go to for help. Not even a church. Anything goes, now that our President Roosevelt signed the order to get rid of us. How can he do this to his own citizens? No lawyer has the courage to defend us. Caucasian friends stay away for fear of being labeled "Jap lovers." There's not a more lonely feeling than to be banished by my own country. There's no place to go.”
― Kiyo Sato, Kiyo's Story: A Japanese-American Family's Quest for the American Dream

“As the brilliant sunset cools to gray, I vow my anger over blatant discrimination will not cool. As these rocks stay steady through season changes and time, so I will remain steady. I will not be silent. I will not let this go.”
― Stephanie Morrill, Within These Lines

“But when a community comes together to demand more, when we do not let trauma stay obscured but bring it up to the surface and remember it together, we can make sure it is not repeated.”
― Kiku Hughes, Displacement

“When Nick leaves our room, he leaves behind a dark thunder cloud. He has carried the shadow with him for so long that it has become a part of him and has settled in the shadows of the room.”
― Mariko Nagai, Dust of Eden

“When the Germans surrendered with their arms raised high, holding a white flag, they weren't at all how i imagined them: hard, cruel, tall and monstrous with cigars chomped between their lips talking about how they wanted to shoot babies and old people. Instead they were boys like us, teenagers, tired, scared, dirty, and looking almost relieved that their was over, for now, that they can rest their bone-tired bodies in the POW camps.”
― Mariko Nagai, Dust of Eden

“It happened to us. We refuse to let it happen again.”
― Frank Abe, The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration

“I will be the friend we didn't have when we needed one the most.”
― Frank Abe, The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration

“No, he said to himself as he watched her part the curtains and start into the store. There was a time when I was your son, there was a time that I no longer remember when you used to smile a mother’s smile and tell me stories about gallant and fierce warriors who protected their lords with blades of shining steel, and about the old woman who found the peach in the stream and took it home, and when her husband split it in half, a husky little boy tumbled out to fill their hearts with boundless joy. I was that lad and the peach, and you were the old woman. And we were Japanese with Japanese feelings and Japanese pride, and Japanese thoughts, because it was alright then to be Japanese and feel and think all the things that Japanese do even if we lived in America. Then there came a time when I was only half Japanese, because one is not born in America and raised in America and taught in America, and one does not speak and swear and drink and smoke and play and fight and see and hear in America among Americans in American streets and houses without becoming American and loving it. But I did not love enough – for you were still half my mother, and that was thereby still half Japanese, and when the war came and they told me to fight for America I was not strong enough to fight you, and I was not strong enough to fight the bitterness which made the half me which was you bigger than the half me which was America. And really the whole of me that I could not see or feel - now that I know the truth when it is late - and the of half me which was you is no longer there. I am only half of me, and the half that remains is American by law because the government was wise and strong enough to know why it was that I could not fight for America, and did not strip me of my birthright. But it is not enough to be only half an American and know that it is an empty half. I am not your son. And I am not Japanese. And I am not American.”
― John Okada, No-no Boy

“Because of the injustices and contradictions nothing made much sense, making things comical in spite of the misery. Crazy things were constantly happening in the camp, with close to ten thousand people confined in an area a mile square.”
― Miné Okubo, Citizen 13660

“In the women’s the arrangement was the same, except that a half-partition separated the toilets conversationally in pairs.”
― Miné Okubo, Citizen 13660

“A group of landscape architects decided to build a lake to beautify the camp. Trees and shrubs were dug up from various places and transplanted in the center field. The size and location of a tree was no hindrance to transplanting it if the tree fitted into the plan. The workmen struggled day after day with limited equipment. For a long time we were kept in wonderment by this activity. Everyone knew the camp was not a permanent one.
On August 2, North Lake was formally opened. It had been transformed from a mere wet spot in the Tanforan scenery into a miniature aquatic park, complete with bridge, promenade, and islands. The lake was a great joy to the residents and presented new material for the artists. In the morning sunlight and at sunset it added great beauty to the bleak barracks.”
― Miné Okubo, Citizen 13660

“Here I was, alone, with no family responsibilities, and yet fear had chained me to the camp. I thought, "My God! How do they expect those poor people to leave the one place they can call home.”
― Miné Okubo, Citizen 13660