Sutra and Bible: Faith and Japanese American World War II Incarceration

ABOVE: The bible of Charles Mitsuji Furuta with his handwritten notes on the date and time he arrived at different prison camps. This notation marks his arrival at the military prison camp in Lordsburg, New Mexico, in September 1942. He was arrested after President Franklin Roosevelt authorized Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, and had been a legal resident of the United States for over four decades. Lordsburg was run like a Prisoner of War camp with communal barracks, a bugle call at 6 a.m. and lights out at 10 p.m. (Photo, M. Urashima, 2018, Courtesy of the Furuta family) © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

   The bible of Charles Mitsuji Furuta, Furuta Gold Fish Farm at Historic Wintersburg, is included in an upcoming exhibit, Sutra and Bible: Faith and the Japanese American World War II Incarceration, at the Japanese American National Museum. He was the first Issei baptized as Christian in Orange County and was an elder in the Wintersburg Japanese Mission. At the time of his arrest by the FBI, he had been a legal resident of the United States for over four decades.

   Charles Mitsuji Furuta held the bible with him after his arrest in February 1942, when he was taken to the Huntington Beach jail, then to Tuna Canyon Detention Station in Los Angeles County, then to military prison camps in Santa Fe and then Lordsburg, New Mexico, and, finally, to Poston, the Colorado River Relocation Center in Arizona, where he was reunited with his wife, Yukiko, and their family. He kept a small photograph of Yukiko inside the bible.

RIGHT: A notation in Charles Mitsuji Furuta's bible marking the time of his arrival at the military prison camp in Santa Fe, New Mexico in May 1942. He was imprisoned there roughly four months before being moved to the military prison camp in Lordsburg, New Mexico. He highlighted a passage in the bible. (Photo, Courtesy of the Furuta family) © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

    Charles Mitsuji Furuta arrived at the prison camp at Lordsburg, New Mexico, less than two months after the "Lordsburg killings." Two California men in their late 50s, Toshiro Kobata and Hirota Isomura, were shot at close range by Private First Class Clarence Burleson during a two-mile trek through the Chihuahuan Desert. The men had been involved in a camp protest regarding forced labor conditions, illegal under the Geneva Convention as the prisoners were classified as "enemy alien."

   The incident prompted Spain, the intervening power under the Geneva Convention, to issue a memorandum from the Spanish Embassy to the U.S. Department of State. "...Shiro Kobata and Hirota Insomura, who were invalids aged nearly sixty years (60), former suffering from tuberculosis and latter from spinal disease caused by injury sustained while at work in fishing boat, were unable to walk any further, and had to follow party in automobile escorted by soldiers. Party felt uneasy about these two persons, as they failed to join them at Lordsburg Camp. Moreover reports of gun heard in direction of station gave them evil forebodings...It was announced by camp office next morning two invalids had been shot at dawn 27th on charge of attempt to escape. It is inconceivable that aged invalids hardly able to walk should while under military escort have attempted to escape."

   The Spanish Embassy noted the Lordsburg killings and other troubling incidents in an official communication to the State Department in March 13, 1944. "...a Captain fired revolver to urge internees to hasten their work, at another time an internee requesting a sentry to fetch golf ball which had fallen out of fence was fired at from watchtower, and on third occasion internee was fired at while within twenty feet of fence. During 1942 some 20 American convict soldiers were interned at Lordsburg Camp. Japanese internees requested Commandant to remove these convicts to another place, but request was not complied with. On Thanksgiving Day one of convicts, under influence of liquor, intruded into Japanese internees quarters used abusive language, sat astride Doctor Uyehara, and wounded him in back with a knife."

   It was a frightening time during which all civil liberties were lost and the threat of violence was real. Charles Mitsuji Furuta held onto his faith, and the tiny bible with the photograph of Yukiko tucked inside. The upcoming exhibit shares other items of faith held onto by those enduring WWII incarceration.

LEFT: The Furuta family finally was reunited at Poston, the Colorado River Relocation Center near Parker, Arizona. Charles Mitsuji Furuta (front row, far right) had been separated from his family for over a year. The Furutas were able to return home to Wintersburg Village in 1945. (Photo, Courtesy of the Furuta family) © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

   The Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles will host an online preview at 10 a.m., Saturday, February 26, with a "virtual preview of many never-before-seen artifacts that tell the stories of how Japanese Americans drew on their faith to survive forced removal and incarceration at a time when their race and religion were seen as threats to national security."

   "Sutra and Bible brings the stories of those faced with sudden, heartbreaking exile to light through an array of astonishing artifacts: from the prayer books and religious scrolls they carried with them into camp, to the altars, prayer beads, embroidered senninbari prayer belts, and memorials they handcrafted through the bleakest times, to keep their spirits alive."

REGISTER for the free online preview at Sutra and Bible: Faith and the Japanese American World War II Incarceration.

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