Two months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 creating the legal mechanism to incarcerate West Coast Japanese Americans en masse without regard for due process or citizenship rights. Despite his birthright citizenship, James Numata was one of approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans held behind barbed wire in remote concentration camps during the war. (Link to: Image 2.1) The War Relocation Authority (the civilian agency constituted to run the camps) created case files for each incarcerated adult, which are now archived in the Washington DC branch of the National Archives. Numata’s case file reveals a young man, American by birth and educated in Japan, who challenged the unjust terms of his imprisonment and voiced his dissatisfaction to camp authorities.
Photographs of Numata during his time at Heart Mountain are few and far between. Initially, cameras were rarely in the hands of Japanese Americans in concentration camps because the military had classified cameras as contraband—in the same category as guns, bombs, and ammunition—and Japanese Americans were forbidden from bringing cameras into camp. (LINK TO: Image 2.2) But when the War Relocation Authority took over the administration of the incarceration from the military, there was a shift in ideology and a change in the way that photography was put to use. The WRA hired photographers, including well known documentarians like Dorothea Lange in an effort to portray the incarceration process as orderly and humane. While Lange, herself, was highly critical of the incarceration and produced photographs embedded with critique, other WRA photographers created an image of Japanese Americans as complicit and the government as benign.
As part of this more benevolent approach, WRA officials argued successfully that cameras should be returned to Nisei living in camps outside of the Western Defense Command. Because most Japanese Americans were in camps located within the Western Defense Command, they had limited access to photography while they were incarcerated. Unlike their counterparts in West Coast camps, Nisei in Heart Mountain were eventually allowed to request that their cameras be returned to them. The Heart Mountain Sentinel stated on page eight of its April 3, 1943 issue that “Applications for Cameras [were being] Accepted.” (LINK TO: Image 2.3) This meant that if James Numata had placed a camera in storage, he would have been able to file a request to have it sent to him.
A couple of pages in one of Numata’s personal photo albums archived in the JASC provide a glimpse into camp life. (LINK TO: Images 2.4, 2.5, and 2.6) One image shows Numata posing formally with other members of the Buddhist Sunday School faculty, dated February 1945. And there are some more informal portraits of an unidentified couple accompanied by their young daughter smiling with a row of barracks and the iconic flat top of Heart Mountain framed behind them. The informally posed portraits included in Numata’s album suggest that he may have gained access, if limited, to a camera.
Other than the photograph depicting Numata’s involvement with the Buddhist Church, there is not much in Numata’s own archival collection that sheds light on his time imprisoned. But Numata’s “evacuee case file” in the National Archives reveals his deep frustration as he tried to negotiate a pathway out of Heart Mountain, which was stymied by a series of failed leave clearance hearings. (LINK TO: Images 2.7, and 2.8)
Beginning in early February of 1943, the WRA and the military began a joint effort, with different motives, to ascertain loyalty. The WRA wanted to set up a process to move Japanese Americans permanently out of camp, and the military had decided to create an all-Nisei, volunteer battalion. The WRA was under pressure by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (also known as the Dies committee), which placed the WRA under investigation, not for their mistreatment of their wards, but for their alleged permissiveness. Complaints included the furnishing of whiskey and butter to the incarcerated and the release of those whose loyalty had not been adequately tested. A California Senator introduced a resolution, adopted in July 1943, demanding that the President force the WRA to ascertain loyalty and segregate disloyal Japanese Americans, and that the WRA account for its resettlement plans. A joint statement by the War Department and the WRA addressed the requirements of Senate Resolution 166, informing lawmakers that the WRA’s job was to “help the loyal American citizens and the law-abiding aliens in resettling outside the relocation centers….and establish residence in a normal American community,” reassuring the lawmakers that before their release “the evacuee’s background and record of behavior are carefully checked.” In fact, the resolution was largely moot, as the WRA and War Department had already started a segregation process, which became known as “registration,” designed to parse loyalty.
In cooperation with the military, the WRA’s mechanism for ascertaining loyalty was a lengthy form called the “Application for Leave Clearance,” given to everyone 17 and older. Two questions in particular, numbers 27 and 28, were thought to reveal national allegiance. (LINK TO: Image 2.9) They asked if the respondent would serve in the US armed forces and would forswear allegiance to the Japanese emperor, placing Japanese Americans in an abominable bind. US immigration law forbade Issei (first-generation Japanese Americans) from becoming naturalized US citizens. So to forswear allegiance to Japan left them stateless. For Nisei, the majority of whom had neither been to Japan nor spoke Japanese, forswearing allegiance seemed like forcing an admittal of a prior allegiance that had never existed. For some, promising to serve in the US armed forces, when their civil rights had been stripped, seemed unjust and possibly coercive. The thousands who answered “no” were branded disloyal and many were forced to move from their current camps to Tule Lake in Northern California, which the WRA designated to house “disloyal” Japanese Americans, segregated from their “loyal” counterparts.
Numata’s “Evacuee Case File” reveals that he initially used the Leave Clearance Questionnaire to protest the suspension of his rights. Dated March 3, 1943, Numata’s “Application for Leave Clearance” is replete with negation. Question seven asked about desired employment to which Numata penciled in a large “No.” His compulsion to answer in the negative even overrides the format of the form itself. Instead of placing a check above either “yes” or “no,” Numata wrote out a second large “No” when asked if he was willing to be employed anywhere in the US. Under hobbies and foreign investments he responded “None.” He is more forthcoming about his proficiency in the Japanese language and in answering what magazines he reads, offering up titles including Popular Science and the Rafu Shimpo. The last three questions cut to the chase. Numata affirms that his birth had been registered for the purpose of making a claim to Japanese citizenship and that he had neither canceled that registration nor filed for repatriation. The final two questions, 27 and 28, conclude the application with two more resounding “Nos.” Numata answered “no” to both of the key questions concerning willingness to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty and to forswear allegiance to the Japanese emperor.
