Rise of the Atomic Sun:

Japanese American Reactions to the

Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Center of the American West Thompson Writing Awards
Christian Heimburger

Photo by Christian Heimburger

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Are you Americans? he asked. The question instantly made us self-conscious.

Yes, I replied, looking at him and then returning my gaze back to the memorial before us.
Bouquets of thoughtfully arranged flowers had been placed in front of the graceful concrete arch,
giving off a sweet fragrance that seemed distantly familiar. The man looked at us again and inquired,
What do you think of all this? Standing before the cenotaph a monument that contains the names
of all victims of the first atomic bomb in Hiroshima, Japan we were not sure how to answer him.
Any quick answer would have been flippant. We had just spent the last five hours wandering
the Atomic Bomb Memorial Museum, and our thoughts were heavy with emotion. This was the
second time I had visited the museum and memorial park; now I was here with my wife. Although
Tokyo and Kyoto were the focal points of our two-week journey across Japan, I felt compelled to
travel an extra 200 miles south to take my wife to Hiroshima.
I am drawn there, I think, because it is part of my history. As a youth studying the atomic
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in history textbooks, I was confronted with photos, always
taken from the air, of gargantuan mushroom clouds rising into the troposphere; the commentary that
inevitably attended such photos taught that these bombs simply saved lives and ended the war. That
may very well be true, but in Hiroshima I saw images that imparted another, less acknowledged,
history. Walking through the museum, I not only saw photos of an utterly destroyed city, but of men,
women, and children with horribly burned bodies and disfiguring scars. I viewed pictures drawn by
children who survived the blast depicting scenes of fire, mayhem, and suffering a hell on earth
that graphically narrated a story I could not even begin to imagine. The images were strikingly
different than the textbook photos I was accustomed to seeing. As an American, I can not escape the
human consequences of the bomb in Japan, I stare a strategic wartime decision, for better or for
worse, in the face. Perhaps I have come back to Hiroshima to confront our collective past to add
faces, names, and experience to the geography of my understanding.
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My experiences in Hiroshima left my mind steeped in questions; the query the Japanese man
posed to me in the memorial park on this last trip is one that continues to burden me as Ive studied
the dawn of the nuclear age in the land of the rising sun. It causes me to wonder how Americans in
1945 reacted to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the days, months, and years
following August 6th? How much information did they have about the physical toll and human
effects of the bombs? As someone who has lived several years in Japan and who also studies
Western American history, I am also compelled to ask how did Japanese Americans (or Nikkei) react
to the atomic bombings in the land of their ancestry? The history of the Nikkei in the American West
is one of considerable irony and heartbreak enduring immigration restrictions, racism, and
internment in their own country and highlighting their responses to the bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki seems particularly significant on this, the 60th anniversary of those terrible events.
A great deal of history and literature are devoted to assessing whether or not the atomic
bombs were necessary or justified. This paper will not explore questions of historical contingency.
A study of whether the bombs were necessary or justified will not be addressed in this paper. In
endeavoring to answer how Americans reacted to the atomic bombs, I do not seek to place moral
judgment on a complicated set of decisions made during one of the worlds most destructive
conflicts, but rather to come to terms with how a particular group of Americans responded to those
decisions. The first section of the paper will briefly look at how Americans, in general, learned about
the atomic bombings in Japan, and how they responded to that information. The reactions of
everyday Americans to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are important because they suggest
something about American cultural values, racial perceptions, patriotic sentiments, and wartime
anxieties. The bulk of the paper will focus on one particularly vested segment of the population
Japanese Americans and how they reacted to the news of Hiroshima and Nagasakis atomic
destruction. Japanese American responses to the bomb are significant because of the historical events
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that shaped them including exclusion laws, acculturation, internment, and wartime loyalty. When
one considers that a considerable portion of the Japanese immigrant community had emigrated from
Hiroshima Prefecture, many of whom still had family living in Hiroshima in 1945, their reactions to
the news of the atomic bomb demonstrate a compelling, though perhaps not widely understood,
chapter in our national narrative.

Atomic Energy Unleashed

How Americans Learned About and Reacted to the News of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The headlines that San Franciscans read when they opened up the paper on August 7, 1945,
announced, Atomic Energy Unleashed: Atomic Bomb Blasts Japan. The front-page article
continued:
The most terrible destructive force ever harnessed by man atomic energy is now being turned on the
islands of Japan by United States bombers the first bombhad been dropped on the Japanese army base of
Hiroshima 16 hours before. That one bomb alone carried a wallop more violent than 2000 B-29
Superfortresses normally could hand an enemy city[President] Truman said, with the new bomb, the
Japanese may expect a rain of ruin from the air.1

For most of the people reading The San Francisco Chronicle and other papers that day, the stunning
announcement represented the first time they had heard anything concerning the atom bomb.
News of the bomb was first reported by radio broadcasts late on August 6, after newsmen
were called to a press conference at the White House.2 With the press gathered, Press Secretary Eben
Ayers read a statement by President Truman. The Presidents declaration had been constructed over
a period of months, with heavy input from government and military officials. It stressed themes of
military necessity, American decency, [and] scientific and industrial achievement but contained no
details about the Hiroshima bombs physical or human consequences.3 On August 7, the Pentagon
released a series of fourteen reports to news agencies around the country that detailed information
about the bombs development and the Hiroshima mission. The content of these reports soon
dominated radio and newspaper stories across the country. As official War Department press
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releases, the reports had been carefully composed months in advance by (later Pulitzer Prizewinning) New York Times reporter William Laurence, under the direct supervision of General Leslie
Groves. Laurences skills as a journalist lent credibility, as well as a distinct quality, to the reports.
Largely celebratory in nature, the press releases described for the first time the bombs development,
hailing it as the birth of a new age The age of Atomic Energy. Laurences reports dominated
available information about the bombs, and over time became the official atomic narrative. 4
News of the Hiroshima bombing spread quickly; by August 8, nearly 97 percent of Americans
had heard about it.5 Unofficial information from Japanese government and news agencies also
surfaced, claiming, Practically all living things, human and animal, were literally seared to death,
and that, The dead are too numerous to be counted.6 Such graphic reports were quickly dismissed
as Japanese propaganda by government and media news agencies. 7
So how did Americans react to the news of the atomic bombings? When asked whether they
approved or disapproved of using the new atomic bomb on Japanese cities, over 87 percent of
respondents said they approved of the Hiroshima bombing.8 Pearl Harbor still weighed heavily on
the minds of Americans, and vengeance, along with years of racially dehumanizing the enemy,
would have made the death toll at Hiroshima and Nagasaki easier to accept.9 To most Americans,
however, the bomb meant victory. Speculation about a Japanese surrender quickly overshadowed
news of the bomb; even information about the second atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki was
relegated to subtext in the August 9th edition of The New York Times.10 Historian Paul Boyer adds
that in the period immediately following Hiroshima, relief over the wars end and the emotional
high brought on by Japans surrender inclined Americans to downplay their atomic bomb fears and to
endorse for the record President Trumans insistently positive view of the bomb.11 Many
Americans believed that by ending the war early, the bombs had saved lives. To be sure, some
Americans questioned whether the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified; one
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magazine even decried the lack of public protest following the bombs use. Reactions in national
magazines showed the juxtaposition of awe and questioning on one hand, and emphasis upon the
saving of lives on the other. Beneath the surface was a moral questioning that would continue to stir
deep within the American psyche.12
By the end of 1945, however, Americans still did not fully appreciate the human suffering that
had been caused by the atomic bombs. On August 20, Life Magazine published full-page
photographs of the physical destruction in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and included some of the first
photos of the iconic mushroom cloud.13 However, the magazine spread contained no photographs of
injured Japanese...no doctors and nurses treating the ill and wounded, no funeral pyres, [and] no one
in mourning.14 It was not as though photographs were unavailable or that reporters did not attempt
to document the human perspective indeed, many had tried. U.S. occupation forces consistently
censored information coming out of the atomic cities, and downplayed reports of radiation-induced
illnesses and casualties. Films shot on location, as well as media reports, were confiscated, declared
top secret, and not released until years (sometimes decades) later.15
Because of such censorship, and the official government narratives constructed to avoid
controversy, very few Americans ever confronted the human effects of the atomic bombs. Though it
is apparent that there were dissenting voices around the country, a majority of citizens credited the
bomb with saving American and Japanese lives and accelerating the end of the war.
Three weeks after the first anniversary of the bombings, the publication of John Herseys
Hiroshima in The New Yorker would have a significant impact on the tone of atomic bomb
discourse. Herseys account, based on extensive interviews conducted in Hiroshima, detailed the
stories of four civilians who had survived and endured the nightmarish days and weeks that followed
the bombing. The piece was an instant sensation: copies of the magazine quickly sold out and the
entire article was widely read over the radiowaves.16 Ministers even used it in sermons.17 Average
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Americans were moved by Herseys narrative: one college student admitted that before reading the
article, he had never thought of the people in the bombed cities as individuals.18 Though Herseys
Hiroshima did not alter the official narrative that justified the bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, it did begin to expose Americans to the human suffering the bombs had caused, and
perhaps encouraged citizens to re-think some of their deeply held assumptions about them. An
October 1947 Gallup Poll showed that only 55 percent of Americans considered the use of the bomb
a good thing and 38 percent thought it was a bad thing, perhaps reflecting the influence Herseys
story had on the changing nature of American public opinion.19

