Eighty years ago, on April 11, 1943, James Hatsuaki Wakasa was walking his dog near a barbed wire fence. At 7:30 p.m., an Army guard fired a single shot, killing him.
Wakasa was one of about 120,000 Japanese Americans who were forcibly removed from their homes during World War II. He was sent to the Topaz Relocation Center near Delta, Utah. It was one of 10 “relocation centers” that were built in desolate places and consisted of rows of military-style barracks.
Although Topaz was in Utahns’ backyards, many still don’t know about it.
“The folks I’ve talked to, even people who lived in and around Delta would talk about the fact that they didn’t even know about Topaz growing up,” said Robert Austin, the humanities team coordinator at the Utah State Board of Education.
The way the internment is taught has been changing for the past 80 years, as people understood how racism, fear and war hysteria factored into it. Austin said the Reagan administration marked a significant turning point when it issued a formal apology to camp survivors and descendants.
Even the terminology has changed; instead of calling it an internment, it’s now referenced as an incarceration.
In Utah’s curriculum, students learn about Topaz and the mass incarceration in fourth and seventh grade when they focus on the history of Utah. Austin said the state wants students to be able to use primary sources to analyze how the Japanese American internment impacted an individual or community in Utah. Other than that, it’s up to teachers to choose what the best use of time is.
“Both the great thing and the challenge about public education is that there’s a lot of choice in terms of curriculum once standards are created,” Austin said.
While the state has been getting better at helping students understand what happened at Topaz during the internment, Austin said there is still a whole range of history to understand.
For example, anti-Asian legislation started before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. This is why, Austin said, case studies of specific people like Wakasa are important.
“History happens to people and it happens by people,” he said. “It happens either with the complicity of people or it happens with people rising up to say, we’re not going to let something like that happen again.”
Former Utah State Sen. Jani Iwamoto believes that “recognizing our history and our lived experiences is critical.” She said history repeats itself, and justice is a matter of continuing education.
“We need to learn from each other’s pasts, even though it may be painful and uncomfortable because we can’t move forward with real change without that knowledge.”
There have also been strides in Utah’s Legislature to make sure citizens remember this history. Iwamoto made sure that Feb. 19, the anniversary of when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 to authorize the forcible incarceration of Japanese Americans, was a day of remembrance. She sponsored SB 58, which put the date on the state’s official calendar.
But, Iwamoto said Utah still needs to do more. She has been working to bring back Salt Lake City’s Japantown. The state had a thriving Japanese community, but it was displaced when the Salt Palace arena was built in the mid-1960s. Bringing it back, Iwamoto said, can help all communities of color know that this is their home.
“These communities bring a richness to Utah,” she said. “We need to celebrate all those who make Utah their own.”
The Topaz Museum and Wakasa Memorial Committee will co-host a memorial to honor James Hatsuaki Wakasa on April 21-22.
