00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.306
(fish swimming and water splashing)

00:00:10.276 --> 00:00:15.382
(music starts)

00:00:17.717 --> 00:00:21.721
(bat hitting ball)

00:00:22.522 --> 00:00:27.160
(people cheering)

00:00:27.160 --> 00:00:35.402
(typewriter sounds)

00:00:35.402 --> 00:00:36.369
(stamp)

00:00:45.412 --> 00:00:48.281
(barbed wire clanking sound)

00:00:48.281 --> 00:00:52.285
We weren’t supposed to actually
go beyond that barbed wire fence,

00:00:52.719 --> 00:00:55.789
but my dad says,
“I'm going to build a ballpark there.”

00:00:56.423 --> 00:01:06.800
(train horn and wheels running)

00:01:08.501 --> 00:01:11.171
A very difficult time
for Japanese Americans.

00:01:11.805 --> 00:01:17.343
They had to spend four years incarcerated
in these camps in a concentration camp

00:01:17.343 --> 00:01:20.880
with guard towers, barbed wire,
and machine guns pointed inward.

00:01:20.880 --> 00:01:23.149
(clanking sound)

00:01:23.149 --> 00:01:26.686
They'd see these brown windstorms
coming towards them.

00:01:27.454 --> 00:01:29.556
The dust storms were so intense.

00:01:29.589 --> 00:01:32.559
(wind blowing and windchimes)

00:01:32.826 --> 00:01:35.061
When Pearl Harbor happened,

00:01:35.495 --> 00:01:38.932
the FBI came and took my father away.

00:01:39.666 --> 00:01:43.336
I remember we had a barbed wire fence over

00:01:43.336 --> 00:01:44.671
six feet tall.

00:01:44.671 --> 00:01:47.307
(wind blowing)

00:01:47.307 --> 00:01:48.908
The trauma,

00:01:48.908 --> 00:01:52.112
the humiliation that most went through,

00:01:52.112 --> 00:01:56.082
the denying of your constitutional rights,
your civil liberties.

00:01:56.082 --> 00:01:57.684
(film rolling)

00:01:57.684 --> 00:02:01.121
Baseball was a way that Japanese Americans

00:02:01.454 --> 00:02:03.857
could find some kind of normalcy.

00:02:03.857 --> 00:02:04.324
(film rolling)

00:02:05.024 --> 00:02:08.895
It's just astounding that they kept
the all-American pastime alive,

00:02:08.895 --> 00:02:11.131
even from behind barbed wire.

00:02:11.231 --> 00:02:20.473
(theme song playing)

00:02:20.473 --> 00:02:22.842
(blanketing sound effect)

00:02:34.554 --> 00:02:48.234
(exciting music playing)

00:02:48.234 --> 00:02:50.436
When you go back into our history,

00:02:50.436 --> 00:02:53.439
you see how passionate and how long

00:02:53.439 --> 00:02:56.743
Japanese Americans,
as well as Japanese nationals,

00:02:56.743 --> 00:02:59.479
have endured and loved the game.

00:02:59.913 --> 00:03:04.417
We have very proudly four
and possibly five generations of baseball

00:03:04.417 --> 00:03:05.451
in our family.

00:03:05.451 --> 00:03:08.521
My grandfather, Hisataro, had two sons,

00:03:08.521 --> 00:03:12.158
and my uncle Johnny became
like the Nisei Babe Ruth

00:03:12.158 --> 00:03:16.329
or the Shohei Ohtani
in the twenties and thirties.

00:03:16.563 --> 00:03:19.532
Baseball was introduced to Japan in 1872

00:03:19.933 --> 00:03:22.101
by a school teacher named Horace Wilson.

00:03:22.569 --> 00:03:25.705
So he went to a university there to teach

00:03:25.705 --> 00:03:28.575
and he brought a baseball bat
and a ball with him.

00:03:28.841 --> 00:03:32.579
To have nine players
playing with one mind.

00:03:32.912 --> 00:03:34.981
It took off like wildfire

00:03:36.683 --> 00:03:37.617
In Japan,

00:03:37.617 --> 00:03:43.890
the Japanese feel that it's their pastime
as strongly as we feel it's ours.

00:03:43.990 --> 00:03:48.161
The Issei were fanatical, passionate
about baseball.

00:03:48.528 --> 00:03:51.631
That passion that the Issei developed

00:03:51.664 --> 00:03:55.768
as kids in Japan
carried over once they came to America.

00:03:57.136 --> 00:03:59.272
It was a farming community,

00:03:59.272 --> 00:04:01.674
Guadalupe, California.

00:04:01.674 --> 00:04:04.177
There was a lot of Japanese
that lived over there.

00:04:04.877 --> 00:04:07.480
Baseball was played every Sunday.

00:04:08.181 --> 00:04:10.683
Father would pack up the kids
and we all end up

00:04:10.750 --> 00:04:12.452
at the baseball diamond.

00:04:12.452 --> 00:04:14.587
(people chatting)

00:04:14.587 --> 00:04:17.056
(people cheering)

00:04:17.056 --> 00:04:18.691
(players sliding on the ground)

00:04:18.691 --> 00:04:19.826
It was universal

00:04:19.826 --> 00:04:24.063
It didn't matter what your skin color was,
your faith, what country you came from.

00:04:24.764 --> 00:04:27.100
I think all the immigrants wanted to prove

00:04:27.533 --> 00:04:30.270
that they were the best in the sport.

00:04:31.170 --> 00:04:33.072
Putting on a baseball uniform was like

00:04:33.072 --> 00:04:34.874
putting on the American flag.

