Paul Bannai: A Bank Clerk at Manzanar Who Volunteered for the 442nd

Manzanar National Historic Site publishes short "ID booklets" on Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II. Paul Bannai's was written by a member of his family in his voice; it is retold here in hubnx's own words.

Family No. 1107 · Manzanar, California · Address 5-10-5

Before the war

Paul Bannai was born on July 4, 1920, in Delta, Colorado, to Sakui and Shino Bannai, who came from Aizu-Wakamatsu in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. He went to grammar schools in Colorado, Utah and Arizona and to Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles. Before the war he worked in banking and studied at the American Institute of Banking and at the University of California's extension school in real estate.

Leaving Los Angeles

The family had several weeks to sell their furniture and belongings. They stored nothing — they could find nowhere to, and had no idea what lay ahead. They could take only what they could carry, so they packed mainly clothes; valuables such as jewellery and cameras were hard either to take or to leave, and most went into a safe deposit box at Paul's bank.

Everything sold at giveaway prices. Paul had bought a car a few months earlier, and buyers who knew he had to leave made absurd offers. Disgusted, he locked the car and threw away the key. Friends later spotted it, called a locksmith, sold it and sent him the money — a fraction of its worth.

His parents volunteered to go to Manzanar with the first group, so the family skipped the assembly centres. The War Relocation Authority let Paul stay behind, because many evacuees were anxious about their money and he worked at a bank; he left with the last group. He was inclined to defy the executive order and stay, but rather than go to prison and worry his parents, he decided at the last minute to join them.

Manzanar

The bus ride, on one of the last buses out of the Los Angeles area, was quiet and sad. Arriving in daylight, Paul was heartbroken by the barbed wire and guard towers, but seeing his family again after a time apart made up for it.

The seven of them — his parents, three sisters, a brother and Paul — shared one room at 5-10-5, and had to get used to a common mess hall, showers and bathrooms. Paul had finished school; his siblings enrolled in the camp school, which fell short of the schools he had known but was needed and helped pass the time. He played sports and went to a dance or two to break the boredom.

As property manager, paid $19 a month, he handled much of the government equipment arriving for use in camp or for distribution to the incarcerated people, and dealt with the administration more than most. He found the staff mostly sympathetic and as accommodating as they could be while doing their jobs. His only dealings with the military police came later, when he visited his parents in a U.S. Army uniform before going overseas — the MPs were suspicious of a Japanese American with sergeant's stripes and questioned him more than usual.

Out of camp

His main thought was to get out. When the camp announced that volunteers for farm labour — crops needed harvesting and hands were short — would be considered for leave, he joined the first group. With ten others he went to Rexburg, Idaho, to work sugar beets and potatoes for a German family, who housed them comfortably and treated them as human beings. It was the hardest work of his life, but waking each day without barbed wire and guard towers felt good.

Afterwards he would not go back. With help from the student relocation effort he won a place at the University of Nebraska on the strength of his high school grades — but on arrival he was turned away: the university had a quota on Japanese American students, and his unusual name had slipped past it. Since the mistake was theirs, they found other Midwestern schools willing to take him, and he chose Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.

Before the next term he worked as a steward for the Tangney-Maginn hotel chain. Then he heard about the new 442nd Regiment, an all–Japanese American Army unit, and volunteered. He was inducted at Fort Dodge and sent to Camp Shelby, Mississippi, to train with it.

Sources

• National Park Service, Manzanar National Historic Site, "Paul Bannai," an ID booklet. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/paul-bannai.htm
• More: the ten War Relocation Authority centers; Manzanar ID booklets.
• Words on this page from people and organisations outside the federal government are paraphrased; rewritten in hubnx's own words.