![]() ![]() United States went before the US Supreme Court to challenge the ongoing mass detention of Japanese Americans, solely on the basis of race. In December 1944, a test case known as Endo v. Instead, the War Relocation Authority used promotional brochures and pamphlets, to entice incarcerees to resettle in cities such as Chicago, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Detroit, and New York. Initially, they could not return to the exclusionary zone on the West Coast. Very early on, if incarcerees could demonstrate their loyalty and prove acceptance to a university or offer of employment and housing, they were eligible for indefinite leave. The objective of the War Relocation Authority, the government agency established to oversee the camps, was to break up concentrations of the Japanese American population on the West Coast by dispersing it widely across the country. Instead, it was part of a continuum of a long history of prejudice and discrimination aimed at Japanese immigrants and their American-born children. Detention in America’s concentration camps was never intended to be indefinite. While the executive order was issued shortly after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, it was not solely in response to this one act. While the Japanese American population was relatively small in comparison to the demographic makeup of the United States, the concentration of the population was disproportionately on the West Coast-in California, Oregon, and Washington. There was no specific description of who might be included, but it ultimately laid the foundation for the forced removal and subsequent incarceration of over 125,000 individuals of Japanese ancestry, two thirds of who were American citizens. On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which established a military zone on the West Coast of the United States and determined that the military had the authority to exclude anyone it deemed necessary. For the Keimis, like so many other Japanese American families, the continuous upheaval that began with the forced removal from the West Coast in 1942, continued with incarceration in temporary detention centers, later in America’s concentration camps, and ultimately persisted into the postwar period. Kimiko and Thomas intended to regain stability for their family, but it would take several years before the family would be reunited. Although Kimiko was distraught over her family’s plan to split up, she knew it was necessary if they were to reestablish the life they previously led before the war. Kimiko likely hoped that the familiarity of their prewar home would make it easier to reestablish a semblance of a normal life again, as they awaited the day when they would be reunited with the rest of the family. Once Hal recovered from the illness that kept him and his mother at Heart Mountain through the baseball World Series, which Hal listened to intently while he was in the camp infirmary, they qualified for indefinite leave. A month prior, Thomas, Kimiko’s husband, departed for the Pacific Northwest to take up employment with the railroad. He would work as a schoolboy, doing chores for a family in Hollywood, in exchange for room and board. In August 1945, oldest son Albert left Heart Mountain ahead of the family to start his final year at Hollywood High School. For the first time, the Keimi family was forced to split apart. The same could be said for the room that they later shared within a San Fernando Valley home, which Kimiko received as part of her compensation for domestic work. The trailer that the two shared felt like anything but home. Instead, their final destination became a temporary trailer installation, which the federal government opened for Japanese Americans returning from America’s concentration camps. Although they were returning to their hometown, they were unable to reclaim their house, which was adjacent to the laundry that they previously operated in Hollywood. In late October 1945, Kimiko Keimi and her 13 year old son, Harold “Hal” Keimi, left Heart Mountain, Wyoming, one of America’s concentration camps, to return to Los Angeles. Japanese American National Museum (Gift of Ronnie Macias and Raey Hirata, 97.1.3a) Top Image: Children residing at a temporary trailer installation in Burbank, CA in 1946, following their return from America’s concentration camps. ![]()
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