Ringo-en: Manzanar

Ringo-en: Manzanar

On the morning of December 7, 1941, my world in an instant fell apart. Suddenly a tsunami swept over the lives of all people of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast of America. I was citizen, draft age 1A. Surreptitiously, our Government reclassified my draft status to 4C, enemy alien that allowed our President and our elected representatives in all branches of our government to imprison me behind barbwires and watch my every move from watchtowers. I looked like the enemy and now classified as the enemy. With Justice denied, our Government forcibly moved me to a desolate and forlorn place called Manzanar, California. This is my story of a torn heart from the betrayal of my rights under the Constitution that left me reticent for many years because silence was a safe place. It is a pen that heals the wounds. About the Author Tadashi Kishi, a Nisei (second generation Japanese American) was born in Culver City, California, December 11, 1921. He spent most of his childhood in Santa Monica, California and graduated from Samohi, Santa Monica High School in 1939. He was attending UCLA majoring in Physics when the war broke out. After President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, he was uprooted and interned at Manzanar, California with other Japanese in the Santa Monica area. While interned at Manzanar, he took 24 units of Educational courses at night under the University of California's Extension School in order to qualify to teach high school Physics at the Manzanar High School. After teaching one year of Physics, he applied to teach Conversational Japanese at the University of Minnesota as an opportunity to seek freedom from internment. Later, he served in the US Army, trained in Military Japanese at the Presidio of Monterey, California, and served in Occupied Japan as a soldier and interpreter for MIS/ATIS assigned to General Macarthur's GHQ. After his discharge from the Army, he continued his college education at UC Berkeley and graduated with a MA degree in Math. He began his career at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL) and transferred to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) at Livermore, California. He was a Math/Programmer, System designer, and supervisor for large-scale scientific computers: IBM 700 series, LARC, and CDC 6600. He was the project manager for the LLNL's commitment to utilize the ARPA ILLIAC IV for scientific application. He returned from the ARPA assignment and was a staff member of the Computation Department investigating special system for large-scale scientific applications. His last assignment was the Division Leader for programmers and technicians for scientific applications, small computer systems for the Magnetic Fusion Test Facility (MFTF), and the Laser Project.