"Without being imprisoned in Gila Relocation Camp, how would I have become aware of the Buddha's compassion?"
-An evacuee, in Why Pursue the Buddha? by Gibun Kimura

ON THE EVE of World War II, 12 7,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans lived in the United States. Most lived on the West Coast. Only thirty-seven percent of them were legally "aliens,"or first-generation "Issei." Seventy thousand others, the second-generation "Nisei" who were born here, were American citizens.

Anti-Japanese sentiment prevailed in this country from the time the first Japanese arrived in 1868. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941, that racism exploded. Newspapers and politicians fanned the flames of xenophobia, accusing all Japanese and Japanese-Americans of being spies and saboteurs, and calling for their immediate removal from the West Coast. "Herd 'em up, pack 'em off, and give 'em the inside room in the badlands," wrote San Francisco Examiner columnist Henry McLemore, in January 1942. "Let 'em be pinched, hurt, hungry, and dead against it. . . . Personally, I hate the Japanese."

No cases of espionage were ever proven. And many Japanese contributed valiantly to the U.S. war effort. Nevertheless, in the spring of 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, ordering all people of Japanese ancestry in Washington, Oregon, western California, and southern Arizona to evacuate. Altogether, 110,000 people-including fishermen, farmers, old women, and children-were sent to concentration camps in remote areas of the West. Herded like cattle and tagged like parcels, most could bring little more than they could carry. None knew when--or if they would return.

Fifty years have passed since then. In recent years, calls for reparations have prompted new discussions of the financial, psychological, and sociological impact of internment, but few people have examined the role of religion in the camps. At the time of internment, sixty percent of the internees called themselves Buddhists. The role of Buddhism in the concentration camps and during the years following provides a unique example of the ways in which spirituality can both flourish and flounder in the face of political oppression.

The Challenge

The sudden and violent bursts of anti-Japanese activities following Pearl Harbor shocked and confused Japanese communities all across the West. Many community leaders were detained or jailed immediately after the bombing, under suspicion of being linked to the Japanese emperor. This called into question the loyalties, rights, and futures of Japanese-Americans all across the U.S.

Buddhist ministers were among the first to go. In response, several Jodo Shinshu ministers telephoned the FBI and the Naval Intelligence Bureau in an attempt to define and defend their faith. This core group of ministers also sent directives to local temples, urging their members to support the war effort by buying defense bonds, volunteering for the Red Cross, and giving patriotic lectures. "I was buying war stamps to help the American effort," recalls Reverend Laverne Sasake, currently of the San Francisco Buddhist Church, then a teenager living in Los Angeles. "Yet my relatives were probably enemy soldiers. It was uncomfortable and confusing, even for a young boy."

In February 1942, all Japanese and Japanese-Americans were ordered to leave the West Coast. Businesses were boarded up and houses and farmlands abandoned or rented out; personal items were sold or destroyed. The internees' lives had essentially been erased. "This was a very, very sorrowful time," says Reverend Julius Goldwater, who at the time was the first of a handful of Western Jodo Shinshu ministers. "No one could understand what was happening."

The internees first reported to sixteen assembly centers-many at fairgrounds and racetracks-and were then taken to ten camps across the West and Midwest. Once at the camps, the prisoners were fed and clothed and were allowed some liberties, including attending schools, cultivating gardens, and holding dances, variety shows, and sports events. But the shock of internment cannot be underestimated. Many of the internees were told that this was for their own good, that they were being protected from hostile Americans. Yet whole families had been transplanted from their familiar communities and homes to inhospitable landscapes, where they were crowded into small barracks made of plywood and tar paper, furnished only with cots and potbellied stoves. Other furniture had to be fashioned from scrap lumber. Evacuees had to stand in line for the bathrooms and showers, and were given only mess hall food. "The deprivations were appalling," recalls Reverend Goldwater, now in his eighties.

Surrounded by barbed wire, watchtowers, and armed guards, many were unsure when they would return or what lives would be left. "We were told this was to keep the Japanese community secure," says Reverend Sasake. "But we were deprived of everything, all our basic rights."

"It Cannot Be Helped"

For many prisoners, social support provided by Buddhist churches helped alleviate the unpleasant conditions. Eighty percent of the Buddhists in the camps were affiliated with the Jodo Shinshu (Pure Land) sect. Although more than half of that sect's ministers had been taken to the Poston, Arizona, camp early on, those remaining did their best to serve the needs of the evacuees both during relocation and at the camps. Sometimes the aid was quite simple. One minister in the Minidoka, Idaho, camp simply kept repeating, "shikata ga nai," or "it cannot be helped. "

Internees were allowed to conduct Buddhist ceremonies from the very start. At the Tule Lake camp, for example, Sunday school services were held for young people, and evening services were held for adults-in addition to the usual weddings, funerals, and religious commemorations. "My home was a church in Tule Lake," recalls Reverend Sasake, whose fatherand twenty-five fathers before that-was a Jodo Shinshu minister. "The parlor of our barrack became a temple."

But ceremonies suffered constraints. One early problem was that the Wartime Civil Control Authority (WCCA) had designated English as the official language at the camps. Yet many ministers and the Issei spoke only Japanese, and few Nisei ministers spoke fluent English. Only later, when WCCA authorities really understood that many Issei could not understand English, did they allow the services to be conducted in Japanese.

Even then, recalls Arthur Takemoto, now a retired minister in San Diego, some Buddhists were wary. "Many Japanese had been interned because they taught the language, or because they were involved in Japanese cultural arts," he recalls. "To avoid being mistaken, we would conduct our ceremonies in English. That way the guards always knew what we were doing." In addition, few Japanese had been allowed to bring religious items into the camps. Others destroyed or hid items regarded as incriminating, including sutra books and Buddhist altars.