Nun says many ignorant about wartime treatment of Japanese in U.S.

Published: 2004-05-03

MARYKNOLL, N.Y. (CNS) -- Maryknoll Sister Yae Ono doesn't remember much about the day in 1944 when she and her mother and sister were evacuated to the Manzanar Relocation Center in California. The center was one of 10 internment camps where 112,000 West Coast residents of Japanese origin were sent beginning in 1942, following the attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. But the American-born Japanese nun does remember the racist attitudes directed at the Japanese living in this country even when she was in grade school, long before they were relocated by the U.S. government. "There were very few Japanese children in our school," Sister Ono, 87, said in an interview at Maryknoll, where the retired nun lives. "Kids would turn around and tell us 'Hey you Jap, hey you Jap.' It happened all the time because we were the so-called yellow race." Today Americans have a new chance to learn about what happened to Japanese-American citizens during World War II with the April 24 designation of the Manzanar Relocation Center as a national historical site by the National Park Service.

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