JAPANESE EXCLUDED! ILLINOIS CITY WON'T HAVE 2 ISLAND NISEI
By PAUL OHTAKI
Review staff correspondent

HUNT, Ida., Wednesday, May 12--Two Bainbridge Island nisei were in the national news spotlight last week after having been forced from relocation farm jobs by objection of residents at Marengo, Ill.

Atsusa Sakuma, 27 years old, and Tsukasa Sakuma, 21, both "Bainbridge High School graduates, were withdrawn from farm jobs by the Curtiss Candy Company after the mayor of Marengo said "resentment has been running high ever since news of Japanese atrocities in Tokyo was released."

The War Relocation Authority announced later that seven new jobs in the Chicago farm area awaited the two Islanders and a Sacramento nisei, Earl Ishino, 24, ousted from Marengo also.

"That is terrible," said Atsusa Sakuma, when informed of the execution of American flyers in Tokyo. "I would hate to think of the fate of some of our Japanese-American friends in the American army if they are captured."

"Our country is at war and we feel the same as other Americans," Mr. Ishino said. "We want America to win the war."

Photographs of the three nisei were printed in many newspapers in the nation. Press dispatches reported the three to be "bewildered and disappointed because other American citizens objected to their presence." They could understand the hatred of Americans for Japanese, the news article said, but could not see why it should be directed at them.

The Sakuma brothers are known to Island farmers as "aggressive pioneers" in strawberry cultivation. Before the evacuation, they moved to Burlington, where they operated a 100-acre farm. Mr. Ishino had a 290-acre asparagus farm near Sacramento. The Sakumas have a brother, Takashi, who recently was accepted as a volunteer by the United States Army.