They Called Us Enemy

Many of the drawings depicting the camp highlight the barbed-wire fences in the foreground. George does not describe feeling confined very often in the story. However, when Takekuma tells the family that he is going to take them on a trip in the Jeep, George’s first reaction is to say, “Outside the fences?!” (92). He understands that, whatever imaginary games he might play to entertain himself inside the fences, he is not free.

When the family arrives at Camp Tule Lake, one of the first things George notes is that there are three layers of barbed wire instead of just one. Later in the book, the end of World War II signals the end of the fences and a return to life outside the camps. The fences assume a different meaning: They protect the people inside them from the uncertainty of what awaits them outside in postwar America.

Executive Order 9906 is the bill that authorized the US government to divide America into military and nonmilitary zones. Its passage allowed soldiers to move Japanese American citizens into the internment camps. This order is the first example of anti-Japanese discrimination in the book that is codified into law. It represents state-mandated bias against those moved to the camps. If anyone took issue with 9906, they were fighting against the law, which was an unwinnable battle.

Camp Rohwer is the first formal internment camp the Takeis experience. Its barbed fences, poor food, inadequate sanitation, lack of privacy, and armed guards symbolize what all the interned Japanese were enduring in different parts of the country. The conditions at Camp Rohwer are not as harsh as some camps—such as Camp Lake Tule—but it is a drastic change from life outside the fence.

The illustration on Page 35 shows the layout of the camp. It is uniform, uninviting, and resembles horse stables more than a neighborhood where people should live.

Eleanor Roosevelt is a symbol of the different ways George and his father experience the aftermath of the camps. When George learns that she is visiting the Adlai Stevenson headquarters, he is excited to meet her. His father, however, feigns an illness and leaves. In the moment it does not occur to George that his father might not want to meet her.

Eleanor Roosevelt’s presence in the memoir is a reminder that symbols have different contexts depending on who imbues the symbol with meaning. Despite Takekuma’s passion for the ideals of American democracy and his hope that America will admit its mistakes, when the moment arrives, he is unable to make himself meet with the woman whose husband imprisoned his family. Eleanor Roosevelt was a notable opponent of social injustice, but she also played a role in the internment camps.

Roosevelt’s house is a framing device for the book. At the start, George is giving a talk at FDR’s house—which doubles as his memorial library and museum—but the significance of this setting is not yet clear. He states near the end of the book that the visit to the house has given him a talking point. He is speaking about democracy in the home of a man who used democracy to take away Japanese Americans’ rights for years. Now that George understands the anguish his father experienced in the camps, he feels conflicting emotions about his visit. While the Roosevelt house symbolizes the power a president can wield, it is also a reminder that this power can be used in error.

On the loyalty questionnaire, Question 27 asks, “Are you willing to serve in the Armed Forces of the United States on combat duty wherever ordered?” (114). Question 28 asks,

Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, to any foreign government, power, or organization? (114).

These questions, and to a larger extent the loyalty questionnaire itself, are perfect symbols of the hypocrisy and absurdity of the internment camps. There is no way for George’s parents to answer “yes” to either question without betraying their own consciences. Answering in the affirmative is tantamount to admitting that the camps are just and necessary, that every Japanese American harbors an innate allegiance to Japan, and that they should still be willing to fight in the US military despite how it has treated them.

Questions 27 and 28 also have larger ramifications. They become a symbol of the divide between the Japanese Americans who want to protest their treatment and those who prefer to maintain a low profile. Those who answer the questions in the negative, like the Takeis, are considered “No-nos” and radicals. Their answers lead the Takeis to Camp Lake Tule, where the hierarchy among the Japanese Americans is fraught with resentment.