On December 11, the Western Defense Command declared the entire West Coast of the United States a “prohibited military area.” The following weeks saw hundreds more “enemy aliens” arrested amid unsubstantiated claims of a vast fifth column of “Jap” spies in the United States. There were fulminations of outrage from politicians and newspaper editorialists. Movie actor and Hearst columnist Henry McLemore wrote, “I am for the immediate removal of every Japanese on the West Coast to a point deep in the interior. I don’t mean a nice part of the interior, either. Herd ’em up, pack ’em off and give ’em the inside room in the badlands. Let ’em be pinched, hurt, hungry, and dead up against it … I hate the Japanese. And that goes for all of them.”
Prejudice against the Japanese was nothing new—it had even been enshrined in law in the so-called Oriental Exclusion Act of 1924, which prohibited further immigration from Asian countries. But now Japanese Americans were being seen as an existential threat, even by respected figures like California Attorney General Earl Warren and columnist Walter Lippmann, who added their voices to the call for “confinement,” “removal,” or “evacuation.” Traditionally anti-Japanese organizations like the Associated Farmers lobbied for internment, as locally Joseph Dreesen once again opined to newspapers, “You can’t trust a Jap.”
In Florin, every public pronouncement sparked new rumors and speculation. Would only Issei—Japanese nationals—be removed? Nisei feared for their parents, but surely the government wouldn’t do the same to them as American citizens? The very fact that the Farm Security Administration was encouraging Japanese farmers to continue working “for the war effort” indicated that the country needed them. To avoid appearing disloyal, the Japanese community enthusiastically embraced patriotic activities like selling war bonds and rolling bandages for the Red Cross.
The FBI continued to search homes with impunity, and on February 18, agents interrogated a local farmer named Hisata Iwasa. Iwasa spoke imperfect English, was recovering from a stroke, and, after the men left, became so shamed and agitated—fearing he had said the wrong things and thrown suspicion on innocent friends—that he took poison and killed himself.
The next day, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9066, “authorizing the Secretary of War to prescribe military areas … from which any or all persons may be excluded.” Soon it became clear that “all persons” meant “all Japanese” and that “exclusion” meant “exile”—to one of ten “relocation centers” outside the “military areas,” i.e., the entire West Coast of the United States.
On February 25, the Navy informed the residents of Terminal Island near San Pedro—mainly fisherman—that they had forty-eight hours to leave the island. Bainbridge Island in Washington State followed. In Oregon, Stanley Watanabe, his wife, and their children were sent to a hastily constructed assembly center in North Portland.
The mass evacuations had begun.
* * *
There was now a military curfew prohibiting anyone of Japanese ancestry from being on the streets between eight P.M. and six A.M. Vince had to open and close the diner because Frank couldn’t risk violating the curfew. A travel limit was also imposed: Japanese Americans could venture no farther than five miles from their homes. But most of the stores and physicians that residents of Florin depended on were ten miles away in Sacramento. Exceptions could be obtained only from the provost’s office in, of course, Sacramento. So in order to petition a waiver of the travel regulations, you first had to violate them.
“How could FDR do this to us?” Ruth complained bitterly, the children safely in bed, Frank at home after the nightly curfew. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the first and only president that Ruth had voted for in her twenty-five years, and she had been proud of that vote, proud of the man who had labored so mightily to lift the nation out of the Depression. But now she felt angry, and betrayed: “God damn it, we’re American citizens!”
“So are Negroes,” Frank noted, “and what has it gotten them?”
“Is that all it comes down to in this country? The color of your skin? The shape of your eyes?”
“It won’t be like this forever. But this is the way it is now, and we have to live with it. We have to show these bastards that we’re loyal Americans and we will do our duty—and hope that someday they’ll see us that way too.”
Ruth’s eyes filled with tears. “What about Donnie and Peggy? How many years will they be forced to spend in a … relocation center?”
“We’ll be with them. That’s all that matters to them.”
“And what about the diner? What are we going to do with it?”
Frank winced. “Sell the inventory, I guess, and start all over again when we get back. That’s more than your parents will be able to do.”
“Oh God,” she whispered, thinking of the farm, everything her father and mother had worked for since coming to California. “Poor Papa…”
Frank took her in his arms and she rested her head on his shoulder. He was more familiar with the world’s injustices, the way people’s lives could be uprooted like trees in a hurricane. But to lose his home twice, through no fault of his own—that was a bitter draft, and he almost choked on it.
* * *
As the tidal wave of dispossession rolled into California’s inland valleys, the Florin area was one of the last to be evacuated. It wasn’t until late May that the grim heralds appeared, overnight, tacked up on telephone poles:
Pursuant to the provisions of Civilian Exclusion Order No. 92, this Headquarters, dated May 23, 1942, all persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non-alien, will be evacuated from the above area by 12 o’clock noon, P.W.T., Saturday, May 30, 1942.
One week’s notice was standard. For supposed security reasons, the War Relocation Authority—or WRA—did not want news of which areas were to be evacuated to be made public more than seven days in advance.
The inland sea around the Watanabes’ farmhouse had turned scarlet, the strawberry plants bursting with nearly ripe fruit. Bees buzzed amid the grapevines, like the sound of power lines on a quiet day—soothing, as long as you didn’t get too close. Taizo, Jiro, Horace, and Ralph were out in the fields preparing for the harvest when they heard a discordant, unwelcome voice:
“Morning, Watanabe-san.”
Joseph Dreesen—his hair as white as the document he held in his wrinkled hand—stood there smiling his wolfen smile, as Taizo knew he would be eventually.
“Ah. Sheriff,” Taizo said. “Never one to waste time, are you?”
“Nope.” He stepped forward, handed the document to Taizo. “And you don’t have time to waste either.”
Taizo glanced, unsurprised, at the eviction notice. “We have not breached our contract. We have made a profit for you every year since 1930.”
“Technically. But you won’t this year, because you won’t be here to harvest the crop when the government ships you to hell and gone in six days.”
“Surely you will not let it rot in the fields!” Jiro said, horrified.
“It’s my land,” Dreesen said. “I’ll do with it as I like.”
Jiro did not bother to conceal his fury. But Taizo remained calm, if not quiescent. “So, you have what you have always wanted. We Japanese will be gone from Florin. What shall you and your fellow hakujin do with it, Sheriff?”
“We’ll farm it like you did.”
Taizo smiled. “If you were able to do that,” he said, “you would have done it before the first Japanese farmer tilled this unforgiving soil.” He turned his back on Dreesen. “May you find the fortune you deserve, Sheriff.”
* * *
Over the next two days the 2,500 Japanese residents of Florin presented themselves at the Elk Grove Masonic Hall to be registered. Ruth, Frank, and their children were each issued a manila identification card bearing a “family number”—2355—and each person was designated a letter: Frank was 2355-A, Ruth 2355-B, Donnie 2355-C, and Peggy 2355-D. Taizo, Etsuko, Jiro, and Nishi were assigned cards as well, but the ones for Issei—Japanese nationals—were colored red as a rising sun.
Ruth stared at the ID card in her hand and suddenly knew what it must feel like to be a Jew in Nazi Germany.