William Hohri: Manzanar, and an Exclusion Order That Barred a Visit Home

Manzanar National Historic Site publishes short "ID booklets" on Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II. This is William Hohri's first-person account, retold in hubnx's own words.

Family No. 1477 · Manzanar, California · Address 10-4-2

Pearl Harbor

The Hohri family, six strong, arrived in San Francisco in 1922 as Protestant Christian missionaries, and three more children followed; William was the youngest. The family was living in North Hollywood when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. William was 14, a tenth-grader at North Hollywood High School. The FBI arrested his father that same afternoon. His classmates never treated him badly, but the press erupted with the slur "Japs", and it was a sad time.

To Manzanar

The family had about a week to get rid of everything they could not pack and carry. William does not remember owning anything precious; his brother, who ran a gardening business, had a friend sell his pickup truck after they left. On April 4, 1942, all of them except the father — held at Fort Missoula, Montana — left by bus for Manzanar. It was William's first long bus ride, guarded by a young soldier who thought they would all be back in two weeks.

He had never seen so many Japanese faces in one place. Life was spartan: a blanket and an empty mattress cover, which he stuffed with straw that crunched all night, in barracks that still had no windows. Home was Block 10, Barrack 4, cubicle 2. The food was terrible.

School did not start until September 1942, leaving five idle months, and when it did it fell short in nearly every subject. There was no future, William says, and morale was crumbling. When his class graduated in June 1944, most of his friends left camp the next day; he left a week later.

Turned away

His worst experience came after he had left. In March 1945 he travelled three days from Madison, Wisconsin, to visit his parents, hoping to talk his father out of moving to Madison, where, as an Issei (an immigrant from Japan), he would not find work. At the gate he was asked why he wanted to visit, and was refused entry. Worse, an individual exclusion order had been issued against him: he had to leave California by midnight that day.

Camp, he says, is part of who he is, just as being an American is.

Sources

• National Park Service, Manzanar National Historic Site, "William Hohri," an ID booklet. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/william-hohri.htm
• More: Manzanar ID booklets.
• Words on this page from people and organisations outside the federal government are paraphrased; rewritten in hubnx's own words.