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Newspaper articles about Interment
The San Francisco News
April 3, 1942
STATE SUSPENDS ALL JAPANESE EMPLOYEES
By United Press
LOS ANGELES, April 3.—The State Personnel Board today cleared the
state payroll of between 350 and 400 Japanese-American employes.
The board in session here suspended all Japanese-American employes
of the state, effective immediately, pending charges to be filed by
heads of their departments or the Personnel Board itself.
Executive Officer Ivan Sperbeck said the Japanese generally would be
accused of holding dual citizenship in both Japan and the United
States. Some will be charged with falsifying civil service
applications and others will be accused of attending Japanese
language schools where Nipponese ideology was cultivated.
Jap Farm Land is Transferred
Nearly one-third of the Japanese farm lands on the Pacific Coast
have been transferred to new operators under the supervision of the
Farm Security Administration, L.I. Hewes, regional director,
announced today.
More than 1000 Japanese farms, totaling 50,000 acres, were
transferred during March, Mr. Hewes said. FSA field agents have
registered 6000 farms totaling approximately 200,000 acres and have
received applications to acquire vacated farms from more than 2000
farmers.
“All agricultural interests on the Pacific Coast are mobilized to
meet this vital emergency and to keep these lands in production,”
Mr. Hewes said.
“Keeping up production is the all-important issue and our policy of
assisting all farmers and loaning money to whoever can operate the
land is the surest way of seeing that essential crops are not lost.”
he added.
FSA officials announced that qualified operators were urgently
needed to operate the vacated Japanese farm lands and asked those
interested to report at once.
[Submitted by Sandie Cummins]
San Francisco News
April 30, 1942
New Jap Evacuation Order
New orders were issued for the evacuation of 5100 more Japanese from
Alameda, Contra Costa and Los Angeles Counties as part of the
Japanese exclusion program today.
This brought the total evacuation close to the halfway mark in
California.
The orders, issued by Lieut. Gen. DeWitt, head of the Western
Defense Command, raised the number of Japanese moved or in the
process of being moved to 35,000 for the Pacific Coast.
Meanwhile, almost two-thirds of the Japanese in San Francisco and
the East Bay who are being evacuated to the Tanforan assembly center
under earlier orders have already been transferred.
The evacuation was coast wide, covering zones from Alaska to
Arizona. Approximately 100,000 Japanese were living in the Pacific
defense zone when the exclusions began. Of these, possibly 5000 to
8000 moved out voluntarily. In addition, Japanese formed the
majority of the dangerous aliens seized in the area by the FBI, a
total of under 5000 on the Pacific Coast.
General DeWitt has announced the evacuations would be completed
before the end of May; those affected by the new orders today were
to be removed to assembly centers by noon Thursday, May 7. The
announcement covered five separate civilian exclusion orders running
from Order No. 27 to 31, inclusive; Orders 27-28 affect 1900
Japanese in Contra Costa and Alameda Counties. The other three, 3200
in Los Angeles County.
Civilian Exclusion Order No. 27—Affecting Japanese in Alameda and
Contra Costa Counties living in the area beginning at the southerly
limits of Berkeley at San Francisco Bay, then easterly along the
southerly limits to College-av, then southerly on College-av to
Broadway, then southerly on Broadway to the south limits of the city
of Oakland, and then along the Oakland southerly limits westerly and
northerly and following the shoreline of San Francisco to the point
of beginning.
A Civil Control Station was established at 530 18th-st, Oakland, to
which heads of families and individuals living alone were directed
to report May 1 and 2 to make arrangements for removal to Tanforan
Assembly Center by May 7. They were advised they would be permitted
to use private automobiles in the evacuation.
Civilian Exclusion Order No. 28—Affecting Japanese living in those
portions of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties within an area
beginning at the point where College-av meets the southerly limits
of the city of Berkeley, then along the south limits easterly to
State Highway No. 24 to Walnut Creek, then south on the State
Highway No. 21 to its intersection with U.S. Highway No. 50 to the
south limits of Oakland, then following the south Oakland limits
west to San Francisco Bay, then north following the shoreline west
to Bay Farm Island and Alameda to the northwestern entrance of the
channel entering Oakland Inner Harbor, then along the channel
southeasterly to Broadway in the city of Oakland, then northeast on
Broadway to College-av, then north on College to the point of
beginning.
A civil control station was established at 1117 Oak-st, Oakland, for
aliens to report for processing May 1 and 2 prior to removal to
Tanforan by Noon May 7. Private automobiles will be permitted.
Today’s orders were the second group issued this week; Tuesday
General DeWitt ordered two areas in Oregon—including all of
Portland—cleared of 1900 Japanese by May 5.
[Submitted by Sandie Cummins]
San Francisco Chronicle
May 21, 1942
S.F. CLEAR OF ALL BUT 6 SICK JAPS
For the first time in 81 years, not a single Japanese is walking the
streets of San Francisco. The last group, 274 of them, were moved
yesterday to the Tanforan assembly center. Only a scant half dozen
are left, all seriously ill in San Francisco hospitals.
Last night Japanese town was empty. Its stores were vacant, its
windows plastered with "To Lease" signs. There were no guests in its
hotels, no diners nibbling on sukiyaki or tempura. And last night,
too, there were no Japanese with their ever present cameras and
sketch books, no Japanese with their newly acquired furtive,
frightened looks.
A colorful chapter in San Francisco history was closed forever. Some
day maybe, the Japanese will come back. But if they do it will be to
start a new chapter—with characters that are irretrievably changed.
It was in 1850 — more than 90 years ago — that the first Japanese
came to San Francisco, more than four years before Commodore Perry
engineered the first trade treaty with Japan. The first arrival was
one Joseph Heco, a castaway, brought here by his rescuers. What
happened to Heco is, apparently, a point overlooked by historians.
He certain came and probably went – but nobody seems to know when or
where.
Not for another 11 years did the real Japanese migration begin. In
1861, the second Japanese came here. Five years later, seven more
arrived. The next year there were 67, and from then on migration
boomed. By 1869 there was a Japanese colony at Gold Hill near
Sacramento. In 1872 the first Japanese Consulate opened in San
Francisco – an office that passed through many hands, many regimes,
and many policies before December 7, 1941. On that fateful day,
according to census records, there were 5,280 Japanese in San
Francisco.
They left San Francisco by the hundreds all through last January and
February, seeking new homes and new jobs in the East and Midwest. In
March, the Army and the Wartime Civil Control Administration took
over with a new humane policy of evacuation to assembly and
relocation centers where both the country and the Japanese could be
given protection. The first evacuation under the WCCA came during
the first week in April, when hundreds of Japanese were taken to the
assembly center at Santa Anita. On April 25 and 26, and on May 6 and
7, additional thousands were taken to the Tanforan Center. These
three evacuations had cleared half of San Francisco. The rest were
cleared yesterday.
These last Japanese registered here last Saturday and Sunday. All
their business was to have been cleaned up, all their possessions
sold or stored. Yesterday morning, at the Raphael Weill School on
O'Farrell Street, they started their ride to Tanforan. Quickly,
painlessly, protected by military police from any conceivable
"incident," they climbed into the six waiting special Greyhound
buses. There were tears – but not from the Japanese. They came from
those who stayed behind – old friends, old employers, old neighbors.
By noon, all 274 were at Tanforan, registered, assigned to their
temporary new homes and sitting down to lunch.
[Submitted by Sandie Cummins]
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