Japanese Internment
Japanese Americans going to internment camp Manzanar in Owens Valley gather around a baggage car at the old Santa Fe Station in Los Angeles, California, April 1942. Manzanar was one of 10 camps in the United States where over 110,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly removed (incarcerated) during World War II between December 1942 to 1945. Photo from United States Library of Congress’ Prints and Photographs division, I.D. fsa.8a31149, by Russell Lee, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Northern Illinois Conference | July 2, 2025
Do the words “Jerome Internment Camp” ring any bells for you? This “war relocation center” in Denson, AR, was one of many concentration camps on U.S. soil that confined Japanese Americans during World War II. The federal government was not confident about the loyalty U.S. citizens of Japanese descent, so President Franklin D. Roosevelt took the questionable step of reserving all Japanese-Americans in detention camps.
The book May Sky: There's Always Tomorrow, by Violet Kazue Matsuda de Cristoforo, tells how she and other internees gathered in haiku clubs to remember and make art out of tragic experiences.
Kyotaro Komuro made his way to the United States in 1907 and eventually settled in Stockton, CA, where he became president and publisher of the Stockton Times. He was first interned at the Stockton assembly center. His last haiku reads:
May Sky Book Cover
UM Insight Screenshot
lived well 70 years
roadside grass
begins to wither
Neji Ozawa wrote this haiku when he was behind barbed wire:
From the window of despair
May sky
there is always tomorrow
The long history of being made to fear people groups has not healed in the U.S. The United Methodist Church has its own racial reckoning at Sand Creek, CO, and elsewhere. How might the waters of baptism be remembered in such a way as to challenge us to become people of grace in relation to the polarization, fear, and political violence of these days?
The late Elizabeth “Liz” Okayama was memorialized along with others at our June Annual Conference. Of the approximately 110,000 Japanese who were incarcerated under Franklin Roosevelt’s presidential order, two thirds were children and infants. Liz was three years old and a U.S. citizen, as was her mother, when they were captive. She and many others experienced what occurs when people are made to fear and hate people groups.
Political violence occurred in Minnesota last month, but high-profile incitement is taking place almost regularly. At the heart of this polarization is that we are being split and taught to fear. This is a moment to provide supportive and sanctuary-like care: how is your immigrant clergy family doing? How is your church called to fill food pantry shelves this summer? How might you love your neighbor, especially those most harassed and harmed?
Consider grace for the other. Consider the results of fear. Consider that your clergy families are carrying around their immigration documents to defend themselves. Attend to the means of grace: Bible study, communion, works of mercy and works of piety, fasting, and worship. In the words of Galatians 5:6, “the only thing that counts is faith working through love.”
Bishop Dan Schwerin
Council of Bishops Photo
Bishop Dan Schwerin is the episcopal leader of the Northern Illinois and Wisconsin annual conferences. This essay is republished with permission from the Northern Illinois Conference website.