Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Richard E. Yamashiro Interview
Narrator: Richard E. Yamashiro
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: San Jose, California
Date: May 24, 2011
Densho ID: denshovh-yrichard_2-01-0013

<Begin Segment 13>

TI: Okay, during, about a year after the bombing of Pearl Harbor at Manzanar they had a disturbance and some people call it the Manzanar riot.

RY: Yes, I remember that very well.

TI: Describe what you remember.

RY: Okay, they had a meeting in the firebreak at night, the first day. Well, before that they had gone to this guy's house and they beat his guy up and he was, I think he was the president of the JACL. And the feeling about the JACL was very bad because they said they were associated with the FBI and the Japanese would call those people inus.

TI: Or dog.

RY: Yeah, and they had the meeting in the firebreak and the firebreaks there are huge and there's no lights or nothing. And so they said, "Okay, name all the people you think are inus," and so people would start saying this guy and that guy, he lives over here and here and there. And they were going to divide up and go to all these people they named and beat 'em up.

TI: And you're at this meeting.

RY: Yeah, well, kids being kids we heard they were going to have a meeting so we were there just listening. And in the meantime, they had the security people, the Caucasian security people, they were in there too and they took all the addresses and they went on their cars 'cause they had cars.

TI: And it was so dark people couldn't see who else was --

RY: You couldn't see who was who. That's why people were naming this guy and that guy. I don't know if they were all informants or not but that's what they did.

TI: And so people didn't realize that the police or the security guys were there.

RY: I guess they didn't 'cause they went around and picked up all the people they had named and took them to a safe area. And this guy that was the president of JACL, he was in the hospital and so after the meeting they found out that all these places were empty so they said, "Okay, we'll go to the hospital and pull that guy out and finish him off." And since we lived in the block next to the hospital we just went up there to watch. I swear I thought was going to see somebody get shot there. 'Cause a guard was there with his rifle and he told us, I think he was a Kibei guy and said, "Halt." And the Kibei guy kept walking and he just went up to the guard and pushed the rifle aside and walked in.

TI: And so the rifle was pointed right at him?

RY: Yeah, but he just sort of pushed it aside and I guess there was so many people there that the guard, he was by himself, and I guess he was more scared than anything. And they went into the hospital and they had removed that guy from the hospital, too. And so the next thing they did was they said, okay we'll go down to the jail, which was at the entrance to Manzanar, and take out the guy that was accused of beating up the JACL guy. I don't know whether he was the one or not but the crowd all went down there and they were mulling around the police station. But I remember they had the military about a foot apart all the way around the jail with Thompson submachine guns, you know. And being kids, we went down there to see what was going on and they were singing Japanese military songs and this that and raving and stuff. They did this for a while and we said, "Ah, this is boring, let's get out of here." And good thing we did because we went back to our barracks and what happened was some of the demonstrators threw rocks at the GIs. Well, they in turn, to protect themselves, I don't know if it was an instinct or not, they started shooting... throwing tear gas first and then came more rocks. And so as the people were running away from the tear gas, they open fire on 'em and that's when I worked at the hospital. So I know these people got shot and it was about fifteen people got shot and one kid got killed, he was only sixteen, he was down there like me watching, just curious, and he was killed. And these people that were in the hospital, they were all laying on their stomachs. I go why are they laying on their stomach because I was bringing in the food. And they were all shot in the back so they couldn't lay on their back. I remember that.

TI: So they were all running away and they got shot in the back.

RY: Yeah, and they got shot. Because they didn't have any weapons, so I thought that was pretty bad. And the worst thing was the girl that I worked with at the hospital, it was her brother that was shot so it was kind of sad. And that's what I remember of the riot.

TI: And so what was the mood of the people? I mean, were they angry?

RY: They were angry. Yeah, we had a lot of agitators in the camp and the Japanese are easily moved, I think, when people start talking. And they were all angry because of people getting shot.

TI: And so how was this all resolved? I mean, people are angry, people are shot, how did it calm down?

RY: I'm not sure. They had patrols going around the camp and I don't know how they resolved it but it got resolved.

TI: And do you recall any conversations with your father or mother about this?

RY: No.

TI: And what were their feelings about this? Were they also angry?

RY: Yeah, most of the people were angry because the people got shot in the back and they were running away and not attacking the guards so I don't know how they resolved it but they did resolve it.

[Interruption]

TI: So, Richard, we're going to start the second part where in the first part you had just ended up talking about the Manzanar, the shootings at Manzanar. I think you mentioned fifteen people shot or something. I think when I went through the records, I think it's more like around six were actually shot, maybe not fifteen.

RY: Oh, there's more than that.

TI: Were there more than that? Okay.

RY: Yeah.

TI: I think I've seen six.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.