00:04:34.874 --> 00:04:37.110
(exciting music continues)

00:04:37.110 --> 00:04:40.480
They couldn't play in Major League
Baseball because of the Jim Crow laws.

00:04:40.480 --> 00:04:42.915
But the Latinos had their leagues.

00:04:43.149 --> 00:04:48.121
The all-American Girls, the Negro Leagues,
what we called the Nisei Leagues,

00:04:48.121 --> 00:04:50.790
they were able to play each other.

00:04:50.890 --> 00:04:53.860
(exciting music ending)

00:04:55.361 --> 00:04:58.598
(bomb exploding)

00:04:58.598 --> 00:05:03.202
(tense music playing)

00:05:08.608 --> 00:05:09.676
However,

00:05:09.676 --> 00:05:12.812
the war breaks out
and everything falls apart.

00:05:16.582 --> 00:05:18.217
(waves crashing)

00:05:18.217 --> 00:05:21.554
We lived in a little community called Betteravia.

00:05:23.423 --> 00:05:24.824
After Pearl Harbor,

00:05:24.824 --> 00:05:27.026
the kids would be playing in the front yard and

00:05:27.026 --> 00:05:30.963
every morning we would see these army trucks

00:05:31.531 --> 00:05:33.900
with truckloads of soldiers

00:05:33.900 --> 00:05:36.669
sitting on the back of the truck,
and they were going westward.

00:05:37.503 --> 00:05:40.139
We lived in an old schoolhouse.

00:05:40.139 --> 00:05:41.708
My father was a farmer.

00:05:41.708 --> 00:05:44.844
He was one of the first to get picked up by the FBI, too.

00:05:44.977 --> 00:05:48.281
They accused my dad of sending the Morse code.

00:05:49.082 --> 00:05:51.718
Back those days, we use the outhouse,

00:05:51.718 --> 00:05:54.454
and so seven people living in the house,

00:05:54.454 --> 00:05:58.391
you could just about imagine
how many times we went in and went out.

00:05:58.391 --> 00:06:00.326
And that's every time that we did that

00:06:00.326 --> 00:06:02.795
we flicked the light on,
we flicked the light off

00:06:03.629 --> 00:06:06.032
so that kept on night after night.

00:06:06.566 --> 00:06:09.202
And we didn't know that
the FBI was watching.

00:06:10.103 --> 00:06:15.675
When Pearl Harbor happened,
the FBI came and took my father away

00:06:15.675 --> 00:06:19.479
and accused him of sending messages
to the Japanese submarine.

00:06:19.479 --> 00:06:21.748
(tense music continues)

00:06:21.748 --> 00:06:23.182
(wind blowing)

00:06:48.241 --> 00:06:48.941
(film rolling)

00:06:48.941 --> 00:06:53.212
(soldiers marching)

00:06:54.814 --> 00:06:57.917
We were ordered to take
whatever you can carry,

00:06:57.917 --> 00:07:02.455
and usually it was two suitcases
and these two containers

00:07:03.389 --> 00:07:06.692
I took all my worldly belongings.

00:07:06.692 --> 00:07:09.362
(tense music continues)

00:07:09.362 --> 00:07:14.834
(bus driving away)

00:07:14.834 --> 00:07:20.706
(tense music)

00:07:20.706 --> 00:07:23.676
(typewriter)

00:07:36.389 --> 00:07:37.824
Here in Fresno,

00:07:37.824 --> 00:07:40.726
the line of demarcation
was the 99 highway.

00:07:41.794 --> 00:07:44.730
So west of the highway
they would go to Arkansas.

00:07:45.097 --> 00:07:47.366
East of the highway, they go to Arizona.

00:07:47.733 --> 00:07:50.102
Our family had to go to Arkansas

00:07:50.102 --> 00:07:52.805
incarcerated for almost four years.

00:07:53.973 --> 00:07:56.943
There were 14 barracks to a block,

00:07:57.944 --> 00:08:02.515
and I think there were about 250 people
living in that one block.

00:08:03.182 --> 00:08:05.485
I still remember my address.

00:08:06.152 --> 00:08:09.088
Block 28 13C

00:08:10.223 --> 00:08:13.526
(slow instrumental of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame”)

00:08:13.526 --> 00:08:14.527
When the war broke out,

00:08:14.527 --> 00:08:16.963
I think the beginning of the 1942 season,

00:08:16.963 --> 00:08:18.798
Commissioner Landis had written a letter

00:08:18.798 --> 00:08:22.201
to the president saying that they were
considering canceling the season.

00:08:22.735 --> 00:08:27.406
FDR wrote back and said,
no, baseball needs to continue.

00:08:27.507 --> 00:08:28.774
People will be working harder.

00:08:28.774 --> 00:08:33.379
They need some sort of enjoyment
or relief or outlet, if you will.

00:08:33.746 --> 00:08:37.416
And so that's the role that baseball
played for the greater community.

00:08:37.750 --> 00:08:41.587
And intuitively, when the incarceration occurred,

00:08:41.587 --> 00:08:43.523
that's one of the first things that

00:08:43.523 --> 00:08:46.292
the Japanese American community
turned to as well.

00:08:47.059 --> 00:08:50.963
There was somebody in each location
of the ten incarceration camps,

00:08:50.963 --> 00:08:54.166
building fields and establishing leagues.

00:08:54.267 --> 00:08:56.168
All the camps had baseball fields.

00:08:56.168 --> 00:09:01.440
I like to use example of Gila River
as one of the A baseball team camps.

00:09:02.208 --> 00:09:05.344
Manzanar had the San Fernando Aces,

00:09:05.344 --> 00:09:09.515
which was a juggernaut of
pre-war championship baseball.