A Brief Review of Japanese American History

Though Japanese Americans shared a common identity through heritage, their reactions to the
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not monolithic. Indeed, their responses were
uniquely shaped by their history (including exclusion laws and wartime internment), generational
conflicts, ideas about loyalty and Americanization, and military service. In order to put their
reactions to the atomic bombs into context, a brief summary of Japanese American history is
necessary.
The first Japanese immigrants began arriving in the United States in the late nineteenth
century. Initially made up of modest numbers of indigent student laborers, by the mid-1890s
contract laborers began immigrating en masse to Hawaii and later to the mainland West Coast. Most
of them came from rural, economically depressed regions of Japan (like Hiroshima Prefecture), and
sought to earn as much money as possible before returning home.20 Labor concerns and racial
intolerance during the first quarter of the twentieth century culminated in a series of exclusion laws
that severely limited the rights of the first generation of immigrants (or Issei). The 1908 Gentlemans
Agreement dramatically reduced Japanese immigration, especially for contract workers.21 Seeking to
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avoid further exclusion, immigrant leaders pushed permanent settlement by encouraging the Issei to
take up farming, settle down in families, and to acculturate themselves by embracing American
clothing, customs, and schooling for their children.22 Despite such efforts, the Supreme Court ruled
in 1922 that Japanese immigrants were aliens ineligible for citizenship; alien land laws also barred
the Issei from owning land, essentially destroying the economic foundation of Japanese immigrant
society.23 The 1924 Immigration Act effectively terminated all immigration from Japan, separating
families and signifying to the Issei that all of their efforts to demonstrate their assimilability had
been in vain.24
Historian Yuji Ichioka argues that the Isseis state of political powerlessness engendered a
transfer of their hopes and aspirations to their American-born children (or Nisei) who did qualify for
citizenship.25 The Issei struggled during the interwar years to help their children retain some
semblance of their native culture while also allowing them to embrace the culture and traditions of
their new land. David Yoo contends that the creation of unique Nikkei institutions, like Japanese
language schools, churches, and the immigrant press, drew [the] Nisei into spaces firmly rooted
within Japanese America and allowed them to carve out a distinctive niche within immigrant and
native contexts that actually reinforced generational and racial-ethnic ties.26 From an external
political and social perspective, however, the persistence of racial discrimination continued to
dominate the lives of Japanese Americans. Japanese internment, argues Yoo, was not really a
historical aberration but rather the outgrowth of longstanding discriminatory efforts aimed at
Japanese Americans since their arrival at these shores.27
By 1941, over 200,000 Japanese immigrants and Japanese American citizens resided in
Hawaii; another 120,000 lived on the mainland (primarily in California). Mainland Nikkei were
comprised of approximately 40,000 Issei and 80,000 Nisei (a majority of whom were under the age
of eighteen).28 Pulitzer Prize Winning historian David Kennedy notes that immediately following the
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December 7 attack on Pearl Harbor, there was no clamor for wholesale reprisals against the
mainland Japanese[but] as war rumors took wing in the weeks following Pearl Harbor, sobriety
gave way to anxiety, then to a rising cry for draconian action against the Japanese on the West
Coast. Alleging that Japanese spies in Hawaii had enabled the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor,
citizens, politicians, and journalists voiced their support for radical action. On February 9, President
Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the creation of military defense zones where
any and all persons may be excluded. A month later people of Japanese ancestry, both immigrant
and citizen alike, were forcibly removed to temporary assembly centers. Then, in June of 1942, they
were moved to permanent relocation centers scattered across the West. 29
World War II internment camps, as one historian put it, changed the lives of Japanese
Americans forever. Some felt the wars crushing blows in lost homes, businesses, and from the loss
of loved ones and broken families.30 In addition to the disruption of life, the camps exacerbated a
generational rift between the Issei and Nisei that had begun before the war. As Japanese aggression
in the Pacific accelerated during the late 1930s, the English-speaking Nisei pressed to fix the image
of the ethnic community as unquestionably loyal to the United States.31 The Nisei-directed Japanese
American Citizens League (JACL), lead the push for the Americanization of the Nikkei community.
When Issei leaders were taken into custody following Pearl Harbor, the federal government
accelerated a generational shift in leadership by recognizing the JACL as the official mouthpiece of
the Nikkei community. JACL leaders, in an effort to prove their loyalty, fully cooperated with the
governments plan to evacuate Japanese Americans from the West Coast; they would later be
criticized by other Nikkei for so easily forfeiting the constitutional rights of Japanese American
citizens.32
Conditions in the internment camps were, by all accounts, poor. Cramped, one-bedroom
barracks, long lines for substandard food, and communal bathroom facilities (including toilets with
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no stalls) all contributed to the dehumanization of the Nikkei. Despite such conditions, the
government viewed the camps, and especially camp schools, as an opportune way to assimilate the
Nikkei into American society. In February of 1943, the government, in conjunction with the U.S.
Army (and the support of the JACL), introduced a loyalty questionnaire designed to determine
whether residents were eligible for early leave or military service.33 Questions 27 and 28 asked if
the respondent was willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States in combat duty, and
second, if, after swearing allegiance to the United States, he or she would foreswear any form of
allegiance to the Japanese emperor or any other foreign government.34 The questions were terribly
ironic: one asked citizens who had been forcibly imprisoned to serve their country in combat, and the
other had the potential to render the alien Issei effectively stateless. The confusion and anxiety
surrounding the questionnaire created havoc in many families, and split whole communities. NoNo respondents were sent to the Tule Lake camp and branded as disloyal; some were later deported
back to Japan. Many of the Yes-Yes respondents were allowed to leave to pursue educations and
careers, or to serve in the United States military.
For many Japanese Americans, the legacy of internment left them understandably
disillusioned with supposed American ideals of liberty, justice, and equality. Many of the Nisei had
come of age in the assembly and relocation centers, and by 1945 had entered adulthood; they
struggled to balance injustice with the burdens of resistance and accommodation. In spite of the
hardships and human costs, however, most individuals, families, and communities adapted,
struggled, resisted, and survived this ordeal.35

