World War II Woman

Japanese in Arkansas

A story from Eloise Kupec.

I grew up during the Depression in the little town of Scott, Arkansas. It was a farming community that had a post office, a cotton gin, a gas station, and a general store. The general store is now one of the multi-star restaurants in the mid-west.

When war broke out, my oldest brother joined the Coast Guard, going up and down the Atlantic coast searching out mines and torpedoes.

Shortly after Pearl Harbor, the government gathered up people of Japanese descent living along the west coast and moved them to internment or relocations camps throughout the country. And one of the places they brought these people to was our community. I suppose the powers that be felt that not many people would be able to find it.

Unlike photos you may have seen of people living in camps surrounded by wire fences, this was not so in our case. The government built housing for the Japanese. As a matter of fact, the houses were nicer than those of the farm tenants. And there were no fences around the “camp.” The people were part of our community and the children went to school with us. My mother was a teacher and I remember that she did not tolerate any of the children who called the Japanese derogatory names. She would march such a child to the principal’s office. I recall that all of the children were artistic. I still have a good Asian friend from those days. She is an artist.

Farming was their main means of livelihood. In our area, people were used to growing tomatoes, corn, and string beans. When the Japanese arrived, they introduced us to growing celery, asparagus, and cauliflower. Years earlier, Japanese workers had been brought to our country to lay the railroad.

Following the war, my husband worked on the space program with Wernher Von Braun at Huntsville Alabama. Von Braun is well known as the leader of a team of scientists that developed the V-2 rocket for the Nazis during World War II. When he sensed that Germany would be defeated, he made arrangements with the Americans to bring some of his scientists to the United States, where he continued his work and became the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle, the super booster that would propel Americans to the moon.

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