Thin Wood Walls

Life in the internment camp at Tule Lake is stark and difficult. The tension inside the camp is heightened by the stressful news coming in about the war.

In these chapters, Patneaude references the Bataan Death March. In 1942, the Imperial Japanese Army transferred American and Filipino prisoners-of-war. An estimated 60,000 prisoners were forced to walk 65 miles between two prison camps, and the Japanese soldiers overseeing the walk killed prisoners with impunity. Several thousand prisoners died, marking the Bataan Death March as one of the most egregious examples of war crime during World War II. It was considered so deplorable and against the norm of how war prisoners were treated that after World War II, the United States tried Japanese commander General Masaharu Homma for war crimes and executed him in 1946. The Bataan Death March emphasized the brutality of World War II and highlighted the Imperial Japanese Army’s war crimes. When Japanese Americans incarcerated at Tule Lake hear about the Death March, it confirms for some the intensely powerful nature of the Imperial Japanese Army. For others, it poses yet another threat; the crueler the Imperial Japanese Army is to American soldiers, the more Americans will take their anger out on Japanese Americans.

The war poses another challenge for some Japanese Americans: A forced separation from their home. Immigrants to the United States often have family members and friends in their home country. Japanese Americans, particularly the Issei, have to watch either their new country of America suffer, or bear witness as the country of their birth and upbringing, Japan, is destroyed. Either way, a place they love will be lost. Some Issei and Nisei become more bitter toward the United States. Though they may not have considered Japan their home before being incarcerated, the injustice of Executive Order 9066 has ostracized them and made them unwanted in America, the country they had considered home.

Joe struggles to make sense of the war while dealing with incarceration. Tule Lake is an unforgiving place. The days blend, highlighting Joe’s boredom and depression. At Tule Lake, there is little to do and not much to hope for. This emphasizes how America dehumanizes Japanese Americans: Joe is robbed of an interesting and stimulating childhood, forced behind bars where he stays frozen in time. When Joe is finally permitted to go to school, racism and lack of resources only make him feel worse. Joe’s teacher, Mr. Moffitt, evokes a racist stereotype that all Asians look alike, which has its roots in xenophobia. Mike’s teacher is kinder, but Mike’s experience, such as having to learn to type on an imaginary keyboard, also demonstrates how America failed incarcerated Japanese American children. Through Joe and Mike, Patneaude explores the theme of Coming-of-Age Amidst Atrocities.

The Japanese American prisoners try to retain dignity. The potatoes and seashells that Joe digs up symbolize possibility and hope. Joe’s mother and grandmother cook the potatoes and decorate the barracks with the seashells, illustrating their resilience. The potatoes and seashells also emphasize how bad their environment truly was. Being grateful for potatoes to eat and bouquets of seashell flowers indicates that conditions must be hostile and impoverished. Joe’s discovery of the seashells and being allowed to dig for potatoes is bittersweet, not triumphant.

The loyalty questionnaire adds insult to injury. The form contains questions that put Japanese Americans, especially Issei, in a terrible spot. Question 27, which asks if the person completing the form would fight for the United States in the war, is a trick question for someone elderly, like Joe’s grandmother, who can’t seriously answer yes. Question 28 is particularly difficult in asking if the person in question is willing to renounce allegiance to Japan. Because Issei don’t have American citizenship, forsaking Japan would mean they are essentially stateless. Giving up Japan also means giving up family, friends, and cultural pride—all of which do not threaten the United States but require that Japanese immigrants sacrifice a fundamental piece of themselves. Additionally, Question 28 implies that the person answering has loyalty to Japan to begin with. Because the question is yes or no, someone who never grew up in Japan or who doesn’t care for Japan has no way of explaining that they can’t answer “yes” because there is no allegiance to give up.

Questions 27 and 28 are purposefully difficult and give the United States another legal reason to imprison Japanese Americans. The questionnaire is also divisive within the Japanese American community. Some believe that answering “yes-yes” means capitulating to a government that has already abused them. Others believe that “yes-yes” is an honest reflection of their patriotism.

Questions 27 and 28 are so important to the future of the Japanese American community that “No-No” becomes popular as an identifier. A “No-No” answers no to questions 27 and 28 and is seen by the American government as a traitor, a confirmation of their xenophobic bigotry. “No-No’s” are imprisoned in even worse conditions; many are brought to Tule Lake, the highest security internment camp. Many answer no-no on moral principles. After all, why should someone renounce Japan or fight for the United States when the United States has betrayed them and stripped them of their Bill of Rights? The Japanese American community, already dehumanized by their unjust incarceration, is further marginalized by the identity-erasing term “No-No.”

Patneaude does depict some “No-No’s” negatively. Mike and Joe get into a fight with a group of “No-No’s,” which seems to suggest that some “No-No’s” are aggressive. Likely, the young men who start the fight are embittered by what has been done to them, and view “Yes-Yes’s” as the real traitors.

The benefits of answering yes-yes are apparent. Yes-yes answers give many Japanese Americans a ticket out of the internment camps. Mae’s family answers yes-yes and, free of other suspicions, they find a sponsor who helps them get out of Tule Lake. The sponsor system is as unjust as incarceration. Japanese Americans, when freed, cannot go back to their homes because these homes no longer exist. For years after the war, Japanese Americans on the West coast face constant housing discrimination and lose any career or financial clout they had prior to World War II.

Another way to prove loyalty is through joining the army. When the United States opens recruitment to the Nisei, Mike is eager to join the moment he turns 18. Mike genuinely believes in fighting against the Nazis, but he is also willing to put his life on the line to prove that, contrary to the racism and bigotry hurled his way, he is an admirable example of an American hero. Mike’s eagerness is also a fight to reclaim his dignity and pride. Still, when Mike returns to the camp to visit his family, he is treated again like a prisoner, proving that racism cannot easily be erased from social consciousness. Asking the Nisei to enlist is asking for more sacrifice from the Japanese community. On top of all the abuse they’ve already faced, they must now sacrifice their young men.