Rise of the Atomic Sun

How Japanese Americans Reacted to the Atomic Bombings in Japan

By August of 1945, many Nikkei had left the internment camps. The ban on Japanese
Americans on the West Coast had been revoked in January, and, with the government intent on
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completely phasing out the camps by 1946, a number of Nikkei had returned to their former
communities in California. Still, violence against Japanese Americans in that region including
arson fires, shootings, and other acts of terrorism made many wary about returning to their homes.36
As a result, only 5,000 of the 55,000 people cleared to leave the camps had done so by August.
Forty-thousand Nikkei had settled in other parts of the country, while still others were serving in the
military overseas.37
Japanese Americans learned about the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by listening to
many of the same radio broadcasts and reading the same newspaper headlines as their fellow
Americans. For the Nikkei still living in internment camps in August of 1945 between 45,000 and
50,000 people outside radio broadcasts and camp newspapers provided much of their news. Camp
newspapers mentioned surprisingly little about Hiroshima and Nagasaki references to the bombings
were cryptic and largely imbedded in larger stories concerning an imminent Japanese surrender. The
Manzanar Free Press, for example, casually mentions that, another atomic bomb had been dropped
on Nagasaki. This is the second atomic bomb to be dropped on Japan within an August 11 story
about the unconditional surrender of the Japanese army. 38 It may seem surprising that ethnic
newspapers did not engage in more dialogue concerning the bomb. However, Yoo explains that, due
to censorship and a conscious effort to put a bright face on things, the freedom of the press rang as
hollow as other notions of democracy in the camps.39
The reactions of the Japanese American population, taken as a whole, were not dramatically
different from the greater American population; most Nikkei were shocked and confused, many
relieved yet saddened, while some were completely devastated. A great many remained silent about
their feelings. The experiences of Japanese Americans before and during the war no doubt shaped
their varied responses. For many Japanese Americans, silence probably reflected a general
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altering concern; one can only speculate about how many members of the Japanese American
community might have held deep-seated feelings about the bombings but never outwardly expressed
those sentiments. For many, the rapid end of the war overshadowed the immediate significance of
what had occurred in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Additionally, literature documenting the Nikkeis
specific responses to the atomic bombings is limited. As such, it is difficult to generalize their views.
In an effort to both understand and illustrate the particular reactions of Japanese Americans, I have
divided the population into three groups typical Japanese Americans (both citizens and noncitizens), Japanese American military veterans, and Japanese American hibakusha (or explosionaffected persons). Even within these three distinct groups, responses are by no means monolithic, but
grouping them in this way enable us to begin to understand the complicated set of emotions they
showed regarding the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Tears of Relief and Anguish: Typical Japanese American Reactions to the Atomic Bombings
Late in the afternoon on August 7, 1945, second-generation Japanese American Mary
Matsuda finished her shift in the kitchen of the Jane Lamb Memorial Hospital and headed back to the
nurses home to prepare for the next days classes. As she walked through the nurses lounge, she
picked up a newspaper and read the headline: First Atom Bomb Dropped on Japan; Missile is Equal
to 20,000 tons of TNT. As she studied the photographs of the towering mushroom cloud and a
devastated city, Matsudas first reaction was one of panic. Oh, no! she thought, An atomic bomb
has been dropped on Hiroshima! Later, as more pictures of the destruction and the human suffering
became available, Matsuda described a more complex set of emotional responses. When I saw the
pictures of Japanese people burned and charred by the atomic blast, I was heartbroken for them. I
was an American by birth, but at that moment, I was Japanese.40

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Mary Matsuda had grown up helping her family manage a small strawberry farm in western
Washington. Her father had immigrated to the United States in the late 1890s; years later, he briefly
returned to the land of his birth to bring back his Japanese bride, at which time the couple settled on
rural Vashon Island, located in Puget Sound. After Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese in
1941, the Matsuda family was sent to an internment camp at Tule Lake, California. When the
famous loyalty test was administered to internees, Mary and her brother, the only legal American
citizens in their family, reluctantly volunteered for the United States Cadet Nurse Corps. and the
Army, respectively; her parents remained in at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming.
Marys brother was serving in the European theatre, and Mary in the middle of her nurses training,
when news of Hiroshima reached her.
Matsudas reactions to the atomic bombing were complicated on the one hand she was
relieved that the war would finally be ending, and on the other she felt deeply connected to the people
whose were lives were scarred and abruptly ended in the land of her ancestry. Of her feelings on
August 7, she wrote, When I looked at the pictures, I felt nauseated and dizzy, as if I had been hit in
the head and stomach. So many innocent lives wiped out. I knew instantly that the United States had
won the war. My tears were a mix of relief and anguish. Even though part of me was glad the
United States won the war, the Japanese part of me was speechless with grief and horror.41
Like Mary Matsuda, the reactions of Japanese Americans to news about the use of the atomic
bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were complex. Generalized responses are difficult for a historian
to elicit, for, as one government official reported, every sort of reaction was observed when the
news came.42 Responses were no doubt shaped by the various historical factors discussed earlier, like
where they were living when the bombs were dropped, whether the person had come from Hiroshima
or had relatives living there, their particular generation (Issei or Nisei), whether they served in the
military, and finally what information was available to them when the bomb was dropped.
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In her book about World War II internment camps, writer Michi Nishiura Weglyn describes
the reactions of Tule Lake internees to the news of bombings: For the Issei and Nisei still trapped at
Tule Lake, the atomic incineration of a quarter million kindred fellow humans in Hiroshima ushered
in the final nightmare stage in the sequence of injustices which had issued forth from the order to
evacuate.43 Nearly a third of the Japanese American immigrants incarcerated at Tule Lake had
come from Hiroshima. First-hand descriptions compiled by the camps community analyst Marvin
Opler inform Weglyns insights. Opler described how the news of the atomic bombings left the
[relocation] center stunned on August 8 with a complicated series of reactions. He further observed:
Issei from Hiroshima-ken were going to hold Memorial Services for relatives assumed to be obliterated;
Ward VIII was leading in this, the ceremonies to be in a definite religious and traditional style.
The news of the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki City (only 28 people from this ken here) was hardly so
devastating. In general, I noted a slight amount of hate-the-hakujin [whites] feeling which soon died out,
along with some feelings of persecution: Maybe well be bombed next.Generally, however, the center
recognized what we noted on the 8th that the war was over. Over the weekend, the center was distinctly
well up on the news. To say that the imminence of a Japanese defeat spelled gloom is to misread the
picture. People were quietly at their radios; and when I visited I found every sort of reaction.44