00:09:09.916 --> 00:09:13.052
There was Jerome, Arkansas, where they had

00:09:13.052 --> 00:09:16.088
tremendous ballplayers at a semi-pro level.

00:09:16.088 --> 00:09:20.993
(instrumental of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame”)

00:09:20.993 --> 00:09:23.963
(Tets reciting haiku with typewriter sounds)

00:09:31.571 --> 00:09:38.644
(instrumental of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame”)

00:09:39.845 --> 00:09:42.014
Kenichi Zenimura who was like

00:09:42.014 --> 00:09:44.617
the father of Japanese American baseball

00:09:44.617 --> 00:09:46.419
in California and

00:09:46.419 --> 00:09:48.654
they used to call him
the dean of the diamond.

00:09:50.189 --> 00:09:53.659
Early 1920, he built the pre-war

00:09:53.659 --> 00:09:55.861
Japanese ballpark here in Fresno.

00:09:55.861 --> 00:10:00.800
(nostalgic music playing)

00:10:00.800 --> 00:10:04.036
Kenichi Zenimura was born in 1900
in Hiroshima, Japan.

00:10:04.470 --> 00:10:07.039
He moved to Hawaii around age seven.

00:10:07.673 --> 00:10:10.743
Baseball in Hawaii in the early
1900s was a really

00:10:10.743 --> 00:10:14.380
multicultural hotbed
of great baseball activity.

00:10:14.680 --> 00:10:17.984
He went to the mainland in 1920
to go play baseball.

00:10:17.984 --> 00:10:19.819
(instrumental of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame”)

00:10:19.819 --> 00:10:22.455
October 29th, 1927,

00:10:22.455 --> 00:10:25.591
Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig
were barnstorming through California,

00:10:25.891 --> 00:10:29.962
and they had scheduled a game at
Fresno's Fireman's ballpark.

00:10:29.962 --> 00:10:33.733
They asked the local community
to gather all of your top players

00:10:34.100 --> 00:10:36.902
to play with Babe and Lou,
and they split into two teams.

00:10:37.036 --> 00:10:40.006
Zenimura was picked
along with three of his teammates

00:10:40.006 --> 00:10:41.974
and they played with the Larrupin' Lous

00:10:42.074 --> 00:10:44.710
and they ended up defeating Babe Ruth’s team.

00:10:44.710 --> 00:10:47.680
(instrumental of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame”)

00:10:56.055 --> 00:10:58.891
I talked with Howard Zenimura
and he was telling me

00:10:59.091 --> 00:11:02.061
that on Sunday morning, December 7th,

00:11:02.461 --> 00:11:07.400
he and his brothers were in a gymnasium
playing basketball,

00:11:07.400 --> 00:11:09.735
and they went into the game,

00:11:09.735 --> 00:11:11.337
everything was great.

00:11:11.337 --> 00:11:13.973
And when they came out of the game,
everybody was quiet.

00:11:14.507 --> 00:11:17.643
People were, you know, there were murmurs
of maybe something was going on.

00:11:17.643 --> 00:11:19.979
And of course, Pearl Harbor had happened

00:11:19.979 --> 00:11:22.581
while they were playing the basketball game.

00:11:22.581 --> 00:11:24.116
Life really turned upside down

00:11:24.116 --> 00:11:27.420
for the Zenimura family
and really everyone in that situation.

00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:31.323
He had owned 50% ownership of a

00:11:31.323 --> 00:11:33.526
Studebaker dealership in Fresno,

00:11:33.893 --> 00:11:36.262
and Zeni had to sell his share of the business.

00:11:36.595 --> 00:11:37.830
They lost their home.

00:11:37.830 --> 00:11:40.032
They had to sell all of their belongings.

00:11:40.399 --> 00:11:42.468
They can only take what they could carry.

00:11:42.468 --> 00:11:44.970
Of course, he brought his baseball gear.

00:11:44.970 --> 00:11:47.373
When the war broke out.

00:11:47.373 --> 00:11:50.609
I thought he would be one of the first one
that would be picked up.

00:11:50.776 --> 00:11:52.611
He's not an American citizen.

00:11:52.611 --> 00:11:53.412
Fortunately,

00:11:54.547 --> 00:11:56.482
he wasn't one of those people that

00:11:56.482 --> 00:11:58.684
the FBI were looking for.

00:11:58.684 --> 00:12:01.320
In fact, we were so scared that

00:12:01.754 --> 00:12:05.458
anything that was Japanese,
you know, we kind of got rid of it.

00:12:05.458 --> 00:12:06.726
(fire burning then film rolling)

00:12:06.726 --> 00:12:10.262
120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry

00:12:10.362 --> 00:12:12.064
were basically rounded up,

00:12:12.064 --> 00:12:14.934
put into a county fairgrounds for six months

00:12:14.934 --> 00:12:18.170
while they built the permanent camps
throughout United States.

00:12:18.871 --> 00:12:21.273
When we left our hometown

00:12:21.273 --> 00:12:24.710
and we went to the
Tulare Fairgrounds Assembly Center,

00:12:24.710 --> 00:12:27.513
this is what we were confronted with:

00:12:28.481 --> 00:12:30.716
These are old stable.

00:12:30.716 --> 00:12:33.519
They housed horses for many years.

00:12:34.620 --> 00:12:37.223
But when they found out
the Japanese were coming here,

00:12:37.223 --> 00:12:38.724
they chased the horses out.

00:12:39.091 --> 00:12:43.129
They shoved the Japanese
into these horse stable.

