Imprisoned Apart: The World War II Correspondence of an Issei Couple

5. Fields under Snow

IF I V E Fields under Snow I There are the mountains The fields and the lake clouded, With afine spring rain. -8aigaku Matsumoto' IWAO AND HANAYE MATSUSHITA were reunited at the Minidoka Relocation Center on the afternoon of January 11, 1944, following his overnight train journey south from Missoula to nearby Twin Falls. Their many prayers were finally answered on that day, and the first moments together must have beenjoyful and tearful. He joined her in her room on Block 2, Barrack 12, where they would spend the next twenty months together until he left for Seatde to help resetde the returning Japanese. Although little within the landscape reminded the couple ofhappier days in Seattle, they were, nevertheless, among friends, and news ofcontinuing Allied advances found all ofthem looking toward the end ofthe war and eventual freedom to return home. Matsushita was one of194 formerJustice Department internees paroled to Minidoka, and one of1,735 to enterWar Relocation Authority custody overall.2 The Idaho camp population was nearly fourteen times greater than the Japanese population at its peak at Fort Missoula. The Montana group had included Issei men from throughout the West Coast. In Idaho, Matsushita reacquainted himself with many friends, former neighbors, fellow churchgoers, colleagues, and myriad others he recognized on 81 sight, both men and women. The rich human environment offered him numerous opportunities to serve the former Seattle Nikkei community. Religious life at Minidoka abounded. Five Protestant denominations had earlier organized themselves into a single Federated Christian Church, staffed by eightJapanese American clergymen and two Caucasian pastors, the Reverends Emory Andrews and Everett Thompson. Both ofthe latter had served Seattle churches and regularly commuted to the camp from nearby Twin Falls, where they had established temporary residency. The Seattle Maryknoll priest Father Leo Tibesar had also followed his Catholic parishioners to Minidoka and for two and a halfyears ministered to their spiritual and physical needs. Buddhists had their own groups and clergy.3 In addition to their work within the Idaho camp, all ofthese organizations would later playa significant role in postwar resettlement of the Japanese population on the West Coast. Matsushita soon found a niche in community spiritual life. Calling upon a prewar role as a lay speaker in his Seattle church, he frequently delivered sermons for Sunday morning services. He also wrote numerous articles for the church bulletin, based in part upon his exchange of theological ideas with the ReverendJoseph Kitagawa, the young Episcopal minister who had assisted Hanaye with her petition to free Iwao. The two extended their Christian fellowship outside the camp boundaries as well. In May 1944 they received a travel pass and interim parole from the WRA to attend a week-long religious conference at Spokane, located outside the exclusion zone. In addition to his religious work, Matsushita took up teaching again. In the fall of 1944, he headed a series ofEnglish skills classes, drawing the same enthusiasm from his new students as he had at Fort Missoula. For his services as a teacher, the WRA paid him a professional salary-$19 per month. He later added U.S. history to his curriculum. LEAVING CAMP Almost from the beginning of its existence, the WRA had plans to reduce the populations of its ten centers.4 First, it released American citizens, Nisei, for agricultural work in the sugar beet fields ofnearby states, giving 82 those willing to engage in such backbreaking work a taste of freedom. An indefinite leave policy followed in July 1942, permitting resettlement outside the evacuated coastal area ifboth a sponsor and an employer could be arranged. Although early efforts were often fraught with bureaucratic red tape and inefficiency, the WRA'S Employment Division eventually set up field offices designed to assist resettlers in the geographic locales most likely to receive them.5 By the end of 1943, bureaucratic streamlining and improved community relations had led to a reduction of seventeen thousand in the ten camps, not counting the several thousand Nisei students who had by then left for inland colleges6 and those now serving in the army. Predictably, Nisei between the ages of eighteen and thirty, being more Americanized than most Issei and thus more likely to find employment, chose to leave first. The elders, many of whom were of advancing age and less able to begin life in a new place, and the younger children remained behind, thus altering the demographics in the centers. However...