An archive of past updates from our home page.

Update: Wednesday, January 17, 2007
In 1944 U.S. District Court Judge T. Blake Kennedy in Wyoming ruled 63 young Heart Mountain boys could not raise the unconstitutionality of mass incarceration as a defense in their trial for draft resistance. The jury could only rule on whether or not they failed to report for induction, and convicted the lot.

In 2007, although the cases are different, a military judge at Fort Lewis south of Seattle ruled this week that Army 1st Lt. Ehren Watada can not raise the legality of the war in Iraq as a defense for his refusal to deploy there. The Seattle Times article has links to court documents in Watada's court-martial trial. See also the Seattle P-I.

By the way, did you see the howler on the season premiere of "24" on Jan. 14? Under siege from terrorist attacks, in a terse exchange on the legal precedents for locking up American Muslims in concentration camps, "President Wayne Palmer" bemoaned how "Roosevelt imprisoned over 200,000 Japanese Americans in what most historians consider to be a shameful mistake." Where were the fact-checkers? S.I. Hayakawa would have cried "semantic inflation." What was troubling, though, was the next line of dialogue: "Well I would ask those historians how many of those Japanese Americans were thus prevented from perpetrating acts of sabotage in this country?" The answer, of course, is exactly none.

Sunday, February 4, 2007
Thanks for visiting this site if you've come here after viewing "Watada, Resister" on YouTube or MySpace. If not, click on the screen on the right to see the first part of what's billed as "The historic meeting of young Lt. Ehren Watada, who refused to deploy to Iraq, and WW2 resisters."

It was shot and edited by filmmaker Curtis Choy on Jan. 27 as a way of connecting Lt. Watada with the Nisei draft resisters who he describes as an "inspiration" and who in this video express their pride in him and their support for Watada's own principled stand. You will see and hear Heart Mountain resistance leader Frank Emi, draft resister Yosh Kuromiya, and their friend Paul Tsuneishi. If you look carefully you can see our poster for Conscience and the Constitution in Frank Emi's living room behind Yosh.

Click on the second screen to see Part 2 of their conversation. Listen in particular to Watada's measured and thoughtful challenge to all Americans to decide where they stand on the war, and one's moral obligation to act if you do have a stand. He emerges in the video as a remarkable young man. Give it a listen.

As Yosh says in his prepared statement, the judge in his case in 1944 ruled that the 63 young Heart Mountain boys could not raise the unconstitutionality of mass incarceration as a defense in their trial for draft resistance. The jury could only rule on whether or not they failed to report for induction, and convicted the lot.

Update: Saturday, February 24, 2007
Filmmaker Curtis Choy has just posted a shorter 2:38 excerpt from his online film "Watada, Resister." This one he calls "Watada's epiphany" and in it Heart Mountain resistance leader Frank Emi asks 1st. Lt. Ehren Watada why he enlisted in the first place.

Undaunted by an initial mistrial, the Army on Friday refiled charges against Watada. See the Seattle Times and Seattle P-I coverage of this development.

Update: Wednesday, June 27, 2007
If you live in the Intermountain states, tune in to Wyoming Public Radio this Friday, June 30 at 3:00 p.m. for an interview with me on the draft resistance at Heart Mountain, on the occasion of the formal dedication of Heart Mountain as a National Historic Landmark. The program is Open Spaces, great title for a series produced in Buffalo Bill country. We should be able to listen to it online sometime next week.

We are learning more about Sam Horino, one of the seven leaders of the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee. A nephew of his contacted us from Chicago, uncertain as to whether it was his uncle featured in this April 6, 1942, story that Time Magazine has put online, "Moving Day for Mr. Nisei."

Son Isamu Horino, 26, is a tough, wiry Nisei boy with a shock of unkempt hair and a stubborn jaw. He never did like the way white citizens treated him. (But he went to school in Japan for a while, did not like the way yellow men treated him either.) Rebel Isamu decided a few years ago to make a lot of money just to prove he was "as damn good as a white."