Because of their close ties to Japan, members of the immigrant generation exhibited much more
visceral reactions to the news. In Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston describes her
Issei father, after hearing the news about his hometown of Hiroshima, sitting on our steps for long
hours, smoking cigarettes in his ivory holder, staring into the mountains he went to with his eyes
whenever he needed sustenance. Here he sat, a man with no prospects, perhaps now without even a
family in Japan to confirm his own history45 When Mary Matsuda learned about the news, she,
too, thought about her Issei parents. Though both had come to America by choice and stood by their
decision against such terrible oddsJapan was the land of their birth and both of them had family
there. Eight days after Nagasaki was bombed, she received a letter from her mother that expressed
how America had a bad bomb that shouldnt be used in the world and used it to try to make Japan
disappear. For us here, she continued, we do not talk about it. We might try to hide it but it
cannot be hidden. This splendid America has done a very bad thing we must never forget that
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America did this kind of thing.46 Journalist Bill Hosokawa was not able to speak to his parents until
some years after the war, though he recalled that the news of the bombs really affected them.
Hosokawas parents, too, were from Hiroshima. They, like so many other Issei, had emigrated from
Japan when they were adults and had much closer familial ties with their homeland. Imagining that
their birthplace had been destroyed was too much to digest for some Issei who refused to believe the
news at all. When Kay Matsuokas father heard the news, he immediately dismissed it as just an old
rumor.47
The Niseis reactions to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were in many ways
more complex than their parents. The Nisei lacked the same direct physical ties to Japan as their
parents, and were a generation caught between two cultures. Most of the Nisei were still in their
adolescence, and for them the memory of the atomic bomb was less distressing. Joe Yasutake was
only twelve years old when his family heard the news. Joe could sense that the atomic bomb was
really bad, andit was huge and it killed a lot of people kind of thing. Though he remembers his
mother grieving for all the dead, he stated, I dont remember it really affecting me at the time.48
For other Nisei children, like Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, looking at the newspapers and hearing
rumors of the bomb spread throughout Manzanar was as strange, as awesome, as mysteriously
unnerving as Pearl Harbor had been. And in the same way that the first attack finished off one period
in our lives, so this appalling climax marked the end of another.49
Most Nisei were stunned by the news, and had a difficult time appreciating the scale of the
bombs destruction. Bill Hosokawa recalls that the news was devastating. Working as a reporter at
the Des Moines Register in Des Moines, Iowa at the time, Hosokawa read about Hiroshima as soon as
the information was reported by the Associated Press. He, like many other Japanese Americans, was
relieved that the war seemed to be ending, however, he did not really fathom how horrible the bomb
had been until years later.50 Frank Yamasaki was in a federal penitentiary at McNeil Island a
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result of evading the draft at the Minidoka Relocation Center when he heard about Hiroshima from
a fellow inmate. Skeptical of such fantastic news, he had to listen to the radio reports himself before
he believed that it had actually been destroyed by a single bomb. He described feeling shocked, and
struggled to process the news.51 For most Japanese Americans, the far-fetched technology of the
bomb and the idea that it could almost instantaneously annihilate a whole city was almost
unimaginable.
When they were able to move past the initial shock, the Nikkeis feelings about the bombing
were tremendously complicated. Takashi and Mitsue Matsui perhaps best illustrate the dynamic
reactions all the thoughts and emotions that Japanese Americans experienced. Takashi was born
in Hood River, Oregon, but attended elementary and secondary school in Japan. He later returned to
the United States and married Mitsue, whose family had emigrated from Hiroshima. Takashi was
drafted in 1942, and was serving as an instructor in the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) when
news of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima circulated through Fort Snelling, Minnesota. Mitsue
remembers that the news was shocking to everyone at the fort. Takashi thought, Oh my, thats the
end of the warbut I felt sorry for the hundreds of thousands of victims, and justificationI didnt
know what to think.52 Mitsue was devastated, and immediately thought of her family. I knew then
and there that some of my relatives had perishedand they did, they did actually. And I thought
there was no need for that. I felt that there was no need for that because things were getting pretty,
rather bad in Japan already.53 Like so many other Japanese Americans, Takashi and Mitsue
Matsuis reactions were tears somewhere between relief and anguish.54
As Bill Hosokawa described, many of the Nikkei were unable to process the significance of
the atomic bombs until years after. Those with relatives in the atomic cities did not learn the fate of
relatives until months, and sometimes years, afterward. Many of the Nikkei, especially those who
had direct familial ties to the cities, visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the years after the war, and it
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was only then that the devastating effects of the bomb both on a material and human scale became
tangible. Not knowing how many members of her family had survived, Mitsue Matsui returned to
Hiroshima during the U.S. occupation and saw the human effects of the bomb firsthand. A few of her
relatives had perished in the initial blast, and others would pass away in the years to come. At that
time, however, she was reunited with one of her cousins, a doctor working at the Red Cross hospital.
She described walking through the hospital with her cousin and seeing the bombs victims: And
there was one person in bed with his hands like that [bent backward], you know, burnt, and my
cousin said, Well, Im gonna operate on him, so it would be back in position. His back was all
burned and I said, Ive seen enough, youll have to excuse me, I want to go home.55 Kay
Matsuoka also had family in Hiroshima, and was not able to confirm who had been killed until letters
came months later. She read about their awful experiences in the aftermath of the bombing, and how
many of them suffered from radiation-induced disease and painful keloid scars, but it wasnt until she
visited with them personally, and went to the atomic bomb museum (and later to Pearl Harbor), that
she realized how terrible the war had been. I tell you, war is just awfulAnd we saw all those
names that perished. No matter which way you see it, Japan or America, its justits just awful.56
Fred Hirasunas parents also came from Hiroshima, and his family has made three trips to the city, as
well as one to Nagasaki. He confided to a reporter writing a story on the 50th anniversary of the
bombings that during his visits, We saw pictures of the maimed and killed. It affected me terribly.
We were in a group with close Caucasian friends. I think they were ashamed.57 For these Japanese
American citizens, the atomic bombing of their ancestral home was only fathomable after they had
come to terms with the physical effects the bombs had on human beings many of them kin.