00:12:43.129 --> 00:12:46.766
(tense music continues)

00:12:46.766 --> 00:12:49.802
So you just think about it
right now and you think,

00:12:49.802 --> 00:12:50.669
Geez,

00:12:52.138 --> 00:12:55.307
this is just a stench of inhumanity.

00:12:55.307 --> 00:12:57.476
(tense music continues)

00:12:57.476 --> 00:12:58.844
During World War II,

00:12:58.844 --> 00:13:02.948
Kenichi Zenimura built
his second ballpark

00:13:02.948 --> 00:13:06.152
at the Fresno Fairgrounds.

00:13:06.152 --> 00:13:08.788
Recruits tractors and players

00:13:08.788 --> 00:13:11.190
to level out the ground
at the assembly center.

00:13:12.558 --> 00:13:12.925
(film rolling)

00:13:12.925 --> 00:13:17.129
(people chatting)

00:13:17.129 --> 00:13:19.765
Then they boarded their trains

00:13:19.765 --> 00:13:22.334
to go to the desert wastelands.

00:13:22.501 --> 00:13:23.569
(wind blowing)

00:13:23.569 --> 00:13:25.538
My mom told me the story that

00:13:25.538 --> 00:13:29.742
once, they got on the train
to take a train ride to Jerome, Arkansas,

00:13:29.742 --> 00:13:34.146
there were blinders on the train
so you couldn't see in or out.

00:13:34.146 --> 00:13:40.352
But she lifted it
just a skosh to see the racists

00:13:40.352 --> 00:13:42.822
and the bigots with their signs that said,

00:13:42.822 --> 00:13:44.423
Get out of Fresno!

00:13:45.224 --> 00:13:47.259
Never come back to California!

00:13:47.793 --> 00:13:50.362
And so my mom being very concerned,

00:13:50.362 --> 00:13:51.997
she asked my baachan, you know,

00:13:51.997 --> 00:13:54.333
“What's going to happen to us in these camps?”

00:13:54.733 --> 00:13:59.271
“Is it going to be like in Germany and
with the Jewish culture has to go through?”

00:13:59.271 --> 00:14:00.139
She goes,
“oh, no, no.”

00:14:00.139 --> 00:14:02.942
She goes,
“this is the greatest country in the world.”

00:14:03.475 --> 00:14:05.945
“All immigrants have to pay a price.”

00:14:06.478 --> 00:14:12.084
“We will go and prove
how loyal we are and come back.”

00:14:12.084 --> 00:14:16.188
(sad music continues)

00:14:16.188 --> 00:14:18.390
(wind blowing)

00:14:18.390 --> 00:14:21.760
Being incarcerated was traumatic.

00:14:21.760 --> 00:14:23.662
It was humiliating.

00:14:23.662 --> 00:14:25.130
Camp life was hard,

00:14:25.664 --> 00:14:28.334
but people tried to create a community.

00:14:28.334 --> 00:14:30.970
(kids shouting)

00:14:31.003 --> 00:14:34.907
(sad music continues)

00:14:34.907 --> 00:14:37.176
(people chatting)

00:14:37.176 --> 00:14:38.477
People went to work

00:14:39.144 --> 00:14:40.846
and they did all the jobs required

00:14:40.846 --> 00:14:42.314
to keep the camp running,

00:14:42.314 --> 00:14:45.251
for which they were given very modest pay.

00:14:46.151 --> 00:14:49.054
I remember my dad was the town plumber.

00:14:49.388 --> 00:14:53.225
I think he said he was
only making about $12 a month

00:14:53.225 --> 00:14:55.928
(people walking)

00:14:55.928 --> 00:14:57.763
(music builds)

00:14:57.763 --> 00:14:58.898
This is actually

00:14:58.898 --> 00:15:01.133
one of the blocks of Gila Camp.

00:15:01.901 --> 00:15:05.571
They had 13 barracks, one mess hall,

00:15:05.571 --> 00:15:08.507
(plates clanking)

00:15:08.507 --> 00:15:10.576
one laundry room.

00:15:10.576 --> 00:15:11.911
There was no washing machine.

00:15:11.911 --> 00:15:14.213
You have to wash everything by hand.

00:15:14.213 --> 00:15:16.448
(water spraying)

00:15:16.448 --> 00:15:17.850
There was no privacy.

00:15:17.850 --> 00:15:19.818
It was just like a gang shower, you know,

00:15:19.818 --> 00:15:21.854
the one that you see in service.

00:15:22.922 --> 00:15:24.189
I got I learned a new word,

00:15:24.189 --> 00:15:26.558
‘latrine,’ at that time.

00:15:26.558 --> 00:15:28.227
And the toilet?

00:15:28.227 --> 00:15:29.962
Well, the latrine was wide open.

00:15:29.962 --> 00:15:30.996
There was no partition.

00:15:30.996 --> 00:15:37.002
(sad music continues)

00:15:37.002 --> 00:15:39.004
Zenimura went to Gila River

00:15:39.004 --> 00:15:42.241
and really made a positive impact
on the community where he lived.

00:15:42.441 --> 00:15:43.943
(wind blowing)

00:15:43.943 --> 00:15:45.811
But it wasn't positive at first.

00:15:45.811 --> 00:15:46.478
He's human.

00:15:46.478 --> 00:15:48.747
And when he got here, he was depressed.

00:15:48.747 --> 00:15:50.983
I heard that he didn't unpack
for a couple of weeks.

00:15:51.750 --> 00:15:55.421
One night he was looking off
into the distance beyond the barbed wire,

00:15:55.621 --> 00:15:58.257
and he kind of envisioned
a field out there.

