“Seal,” I say. And I laugh.
My throat is open again. I can see and smell and hear.
I can speak.
Strong words.
Brave words.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
In the late 1800s, Japanese immigrants came to the United States in large numbers. Most of these immigrants settled in Hawaii, California, Oregon, and Washington. The first immigrants to arrive worked on sugarcane plantations and fruit and vegetable farms. But in the early 1900s, they started buying or leasing their own land.
Through hard work, Japanese American farmers built successful farms, and many non-Japanese farmers in California became angry. In 1913, the state passed a law prohibiting Japanese immigrants from buying land. Eleven years later, the United States passed the Immigration Act of 1924, which banned immigration from Japan.
The Japanese Americans living in the United States were caught between countries. For many of them, returning to Japan was not a possibility. And yet they were not fully welcome in the United States. Consequently, many did not integrate into American society and, instead, lived together in Japanese American communities, holding on to their traditions and culture. They built lives for themselves in their new country. They owned businesses and stores and operated large farms. They raised families, sent their children to college, and made plans for their future.
All of that changed on December 7, 1941, when Japan attacked U.S. warships at a navy base in Pearl Harbor, near Honolulu, Hawaii. After this attack, the United States officially entered World War II, fighting against Japan, Germany, and Italy.
For the next two months, Japanese Americans became targets of fear and suspicion. Newspapers published articles that questioned their loyalty. Community leaders were arrested.
Then, on February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, declaring areas along the west coast of the United States military zones. In order to protect these zones from espionage, certain groups of people would not be allowed to live there. The document did not specifically single out Japanese immigrants and their children, but it gave the U.S. Army the freedom to determine who could live in a military zone and who could not. The army decided that Japanese Americans, along with their children who had been born in the United States and who were therefore U.S. citizens, had to leave these zones because they might be spies for Japan.
In March 1942, the U.S. Army’s Western Defense Council asked them to move to other parts of the United States or to a relocation camp. Those who did not volunteer were evacuated by force. Most Japanese Americans had nowhere else to go—they didn’t have enough time to find another place to live—and they didn’t realize how long they would be gone. On March 24, 1942, the Japanese Americans living on Bainbridge Island were given just six days to relocate. They left the island on March 30, and arrived at Manzanar on April 1.
By September 1942, over 100,000 Japanese Americans had been moved to relocation camps. Of those, 70,000 were U.S. citizens and about half of those imprisoned were children. Those who chose military service were allowed to leave the camp. In fact, many of the 30,000 Japanese Americans serving in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II had family members living in relocation camps.
The relocation camps were in remote areas, surrounded by fences and guarded by soldiers with machine guns. There were ten in all: Heart Mountain in Wyoming, Tule Lake and Manzanar in California, Topaz in Utah, Poston and Gila River in Arizona, Amache in Colorado, Minidoka in Idaho, and Jerome and Rowher in Arkansas.
Few of the Japanese Americans in relocation camps were ever charged with crimes. And none were charged with espionage. Nonetheless, they lost their homes, their businesses, and their communities. Many were separated from family members.
Most of the incarcerees at Manzanar came from cities in California. They were used to a way of life different from that of the Bainbridge Islanders, who came from a rural community. Because of these differences, there were tensions between the two groups. On December 5 and 6, 1942, thousands of prisoners at Manzanar rioted. During this riot, a seventeen-year-old boy and a twenty-one-year-old man were shot. The boy died instantly. The man died a few days later. The Bainbridge Island families asked to be moved to Minidoka in Idaho, where Japanese Americans from Washington and Oregon were imprisoned. By early 1943, any Bainbridge Island families who wanted to move to Minidoka were given permission to go.
The war ended in 1945, three years after the first relocation camp was opened. Japanese Americans were allowed to leave the camps and given train tickets. But many no longer had homes to return to and now had to start over with few belongings.
In 1988, the U.S. Congress passed Public Law 100-383, an official apology to Japanese Americans for their treatment during World War II. It had taken more than forty years, but finally the government admitted its grave injustice. The apology applied both to survivors and to their family members.
Almost fifty years after the last Japanese American prisoner left, Manzanar was reopened as a National Historic Site. Today, visitors can walk the grounds, look at photos, and read first-person accounts of those who lived there. Many of the relocation camps were torn down, but according to the National Park Service, the mission of the site is “to serve as a reminder to this and future generations of the fragility of American civil liberties.”
A final note about the lantern festival: Obon is a summer festival celebrated in Japan to honor one’s ancestors. The lantern festival described in this book is a version of Obon, and although it didn’t actually happen at Manzanar in the summer of 1942, versions of Obon and other holidays, both Japanese and American, were celebrated at different camps throughout the war.
RESOURCES
Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community: “BIJAC.” http://www.bijac.org/.
Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project. Digital archive of video oral histories of Japanese Americans incarcerated or interned during World War II. http://www.densho.org/.
Lindquist, Heather C. Children of Manzanar. Berkeley, Calif.: Heyday Books, 2012.
National Park Service. “Manzanar National Historic Site.” http://www.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/manz/index.html.
Unrau, Harlan D. The Evacuation and Relocation of Persons of Japanese Ancestry During World War II: A Historical Study of the Manzanar War Relocation Center. United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1996.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My first thanks to my friend Stephanie Shaw for being the first person to read Paper Wishes. Many thanks to the lovely ladies of Crumpled Paper—Lisa Robinson, Maria Gianferrari, Sheri Dillard, Andrea Wang, and Abby Aguirre—whose fingerprints are all over this story. And a big thank-you to my friend Jamie Weil for so many late-night phone calls.
My gratitude to Margaret Ferguson and Kathleen Rushall for loving Manami and Yujiin as much as I do. And endless thanks to my family—Amir, Bella, and Julian—for making space for me to write.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Author’s Note
Resources
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Thanks to Carrie Andresen-Strawn of the Manzanar Historic Site
for her careful reading and suggestions.
Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers
175 Fifth Avenue, New York 10010
Text copyright © 2016 by Lois Sepahban
All rights reserved
First hardcover edition, 2016
eBook edition, January 2016
mackids.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Sepahban, Lois.
Paper wishes / Lois Sepahban.
pages cm
Summary: Near the start of World War II, young Manami, her parents, and Grandfather are evacuated from their home and sent to Manzanar, an ugly, dreary internment camp in the desert for Japanese-American citizens.
ISBN 978-0-374-30216-0 (hardback)
ISBN 978-0-37430217-7 (e-book)
1. Japanese Americans—Evacuation and relocation, 1942–1945—Juvenile fiction. [1. Japanese Americans—Evacuation and relocation, 1942–1945—Fiction. 2. Manzanar War Relocation Center—Fiction. 3. Selective mutism—Fiction. 4. Family life—Fiction. 5. World War, 1939–1945—United States—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.1.S462Pap 2016
[Fic]—dc23
2015005786
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eISBN 9780374302177
Paper Wishes Page 10