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Japanese American Military Veterans

United States Army Colonel Harry Fukuhara was on the Philippine island of Luzon when he
heard that two atomic bombs had been dropped on Japan. Though he had every reason to celebrate,
considering he would have been part of the long-dreaded invasion, Fukuharas sense of relief was
quickly replaced by anguish. He had grown up in Hiroshima, and his mother and three brothers were
still living there when the bomb had been dropped. It would be months before he would learn their
fate.
Fukuhara was not aware that such a bomb was being developed, but as more information
about its destructive power became available, he was assigned to explain the inconceivable to the
Japanese prisoners on the island. The POWs were silent after he told them, and Fukuhara recalls
that, Either they didnt want to believe me or else the information was beyond their comprehension.
I know that I did not want to believe it myself. He asked himself many times, Why? Why did they
drop it on Hiroshima? Though he tried to remain optimistic, descriptions and photos of the blasts
magnitude left him with little hope that his family could have survived. He grew depressed. My
thinking degraded to the point that I blamed myself that they had died because I had volunteered to
fight against them.58 A month later Fukuhara joined the occupation forces in Japan. After several
failed attempts, he finally made it to Hiroshima; standing atop the central train platform, Fukuhara
surveyed the flat and lifeless landscape that no longer resembled the city he remembered. Finally
locating the house he had lived in only seven years before, he had a tearful reunion with his mother,
his aunt, and older brother.59 Two of his brothers, serving with Japanese military on an island off the
southern coast, were unaffected. His older brother, however, had been exposed to radiation on his
way to work, and died less than a year later.60
Though they were of Japanese ancestry, over 33,000 Nikkei like Harry Fukuhara served in the
United States military during World War II. Many of them came from the same camps that
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continued to house their loved ones.61 A small number of Nikkei joined the army before the war and
served in regular combat units; most, however, served in one of three segregated units: the 100th
Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team, or in the Military Intelligence Service (MIS). Both
combat units were made up of mainly Japanese Hawaiians, but in an effort to prove their loyalty to
the United States, many mainland Nikkei volunteered as well.62 Eventually becoming part of the
same unit, the 100th Battalion and the 442nd Regiment distinguished themselves in battles across
Europe. In the French Alps, for example, the Nikkei soldiers rescued 221 men from the famous Lost
Battalion at the cost of 800 casualties. The 442nd became the most decorated military unit during
World War II. 6,000 Nisei in the MIS served as interpreters and interrogators in the Pacific, though,
because of the nature of their work, their contributions were not as widely recognized. Still, one
general has asserted that the MIS soldiers saved a million lives and shortened the war by two
years.63
Like the members of their community at home, Japanese Americans serving in the military
expressed a wide range of reactions when word reached them about the atomic bombings. Hachiro
Togashi describes the day he heard about the bombings as, probably the worst day that I had
overseas. While his family was interned at the Amache Relocation Center, Togashi was seriously
wounded (just shy of his twentieth birthday) while serving in Europe with the 442nd. Many of his
friends died in combat. Then the news about the bomb arrived. I had no idea that we had the atomic
bombit was devastating because I had a number of fellows in my squad [whose] families were
from Hiroshima. Then a few more days later and we hear about Nagasaki and that reallyI tell ya,
I really felt bad.64
Many Japanese American soldiers expressed relief upon hearing that the bombings had
effectively shortened the war. George Takabayahi, a Nisei who grew up in Hawaii and served in the
MIS, was in Okinawa when he heard. Members of his unit, anticipating a protracted invasion of
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Japan, celebrated when they heard the announcement. For we who were in uniform, that meant that
our exposure to future conflictthat meant the end of the war.65 Kazuma Taguchi, after enduring
the travails of war in Italy with the 100th Infantry, remembers feeling glad, because I was supposed
to go back to Europe, you know, or someplace yet. Later he learned more about the bombings that
tempered his view, but at that time, in August of 1945, I thought it was a good thingbecause my
war would be over.66 While his family remained interned in Granada, Colorado, Hiroshi Mayeda
was training for the MIS when the war ended. Mayeda expressed relief as his unit would have been
right in the midst of the invasion of Japan. In his mind, the war ended because of the atom bomb
being dropped. I had my personal opinion about dropping the bomb, although young people wont
agree with meWell, Im here today because the bomb was dropped, you see, so that makes a big
difference because the invasion of Japan would have been something awful for both sides.67
Many veterans like Hiroshi Mayeda felt that using the atomic bombs on Japan effectively
saved lives. James Yamate is one of them. Yamate landed in Normandy with the 44th Infantry a few
months after D-Day, and was involved in combat across Europe. He was in France when the bombs
were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. His cousin who was serving in the Japanese military,
survived the bombing of Hiroshima, and Yamate admits, It was a terrible bomb. But all in all, if the
bomb was terrible, it saved a lot of lives. It ended the war if you weigh the costs, there were a lot
less losses because of the bomb. He later learned that his unit had been selected to invade Japan in
April of 1946 had the war not ended, which no doubt had an effect on his feelings concerning the
subject.68 Veteran Richard Narasaki felt that, Regardless of what the feeling is nowadays about the
bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I think most GIs would feel that it stopped the warPeople
died innocent people, lots of innocent people[but] if you think about a place like Dresden, the
firebombing of Dresden killed as many people as the atomic bomb did in Hiroshima. I feel for the
people in Hiroshima no matter what. But at the same time, we had to end the war.69
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Ben Honda was another Nikkei who had a vested interest in the long anticipated invasion.
Enduring months of horrific fighting on the Pacific islands of Kwajalein, Saipan, and later Okinawa,
Honda, too, felt the Hiroshima bomb was justified: When I first heard it, having gone through what I
had with five years in the army, and almost three years of it out there in the battlefield, I was of a
mind to say, well, okay, if it saved one of our soldiers, thats okay. When Honda learned that a
second bomb had been dropped on Nagasaki, his feelings became more complicated. Though he was
glad the war ended when it did, he felt the second atomic bomb was wrongI really think that was
wrong. Jim Tazoi, who was wounded (and consequently received the Purple Heart) while serving
with the 442nd in Europe, was also conflicted about the atomic bombings. Hiroshima was bombed,
and Imaybe that was all right, I dont know, but this Nagasaki bombing two or three days laterI
wonder if that was necessary. Tazoi felt Japan was close to surrendering and wondered to himself
whether the second bomb was necessary.70
It is apparent from their responses that many of the veterans are now versed in the more
contemporary debates concerning whether dropping the atomic bombs had been necessary. Some
veterans, aside from how they might have felt immediately after August 9, were strongly influenced
by their experiences in the atomic cities in the months following the bombings. Thomas Sakamoto
saw two years of combat in Pacific theater before being reassigned as a language officer in the Allied
war correspondents. Sakamoto participated in the Japanese surrender ceremony on the deck of the
U.S.S. Missouri before accompanying members of the Press Corps to Hiroshima on September 9.
Sakamoto was the first Japanese American officer to arrive in the destroyed city, and his experiences
there profoundly shaped his feelings about the bomb. While visiting the overcrowded Red Cross
hospital, Sakamoto saw, first-hand, the victims of Little Boy. Even after 50 years, he reflects, it
chokes me up and I find it very difficult to fully describe my feelings of that day. He witnessed the
women, children, and elderly with flash burns that had practically and completely peeled off skins
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and faces, and described the scene as, gruesome and like hellas a Japanese American, I was
really shaken up to think that these defenseless people were subjected to that kind of cruelty by one
bomb, transforming their lives, body, and totally disfiguring their faces was hard to take.71
Dr. James Yamasakis feelings about the bomb represent some of the more compelling, if not
more complex, reactions felt by Japanese Americans. Yamasaki joined the army one week before
Pearl Harbor, and served valiantly as surgeon in the 106th Infantry in Belgium. During the Battle of
the Bulge, he was captured by the German army, and narrowly avoided the fire-bombing of Dresden
as he was being transported across Germany. Yamasaki was eventually transported to a prison camp
near Mooseberg, which he later said reminded him of the relocation facility in Arkansas where his
family was then interned. Liberated by Pattons troops and sent home, he had just been reunited with
his wife and daughter when he read about the bombing of Hiroshima. We paid only passing
attention, he recalled. An atomic bomb meant nothing to us Even the news of a second bomb,
this one dropped on Nagasaki, seemed unimportant.72 He later admitted that he understood little
about the bombs devastating effects.73
All of that would change a few years later when he was appointed chief physician of the
Atomic Bomb Causality Commission and sent to Hiroshima. He spent the next nine years studying
the effects of radiation on children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and later contributed to studies on the
natives of the Marshall Islands. Rehearsing all the arguments concerning whether the use of the
atomic bomb was justified, Yamasaki does not seem prepared to offer judgment on historical
contingency. Instead, he succinctly declares, But I now also know, beyond any doubt or
uncertainty, what an atomic bomb can do. I know the measure of its human toll. 74 As with many of
the Nikkei, seeing the physical effects of the bomb on people, in all of its naked honesty, had a
sobering and intensely emotional impact on Japanese American veterans.

