The KRAB Audio Archive
Japanese America:
Contemporary Perspectives on the Internment
Problems listening, or comments? Please let us know. E-mail archive@krabarchive.com
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The recordings of the Seattle and Spokane Perspectives on the Internment Conferences are courtesy of Frank Abe. After searching fruitlessly for the last seven years (see below) for recordings from the 1972 Pride and Shame exhibit, we were thrilled when Frank contacted us and offered to let us digitize his tapes and share them in the archive.
Japanese America: Contemporary Perspectives on the Internment - Rec Jan 19, 1980; KRAB Feb 11, 19, and 25, 1980
The Other Day of Infamy. On Feb. 19, 1942 President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, forcing the relocation of Americans of Japanese ancestry from along the West Coast. Tonight is the first of three programs devoted to keeping alive the memory of that outrage. Produced with assistance from the Japanese American Citizens League. With Dave Gardner. (Feb 11, 1980)
This program presents highlights of the conference held Jan 19 at Seattle Central Community College. The forum examined the internment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps during WWII from the social, literary, personal and legal points of view. Featured are U.S. Congressperson Mike Lowry, author of redress legislation, State Supreme Court Justice James Dolliver, U.W. law professor Charles Smith, and others. Frank Abe wrote, produced and hosted this program; technical production by Tim Otani. (Feb 19, 1980)
Karen Seriguchi, Conference Director, and Frank Abe produced the overall symposium programs. The entire program of symposiums, publications, and broadcasts was funded by the Washington Commission for the Humanities.
On Jan 19 and Mar 1, 1980 conferences were held in Seattle and Spokane commemorating and providing a forum for testimony, discussion, and the documentation of the effects of the 1942 internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. Shortly after the conference, Frank Abe, Karen Seriguchi, and Tim Otani shared the tapes with KRAB, and prepared this recording of highlights of the Seattle conference for broadcast on Feb 19, 1980.
The Seattle conference was moderated by Charles Z. Smith, former UW Professor and Dean of the Law School, who was appointed to the Washington State Supreme Court in 1988. Others speaking and giving testimony include Rep Mike Lowry, Monica Sone, Robert Sims, James Dolliver, Dr Gordon Hirabayashi, Frank Chin, Minoru Masuda, and Joanne Fujita.
Feb 19 (the date KRAB broadcast the conference highlights) was the anniversary of the issuance of Executive Order 9066, which authorized "Military Commanders" to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as they might find appropriate, and exclude (remove) from those areas any persons who they thought appropriate. Attached are 3 articles from the Seattle Times. The first, published on Jan 19, is by Paola Maranan of Franklin High School, and is an interview of Frank Fuji, a survivor of the internment camps. The second, published the next day, written by two Times staff reporters, describes this conference. The third is from the Times Letters to the Editor published Jan 31, and shows the range of public opinion in 1980 about Order 9066 and its consequences. Click here to see the Seattle Times articles
Below(scroll down) is the complete and unedited Seattle conference tapes that Dave Gardner played on his afternoon program Feb 11 and Feb 25, 1980. In May 2021 we will post the recordings from the Spokane conference which was held on Mar 1, 1980. While there is some overlap, most of the presenters and speakers at the two conferences are unduplicated, and they relate their own personal experiences and perspectives from the West and East sides of the state. There were actually three conferences in 1980, with the the third being in Tacoma. We do not have a recording of the Tacoma conference.
Many of Frank Abe's collection of photographs and other documents can now be found in the Densho Digital Repository. For any unfamiliar with Densho, the first paragraph of the website's Overview describes it like this:
"The forced removal and detention of more than 120,000 Americans of Japanese ethnicity during WWII still represents one of the starkest examples of how our civil liberties in the United States can come under attack in times of war or distress. As the memories of those who lived it fade, the story is in danger of becoming distant, remote and, ultimately forgotten. Densho was founded to preserve those memories, primarily through the use of videotaped oral history testimonies from Japanese Americans."
A summary of the three 1980 conference programs, including testimony of survivors of the camps, was prepared and edited by Karen Seriguchi and Frank Abe and is available from Densho. Click here to open the page and select to download the full-size Proceedings of the Conference pdf.
The Seattle Conference
The total length of the Seattle Confrence recordings is 293:19.
