It Did Happen Here: The Japanese Evacuation of 1942 (conference)

Public symposium held on the UCLA campus to mark the 25th anniversary of the wartime exclusion and incarceration of Japanese Americans that was a precursor to the renewed interest in the topic in the decades to come and almost certainly the first related public event since the war years.

UCLA Professors Roger Daniels and Harry H.L. Kitano —both of whom were working on books on some aspect of the wartime incarceration—planned the event, which was sponsored by the University of California Extension program in Los Angeles and the UCLA history department. Held on June 3, 1967, in UCLA's Schoenberg Hall, admission to the all-day event cost $7.50, including a buffet lunch. Students could attend for discounted rate of $2. About three hundred people attended. ^[1]

The stated purpose of the event was to analyze "the long-term impact of the Evacuation both upon the Japanese American community and American public consciousness." To that end, there were four sessions. The first session, "Why It Happened Here," began at 9 am and featured Daniels and Judge Robert W. Kenney, who was a California state senator in 1942 and the state's attorney general from 1943–47. Daniels's presentation focused on the run up to Executive Order 9066 and the roles played by John DeWitt , Karl Bendetsen , and Allen Gullion , previewing a chapter from his influential 1971 book Concentration Camps USA . Kenney recalled the events from his perspective, arguing that "anti-Japanese hysteria was deliberately whipped up after Pearl Harbor...the Evacuation was artificially manufactured...." The 11 am session, "Community Reactions and Life in the Relocation Centers," featured Leonard Arrington , a visiting professor at UCLA whose study of the Topaz , Utah, camp was perhaps the first academic work on any one WRA camp; Victor Goertzel, who had been a vocational counselor at Topaz High School and the director of the Philadelphia Hostel ; along with two prominent Nisei former inmates, Joe Grant Masaoka and Togo Tanaka , both of whom had been important figures in the early months at Manzanar . ^[2]

After a buffet lunch, the first afternoon session, "The Socio-Psychological Impact of the Evacuation," featured Kitano, who focused on the overwhelming public approval of the forced removal and incarceration and the "meek and humble" response of Japanese Americans, noting the many reasons behind that response. The closing panel, "Return to the West Coast: The Postwar Situation," featured Kenney, Kitano, Rev. William M. Shinto of the Evergreen Baptist Church, and JACL President Jerry Enomoto. In his summation of the event, Masaoka noted the presence in the audience of crusading real estate agent William C. Carr actors George Takei and Mako , and cinematographer James Wong Howe, the last "commenting he was going to make a movie of a Nisei love story about the Evacuation." ^[3]

Community reaction was muted. In a later interview, Daniels noted early support from the community, but that "as word got out of what was going on, and before it had been held, the climate changed in the community," noting some behind the scenes pressure to not have the event. "Nobody, of course, no Issei or Nisei who disapproved came and protested, because that is not the way things are done. But I know that there were people in the audience who sat there with grim faces, but most began to feel that it was something to do." Alluding the discomfort in the room, Rafu Shimpo columnist Ellen Endo wrote "that Nisei (those who were actually interned) were discontented with the symposium because it brought 25-year old memories out of the woodwork." But she also wrote that Sansei and others "found it quite informative and interesting, we are told." According to Daniels, plans to publish the proceedings from the symposium were abandoned. It Did Happen Here remains little remembered today. ^[4]