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Japanese American Hibakusha in Hiroshima

On the morning of August 6, 1945, pregnant Sadako Obata was quietly working in the
kitchen of the home she shared with her elder sister and year-old nephew in Hiroshima. Suddenly,
she saw a blinding flash of light, heard a deafening noise, and lapsed into an unconsciousness state.
When she finally came to, Sadako managed to extricate herself from the decimated rubble of the
house just nearly escaping a raging fire and survive for three days before being taken to her
fathers house in a neighboring village. The first atomic bomb had been dropped only 500 meters
from her kitchen. Her husband had been exposed to the bomb while training with the Japanese
military near the center of town; though he sustained no visible injuries from the initial blast, after a
week he began coughing up blood and died shortly after. Sadakos older sister also succumbed to
effects of acute radiation, and her sister-in-law, who had cared for Sadako in the days immediately
following the bombing, also died in the days to follow.75 Sadakos tragic experiences were not unlike
those of many other people living in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped. What makes
her story unique is that she was, in fact, a citizen of the United States.
Most Americans probably do not realize that several thousand of their countrymen were living
in Hiroshima at the time that it was bombed. Many Japanese Americans living in Japan during
World War II were called Kibei, or Nisei who were sent back to the land of their ancestry to receive a
formal Japanese education. Of the nearly 30,000 Kibei Nisei living in Japan in 1929, an estimated 16
percent were in Hiroshima. Of those roughly 4,800 Americans, 80 percent were enrolled in
elementary and middle schools.76
Like many of the other American hibakusha (or explosion-affected persons), Sadako Obata
never planned to permanently reside in Japan. She was born in California, and moved back to Japan
with her parents in 1939. Her parents returned to the United States, leaving Sadako and her older
sister in a Japanese school in Hiroshima. Her parents and other siblings were sent to Arizonas
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Poston Relocation Center during the war, and after giving her in utero hibakusha daughter up for
adoption, Sadako left Japan and joined her family in the Bay Area in 1947. She eventually remarried
and had several children, many of whom suffered from chronic health problems. Sadako, too, battled
breast cancer and eventually developed bone cancer. Fighting disease her whole life, Sadako was
understandably bitter about the atomic bomb that changed her life. I wish there had never been
atomic bombs. Any kind of bomb is terrible, but this one is especially scary because of what it does
even after the explosion. There is no end to it Struggling to forget the past and not be consumed
by resentment, Sadako can not help but feel bitter every time her health deteriorates. Many
questions arise inside my mind, she says, as to the atomic bomb Why Hiroshima? Why me?77
Sadako is not alone in her bitterness and frustration. Though many of the American
hibakusha perished in days immediately following the bombing, there were still over one thousand
survivors living in the United States in 1995.78 Though these Americans were bombed by their own
country, their story has garnered little attention from the federal government. Francis Tomosawa was
another Kibei who returned to Hiroshima, along with his mother, so he could benefit from both an
American and a Japanese education. After war was declared, the family was stranded in Japan,
separated from Tomosawas father who had remained in Honolulu. Tomosawa was participating in
an outdoor school activity when he saw the brilliant flash of the bomb and was knocked off his feet,
along with his classmates, and sent flying nearly 30 feet back. Though he was spared any lasting
injuries, Tomosawa and his mother spent the nightmarish succeeding days attending to victims who
poured into the local hospital moaning and crying, asking for their mothers and crying, mizu o
chodai, water, water.79
His experience as a living witness to the atomic bombing convinced Tomosawa that its use
was not necessary, and the fact that many Americans today still justify the bombing saddens him
even more. Though Japanese hibakusha receive medical assistance from their government, American
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survivors to date have received no medical aide from the U.S. government. Because of the
tremendous medical expenses, pain, and emotional stress these Americans face, Tomosawa turned his
frustration into advocacy. He served as the president of the Committee of A-Bomb Survivors, and
along with other hibakusha, has devoted much of his energy petitioning the government to provide
medical help to American victims.80
Kanji Kuramoto is an American hibakusha who felt that use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima
was the greatest crime ever committed by human beings.81 In a 1974 California public hearing
convened to petition the state for medical aid to resident victims, Kuramoto related his grief stricken
and futile attempts to locate his father in the ruins of Hiroshima.82 Though he initially tried to forget
those horrendous experiences, he would later dedicate himself to lobbying for the politically
powerless victims who were completely deserted by the American and Japanese communities.83
When a bill was finally introduced in the California State Senate, one legislator argued against its
passage asserting, They were our enemies. Why should we help these people? Kuramoto, after
hearing this (and the remarks of hecklers), offered his reaction in an interview: Were we the enemy?
No, we couldnt be. We were born in America and we only happened to be in Japan when the war
broke out and so couldnt just return to the U.S.A. How can they call us enemies when we were
injured by our own countrys A-bomb?84
As insensitive as the legislators comments may seem, this perception of the hibakusha
permeated almost all levels of government and public consciousness. Historian David Yoo has noted
that decision makers made little distinction between citizens and aliens when it came to the
Nikkei.85 When Kuramoto wrote a letter to President Jimmy Carter in 1978 to appeal for federal
assistance, a reply came from the chief of the Japan desk in the State Department. Informed by the
erroneous view that the U.S. atomic bomb survivors were Japanese nationals, the officials
response reflected the usual assertion of nonresponsibility of the United States government toward
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the atomic bombs victims, on the grounds that the dropping of the bombs was a justifiable act of
war.86 The hibakushas claims have repeatedly been ignored even though American military
personnel exposed to residual radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki receive compensation from the
federal government.87
Because the government and the general public alike has paid little attention to their
plight, most Japanese American hibakusha felt like strangers in their own homeland ignored and
abandoned. Many like Kaz Suyeishi were accosted by others Americans who, not distinguishing
them from Japanese citizens, blamed them for bomb[ing] Pearl Harbor and kill[ing] our boys.
Unable to communicate in English that she was in fact an American victim of the atomic bomb,
Suyeishi became frustrated and depressed. 88 Like Suyeishi, language barriers prevented many
Japanese American hibakusha from being able to communicate their feelings, especially to American
doctors. The doctors who did treated hibakusha lacked adequate knowledge about atomic bomb
syndrome and radiation sickness, and often showed unsympathetic attitudes toward the victims
debilitating conditions. Tomoe Okai returned to Hiroshima for examination in 1962 when she began
suffering from the effects of the bomb, and was told by her Japanese doctor that every organ was
affected. When she returned to the States, an American doctor told her she was merely suffering
from nervousness. 89 When Suyeishi began suffering from unusual illnesses upon her return to
Hawaii including colored spots on her arms, high fevers and weight loss doctors concluded she
was suffering from homesickness and should return home. 90 Jane Iwashika, battling one physically
disfiguring ailment after another, struggled with self-esteem and abject loneliness.91
Most Japanese American hibakusha struggled with feelings of alienation and helplessness,
and many expressed a discernable bitterness toward the decision to use the bomb. However, not
every Nikkei survivor disagreed with the governments decision to drop atomic bombs on Japanese
cities. Ken Nakano, a Nisei born in Portland but living in Hiroshima when Little Boy was dropped
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on the city, felt that using the atomic bomb was a necessary evil. Nakano suffered burns on his hands
and face, but faced no long-term radiation induced illnesses. Explaining to a reporter from The
Seattle Times why he felt the bomb was necessary, he asserts, We in Hiroshima never thought Japan
would surrender. Repeating a sentiment articulated by many other Americans who felt the use of
the atomic bomb negated a potentially protracted and bloody invasion, Mr. Nakano felt the bombs
ultimately saved lives. I dont think theres a need to apologize. Japan hit first. The revisionist
historian idea that the Japanese will soon surrender is a very wrong guess.92 Other Japanese
American victims express a certain fatalism (often expressed in Japanese as shigataganai) about the
dropping of the bombs. Despite suffering a lifetime of bomb-related pain and illness, Iwashika
concludes, What do I think of the atomic bomb? That was war.93

