some things happened in America that we are not so proud of
Sue Kunitomi Embrey, Chiye Mori and Yuki Okinaga Llewellyn
“Manzanar” means “apple.” That’s how the Manzanar War Relocation Center got its name.
When 10,000-plus Japanese Americans were imprisoned there between 1942 and 1945, families banded together to care for the 40 acres of abandoned apple orchards scattered across the camp. Crews of the evicted and oppressed re-irrigated the grounds, tended to the trees and, eventually, resurrected the Manzanar apple harvest.
Sue Kunitomi Embrey remembered the apple orchards — that’s where her mother went to be alone, to cry.
Sue was only 19 when her family was imprisoned at Manzanar per President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066. The order evicted more than 100,000 Japanese Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor, incarcerating families like Sue’s in “relocation centers” scattered across several states. Her widowed mother had to sell her business at a loss and travel inland to Manzanar. Sue worked at the camp’s newspaper, The Manzanar Free Press, helping to connect her displaced community and report on their incarceration.
The first female editor of the newspaper, Chiye Mori, had previously published poetry and essays as a teenager living in Long Beach. But in 1942, Chiye, then just 27 years old, was forcibly removed from her home along with her mother and stepfather. She threw herself into work at The Manzanar Free Press. Sue remembered Chiye cut quite the impressive figure. “A Nisei [second generation] woman who smoked and swore and drank whiskey!” she later marveled. “Most Nisei around her age, 22 or 23, were very conservative.”
American authorities allowed her release after one year, but Chiye didn’t give up on her reporting and activism. She moved to New York City to edit The Nisei Weekender, a newspaper for second-generation Japanese Amerians, and advocate for reparations for those imprisoned at camps like Manzanar.
Yuki Okinaga Hayakawa was only two years old when she and her mother arrived at Manzanar. Her mother, like many of those incarcerated per Executive Order 9066, was actually a U.S. citizen; she had been born in Wyoming but raised in Japan, arousing suspicion from American authorities.
“As an adult, it would have been hell on Earth,” she said of her time at Manzanar. “I was lucky to have been a child — a young child, at that. I didn't know what it was like not to be incarcerated.”
In 1969, Chiye, Sue and Yuki finally saw the history of their imprisonment commemorated with a historic event: the Manzanar pilgrimage.
That same year, Sue had graduated from college and begun teaching in the Los Angeles public school system. Her own story — Manzanar, Executive Order 9066, the families like hers — didn’t appear in the history books. “It’s important for children to learn that some things happened in America that we are not so proud of,” she told The Los Angeles Times. “It’s important to examine these things.”
She joined hundreds of other Japanese Americans in a 220-mile walk from Los Angeles to the Manzanar cemetery. Sue later led the Manzanar Committee, which still sponsors the pilgrimage to this day.
Years after her family’s release from the camp, Yuki, then going by her married name of Yuki Okinaga Llewellyn, pursued a career in academia, rising to the prestigious position of assistant dean of students at the University of Illinois. When she returned to Manzanar in 2005, she left with a handful of sand, a nail from the ruins and a piece of bamboo, to carry with her as memories of her time at Manzanar.
Later in life, Sue held workshops for other educators, teaching them how to incorporate the horrifying history of Manzanar and other “relocation centers” into their history curriculum. As she explained in one oral history:
I think Manzanar should stand as a symbol of something that happened in America; had happened before and could happen again. It takes people who are aware of the past to make sure that it doesn’t get repeated in the future. But also, it’s a strength of the American government and American democracy that we were given an apology and we were told that it was a mistake; that we were loyal citizens and law abiding parents and that it was not good for the government and American democracy to do this. We should all be vigilant. Liberty is something very precious we all need to work for and to strengthen. Telling the world that the government is willing to apologize, I think, indicates the strength of our democracy.
More on 🗞️:
The Manzanar National Historic Site, The National Parks Service
U.S. Starts to Dust Off a Dark Spot in History for All to See, The New York Times
Yuki Llewellyn, Pictured Going to Internment Camp, Dies at 80, People
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Thank you for telling their story!
So important to remember that this happened, and could happen against if we are not vigilant. Thank you for helping to keep this in our awareness, especially given the polarities in our country at this time.