Inside an American Concentration Camp: Japanese-American Resistance at Poston, Arizona
Richard S. Nishimoto, 1995
The editor of Nishimoto's book writes about him and about the terms used, including the term "concentration camp." The editor points out that one person (I'm assuming a sociologist or something like that from the text) divided the term "concentration camp" into three levels, the third being the type run in Germany by the Nazis. The second level is slave labor camps and the first level is "milder types" which the Native American reservations actually fall under. The editor then goes and does something original and extremely intelligent, in my opinion, and that is takes time to discuss why anyone should read Nishimoto's works in the first place.
He adds information on the evacuation/relocation program and on the assembly camps and internment/concentration camps, along with some information about the Poston camp itself. He then writes about the various roles Nishimoto played in the camp, including helping to clear the land for building ("firebreak gang"), manager of Block 45 and a block councilman for Block 45. He became the leader of the block managers of Unit I. He was also heavily involved in camp protests. He also worked as an assistant for the Bureau of Sociological Research. In addition, he worked for the Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study as a field research.
There are also extensive notes at the end of the opening portions of the book. After that, it gets into the actual autobiographical writings of Nishimoto.
The Bureau of Sociological Research was set up to work with the camp administration to monitor what was going on in the camp.
In the first part of his writings Nishimoto describes growing up and the types of problems he had in school. It's obvious that he was a brilliant man with a very extensive education in American colleges, in addition to which he has a very readable writing style. Each section of Nishimoto's writings, by the way, has a short introduction and explanation by the editor.
The next section talks about the "firebreak gang" and the type of work that people at Poston did and various complaints about it, including very low wages (maximum was $19 per month), work that some people felt was simply "make work" type of stuff, corruption on the part of the camp staff and difficulties over who got what type of jobs.
Nichimoto then writes about the problems he had trying to run the firebreak gang and he had plenty of problems to write about. It would seem that this type of thing wouldn't make interesting reading but it actually does, especially as it gives a lot of insight into the attitudes of the people who were in the camp towards work and towards white supervisors.
The next chapter is about Leisure and gambling at the camp. Apparently gambling was a major problem in the Japanese community in general and definitely within the camp community. The chapter goes into the history of gambling among the Japanese in considerable detail.
Demands is the title of the next chapter and is one dealing with the closure of Poston. A number of things are discussed including the confusion about the camps closing (internees initially thought the camps would remain open for the duration of the war then all of a sudden the government decided to start closing the camps), and fears of the part of many that relocating would not be safe for them, especially as long as the war was still going on, due to the anti-Japanese feeling in general society.
The afterward goes into Nishimoto's life after leaving Poston, how he died alone, and the nature of his accomplishments.
This is an interesting book although it is very specialized in its focus and is really mainly for those who are interested in sort of advanced, detailed information on Poston in particular, and Japanese American culture in relation to work ethic and gambling.
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