On May 25, 1942, the Spartan Daily front page news article notified the public that the San José State men’s gym, now Yoshihiro Uchida Hall, was going to be used as a Japanese evacuation center for a portion of Santa Clara County.
Around 600 Japanese were evacuated on May 26 through May 29, clearing the surrounding area of its entire Japanese population, according to the article.
Writer Jack Long said it’s despicable that good Americans should be treated that poorly in a June 1, 1942, Spartan Daily editorial. He includes a poem in the editorial contributed by SJSU alum Maroa Kanemoto who left the state for internment camps.
“I’d fight for freedom and liberty, / I’d die with the best of you, / But here behind this barbed wire fence / What can a patriot do?” Kanemoto wrote.
Journalism alum Wesley Hayato Dugle attended SJSU from 2008 to 2013 and worked as a staff writer for the Spartan Daily and page editor for its news, arts & entertainment and opinion sections. After attending the 31st Day of Remembrance in Japantown, Dugle wrote the Feb 21, 2011 article “Japanese-Americans vow: Remember the internment”.
Day of Remembrance recognizes the signing of Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942, which gave the U.S. Army the authority to remove and incarcerate 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast, according to the Japanese American Citizens League webpage.
Dugle said he immediately knew he wanted to write about this topic because he already knew a good amount about it.
“The things I mostly wanted to do was talk to the older folk who were actually there,” Dugle said. “It was also about connecting it to present-day politics which was when I got to talk to some of the Muslim Americans who were attending that event. It's about as relevant as it's ever been.”
Dugle said he learned about South American Japanese internment while he was at the event. A few months later, he said was able to attend an event regarding Italian American internment.
“That was an interesting piece for me to write – just to see that perspective and what they went through because I had only been aware of the Japanese American internment,” he said.
Mass communications alum, Alexandra Proca, was a staff writer at Spartan Daily for three semesters. She wrote the Nov 14, 2003 article “Documentary explores SJSU’s ties to Japanese internment,” highlighting the KTEH documentary “Return to the Valley”.
KTEH, also known as KQED, provides television, radio, digital media and educational services according to their website. Proca said she does not remember a lot of details about the documentary or writing the story.
“What I remember was that I worked to find sources with Harvey Gotliffe who was the advisor for Access Magazine at that time and he had been heavily involved in (researching) Japanese Internment,” Proca said.
Religious studies alum Jennifer McLain Hiramoto attended SJSU from 2000 to 2005 and went from staff writer to arts & entertainment editor and executive editor during her two years working for Spartan Daily.
In her opinion column “Oxymoron,” she wrote “Sad time in American history must not be forgotten” which was published Feb 24, 2004.
“I think the Spartan Daily was really helpful for me in trying to figure out my voice – whatever that was, you know, I'm 20 years older now,” McLain Hiramoto said. “If I were to look back at some of these columns I would cringe to think, ‘Oh my gosh, I can't believe I wrote that.’ ”
She said on the other hand, there are columns including the Japanese Internment Oxymoron column that set a foundation for how she looks at the world today.
“San José itself, it did have a strong Japanese American population and so we were able to go to. . . Japantown,” McLain said. “As part of the class, we went and we interviewed several survivors who were in internment camps and that was a powerful experience.”
She said she would not have gotten her first job out of college at a weekly newspaper if it hadn’t been for the Spartan Daily. From there, she said she got a job at the San Gabriel Valley Tribune which was fascinating to learn more about.
“Monterey Park itself was the first city in the country that was predominantly Asian . . . there's natural tensions that occurred on the city council as a result or there were lawsuits in the 90s or late 80s because of signs that were in Mandarin,” McLain said.
Wesley Dugle said more people are generally more aware of domestic discrimination in the U.S., but there seems to be a large portion of people who don’t care about it.
“It's good that you know, things are changing, but it's not quite there yet either in my opinion,” Dugle said.
