Beyond Loyalty: The Story of a Kibei
Minoru Kiyota, 1997
A Kibei is a Japanese-American who was born in the U.S. then returned to Japan for his or her education, then returned to the U.S. The translator notes that Kiyota was a "no-no" and renounced his American citizenship. He was released from Tule in March of 1946. He continued to study in the U.S., though, but later his passport was taken and he continued his studies at Tokyo University.
He was one of the Japanese Americans that took their treatment after Pearl Harbor strongly and personally.
Kiyota starts his story with Pearl Harbor, then takes a step back to go into his family's history. There's a lot of interesting stuff here but one point I found that stood out was when he someone he knew was called an eta (burakumin), which is a class of outcasts in Japanese society.
His parents separated and his mother and he returned to Japan, but shortly afterwards his mother went back to the U.S. to earn more money than she could in Japan. His father showed up one day and tried to kidnap him, unsuccessfully. By the time his mother returned it as 1937 and Japan was on its aggressive march in China.
He also notes when the Rape of Nanking was being reported in foreign presses, but in Japan it was referred to as the "fall" of Nanking and was celebrated "with a magnificent lantern parade through Tokyo."
In the spring of 1938 they both returned to the U.S.
An extremely important point he makes is that the Nisei (those born in the U.S.) were trying to become as American as possible, whereas the Kibei (educated in Japan) still had a spiritual foothold in their Japanese culture. A short time later he writes about the evacuation of Japanese from California.
He and his mother first went to the Tanforan Assembly Center. He notes the Heart newspapers were leading an unrelenting attack on Japanese-Americans. He talks about the history of racist suppression against the Japanese Americans. His anger grew and he was later shipped to the Tule Lake Segregation Center.
He writes a lot about what happened there and how terrible the conditions were, especially in relation to the ultra-nationalists pro-Japanese internees who basically tried to bully all the other internees. This was made even worse by a camp administration that was rapidly anti-Japanese. The author ended up renouncing his U.S. citizenship, found some Presbyterian people who befriended him and later wanted to undo his renunciation.
He was finally released from Tule Lake in March of 1946. He quickly ran into more anti-Japanese prejudice after his release and then, on a train, he was introduced to Southern style prejudice when he was asked to change to a different train-car since the one he was on was to be used for colored people.
He gets into college but gets into trouble when he suggests that blacks be allowed to attend church services with whites. He ended up having to go back to California to a different college.
He returns to Japan to continue his college studies and finds his grandparents, their home long destroyed. He ended up fighting for the U.S. military in the Korean War. He then goes on to further events in his life including getting his citizenship back and returning to the U.S.
It's not a happy book to read. It's the story of a very, very angry young man who was angry because of all the injustices done to him. He went through a great deal of hardship, and the personal memories he has of his life at the Tule Lake Segregation Camp are particularly important. Not a happy book, but a good one.
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