Internment camp survivor revisits World War II ordeal

During World War II, Frank Kajikawa spent more than a year in a U.S. prison camp.

His crime: being born Japanese.

Kajikawa was one of 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent who were held in internment camps as enemy aliens during the war.

Kajikawa, who now lives in the Del Webb Sun City retirement community in Huntley, spoke about his ordeal Wednesday night at the Huntley Area Public Library.

Kajikawa was a teenager when the news came over the radio that Japan had bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor.

"We were horrified when we heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor," Kajikawa recalls. "We're American citizens. We love our country."

After the attack, President Roosevelt issued the executive order that moved Japanese-Americans who lived on the West Coast to 10 remote camps in the western United States.

Kajikawa and his family had to move from their home outside Tacoma, Wash., to the Minidoka camp near Twin Falls, Idaho. They had just two weeks to get rid of all their belongings - including many traditional Japanese items.

"Many lost everything," Kajikawa said. "It was horrible that we had to throw away anything that symbolized the beauty of the country our parents came from."

Kajikawa, 15 at the time, spent 13 to 14 months in the camp, biding his time while working as a dishwasher and attending school. After finding a sponsor and relocating to Salt Lake City, Kajikawa heard from Uncle Sam again: He was drafted into the Army.

While he was angry at the time, Kajikawa is proud of his service in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a unit of Japanese-Americans that served in Africa and Europe.

"We fought and proved our loyalty to our country," Kajikawa said. "It gave us a chance to raise our head and say, 'Hey, we're just as good as anybody else.'"

After Kajikawa's talk, many of the 30 people who had listened to him speak thanked him for sharing his experiences.

"When he finally made it out on his own and was drafted - I'm not sure I would have had enough presence of mind to go along with that. It spoke a lot to his character," said Tom Nowak of Sun City.