00:15:58.624 --> 00:16:01.994
And he told his wife, Kiyoko,
that he was going to build

00:16:01.994 --> 00:16:02.962
another baseball field.

00:16:02.962 --> 00:16:04.129
(bat hitting ball)

00:16:04.129 --> 00:16:08.500
(people cheering)

00:16:08.500 --> 00:16:11.036
(melancholic music)

00:16:11.036 --> 00:16:14.006
(Tets reciting haiku with typewriter sounds)

00:16:23.282 --> 00:16:27.720
Kenichi Zenimura built
his third field of dreams

00:16:28.120 --> 00:16:31.357
on the middle of a Pima Indian reservation

00:16:31.890 --> 00:16:34.660
with a grass infield, grass outfield,

00:16:35.060 --> 00:16:38.230
castor bean homerun fence
from left to right field.

00:16:38.564 --> 00:16:41.567
They would chalk the foul lines with flour.

00:16:43.369 --> 00:16:46.505
It was, ironically,
on the outside of the barbed wire.

00:16:47.606 --> 00:16:49.608
Well, where were we going to run to?

00:16:49.608 --> 00:16:53.345
There was two or 300 miles of desert
in every direction.

00:16:55.147 --> 00:16:59.885
We had about ten of our young guys
that were interested in baseball

00:17:00.352 --> 00:17:03.555
start digging what they call
sagebrush on the desert.

00:17:04.256 --> 00:17:06.558
He found a farmer who had a tractor

00:17:06.558 --> 00:17:08.093
and they were able to scrape the field

00:17:08.093 --> 00:17:09.395
and make it flat.

00:17:09.395 --> 00:17:12.331
And then from there it was just
piecemealing it together.

00:17:12.331 --> 00:17:16.502
We went to the lumber yard and
and stole some lumber, two by four.

00:17:17.536 --> 00:17:21.473
He took a 300 foot water line
from the laundry room

00:17:21.840 --> 00:17:26.345
to the pitcher's mound
so that they could water the infield.

00:17:26.345 --> 00:17:29.314
He recruited the camp fire department

00:17:29.314 --> 00:17:32.551
to test out their water hoses
to make sure the outfield

00:17:32.551 --> 00:17:33.786
was nice and green.

00:17:33.986 --> 00:17:37.289
The castor bean homerun fence
looked like it was Wrigley Field.

00:17:37.856 --> 00:17:41.860
(exciting instrumental of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame”)

00:17:41.860 --> 00:17:44.063
They had 32 teams

00:17:44.063 --> 00:17:45.364
and three divisions

00:17:45.364 --> 00:17:47.199
just at Gila River, Arizona.

00:17:47.633 --> 00:17:50.169
Camp director Bennett
was very supportive

00:17:50.169 --> 00:17:51.603
of baseball at Gila River.

00:17:52.304 --> 00:17:55.140
He even threw out the first pitch
for the opening game.

00:17:55.741 --> 00:17:58.310
I think it was mainly the camp directors.

00:17:58.310 --> 00:18:02.815
How they felt about the game
and how it could promote a positivity

00:18:02.815 --> 00:18:08.287
and goodwill towards the internees
or the so-called enemy aliens.

00:18:09.054 --> 00:18:13.158
As you went into the game,
you would drop in your coins or whatever

00:18:13.158 --> 00:18:16.128
you could afford to support the teams.

00:18:16.395 --> 00:18:20.232
The mothers and the women
would take mattress ticking

00:18:20.232 --> 00:18:22.067
to make uniforms.

00:18:22.534 --> 00:18:25.904
Tets Furukawa’s mom would make sliding pads.

00:18:26.505 --> 00:18:28.707
I'm sure that most of all,

00:18:28.707 --> 00:18:31.710
the parents,
they were worried about the kids,

00:18:31.710 --> 00:18:34.713
hoping that they don't join gangs.

00:18:35.247 --> 00:18:38.383
I think that we owe a lot to

00:18:38.383 --> 00:18:41.086
Howard Zenimura's father.

00:18:41.086 --> 00:18:44.056
He encouraged all the youngsters

00:18:44.056 --> 00:18:46.125
to come and practice baseball,

00:18:46.125 --> 00:18:49.428
play baseball, and gave everyone hope,

00:18:50.662 --> 00:18:54.266
joy, and normalcy to their lives.

00:18:54.266 --> 00:18:56.969
(nostalgic music continues)

00:18:56.969 --> 00:18:59.938
(typewriter sound)

00:19:13.585 --> 00:19:15.420
Zenimura used the game of baseball

00:19:15.420 --> 00:19:17.656
to break down barriers
throughout his entire life.

00:19:18.657 --> 00:19:23.996
From 1923, when the anti-Japanese
sentiment was really high in California.

00:19:24.363 --> 00:19:26.098
There were signs that would say,

00:19:26.098 --> 00:19:27.599
No Japanese allowed

00:19:28.333 --> 00:19:29.935
and he would go into that town and

00:19:29.935 --> 00:19:31.670
try to schedule games and they would play.

00:19:32.371 --> 00:19:35.107
And eventually, over time,
the signs would disappear.

00:19:35.541 --> 00:19:38.710
Arizona was very strong
with baseball talent.

00:19:39.211 --> 00:19:42.047
The top semi-pro team was called

00:19:42.047 --> 00:19:44.883
the Phoenix Compress Team
and they were a Negro League team.

00:19:45.350 --> 00:19:47.853
They worked at
what's called the compress factory,

00:19:47.853 --> 00:19:49.922
which is where they process the cotton,

00:19:49.922 --> 00:19:51.957
and he invited them to come and play.

