Historic Hood River
“All They Could Carry”
Notes
In May 1942 Japanese and Japanese-American residents of Hood River were ordered to appear at the train depot for forced removal to camps in California and Idaho. The Agricultural Extension Annual Report included this picture with the simple caption, “Japanese Evacuation ‘All the could carry'” The caption refers to the fact people were only allowed to bring what they could carry for to live for an unknown length of time in an unknown location far from home. This report was published in December 1942 as the war was raging. Perhaps I am reading into it, but the author’s inclusion of the phrase “All they could carry” suggests sympathies for those being deported.
Choice of words is of course very important. One of the “Evacuees” told me he objected to the term “Internment Camp.” He calls them “Concentration Camps.”
L.E.
Because of this event, it bothers me that we are required to identify “race and ethnicity” on our census form.
The Census Bureau is who released the location data of the Japanese-Americans, to the Secret Service.
However, it is easier to think kinder more humanitarian thoughts, when you are not at war.
nels
A heartbreaker of a picture. How courageous in a time of great trauma and loss. Are we past that yet? Some locals took care of farms and houses while others took advantage of and supported the removal to their advantage. An eternal shame on the Hood River valley.
Arlen L Sheldrake
I think this is the first time I teared up looking at this site. Right on Nels. Arlen
Kyle
Heart breaking.
L.E.
My mother did not think this was wrong.
L.E.
There was also a much smaller number of German and Italian U.S. citizens who were sent to camps. FBI investigations of Nazi sympathizers was taking place as early as 1935 and I think there was some deals made with Latin America over Germans, Italians and Japanese.
It is a history we should not be lackadaisical about studying.
Arlen L Sheldrake
Arthur…..do you think this is a picture from the HR depot? Arlen
ArthurB
Yes Arlen, I believe this is the Hood River Depot. The report includes two photos from that day. The other one shows a little more context, but I chose this one as a more intimate view.
This image has been published elsewhere with reference to the same source (OSU report) so there must have been multiple copies distributed. It was typed on onion skin paper probably with carbons, then photos were glued in. Pages are numbered in ink, and it includes ink signatures of Mr. Marble. I'm not sure if he took the photographs himself or got them from someone else. All the photos are similar enough style I suspect they were taken by Mr. Marble or a single staff member at his office.
L.E.
nels….you can shame the Hood River Valley, but would you have had the courage to stand up against an executive order from your President?
Some of the Japanese citizens did have the courage, and they paid a price. Many of the photos at the train station, show U.S. soldiers guarding and assisting the Japanese families as they are being loaded on the train, headed to Portland. I wonder how they felt following their orders.
When I was a kid, in the 1960's I spent a lot of time at the Portland Livestock Auction. I spent time up in the tower watching cattle being sorted and put into pens.
When Arthur posted some of Alva Day's photos of the Japanese at the HR train station, I did some further research. I just about threw up when I came across a photo of that same tower, manned by a guard watching over the Japanese who were temporarily being housed there.
Dale Minami says: “Let that be a lesson for us that dissent is not the enemy of patriotism,” Minami said. “In 1942, America was silent. Very few people dissented, and we had a civil rights disaster. We can't afford to let that happen again today.”
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2017/05/we_are_scarred_but_not_broken.html
ArthurB
It is easy to imagine courage or even heroism in hindsight. At the time there was dissent. We know about local voices like Min Yasui and Arline Moore. There were people who kept quiet, and people who cheered this on. I don't think any of us can know how we would have responded had we been present at that moment.
Arlen L Sheldrake
well stated Arthur….I have never condemned by grandfather (Sheriff) or father (deputy sheriff) for their actions in this effort but have always felt and expressed sympathy, at least to my father, for his regret. (I was too young to know much before John H. died in 1955) I surely hope we learned and remember…. and yes, I don't know what I would have done in their place.
this is the first picture I have seen with a close up of a deported family…this makes it personal for me………
KENN
WE WERE FRIGHTENED OF THE UNKNOWN