Confronting the Past

In 1999, the American public was asked by news agencies to pick an event they felt defined
the twentieth century. The fact that Americans chose the dropping of the atomic bomb suggests that
the legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki continues to affect us deeply. 94
If it does help to define us as a country, however, we have not yet completely figured out
how. Today, years later, the subject still generates prolific discussion and controversy. The debate
surrounding the 1995 Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum exemplifies the ongoing
dialogue between scholars, veterans, and citizens about how we should place the atomic bombs in our
collective memory. Conversation about whether the bombs were strategically necessary has
increased in recent years, and illustrates the deep-seated sensitivities of bomb survivors, military
veterans, and citizens alike. This paper has not attempted to engage questions of historical
contingency of whether the bombs were necessary or justified but rather to convey the ways in
which the bombs affected real people, both physically and psychologically.

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We cannot and need not dismiss the knowledge that the bombings happened, or that they
greatly affected people on both sides of the Pacific. Without dishonoring the veterans who fought
bravely for their country, or the Japanese civilians who have faced a lifetime of debilitating illness
from radiation, there will need to be a point when we get past questions of justification to those that
address how it affected people and why it matters. If we truly view the dropping of the atomic bomb
as the most significant event of the twentieth century, then confronting and conveying the human
reactions to that event is a collective task that all Americans must share in.
In the final chapter of his memoir about the war and his medical research relating to the
hibakusha, Dr. James Yamazaki relates that as he was leaving Hiroshima, a woman implored him,
Do not forget us. Later, he expressed, This book is my way of remembering. It flows from my
conviction that every decision maker, every citizen, needs to know the human cost of nuclear
warfare.95 Talking about the physical and psychological effects the bombs had on the Japanese, as
well as Americans, is an important first step toward making sense of a complicated history. For
many Japanese Americans, talking about the atomic bomb, much like their experiences in internment
camps, is understandably difficult; as we have seen, there were many who were profoundly affected
by the human suffering they both observed and endured. The Nisei have been referred to by one
scholar as the quiet Americans because of their reticence toward talking about their experiences
during World War II.96 And yet, like all Americans, it is important for surviving Nisei to talk about
their history.
Though making sense of the past can sometimes seem an exercise in futility, talking about their
experiences and feeling concerning the bombs has been healing for many of the Nikkei. Perhaps
awareness of those experiences and feelings could have a vicariously ameliorating effect on the larger
American population as well. Colonel Harry Fukuhara, whose family suffered much from the atomic
bomb dropped on Hiroshima, relates his own personal experience in confronting the past:
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For years, by virtue of a silent mutual agreement, we avoided talking about what happened to our family in
Hiroshima. I thought that if I could disassociate myself from the subject and try not to think about it and
avoid talking about it, that it would ease my mind. I busied myself with work in Japan, aiding with the
Marshall Plan to help rebuild the country and creating a bridge between two former enemies that required
linguists. Once in a while Ive had nightmares. I dont remember what happens in them. Strange thing is,
more than half of them are about Victor.
It is 49 years since Victor died and 27 years since my mother died plagued by unexplainable illnesses. I can
talk about what happened in Hiroshima now, 50 years later. I believe that talking about it now, with a
purpose, was the medicine I needed.97

I was not sure how to respond to the man I encountered at Hiroshimas Memorial Peace Park,
but his question has persisted in my mind in the years since my visit. This paper, in a way, is my
answer. It began as a way for me to explore much-known but little-understood historical events
surrounding the atomic bomb, as well as to reconcile my own thoughts and feelings at the cenotaph in
Hiroshima; it ended up moving me toward an understanding of the multiple ways in which Japanese
Americans experienced and reacted to the rise of the atomic sun in Japan. It is my hope that by
highlighting the reactions of Japanese American citizens to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, I have given voice to their literary silence, and thereby have contributed to a meaningful
discussion regarding their significant role in modern American history.

