First he told the story of the writing of Vanished, and how George Yoshitake had triggered its research. Then he read the following excerpt from the final report of Eric Thomsen, the War Relocation agent for California's Central Coast in 1945. The excerpt comes from a visit Thomsen made to the SLO Sheriff's Department. It is dialogue with a deputy. The questions come from Thomsen, the answers from the deputy.
QUESTION: “Don’t you think these people who own their own homes and were born and raised around here should be allowed to return?”
ANSWER: “No, they ought never to come back here.”
QUESTION: “If any should nevertheless try to exercise their legal right to return, to you anticipate any difficulty?”
ANSWER: “You’re damned right there is going to be trouble. All Japs are disloyal!”
QUESTION: “But don’t you think that the Army whose responsibility it is to determine the loyalty of those who return has screened them pretty well?”
ANSWER: “I have done business with the Japs for years. And they are all disloyal. They all have a double citizenship. You can’t trust any of them!”
QUESTION: “Would you say that this was pretty generally the sentiment of the community?”
ANSWER: “Everybody in this department feels that way.”
In subsequent conversations with the sheriff’s office and with the sheriff himself that proved to be almost uniformly true.
Thomsen's statistics indicated that only 16% of San Luis Obispo's Nikkei retuned to the area after the war. Two visitors to the Heritage Source booth brought similar numbers. One said that only fifteen families returned, and another said that of the forty families in the Pismo-Oceano Vegetable Exchange, just eight returned. These numbers are only marginally better than the two percent of families returning to Lompoc.
McReynolds' next speaking engagement will come on October 15 in San Jose at the Japanese American Museum.
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