my journey
After being arrested, I was put into King County Jail. I stayed there for around five months until my trial was held on October 20, 1942. I was presented before a Judge Lloyd D. Black and the jury, all male. After a short time of deliberation, the jury came back with a verdict. I had already anticipated a lose and I was not disappointed. I was presented with two guilty verdicts and was sentenced to two thirty day sentences. As I am a man that prefers the outdoors, I requested to have my sentenced extended so I could serve in an outdoor camp. I was then sentenced to two ninety day sentences in an outside labor camp in Arizona. Unfortunately for me, the government did not want to pay for my trip down to Arizona but that did not stop me. I offered to hitchhike the whole way there and that's what I did. I went all the way down to Tucson, stopping in Idaho to visit my interned family. When I arrived at my destination, the U.S. Marshals office did not believe that I was indeed to be imprisoned there. He had, unfortunately, misplaced the paperwork with my transfer information on it and I had to convince him that I was to reside there. He then told me that I was "free to go" but I refused for I wished to serve out my sentence. I wanted to openly defy the order and to fight for what I believed was right. I didn't want to just run or be set free for that would not help the Japanese residents that were suffering in the camps. I was going to finish what I had started and so I decided to watch a movie while I waited for my paperwork. It was eventually found and I began serving my sentence.
The outside labor camp I had been imprisoned in is still in the same spot it was when I was there. It resides a few miles north of Tucson on the Santa Catalina Mountains. As of today, it is a campground for people to camp and learn about Japanese lives during WWII. There are plaques and information sites that explain what the people of Japanese ancestry had to go through. It also explains my life and the impact I made during these difficult times. Because of the impact I made and the fact that I was fairly well known, the Coronado National Forest officials decided to celebrate what I had done by renaming the camp after me.
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To be expected, I was not the only one at that camp. There were several others who had resisted, as I had. Others there had been convicted of breaking tax or immigration laws. Many of them had refused to join the military because of moral or religious reasons. In addition, the people who were imprisoned here were not all of Japanese descent. There were Hopi Indians from northern Arizona and some Jehovah's Witnesses. This camp had many different kinds of people but while we were there, we were all Tucsonians. We had been put up to the task of constructing the Mt. Lemmon Highway. Before, there had only been one road that started at the town of Oracle and went up the north face of the mountain. This was a longer route than the one we would have to build. We began building in 1933 and ended around 1939.
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Top: First reunion, 1947 Sacramento, California
Right top: Several resisters returning to the Honor Camp for the dedication of the Gordon Hirabayashi Recreation Site in November, 1999. From left: resisters Joe Norikane, Hideo Takeuchi, and Ken Yoshida, Coronado National Forest Supervisor John McGee, Gordon Hirabayashi, Congressman Jim Kolbe, resisters Harry Yoshikawa, Takashi Hoshizaki, Noboru Taguma, and Yosh Kuromiya
Right bottom: Prisoners constructing the Mt. Lemmon Highway
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