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8 Segregation Centers and Other Camps T he War Relocation Authority (wra) not only played a central role in incarcerating most of the Nikkei on the mainland but was responsible for imprisoning other types of inmates in separate centers as well. This chapter continues the discussion started in the previous chapter and begins with the government’s attempt to identify and segregate “loyal” from “disloyal” Japanese Americans. After ordering the inmates to respond to a flawed questionnaire, the U.S. Army and the wra selected those who had allegedly revealed themselves to be of suspect loyalty or who were seen as definitely disloyal and transferred them to the wra segregation camp. In its attempt to rid itself of unwanted American citizens, the government then established a process by which it could turn these people into noncitizens and thereby subject them to deportation proceedings. The government also instituted a plan to draft eligible Nisei into the armed services; those men who protested the draft were charged and often jailed for violating Selective Service statutes. In addition, the wra’s fingers were quite nimble in reaching other groups of inmates: those in sanatoriums and penitentiaries as well as certain European refugees. The U.S. Department of State also created its own temporary internment hotels in which to hold Axis diplomatic persons during the first part of the war. Although these camps held different types of inmates, the incarcerators’ paramount concern was the need to control their prisoners. Regardless of wra public relations statements to the effect that the agency’s actions arose from a benign and fair attitude toward the inmate population, this larger purpose becomes evident. the loyalty questionnaire In 1943, the wra designated the Tule Lake Relocation Camp, in California, as a segregation center for housing inmates of questionable loyalty to the United States and those requesting repatriation or expatriation to Japan. Although the complete story of this segregation center is beyond the scope of this presentation, a brief discussion is in order.1 The story of the wra segregation centers begins in 1943, after the army expressed its need for volunteers and the wra wished to determine the loyalty of Japanese Americans. The army’s desire was clear. It needed Japanese-language interpreters and translators in the Pacific to assist in gathering military intelligence from Japanese prisoners of war and their documents. As pointed out earlier, the inmates’ differences of opinion on whether to volunteer for the military while in a wra camp played a role in the Manzanar“riots”of December 1942. The army also wanted volunteers for a segregated all-Nisei military unit to join the many Nisei volunteers from the territory of Hawaii. As for the wra, the agency sought to differentiate its inmates for two reasons. Farmers and industrialists were suffering from a wartime labor shortage. Large numbers of potential workers were available in the camps, and the inmates, on the whole, welcomed the opportunity to leave, even temporarily, to tend and harvest sugar beets or fruit crops. Another Nisei group found that its labor was needed in distant cities, necessitating a more permanent departure from the camps. In places such as Chicago, Cleveland, and other midwestern and East Coast cities, certain Nisei worked from 1943 onward as, for example, domestics, secretaries, and lathe operators. Still other Nisei were accepted into colleges and universities outside the military exclusion areas. The wra and the army developed a release process for these inmates, so that the agencies could assure themselves and the public that those who were leaving the camps were not saboteurs or espionage agents likely to harm the U.S. war effort. Between February and March 1943, the army and the wra produced their own questionnaires for all wra inmates seventeen years of age and older. The army’s version, DSS Form 304A, was for Nisei males. It bore a Selective Service seal at the top and was titled “Statement of United States Citizens of Japanese Ancestry.” The wra’s questionnaire, Form wra-126, was titled “War Relocation Authority Application for Leave Clearance” and was to be completed by Nisei females and Issei of both sexes. The two questionnaires were very similar in content; most questions were innocuous , such as requests for name, prior addresses, education, and occupations. However, two questions on both forms, Numbers 27 and 28, became the center of a storm of controversy. Question 27 on the wra form asked: “If the opportunity presents itself and you are found quali...

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