Panel 1 - A brief portrait of Seattle's Japanese American community, its social, business, and family life.
Participants
Justice Charles Z Smith, Conference Moderator, 1927-2016
Dr Frank Miyamoto, Sociologist and Acting Dean of Arts and Sciences, University of Washington, 1912-2012;
Monica Sone, Clinical Psychologist and author of "Nisei Daughter, 1919-2011"
Listen now - Japanese America: Panel 1 - Rec Jan 19, 1980; KRAB Feb 11, 1980 (50:41)
Panel 2 - Years of Infamy: Expulsion and Internment - The decision to inter Japanese Americans, and a look at life in the camps.
Participants
Robert Sims, Professor of History, Boise State University;
Kimi Tambara, Editor of Camp Minidoka newspaper, "The Irrigator"
Listen now - Japanese America: Panel 2 - Rec Jan 19, 1980; KRAB Feb 11, 1980 (30:54)
Panel 3 - The Japanese American Vision: Japanese America as it is revealed in Literature
Participants
Ron Mamiya, Seattle attorney and moderator of the panel;
Sam Solberg, scholar, translator, University of Washington professor, and community activist*;
Lonny Kaneko, Poet, Teacher, 1939-2017*;
Frank Chin, Playwright and instructor in Asian American Studies*
Listen now - Japanese America: Panel 3 - Rec Jan 19, 1980; KRAB Feb 11, 1980 (74:28)
Panel 4 - The Japanese American Vision: The Quiet American: Long-term Psychological Effects of the Internment
Participants
Dr Minoru Masuda, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at University of Washington, 1915-1980;
Robert Sims, Professor of History, Boise State University;
Monica Sone, Clinical Psychologist and author of "Nisei Daughter";
Joanne Fujita, Sansei, Activist
Listen now - Japanese America: Panel 4 - Rec Jan 19, 1980; KRAB Feb 11, 1980 (47:27)
Closing Session - The Japanese American Vision: The Legal Issues of Relocation and Redress
Participants
Justice James Dolliver;
Mike Lowry, Congressional Representative Washington 7th District;
Gordon Hirabayashi, Sociologist and Resister;
Frank Chin, Playwright and Instructor in Asian American Studies*;
Lawson Inada, Professor of English at Southern Oregon State College*
Listen now - Japanese America: Closing Session - Rec Jan 19, 1980; KRAB Feb 11, 1980 (89:49)
Highlights of the Conference
Recordings courtesy Frank Abe: fa0003, fa0004, fa0005, fa0006, fa0007, fa0008, fa0009; Conference Proceedings courtesy Frank Abe, Densho
*Note: More of Sam Solberg, Lonny Kaneko, Frank Chin, and Lawson Inada may be found in the KRAB Archive collection of the 1976 Pacific NW Asian American Writers Conference
About KRAB and the issues and experiences of the Japanese Internment.
The KRAB Archive has a list of programs that we have searched for during the last 7 years. That list includes a program broadcast in 1972 described with this guide entry:
Aug 10, 1972 - Pride and Shame - A panel discussion by four Americans of Japanese descent. Ted Taniguchi, Mitch Matsudairai, Frank Fujii and Guy Kurose discuss the problems of being Asian in their society. Some of the older men remember clearly what happened to the Japanese community during World War II."
"Pride and Shame" was an exhibit put together in 1970 by the Seattle chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League and the Seattle Museum of History and Industry. It toured Washington State in 1971, and it seems the panel discussion happened toward the end of the tour. The exhibit was ground breaking in that it brought out into the open issues of unfair treatment, discrimination, appropriation of wealth and property, and a disregard for the protections of the Constitution.
That KRAB broadcast the panel discussion is another example of the operators of KRAB welcoming discussion of difficult and painful issues in the hope that it would lead to better understanding of listeners of each other.
We still have not found a copy of the program. We do not know if the panel was organized by the JACL, MOHAI, KRAB, or was some collaboration of all three. If you have knowledge of it, please let us know.
For more about the Pride and Shame exhibit, see "Pride and Shame" - The Museum Exhibit that Helped Launch the Japanese American Redress Movement (Allison Shephard in the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project of the UW).
If you possess any souvenirs (program guides, tapes, or photos) or have a story about your experience with KRAB you are willing to share, please email archive@krabarchive.com