00:19:52.691 --> 00:19:55.460
But when you think about the
broader picture of what was happening

00:19:55.460 --> 00:19:56.828
at that point in time,

00:19:56.828 --> 00:19:59.198
you have this African American team

00:20:00.165 --> 00:20:01.967
going into an Indian reservation

00:20:01.967 --> 00:20:04.002
to play Japanese Americans incarcerated

00:20:04.002 --> 00:20:05.270
behind barbed wire.

00:20:05.270 --> 00:20:13.679
(nostalgic music ending)

00:20:13.679 --> 00:20:16.014
(melancholic music starting)

00:20:16.014 --> 00:20:18.884
My grandmother died at the
Jerome, Arkansas camp.

00:20:20.018 --> 00:20:21.954
In our culture, the Buddhist culture,

00:20:21.954 --> 00:20:25.290
we cremate our elders that went before us,

00:20:25.591 --> 00:20:29.127
and they didn’t have a crematory
at the Jerome, Arkansas camp.

00:20:29.328 --> 00:20:32.297
So they sent her body
to Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

00:20:32.831 --> 00:20:34.299
And a few months later,

00:20:34.299 --> 00:20:37.236
my mother gets a Folgers coffee can

00:20:38.503 --> 00:20:40.939
indicating this was her mother's ashes.

00:20:41.273 --> 00:20:43.008
So she opened up the lid

00:20:44.042 --> 00:20:46.144
and on top of my grandmother's ashes

00:20:46.144 --> 00:20:47.412
was a piece of paper

00:20:47.412 --> 00:20:49.348
that my mom thought it was her name.

00:20:49.781 --> 00:20:51.617
So she opened up the paper

00:20:51.617 --> 00:20:54.052
and all it said on it was,
“Jap woman.”

00:20:54.620 --> 00:20:58.023
And so the the inhumanities

00:20:58.023 --> 00:21:00.626
didn't even really stop with her death.

00:21:00.626 --> 00:21:03.595
(tense music)

00:21:08.567 --> 00:21:11.536
(wind blowing)

00:21:15.140 --> 00:21:17.809
Around July of 1943,

00:21:17.809 --> 00:21:19.745
Japanese Americans in the camps

00:21:19.745 --> 00:21:22.414
were forced to answer the loyalty questionnaire.

00:21:23.382 --> 00:21:27.319
Basically asked their allegiance to America.

00:21:27.319 --> 00:21:30.322
And if they were loyal to the country,

00:21:30.322 --> 00:21:32.391
would they be willing to fight for our country?

00:21:32.391 --> 00:21:34.926
where some people wrote: Yes-Yes.

00:21:34.926 --> 00:21:36.795
Others wrote: No-No.

00:21:37.796 --> 00:21:40.132
You're denouncing your Japanese citizenship.

00:21:40.565 --> 00:21:41.767
For many Issei,

00:21:42.200 --> 00:21:43.735
that was their only citizenship.

00:21:43.735 --> 00:21:46.004
They weren't allowed
to become U.S. citizens.

00:21:46.004 --> 00:21:48.240
So that's why some of them would say no.

00:21:48.507 --> 00:21:50.309
They call them the no-no boys.

00:21:50.309 --> 00:21:52.644
And they were sent to
Tule Lake in California

00:21:52.644 --> 00:21:55.914
and Tule Lake was
a higher maximum security camp.

00:21:55.914 --> 00:21:58.884
(melancholic music continues)

00:22:05.357 --> 00:22:08.060
So that questionnaire
really broke up families.

00:22:08.060 --> 00:22:09.561
It broke up friendships.

00:22:09.561 --> 00:22:11.096
What Zenimura did,

00:22:11.096 --> 00:22:13.765
it was really interesting
during this time,

00:22:13.765 --> 00:22:15.033
he turned to baseball again

00:22:15.801 --> 00:22:18.837
and before the camps and
the families were split up,

00:22:18.837 --> 00:22:20.605
he held a three game series,

00:22:20.605 --> 00:22:22.507
The Yes-Yeses versus the No-Nos.

00:22:23.108 --> 00:22:25.410
The first game, the Yes-Yeses won.

00:22:25.410 --> 00:22:27.379
The second one,
the No-Nos won.

00:22:27.713 --> 00:22:29.581
And so it comes down to this third game.

00:22:29.581 --> 00:22:32.184
And right before they played,
they canceled it.

00:22:32.918 --> 00:22:37.622
They decided that it was probably
the best thing for it to just remain tied 1 to 1.

00:22:38.023 --> 00:22:39.958
Zeni, he ended up saying yes.

00:22:39.958 --> 00:22:42.260
So at this point,
he denounced his Japanese citizenship.

00:22:42.627 --> 00:22:47.966
So from 1943 to 1952,
Zenimura is a man really with no country.

00:22:49.267 --> 00:22:52.237
(wind blowing)

00:22:52.637 --> 00:22:54.206
By 1944,

00:22:54.206 --> 00:22:56.575
some of the camp teams
were allowed to travel

00:22:56.575 --> 00:22:58.477
to other camps to compete.

00:22:59.311 --> 00:23:03.582
Gila had three different teams
come into Gila to play.

00:23:03.915 --> 00:23:05.650
Heart Mountain came.

00:23:05.650 --> 00:23:09.421
There was another camp
called Amache and Poston.

00:23:09.654 --> 00:23:12.157
And I know that my dad tried

00:23:12.157 --> 00:23:16.094
to raise money for
these teams to come to Gila.

00:23:16.595 --> 00:23:17.996
It's amazing what he did

00:23:17.996 --> 00:23:19.998
to try and see if we can raise this money.

