Looking Like the Enemy: Japanese Mexicans, the Mexican State, and US Hegemony, 1897–1945

Chapter Six: El Comité Japonésde Ayuda Mutua: Hacienda Internment Camps and Japanese Resistance, 1942–1945

161 chapter six El Comité Japonés de Ayuda Mutua Hacienda Internment Camps and Japanese Resistance, 1942–1945 There will be no concentration camps. We will make them move into the interior, but we will not imprison them unless they are charged under the Espionage Law. —Mexican General J. Salvador Sánchez, December 31, 1941 In September 2008 the Japanese Association of Mexico published one of its bimonthly bulletins that featured a cover image of the Hacienda de Temixco, located south of Mexico City in the state of Morelos near Cuernavaca (see figure 6.1).1 Today, the Hacienda de Temixco is a resort and aquatic park and bares little resemblance to what it once was or housed, an internment camp for Japanese Mexicans and nationals (see figure 6.2). Another image is just as striking because it features a beautiful garden surrounded by an antiquated aqueduct with water majestically flowing into an enchanted illuminated crystal blue pool (see figure 6.3). This is not the image depicted by government reports from the 1940s or the ex-inhabitants of the hacienda: Japanese, who interned themselves as a form of self-preservation and resistance during World War II. The featured article included photographs that are more stunning than the cover, as if wanting to hide or forget that for nearly four years the Hacienda de Temixco, and others like it, were sanctuaries for thousands of Japanese during World War II.2 In fact, throughout this study I have emphasized how Mexico treated and approached its Japanese population differently than the United States and other Latin American countries. Mexico, unlike the United States, Canada, and Peru, did not officially intern its Japanese population or create infamous concentration camps such as Tule 162 • Chapter Six Figure 6.1. Hacienda internment camps and Mexican penal colonies, 1942– 1945. Besides private residences, a variety of facilities were created to house Japanese Mexicans and Nationals. This map illustrates three types of detention that were utilized in Mexico during World War II: federal detention: Penal Colony of Islas de Tres Marías, San Carlos Detention Center; private: Hacienda Castro Urdiales, Villa Aldama; semi-autonomous: Hacienda de Temixco, Rancho Batán. Map created by author from a variety of sources from the Archivo General de la Nación, México. Lake, Minidoka, Heart Mountain, and Manzanar in the United States, or Canadian internment camps such as Bay Farm, Bridge River, Minto City, and Kananaskis. Peru reached an agreement with the United States to round up and transport Japanese Peruvians to internment camps in the United States.3 Nonetheless, in many ways the Japanese self-concentration into these haciendas resulted from Mexican war time policies, such as the directive that established Mexico City and Guadalajara as megacity relocation camps for Japanese residing in prohibitive zones. Similar to the US experience, not all the Japanese in Mexico were forced to relocate. Figure 6.2. Japanese Mexicans at the Hacienda de Temixco, 1945. Image courtesy of the Archivo General de la Nación, México. Figure 6.3. Hacienda de Temixco, 2008. The facility is now an aquatic center and resort. Image courtesy of Julia Taylor. 164 • Chapter Six Only those Japanese living in security zones (coastlines and the border) were required to uproot, which resulted in the displacement of thousands of Japanese, loss of livelihood, and persecution based on their ethnicity. This chapter is an attempt to illustrate the Japanese Mexican experience after their forced relocation and displacement to Guadalajara and Mexico City. Vital to this experience is an organization known as Bokuto Kyoeikai or Comité Japonés de Ayuda Mutua (CJAM, Japanese Mutual Aid Committee), which was directly responsible for the protection and welfare of the relocated Japanese, as well as the overall Japanese community residing in Mexico. This organization was also responsible for the purchase , development, and management of several haciendas that sustained the Japanese community during the bleak years of the war. By examining internment compounds such as the Hacienda de Temixco outside of Cuernavaca, Morelos; Hacienda Castro Urdiales, near Tala, Jalisco; and in a limited scope, Hacienda de Batán in the vicinity of Mexico City, we are able to understand the trials and tribulations of the Japanese diaspora in Mexico and contrast their treatment to other regions of the Americas, including the United States. These haciendas could not have been occupied , resurrected, and sustained without the leadership, financing, and creativity of the CJAM...