Obit of the Day: “The Woman Behind the Symbol”
Three months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. The order effectively made every American citizen of Japanese descent living in the Western United States an enemy of the state. It specifically required the internment of all men, women, and children of Japanese descent, regardless of citizenship.
On March 24, 1942 the U.S. Army arrived on Bainbridge Island, located off the coast of Washington State, the first area in the country designated for internment. There they announced that all 227 residents of Japanese heritage, including those born in the U.S., were to be moved off the island. They were allowed to bring one suitcase, and had six days to get their personal lives in order.
Fumiko Hayashida was the daughter of Japanese immigrants, born in Washington. Her family grew and harvested strawberries on the island. At the time of the internment Mrs. Hayashida had a 3-year-old son (Neal), a 14-month-old girl (Natalie), and was four months pregnant with her third child (Leonard). Trying to prepare herself for an unknown journey, Mrs. Hayashida dressed herself in as many layers of clothes as possible while filling her one suitcase with flannel in order to fashion diapers for her babies.
On March 30, the internees were brought down to the docks to board a boat for Seattle. As Mrs. Hayashida stood waiting patiently, a photographer caught the moment. The image first appears so peaceful, with Mrs. Hayashida standing there quietly yet with a determined look on her face while 14-month-old Natalie sleeps on oblivious to the experience. But the tags hanging from mother and daughter show clearly the dehumanization of Japanese internees, who the goverment knew as nothing more than names on a list to be tagged and shipped.
Note: After all was said and done, 12,892 Washingon residents were designated for internment during World War II.
The Hayashidas were eventually settled in Manzanar, a camp in California, where they spent the duration of the war, isolated from the rest of the country. Even the Supreme Court decided that military segregation of the populace was legal. They were hopelessly stranded until the end of the war*.
Following the end of World War II, Mrs. Hayashida, her husband, and three children returned to Bainbridge Island to find their farm overgrown and in disarray. They decided to move to Seattle where Mr. Hayashida worked for Boeing as a machinist and Mrs. Hayashida became a receptionist. More than 40 years later, Mrs. Hayashida was given $20,000 by the United States as part of an official apology from President Ronald Reagan in 1988.
Her role in the 1942 photograph, however, remained a mystery for even longer. Taken by a Seattle Post-Intelligencer photographer, he never took down his subjects’ names. But the photograph was used time and again, to symbolize the Japanese American experience during World War II.
It was not until 1993, after the photograph was featured in a Smithsonian exhibition, that an artist named Hiro decided to find the person behind that determined face. He discovered Mrs. Hayashida still living in Seattle and he had her flown to Washington, D.C. to discuss the image and her time in internment.
Mrs. Hayashida became an activist, serving as a living reminder of what even a country based on life and liberty can do when left unchecked. At age 95, she spoke before a House subcommittee on the internment in the hopes of avoiding a similar tragedy in the future.
In 2009, a documentary about Mrs. Hayashida, the interning of her and her family, and the story of the photograph was produced by Lucy Ostrander and Don Sellers. The film was titled The Woman Behind the Symbol. (You can watch a clip of the film here.)
Fumiko Hayashida, who was the oldest living Bainbridge Island internee, died on November 2, 2014 at the age of 103.
Sources: LA Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer
(Image of Fumiko Hayashida and daughter Natalie taken on March 30, 1942 by an unknown Seattle Post-Intelligencer photographer is now part of the collection of the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle Washingon.)
* In one of the saddest ironies of the war, Japanese-Americans were allowed to join the military. The 442nd Army Regiment was composed of men who were formerly interned, and they became the most highly decorated regiment in the entire U.S. military.
Other relevant posts on Obit of the Day:
Bob Fletcher - A Sacramento-area man who quit his job to look after the farms of three interned familes. He returned the farms to them when they were released.
Gordon Hirabayashi - As a student at the University of Washington he took the federal government to the Supreme Court over Executive Order 9066.
Omar Kaihatsu - Interned during the war, he joined the 442nd Regiment and fought in Europe during the war. He later received a Congressional Gold Medal
Yuri Kohiyama - Interned as achild, she later was deeply involved in the U.S. Civil Rights movement.
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