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Endnotes
1

Associated Press, Atomic Energy Unleashed: First Target Obscured by Cloud of Dust, Smoke, San Francisco Chronicle, August 7, 1945.
Boyer, Paul, By the Bomb s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North
Carolina Press, 1994):4.
3
Lifton, Robert J. and Mitchell, Greg, Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial (New York, NY: G.P. Putnams Sons, 1995): 3-8.
4
Lifton and Mitchell, Hiroshima in America, 10.
5
Gallup Poll, Have You Heard or Read About the New Atomic Bomb? August 8, 1945, www.gallup.com (accessed October 13, 2005).
6
Atomic Energy Unleashed, San Francisco Chronicle, August 9, 1945.
7
Lifton and Mitchell, Hiroshima in America, 3-8.
8
Gallup Poll, Have You Heard? August 8, 1945.
9
Lifton and Mitchell, Hiroshima in America, 33-34. Also see Boyer, By the Bomb s Early Light, 12.
10
Ibid, 27.
11
Boyer, By the Bomb s Early Light, 24.
12
Lifton and Mitchell, Hiroshima in America, 36-38.
13
Boyer, By the Bomb s Early Light, 8.
14
Lifton and Mitchell, Hiroshima in America, 60.
15
Ibid, 40-63.
16
Lifton and Mitchell, Hiroshima in America, 87.
17
Paul, Richard, How American Public Opinion has changed in the 60 Years Since Hiroshima, National Public Radio s Morning Edition, August 5,
2005.
18
Lifton and Mitchell, Hiroshima in America, 88.
19
Gallup poll quoted in Boyer, By the Bomb s Early Light, 24.
20
Ichioka, Yuji, The Issei: The World of the First Generation Japanese Immigrants, 1885-1924 (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1988): 9, 40.
21
Ibid, 71-72.
22
Ibid, 198.
23
Ibid, 226-234.
24
Ibid, 253.
25
Ibid, 253.
26
Yoo, David, Growing Up Nisei: Race, Generation, and Culture among Japanese Americans of California, 1924-49 (Urbana, IL: University of
Illinois Press, 2000): 38.
27
Ibid, 179.
28
Kennedy, David, Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999):
748-749.
29
Ibid, 749-753.
30
Yoo, Growing Up Nisei, 122.
31
Kurashige, Lon, Japanese American: Celebration and Conflict: A History of Ethnic Identity and Festival in Los Angeles, 1934-1990 (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 2002): 68.
32
Yoo, Growing Up Nisei, 140-145.
33
Ibid, 103.
34
Tateishi, John, And Justice for All: An Oral History of the Japanese American Detention Camps (New York, NY: Random House, 1984): xxiii.
35
Yoo, Growing Up Nisei, 122-123.
36
Ibid, 135-136.
37
Matsumoto, Valerie, Farming the Homeplace: A Japanese American Community in California, 1919-1982 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1993): 155.
38
Unknown Author, Tokyo Radio Proclaims Unconditional Surrender, Manzanar Free Press, August 11, 1945.
39
Yoo, Growing Up Nisei, 99.
40
Gruenewald, Mary Matsuda, Looking Like the Enemy: My Story of Imprisonment in Japanese-American Internment Camps (Troutdale, OR:
NewSage Press, 2005): 190. It is apparent from other historical documents that photos of the mushroom cloud would not have been available on
August 7th. Without minimizing the significance of her reflections, it is possible that the author conflated the order of memories in her recollection of
events.
41
Gruenewald, Looking Like the Enemy, 190.
42
Weglyn, Michi, Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America s Concentration Camps (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1996): 250.
43
Weglyn, Years of Infamy, 250.
44
Ibid, 250-251.
45
Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki and Houston, James D., Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the
World War II Internment (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1973): 121.
46
Gruenewald, Looking Like the Enemy, 191.
47
Matsuoka, Kay, Visual History Interview on December 29-30, 1999 in Densho Digital Archives, www.densho.org, (accessed October 4, 2005).
48
Yasutake, Joe, Visual History Interview on October 9, 2002 in Densho Digital Archives, www.densho.org, (accessed October 4, 2005).
49
Houston, Farewell to Manzanar, 121.
50
Hosokawa, Bill, interviewed by the author via telephone on December 2, 20005. Mr. Hosokawa is the author of several books on Japanese
Americans, including Nisei: the Quiet Americans, and worked as a reporter and editor for the Denver Post.
51
Yamasaki, Frank, Visual History Interview on November 5, 2001 in Densho Digital Archives, www.densho.org, (accessed October 4, 2005).
52
Matsui, Takashi, Visual History Interview on December 12, 1997 in Densho Digital Archives, www.densho.org, (accessed October 4, 2005).
53
Matsui, Mitsue, Visual History Interview on December 12, 1997 in Densho Digital Archives, www.densho.org, (accessed October 4, 2005).
54
Gruenewald, Mary Matsuda, Looking Like the Enemy, 190.
55
Matsui, Mitsue, Visual History Interview on December 12, 1997.
56
Matsuoka, Kay, Visual History Interview on December 29-30, 1999 in Densho Digital Archives, www.densho.org, (accessed October 4, 2005).
57
Steinberg, Jim, Valley Residents Debate Ethics of Japan Bombings, Fresno Bee, August 11, 1995.
58
Fukuhara, Harry, The Return, Nikkei Heritage (publication of the National Japanese American Historical Society), Fall 1995: 12-13.
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59

Ibid, 13.
Shioya, Tara, U.S. Officer Feared Worst for Family Living in Japan, San Francisco Chronicle, August 5, 1995.
61
Tateishi, And Justice for All, xxv.
62
History of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and 100 th Battalion, Go For Broke Educational Foundation, www.goforbroke.org (accessed
November 8, 2005). This site contains information about both units, as well oral histories of their members.
63
Tateishi, And Justice for All, xxiv.
64
Togashi, Hachiro, Go For Broke Educational Foundation Oral History, www.goforbroke.org (accessed November 21-23, 2005).
65
Takabayashi, George, Go For Broke Educational Foundation Oral History, www.goforbroke.org (accessed November 21-23, 2005).
66
Taguchi, Kazuma, Go For Broke Educational Foundation Oral History, www.goforbroke.org (accessed November 21-23, 2005).
67
Mayeda, Hiroshi, Interview with Hiroshi Mayeda, in Regenerations Oral History Project: Rebuilding Japanese American Families,
Communities, and Civil Rights in the Resettlement Era, Chicago Region, Volume I (Los Angeles, CA: Japanese American National Museum, 2000):
451.
68
Yamate, James, Interview with James Yamate, in Regenerations Oral History Project: Rebuilding Japanese American Families, Communities,
and Civil Rights in the Resettlement Era, San Diego Region, Volume III (Los Angeles, CA: Japanese American National Museum, 2000): 231, 243.
69
Narasaki, Richard, Go For Broke Educational Foundation Oral History, www.goforbroke.org (accessed November 21-23, 2005).
70
Tazoi, Jim, Go For Broke Educational Foundation Oral History, www.goforbroke.org (accessed November 21-23, 2005).
71
Sakamoto, Thomas, News of the Century: Japans Surrender and Hiroshima, September 1945, Nikkei Heritage (publication of the National
Japanese American Historical Society), Fall 1995, pg. 10-11.
72
Yamazaki, James, Children of the Atomic Bomb: An American Physician s Memoir of Nagasaki, Hiroshima, and the Marshall Islands (Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 1995): 43.
73
Ibid, 4.
74
Ibid, 142.
75
Rinjiro, SODEI, Were We the Enemy? in Hein, Laura and Selden, Mark, Living with the Bomb: American and Japanese Cultural Conflicts in the
Nuclear Age (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharp, Inc., 1997): 237.
76
Ibid, 233-234.
77
Rinjiro, Were We the Enemy? 250.
78
Tomosawa, Thomas, American Survivors of Hiroshima, Nikkei Heritage (publication of the National Japanese American Historical Society), Fall
1995, pg. 7.
79
Tomosawa, American Survivors of Hiroshima, 7.
80
Ibid, 7, 11.
81
Rinjiro, Were We the Enemy? 245.
82
Ibid, 245.
83
Ibid, 246.
84
Rinjiro, Were We the Enemy? 247.
85
Yoo, Growing Up Nisei, 135.
86
Rinjiro, Were We the Enemy? 251-252.
87
Lifton and Mitchell, Hiroshima in America, 257.
88
Rinjiro, Were We the Enemy? 241.
89
Rinjiro, Were We the Enemy? 242.
90
Ibid, 241.
91
Ibid, 248.
92
Dietrich, Bill, A Closer Look: Bomb History Still Bears Bitterness, Seattle Times, July 9, 1995.
93
Rinjiro, Were We the Enemy? 241.
94
Newton, Eric, Challenged to Identify the Most Important News of the 20th Century, Men and Women Point to Dramatically Different Events,
USA Today Weekend Magazine, www.usaweekend.com/99_issues/991226/991226century.html (accessed on December 12, 2005).
95
Yamazaki, Children of the Atomic Bomb, 144.
96
Hosokawa, Bill, Nisei: The Quiet Americans (Niwot, CO: University of Colorado Press, 1992).
97
Fukuhara, The Return, 13.
60