Densho Digital Repository
Seattle JACL Oral History Collection
Title: Kathryn Bannai Interview
Narrator: Kathryn Bannai
Interviewers: Elaine Kim, Bill Tashima
Date: March 17, 2022
Densho ID: ddr-sjacl-2-38-6

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EK: You mentioning all that makes me... I just thought to myself, gosh, I wish I was alive during that time to be able to attend all of that. I think that it just goes to show... I mean, it didn't only impact individuals who didn't know much about the Japanese American or Japanese Canadian experience, but it also impacted individuals who experienced those experiences and like connected, which is just, I mean, at the core, that's just amazing. And then, if you don't mind, Kathryn, you mentioned the [CWRIC]. I'm not 100% familiar with it. So do you mind explaining what [CWRIC] is?

KB: Sure, the [Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians] was established by Congress to look into the, basically, the impacts of the Executive Order 9066, and the various military orders, and other governmental actions that develop from that. And in particular, the people who were forcibly removed and excluded and incarcerated, and also to come up with recommendations based on its findings. And this is -- they produce a report called Personal Justice Denied, which is really a critical piece of documentation about the experience of Japanese Americans in particular, although it covered other groups as well. And this was the report that determined that the root causes of the deprivation of rights of Japanese Americans during World War II was... and I'm kind of embarrassed right now that it's just not rolling off the tip of my tongue. But failure of political leadership, wartime prejudice, and wartime hysteria, and racism. I think that I'm not getting the words quite right. But I think those are essentially the three categories. So it's a very important work. It was based upon not only exhaustive research by the Commission, but was also based on testimony taken, I believe in maybe up to eleven sites across the United States.

It was an extraordinary moment in Japanese American history because Japanese Americans were known not to have been very forthcoming about their wartime experience. I think was a very complicated thing to talk about that period. And there weren't very many people who were certainly interested in hearing about it in general, the general community. Certainly, I think, like most students in my era who were in high school, we had maybe one paragraph in our history books that acknowledged that Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II, and that most of them were citizens. And certainly nothing about how there was no military basis or any rational basis for that action, but military necessity for that action. But the testimony, these hearings across the United States, were extraordinary because, for example, in Seattle, people came forward and testified in person before the commission about their experience and its impact on their lives. And it was just profoundly moving to hear the stories that I think many people had not even shared with their own children. I mean, and even... I think I can share this. That I... we know about the people who actually had recorded testimonies before the commission. In addition to that, many people wrote to the commission, and told their stories and their impacts. And I happened to be looking at the Densho website and I looked up the name of Hideko Shimomura, who is the mother of a friend of mine, and I discovered her testimony on the Densho website. And I called her daughter and said, "Are you aware that your mother submitted this testimony?" and she hadn't. And her uncle also, I think his testimony was on it. But it was a really good example. Her mother was actually a student at Julliard when war broke out. And her parents then called her back to Seattle to join the family so that they could go to Minidoka together. And you think about all the people who had these... where at the beginning of their lives, they were, they were talented, they had life before them and, they could never recover that, recover that again. So, thankfully, a lot of the testimony has been put on video, as well as been published. So I would urge anyone with an interest in the CWRIC to go to the Densho website and to become informed. And also, if they're interested, they can actually view the testimonies or read the testimonies.

EK: Thank you, Kathryn. Just, everything that you mentioned there and shared just made me think that it's important that more spaces where people can bring their testimonies forward is really important, have shared experiences come forward. And like you said, you said that only a paragraph of your education, of your history books, only talked about Japanese American history during World War II and I think that, even if it's expanded today, it's not much, even in my education, and it's really disappointing. And I think that, like I said before, there needs to be more space, not only for Japanese Americans, but those to learn more about these testimonies that come forward within this commission. But thank you for sharing that. I will definitely look into it right after this.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2022 Seattle Chapter JACL. All Rights Reserved.