During World War Two some 120,000 Japanese-Americans were incarcerated in one of ten concentration camps in the western interior of the country. Each held from seven thousand to nineteen thousand people, two thirds of them US citizens. Bill Shishima is a former teacher and a founding member of the Japanese-American National Museum in Los Angeles. Born in 1930, he grew up in California, where his parents ran a grocery store. When he was eleven, his family was given one week’s notice of their impending incarceration at Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming, where they spent the next three years. As Shishima explains, the centre was just like a prisoner of war camp. 

Bill Shishima (Japanese-American accent): About twenty-five people lived in one barrack, which was 20 feet wide [6,1m] and 120 foot long [36,5m]. Initially, we didn’t have any insulation, and we happened to get one of the coldest winters in Wyoming history, minus 28 degrees! And, being from California, we had no winter clothing. We were issued World War One Navy coats. These were all in adult sizes: I was a young kid of eleven years old, so when I wore [it], it looked like the jacket was walking.

CAMP LIFE

Shishima’s family of seven were cramped into a 20 foot [6,1m] by 24 foot [7,3m] room. They initially had to make mattresses out of straw that stank of horse manure. There was little privacy, he recalls. 

Bill Shishima: We only had one light bulb, we had one potbellied stove to keep us warm but no water. So, we had to go to the public laundry room or go to the mess hall to get a drink of water. Then, the latrines, the women in Heart Mountain complained, so they put [up]20 partitions, but still no doors. But, on the men’s side, we didn’t have any partitions, so we had to sit next to strangers and do our personal business. The shower room was about 8 feet [2,4m] by 10 feet [3m], on one wall we had four showerheads and on the other wall, another four, so no privacy. The women didn’t have showers in Heart Mountain, they had bathtubs.

THE US ARMY 

At the camp there were schools and clubs, such as boy and girl scouts. There were organised sports and even proms were held. When some boys got old enough, they received draft notices to go fight for the US Army. Many went, eager to prove their loyalty, but many refused, triggering a mass protest. 

Bill Shishima: Sixty-three members of the Heart Mountain camp got draft notices, they resisted. They said, “Unless you free our family then we will not serve in the United States Army.” But the courts said no. So they got federal penitentiary service [of] two to three years. About three hundred protested from the ten camps.

FOUNDING A MUSEUM

When Shishima’s family was released in 1945, they had to completely rebuild their lives. In 1988, the US government made an official apology accompanied by a $20,000 cheque. Shishima decided to donate the money to help build the Japanese American National Museum that opened to the public in 1992.

Bill Shishima: Are you willing to give up three years of your life for $20,000 dollars? My parent lost his hotel and grocery business and he had to start all over again at fifty years old. He was long gone by 1988. So I put it into this museum, to tell our story, so that this never happens to anyone again.