In 1941, Mr. Saburo Tamura was a chrysanthemum grower in Redwood City. In the days following the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was arrested, handcuffed, and taken from his home.
Fourteen-year-old daughter Terry remembered an FBI agent in her home submerging an ice tray in hot water, looking for incriminating evidence. There was, of course, none.
Mr. Tamura was separated from his family and taken to an undisclosed location, which the family, months later, learned was a Dept. of Justice internment facility for “enemy aliens” at Ft. Lincoln in Bismarck, North Dakota.
His arrest, and the arrest of hundreds of other Issei community leaders, was legalized by the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which gives the president wartime authority to detain and deport citizens of a country that is at war with the U.S. Those detained have no opportunity to go before a judge, and can be arrested and deported with no evidence of any crime.
The law used to incarcerate our grandfathers is being used again today. Most of us would have no disagreement with the arrest or deportation of violent criminals; however, without due process and proper implementation, there is great potential for abuse, in the form of indiscriminate harassment based on race, language, country of origin, or just plain appearance. How many of those swept up in these raids are innocent? Learn more about the Alien Enemies Act.
Read Meri Mitsuyoshi’s story, “Untitled, by Saburo Tamura.”
The Topaz Stories Team
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Media Coverage:
Watch “Utah Historians Run Exhibit on Japanese American Internment,” abc4 News, 2/19/2025).
Read “Utah Once Said ‘Never Again’–Do We Mean It? Deseret News, (2/26/2025).
Read “Topaz Stories Exhibition: A Way to Remember the Past.” SUU News, 2/7/2025.
Read ‘Topaz Stories’ exhibit travels Utah showing human side of WWII internment (KSL.com, May 24, 2024)
Read ‘Topaz Stories’ mines the history of a Japanese American internment camp (ParkRecord, May 18, 2024)
Read Remembering Japanese American Internment–Day of Remembrance (Rosie the Riveter Trust blog, March 24, 2024)
Read Internee’s story told with ‘Topaz Collages’ (Wheel of Dharma, Vol. 5, Issue 3, March 2023).
Watch Topaz survivors tell their stories (abc4 News, 4/22/2022)
Listen to the “In the Hive” podcast with interviews with Ann Dion, Jonathan Hirabayashi, and Topaz survivors Jeanie Kashima and Joseph Nishimura (KCPW, 4/28/2022)
Read How a Utah exhibit about Topaz Camp looks to find empathy in ‘an ugly stain on American history (ksl.com, 4/22/2022)
Read “Topaz Stories rise from the dust,” (Department of Culture & Community Engagement, 4/2022)
Listen to KQED Forum, Day of Remembrance interview with Ruth Sasaki, 2/15/2022
Listen to Max Chang and Ruth Sasaki interviewed (KRCL RadioActive, 2/9/2022
Read On Topaz Stories and ‘Authentic Voice’, the Discover Nikkei interview with Ruth Sasaki (10/14/2022)
Listen to Remembering the Japanese American Incarceration, the Topaz Stories podcast with Ruth Sasaki and Jonathan Hirabayashi (6/2/2021)