AZ: The History of Arizona podcast · David Rookhuyzen

Episode 241: Roasten, Toasten, Dustin

·31 min·2 clips

At Gila River, one man described dust after mesquite trees were cleared, and another cited 120-degree heat.

1. AZ: The History of Arizona episode 241, “Roastin’, Toastin’, Dustin,” tracks the removal of Japanese Americans into Arizona camps during World War II. 2. Host David Ruckhausen narrates the story and cites historians Andrew B. Russell and Thomas Fujita Roney, plus the organization Densho, to document the camps. 3. The episode asks how Executive Order 9006 and Military Area 1 turned parts of Arizona into places where Japanese ancestry could trigger forced removal. 4. Russell’s account shows that Japanese farms in Phoenix, Glendale, Tempe, and Mesa fell on the wrong side of the military line. 5. Ruckhausen describes practical losses tied to that line, including abandoned crops, housing shortages, and a Phoenix family told they were a quarter mile too close to the airport. 6. He also notes that Japanese Buddhist and Christian churches in Glendale were closed because they sat south of the line. 7. Susie Sato’s move from Los Angeles to North Mesa did not prevent restrictions, because Mesa police had to contact the FBI before she could be admitted south to give birth. 8. Bill Kachikawa’s effort to enroll 30 Nisei students at Peoria High School led the school board to affirm their right to education under the 14th Amendment. 9. The first months were unsettled because families did not know whether the government would change its mind, and Hiro Nomura’s family called the district attorney’s office and the FBI for answers that never came. 10. General John J. DeWitt then froze voluntary evacuations in late March 1942 and issued a fast-moving removal process that gave families only days to sell what they could and pack a single suitcase plus bedding. 11. Densho’s material and Roney’s research show the same pattern of exploitation and transport through 64 civil control stations and then assembly centers. 12. Some assembly centers used fairgrounds and horse tracks, while Arizona’s Mayer Assembly Center used an old CCC camp with four 50-person barracks, a recreation hall, two bathhouses, and a school. 13. Ruckhausen says Mayer housed 250 Japanese Americans and was considered one of the nicest assembly centers. 14. He spends time on language, arguing that “internment camps” obscures the forced removal and that many historians now use “concentration camps” or “American-style concentration camps.” 15. The episode connects that terminology debate to the ten camps built across the West and Arkansas by October 1942. 16. Two of those camps were in Arizona: the Gila River camp on the Gila River Indian Community near Casa Grande and the Colorado River Relocation Center, later called Poston, near Parker. 17. Ruckhausen notes that the camps were built on American Indian reservations despite tribal objections, and that army authority overrode those concerns. 18. Poston became the largest camp until Tule Lake opened, and Gila River peaked at about 13,300 prisoners, putting both camps among Arizona’s largest population centers at the time. 19. The tone is historical and detail-heavy, with frequent detours into numbers, place names, and the mechanics of exclusion and camp construction. 20. Listeners who want Arizona history, Japanese American incarceration history, or wartime policy should listen; people wanting a short, light overview may skip it.

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