Resistance
Searing questions and disputes about whether and to what extent to cooperate with the government’s actions tore at the fabric of the larger Japanese American community and fractured some families. Young Nisei men were faced with the most difficult decision—whether, on the one hand, to serve in the American military even as their families remained incarcerated or whether, on the other hand, to resist both the forced removal of their families and induction into the service. Many chose to resist, and their stories, after decades of silence, have only begun to be fully heard in recent years.
Readers of Facing the Mountain will be most familiar with the case of Gordon Hirabayashi. Gordon was somewhat unusual in that he was one of a small number of Nisei who deliberately violated a curfew directed at Japanese Americans and then refused to get on a bus and be taken to his local “Assembly Center.” Later, when served with a draft notice he also refused to comply with that.
For an overview of the differing responses to the situation within the community, see this short film:
The Densho YouTube channel on “Defiance” offers a selection of first-hand accounts of people recalling how they defied and resisted the government’s actions.
Gordon Hirabayashi was far from the only young Nisei man to resist military service. This Densho Encyclopedia article details how resistance to registration and induction played out in different contexts and what the legal consequences were for many of the resisters:
https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Draft_resistance/
Hirabayashi’s case eventually worked its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. For more on the legal issues surrounding his case, see this entry in the Densho Encyclopedia:
https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Hirabayashi%20v.%20United%20States
Some readers may be more familiar with the related case of Korematsu v United States. You can explore the legal issues involved in that case here:
https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Korematsu%20v.%20United%20States
Resistance arose at all of the camps, as well as outside the camps, but two camps in particular saw the most vocal, organized and strenuous opposition.
At Heart Mountain in Wyoming, draft age young men formed the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee, which took direct action to confront the authorities and mounted legal challenges to conscription.
https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Heart_Mountain_Fair_Play_Committee/
The Tule Lake camp in northern California saw mass protests over living and work conditions and in 1943 was converted into a “segregation center” run by military authorities to incarcerate both Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans whom the government labeled as “disloyal.”