Said Isamu: "I decided if I was going to be a bastard, I'd be a first-class bastard. . . . I figured I could beat a big bunch of white gardeners out of their business. I did. I acted just like a white man, but I did it better, and my gardens are the best in town." Isamu paid more than $1,000 in income taxes this year; owned four trucks, a half-dozen power-mowers; had three full-time assistants—two Japs and a Mexican; hired white college boys for part-time work. Said Isamu Horino: "Why should we support anything in this country with a whole heart? I don't mean any of us give a damn about Japan. We hope they get licked. But . . . nobody ever let us become a real part of this country. . . . If they want to take away all we've got and dump us out in the desert, we've got no choice. But we don't like it. . . . And we're expected to buy bonds, too. Not me!"

Yes, that's the voice of Sam Horino, and what the article fails to mention is how when soldiers showed up at his home in Hollywood to force him out, he refused to comply and made them carry him out in their arms. That's the spirit of resistance that led Sam to later lead the Constitutional challenge to incarceration inside Heart Mountain, alongside Frank Emi, Kiyoshi Okamoto, Paul Nakadate, Guntaro Kubota, Min Tamesa, and treasurer Ben Wakaye.

Update: Sunday, July 1, 2007
You can use this link to listen to or download an mp3 podcast of our June 29 interview with Wyoming Public Radio on the Heart Mountain draft resisters. The program is "Open Spaces," and they called on the occasion of the formal dedication of Heart Mountain as a National Historic Landmark. The interview begins at the 5:30 mark.

Update: Thursday, September 13, 2007
Check your local listings for next Monday, Sept. 17, at 9:00 p.m., for the national PBS broadcast of "Most Honorable Son," a beautifully shot and edited documentary that tells the full story of Nisei war hero Sgt. Ben Kuroki, whose story intersects with that of the Heart Mounta draft resisters as seen in Conscience. Producer/director Bill Kubota of Detroit was working on this project at the same time we were working on our film, and he's succeeded in bringing a fully-realized project to the screen:

"During World War II, U.S. Army aerial gunner Ben Kuroki not only fought the Axis powers in Europe and the Pacific, but he also battled discrimination and prejudice in America. Told through rare and seldom-seen footage, MOST HONORABLE SON tells the story of this Japanese American who volunteered to fight against Japan to prove his loyalty to America."

The new film includes the story of Kuroki witnessing Mike Masoka's arrrest at a church in North Platte, Nebraska, on the morning of Pearl Harbor, and the military's use by Kuroki the war hero to try to drum up recruitment at Heart Mountain. There is a great interview with Heart Mountain resister Jack Tono that echoes the reaction of Frank Emi in our film, the disbelief with which some greeted Kuroki's message of proving one's loyalty through service. Also seen is Prof. Roger Daniels sharing his insights. Kubota tells a great story and the film is a great success. The Web site for the film has just been posted, so learn more about this story.

I paid a visit in August to Mits Koshiyama in San Jose and he was just in receipt of a new book about the Nisei draft resisters, published in Japan under the roughly-translated title of America's Nikkei Nisei. Mits' wife translated the cover blurb for me as reading something like: "They were called into the army, but they refused to go!" and on the obi strip: "Voices of the Nikkei who lost their property taken by the government!" Author Yukio Morita includes the Guntaro Kubota translation into Japanese of a Fair Play Committee bulletin that is briefly glimpsed in Conscience, along with photos of Mits' family, Frank Emi, George Nozawa, and a Hawaiian draft resister who wanted to renounce his citizenship.

Here's the link to Lisa Chung's July 7 column in the San Jose Mercury-News, "War resister's predecessors stand with him" (free registration required) for which she quotes from Curtis Choy's film of the phone call from Frank Emi and Yosh Kuromiya to Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq:

"Besides the usual list of anti-war celebrities and politicians in Watada's corner, what impresses me most are the members of the Heart Mountain draft resisters. They know all about taking an unpopular stand on principle. These are people like Mits Koshiyama in San Jose, Frank Emi and Yoshi Kuromiya in Los Angeles, and others. They know the personal cost can still resonate and sting, even after 60 years ...