00:23:20.265 --> 00:23:22.067
If you look at the grandstand,

00:23:22.067 --> 00:23:24.669
it was section A, B, C,

00:23:24.903 --> 00:23:27.773
and those people that donated money

00:23:29.674 --> 00:23:31.209
he would give them the best seat.

00:23:31.810 --> 00:23:33.578
And then in 1944,

00:23:33.578 --> 00:23:37.516
Zenimura was able to take
his All-Star team up to Heart Mountain.

00:23:38.817 --> 00:23:41.086
When I was 17 years old,

00:23:41.086 --> 00:23:45.223
when the Gila team visited
Heart Mountain, Wyoming,

00:23:45.557 --> 00:23:50.228
which is another relocation camp
that was about 1,500 miles,

00:23:50.662 --> 00:23:55.434
we rode a rickety
Santa Fe Trailways bus,

00:23:55.801 --> 00:23:58.103
and it probably took us
two days to get there.

00:23:58.503 --> 00:24:00.872
Some of the seats were worn out

00:24:00.872 --> 00:24:03.175
and you couldn't sleep
because the springs are

00:24:03.575 --> 00:24:04.676
pushing you up.

00:24:05.844 --> 00:24:09.047
We were accosted by Caucasians.

00:24:09.181 --> 00:24:12.884
They looked at us
and they knew that we were Japanese.

00:24:12.884 --> 00:24:16.421
And they said,
“What are you guys doing over here?”

00:24:17.823 --> 00:24:20.692
“We just left the internment camp in Arizona.”

00:24:21.960 --> 00:24:23.895
“But because of the war effort”

00:24:23.895 --> 00:24:25.564
“and there’s a lack of labor,”

00:24:26.031 --> 00:24:27.933
“we're going to Montana”

00:24:28.266 --> 00:24:31.436
“and Wyoming to help with the potato”

00:24:31.436 --> 00:24:33.104
“and the sugar beet harvest.”

00:24:34.206 --> 00:24:36.241
And he said,
“Well, yeah, that sounds good.”

00:24:36.241 --> 00:24:37.642
So they let us go.

00:24:37.642 --> 00:24:38.910
(audience laughing)

00:24:38.910 --> 00:24:39.411
(bat hitting ball)

00:24:39.411 --> 00:24:40.779
(people cheering)

00:24:40.779 --> 00:24:43.748
(inspiring rendition of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame”)

00:24:50.222 --> 00:24:51.790
To be able to take

00:24:51.790 --> 00:24:54.926
a road trip from Gila River, Arizona,

00:24:55.393 --> 00:24:57.596
all the way to Heart Mountain, Wyoming,

00:24:57.596 --> 00:24:59.564
or to Amache, Colorado.

00:24:59.965 --> 00:25:04.035
These so-called enemy aliens
had this amnesty in a way,

00:25:04.402 --> 00:25:06.838
you could take a bus,
get on a train,

00:25:06.838 --> 00:25:10.475
and travel thousands of miles away
for a tournament.

00:25:10.475 --> 00:25:13.445
(low-key music continues)

00:25:13.745 --> 00:25:15.247
Towards the end of the war,

00:25:15.247 --> 00:25:17.449
Zeni coached the high school baseball team.

00:25:18.149 --> 00:25:20.986
He arranged a match
between the Gila River Eagles

00:25:21.186 --> 00:25:25.056
with the two-time state champions,
the Tucson Badgers.

00:25:26.725 --> 00:25:28.693
Hanley Slagle was their coach,

00:25:28.693 --> 00:25:31.129
who was an ex-San Francisco Seal.

00:25:31.129 --> 00:25:32.831
Hanley Slagle said,

00:25:32.831 --> 00:25:35.367
“We'll come into your camp, play one game.”

00:25:35.700 --> 00:25:39.971
“After that game, you come over to Tucson High
and we'll have the return match.”

00:25:40.572 --> 00:25:42.073
Kenichi said,
“Absolutely.”

00:25:42.073 --> 00:25:45.243
They start the game
and it's like a boxing match,

00:25:45.243 --> 00:25:48.146
you know, each round slugging it out

00:25:48.146 --> 00:25:49.848
and they go the full game

00:25:50.382 --> 00:25:55.086
and it ends up being tied at nine innings, 10 all.

00:25:55.086 --> 00:25:57.222
Eagles, bases loaded,

00:25:57.856 --> 00:26:00.058
Harvey Zenimura comes up to the plate,

00:26:00.058 --> 00:26:02.494
takes three straight balls,

00:26:03.094 --> 00:26:04.563
two straight strikes.

00:26:05.130 --> 00:26:09.367
And on the sixth pitch,
he rips it for the walk off win.

00:26:09.734 --> 00:26:11.870
And there are thousands of people
watching this game.

00:26:11.903 --> 00:26:13.772
They all ran onto the field.

00:26:13.772 --> 00:26:16.875
It was pandemonium,
as Tets Furukawa would say.

00:26:17.542 --> 00:26:20.779
I pitched the whole 10 innings
and people ask me,

00:26:21.279 --> 00:26:23.381
“How many pitchers did you throw?”

00:26:23.815 --> 00:26:25.951
And I said, “I can't remember.”

00:26:26.451 --> 00:26:30.155
I kind of thought
that maybe I threw 155 pitches

00:26:30.155 --> 00:26:32.791
because they were
hitting my balls all over the field.

00:26:32.791 --> 00:26:34.092
(bat hitting balls)

00:26:34.092 --> 00:26:36.661
They come to an agreement
that they're going to have a rematch.

