Poston (continued)
Service to our country
In 1943, more than 1,200 internees volunteered to serve with the 442nd Reginemntal
Combat Team. Most of three volunteers were Niesel Second Genderation -
Japanexse-Americans who were American citizens by birth. They left their parents and
lo ved ones behind in camps like Poston to fight and die for the United States on the
battlefields of Italy, France and Germany, the 442nd emerged as the most highly
decorated U.S. Army unit in World War II. Other internees served in the military
intelligence service in the pacific theater where they performed with valor and
distinction in the war with Japan. In the fall of 1943, the nisei became draftable as
their se;lective service classification was chanced from 4-C, enemy alien, to 1-A.
Nisei men and woman served in nearly every theater of operations with honor,
courage and pride to help protect and perserve for all Americans
the same constitutional freedoms that were, at that very time,
being denied them and their families.
Resettlement
In the fall of 1942, many internees responded to the urgent call for workers to
assiost in the harvest of the sugar beet crop in the mountain states, another
vanguard of the resettlement were college bound students who were assisted by the
National Student Relocation Council , The American Friends Service Committee and
numerous individuals. In 1943 many internees resettled in the mountain midwest and
eastern regions of the U.S. for employment and a better way of life.
On December 17, 1944, the War Deparmentannounced the revocation of the West Coast
Exclustion orders for the people of Japanese Ancestry effective January 2, 1945. The
following day, WRA director, Dillion S. Myer, announced the closure of all WRA centers
by December 31, 1945 and the abolishment of the entire WRA prograam by June 30, 1946
1992
During the five decades following World War II, the Colorado River Indian Reservation has been transformed into a blooming garden by a series of innovative irrigation and
hyroelectric projects, still the home of the Colorado River Indian Tribes.. It now
stands as a tribute to Arizona's bright agricultural future,. Very little remains to
remind the public of what took place in this peaceful valley fifty years ago when
thousands of Americans of Japanese ancestry were taken from their homes, numbered,
tagged and then herded into places like Poston where they were held captive by their
own cou8ntry until the United States Government finally realized the full moral and
legal implications of what it had done to its own citizens..
Hence, what happened in Poston dduring those few years, 1942-1045. should be
a constant reminder that all Americans without qualification or
exception have the constitutional rights to live in that society governed
by reason and law and by truth and justice
October 6, 1992