"Writer Frank Chin sent me a DVD recording of a phone meeting between Watada and Emi, Kuromiya and Paul Tsuneishi, a World War II veteran. Koshiyama, 83, was going to take part until health issues intervened. The elders offered their analyses and support. Kuromiya told the young officer that he might very well go to prison, but it could be the beginning of something new. He has the character for leadership and a role to play." (see the complete film on YouTube above)

Update: Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2007
Thanks to Kenji Taguma, English Edition Editor of the Nichi Bei Times, we can finally show you the cover and give you the correct title of "America Nikkei Nisei no Chohei Kihi (American Nikkei Nisei Draft Resistance)," the new book in Japanese by Professor Yukio Morita. Just added is a link to Kenji's news story in the Nichi Bei, "New Book Brings Little-Known Story of Nisei Resistance to Japanese Readers." Kenji is hosting a book talk by Prof. Morita in San Francisco:

Saturday, Nov. 3, 2:30 p.m.
Union Bank of California Hospitality Room
Miyako Mall (Post at Buchanan)

Kenji will be moderating the talk by Professor Morita (who will be speaking in Japanese) and Nisei draft resisters Ken Yoshida and Mits Koshiyama. His personal note tells the story:

This 600+ page book, published by Sairyusha Publishing Co. in Tokyo, is the first original Japanese language book solely dedicated to Nisei draft resistance. The back cover has an image of Frank Emi, and there are historical and contemporary photos interspersed throughout.

Professor Morita started interviewing Nisei resisters about five years ago, and the book includes results of interviews with folks like Frank Emi, Mits Koshiyama, George Nozawa, Jim Akutsu, Poston resisters, and the "Tucsconians" -- resisters who were sentenced to the same federal labor camp as Gordon Hirabayashi. This latter group included my father Noboru, Joe Norikane and Susumu Yenokida of Granada (Amache), and Ken Yoshida (Topaz or Central Utah). There's also a chapter on James Omura. I believe that this is the first book to include Granada and other resisters since Ellen Levine's A Fence Away From Freedom.

As the son of a Nisei resister, I'm forever grateful to those of you who have helped to bring out this story. Frank Abe's Conscience and the Constitution, Chizu Omori's Rabbit in the Moon, and Eric Muller's Free to Die For Their Country brought the story out to a wide audience. Hopefully, Prof. Morita's book will bring the story to a new audience, in Japan and to Japanese-speakers here in America.

As you can imagine, his actual paying audience must be rather limited, and the small press probably has no marketing capabilities here. So, if you have any access to any library with a Japanese-language collection, I'm sure it would be appreciated if they are encouraged to purchase a copy. The book costs 7,200 yen, which is about $61 today. I actually have about 15 copies here that the publisher sent on Prof. Morita's behalf, which Prof. Morita plans to sell at the event If anyone can make the book event on Nov. 3, I can look into trying to set up some type of meal gathering.

LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN!
Sumi Iwakiri persuaded her husband Brooks Iwakiri to pony up a thousand dollars to support Bill Hohri's NCJAR lawsuit against the gov for redress for the wrongs done to Constitution and the JA people by the Evacuation and Internment. She persuaded the fast talking fast moving Brooks to attend a reading of papers of the organized draft resistance at Heart Mountain at East West Players, when it was an Asian American Theater, and a meeting with James Omura the editor of the WWII Rocky Shimpo and the man who wrote the words that got the leaders of the Fair Play Committee, targeted by the JACL, arrested by the FBI.

Frank Emi. Emi told of taking the testimony of a JACL-FBI stooge lying through his teeth giving evidence that guaranteed all seven of the leaders would be convicted. He did his time at Leavenworth. As if Emi weren't real enough there was Yosh Kuromiya, a resister who did his time at McNeil Island. Read more.