But, as his case file reveals, it was not his first set of “nos” to those questions. Just over a week before he filled out the full Application for Leave Clearance, Numata had signed a statement confirming his “desire to be expatriated.” At the top of this document questions 27 and 28 are typed out and presented in opposite order, and Numata answers in pencil “no” to both. Stapled to this page underneath the responses, dated February 23, 1943, is the following signed statement from Numata: “It is not my desire to register with the War Relocation Authority in accordance with instructions for compulsory registration of all residents in Relocation centers as it is my desire to be expatriated.” Numata was not alone in rejecting the terms of the registration process, others refused to respond at all and far fewer volunteered for the draft than the military expected. According to historian Eric Muller, “by any measure, the registration program was a disaster.”
For Numata, there is a curious discrepancy regarding desired citizenship between the signed statement and the full application, which might be explained by his attention to semantics. Numata wishes for “expatriation,” the process that would apply to a citizen of the United States who assumes citizenship in another country. According to Merriam-Webster expatriation means “removal or withdrawal from one’s native land.” But question 26 of the Application for Leave Clearance uses the term “repatriation” which means “to restore or return to the country of origin, allegiance, or citizenship.” This language assumes that only Issei, first generation Japanese Americans who were born in Japan and barred from naturalization by US law, would desire Japanese citizenship. For Numata, a Nisei and a US citizen by birth, he could only be expatriated to Japan, not repatriated. The Heart Mountain project director rejected Numata for leave with “not recommended” hand-written and underlined alongside the note “‘no’ reply to allegiance question.”
By June, Numata had changed his mind and filed an affidavit to amend his previous response and change the “nos” to “yeses.” (LINK to Figure 2.10) Numata explained that he realized that he was perceived as disloyal to the United States after he was asked about leave procedure and had been told that those who answered “no” to question 28 or had signed a repatriation request would not be extended permits for leave. The Leave Clearance Hearing Board in Heart Mountain conducted a further investigation and decided to deny leave clearance to Numata. The transcription of the hearing from September 2, 1943 reveals that while he canceled his request for “repatriation,” Numata also expressed the desire of his wife to return to Japan and his desire to accompany her “As soon as possible.”
Five months later, on February 11, 1944, Numata was given a rehearing along with his wife present to clarify their intentions. At that time, both agreed that their plan was to return to Japan after the war. At the bottom of the hearing transcription, Assistant Project Director M.O. Anderson gave the following assessment of Numata, “He is slight in stature, Japanesey in appearance and manner, and the impression gained is that he has not adjusted to American ways and retains and prefers the Japanese culture.” In addition to the racist tone of the written assessment, a form that summarized the hearing also reveals that camp officials did not see Numata as a full-fledged American citizen because they checked both the U.S. and Japan boxes for citizenship. A few days later, the Heart Mountain Project Director Guy Robertson again denied Numata’s Leave Clearance in letters both to the head of the WRA and to Numata himself. Additional correspondence in April gave the following justification: “There is reasonable ground to believe that the issuance of leave would interfere with the war program or otherwise endanger the public peace and security.” His wife Shizue, however, was granted Leave Clearance on May 22nd.
In a letter to the Project Director dated September 1, 1944, Numata requested a rehearing again expressing the desire to change his answers, as well as noting a change of heart:
My wife’s brother, Art K. Kajiyama enlisted in the armed forces from the outside in April, 1941 and we both want to remain loyal to him and what he is doing. We do not know exactly how to express ourselves or to explain what has happened but we now know that we sincerely feel less bitter about the evacuation or whatever it was that caused us to feel as we did. We feel that it is not best for people to continue to live in a Center and we would both like to get a new start as soon as possible.
Numata requested another rehearing for his leave clearance, which was held over two sessions on September 8 and 11, 1944. (LINK To Figures 2.11 and 2.12) During this hearing, Claud Gilmore, Assistant Relocation Program Officer, did not pull any punches and accused Numata of changing his answers not because he had discovered a greater sense of patriotism to the United States but because his draft status changed once he turned 26 and “repatriation” to Japan seemed less appealing given the likelihood of their defeat. Numata conceded that those were, in fact, the real reasons for changing his mind, and the hearing concluded.
Two days later, the Leave Clearance Hearing Board decided to grant Numata Leave Clearance citing that his release would not “constitute a threat to the internal security of the United States.” It is unclear what caused this change but Guy Robertson, the Heart Mountain Project Director, disagreed with the other members of the board and wrote to Dillon Myer, the head of the WRA, expressing his concern and requesting that Numata’s leave clearance be denied. (LINK TO: Image 2.13) On October 26, 1944 a teletype message from the WRA headquarters in Washington confirmed that the Director approved Shizuo Numata’s leave clearance. Close to a year later, on September 7, 1945 Numata departed Heart Mountain for Chicago. His wife Shizue departed roughly one month later on October 24, 1945, reportedly for San Francisco. The archival records do not reveal why there was such a lag between leave clearance and their departures and why they left separately for two different locations. [LINK to Figure 2.14] But the split became permanent and James Numata started a new life, alone in Chicago, just two months before the Heart Mountain concentration camp was closed for good.