Ono Family during World War II
This series shares the stories of the author’s family and relatives during their tumultuous journey from when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and how their own American government treated them as the enemy without any due process of the law. This series will highlight some of their experiences upon being placed in unusual and harsh conditions and their hardships in and out of the camps.
Stories from this series
Letters from Camp - Part 3
June 1, 2011 • Gary T. Ono
Read Part 2 >>In all, the documents and letters, even telegrams, showed that there were many pleas for hearings to be held so that he could make a case for his parole and release. All of his and the family’s pleas were turned down. The main reason given was that there was never any new evidence introduced to make them change their original judgment. While the family’s efforts were well-meaning, I also could not see any new reasons for their …
Letters from Camp - Part 2
May 25, 2011 • Gary T. Ono
Read Part 1 >>In 2003, in response to a request I’d submitted to the National Archives in Washington, DC for documentation relating to my grandfather’s arrest and imprisonment by the FBI, INS and the DOJ during WWII, I received well-over 190-copy pages of records from his personal file, which included a filled-out 28-page “U.S. Department of Justice, Alien Enemy Questionnaire.” I learned that he was in: Fort Missoula, Montana; Fort Sill, Oklahoma; Camp Livingston, Louisiana; Lordsburg, New Mexico and ended-up …
Letters from Camp - Part 1
May 18, 2011 • Gary T. Ono
These were not letters from a summer camp like the funny one from a young homesick camper as written by songwriter, Allan Sherman, in his 1964 Grammy Award winning song which began, “Hello Muddah – Hello Faddah – Here I am – in Camp Granada…” No!…Although the letters from the camp of which I speak were from Granada, they were actually from the Granada War Relocation Authority Center, a prison camp!The WRA camp’s name was changed from Granada to Amache …
Denver
April 22, 2010 • Gary T. Ono
As mentioned in “Amache Arrival”, our father, Sam Masami Ono, 29 (a San Franciscan) and George Dote (a Los Angeleno), were both released February 10, 1943 from Amache, the Colorado War Relocation Authority camp near the small town of Granada, Colorado. They were invited to go to Denver to audition/interview for translation and broadcasting jobs with the British Political Warfare Mission (BPWM). The British agency partnered with the U.S. Office of War Information (OWI) in a “Joint Anglo-American Program of …
Amache Arrival
Feb. 11, 2010 • Gary T. Ono
On September 18, 1942, finally, after the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe train engine, the last of the different locomotive engines that took their turn pulling our passenger train carrying us Japanese evacuees aboard through their own railroad company jurisdictions, we arrived at the small farming town of Granada, Colorado. It took three days of confined discomfort. The seemingly endless travel time was caused by the priority given scheduled passenger, military and freight trains over our “special” evacuation trains, which …
A Sunday Drive - Mommy’s Birthday
Dec. 2, 2009 • Gary T. Ono
I imagine it was a beautifully clear December morning, our Mommy’s birthday, a “day of rest” Sunday, and a new Chevy coupe parked out in front on Geary Street! Daddy didn’t need any more reasons to decide, “Let’s take a drive out to the country!” Our father, Sam Masami Ono packed my brother Stanley Kazumi, almost-3 and me, almost -2, (we were both born in January), our Auntie Yuki Okamura and of course, our mother Kimiye, the “birthday-girl” into the …
