Yukio Kawaratani
Yukio Kawaratani is a retired urban planner, who worked on the redevelopment of Downtown Los Angeles from 1962 to 1993. He is a community volunteer/activist in the City of Monterey Park and in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. As a Nisei teenager during World War II, his family was incarcerated in the Poston, Arizona and Tule Lake, California concentration camps.
Updated December 2012
Stories from This Author
Tule Lake Resisters: My E.O. 9066 Story
April 5, 2019 • Yukio Kawaratani
The World War II American concentration camp experience was the darkest time in Japanese American history. It was also a black mark on America, as our constitutional rights were trampled. My family suffered lifetime consequences. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, our whole family was saddened and worried about what was going to happen to us. We were a tiny minority, never fully accepted, and now we looked like and were being tied to the enemy. The FBI immediately arrested and …
Tule Lake National Park Service Meeting on August 2, 2012
Jan. 4, 2013 • Yukio Kawaratani
My name is Yukio Kawaratani, a Tule Lake victim at 14 years of age. Our family of 11 members suffered lifetime consequences. Three brothers were drafted into the U.S Army, and two more were eligible. Rumors said that they would be sent to the front lines and be considered expendable. My parents could not accept putting five sons in harms way, so they answered No, No, to keep the remaining family together and to jointly suffer the consequences. We “No, …