00:26:36.828 --> 00:26:38.697
But this time down in Tucson,

00:26:38.697 --> 00:26:41.466
word started to spread
in the Tucson community

00:26:41.466 --> 00:26:43.535
that the Japanese American players
were coming.

00:26:44.135 --> 00:26:47.138
The Tucson community
didn't want

00:26:47.138 --> 00:26:49.774
these so-called enemy alien kids

00:26:49.774 --> 00:26:51.776
to play in their community.

00:26:52.344 --> 00:26:55.614
So that was kind of a hurtful thing for

00:26:55.614 --> 00:26:57.248
Kenichi and the Eagles,

00:26:57.248 --> 00:26:58.984
because they wanted the return match.

00:26:58.984 --> 00:27:01.953
(low-key music builds up)

00:27:11.296 --> 00:27:13.231
In 1945,

00:27:13.231 --> 00:27:15.100
Zenimura Field closes

00:27:15.100 --> 00:27:17.636
along with the rest of the Gila River Camps

00:27:18.203 --> 00:27:22.007
and the Zenimuras
eventually return back to Fresno.

00:27:22.007 --> 00:27:23.975
(depressing music)

00:27:23.975 --> 00:27:26.578
The difficulties of resettlement
was harsh.

00:27:27.245 --> 00:27:29.280
Most lost their homes and businesses.

00:27:30.181 --> 00:27:34.352
I remember my mom getting off
at the train station in Sacramento

00:27:34.352 --> 00:27:38.223
and a lady telling her,
“How dare you come back to California?”

00:27:39.124 --> 00:27:41.459
My dad, in the little small town,

00:27:41.459 --> 00:27:45.296
couldn't even buy gas
at the local station for a while.

00:27:46.097 --> 00:27:48.633
Most of the Nisei
went back to their high schools

00:27:48.633 --> 00:27:50.135
and they played baseball.

00:27:50.702 --> 00:27:54.873
Resettlement also meant
that they could get their tournaments

00:27:54.873 --> 00:27:57.042
and their road trips and

00:27:57.042 --> 00:27:59.911
community to community games started again.

00:28:00.512 --> 00:28:02.313
And then in 1952,

00:28:02.313 --> 00:28:05.016
Issei,
or first generation Japanese Americans,

00:28:05.016 --> 00:28:06.718
could apply for U.S. citizenship

00:28:07.585 --> 00:28:10.922
Kenichi was very excited
about becoming a U.S. citizen

00:28:10.922 --> 00:28:12.290
He studied really hard.

00:28:12.290 --> 00:28:15.193
He passed and
he was a proud Japanese American.

00:28:16.728 --> 00:28:19.297
Kenichi referred his boys

00:28:19.297 --> 00:28:20.932
to the Hiroshima Carp,

00:28:20.932 --> 00:28:23.368
and they played professional ball.

00:28:23.368 --> 00:28:24.936
Howard only one season,

00:28:24.936 --> 00:28:28.773
Harvey played four
and was a two-time All-Star.

00:28:28.773 --> 00:28:36.114
(people cheering and cars honking)

00:28:36.114 --> 00:28:39.084
(inspirational music starts)

00:28:48.393 --> 00:28:51.362
(Tets reciting haiku and typewriter sounds)

00:28:59.604 --> 00:29:00.205
(bat hitting ball)

00:29:00.205 --> 00:29:02.307
(people cheering)

00:29:02.307 --> 00:29:05.744
Baseball kept us alive
as far as I was concerned.

00:29:06.177 --> 00:29:09.414
Otherwise, I would have been probably
a juvenile delinquent over there

00:29:09.414 --> 00:29:10.682
(Tets laughing)

00:29:10.682 --> 00:29:12.817
because we were only, you know,

00:29:13.184 --> 00:29:15.453
15, 16, 17 years old.

00:29:15.453 --> 00:29:17.222
(bat hitting ball and people clapping)

00:29:17.222 --> 00:29:19.224
We need to show

00:29:19.224 --> 00:29:23.394
the positive aspects of our history
and the negative.

00:29:23.394 --> 00:29:27.365
And I think when we talk about
incarceration during World War II,

00:29:27.365 --> 00:29:29.968
it's such a negative subject matter because

00:29:29.968 --> 00:29:34.239
America imprisoned their own Americans
only because of their race.

00:29:34.239 --> 00:29:38.977
And we can't learn from history
or we can’t heal unless we acknowledge

00:29:39.010 --> 00:29:40.478
the mistakes that we've made.

00:29:40.478 --> 00:29:42.380
(low key music)

00:29:42.380 --> 00:29:45.350
It's amazing what
the family went through,

00:29:45.350 --> 00:29:47.185
but myself,

00:29:47.185 --> 00:29:51.022
I think that we have to have
forgiveness in our heart.

00:29:51.322 --> 00:29:52.590
I know when I was young,

00:29:52.590 --> 00:29:54.859
Of course, I didn't like what the United States

00:29:54.859 --> 00:29:57.495
did to us in our own country, etc.

00:29:58.696 --> 00:30:00.865
But I don't have that much time left.

00:30:00.865 --> 00:30:04.102
And I think that this word forgiveness

00:30:04.102 --> 00:30:07.305
means a lot to us as we grow old.

00:30:07.472 --> 00:30:11.075
And if we don't have any forgiveness
in our hearts,

00:30:11.643 --> 00:30:13.878
we won't have a peaceful end

00:30:13.878 --> 00:30:15.313
when we leave this Earth.

00:30:16.014 --> 00:30:17.615
(low key music ends)

00:30:28.059 --> 00:30:30.195
(upbeat music starts)